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Pryor's book is brilliant. Reading it I see that I've been barking up the wrong tree thinking cognitive science has the answers. (barking?) Cognitive science does have answers; it's a valuable and riveting field. But when it comes to education the behaviorists are way out in front. Direct Instruction, Precision Teaching, Don't Shoot the Dog -- they're so far out in front they're disappeared from view.
No wonder their work is no longer taught in ed schools. (scroll down)
life-altering factoid number 1
Chickens procrastinate.
Using either fixed or variable schedules, extremely long sequences of behavior can be trained. A baby chick can be induced to peck a button a hundred times or more for each grain of corn. For humans there are many examples of delayed gratification. One psychologist jokes that the longest schedule of unreinforced behavior in human existence is graduate school. [ed.: followed closely by middle school]
[snip]
Another phenomenon occurs on very long schedules: slow starts. The chick pecks away at a steady rate once it gets started, because each peck brings it nearer to reinforcement, but researchers have noted that a chick tends to "put off" starting for longer periods as the schedule of reinforcement gets longer.
This is sometimes called delayed start of long-duration behavior, and it's a very familiar aspect of human life. On any long task, from doing the income taxes to cleaning out the garage, one can think of endless reasons for not starting now. Writing, even sometimes just the writing of a letter, is a long-duration behavior. Once it gets started, things usually roll along fairly well, but, oh! it's so hard to make oneself sit down and begin, James Thurber found it so difficult to start an article that he sometimes fooled his wife (who was understandably anxious for him to write articles since that was how the rent got paid) by lying on a couch in his study all morning reading a book in one hand while tapping the typewriter keys at random with the other.
Don't Shoot the Dog, Revised Edition, p. 25
palisdesk on change in ed school curriculum
The Misbehavior of Organisms
Marian Breland Bailey: many lives (pdf file)
book club
a heroine I didn't know I had
62 comments:
Yes! A book club! Not sure how that would work, but I'm game.
Does the slow start vary with the length of the task? Middle school seems to reinforce the slow start phenomenon, doesn't it? It becomes perverse the way the schools reward the negative, procrastination while at all times repeating the party line that they are doing quite the opposite.
I think I'd better put Don't Shoot the Dog on my long term reading list. I'm not even going to buy the book until I plow through the other stuff in front of it. Time to start peck peck pecking . . .
How do you see your middle school rewarding procrastination?
I'm mulling over an apparent contradiction between the "punished by rewards" phenomenon (kids who liked to draw stop drawing once they've been rewarded for it...) and behaviorism's insight that punishment does not effectively alter behavior over time.
My sense is that behaviorism as a field probably isn't all that sophisticated about the concept of intrinsic motivation.
By the same token, cognitive science isn't sophisticated about reinforcement and reinforcers.
The idea that a child could stop doing something he's been "rewarded" for doing means that the reward wasn't a reinforcer, by definition. (Not sure whether a behaviorist would say that a reward could not be a reinforcer and yet still be a reward...)
Reinforcers increase the likelihood that a behavior will reoccur in the future.
What I see in our middle school is massive, overwhelming reliance on negative reinforcement and punishment.
Not good.
It would be interesting to know if the slow start varies with the length of the task.
iirc, the chickens had been trained to peck a lever 100 times before getting a reward (reinforcer!)
They learned to do it, but they'd procrastinate getting started.
I love it!
I am encouraged by the idea that tantrums mean a breakthrough is coming!
When parents and kids are upset, then I know the learning is about to occur. It's heartening to see someone put it down in a book!
I see our middle school reinforcing procrastination by giving good grades to work that was clearly slapped together at the last minute (but turned in on time). If you have a reputation for being a smart kid then you get As for some pretty lousy work.
I don't think your middle school is philosophically aligned like ours is. There are few "levels" -- honors is frowned on. While the school gives out more work -- good grades are given to virtually anyone that simply turns it in.
Plus the deadlines are unreasonably long. The assignments could be accomplished in just a few hours, so why assign a due date of one to two weeks? It encourages procrastination to have a long deadline for a simple project.
My sixth grader has been given so many of these types of things. Long projects done over a period of weeks, but each portion of the assignment is quite short. If she worked straight through, she could finish the whole thing in a couple days. But they spread out the due dates, part 1 this week, part 2 in 3 weeks, the final project due in a month.
This is interesting.
I can never tell whether my district -- my middle school in particular -- is different.
Our middle school uses grade deflation, not grade inflation. This is true to the extent that I could probably prove it in a court of law (I say this as a person who knows nothing about proving things in a court of law...)
I feel I've recently figured out more or less how the district functions in the 6-12 grades, though I'm hearing, now, that the 4-5 school may have adopted the same strategy.
The way it works is this.
a) The kids are given assignments that are over their heads.
b) Some of these assignments are large, multi-step projects they lack the organizational skills to management.
c) Grading is harsh and punitive; letter grades used as negative reinforcers and punishments, rarely as positive reinforcers or rewards. Points Off and Zeros, not Extra Credit.
d) Union contract proscribes parent-teacher conferences, teachers are spotty abouty answering email. Parents not allowed inside classrooms, dances, assemblies, "Health Fairs" etc.
e) Facing all this, parent teaching kicks in.
et voila
parent involvement
Low grades and over-the-top assignments are critical to making this system work.
If we had grade inflation most of us would assume our kids are learning well and would leave the teaching to the school.
I think I've mentioned before that the accelerated math teacher was instructed to hold down the number of As. Parents weren't informed that this was the policy and this approach is at odds with standard practice in other districts which use positive weighting formulas that give students credit for taking harder courses.
Grading in the middle school is structured so as to give the best & most hardworking students some of the worst grades.
C. has never made the honor roll and never will entirely because he took accelerated math and Earth Science.
It's not a coincidence that these are the courses the school tries to keep kids out of.
If we had grade inflation most of us would assume our kids are learning well and would leave the teaching to the school.
This is what happens at our K-4. There is no differentiation in the classroom, they are teaching to the lower middle and scaffolding those who struggle. Everyone else appears to be doing so well and learning so much that parents are besides themselves with joy.
Meanwhile, little Johnny who is neither struggling nor the lower middle is coasting without learning very much at all. Every once in a while there's a big project or a new mathematical concept that they only spent a day on. It's okay though, because parents are more than willing to jump in and do the teaching (or not).
Either way their child will look good on paper. For too many parents, that's all that matters.
>Either way their child will look good on paper. For too many parents, that's all that matters.
I wonder if grade deflation such as Catherine observes isn't a sort of corrective to the massive grade INflation we see at the opposite end of the spectrum (schools serving low-income and minority kids). Clearly the powers-that-be want to discourage kids from taking the rigorous courses -- if only because such courses are hard to staff, cause perceptions of "elitism," and generally militate against the "golden mediocrity" that districts embrace so fondly.
It won't do to admit that we truly have a vast range of achievement and that in-class "differentiation" just doesn't cut it. Most parents want to see good grades on the report card, and if those are forthcoming they are generally complaisant. They are lulled into a false sense of security, and may not get "involved" (something schools profess to want but actually abhor). By assigning low marks to the really capable kids who are up for a challenge, the system sends a message not to aim too high.
I haven't seen this phenomenon close up myself, although I suspect my district (or its near neighbors, which boast a lot of high-SES professional populations) may indulge in it selectively. I know of one or two "magnet" programs where high grades, if awarded, are truly earned, and several secondary schools where standards are reasonably high -- akin to good (but not elite) private schools. Students who can't succeed in such milieux transfer to more 'average" high schools. Our high schools used to be tracked quite systematically; now they are (officially) open to anyone who meets basic criteria (passed the previous grade, lives in the district) but some schools, with better reputations, are oversubscribed and can be choosy about admitting those from outside their catchment area. Chasing the mirage of "high standards for all," we seem to be at a point where nearly everyone "passes" but actual achievement (and engagement) is lower every year. The competition at the very top is stiff -- for the scholarships, places at prestigious college and university programs, and so forth, but a level or two down, the "average" has dropped considerably. One nearby top-tier university has begun offering remedial math and English courses to entering freshmen for the first time.
I'm betraying my age here, but when I started teaching middle school in this district -- 1980's -- students whose basic skills were below seventh grade (mathematics and reading/writing) were not promoted to a regular 9th grade secondary school program, they were diverted into one that focused on applied skills, vocational training, and so on. This wasn't entirely a bad thing, because there was, and always will be, a subset of students whose strengths are not in academic work and who need basic academics, life skills and apprenticeship-type programs to make their way in the world. Those kids are neglected in our current "all shall excel" theoretical framework.
Middle schools then did offer some serious and intensive remediation for kids who were likely to make it with the additional push. I taught a class entitled (in those un-PC days) "Academic Rehab" for kids who were capable but weak in math and language skills. The mandate was to get them up to grade level by end of 8th grade. I learned about DI, PT and other effective teaching methods in those days. It was even OK to use them!
Now nearly everyone who does "seat time" gets a passing grade. Only those with serious handicaps (identified cognitive delay, etc.) get tracked into non-credit high school programs.Secondary colleagues tell me that the average independent level of their ninth grade entrants in a college-prep track is 5th grade literacy --6th grade math. This would pretty well match what I see in our own middle school: most of our "good students" in 8th grade have writing and math skills typical of a strong 4th grader. Sadly, these are kids who probably could be doing MUCH better, but have never been challenged or forced to work hard, because they were doing so well compared to others who were barely functional. I've never heard of anyone around here doing pre-algebra, or basic algebra, in middle school (maybe in the "gifted" program -- but when I taught in the "gifted" program, at the 7-8 grade level, we teachers were told to do enrichment as opposed to acceleration, which is what parents were asking for. We were to enrich the program with topology, permutations, modular arithmetic and so on, but not get "ahead" of the grade level syllabus).
I really don't get the intense anti-achievement bias that seems to pervade the system. For instance, we have a myriad of "alternative" schools -- some started by parents, others by teachers -- but almost all are of the Summerhill, constructivist, discovery-learning-through-touchy-feely-activities sort. A few cater to dropouts or students with particular problems. I can't believe no parents and/or teachers who want a more rigorous program have submitted applications to start their own school (I would sign up in a minute). Their efforts must get stalled at Step One.
I think another reason magnet programs, accelerated programs and so on are discouraged, is that they tend to cluster intelligent, and potentially critical, observers of the system (who soon realize that they are not the only parents with X concern, as they have previously been told), and secondly, that they will expose how little is taught and learned elsewhere. When I did my "Academic Rehab" class one year, I was naively proud of how well my students had done: all had progressed by 3-4 years, one by 6 years, in measurable math and literacy skills (thank you, Zig). The superintendent, upon hearing about it, nearly had a burst aneurysm on the spot. "We can't have them making this much progress," he yelled. "What if everybody started to expect results??"
What indeed.
Palisadesk: What a post! Thank you for so much to think about!
I hope to comment later but it's Christmas eve and I've got a few items yet on my agenda...
I'm surprised by the grade deflation in Catherine's school, especially in MS. This does appear to run against the grain of the ed school, middle school model philosophy, doesn't it?
Our MS has only 2 levels, and they are not far apart, as far as I can tell. Average and a little higher than average. The MS is characterized by group learning and is project based. The projects are more time consuming (and neatness seems to matter. A lot.) but the content still seems pretty weak. Judging from the lists in the newspaper, about 1/2 the kids make honor roll. About 15% make high honors.
This is massive grade inflation with low expectations.
Grade deflation must be terribly discouraging. Grade inflation is like living in the land of Oz.
I think that MS varies greatly depending on the school and town. Our MS used to carry the low expectations through eighth grade. Kids were sent off to High School unprepared, but you know the saying; "Out of sight, out of mind."
However, enough parents complained so that they couldn't ignore them. Finally, this last year, they got rid of CMP and replaced it with real math textbooks. In the lower grades, they replaced MathLand with Everyday Math. It's an improvement, but that's not saying much.
My son's school is big on rubrics that go from 1 = 5, but most get 3s or 4s. It seems to me that the grading is non-linear. Almost nobody gets a 1 or 2, and very few get a 5. One teacher told me that a 5 is not even an A+, it's something more. They added the 5 because they wanted something to inspire kids. Actually, it just frustrates them. They think that 5 is an 'A', a 4 is a 'B', and a 3 is a 'C'. This would be linear grading, but that's not what they do.
Rather than use A,B,C,D, they want to lump most kids as 3s or 4s. You have to be quite good or quite bad to get outside of that bracket. Even my son's pre-algebra class is graded on a 1-5 rubric. The problem is that the teacher never allows the kids to take home their tests and quizzes! I had to email the teacher to allow my son to take home his first test. He had to bring it back into school so that the teacher could put it in his portfolio!?!
So, this is neither grade inflation or grade deflation. It's more like pass/fail disguised as a detailed matrix rubric analysis. Report cards are worthless. They have a lot of words, but the words are meaningless. It doesn't help that many of the homework assignments are meaningless.
The following is the second goal for our school committee for 2007-2008.
"2. To improve student achievement at all levels, with particular emphasis on challenging all students to perform to their potential."
The problem, apparently, is with lazy kids, not the teaching or the curriculum. My son is in sixth grade and hasn't had an ounce of history. Not one.
Elementary grades are big into these detailed matrix rubrics. Sometimes it feels like the grading rubric is more detailed than the assignment itself.
The rubric takes the place of thoughtful feedback. Not that we ever got any thoughtful feedback. We got marginal notes on the order of "Interesting idea!" or "Good explanation" or "More detail needed" and, of course, "See me"
Instead of these useless marginal notes, we get a checklist from a grading rubric. Still nothing helpful in terms of how to improve the assignment.
But we do have history. Sort of. Thematic history. But that is due to a teacher in the 6th grade that has a particular passion for history, so she is incorporating a great deal of ancient history into the language arts curriculum. The textbook is terrible, so she assigns various other books.
I like that she is teaching history, and she's a great teacher, but she is expected to teach everything in a "block" -- history, reading, writing, and "social studies."
Grading rubrics per se rub me the wrong way and I've been trying to figure out why.
Pros:
-They define transparent objective criteria against which the student can be judged.
Cons:
-Kids can "dial in" their score by choosing the level of effort they want to expend. This is not a good habit to get into for the more open-ended work of college and life.
-Easy to structure the rubric to condense grades at the middle, thereby advancing the pernicious goal of equal outcomes.
-Removes the necessity of the child thinking, independently, about what they need to do to achieve high marks (hm, could this be the elusive "critical thinking" instead of simply following a recipe??)
-Detailed rubrics represent one of the few effective ways to grade projects (blech), since they function as both the assignment and the assessment. Project-based instruction and the use of rubrics seem to mutually reinforce each other.
-They get in the way of a teacher's evaluation of the work in toto. When I was grading legal writing in law school, just by reading the briefs I could usually put them into piles of A, B and C work. Then, I would examine each of them to determine where any deficiencies or points of excellence were. A rubric would have blinded me to this kind of analysis, and probably prevented me from coming up with helpful comments.
P.S. Did someone mention their school uses rubrics for math assignments?? How is that possible?
Condensing the grades in the middle is exactly what's happening here. Maybe that's why many kids get onto some honor roll. I think we have three levels of honor roll for 7th and 8th grades.
"P.S. Did someone mention their school uses rubrics for math assignments?? How is that possible?"
That was me, but I haven't been able to calibrate it. The teacher doesn't allow the kids to keep their tests. They don't come home! They go into their portfolios!?!
I hate portfolios.
The teacher doesn't allow the kids to keep their tests.
Maybe you need to file a FOIA request to see your kid's work!
I hate portfolios, too. Until about three years ago, Minnesota's state standards were "performance-based" which a lay person might think would mean, say, tests?? But not so! Performance-based is code for PORTFOLIOS!
We just switched to "standards based assessments" which also means portfolios.
Rubrics are used extensively in 6th grade math class. We had a long project spanning several weeks involving watching television and counting the number of advertisements.
The kids formed small groups, collated their data; kept track of the number of commercials for different channels and different times of the day, created pie charts to display the data; and then wrote a multi-paragraph summary of the project. Which was supposed to have some level of analysis and predictions in it.
The toughest math in the project -- converting the data to percent and then creating a pie chart -- was done with a calculator.
The rubric was a thing to behold.
So yes, we use rubrics in math.
Rubrics for grading math?? Yes.
Several years ago, I was involved in grading the high-stakes test given to various grades (reading, writing and math at that time, in third, sixth and ninth grades). The tens of thousands of tests were graded during a marathon three-week extravaganza; I was curious to get an inside view, applied and was selected for sixth grade mathematics.
Various sections of the tests were marked by different "teams." Several days were spent training those involved, using a train-the-trainers model (this always reminds me of the old Kindergarten "telephone" game -- the more steps between the initial instruction and the final recipient, the less resemblance the message bears to its original form). Anchor papers, exemplars and lots of group work and discussion, using the rubrics, constituted the bulk of this training. Teams of 16-20 worked under one group leader.
In fact some of this was useful and pedagogically sound. Engelmann makes valid points about the need to show not only examples -- what we are looking for -- but also non-examples -- what we are NOT looking for. Using both, and requiring the student (or in this case, the evaluators) to distinguish the relevant characteristics was valuable. It offered the opportunity to separate the key elements from extraneous ones, and apply the criteria for scoring.
Even though the "rubric" was replete with descriptors, in actual fact it was not always easy to determine whether a student's work was a "high 2" or a "low 3" on a 4-point scale. We were not permitted to score anyone below 1, no matter how inferior the work -- if the student wrote something, anything, s/he got a 1. The actual solution did not count for much either; the significant variable was how the student explained his or her reasoning. The more prolix, the better, even if the "reasoning" was idiosyncratic or irrelevant. A student who correctly solved the problems, but wrote something succinct like, "I cubed the length AB because that's how you find the perimeter " (of an equilateral triangle), would only get a 1 or 2, while a child who went on and on and wrote in the margins of the paper etc. would get a 3 or a 4, even if the solution was incorrect.
We were given specific criteria for awarding the higher scores. To get a 4, for instance, we were told that the student must explain in detail (several sentences) the "thinking" behind his or her answer, and must also use formal math vocabulary (e.g., would have to say, "The area of the isosceles triangle is greater than that of the rhombus..." instead of saying "Triangle ABC is bigger than..."
Several things bothered me. One was that the succinct writers -- the ones who said "I multiplied because that's how you find the area" tended to be some of the most proficient, clearly knowing what they were doing and disinclined to gush and babble on about the obvious. In fact some wrote things like, "What's to explain? Anybody can see you divide the total by the number of items to get the mean." I felt it penalized the best mathematicians -- some of them only got 2's, where they had all their computation correct, clearly laid out, and obviously knew their stuff. Others who were much fuzzier wrote more, left things out, got wrong answers (but some of their procedures were correct) and THEY got 3's and 4's.
A chap I knew in a different grading group, told me he checked all the books that were scored 4 and observed that they were by kids who filled up all the available writing space "explaining" their thinking. He found NO exceptions. Every group scored several thousand booklets daily, so I'd say his was a reasonable sample.
Another thing that bothered me was the obviously ad hoc nature of the test itself -- one of the genre of "performance assessments" of the sort used by many states to meet NCLB criteria. These aren't "norm-referenced" and may change every year. The test items have to be whipped together on a short timeline, aren't properly field tested, andcan include errors that aren't caught in time. We were told to score every response to one set of items on estimating decimals as 3 or 4 if the student attempted an answer, because the questions involved expectations from the seventh and eighth grade curricula, not sixth. Somehow that slipped through. So did another error about 24-hour-time, so responses to those questions were scored correct no matter what the student wrote.
The graders were encouraged to work in pairs or triads and use the rubric to score the student tests. Even with all the training, there was huge variability among scorers. Every day the entire group (over a thousand people) graded the same book as a reliability check. It was astonishing how much of a range there was. Although most scores clustered in the middle, every day there were numerous graders who found a book to be a 1 or a 4 where others found it to be a 2 or 3. There was always that range, 1-4. Every time!
One day over the PA system an exhortation to the graders to make sure they "Look for the threeness in students' work" really got my attention. The WHAT?? One of my puzzled confreres scrutinized the booklet she was grading, muttering, "Threeness? What's that? Are we supposed to find more threes?" We were scanning the bar codes and entering students' scores with Palm Pilots as we graded them. I suspected a none-too-subtle effort to influence the overall percentiles. Seek ye threeness and ye shall find ....
These kinds of tests could be useful if returned to the student and forming the basis of a parent-teacher-kid conference about strengths and weaknesses in specific areas. Nothing like that happens. The student (and school) get a computerized reporting sheet with scores, but do not get to see what they actually did well or badly. Many people mistakenly believe these tests are "standardized" in the old sense. They are not. The results are of dubious value on many fronts.
I am all for testing -- but I am not convinced this type delivers much bang for the buck. It is more smoke and mirrors than substance. It tends to shuffle almost everyone into the mediocre middle. The students who are seriously deficient still come out with a 1 or 2 -- making it look like they just need a little help, when actually they are triage cases. The exceptionally able may not appear so, yielding place instead to those who are verbose with or without domain proficiency.
Rubrics do have some value. I like them especially for independent assignments or research work, coupled with exemplars and samples of actual student work at various levels. One of the most effective teachers I know makes transparencies (with students' permission) and uses these samples to show students in other classes or the next year (she removes names if the students do not wish to be identified). She has the students discuss what elements in the piece (usually writing, but she has also used this with problem-solving assignments in math , and with science experiments and lab reports) are determinative of the grade . She then shows some and has the students evaluate them, etc.
This is a good exercise -- it could be overdone, but I see that too often kids think the teacher just pulls a grade out of a hat, and they don't have clear and specific ideas how to do better. Seeing what an "A" looks like is very helpful. But it needs to be accompanied by very concrete and specific criteria.
Obviously, the low inter-rater reliability on these assessments suggests that is difficult.
What a fantastic post.
I appreciate you pulling back the curtain on the grading of high stakes testing. It feels like such a black box process.
Here in Connecticut, the CMT is now in the 4th generation. The released items are so brief it is almost impossible to gauge the difficulty of the exam.
And the grading? Well, transparency is lacking.
DT,
An extraordinary post! (It should go up front).
How do things get perverted to the point of absurdity in edland?
The pattern in edland always seems to be the same. Take an idea that has some justification, then turn it into an absurdity by losing sight of its purpose, coupled with a lack of common sense. The originally sensible idea was that pupils should be proficient and know what they are doing. The result: Pupils who may not be proficient but fill a page with words (irrespective of quality) get rewarded and pupils who are proficient and concise get penalized.
It's doubtful educationists will ever get their act together.
Haven't read everything yet, but I wanted to respond to this observation:
Most parents want to see good grades on the report card, and if those are forthcoming they are generally complaisant.
ABSOLUTELY --- AND I INCLUDE MYSELF IN THIS!
I wonder whether I would ever have noticed anything wrong with C's math education if he hadn't failed two of the 6 unit tests given in his 4th grade math class. I barely managed to notice that much because the school doesn't give grades & I was working under a "guillotine deadline" strangely similar to the one I'm working under now.
By good fortune I managed to notice C. had gotten a....was it a 37??
I think it was.
He'd gotten a 37 on a math test. I was stunned by that; I'd never heard of a 10 year old getting a 37 on a math test.
I didn't realize until a full year later that he'd also gotten something like a 69 on the next-to-last unit test. Discovered this accidentally one day when I was sorting through some old papers.
One more thing: I didn't know how the textbook was arranged, so I didn't actually know that he had failed a full 1/3 of his course.
I jumped into "the game" on the basis of one test which I thought was just one test -- i.e. I didn't know that that test covered several chapters' worth of material.
Suppose he hadn't failed that test?
Suppose he'd gotten an 80 or an 85?
What would have happened?
My answer is: nothing.
I would never have discovered how far behind C. was as compared to his peers in Europe and Asia.
When C. was still quite young - in 5th grade, I think - he said, "Mommy, it's lucky I flunked those tests because you wouldn't have taught me math if I didn't."
He doesn't say that any more.
I'm sure he thinks it.
heh heh
Seriously, though, he probably does think it.
He's having a very decent "math year" here in the 8th grade.....and he wouldn't be in this course without our efforts.
What I suspect might have happened is one of two things:
* middle school math would have been a disaster no matter what track he was in (the kids in the regular track are having a hell of a time) & that would have gotten me activated
* he would have managed regular-track math OK in middle school and I would have at some point realized that the kids who are competitive for the best schools are headed towards calculus senior year -- at that point we probably would have enrolled him in Rye Country Day's catch-em-up summer school course
I wonder if grade deflation such as Catherine observes isn't a sort of corrective to the massive grade INflation we see at the opposite end of the spectrum (schools serving low-income and minority kids).
Well of course I've been thinking about the connection between the lowest-performing schools and the highest-performing for quite a while now (palisdesk - I don't think we'd "met" at that point).
I see a lot of parallels (because of Christian, the young man who works with Jimmy & Andrew & is "Big Brother" to Chris - went to Yonkers schools).
I've just recently, thanks to a Richard Elmore PowerPoint on "nominally high-performing schools," seen a reason for the grade deflation and "Darwinian gatekeeping" we've experienced here.
The grade deflation is absolutely real.
Some of you will remember the distinguished British historian who wrote a paper for her 8th grade daughter (in a neighboring state) and got a C+.
Ed recently got a B- on a paper he spent 4 hours helping C. write.
For passersby: Ed is a professor of history at NYU.
He's getting a B- in Irvington Middle School social studies.
That's grade deflation.
Clearly the powers-that-be want to discourage kids from taking the rigorous courses -- if only because such courses are hard to staff, cause perceptions of "elitism," and generally militate against the "golden mediocrity" that districts embrace so fondly.
Our district rations the courses.
A friend told me that years ago her now-grown child asked why he/she hadn't been allowed into an Honors course.
The answer was: "Because 29 other people were better than you."
This was a course in the humanities/social sciences.
Nobody can make that kind of judgment at the margins in the humanities/social sciences.
Probably not in math or science, either.
That's the most explanation anyone ever gets.
You got in.
You didn't.
No reason given.
Most parents want to see good grades on the report card, and if those are forthcoming they are generally complaisant. They are lulled into a false sense of security, and may not get "involved" (something schools profess to want but actually abhor).
The earth science teacher is about to be on the receiving end of a great deal of Parent Involvement from these parts.
That should greatly increase joy and harmony across the land.
By assigning low marks to the really capable kids who are up for a challenge, the system sends a message not to aim too high.
Well, I'm glad to hear you say it.
This is certainly the way we feel. We are constantly being told, in one way or another, that our kid just isn't "all that."
That's one of my lines about the middle school. The motto is: "Your child. Not the little genius you thought he was."
The Earth Science teacher selected "weak in inferential thinking" from the Canned Comments Bank for C's interim report, which was mailed to us two days before Christmas.
A friend of mine, who used to work in public schools, says the middle school mails everything over vacations so parents can't reach the teachers.
I think I'm going to request specific, documented examples of "weak inferential thinking."
I love the Comment Banks.
Comment banks allow teachers to send pre-written blanket insults to selected students.
Your tax dollars at work!
The competition at the very top is stiff -- for the scholarships, places at prestigious college and university programs, and so forth, but a level or two down, the "average" has dropped considerably.
It is horrifying.
We just had C. take the ISEE ---- not a pretty picture.
I think he'll do OK, but he should be doing quite a lot better than OK given his parents level of education, SES, blah-blah-blah.
My good friend D., whose kids attend one of the best private schools in the country, says that private school kids have to take a separate set of tests because they blow the regular standardized tests out of the water.
I believe it.
We're both semi-dreading getting the results (though, as I say, I think he'll do "OK.)
One nearby top-tier university has begun offering remedial math and English courses to entering freshmen for the first time.
I believe it.
This wasn't entirely a bad thing, because there was, and always will be, a subset of students whose strengths are not in academic work and who need basic academics, life skills and apprenticeship-type programs to make their way in the world. Those kids are neglected in our current "all shall excel" theoretical framework.
I haven't spent much time trying to figure out the whole vocational ed thing....but I think it is NUTS not to be teaching "checkbook math" to everyone if only as a way of teaching arithmetic & algebra 1.
Yesterday and today I wrote 18 separate lessons on linear functions (18!) because C. missed 4 days of school just before Christmas.
(btw, writing those lessons was a huge help to me. I discovered all kinds of gaping holes in my own knowledge of linear functions...)
He did fantastically well with those lessons today, most of which I illustrated using money and prices, e.g. "cost of renting a bicycle is $20 plus $3/hr."
y = 3x + 20
I remember someone on Elizabeth Carson's list once saying if you want to do "real world" math you should be taking shop and learning how to measure wood.
Absolutely.
I taught a class entitled (in those un-PC days) "Academic Rehab" for kids who were capable but weak in math and language skills. The mandate was to get them up to grade level by end of 8th grade. I learned about DI, PT and other effective teaching methods in those days. It was even OK to use them!
We have no remediation, essentially.
In its place: Extra Help.
Our entire district is fixated on Extra Help.
Extra Help, as far as I can see, is deeply in effective.
Secondary colleagues tell me that the average independent level of their ninth grade entrants in a college-prep track is 5th grade literacy --6th grade math. This would pretty well match what I see in our own middle school: most of our "good students" in 8th grade have writing and math skills typical of a strong 4th grader. Sadly, these are kids who probably could be doing MUCH better, but have never been challenged or forced to work hard, because they were doing so well compared to others who were barely functional.
I think we're doing a little better due to proportionally higher SES....
Still, last summer C. could not tell me what a price reduced by 10% was.
This is a kid in accelerated math -- AND HE IS TYPICAL. Two other people told me the exact same thing about their accelerated kids.
Ed raised the question of college admissions with the superintendent. We've got highly educated parents here, more than a few with Ivy League degrees. I'd make a small wager that we have fewer kids getting into Ivy League schools than parent population with Ivy League degrees.
She was dismissive.
"We have to educate everyone."
we teachers were told to do enrichment as opposed to acceleration, which is what parents were asking for
Which were parents asking for?
I'm surprised by the grade deflation in Catherine's school, especially in MS. This does appear to run against the grain of the ed school, middle school model philosophy, doesn't it?
I think it's consistent with ed school philosophy, as I believe palisdesk has pointed out.
Ed school opposes achievement and tracking/grouping.
One way to prevent the development of an academic elite is to grade those kids harder, which is precisely what the middle school did to students in the accelerated math class without telling the kids or their parents.
One of the Honors teachers at the high school told her class, last fall, "Your grades are too high."
You really have to mull that one over to get the flavor of the district.
The teacher's reason for saying that his/her kids' grades were too high was that the kids in the other Honors class were doing worse.
Instead of seeing that as evidence that her kids had worked harder & had earned their higher grades, or that he/she had worked harder and had helped them earn higher grades, the conclusion was: "Your grades are too high."
Their success was illegitimate, illusory, false.
A correction would follow.
One student said, "It's almost as if they don't want us to do well."
Grade deflation must be terribly discouraging. Grade inflation is like living in the land of Oz.
Give me Oz!
This has become a theme for me.
If I'm going to be doing the teaching, they need to give my kid As.
I'm serious about that.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, if they gave my kid As I wouldn't be doing any teaching.
I'd (probably) be assuming he was doing great.
Basically, in a nominally high-performing district, grades are used to hold the parents accountable.
The problem is that the teacher never allows the kids to take home their tests and quizzes! I had to email the teacher to allow my son to take home his first test. He had to bring it back into school so that the teacher could put it in his portfolio!?!
oh no, no, no, no, no
The tests come home for our signatures -- that way we've acknowledged in writing that we know our kid hosed the latest Earth Science multiple-choice extravaganza and has weak inferential thinking.
If we don't sign and send the test back in for the portfolio the grade is dropped further.
I keep scanned copies of tests & I tell the school I'm doing so.
We got marginal notes on the order of "Interesting idea!" or "Good explanation" or "More detail needed" and, of course, "See me"
yeah
again....we get "weak inferential thinking" and the like
Back in 6th grade a lot of the canned comments on the Interim Report, WHICH ARRIVED IN PEOPLE'S HOMES ON CHRISTMAS EVE, were so negative parents were having family blow-ups all over town (because they blamed their kids, too).
Thanks for reminding me why we homeschool.
Thanks for reminding me why we homeschool.
We aim to please!
we teachers were told to do enrichment as opposed to acceleration, which is what parents were asking for
Which were parents asking for?
Whoops, didn't intend for that to be ambiguous. Thought a relative pronoun or clause automatically referred back to the nearest noun ?
The parents in the gifted program usually wanted to see some acceleration as well as enrichment. Not ridiculous acceleration, but more instructional time spent on research, rigorous math (algebra, advanced applications of percents, ratio, geometry) formal writing, critical reading/writing skills. Most of these students were rarely or never challenged in the regular curriculum. Providing some "enrichment" didn't change that (though most found it fun and interesting -- they never had to really exert themselves). Many lacked persistence and follow-through for this reason.
However most parents were so grateful their kids got ANY extra consideration (such as it was) that they were reluctant to press hard for appropriate challenge. I felt the program really did not address the needs of gifted kids. To the amazement of admin, I requested a transfer out of the gifted program. Kids were great, curriculum stank.
PS, thanx for Elmore references, am reading with interest
[M]ost parents were so grateful their kids got ANY extra consideration (such as it was) that they were reluctant to press hard for appropriate challenge.
In the large elementary public school my children attended, the high ability math kids were grouped together into their own math class. I assumed they would be accelerated. Turns out it was just "enrichment." These kids were in lock step in the Everyday Math journals just like the rest of the class--they just did more work!
I complained, but the gifted instructor cautioned me to stay quiet or we might lose the program altogether. Big whoop, as my boys would say.
I'm really sick of these talented kids having to live off the crumbs thrown to them.
These kids were in lock step in the Everyday Math journals just like the rest of the class--they just did more work!
That's the situation in 6th grade. Brain teasers, enrichment, but on top of the EM pages in the regular classroom.
I photocopied the last two pages in my daughter's EM journal -- she completed it with no help or instruction the second week of school. I met with the teacher, showed her the pages, asked that she consider some curriculum compression or acceleration or she might spend the whole year reviewing.
Instead, she was assigned to do the "dog house" project in addition to the regular classroom work. At the same pace.
The dog house project was supposed to be an independent project where kids work in a group to create a scale model of a dog house. The arithmetic was somewhat challenging, so they used calculators.
The hardest part was the scale drawing as the door required a semi-circle. My daughter has never seen or used a compass before.
So I got to teach my daughter how to construct a semi-circle using a compass.
The teacher handed the "gifted" kids a packet, sent them into an empty classroom, and told them they had to work on it by themselves.
Parents did the instruction.
Parents did the instruction.
Yup. I used to volunteer to take the gifted kids out of the classroom once a week and work with them in the hall. Although I was supposed to do the projects with them, sometimes I taught them math. My bad.
Scale models! So did they actually use that term, or was it reform math's "stretching and shrinking" (which drives me nuts since those words don't necessarily imply an operation in more than one dimension).
Whoops, didn't intend for that to be ambiguous. Thought a relative pronoun or clause automatically referred back to the nearest noun?
That's funny!
I think you're right (it's fun being a writer & not knowing grammar!)...but I'm so used to people not knowing this that I have to check---
(I wonder if this is a convention that's starting to change....otherwise why wouldn't I assume you meant acceleration?)
hmmm
However most parents were so grateful their kids got ANY extra consideration (such as it was) that they were reluctant to press hard for appropriate challenge.
Absolutely.
The one parent of a mathematically gifted child I know here is SOOOOOO up against it.
Another family left the district.
Moved to Chappaqua.
I'll get all this stuff up front..... AACCKK!!
Well, at least I've got the URL recorded.
I'm really sick of these talented kids having to live off the crumbs thrown to them.
I was thinking about that yesterday, using the metaphor of food, which is exactly right.
These kids are living on thin gruel.
One of the issues in animal welfare is the "barren environment."
These are the words I use to describe the feeling of the middle school to me. It is a barren environment. The town built a beautiful new school with a soaring foyer and the two-story walls are empty except for the occasional drinkin', druggin' celebrity parent poster.
Last year the big glass walls up front were papered over in tacky printed our "FOCUS" words.
Fairness
Ownership
Sharing
That was it. FOCUS words everywhere, blocking the light.
No student work, no athletic trophies, no student art work - nothing.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Except for the "Student of the Month" display by the guidance office.
Thank God the kids spend their days inside classrooms not the foyer.
The teachers create interesting & stimulating visual environments.
My favorite middle school practice:
Once a year, a week before the budget vote, the entire foyer is filled with student artwork.
Then we vote the budget in and everything goes away until the next budget vote.
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