Susan Engel's revolutionary new proposals for education reform

In an Op-Ed in yesterday's New York Times, Susan Engel, a senior lecturer in psychology and the director of the teaching program at Williams college, makes the bold proposal that "if we want to make sure all children learn, we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself." Almost as original as Engel's proposals is her original use of language, some of which I've put in bold face.

"Our current educational approach," Engel argues, "is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike."

In particular, students shouldn't be spending "tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run."

Engel proceeds to enlighten us on the following things that "scientists know" and that "research has shown unequivocally":

-children "construct knowledge; they don't swallow it."

-"the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment"

-"the second [step to literacy] is to read a lot and often."

-"people write best when they use writing to think and to communicate rather than to get a good grade."

-"children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning."

-collaboration is "a skill easily as important as math or reading."

Based on these astonishing new insights from science, Engel boldly proposes the following paradigm-shattering changes to classrooms:

-every child should be given "ample opportunities to read and discuss books."

-children should "spend an hour a day writing about things that have actual meaning to them--stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another."

-children should "spend a short period of time practicing computation" and once they are "proficient in those basics they would be free to turn to other activities that are equally essential for math and science: devising original experiments, observing the natural world and counting things, whether they be words, events, or people." (Children love such activities, Engel argues, "if given a chance to do them in a genuine way").

-children should engage in playful activities "from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games," which will "help them acquire higher-order thinking skills like generating testable hypotheses, imagining situations from someone else's perspective and thinking of alternative solutions."

-children should have ample time "to collaborate with one another."

Clearly Engel not only knows her cognitive science, but has spent countless hours observing what happens in today's classrooms: all that futile phonics instruction; all those tedious math and science drills; all that dearth of collaborative learning, game playing, letter writing, and cartooning.

But I must reserve my greatest appreciation for the New York Times for deeming it fit to publish this courageous piece, with its original criticisms of today's classrooms, its revolutionary proposals for reform, and its pioneering attempts to bring science into classroom teaching (Dan Willingham, please take note!).

Teacher's Union Opposes Salary Increases

In Washington D.C. a strange thing is happening. A proposal to improve the educational cesspool that is the public school system in the Nation's Capital is being torpedoed by the national teachers unions (despite support from the local union leaders and teachers).

I haven't seen the story reported in any US newspapers, and I wonder why not, since I read education columns quite regularly. If I were any more cynical than I already am, I might think there is a plot by the national unions to keep this particular proposal quiet. Or perhaps I just missed the US press stories due to summer vacations and what not. Anyway, the British news weekly, The Economist, had a short story two weeks ago.

The story begins with a typical indictment of the District's schools -- hugely inefficient, extremely high cost, abysmal test scores, and outrageous student behavior. And then the teachers:

Teachers are virtually unsackable and paid by seniority. Such incentives attract the lazy and mediocre and repel the talented or diligent.

But here's where it gets interesting, the solution is somewhat novel in education reform:

Ms Rhee [Michelle Rhee, School Chancellor] is thrashing out a deal with union leaders that would raise teachers’ wages dramatically. Starting salaries would leap from about $40,000 to $78,000, and wages for the best performers would double to about $130,000 a year. In return, teachers would lose tenure and be paid according to merit, measured in part by their students’ results. Current teachers would have a choice: they could join the new system or stay in the old one. New hires would have to join the new system. Over time, the quality and morale of teachers in Washington should soar. “Imagine the kind of talent the hard-pressed system could attract,” drools the Washington Post.

But wouldn’t all this require a huge expansion of the school budget? Perhaps not. The current system is staggeringly inefficient. The city employs an army of educational bureaucrats and has twice as many schools as it needs. It pays to heat and air-condition some schools that are only a quarter full. Insiders reckon that, within a few years, the new pay deal could be wholly financed by cutting waste. And in the short term private donors are willing to shoulder much of the cost.

The plan’s boosters call it revolutionary, in that it applies to public schools a principle—reward good work and you get more of it—that every other employer has known for centuries. But it will be still-born if the Washington teachers’ union does not agree to it. Local union leaders rather like the idea of higher pay, but the big national unions are appalled at the notion that any teachers might give up tenure. Fearing an unwelcome precedent, they are leaning on the local union to kill the deal.

I can imagine the union drooling all over the pay hikes, but like most behemoth bureaucracies, they'd like the cake too, please. Big pay hikes, no accountability, lifetime tenure. Still, it is disheartening to see the difficulty the District is having getting this approved. If merit pay is a nonstarter in a district performing as badly as Washington D.C., what hope have we in a nominally high performing suburb?

Interim Report: "Reading First Ineffective" -- But Hold Your Horses

cross-posted at I Speak of Dreams (slightly different version)

On Monday, April 28, 2008, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) released a study, the Reading First Impact Study: Interim Report. I haven't yet studied in depth the full copy of the study (it will be available for order from Recently Added Publications -- Publication ID: ED004243P. (Reading First is hereafter abbreviated RF). Links to the report can be found at the IES site: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20084016/index.asp

A few preliminary comments: I see the "map territory" problem here.

The headline (in various iterations) is: Study: Bush administration's reading program hasn't helped.

For those new to the story, some background: Reading First:

Reading First provides assistance to States and districts to establish research-based reading programs for students in kindergarten through grade three. Reading First also provides funds to train teachers, including special education teachers, in the essential components of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension) and to select and administer assessments to identify those children who may be at risk of reading failure.

In other words, state educational units (SEAs) applied for grants, and then local education agencies (LEAs) applied for subgrants. The whole kit and caboodle is known as "Reading First". Note that RF was a funding program with limits, not a prescription for actual classroom teaching.

The study referenced above looked at a sample of LEAs executing programs funded by RF.

Mike Petrelli, at the Fordham Institute's , cautions: Read the Report First.

First, none of the states that won the first Reading First grants could participate in the study because their programs got started in advance of the evaluation. These states were the ones most enthusiastic about the program–and most prepared to implement it well. It’s quite likely that Reading First schools in these states are having a major impact.

Second, the schools selected for study were the ones that just barely won grants under the program, which were compared to schools that just barely missed funding. (Schools are ranked according to various criteria, such as poverty, need, etc. Let’s say there was enough money in a given district to fund 10 schools; then the study compared the 10th-ranked school, which got money under the program, to the 11th-ranked school, which did not.) But here’s the rub: the schools where you would expect the greatest impacts from Reading First are the poorest ones, enrolling students who are further behind in reading–schools that would have been ranked at the top of the priority list. Simply put, these schools weren’t included in the study.

The bottom line is that evaluators looked for schools that met their study design conditions, not schools that were nationally representative of the program. So we can’t say anything definitive about the effectiveness of Reading First–all we know is about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of a handful of Reading First schools.

Jay P. Greene, in the comments:

The thing that strikes me most about this study is that the time spent on phonics increased only marginally when schools adopted Reading First (see p. 44, where the increase is described as an extra 2-5 minutes per day). Perhaps the increase was so small because the implementation was poor, which would be consistent with Mike’s explanation. Or perhaps it was because Reading First is not a well-designed phonics program — so this would be an evaluation of Reading First, not the concept of phonics. Or perhaps the increase in time spent on phonics was small because the emphasis on phonics has already become pretty wide-spread, even in non-Reading First schools. If this last option is the case, then whetever benefit we can get from shifting to more phonics has already largely been achieved.

What I want to know, which the study may or may not answer:

1. Have any schools/districts using RF experienced comprehension gains?
2. If yes, what are the differences between schools/districts using RF successfully and those districts who did not see gains? Non-exhaustive list of differences:
1. in demographics (especially student transiency)
2. in teacher preparation and support (hours of teacher training in phonics and phonics instruction, for example)
   
3. in duration and intensity of instruction)


3. I want to see a fine-grained analysis of "fidelity", for example: : were the teachers, schools and districts really teaching systematic and explicit phonics with adequate follow-on practice with reading materials repeating the graphophonemic elements just taught? Or was it a case of buying the materials and not using them?
   

This District Has Found RF Works

In an article published in Broome County (NY) found that RF had a positive effect:

Locally, the program has provided money for teacher training and additional instructional time and intervention for students below grade level, they said. Early results show some improvement in students' basic skills, although the longer-term impact on reading comprehension remains to be seen.

"My immediate reaction is that we're extremely grateful for the opportunities Reading First has afforded us," said Suzanne McLeod, assistant superintendent for business and elementary education in the Union-Endicott Central School District

USA Today story as illustrative of the "RF doesn't work" in the national media

Reading First has had a complicated history. A good summary of the back story was written by Sol Sternberg at the Thomas F. Fordham Institute: Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First

Sample comments from those opposed to Reading First:

Nick Burubles, Education Policy Blog:

I think everyone here knows that the “Reading First” program is just another Bush patronage scam, using NCLB rules to funnel money to campaign supporters and loyalists. Now the Institute of Education Sciences – the unit that says all policy must be based on rigorous scientific evidence – concludes that Reading First is a lousy program. Okay, now there’s scientific evidence: so what’s the response?

Jackie Bennett, Edwize:

So, surprise, surprise: more and more time for reading skills, and no significant results. I don’t know if future studies will bear out these findings, but if they do, isn’t this exactly what many of us have suspected all along? Better reading doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Kids need a diverse curriculum that will give them background knowledge, and any gains from skill drills could be irrelevant after the early grades. As a teacher said to me earlier this week, the teaching of discreet reading skills is “more gimmick than education and more test prep than reading.” Some skill work may have its place in reading instruction, but across the country it has come to replace the instruction kids really need, such as instruction about history and the world around them, and about science and the arts.

Sometimes I get really discouraged. On another discussion list I'm on (sorry, not public) one parent finally succeeded in getting a specific reading remediation program listed in her child's IEP, with a prescription for 90 minutes a week (the recommended minimum, at 3 times a week for 30 minutes). She has since found out that her child is engaged in the reading remediation program once a week for 30 minutes, and that "it isn't working" and "should be discontinued".

Which of the following education reform movements is the most bogus?

Over at Teach Effectively, John Wills Lloyd has opened the Education Bogus Bowl, asking:

Which of the following education reform movements is the most bogus? (Listed in alphabetical order):

• Block scheduling for classes at the secondary level.
• Brain-based instruction
• Differentiated instruction
• Inclusion of students with disabilities in general education settings

You can only choose one. There will be other flights. Go and vote.

cross posted at I Speak of Dreams.

The Proficiency Illusion

I know that CJ wrote about it back in October, but it is worth revisiting:

Executive Summary of Fordham Institute's report, The Proficiency Illusion.

At the heart of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the call for all students to be “proficient” in reading and mathematics by 2014. Yet the law expects each state to define proficiency as it sees fit and design its own tests. This study investigated three research questions related to this policy:

1. How consistent are various states’ expectations for proficiency in reading and mathematics? In other words, is it harder to pass some states’ tests than others?

2. Is there evidence that states’ expectations for proficiency have changed since NCLB’s enactment? If so, have they become more or less difficult to meet? In other words, is it getting easier or harder to pass state tests?

3. How closely are proficiency standards calibrated across grades? Are the standards for earlier grades equivalent in difficulty to those for later grades (taking into account obvious grade-linked differences in subject content and children’s development)? In other words, is a state’s bar for achievement set straight, sloping, or uneven?

This study used data from schools whose pupils participated both in state testing and in assessment by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) to estimate proficiency cut scores (the level students need to reach in order to pass the test for NCLB purposes) for assessments in twenty-six states. Here are the results:

• State tests vary greatly in their difficulty.

• Most state tests have not changed in difficulty in recent years.

• Improvements in passing rates on state tests can largely be explained by declines in the difficulty of those tests.

• Mathematics tests are consistently more difficult to pass than reading tests.

• Eighth-grade tests are consistently and dramatically more difficult to pass than those in earlier grades (even after taking into account obvious differences in subject-matter complexity and children’s academic development).

worth downloading and reading, especially if you live in a low-expectations state.

Here's the URL to download the PDF:

http://edexcellence.net/doc/The_Proficiency_Illusion.pdf

Sigh. Misunderstanding Scripted Learning [whiny voice] AGAIN!

One of the most important things I gathered from the Direct Instruction literature is that is isn't scripted lessons, it is a script for lessons that have been tried, tested, debugged, tested again, further debugged, [repeat ad nauseum until you have a program that has a X% rate of success upon delivery] plus effective training of teachers in script delivery plus constant, rapid testing and feedback to students that make a scripted program effectove

[sidebar: Ken deRosa had an excellent summary, from Engelmann's The Outrage of Project Follow Through: how this works in practice"]

These quality-control features are what is missing from the conversation about "scripted lessons", which are often depicted as "teacher proof".

Sheesh. Would any theater-goer think of a play (which after all, is a script) as "actor-proof"? Haven't they ever been to a wooden production?

It is the "phonics vs. whole language" argument, all over again. Frankly, if I had a child in k-3, I'd prefer a semi-competent whole-language teacher, who was at least reading good stories, over a lousy phonics means workbooks and illogical teaching and drill teacher. At least I could supplement my kid's reading mastery with good phonemic extra-curricular teaching, rather than trying to erase the wrong approach and start over.

But wait. I got away from the point of this post.

The point of Direct Instruction and Precision Teaching is that both approaches are continually refined, based upon accurate* assessment. I can sit at home all I want, and come up with a clever, creative lesson plan (which might well be wonderful based on thought experiments) but until I use the lesson plan, and then test what of the concepts in the plan the students have mastered, on actual students...it is just pie in the sky.

NYC Educator has some doozies from classroom teachers on script-hating.


=====
*another time we will talk about how malformed multiple choice questions have nothing very little to do with getting an accurate picture of what your students have or have not mastered.

I'm taking bets

School reform proceeds apace in New York City.

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein unveiled new details yesterday about how the city school system will be organized once the 10 regional superintendent offices are abolished in September as part of the Bloomberg administration’s latest restructuring of the bureaucracy.

The reorganization is a sort of inversion of the city school administration. Instead of the traditional model in which principals work directly for a superintendent, each of the city’s more than 1,400 principals will choose a “school support organization” to work with their schools, and will pay these groups out of the school’s budget.

“Until now many educational decisions were made outside of the schools and classrooms,” Mr. Klein said during a news conference at Education Department headquarters.

Principals will have a menu of choices, at various prices, Mr. Klein said. At the low end, principals will pay $29,500 to join the so-called “empowerment network,” in which they are largely freed from oversight in exchange for agreeing to meet performance targets that include higher test scores.

At the high end, schools can choose to contract with the Success for All Foundation, a private nonprofit company based in Baltimore that offers a “whole school reform” model at a cost of up to $145,215, depending on enrollment. Smaller schools will be able to contract with the Success for All for as little as $44,694.

I don't quite grok this.....

In fact, I don't grok it at all. If someone wants to explain it to me, I'm all ears.

Not that I don't think complicated management schemes the public has no hope of comprehending aren't a good thing.

I'm sure they are!

moving right along...

Here's the section that caught my eye:

Principals are being asked to choose among three options....

Officials expect that the learning support organizations, because they are run by veterans of the city school system, are likely to attract the largest number of principals.

Kathleen M. Cashin, now the superintendent of Region 5 in Brooklyn and Queens, is offering a “Knowledge Network” group that will help schools impose a “content rich” curriculum, focused on crucial facts that students need to know in science, literature, history, the arts and music, at a cost of $42,438 per school.
update: Cashin ended up with 7% of the schools

Laura Rodriguez of Region 2, in the Bronx, is offering the “Leadership Learning” support organization, which will focus on strengthening the skills of principals and assistant principals, at a cost of $55,000 per school.

Judith Chin of Region 3 in eastern Queens has created the “Integrated Curriculum and Instruction” group, which promises to help schools develop a multidisciplinary “thinking curriculum,” at a cost of $47,500 per school.

And Marcia V. Lyles of Region 8 in Brooklyn is offering the “Community Learning” support organization, which will focus on partnerships with communities and families. Dr. Lyles has set three price levels: basic for $33,750; premium for $39,850; and elite for $66,675. Failing schools needing the most help will pay the highest price.

Do families get any choice about whether their kids spend the next 4 years of their lives in a thinking curriculum?

Not that the rest of us have any choice, but still.

Doesn't this scheme sound familiar?

My money's on Kathleen. Kathleen and Success for All.

update: forget Success for All. They got 0%. Nice to know that one of the two whole school reform models that actually works won interest from zero schools in Manhattan.

CSRQ report