people on boats

Earlier today I had reason to quote the "Hell is other people" line to a friend of mine, who pointed me to this:

Hell is other people. Hell is other people on a boat. What will it take before we accept this? 
Passengers ill-suited for loss of cruise control
By Monica Hesse, Published: February 15 | Washington Post

national PTA gets tough on parents

Don't Politicize the Common Core State Standards!
By Eric Hargis, Executive Director of the National PTA

update: National PTA gets $1 million from Gates Foundation

again with the critical thinking

Well, thanks to Texas Republicans including the words "critical thinking" in a statement no one outside a tiny group of public school obsessives actually understands (or cares to understand, apparently), we now have precious NYTimes real estate going to the celebration of non-memorization in schools.

Here, courtesy of the Times, we have the thoughts of a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching and the Distinguished Fulbright Award in Teaching:

I’ve worked for many years with students of varying demographics and learning abilities and what I’ve learned over and over is that nearly all kids love to learn – even those who would like us to believe they hate school. But what they need from their education is more than the memorization of facts – they need great teaching, foundational knowledge, problem solving skills, and the understanding of current issues.

What is a Good Teacher Worth?
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
July 6, 2012, 10:03 AM

So they're going to acquire "foundational knowledge" but they're not going to memorize any facts. Or not many.

How exactly do you pull that off?

And please don't tell me 'they construct their own knowledge.'

Speaking as a writer, I have constructed knowledge any number of times -- and then promptly forgotten what it was I constructed. For nonfiction writers, forgetting your own ideas is a common occurrence and an occupational hazard. That's why writers keep notebooks.

I do recall, I think, Willingham once saying that we remember knowledge we've figured out for ourselves somewhat better than we do knowledge we've been told by someone else. Assuming that's the case, I surmise that the mechanism is the amount of time you spend trying to figure something out, which amounts to a form of practice or rehearsal as well.

I know for a fact that 'discovering' and 'constructing' your own knowledge is absolutely no guarantee that you will recall your own knowledge later on.

Not even close.

There's only one route to Carnegie Hall.

instructivist weighs in
think

smoke

The real horror, however, was on a one-page sheet – this was not on the agenda and was meant to be buried — titled, “Summary of January 2011 Regents.” The sheet had a very simple chart showing results of the Regents Exams — the tests taken by all New York State high schoolers, many of which have to be passed for graduation. Easy to read: Exam subject, number of students who took the exam, number of students who passed: 41 kids took Integrated Algebra and only 10 passed; 27 took Global History, 5 passed. Of the ten exams given that fateful January day, only 34 of the 129 students who took them (26%) passed. And this was before any budget crisis. “We’ll look into it,” said the Super.

Field Notes: Wake Up and Smell the Smoke - or Not
by Peter Meyer

shouts and murmurs

As I would learn in my five years on the board, there are no absolute victories and no deafening defeats in the land of education governance; just the constant hum of the bureaucracy trying to control the flow of information and—if you’re lucky—the shouts and murmurs of the “the people” complaining.

Five Lessons from Five Years on the School Board
by Peter Meyer

being there

At some low point in my tenure on the board of education in my small school district, a friend advised, “Don’t worry. You are like gravity. They always know that you are there.”

Five Lessons from Five Years on the School Board
Peter Meyer

letter to Andrew Rosenthal

re: Texas Republicans and "Knowledge-Based Education," I've sent this email to an address that I hope belongs to Andrew Rosenthal:

Hi -

I am a writer (Animals in Translation; Animals Make Us Human) and an instructor of freshman composition.

My class blog is here.

My husband, Ed Berenson, is Director of the Institute of French Studies at NYU (his new book is The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story).

Both of us strongly support “knowledge-based education,” and we are likely in the majority of parents, including liberal parents living in New York.

Although it’s not obvious from the platform’s wording, knowledge – not critical thinking per se – is the issue the Texas Republican Party has taken a position on. The phrase “critical thinking” means something quite different inside public education than out, and I’m hoping you’ll consider writing a follow-up to clarify.

Boiling it down, there are two fundamental issues in the ‘education wars,’ one involving values, the other involving empirical research on the brain.

In terms of values, a majority of parents (and taxpayers and liberal arts professors) want schools to transmit to students knowledge of the liberal arts disciplines.

The K-12 establishment disagrees. Education professors [tend to] believe knowledge is changing so quickly that material taught today will be obsolete tomorrow, so content doesn’t matter. Instead of teaching knowledge, schools should teach students to ‘think critically’ and to ‘learn how to learn.’

(If you're interested, I compare my own district's ‘content doesn’t matter’ 7th grade reading program to the Core Knowledge reading sequence here. My district spends $29K per pupil.)

In terms of research on the brain, the K-12 establishment believes that ‘knowing’ and ‘thinking’ are separate functions. In the age of the internet, they argue, there is no reason for students to 'memorize' and 'regurgitate' knowledge because you can find any information you need on Google.

That sounds logical, but cognitive science has shown that it’s wrong. In reality, it's not possible to think about content stored on Google. While you are thinking, content must be stored inside 'working memory,' and working memory for “external,” unlearned content is tiny -- while working memory for knowledge stored in long-term memory is much larger.

In short, “knowledge” stored in the brain is biologically different from “knowledge” stored outside the brain, and the difference matters to the quality of thought. Thinking depends on knowing.

Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham’s article for teachers is worth reading:
Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach?

In closing, I’ll mention that Ed headed the California History/Social Science Project in the ‘90s. CHSSP was a state-wide effort by the superintendent of schools to remove professional development from education schools and put it in the hands of disciplinary specialists – in other words, to make professional development “knowledge-based.”

I’m sure Ed would be happy to talk to you if you’re interested.
Hoping you’ll look into this further and consider writing a follow-up –

Catherine Johnson

Of course, I've omitted the question of direct instruction in values...

instructivist weighs in

re: Texas Republican Party's purported opposition to 'critical thinking'

The indignation exhibited in the [NYT] comments is misplaced. In the bizarre Thoughtworld of educationists nothing is what it appears to be. Being indignant about a ban on "critical thinking" is like being indignant about a ban on "democracy" in The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).

In the Thoughtworld of educationists there is endless prattle about "critical thinking" but this "critical thinking" is taking place in a vacuum. Educationists are notoriously hostile to knowledge. They want "critical thinking" to take place without anything to think about. These so-called higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) are the pretentious upper parts of Bloom's Taxonomy with the lower parts typically cut off.

billboard

Just heard from a friend who saw this billboard on the way in to the city:

NYC:  where people are openly gay and secretly Republican

Two new Education Blogs

Two new education blogs have joined the fray. Full disclosure: I'm helping create the "Throwing Curves" blog. Throwing Curves is a project between a friend and I that are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but find a lot of common ground when we start to talk about education. I hope you'll join us. We have a Connecticut focus, but are known to take on national issues whenever the whim strikes us.

The other is "Education Quick Takes" and is giving us lots of short blurbs about education news and policy. It's worth the click. I have no connection to Education Quick Takes, other than as a reader.

election 2010

nice to meet you

black helicopters

write-in

tutoring & an endorsement

Robyne Camp

a damn shame

political season

Hey everyone -- the school board election is coming up and I'm going to be campaigning more and posting less for a few weeks.

Board candidates

hurricane

Martin was quoted as saying: "What's amazing is New Orleans was devastated because of Hurricane Katrina, but because everything was wiped out, in essence, you are building from ground zero to change the dynamics of education in that city."

Duncan was quoted as replying: "It's a fascinating one. I spent a lot of time in New Orleans, and this is a tough thing to say, but let me be really honest. I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that 'we have to do better.' And the progress that they've made in four years since the hurricane is unbelievable. They have a chance to create a phenomenal school district. Long way to go, but that -- that city was not serious about its education. Those children were being desperately underserved prior, and the amount of progress and the amount of reform we've seen in a short amount of time has been absolutely amazing."

Education Secretary Duncan calls Hurricane Katrina Good for New Orleans Schools
Washington Post Saturday January 30, 2010

New York loses Race to the Top Funds?

I haven't followed the ins and outs, so this is all I've got.

cross-pressured individuals of the world, unite!

Beth wrote:

First of all, real progressives hate what's going on in the public schools as much as anyone. "Progressive" shouldn't mean "mushy."

True!

We've talked about this before; political opinion re: our public schools does not break along party lines. In fact, I have the impression that education politics are the single most bipartisan issue we have. (Is that true?)

The most useful explanation I've found of public school ideology is E.D. Hirsch on progressive education's roots in romanticism. Ultimately, though, Hirsch doesn't tell me why 'everyday liberals' and 'everyday conservatives' should see eye-to-eye on so many issues when it comes to K-12.

Then, a couple of days ago, I came across two studies of public opinion that struck me as relevant:

• The Nature of Political Ideology in the Contemporary Electorate by Shawn Treier and D. Sunshine Hillygus | Public Opinion Quarterly 2009 73(4):679-703
  

• Value Preferences and Ideological Structuring of Attitudes in American Public Opinion by Brendon Swedlow and Mikel L. Wyckoff | American Politics Research |Volume 37 Number 6 | November 2009 | 1048-1087
  

Both argue that political opinion is multidimensional. Thus the liberal-conservative dimension fails to capture a rather large percentage of the public. (62%?)

From Treier and Hillygus:

...Although political rhetoric today is clearly organized by a single ideological dimension, we find that the belief systems of the mass public remain multidimensional, with many in the electorate holding liberal preferences on one dimension and conservative preferences on another. These cross-pressured individuals tend to self-identify as moderate (or say "Don't Know") in response to the standard liberal-conservative scale, thereby jeopardizing the validity of this commonly used measure. Our analysis further shows that failing to account for the multidimensional nature of ideological preferences can produce inaccurate predictions about the voting behavior of the American public.

I can't pull a copy of their article just now, so I don't know the nature of the dimensions they see as characterizing American public opinion. I have been able to skim Swedlow and Wyckoff, who say that political opinion is organized along two dimensions:

• order vs equality/caring
  
• high freedom vs low freedom

From their article:

In this study, we investigate four attitudinal structures (including liberal, conservative, and libertarian configurations) associated with two ideological dimensions among American voters and demonstrate that these attitudinal structures are related in expected ways to differential preferences for the values of freedom, order, and equality/caring. Liberals are inclined to trade freedom for equality/caring but not for order, whereas conservatives are their opposites—willing to trade freedom for order but not for equality/caring. In contrast, libertarians are generally less willing than others to trade freedom for either order or equality/caring (although they probably prefer order to equality/caring). The fourth ideological type is more willing than the others to relinquish freedom, preferring both order and equality/caring. Depending on how our results are interpreted, this fourth type may be characterized as either communitarian or humanitarian. These findings help close the gap between unidimensional conceptions and multidimensional evidence of ideological organization in political attitudes by demonstrating that value structure and attitudinal structure are strongly related in two ideological dimensions.

Swedlow and Wyckoff duplicate Treier and Hillygus' finding re: self-identified "moderates":

When asked to identify their ideological orientation, nearly half (45% to 48% in both groups) of those with libertarian and communitarian political attitudes identified themselves as “moderates.” Similarly, when we recompute percentages by rows instead of columns, we find that just more than 60% of those identifying themselves as moderates on the self-identification scale are classified as libertarians or communitarians in our attitudinal typology. Those with libertarian and communitarian attitudes were also more likely not to respond to the self-identification question at all (4.6% and 8.6%, respectively). The bulk of libertarians and communitarians, to their credit, seem to know that they are not liberals and conservatives.^* Meanwhile, though less than perfect in their ability to match attitudes with ideological labels, those with liberal and conservative attitudes are by comparison noticeably less likely to select the “moderate” or “don’t know” categories, and when they pick one of the other two ideological labels, they are usually correct.

Swedlow & Wyckoff, p. 1056


Cross-pressured individuals who "don't know" their political orientation: that's a pretty fair description of my own plight when it comes to choosing between Door A and Door B.

The reason the grid strikes me as possibly relevant to public schools is that the "Communitarian" option -- low-low on freedom -- is one way to describe what it is that is not 'liberal' about public schools, whose employees are generally identified with the Democratic Party and with liberal politics. And I think you can use this grid to visualize why a real progressive like Mary Damer and a real conservative like Martin Kozloff can be so naturally allied. Neither is a communitarian.

By which I mean that individual freedom is a core value for liberals and conservatives alike, although in different realms, which is not the case for the people running our public schools. All too often, public school culture is distinctly illiberal.

They do what they do.


Michael Kinsley on Democrats, Republicans, libertarians and conservatives

And what is the opposite of libertarianism? Libertarians would say fascism. But in the American political context, it is something infinitely milder that calls itself communitarianism. The term is not as familiar, and communitarians are far less organized as a movement than libertarians, ironically enough. But in general communitarians emphasize society rather than the individual and believe that group responsibilities (to family, community, nation, the globe) should trump individual rights.

The relationship of these two ways of thinking to the two established parties is peculiar. Republicans are far more likely to identify themselves as libertarians and to vilify the government in the abstract. And yet Republicans have a clearer vision of what constitutes a good society and a well-run planet and are quicker to try to impose this vision on the rest of us. Now that the Republican Party is in trouble, critics are advising it to free itself of the religious right on issues like abortion and gay rights. That is, the party should become less communitarian and more libertarian. With Democrats, it's the other way around.

Very few Democrats self-identify as libertarians, but they are in fact much more likely to have a live-and-let-live attitude toward the lesbian couple next door or the Islamofascist dictator halfway around the world. And every time the Democrats lose an election, critics scold that they must put less emphasis on the sterile rights of individuals and more emphasis on responsibilities to society. That is, they should become less libertarian and more communitarian. Usually this boils down to advocating mandatory so-called voluntary national service by people younger than whoever is doing the advocating.

Libertarians and communitarians (to continue this unjustified generalizing) are different character types. Communitarians tend to be bossy, boring and self-important, if they're not being oversweetened and touchy-feely. Libertarians, by contrast, are not the selfish monsters you might expect. They are earnest and impractical--eager to corner you with their plan for using old refrigerators to reverse global warming or solving the traffic mess by privatizing stoplights. And if you disagree, they're fine with that. It's a free country.

Libertarians Rising
by Michael Kinsley
TIME Thursday October 18, 2007

^* I love it!

small-d democracy and its discontents

"Are Teacher Colleges Producing Mediocre Teachers?" TIME

TIME article by Gilbert Cruz.

Are Teacher Colleges Producing Mediocre Teachers?

OK, but is there anything constructive or promising here?

The article was based on a speech by Arne Duncan on Thursday to Columbia University's Teachers College. Duncan said:

"By almost any standard, many if not most of the nation's 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom,"

"By almost any standard."

{I'll ignore the 21st century remark.]

Then, Cruz quotes David Steiner, New York's education commissioner as saying:

"And if we can't identify the skills that make a difference in terms of student learning, then what we're saying is that teaching is an undefinable art, as opposed to something that can be taught."


"Until recently, Steiner served as dean of Hunter College's School of Education, where he was a vocal critic of the typical ed-school approach, in which teachers-in-training study theories and philosophies of education at the expense of practical, in-the-classroom experience."

Then Duncan is quoted as saying:

"I am urging every teacher-education program today to make better outcomes for students the overarching mission that propels all their efforts."

But what is the "standard" that should be used? It's one thing to argue mediocrity "by almost any standard", but there has to be some agreement over what that standard should be. The only standard that seems to be available is a mix of 50 state standards - all low. Some apologists of bad results complain that the bad scores on the tests mean that the tests are fundamentally flawed or that the schools didn't teach the specific material of any particular question. Apparently, these people are quite capable of arguing the "by almost any standard" position.

But the problem is not just poor implementation and a lack of focus on outcomes. It's philosophy. It's low expectations. The problem is that people disagree on standards. We can't even get started.

Actually, I'm more encouraged by Duncan's arm-twisting in states to force them to open up more charter schools. I can't imagine a top down solution to the problem of education that won't be watered down or manipulated. Either parents have to be allowed to send their kids elsewhere, or schools have to provide parents with choice. TERC or Singapore Math. I don't expect the education world will give up control easily. They will accept (low) accountability and weak standards first.

Reactionary politics at Kitchentablemath?

In a recent comment on Out In Left Field, someone mentioned having "reactionary politics shoved in my face" here at kitchentablemath.com. As recent examples, the commenter in question cited this and this.

For my part, I've added the commenter's reaction to my growing list of associations between general political ideologies on the one hand, and, on the other hand, specific opinions/observations about the Powers that Be, status quo, and prevailing fashions, in grade school education.

My list also includes Barry Garelick's discussion of how Lynne Cheney's criticisms of Reform Math made democrats not want to touch it; rants at Rational Math Ed; the political branding of Mathematically Correct members and, of course, teacher's unions and the legacy of Progressive Education.

I'd love to write a longer piece about this political branding, because I think it, combined with what seems to me an unprecedented polarization in this country of political "debate," is one of the biggest obstacles to improving public education, I'd hoping at some point to write a longer piece about this.

So, if you have other examples of this, or thoughts about them, please share them here! Along with your thoughts, in particular, about reactionary politics at kitchentablemath.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that many of us here are politically moderate or eclectic, pragmatist, suspicious of big bureaucracies and big government (because of what these have done to education), and sympathetic to free markets (e.g., school choice). As for whether we tend to be hawks or doves, religious or agnostic, pro choice or anti-abortion, or for or against curbside recycling, I doubt that there's much here at ktm on which to base any firm conclusions.

stakeholders

To the Editor:

Your June 17, 2009, article on national standards discusses the virtual exclusion so far of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the International Reading Association from the Common Core State Standards Initiative. But the exclusion of other key stakeholders also must be addressed.

First is the exclusion of authentic subject-matter groups from the “Common Core” decisionmaking process that determines what is in the final document. Anyone proposing to create mathematics and English-language-arts standards must enlist and pay heed to the expertise of true subject-area experts. Members of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, appropriate engineering societies, and the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics should be allowed to provide input.

In addition to being true experts in their fields, college and university professors are in the best position to inform standards-writing committees about what high school graduates need to know and be able to do for success in credit-bearing college-level courses. It is well documented that community colleges nationwide have freshman remediation rates of more than 70 percent in math and English. Clearly, the community college stakeholders must have a seat at the standards-writing table.

Tax-paying parents are another important stakeholder group absent from the Common Core project. Yet the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that children receive a proper education rests with them. It is they who must closely monitor the success of students and schools, and it is they who must pay the price—in dollars and in anguish—when inadequate standards leave children ill-prepared for college or the workplace. Dozens of grassroots parent groups have sprung up in the past decade to advocate for improvements in mathematics education in the public schools. Our group, the United States Coalition for World Class Math, is just one of these.

Before mathematics standards for K-12 are finalized, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers should make room at the table for one of the most important education constituencies in the country: the parents of children in our public schools.

Amy Flax

Westfield, N.J.

Jill Gladstone

Bridgewater, N.J.

Sarah-Kate Maskin

Ridgewood, N.J.

Renata Pestic

Oradell, N.J.

Timotha Trigg

Chadds Ford, Pa.

The writers are co-founders of the United States Coalition for World Class Math.

Vol. 28, Issue 36, Pages 26-27

CO Coalition for World Class Math
CT Coalition for World Class Math
NJ Coalition for World Class Math
PA coalition for World Class Math
United States Coalition for World Class Math
Parents' Group Wants to Shape Math Standards
Common Core Standards: Who Made the List?

Education Week coverage:
6.30.2009 Parents Group Wants to Shape Math Standards
7.1.2009 Common Core Standards: Who Made the List?
7.14.2009 ‘Common Core’ Initiative: Who’ll Make Decisions?
7.30.2009 Transparency of Common-Standards Process at Issue

1.12.2007 how politics work

in today's email

For Immediate Release
July 13, 2009 Contact: Celia Lose 202/745-2176 (until 7/15) close@aft.org
AFT’s Weingarten Calls for School Reform To Be Done ‘With Us, Not to Us’
Major Educational Address Calls for Collaboration and Innovation

subject line: AFT's Weingarten Calls for School Reform To Be Done "With Us, Not to Us'


Strange.

I feel exactly the same way.

The Foundation of Ingenuity

"To Make Ourselves Indifferent"

A colleague once asked Loyola how long he would need to recover if the pope was ever to disband the Jesuits.^* Loyola's response surely shocked his questioner, and it quickly found its way into Jesuit lore: "If I recollected myself in prayer for a quarter of an hour, I would be happy, and even happier than before."

Perhaps there was a smidgen of posturing in his answer. Loyola had built what was rapidly becoming the world's most influential and successful religious organization. Could he see it dismantled and then stroll away whistling after a mere fifteen minutes in prayer?

Posturing or not, Loyola was sending an unambiguous message grounded in the lessons of the Exercises. Jesuits achieved what we today would call ingenuity--a mix of adaptability, daring, speed, and good judgment--only by first cultivating the attitude he called "indifference."

Trainees approach indifference by imagining three different men who have each legitimately acquired the fabulous sum of ten thousand ducats, then considering their varying reactions to their newly obtained wealth All three feel more than niggling discomfort with their growing attachment to the fortune. There's more to life than money, . . . but it feels so nice to have it. Suddenly it seems impossible to imagine doing without it. The first two types do little or nothing to rid themselves of the wealth that is leading to such inordinate attachment. What does the third type do about the ten thousand ducats? Here is the punch line of the meditation, the person we are to emulate, so the answer seems obvious: he generously distributes the money to the poor and piously rejoices, right?

Wrong. The role model for Jesuit indifference rids himself of the attachment to the money, "but in such a way that there remains no inclination either to keep the acquired money or to dispose of it." In other words, the money is not the issue. The problem is slavish attachment to money or to anything else. Inordinate attachments fog one's vision. . . . Only by becoming indifferent--free of prejudices and attachments and therefore free to choose any course of action--do [Jesuit] recruits become strategically flexible. The indiferent Jesuit liberates himself to choose strategies driven by one motive only: achieving his long-term goal of serving God by helping souls.

The meditation isn't about the money; it's about the attachment.

[snip]

This is what Loyola was really after: the internal fears, drives, and attachments that can control decisions and actions.

[snip]

Indifference is the right stuff of ingenuity. And once early Jesuits attained it, Loyola usually set them loose to lead themselves. "In all, I much desire a complete indifference; then with this obedience and abnegation supposed on the part of the subjects [i.e. individual Jesuits], I am very glad to follow their inclinations."

Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Yaer-Old Company That Changed the World by Chris Lowney

I believe this absolutely.

In fact, I have a fair amount of what I think is indifference myself. Not to be confessional here, but I probably couldn't do my job (writing) or my edu-politicking (more writing) if I were "inordinately attached" to either.

Until I read this passage, though, I hadn't been able to put it into words. With education politics, whenever I have tried to explain to a friend why I'm happy to spend years of my life tilting at edu-windmills, the best I've been able to come up with is, "I don't care if anything I do makes a difference." Same thing with writing a book, or a book proposal. I don't care if it's a success.

That's not right, of course. I do care, or I wouldn't be doing it.

"Indifference" doesn't exactly describe my state of mind, but indifference as freedom to choose any course of action ---- that's it.

I need to do the Exercises.

Actually, I needed to do the exercises starting when I was 20.


^* Ed says the Jesuits were kicked out of France altogether at one point.