Posts
Solitaire-playing legislators draw criticism
I'm sure you've all seen this, but I couldn't resist.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
help desk: project based learning
I'm posting this email without the writer's name:
My local school district is talking about reinventing the high school around a project-based learning model. I don't know much about this stuff, but I'm concerned about some of the things I'm hearing. Are you aware of any scholarly research that's been done on PBL? There will be some public forums coming up soon, and I'd like to have some hard evidence (one way or the other) to rely on. I just recently found your blog, so perhaps you've written something on PBL that you could recommend as well?
That reminds me: I never got around to writing a post about what happened in Holland when the public schools there moved wholesale to integrated, interdisciplinary, project-based learning.
People hated it. Hated it. People hated it so much they pulled their kids out of the schools and put them in the Gymnasium. I don't know what the Gymnasium are, but I do know that they are in some way associated with Erasmus and that students attending Gymnasium learn Latin and Greek.
We heard this story from a professor friend of Ed's, who said her sister had attended Gymnasium and had read Homer in the original Greek by the time she was in 8th grade. As I recall.
Ed's friend said so many people pulled their kids out of the project schools that they finally had to drop the project method and go back to teaching subjects.
I cherish that story.
compare and contrast, part 3
In countries where there is a single health care system -- and thus a single pool of money to pay for it -- it is somewhat easier to control costs. Britain's NHS often decides, for example, that it won't pay for kidney dialysis for a 90-year-old. That means somebody's grandmother will die, but at least Grandma and her relatives know that the money saved is going to be used to help some sick baby or some accident victim.
Q&A with Correspondent T.R. Reid
I came across this passage quite by accident; I was looking for info on the Swiss health care system, and suddenly there it was. The NHS "often" refuses to pay for dialysis for 90-year olds.
yikes
Seeing as how my own 80-year old mom needed an emergency dialysis last year, I took that amiss, and I don't see myself feeling any more friendly to such a policy 10 years from now, when she's 90. Assuming she lives to see 90, which, given her determination and the medical care she's had, she may. Unfortunately, by the time she's 90 she probably will need dialysis, so thank heavens we live here, not there.
At some point, mulling this over, I realized: the wording of this passage is odd.
The NHS often decides not to pay for dialysis for 90-year olds?
Because Britain has a lot of 90-year olds needing dialysis?
Because Britain has a lot of 90-year olds needing dialysis?
And does often mean not always? Do some 90-year olds who need dialysis get dialysis? (And how does a person get in that queue?)
The glaring anomaly, however, and it took me a little while to notice this, is the choice of the word "grandmother." Somebody's grandmother, no less. Not your grandmother or my grandmother. Somebody's.
Of course, when somebody's grandmother dies because the NHS won't pay for dialysis, the people who are most distraught aren't the grandchildren, usually.
The people who are most distraught are the children.
So let's try it that way:
In countries where there is a single health care system -- and thus a single pool of money to pay for it -- it is somewhat easier to control costs. Britain's NHS often decides, for example, that it won't pay for kidney dialysis for a 90-year-old. That means somebody's mother will die, but at least Mom and her children know that the money saved is going to be used to help some sick baby or some accident victim.
It would be fun to put together a collection of political euphemisms* from all realms of the political spectrum** to use teaching writing.
I wonder if anyone's done that.
* I realize that this passage is not, on the whole, what you would call euphemistic, seeing as how it states directly that the NHS withholds critical care from the elderly in order to reduce costs. Nevertheless, the use of the words "somebody's grandmother" and, later, "Grandma" avoid calling a spade a spade.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Can we clone her?
Excerpts from an article entitled "Head of the Class" by long-time science teacher, principal and college professor Louse Butler, author of Beating the Bell Curve, in the August 2009 Mensa Bulletin (emphasis--and any typos--mine):
On entering education:
On science education in the US:
Right. Science and math, as disciplines and over time, promote the development of critical thinking. Critical thinking cannot be taught in a vacuum.
And essential information to boot!
Where would she like science curriculum to go?
On the state of education in the US in general:
Bingo.
On why education in the US has slipped:
That's the most concise synopsis of the main problem I've ever seen.
On what the next generation of children can expect:
On how to reach students in mixed ability classrooms:
Wow. If we had 100,000 Louise Butlers, just imagine where US education would be!
On entering education:
The politics of education was a disappointment and a shock to me. Our boards of education are purely political entities, state boards of education even more so. The two largest teachers groups, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, are nothing but political organizations. Throw in the colleges of education [which] are populated by frighteningly political professors, and you have lots of people in power with plenty of axes to grind, many of which bear only tangentially on education. Our schools should be places where barriers are removed and doors of opportunity are opened through the common denominator of knowledge, but they should never be tools of social engineering.
On science education in the US:
There are too many people in education who think that science and math are elite subjects. They think they are too difficult for the average student and therefore are not to be emphasized in curriculum or in practice. These people are wrong. Science and math not only provide essential information, but they give us a logical and critical way of thinking. Science is a process of thought as much as it is a body of knowledge Science and math should be part of all instruction, enhance all instruction, and clarify all instruction. Sadly, the same people who want to reserve science for the few are the same people who don't want us to teach phonetic reading, civics, or geography.
Right. Science and math, as disciplines and over time, promote the development of critical thinking. Critical thinking cannot be taught in a vacuum.
And essential information to boot!
Where would she like science curriculum to go?
I can tell you where [it] shouldn't go. The consolidation of science curriculum into general science instead of its component disciplines is nothing more than a dilution of scientific knowledge to accommodate the shortage of qualified science teachers. We saw the same think happen when "social studies" was substituted for the real disciplines of history, geography, civics, and economics [ed: right, Catherine?]. And look what a mess that has turned out to be!
On the state of education in the US in general:
The drop out rate of first-year teachers is ridiculously high. The children don't seem to want to learn, and their behavior runs from difficult to outrageous. Our schools have, frankly, fed their students a load of manure. At the very least, the first-year teacher feels that their training doesn't reflect the real world. They become disillusioned, frustrated, and angry with themselves and the system and they quit. It is a terrible waste of time and talent. Show me a teacher who went into education just because they love children, and I'll show you a person who will be found bound, gagged, and abandoned in her closet by a group of third graders some time in mid-September. What you have to love is knowledge.
Bingo.
I see school systems that seem to have decided their first and only function is educating their students in a rigorous and challenging curriculum, and those systems are beacons of light in a dark night. It is interesting that these positive changes seem to be all in small and isolated spots. There aren't any "big course" corrections coming out of our colleges of education.
On why education in the US has slipped:
Part of the problem is teacher preparation. Another problem is our decision to excuse poor performance instead of correcting it. Starting in the 1970s, there was a "feel good" movement that pushed for a mea culpa for the world's ills by giving students a pass on anything that might make them feel challenged. What we got was a generation that was very comfortable with failure. We are having a hard time recovering from that, because the students who grew up with that are now teaching the next generation of teachers.
That's the most concise synopsis of the main problem I've ever seen.
On what the next generation of children can expect:
If we are going to compete with students in the emerging nations, especially in Asia, we are going to have to stop using schools for social experimentation and return to using them for education. We are going to have to accept that students must be reading fluently by third grade. They must be ready for algebra in eighth grade.
On how to reach students in mixed ability classrooms:
Many theorists in the educational community will be shocked to hear me say that I reached all of my students by teaching to the top of the class. You put in plenty of safety nets to catch the students who need extra help, but the forward direction of the class should always be the top. By doing that, you make sure you reach the students who will return the biggest bang for the buck, and you make success the standard. The key is to assume that most of your students can achieve the same standard. You help everyone, but hold no one back. . . Not that my class was a democracy. I was in charge, and any one who doesn't think that children need a leader hasn't tried to organize so much as a rock fight.
Wow. If we had 100,000 Louise Butlers, just imagine where US education would be!
the sorting machine
I'm sick as a dog* -- who knew stress had anything to do with the immune system?
And, on a directly related subject: Who Killed Health Care? by Regina Herzlinger is great. Wonderful! Especially the chapter on 'dysfunctional culture.'
I've been planning for months now to write a post called "It's the culture, stupid," a concept that came to me after re-reading Richard DuFour's "Restructuring Isn't Enough." Turns out Herzlinger has a section titled exactly that: It's the culture, stupid.
Before I retire to my bedroom, here's an excerpt from her book:
"You won't believe what happened to me this week. I checked an elderly diabetic into my hospital. The guy had a lot of troubles. A great guy, but he just can't manage his diabetes. I had operated on his foot a few weeks ago. And what do you know? As soon as he heals, he goes on a bender. His sugar goes out of control. He was in terrible shape. I checked him into the hospital because I suspected he had an aneurysm ... If he tested positive, I knew I had to operate immediately, the next day. That baby could blow any minute and he would bleed to death."Well, the PCP (primary care physician) who is my patient's gatekeeper just called me. Because he represents the HMO, the gatekeeper has to approve the bill. He thinks I should not have admitted my patient into the hospital for the tests. He questioned my judgment. He told me I was practicing bad, wasteful medicine. He threatened to throw me out of the insurer's network of doctors if I kept this up. I lost my temper. I told him in no uncertain terms that he just does not understand my kind of medicine. He's out of his league-out of his depth."[snip]I have heard Paul's plaint many times in the course of the research I've conducted for my Harvard Business School case studies and after the lectures I've delivered to hundreds of health care groups. I know from decades of interactions with business organizations that when colleagues cannot communicate with each other without rancor and misunderstandings, when competence and motives are questioned without cause, the organizational culture has gone terribly wrong. In successful organizations, confrontations of this sort lead to intervention and analysis by upper managers, and ultimately to a plan to correct the problem ... but in most managed care organizations, this kind of culture does not exist.[snip]Here's how a successful health care organization handled a similar problem.Joan is the Oklahoma-based technical specialist for a firm that manufactures life-support equipment. She is notified that the device in a Louisiana hospital is not working properly. The hospital has no backup and has tried all the usual remedies to no avail. This too is a life-or-death situation that calls for immediate action. But, unlike Paul, who had to "consult" the PCP before he could act, Joan can proceed to do what she knows to do: she e-mails a request to her manager for permission to ship an expensive replacement device ASAP. Permission is expeditiously granted. She also knows that if she does not receive a response within 15 minutes, she is authorized to proceed on her own. Here, everyone cooperates: all efforts are properly focused on the right and expeditious thing to do for the patient's well-being.Why are these two situations so glaringly different? It is not the existence of clear procedures in one case and not the other. They could have made a difference, of course. But the core difference is that Joan's organization has a culture that lends itself to the development of such protocols and Paul's does not.People in an organization whose culture relies on a shared vision are positive and action oriented rather than negative and blame oriented. They want to work things out, find solutions, and serve their customers. ... The culture helps them realize that a confrontation is not a clash of personalities, but rather a sign that something deeper is going wrong and a signal that it must be fixed to preserve the organization's ability to perform its mission.In health care, a productive organizational culture means finding ways to help patients. But such cultures have become rarer and rarer in managed care organizations and hospitals for reason that we will explore....Who Killed Health Care?pp. 29-32
That's what we're missing in so many public schools: a culture focused on making sure all students succeed.
Here's DuFour, writing in 1995:
Ten years ago both the structure and the culture of Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, reflected it commitment to the traditional task of sorting and selecting students.[snip]In this structure, teachers saw themselves as quality control inspectors. Their job was to present information as clearly as possible, assess the aptitude of each student, and promote student success by placing students at the appropriate ability level. Assigning grades according to a bell-shaped curve was a common practice that, by definition, limited the number of students who could achieve at a high level and ensured that a certain percentage were destined to fail. The “teacher as quality control inspector” had little need to collaborate with others. There was no compelling reason to coordinate curriculum, instruction, or assessment with colleagues teaching the same course.Teachers were not only isolated from one another but from parents as well. No active parent organization existed other than booster groups for specific student activities. Teachers were required to communicate with parents only when a student was in danger of failing. Further, the primary means available to communicate student failure was an individual letter to each parent. Thus, parents received a progress report only if failure was imminent. The majority of parents had no idea how their child was doing until they received a repot card in the 10th week of the semester.
“Restructuring Isn’t Enough by Richard DuFourEducational Leadership April 1995 p. 33-24
* How sick is that, anyway? I've never seen my dogs take to their beds with fever & sore throat.
All Things PLC (Richard DuFour)
If Health Care Were Run Like Retail by Regina Herzlinger
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
I vote 'no'
Anonymous asks:
another reason to vote 'no' on your local school budget
Can anyone think of a good reason for the only required book for 10th grade Honors English to be Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W Loewen?
No, they apparently weren't doing it as an example of propaganda. No, I did write English and not History.
another reason to vote 'no' on your local school budget
Monday, August 31, 2009
Cult of Personality as character ed, multiformat edition
Emphasis mine.
From ed.gov
Dear Principal:
In a recent interview with student reporter, Damon Weaver, President Obama announced that on September 8 — the first day of school for many children across America — he will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of education. The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.
Since taking office, the President has repeatedly focused on education, even as the country faces two wars, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and major challenges on issues like energy and health care. The President believes that education is a critical part of building a new foundation for the American economy. Educated people are more active civically and better informed on issues affecting their lives, their families and their futures.
This is the first time an American president has spoken directly to the nation's school children about persisting and succeeding in school. We encourage you to use this historic moment to help your students get focused and begin the school year strong. I encourage you, your teachers, and students to join me in watching the President deliver this address on Tuesday, September 8, 2009. It will be broadcast live on the White House website www.whitehouse.gov 12:00 noon eastern standard time.
In advance of this address, we would like to share the following resources: a menu of classroom activities for students in grades preK-6 and for students in grades 7-12. These are ideas developed by and for teachers to help engage students and stimulate discussion on the importance of education in their lives. We are also staging a student video contest on education. Details of the video contest will be available on our website www.ed.gov in the coming weeks.
On behalf of all Americans, I want to thank our educators who do society's most important work by preparing our children for work and for life. No other task is more critical to our economic future and our social progress. I look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead to continue improving the quality of public education we provide all of our children.
Sincerely,
Arne Duncan
Attachments: Classroom Activities Pre-K - 6 Grades 7 - 12
Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama’s Address to Students Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education, Pre K- 6
September 8, 2009
Before the Speech:
• Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:
Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be President?
To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?
• Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
• Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials?, like the mayor,senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech:
• As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note‐taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children candraw pictures and write as appropriate.As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
• Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
• Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.
After the Speech:
• Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or sticknotes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:
What do you think the President wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
What would you like to tell the President?
• Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education’s “I Am What I Learn” video contest. On September 8th the Department will invite K‐12 students to submit a video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via www.ed.gov.
Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students
• Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
• Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
• Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
• Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
• Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
• Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
• Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
• Graph student progress toward goals.
-----------------
The 7-12 one is even worse.
UPDATE: Changes have been made. No longer does it say "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." Now they just write them for themselves, and are still used later to make kids accountable--lucky them! But at least the cult of personality part is a bit muted now.
Here's the new version.
From ed.gov
Dear Principal:
In a recent interview with student reporter, Damon Weaver, President Obama announced that on September 8 — the first day of school for many children across America — he will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of education. The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.
Since taking office, the President has repeatedly focused on education, even as the country faces two wars, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and major challenges on issues like energy and health care. The President believes that education is a critical part of building a new foundation for the American economy. Educated people are more active civically and better informed on issues affecting their lives, their families and their futures.
This is the first time an American president has spoken directly to the nation's school children about persisting and succeeding in school. We encourage you to use this historic moment to help your students get focused and begin the school year strong. I encourage you, your teachers, and students to join me in watching the President deliver this address on Tuesday, September 8, 2009. It will be broadcast live on the White House website www.whitehouse.gov 12:00 noon eastern standard time.
In advance of this address, we would like to share the following resources: a menu of classroom activities for students in grades preK-6 and for students in grades 7-12. These are ideas developed by and for teachers to help engage students and stimulate discussion on the importance of education in their lives. We are also staging a student video contest on education. Details of the video contest will be available on our website www.ed.gov in the coming weeks.
On behalf of all Americans, I want to thank our educators who do society's most important work by preparing our children for work and for life. No other task is more critical to our economic future and our social progress. I look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead to continue improving the quality of public education we provide all of our children.
Sincerely,
Arne Duncan
Attachments: Classroom Activities Pre-K - 6 Grades 7 - 12
Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama’s Address to Students Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education, Pre K- 6
September 8, 2009
Before the Speech:
• Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:
Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be President?
To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?
• Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
• Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials?, like the mayor,senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech:
• As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note‐taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children candraw pictures and write as appropriate.As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
• Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
• Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.
After the Speech:
• Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or sticknotes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:
What do you think the President wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
What would you like to tell the President?
• Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education’s “I Am What I Learn” video contest. On September 8th the Department will invite K‐12 students to submit a video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via www.ed.gov.
Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students
• Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
• Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
• Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
• Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
• Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
• Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
• Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
• Graph student progress toward goals.
-----------------
The 7-12 one is even worse.
UPDATE: Changes have been made. No longer does it say "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." Now they just write them for themselves, and are still used later to make kids accountable--lucky them! But at least the cult of personality part is a bit muted now.
Here's the new version.
Robert Pondiscio on Reading Workshop
Lastly, there’s the question of how valuable the 30 different books for 30 different kids approach really is. I was trained in Readers Workshop and had to use it in my classroom. It wasn’t effective, or satisfying. It becomes almost impossible to have deep, rich conversations about books. You can’t possibly be familiar with every book every kid is reading, so you’re encouraged to ask questions that are not terribly deep or interesting: Can you describe the setting? Which character are you most like? Are there any questions you wish you could ask the author? It’s a kind of cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers way to teach literature. If today’s mini-lesson is “Good readers pay attention to what characters say and do” (yes, we actually teach that to 5th graders) it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about War and Peace or Captain Underpants. At one level, that’s true. At another, it’s just plain silly.
You can easily say “not every child participates in those rich, whole-class discussions.” But not every child is engrossed in reading in the reader’s workshop either. A lot of them are just going through the motions.
Mrs. Eduwonk weighs in
re: Reading Workshop
We should also step back and ask for a moment whether many of today’s students who are disengaged are because of the substance of the material, the quality of the teaching, or because they haven’t been taught to read so encountering challenging literature is frustrating for them? Good stories have timeless appeal and as the Eduwife – a former high school literature teacher herself — likes to point out, if you can’t make many of the classics, with their sex, violence, and foul deeds exciting for students then you’re in the wrong line of work.
Call Me E.D. Hirsch
how I spent my summer vacation
Yesterday my mom transferred to the nursing home for rehab. Amazing.
Turns out she did break her pelvis after all; she broke it twice, in fact. Two fractures finally showed up on a bone scan.*
The fractures were the least of her problems, though. We've had two harrowing weeks dealing with spikes in potassium, drops in kidney function, tachycardia, bradycardia, "afib," elevated white blood cells (2 episodes), an unexplained bout of extreme abdominal pain, and a memorable episode of apparent heart failure.
All this along with extreme pain, which my mom rated '9' on a scale of 1 to 10 when someone finally asked. The pain prevented my mom from sitting up, standing, or walking, all of which she critically needed to do.
And now she's in rehab.
* When my mom's primary care physician called to report the results, he said, "Sometimes the primary care physician is right."
Turns out she did break her pelvis after all; she broke it twice, in fact. Two fractures finally showed up on a bone scan.*
The fractures were the least of her problems, though. We've had two harrowing weeks dealing with spikes in potassium, drops in kidney function, tachycardia, bradycardia, "afib," elevated white blood cells (2 episodes), an unexplained bout of extreme abdominal pain, and a memorable episode of apparent heart failure.
All this along with extreme pain, which my mom rated '9' on a scale of 1 to 10 when someone finally asked. The pain prevented my mom from sitting up, standing, or walking, all of which she critically needed to do.
And now she's in rehab.
* When my mom's primary care physician called to report the results, he said, "Sometimes the primary care physician is right."
Teachers telling it like it is
. . . the UFT is an advocate for teachers . . . The UFT is not there to protect education or to insure excellence in the classroom.
The UFT . . . Their job is to protect us, not the students.
. . . when students start paying dues, that's when the union will start representing them.
These are lifted from teachers’ comments over at a NYC Educator post where they were lamenting what they considered to be a teacher-bashing New Yorker magazine essay about the infamous ”rubber room”. Most readers would probably agree that this piece was not kind in its treatment of NYC teachers.
Although I certainly don’t fault these teachers for their candor, it did surprise me a bit. I rarely see this type of honesty from educators, where they openly admit that the union’s goal is to protect the teachers, not the students. Interestingly, on their website the UFT claims it is “an advocate for public school students”. Now, some would argue that protected teachers = well-educated students, but I would disagree that it works out that way all the time or even most of the time.
On the other hand, there is no doubt in my mind that the overriding goal of parents is to protect their children. Parents want to insure excellence in the classroom for their children. Let’s be clear, although unions and parents are often supportive of each other, in many ways this is an adversarial model at work, with each side protecting its own interests. I would like this to be uppermost in the minds of all involved in education reform efforts, especially whenever the unions agree to participate with disingenuous claims that it’s all “for the children”.
As we at KTM have been saying for years, parents should not be shut out of the education debate. If teacher unions, politicians and education bureaucrats are the only ones allowed a place at the table, how likely is it that our children’s interests will be prioritized as they should be? Parents, specialists in the various disciplines and other interested parties should be included in order for there to be any chance for a fair and productive resolution of our nation’s education crisis.
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2008/09/parents-need-union.html
The UFT . . . Their job is to protect us, not the students.
. . . when students start paying dues, that's when the union will start representing them.
These are lifted from teachers’ comments over at a NYC Educator post where they were lamenting what they considered to be a teacher-bashing New Yorker magazine essay about the infamous ”rubber room”. Most readers would probably agree that this piece was not kind in its treatment of NYC teachers.
Although I certainly don’t fault these teachers for their candor, it did surprise me a bit. I rarely see this type of honesty from educators, where they openly admit that the union’s goal is to protect the teachers, not the students. Interestingly, on their website the UFT claims it is “an advocate for public school students”. Now, some would argue that protected teachers = well-educated students, but I would disagree that it works out that way all the time or even most of the time.
On the other hand, there is no doubt in my mind that the overriding goal of parents is to protect their children. Parents want to insure excellence in the classroom for their children. Let’s be clear, although unions and parents are often supportive of each other, in many ways this is an adversarial model at work, with each side protecting its own interests. I would like this to be uppermost in the minds of all involved in education reform efforts, especially whenever the unions agree to participate with disingenuous claims that it’s all “for the children”.
As we at KTM have been saying for years, parents should not be shut out of the education debate. If teacher unions, politicians and education bureaucrats are the only ones allowed a place at the table, how likely is it that our children’s interests will be prioritized as they should be? Parents, specialists in the various disciplines and other interested parties should be included in order for there to be any chance for a fair and productive resolution of our nation’s education crisis.
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2008/09/parents-need-union.html
Thursday, August 27, 2009
a math class of 41 pupils
Ms. Sherry Tai, my young Singapore primary school math teacher (I think she was in her mid-20s) formed a personal bond with each one of us 41 students. 40+ students is a pretty typical class size at the primary and secondary school level. She was also our science teacher, our form teacher and our PE teacher, though plenty of other teachers taught our same class.
I remember her well because I was a "problem student" (partially because of my harebrained personality, partially because I had come from American middle school...) and she frequently confronted me about my performance.
What was her math class like? Ah, I remember sometimes she would be marking workbooks (and we'd be doing some other work, like practice problem sets), and she'd call people up individually about their work.
Being the problem student, I would be frequently called up of course. Being called up was annoying and sometimes intimidating because she'd be like, "why did you do this problem wrong?!" and you'd be like, "huh? I don't see what I did wrong?!" but then you'd be hushed with her explanation and sent back to your seat to redo the problem.
I'd feel sort of smug when the prefects and class monitor and monitress (and other model students) would get called up, and I wouldn't. Ahh, incentive for doing good work! As I got the hang of Singapore Math, I found myself being called up less and less. The dreaded 5-point word problems became less like monsters and more like delightful challenges I tackled with confidence. One thing that didn't seem to go away however, was my tendency to forget to bring some little thing to school (like say, a worksheet, an arts and crafts item required for that day, sometimes stationery, like correction pens...). A problem I suffered in American elementary school. A problem also suffered in college.
And oh yeah, correction pens. Let me tell you about those. In Singapore, stuff is often done with three sorts of pens. You need to bring a blue/black pen, a red pen, and a green pen to school. This colour requirement caused me endless grief initially (after moving from America) because I would have a knack of losing pens, or just not bringing all of them. But why this colour scheme?
Well, let's say you're doing a math workbook. You do the problem in blue/black ink. Your teacher (or your classmate) marks it in red ink. Sometimes, you do the marking for others, so you also need a red pen. If you get a problem wrong and receive it back, you're supposed to do the correction in green pen. (This scheme also readily applies to science and language work...) You do this for workbooks, worksheets, mock exams, real exams (after you get them back). You even do it for group work (dun dun dun). The colour scheme helps you keep track (and organise) about what you did wrong, and what you did right.
When I moved from America of course, I was not used to this system, so often I'd return marked workbooks without doing all of the required corrections, or I'd do the green pen corrections wrong, which usually resulted in a sharp call for "John Soong! Up here please!" every math class for the first few weeks. Yes, the corrections are supposed to include your working. (Didn't know that at first.) Yes, doing corrections in green ink for a 5-point problem you got 4 points off of was tedious.
Now, I actually have little idea what "rapid formative assessment" is supposed to mean rigourously. We had plenty of "assessment books" though, and as the PSLE approached, she made us buy additional assessment books on top of what the syllabus required, just so she could have the enjoyment of marking more of our work. Oh, and she would schedule remedial classes afterschool. For all 41 of us. ("Unless you had a 100 on your CA2 [no one did], you have to attend.") And by now, I'd faithfully do the problems, the working, the corrections (which became fewer) ... but forget things like the $2.50 I was supposed to bring to pay for the extra book, some parent's signature required for the remedial or the Edusave form. I think in one term (about two and a half months) I'd generally accumulate ten infractions.
None of the classwork was really graded. I can't remember the exact breakdown, but I think it's like the 2 CA exams account for like 30% of your grade and the two SA exams account for 70%. And the infractions ... well, other than being embarrassing, they aren't really life-changing. (What happened is that the group with the least amount of collective infractions at the end of the term won some sort of reward.) So I guess all those workbook problems were "formative assessments", sort of? Sometimes even one of the major exams (the CA1) does not have an impact on grade or has very low weighting (like 5%).
Does Singapore education have a cultural component? Prolly. But it's actually rather simple:
a) The work isn't graded. But teachers will nag you about it if you don't do it correctly. Incessantly. Even if you're only one out of 41 students.
b) It doesn't matter that the CA1 doesn't impact your final grade that much. It's just something you don't want to do badly on. Not only will the teachers nag you about bad results, so will your parents. And it goes on your report book. In fact your end-of-year grades don't affect your GPA, because GPA doesn't exist in primary and secondary school.
If you have a "bad home environment", your parents might not nag you about your performance, but there's still plenty of reprimand to face at school. In fact, my single mother almost never made me do my homework. My teachers did.
I remember her well because I was a "problem student" (partially because of my harebrained personality, partially because I had come from American middle school...) and she frequently confronted me about my performance.
What was her math class like? Ah, I remember sometimes she would be marking workbooks (and we'd be doing some other work, like practice problem sets), and she'd call people up individually about their work.
Being the problem student, I would be frequently called up of course. Being called up was annoying and sometimes intimidating because she'd be like, "why did you do this problem wrong?!" and you'd be like, "huh? I don't see what I did wrong?!" but then you'd be hushed with her explanation and sent back to your seat to redo the problem.
I'd feel sort of smug when the prefects and class monitor and monitress (and other model students) would get called up, and I wouldn't. Ahh, incentive for doing good work! As I got the hang of Singapore Math, I found myself being called up less and less. The dreaded 5-point word problems became less like monsters and more like delightful challenges I tackled with confidence. One thing that didn't seem to go away however, was my tendency to forget to bring some little thing to school (like say, a worksheet, an arts and crafts item required for that day, sometimes stationery, like correction pens...). A problem I suffered in American elementary school. A problem also suffered in college.
And oh yeah, correction pens. Let me tell you about those. In Singapore, stuff is often done with three sorts of pens. You need to bring a blue/black pen, a red pen, and a green pen to school. This colour requirement caused me endless grief initially (after moving from America) because I would have a knack of losing pens, or just not bringing all of them. But why this colour scheme?
Well, let's say you're doing a math workbook. You do the problem in blue/black ink. Your teacher (or your classmate) marks it in red ink. Sometimes, you do the marking for others, so you also need a red pen. If you get a problem wrong and receive it back, you're supposed to do the correction in green pen. (This scheme also readily applies to science and language work...) You do this for workbooks, worksheets, mock exams, real exams (after you get them back). You even do it for group work (dun dun dun). The colour scheme helps you keep track (and organise) about what you did wrong, and what you did right.
When I moved from America of course, I was not used to this system, so often I'd return marked workbooks without doing all of the required corrections, or I'd do the green pen corrections wrong, which usually resulted in a sharp call for "John Soong! Up here please!" every math class for the first few weeks. Yes, the corrections are supposed to include your working. (Didn't know that at first.) Yes, doing corrections in green ink for a 5-point problem you got 4 points off of was tedious.
Now, I actually have little idea what "rapid formative assessment" is supposed to mean rigourously. We had plenty of "assessment books" though, and as the PSLE approached, she made us buy additional assessment books on top of what the syllabus required, just so she could have the enjoyment of marking more of our work. Oh, and she would schedule remedial classes afterschool. For all 41 of us. ("Unless you had a 100 on your CA2 [no one did], you have to attend.") And by now, I'd faithfully do the problems, the working, the corrections (which became fewer) ... but forget things like the $2.50 I was supposed to bring to pay for the extra book, some parent's signature required for the remedial or the Edusave form. I think in one term (about two and a half months) I'd generally accumulate ten infractions.
None of the classwork was really graded. I can't remember the exact breakdown, but I think it's like the 2 CA exams account for like 30% of your grade and the two SA exams account for 70%. And the infractions ... well, other than being embarrassing, they aren't really life-changing. (What happened is that the group with the least amount of collective infractions at the end of the term won some sort of reward.) So I guess all those workbook problems were "formative assessments", sort of? Sometimes even one of the major exams (the CA1) does not have an impact on grade or has very low weighting (like 5%).
Does Singapore education have a cultural component? Prolly. But it's actually rather simple:
a) The work isn't graded. But teachers will nag you about it if you don't do it correctly. Incessantly. Even if you're only one out of 41 students.
b) It doesn't matter that the CA1 doesn't impact your final grade that much. It's just something you don't want to do badly on. Not only will the teachers nag you about bad results, so will your parents. And it goes on your report book. In fact your end-of-year grades don't affect your GPA, because GPA doesn't exist in primary and secondary school.
If you have a "bad home environment", your parents might not nag you about your performance, but there's still plenty of reprimand to face at school. In fact, my single mother almost never made me do my homework. My teachers did.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Math appreciation
One of the junior high schools in our district is an "international baccalaureate" school.
From the school's website:
An explanation of the MYP (Middle Years Progam) Mathematics program follows. Emphasis mine.
From the school's website:
International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB-MYP)
The IB program has been in existence for several decades and has now reached over 2,000 schools and 124 countries.It is an internationally recognized and highly reputable program designed to fully engage students with an aim of creating a better and more peaceful world. It is catered specifically to the early puberty and mid-adolescent student. The MYP helps students develop the attitudes, life skills and knowledge necessary to participate fully in a growing and changing world.
It is vested in the ethics and values of young people, and its unique characteristics allow students to make connections between subjects, link what they learn to the real world, and reflect on their learning.
An explanation of the MYP (Middle Years Progam) Mathematics program follows. Emphasis mine.
MYP mathematics expects all students to appreciate the beauty and usefulness of mathematics as a remarkable cultural and intellectual legacy of humankind, and as a valuable instrument for social and economic change in society.
MYP Aims
The aims of any MYP subject and of the personal project state in a general way what the teacher may expect to teach or do and what the student may expect to experience or learn. In addition they suggest ways in which the teacher and the student may be changed by the learning experience.
The aims of teaching and learning mathematics are to encourage and enable students to:
• recognize that mathematics permeates the world around us
• appreciate the usefulness, power and beauty of mathematics
• enjoy mathematics and develop patience and persistence when solving problems
• understand and be able to use the language, symbols and notation of mathematics
• develop mathematical curiosity and use inductive and deductive reasoning when solving problems
• become confident in using mathematics to analyze and solve problems both in school and in real-life situations
• develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to pursue further studies in mathematics
• develop abstract, logical and critical thinking and the ability to reflect critically upon their work and the work of others
• develop a critical appreciation of the use of information and communication technology in mathematics
• appreciate the international dimension of mathematics and its multicultural and historical perspectives.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Always worse than you think, Congressional version
It's always worse than you think. CPSIA, that is. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, passed overwhelmingly by Congress, is doing damage to vast swaths of childrens' fashion and toy industries as it mandates, among other things, outrageous new testing and tracking by manufacturers, retailers, and resellers to prove products are in line with overly stringent lower limits on lead levels, phthlates, and other chemicals.
The law is so poorly written that it's affecting non-childrens' products in all sorts of industries. Of course, it's mostly small businesses that can't afford to come into compliance. The educational products industry is filled with such small vendors. Here's a quote from one in an AP story:
From the Amend The CPSIA blog,
no microscopes at all.
But that's okay, you probably wouldn't have had anything to look at anyway.
From here:
It gets worse. Nearly all science kits could fall because of the lead in the insulation on the wires, as they did in the case of the Potato Clock.
From the above blog again:
On the bright side, at least it will end discovery learning.
The law is so poorly written that it's affecting non-childrens' products in all sorts of industries. Of course, it's mostly small businesses that can't afford to come into compliance. The educational products industry is filled with such small vendors. Here's a quote from one in an AP story:
But some small businesses, like American Educational Products in Fort Collins, Colo. — it sells classroom teaching aids like flash cards, animal models, globes and relief maps — say the testing and labeling costs are crippling to their operations even though their products are safe. They want the law amended to exempt products that present little or no risk to young children.Another industry hit hard is the scientific equipment industry. Here are some stories as they affect science classrooms.
"The challenge as a small business is that I cannot do it all (the testing) immediately," said Michael Warring, president of AMEP. "I would have to spend a full year of revenue to test every product I sell."
Warring recently laid off four of his 70 employees. In his 15 years with AMEP, he has not had one safety recall or complaint about lead.
Even so, Warring says he is required to test samplings of all products he makes and sells for young children, which he said costs about $2,000 per product. The tracking labels will add another cost, he says, since they must be a permanent marking on each product.
From the Amend The CPSIA blog,
Heathrow designs and manufactures items for use by trained laboratory technicians. ... Heathrow directly employs 13 individuals in Vernon Hills, Illinois and 1 in Great Britain. Heathrow recently received a request from one of its U.S. customers to certify that its products meet the standards set forth in the CPSIA.This isn't the only manufacturer that won't be passing CPSIA test for its microscopes. The solder on microscope light bulbs fails the lead test too. So
Why, you may ask, would a company that designs, and manufactures, products for use by trained laboratory technicians, in professional labs, be asked to certify that its products meet standards set forth in a law that deals with safety standards for children’s products? The answer is that..this particular customer of Heathrow sells the Heathrow product range into the middle school science classroom marketplace...Therefore, they think they need to have on file certification from their suppliers that these products meet the CPSIA standards...Our products are not designed for use by children... if products are not designed for use by children, they are not subject to the CPSIA. However, many companies are spooked by the fact that this law has mandatory $100,000 per occurrence fines and felony criminal sanctions. They do not want to go to jail for selling products that violate the CPSIA, nor can they afford to risk $100,000 per occurrence fines.
So, they will either get their certifications or drop the products. This means that our products will no longer be available for use by middle school science teachers (who apparently found a use for them in teaching biology, chemistry and other sciences)
no microscopes at all.
But that's okay, you probably wouldn't have had anything to look at anyway.
From here:
"First, Michael Warring of American Educational Products reports that a school opted to stop using AmEP's rocks to teach Earth Science and will instead rely on a POSTER... The continued ragging of consumer groups about "toxic toys" sullies the reputation of all good companies and their good products. In this case, rocks take on the "toxic" tag because they contain uncontrollable amounts of base elements found in nature.
It gets worse. Nearly all science kits could fall because of the lead in the insulation on the wires, as they did in the case of the Potato Clock.
From the above blog again:
"recently a manufacturer of the Potato Clock decided to test its version for compliance with the newfangled CPSIA. In their eager beaver-ness, they shot themselves in the foot, discovering (horrors) that the insulation on the product's potato wires contain trace amounts of lead over the arbitrary limits of CPSIA...
First, the company decided that since it now knew of the test failure, it had an immediate reporting obligation under CPSIA Section 15(b). In addition, they concluded they had an obligation to immediately stop sale, since continuing to sell would be another "knowing" violation - yes, kids, that's a felony with possible penalties of jail time and asset forfeiture (goodbye house and car!)...
The CPSC, apparently, upon receiving this (unwanted) 15(b) report concurred - yep, the wire insulation exceeds the standard, and yep, you have to stop sale. No recall was required by the CPSC BUT the company appears to have decided almost immediately that an informal recall was mandated. Why might they have decided such a thing? Well, perhaps they had a generalized fear of liability from dealers who might be sued for selling this "dangerous" device if it ever came to light that the product had impermissible lead in the wire insulation....
But the WORST part of this story, the most chilling, is the part about the wire insulation. The Potato Clock was recalled for having too much lead in the wire insulation. Why did it have lead in it at all? Wire insulation contains lead because it is recycled vinyl, probably recovered principally from scrap of other wire...
The real problem comes from the fact that the Potato Clock utilizes "ordinary" wire. Everyone and everything utilizes "ordinary" wire. No specially-coated wire is used in children's products and even if it were available, it would be too expensive for this kind of application. Potato Clocks should use "ordinary" wire. If ordinary wire will always fail the CPSIA standards because of its insulation, then everything using wire in schools can't be sold for use by children under 13 years of age. This means, among other things, no electricity education before the 7th grade in this country (and only for the 13 year olds in the room - the 12 year olds will have to leave the room until their birthday)."
On the bright side, at least it will end discovery learning.
Bleg: Curriculum Ratings or reviews for elementary math or reading?
I've probably even asked this question before, and I know that some of this was on oldKTM, but, here goes again.
We know about TERC Investigations and Everyday Mathematics, but what about the lesser known curricula, especially for elementary and middle school (the stuff before algebra 1)? Have there be good write ups for the various products of McGraw Hill or Houghton Mifflin? Anyone with personal experience with any other curricula?
What about reading products? Are all products claiming to be balanced literacy the same? How about McGraw Hill's treasures? Other than SRA, who does reasonable phonics based instruction?
We know about TERC Investigations and Everyday Mathematics, but what about the lesser known curricula, especially for elementary and middle school (the stuff before algebra 1)? Have there be good write ups for the various products of McGraw Hill or Houghton Mifflin? Anyone with personal experience with any other curricula?
What about reading products? Are all products claiming to be balanced literacy the same? How about McGraw Hill's treasures? Other than SRA, who does reasonable phonics based instruction?
Education Evolution: From the pop quiz to formative assessment
So, let me make sure I have this right:
Schools now ask students to take tests that don't count on stuff they haven't seen in order to determine how to judge later how much those same students have learned whether or not the teacher really teaches it. They call this summative assessment. And they give tests that don't count on stuff that they may or may not have seen in order to determine if any of them have enough of the skills to skip those subjects and do enrichment instead, and to determine which of them don't have the skills to do the new material anyway. They call this formative assessment. They might also give tests that don't count on stuff they saw in the past to break up students into groups according to what they know. They call that placement.
These are all seen as separate concepts.
But they don't give students homework that they grade. And they don't give pop quizzes that they grade.
No common sense-y.
The schools have separated the incentive to learn the material from their assessment.
That's really astoundingly stupid.
It's as if the schools forgot that gee, the reason we gave homework and pop quizzes was to *encourage students to actually practice and therefore learn* the material. And lo, it had the benefit that if all of the kids did poorly, it meant the teacher hadn't taught it properly, and needed to do something different.
Course correction by the teacher can occur immediately if you poll the class immediately. And course correction by the student can occur immediately if you poll the student immediately.
These are truths so obvious I bet most parents have no idea that this doesn't happen.
But no, we've moved beyond silly homework and pop quizzes. Kids need to learn to be self directed. Teachers have material to get through! Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!
The other part that sticks out is how these assessments are all separate ideas to solve separate goal, when giving the kids homework and quizzes and remediation as needed solves the problems that the summative assessment and formative assessments are needed for.
Again: a linear progression of material over the year, where each unit builds on the last, along with homework and pop quizzes and test to immediately determine if yesterday's material was understood by the class before moving on.
Common Sense-y.
Schools now ask students to take tests that don't count on stuff they haven't seen in order to determine how to judge later how much those same students have learned whether or not the teacher really teaches it. They call this summative assessment. And they give tests that don't count on stuff that they may or may not have seen in order to determine if any of them have enough of the skills to skip those subjects and do enrichment instead, and to determine which of them don't have the skills to do the new material anyway. They call this formative assessment. They might also give tests that don't count on stuff they saw in the past to break up students into groups according to what they know. They call that placement.
These are all seen as separate concepts.
But they don't give students homework that they grade. And they don't give pop quizzes that they grade.
No common sense-y.
The schools have separated the incentive to learn the material from their assessment.
That's really astoundingly stupid.
It's as if the schools forgot that gee, the reason we gave homework and pop quizzes was to *encourage students to actually practice and therefore learn* the material. And lo, it had the benefit that if all of the kids did poorly, it meant the teacher hadn't taught it properly, and needed to do something different.
Course correction by the teacher can occur immediately if you poll the class immediately. And course correction by the student can occur immediately if you poll the student immediately.
These are truths so obvious I bet most parents have no idea that this doesn't happen.
But no, we've moved beyond silly homework and pop quizzes. Kids need to learn to be self directed. Teachers have material to get through! Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!
The other part that sticks out is how these assessments are all separate ideas to solve separate goal, when giving the kids homework and quizzes and remediation as needed solves the problems that the summative assessment and formative assessments are needed for.
Again: a linear progression of material over the year, where each unit builds on the last, along with homework and pop quizzes and test to immediately determine if yesterday's material was understood by the class before moving on.
Common Sense-y.
pick one
Class size reduction or rapid formative assessment?: A comparison of cost-effectiveness
Stuart S. Yeh, a, University of Minnesota, Educational Policy and Administration, 86 Pleasant Street, S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States Received 18 October 2007; revised 26 June 2008; accepted 25 September 2008. Available online 2 October 2008.
Educational Research Review Volume 4, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 7-15
Abstract
The cost-effectiveness of class size reduction (CSR) was compared with the cost-effectiveness of rapid formative assessment, a promising alternative for raising student achievement. Drawing upon existing meta-analyses of the effects of student–teacher ratio, evaluations of CSR in Tennessee, California, and Wisconsin, and RAND cost estimates, CSR was found to be 124 times less cost effective [emphasis added] than the implementation of systems that rapidly assess student progress in math and reading two to five times per week. Analysis of the results from California and Wisconsin suggest that the relative effectiveness of rapid formative assessment may be substantially underestimated. Further research regarding class size reduction is unlikely to be fruitful, and attention should be turned to rapid formative assessment and other more promising alternatives.
"the persistence of bad industry practices"
in the September Atlantic:
Sitting here in Evanston Hospital, keeping watch over my mom and reading the National Reading Panel Reports of the Subgroups in the lulls between crises,** I had a blinding flash of recognition when I read the passage above.
ALMOST TWO YEARS ago, my father was killed by a hospital-borne infection in the intensive-care unit of a well-regarded nonprofit hospital in New York City. Dad had just turned 83, and he had a variety of the ailments common to men of his age. But he was still working on the day he walked into the hospital with pneumonia. Within 36 hours, he had developed sepsis. Over the next five weeks in the ICU, a wave of secondary infections, also acquired in the hospital, overwhelmed his defenses. My dad became a statistic—merely one of the roughly 100,000 Americans whose deaths are caused or influenced by infections picked up in hospitals. One hundred thousand deaths: more than double the number of people killed in car crashes, five times the number killed in homicides, 20 times the total number of our armed forces killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another victim in a building American tragedy.
About a week after my father’s death, The New Yorker ran an article by Atul Gawande profiling the efforts of Dr. Peter Pronovost to reduce the incidence of fatal hospital-borne infections. Pronovost’s solution? A simple checklist of ICU protocols governing physician hand-washing and other basic sterilization procedures. Hospitals implementing Pronovost’s checklist had enjoyed almost instantaneous success, reducing hospital-infection rates by two-thirds within the first three months of its adoption. But many physicians rejected the checklist as an unnecessary and belittling bureaucratic intrusion, and many hospital executives were reluctant to push it on them. The story chronicled Pronovost’s travels around the country as he struggled to persuade hospitals to embrace his reform.
It was a heroic story, but to me, it was also deeply unsettling. How was it possible that Pronovost needed to beg hospitals to adopt an essentially cost-free idea that saved so many lives? Here’s an industry that loudly protests the high cost of liability insurance and the injustice of our tort system and yet needs extensive lobbying to embrace a simple technique to save up to 100,000 people.
by David GoldhillAtlantic Monthly September 2009
The subject of formative assessment came up in the Comments thread for Allison's post about middle school math pre-tests.*
Sitting here in Evanston Hospital, keeping watch over my mom and reading the National Reading Panel Reports of the Subgroups in the lulls between crises,** I had a blinding flash of recognition when I read the passage above.
My blinding flash was not about hospital sterilization procedures and physician hand-washing, however. No. My blinding flash of recognition was all about formative assessment, (aka collect & correct).***
Ed and I have now been lobbying our school district to use formative assessment (pdf file) ("assessment for learning") for four years. Four years!
Moreover, the district has been paying formative assessment consultants to teach teachers how to use formative assessment for at least two years.
But do we have formative assessment?
No, we do not.
Not only do we not have formative assessment, we do have administrators sending FOILable emails to parents in which they openly refuse to provide formative assessment when directly asked to do so.
Formative assessment at its simplest means: find out what the kids learned, then reteach the stuff they didn't learn.
Can't get it; district won't do it. Or doesn't do it. Either one. I don't know any district that does.
And that is "deeply unsettling," as Goldhill says. How is it possible that parents have to beg schools to provide an essentially cost-free idea that stands a chance of getting kids to college ready to do college work?
update 1:49 Chicago:
* [news flash: at the moment, I can't log on to the old ktm site, which had a number of good posts about formative assessment. Usually when this happens the site eventually becomes available again, but we'll see. I really need to get it backed up, finally. Here's the URL for the search page: http://www.kitchentablemath.net/twiki/bin/view/Kitchen/CommentsSearch]
** Do you know the meaning of the words meaning troponin leakage? I do.
*** It's possible I have been writing an education blog for too long.
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