Ted Nutting on the math mess

I'm a high-school math teacher in Seattle. When I hear Mark Emmert, president of the University of Washington, say that this state is "at the bottom in the production of scientists and engineers," and warn that our graduates "will be washing the cars for the people who come here for the best jobs," I know what the problem is. It's math. We are failing to educate our children in mathematics. I know how that came about, and what we can do about it.

The problem is national in scope, but in Washington state our difficulties can be traced principally to Terry Bergeson, superintendent of public instruction for the past 12 years. She oversaw the writing of our state's weak, vague math standards, basing them on a "reform" idea to promote "discovery" learning. This has turned teachers into "facilitators" who "guide" children in learning activities. It has promoted "differentiated instruction," placing students of wildly differing abilities together where some students cannot do the required work, often to the detriment of those who can.

She has moved away from rigorous testing. The "reform" math she champions encourages such things as journals, portfolios and group projects that tend to form large parts of classroom grading systems, while test results are relegated to a lesser role. The math portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), aligned to her faulty standards, tests math skills at a low level. Even so, about half our 10th-graders fail it.

She has wasted millions of dollars on "professional development" to encourage teachers to put "reform" theories into practice. These theories are supposed to make it possible for all students to learn math. But few students know significant mathematics, and most know very little. About half of our students entering college now have to take remedial math. Many of our students who do succeed use private tutors, and the racial achievement gaps have widened. "Reform's" emphasis on equity and fairness has been revealed to be empty talk.

My experience tells me that we can fix this, and quickly. I am the Advanced Placement calculus teacher at Ballard High School. I don't teach Bergeson-style. I tell my students what they need to know, they do problems to understand how it works, and they demonstrate their knowledge and understanding through testing. Up until this year, we've insisted that our students who take AP calculus actually be able to do the work.

We at Ballard have by far the best AP calculus program in Seattle Public Schools, based on AP test scores. I have no special magnetism or charisma; I'm not a cult figure for teenagers. I have high standards and I require the students to work. If they don't work, they know they will probably flunk. But they do work, and I am proud of them. I also have the benefit of having an older textbook that doesn't fit the "reform math" model, and most of my students have had an excellent pre-calculus teacher the year before.

In most of our other math classes (and I doubt that Ballard is unique in this), we've tended to follow a "reform" model. We've passed students on from class to class; there is no meaningful threshold they must cross to enter a more-difficult class. Since we find that many students in our classes cannot do the work, we dumb down the courses. We say we are admitting unprepared students into our classes in order to "challenge" them.

But students should be challenged in the classes that they are qualified to take, not sent on to classes where they cannot do the work. Unfortunately, things are changing, even in our school's AP calculus classes: We're starting to admit unqualified students, and our program will soon begin to deteriorate.

It's not just Ballard's AP calculus program that is successful, and it's not just the top students. North Beach Elementary in Seattle [was this Niki Hayes' school? will find out] switched its math curriculum to Saxon Math in 2001. This excellent series teaches real math and does not follow Bergeson's fuzzy, reform-oriented ideology. North Beach did this with reluctant agreement from Seattle Public Schools because the PTA paid for the books and because the superintendent supported site-based decision-making. North Beach's passing rate on the WASL rose from 68 percent in 2000 to 94 percent in 2004 — and yet, every year parents worry that real math will be scrapped. Recently, the school has had to seek waivers to avoid having to teach the district's "reform" math.

Legislators have begun to understand the problem. At the Legislature's direction in 2007, the state Board of Education reviewed our state's math standards, finding they were failing. The Legislature set up a system to fix the problems, but that system gave Bergeson the opportunity to sabotage the process. She stacked the committees selected to rewrite the standards with like-minded ideologues. The results were so bad the Legislature refused to accept the rewritten standards, sending them to the Board of Education to fix.

Bergeson then stacked the committees set up to select curricula for state approval. That process is not complete, but the first results are discour-aging. The Legislature had required that the new mathematics standards be based on (among other things) the standards of Singapore, consistently a leader on international tests, but Bergeson's initial submission of texts ranked Singapore Math, that country's official curriculum (and a superior one), dead last out of 12.

Most school-district administrations have gone along with Bergeson and share responsibility for this mess. Even as an uproar arose nationally against the programs Bergeson promotes, Seattle started using two of them in elementary and middle schools.

None of this is necessary. Students can learn math. My students learn it. If our education leaders would follow the lead of our Legislature, stop ignoring obvious successes and support what actually works, we would see major improvements in just a few years.

Ted Nutting is the Advanced Placement calculus teacher at Ballard High School in Seattle.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

A formula for lifting Washington out of its math mess

Students should be challenged in the classes they are qualified to take.

one more reason to homeschool

Parents Say the Darndest Things

(Susan S via Joanne Jacobs)

Regarding Education Week Commentary

Readers might be interested in this information on "research":

A Close Examination of Jo Boaler’s Railside Report (pdf file)


Catherine here, parachuting into Concerned's post. Here is Mark Roulo's reaction:

Something that this paper makes clear, although only in passing, is that 40% of the CSU incoming freshmen cannot pass a test of 7th grade math.

CSU's charter is to take students from about the top 1/3 of the state (and effectively, mostly the bottom ½ of that 1/3 because the UC system tends to get the better students).

Pessimistically, one could conclude that only about 25% of California high school graduates can do math above a 7th grade level (NOTE: UC freshmen often need to take remedial math, too ...).

desperately seeking a French-speaking, McCain-voting, hockey mom

This is funny.

Ed occasionally does radio interviews with the French analogue to the BBC, and they've contacted him looking for French-speaking U.S. citizens to interview about the election.

Specifically, the category of person with whom they'd like to speak is a French-speaking American mom, preferably more middle class than the folks they're likely to encounter in Manhattan (hence the "hockey mom"), who is willing to do a radio interview about the presidential election.

I said, "Well, I know at least one person on the blog who speaks fluent Spanish, and I wouldn't be surprised if she speaks French, too."

"That's great. She doesn't have to be fluent in French."

"I'll ask her," I said. Then: "I think she's probably voting for Obama."

"She's an Obama supporter?"

"I think so."

"They need a McCain supporter."

Apparently they have tons of French-speaking U.S. moms who are voting for Obama.

I cracked up. We both did.

Anyway, I'm sure it will be a good show and a good thing to do, so if there's a French-speaking female McCain voter out there who'd like to do an interview with French radio, contact me at cijohn @ verizon.net & I'll put you in touch with them.

Scarsdale adopts Singapore Math

Scarsdale looks to Singapore for the new math
By Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy • The Journal News • October 9, 2008

...[T]he Scarsdale school district adopts Singapore math in kindergarten through fifth grade, replacing Trailblazers, used in the district for a decade.

The textbook series, written by the Ministry of Education of Singapore, is called Primary Mathematics, and Scarsdale is the first public school district to use it in New York as its core curriculum.

Until last year, the district used Trailblazers, textbooks aligned with the so-called reform mathematics - often derided as fuzzy math - based on recommendations originally published in 1989 by the influential National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

That approach called for a de-emphasis on manual arithmetic in favor of students' attention to the process leading to the answer. Math texts following the reform philosophy also have been criticized as covering too many topics in a haphazard sequence.

"The mainstream U.S. math curriculum is often seen as being a mile wide and an inch deep," said Nancy Pavia, the district's math helping teacher.

In 2006, the math council released the Curriculum Focal Points report, which identified important mathematical topics in each grade - from kindergarten through eighth - that students need to understand deeply and thoroughly for future mathematics learning.

This report was, at least in part, the result of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, an international assessment of the mathematics and science knowledge of fourth- and eighth-grade students around the world. The study found that students from many Asian countries outperformed their U.S. counterparts.

Of the 46 countries that participated in the study, U.S. eighth-graders ranked 15th in 2003. That was the nation's best score in the three years the study was conducted (in 1997 it was 28th), but it still was behind most other industrialized countries.

Singapore topped the list every time. Math taught in Singapore is part of a national curriculum designed by the Ministry of Education. It emphasizes the development of a strong number sense, mental-math skills and a deep understanding of place value.

"The curriculum is based on a progression from concrete experience, using manipulatives, to a pictorial stage and finally to the abstract level," Pavia said.

Last year, a 30-member committee of Scarsdale teachers and administrators reviewed the district's curriculum based on the Focal Points report.

[snip]

The new textbooks will look a lot "cleaner and clearer" compared with Trailblazers, which is heavily language-based.

"There will be fewer words on the pages, and it will be less confusing to students," she said.

Trailblazers used a "spiral approach," touching upon many concepts each year and revisiting the same topics in later grades, all while not learning them to mastery.

Cadalzo explains it thus: "In second grade, for instance, the children use multiplication tables from 2 to 5, but they haven't memorized them; and when they come to third grade, we end up relearning them. But now, they will have learned them in second grade and we can just concentrate on multiplication tables for 6, 7, 8 and 9."

The lack of drills in U.S. schools might help explain the popularity of the Japan-based Kumon tutoring centers, which have sprouted throughout the states as parents look for supplements to cement the basics. The Kumon math program focuses on drilling children on basics.

There are 1,500 Kumon centers in North America, including one in Scarsdale, home to a consistently high-performing school district.

"As an Asian mother, I am very happy with the new curriculum," said Indian-born and -raised Shobha Bhatnagar, mother of an Edgewood second-grader.

[snip]

Jeffrey Thomas, president of SingaporeMath.com, the Oregon-based U.S. distributor of Primary Mathematics since 1998, estimated that 1,000 schools nationally are using the books as a supplement, with 200 using them as their core curriculum.

"Initially, most of the demand came from parents of homeschooled children and the gifted and talented programs, but now it's the mainstream schools," he said. "We are very proud to add Scarsdale to the list. They are a class act."

[snip]

"Scarsdale is not a district to rest on its laurels. We are always looking to do even better," she said. "We want to give our students every opportunity to learn math to their full capacity because, ultimately, they will be competing in the global economy."

In the past, Cadalzo's students came to their own understanding of math through guided exploration, which he conceded they were more "likely to forget." But this year he planned to teach the basics until his students can "feel it in their bones."

Sofia Lacagnina sat at her desk flipping through the pages of the slim Primary Mathematics, and said, "Trailblazers was fatter and heavier. This book is thin. I love this book."

Reach Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy at svenugop@lohud.com or 914-694-5004.

So.

Scarsdale gets Singapore Math.

Irvington gets Project Lead the Way.

That should prop up housing values in a crashing world economy.

TreadDesk

Ed bought a vertical desk^* this summer that's great. In theory I'm getting one, too, but that project seems to be languishing on the to-do list.

Just saw this at 43 Folders: TreadDesk.

Not sure about treadmill desks, which didn't end up working out for Seth Roberts. Reminds me of the Hawaii Chair, a little.




My mom had an idea: put one of those mini-bikes under your desk and pedal while you're working.

At least, I think it's a great idea. I tried it a couple of years ago, but it didn't pan out. Not sure why.


^* I think that's the one.

Where Has All the Knowledge Gone?

Or, "We Have Co-opted Another Word".

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/10/08/07boaler_ep.h28.html?tmp=82481106

Jo Boaler shows the best that they can do. If you're like me, the "anti-knowledge" term will get you thinking in the wrong direction. After a while, you will stop and say "What?????"

The underlying theme is that parents are stupid. Not really. They're just stupid when they listen to any group other than the schools.

At best, you can say that there is a difference of opinion over what constitutes proper research. You can also say that there is a difference of opinion over what constitutes a proper math education. But the point is that parents should not be allowed to decide.

Actually, Jo Boaler's use of "anti-knowledge" is misleading. She is claiming that groups are trying to hide the "knowledge" that curricula (I guess like Everyday Math.) are effective because the studies don't meet certain criteria. Then she co-opts Sen. Obama's use of knowledge to mean what she is talking about. Pretty soon we're going to lose control over the words "content" and "mastery".

Is this the best level of debate we can expect?

Planners & Searchers

Well, the rest of my day is shot, so I figured I'd get these links up quickly:

• Greg Mankiw correspondent on fundamentalists and realists (I suspect that that "realist" is a bit of a self-serving term here - or am I wrong?)
• William Easterly on The White Man's Burden (fantastic! drop everything & read now)
• Dietrich Dorner's The Logic of Failure (life-altering)

Here's Dorner on the universe:

In complex systems with many interlocking elements...the effectiveness of a measure almost always depends on the context within which the measure is pursued. A measure that produces good effects in one situation may do damage in another, and contextual dependencies mean that there are few general rules (rules that remain valid regardless of conditions surrounding them) that we can use to guide our actions. Every situation has to be considered afresh.
p. 95

At this point I'm so flabbergasted by the "financial meltdown"^* that I can't even tell whether "there are few general rules" is or is not a general rule.

In any event, re: the public schools, if you want to feel like a native, pick up Easterly's book.

Then ask yourself if the natives are restless.


^* quotation marks because who knows what the term for this moment will be tomorrow?

The Race - TIMES review at last

The Race Between Education and Technology being one of the most important books on education I've read, it's been disheartening watching it sink from view.

So it was good news, today, to discover that the TIMES had finally published a review in the daily paper. I assume a Sunday review will be forthcoming.

I hope so.

DURING the first 70 years of the 20th century, inequality declined and Americans prospered together. Over the last 30 years, by contrast, the United States developed the most unequal distribution of income and wages of any high-income country.

[snip]

Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, two Harvard economists, think [something can be done]. Their book, “The Race Between Education and Technology” (Harvard, $39.95), contains many tables, a few equations and a powerfully told story about how and why the United States became the world’s richest nation — namely, thanks to its schools.

The authors skillfully demonstrate that for more than a century, and at a steady rate, technological breakthroughs — the mass production system, electricity, computers — have been increasing the demand for ever more educated workers. And, they show, America’s school system met this demand, not with a national policy, but in grassroots fashion, as communities taxed themselves and built schools and colleges.

Beginning in the 1970s, however, the education system failed to keep pace, resulting, Ms. Goldin and Mr. Katz contend, in a sharply unequal nation.

[snip]

The authors’ argument is really two books in one. One offers an incisive history of American education, especially the spread of the public high school and the state university system. It proves to be an uplifting tale of public commitment and open access. The authors remind us that the United States long remained “the best poor man’s country.” A place where talent could rise.

The other story rigorously measures the impact of education on income. The authors’ compilation of hard data on educational attainment according to when people were born is an awesome achievement, though not always a gripping read. [ed.: true]

They show that by the 1850s, America’s school enrollment rate already “exceeded that of any other nation.” And this lead held for a long time. By 1960, some 70 percent of Americans graduated from high school — far above the rate in any other country. College graduation rates also rose appreciably.

In the marketplace, such educational attainment was extremely valuable, but it didn’t produce wide economic disparity so long as more people were coming to the job market with education. The wage premium — or differential paid to people with a high school or a college education — fell between 1915 and 1950.

But more recently, high school graduation rates flatlined at around 70 percent. American college attendance rose, though college graduation rates languished. The upshot is that while the average college graduate in 1970 earned 45 percent more than high school graduates, the differential three decades later exceeds 80 percent.

“In the first half of the century,” the authors summarize, “education raced ahead of technology, but later in the century technology raced ahead of educational gains.”

Minding the Inequality Gap
By STEPHEN KOTKIN
Published: October 4, 2008

Unfortunately, Kotkin concludes his review with a breezy dismissal of the entire book, start to finish, without quite seeming to have noticed that's what he's done:

Averages can be deceptive. Most of the gains of the recent flush decades have not gone to the college-educated as a whole. The top 10 or 20 percent by income have education levels roughly equivalent to those in the top 1 percent, but the latter account for much of the boom in inequality. This appears to be related to the way taxes have been cut, and to the ballooning of the financial industry’s share of corporate profits.

It remains to be seen how a reconfigured financial industry and possible new tax policies might affect the 30-year trend toward greater inequality.

Right. Thank you. Harvard economists don't think about stuff like averages being deceptive; that's what we've got New York Times book reviewers for. Plus -- reconfiguring the financial industry and possible new tax policies -- what a great idea! I feel certain that possible new tax policies and reconfiguring the financial industry will solve that pesky within group inequality Goldin and Katz spend so much time banging on about.

The Race is a book about intellectual capital. Goldin and Katz call it "human capital," but it amounts to the same thing as far as I can tell. The rich have intellectual capital, the poor do not.

This happens to be true. Try Googling the words "intellectual capital" and see what you get. Yup. Rich people. Or try "human capital." Same deal. Rich people have it, poor people don't. The way rich people get it is by going to reasonably good schools for many years and acquiring advanced knowledge as a result. Or, if you're not rich, you acquire intellectual capital by having your mother wake you up at 4 a.m. every morning to teach you the things your school isn't teaching you.

So I'm guessing that increasing taxes on the rich will not solve the problem of the rich having staggeringly higher levels of educational attainment than the poor no matter how much money we throw at Head Start.

The problem with The Race, possibly, is that the argument is both too familiar and too radical at the same time.

Everyone thinks education is the key to earning a good living. Well, everyone except Charles Murray.

But no one actually believes it.

Steve Levitt summarizes The Race in 2 sentences
Jimmy graduates

The anemic response of skill investment to skill premium growth
The declining American high school graduation rate: Evidence, sources, and consequences
Pushy parents raise more successful kids

The Race Between Education and Technology book review
The Race Between Ed & Tech: excerpt & TOC & SAT scores & public loss of confidence in the schools
The Race Between Ed & Tech: the Great Compression
the Great Compression, part 2
ED in '08: America's schools
comments on Knowledge Schools
the future
the stick kids from mud island
educated workers and technology diffusion
declining value of college degree
Goldin, Katz and fans
best article thus far: Chronicle of Higher Education on The Race
Tyler Cowan on The Race (NY Times)
happiness inequality down...
an example of lagging technology diffusion in the U.S.
the Times reviews The Race, finally
IQ, college, and 2008 election
Bloomington High School & "path dependency"
the election debate that should have been

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

This information is from the Leading Minds' K-12 Math Education Forum in Baltimore April 28, 2008. http://www.baltimorecp.org/leadingminds/index.htm

What's Missing from Math Standards? Focus, Rigor, and Coherence
by William H. Schmidt
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/spring2008/schmidt.htm

The following videos can be viewed at: http://www.ezcasts.com/estreamingmedia/doors/bcp/default.asp?producer=980

"Why US Students Are Falling Behind"
Dr. William H. Schmidt of Michigan State University

"It's a New World Out There"
Dr. R. James Milgram, Professor of Math at Stanford University

Linda Darling-Hammond on teaching as a profession

OK, so I was trying to get the story on Linda Darling-Hammond, who is, with Jeanne Century, the Obama advisor I'm most leary of, and I found this answer to the question of whether teaching is or is not a profession:

In this country, teaching is not yet a profession. A profession really has at least three features. First of all, everyone who is admitted to entry into the profession commits themselves to practice with the welfare of clients first and foremost as their major goal. It's like the Hippocratic oath in medicine. Second, everyone who's admitted to practice in a profession has demonstrated that they've mastered a common knowledge base and that they know then how to use that knowledge on behalf of the clients that they're there to serve. And third, a profession takes responsibility for defining, transmitting, and enforcing some standards of practice to protect the people who they're there to serve. Teaching has not acquired those three traits yet.

Interview with Linda Darling Hammond

That is the simplest and most concise definition of what it is to be a professional I've seen. Ever.

the last word

Just caught this comment on a Flypaper post re: Flypaper's proposals for engineering a renewable NCLB:

Terrible policy. Why bother to reauthorize something so gutted? For parents, NCLB and IDEA are the only way to get a foot in the door or beyond the schoolhouse gates. Ensure states can no longer game the system and parents might get a seat at the table. Meaningful education advocacy starts in the home. Take a look at the increase of parents turning to homeschooling when they realize the house never loses.

FeFe 

The house never loses -- perfect!

That's it, exactly. Individual parents are the only advocates individual students have, and we can't get past the schoolhouse door. 

I will carry on supporting NCLB out of sheer cussedness^* but my belief is that until children have advocates and schools have a clientele (that would be us: parents and taxpayers) it's mostly going to be a matter of rearranging the deck chairs on buying brand-new SMARTChairs for the Titanic.

Seriously, what more is there to say?

The house never loses.

Last word.

^*  well, not just sheer cussedness

Here we go again

Stuff like this really honks me off, and this is even worse (Darren, you owe me blood pressure medication).

Teachers at Soquel High School have agreed not to wear "Educators for Obama" buttons in the classroom after a parent complained that educators were attempting to politically influence his daughter and other students.

These teachers must not have much to do in the classroom, if they have all this time to waste on topics that have nothing to do with the curriculum. But I promised myself I wouldn't rant, so I won't. Instead, I'll offer an alternative for those who just can't keep from bringing the election into the classroom -- an alternative that does not push a candidate or a party, and actually has something to do with learning the class material -- and critical thinking, in the literal, and not the "think like a slobbering leftist" education school definition. Wow, how about that!

Student interest is a great motivator, particularly when you teach something many students find boring, or even intimidating, like I did. One thing we did that was very successful was build several applications with the tools we were going to cover that grabbed student interest when we said, "At the end of the semester, you'll be able to do this, too."

One of these was a simulation model that based on the scores for all of the games that season predicted the winner of the Superbowl (we had one for the NBA finals and another for the World Series, depending on which semester we were in).

So if you absolutely must address the election in class, here is one way you can do it where the students will actually learn something, and contains not a hint of advocacy or indoctrination.

Have students build an application that predicts the results of the election. Remind them that the more variables they incorporate, the more accurate it will likely be, and encourage them to make it as complex as they like.

You'd want to break them into teams to do this, and give them time to talk about what variables they would want to incorporate, and how. You should probably give them a list of sources for data, like realclearpolitics.com, gallup.com, and rasmussenreports.com. In fact, give them a whole class period to do nothing but plan their model, figure out where they'd get the data, and assign people in the team to do various tasks.

I'd give them a week to turn in the models. After going through them, you can pull several up with different results and as a class, pick apart the applications and discuss why they got different results (this is what is known as a learning experience). You can then, again as a class, discuss which of the models is/are most likely to accurately predict the results, and why. You can even give bonus points to the team whose model most accurately predicts the election.

See? You addressed the election, and you didn't have them sing creepy Hitler Youth songs.

If you think about it, these models incorporate a lot of mathematical knowledge in many different areas, and all through the model. Take collecting the data, say, polls. How are they going to deal with the different levels of statistical error in different polls? How will they deal with different party weights in different polls? What, other than polls, will they use as input variables, and how will they incorporate them into the model? For example, if they're going to look at the number of voters who went for Hillary in the primaries and turn that into support for McCain, how, exactly, are they going to do it? What algorithm will they use, and what will they base it on? And would they also want to use another variable, say, Democrat respondents who only lean Democrat in the election, or are undecided to calculate their Hillary conversion variable?

And what about actual election day statistics, will they use those? If so, which variables? How will they incorporate them?

You can turn just about anything into a real, learning experience in the classroom if you just think about it. Unfortunately, "thinking" seems to be an alien concept to many teachers these days.

The learning isn't only in creating the models. The learning -- and critical thinking -- is also in analyzing the models and comparing them once they've been done. What makes a good model? What makes this model more accurate than that one? Would this be a more accurate model if we tweaked the algorithms, and if so, how would we tweak them? You get the idea.

When my students are working in teams, I usually migrate from team to team, playing devil's advocate, and gently nudging them when they're completely off track (I call this guided constructivism). With a project like this, I would probably limit my input to making sure they understood, and correcting fundamental errors, like only taking into consideration the popular vote. Oh. And I would only do something like this after the students had all of the necessary knowledge and skills to actually build a working application. Sorry, but if you think turning students loose on their own to do complex projects like this is a good way to introduce them to new skills, you have no business within a hundred miles of a classroom.

(We talked about doing this with one of the sports championships, don't remember which now, but decided against it because making the data usable would require complex Excel text functions we had not covered in class.)

Cross-posted at Right Wing Nation

rewind

final paragraph in today's Times story on Bill Ayers and Barack Obama:

“If Barack Obama says he’s willing to talk to foreign leaders without preconditions,” Mr. Hayden said, “I can imagine he’d be willing to talk to Bill Ayers about schools. But I think that’s about as far as their relationship goes.”

Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths
New York Times, 10-4-2008

I may have to start channeling Brad DeLong re: Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?^*

How is it possible that we have the New York Times ending a story on Barack Obama and Bill Ayers with a Tom Hayden quip drawing an analogy between Bill Ayers and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?^** Bill Ayers is to U.S. public schools as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to U.S. foreign interests: a guy Senator Obama is willing to talk to!

Does this not pique one's curiosity?

It piques mine.

If we had a better press corps, the Times would understand that for instructivist fans of the liberal arts (a category that ought to include reporters for the Times seeing as how they wouldn't be reporters for the Times without an education in the liberal arts) "Barack Obama is willing to talk to Bill Ayers about schools" is where the story begins, not where it ends. A story about Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, whose entire relationship, as far as I can tell, was about the schools ought to actually say something about the schools.

e.g.: What kinds of educational projects did the Annenberg board fund?

What kinds of projects did it not fund?

I say we get Jim Dwyer to do the whole thing over again. Get me rewrite.


what is social justice teaching, anyway?

Back when she hosted Bill Ayers and Sol Stern on her Education Week blog, eduwonkette asked the question one might have expected a reporter for the New York Times to ask:

[I]t is not clear to me that teaching for social justice involves a particular pedagogical approach. Wouldn’t KIPP teachers claim to be teaching for social justice?

As it turns out, there are simple answers to this question:

1. "Teaching for social justice," aka critical pedagogy, does involve a particular pedagogical approach. Teaching for social justice means teaching via inquiry so as to reject the "banking" view of education, whose best-known proponent is E.D. Hirsch. E.D. Hirsch, following Pierre Bourdieu, argues that knowledge is a form of intellectual capital: The rich have it, the poor do not. Teaching core knowledge, which is knowledge in the liberal arts, to disadvantaged children means sharing the wealth. For Bill Ayers & c., those are fighting words. Hirsch is one of the major intellectual defenders of the triumphant conservative agenda in education, etc.

2. Yes, the KIPP folks would "claim" to be teaching for social justice, but they would not get a sympathetic hearing from professors of critical pedagogy:

So I have this discussion class that is supposed to be us sharing things about our student teaching experiences. So far, this has not happened. Last week, as I said, we discussed the prison-industrial complex. THIS week we started off class with a free word association involving the words liberal, progressive, and radical. (We don't even talk about conservatism in this class. It is definitely off the table. Not that I'm particularly conservative, but I would say there's a kind of intellectual bullying going on here). This exercise took about 45 minutes.

The only amusing part was when a girl associated "radical" with "crazy" and our instructor got pissed. He was like, "now you're just disrespecting someone's belief system." It was ridiculous. He is some kind of Marxist/socialist/radical and really does not try to hide it. Meanwhile, he tells us that we have to be careful not to indoctrinate our kids in any particular ideology when we're teaching social studies. I would say this scores low on the self-awareness scale.

So anyway, throughout this exercise I'm thinking, this is not so relevant to teaching. Usually when something is being taught, I pretend I'm about to get up in front of a class of 30 children, and I ask myself, "is this piece of information or idea going to help me in front of these kids?" If the answer is no, I feel frustrated. I would say I feel frustrated about 95% of the time at school.

I figure that I should probably say something about the angry inside me, so I raise my hand and ask, "why are we doing this exercise? I don't really understand. What does this have to do with teaching?" The instructor responds that he didn't just want to tell us the definitions of these words, because then he would be making the mistake of placing himself as the expert, thus invalidating any ideas that we had. Right.

I explained that what I had meant was, "why are these definitions important right now? How will this make me a better teacher?" Some kids raise their hands to respond. They pretty much say that these conversations are helping them to think about and formulate their political beliefs. First of all, where were they in college? Second, do you care about their political beliefs? Will the kids? I don't, that's for sure.

People seem to think that politics is important in this business. But it's not. Charter schools are supported by all kinds of people: from liberals as pink as the day they were born to conservatives who would wrestle a five dollar bill away from their mothers. If you are committed to a system that works, then you don't need politics because we know what works.

[snip]

Ok. So then we read a very inflammatory article about the "pedagogy of poverty." I won't go into it, because it was another one of those "our public schools are trying to control the students' minds. We should let them be free!" Really this is not the issue. Also, the guy says that if you want a highly disciplined school, you may or may not be a bigot. He actually used the word bigot.

We got onto the topic of cultural advantages that middle class kids have, such as listening to their parents discuss different issues, going to museums, having more books, etc. Everyone was decrying the fact that poor kids don't have the same things, and that they come into pre-K already behind. When they continue falling behind, middle school and high school teachers complain that "there just isn't enough time" to teach them, particularly with the mandated curriculum dictated by state exams.

I pointed out that, if what people were saying was correct, then that would mean that urban kids should have more time in the classroom, longer school days, and longer school years. This would allow them to catch up and give their teachers the chance to cover everything they wanted. I provided the KIPP schools as an example of a school system that does this, and gets amazing results. It works. More time in school and good instruction works.

My instructor was not pleased with this, though. He thought the idea was too "militaristic." He said, "I mean, what's the end goal?" I was flabbergasted, once again. Doesn't anyone get it? The goal is to give kids the skills and knowledge they need to choose the kind of lives they want to live. Period, end of story, I no longer want to talk to you, stupid idiot. But he has this whole notion of making people "good citizens" or getting them to "think critically" about the world. Ask yourself, what would you want for your child? Would you want her to get a great academic education and be able to do whatever she wanted, or would you want someone to teach her "how to be a good citizen" or "how to think critically"? I know, me too. And if the chips were down, my instructor would admit the same thing. The fact is that schools like KIPP are vaulting kids OUT OF POVERTY. They're giving them a fighting chance. And the concept of the schools is not that complex. Their motto is: Work hard. Be nice. And everything boils down to that in the end. There's no magic curriculum bullet. It's just hard work. This guy, this instructor, he so decries poverty and "keeping poor kids poor" and "the pedagogy of poverty" but it is HIS reluctance to accept WHAT WORKS FOR KIDS that keeps them where they are.

I really don't understand. And I'm so angry about it.

oh, snap

That account was written by a young woman studying for a Masters degree in education at Columbia Teacher's College, one of the institutions that trained Bill Ayers. When she finished her degree, she took a job at KIPP.

Proponents of critical pedagogy are philosophically and practically opposed to those who see knowledge as intellectual capital. These are enemy camps. Like it or not.

There are those who believe that education is the Civil Rights issue of the 21st century. For the next president, who will have to deal with NCLB, two roads diverge in a yellow wood: the path of inquiry and the path of knowledge.

The path of Palo Freire in Guinea-Bissau and the path of KIPP: Knowledge Is Power Program.

Is it true that Senator Obama, if elected president, will talk to Bill Ayers about schools?


extra credit

Girl in shorts, a Mom, recovering attorney, post-modern neo-feminist, enthusiastic regenerated dyke, unlikely punk, nice Catholic girl, passionate freedom-loving libertarian, thinking conservative, sappy romantic, spiritual redneck, softball enthusiast, shopaholic and unrepentant flirt, also wants to know who's going to be running the Department of Education.

Apparently, she went to ed school.




Paperback: 800 pages
Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (November 26, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0805859284
ISBN-13: 978-0805859287


^* have not actually read DeLong's post re: Why oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corp?
^** helpful hint: a colleague of Ed's says the only way she can remember Ahmadinejad is to think: "A man's dinner jacket"

Fluenz

I'm starting to think this educational telepresence thing might work.


lefty book recommendation

Independent George on the pundits and their ways

re: March of the pundits, part 3

That thread really is astonishing. On the one hand, you have a professional backing EM in vague generalities, while the "civilians" independently demolish her every argument with specifics about the most minute detail. It's pretty much the model of an engaged, informed citizenry participating in the public sphere - and the reaction was pretty much the model of an entrenched, indifferent bureaucracy.

October 3, 2008 10:35 AM

[snip]

The worst part is Ms. Cullen's constant refrain for the parents to 'give EM a chance', when it was painfully obvious that they were intimately familiar with EM, and and were clearly documenting all of its deficiencies based on first-hand experience. On the flip side, it was equally apparent that she had only passing familiarity with Singapore Math, and was completely unable to address the numerous substantive issues being brought up. And somehow, she manages to dismiss the entire debate as just another battle in the Math Wars without ever directly addressing the substantive issues mentioned. It's mind-boggling.

October 3, 2008 1:08 PM

You can say that again.


march of the pundits, part 1
speaking of pundits
march of the pundits, part 2
how to change the system
parents need a union
Independent George on the pundits and their ways
one is a nutjob, twenty five are powerful
first person

Benchmarks per the Nat'l Math Advisory Panel

In response to a question in one of the comments regarding the spirited discussion at Eduwonk's site regarding Everyday Math, here is the link to what students should know by what grade. Table 2 (page 20) of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel's final report, contains the panel's recommended benchmarks for the critical foundations of math skills/concepts that students should master in order to be prepared for algebra in the 8th grade



Fluency With Whole Numbers
1) By the end of Grade 3, students should be proficient with the addition and subtraction of whole numbers.
2) By the end of Grade 5, students should be proficient with multiplication and division of whole numbers.
Fluency With Fractions
1) By the end of Grade 4, students should be able to identify and represent fractions and decimals, and compare them on a number line or with other common representations of fractions and decimals.
2) By the end of Grade 5, students should be proficient with comparing fractions and decimals and common percent, and with the addition and subtraction of fractions and decimals.
3) By the end of Grade 6, students should be proficient with multiplication and division of fractions and decimals.
4) By the end of Grade 6, students should be proficient with all operations involving positive and negative integers.
5) By the end of Grade 7, students should be proficient with all operations involving positive and negative fractions.
6) By the end of Grade 7, students should be able to solve problems involving percent, ratio, and rate and extend this work to proportionality.
Geometry and Measurement
1) By the end of Grade 5, students should be able to solve problems involving perimeter and area of triangles and all quadrilaterals having at least one pair of parallel sides (i.e., trapezoids).
2) By the end of Grade 6, students should be able to analyze the properties of two-dimensional shapes and solve problems involving perimeter and area, and analyze the properties of three dimensional shapes and solve problems involving surface area and volume.
3) By the end of Grade 7, students should be familiar with the relationship between similar triangles and the concept of the slope of a line.


UPDATE: On page xvi of the NMP's report is the following:


"A focused, coherent progression of mathematics learning, with an emphasis on proficiency with key topics, should become the norm in elementary and middle school mathematics curricula. Any approach that continually revisits topics year after year without closure is to be avoided"

March of the pundits, part 3

at eduwonk

I haven't read the entire thread, currently standing at 66 comments, so perhaps matters took a turn for the better after I left. At that point the question I was asking myself was: When a parent says that a curriculum has failed to teach his child, should a Fordham Fellow listen?

How about several parents?

(How about several parents backed by a posse of mathematicians?)

What is the relationship of education think tanks to parents?

.....................

more later

I'm off to Hogwarts to hear a mom speak about losing her son to a drug overdose. After that, I plan to be up half the night thinking about this mom who lost her son to a drug overdose.

But first, Christian turns 30 this weekend! Time for cake.


march of the pundits, part 1
speaking of pundits
march of the pundits, part 2
how to change the system
parents need a union
Independent George on the pundits and their ways
one is a nutjob, twenty five are powerful
first person

good-bye...

....to the New York Sun.

Here's hoping Andrew Wolf will write a blog.

new blog - Why Public Education Is Failing

an email from Laurie Rogers:

Good afternoon.

I want to tell you that I developed a blog for people in Spokane who want to discuss public education.

It's located at Betrayed - Why Public Education Is Failing.

As all blogs do, it gives people (especially parents, teachers and older students) a chance to speak anonymously. Here in Spokane, those groups otherwise have little voice, and the situation is dire.

This blog is new, so I'm still building the link list. If you know of other education links you would like me to add, please let me know. The more information Spokane parents have, the better off they'll be.

The article I posted most recently on the blog (about Terry Bergeson's manipulation of the data) was turned down flat by the local newspaper, as well as by several other papers in the state. If they refused it because of my writing style, the length or perhaps the opening paragraphs, I also haven't seen much interest in following up on the information within the article. There might be self-interests at play, or perhaps an unwillingness or inability to check out my data, to confront the thing head on, to stand up to OSPI and its lawyers, or to take what I'm saying seriously ...

Blogs often begin out of extreme frustration, and that's what happened here. The people are - for all intents and purposes - being lied to consistently and deliberately by people who hold their children's futures in their hands. And yet, education coverage in Spokane is weak. The public is not informed. So I took matters into my own hands. This is frustration all math advocates know well, having been gallantly battling for decades.

Your feedback is very welcome. If you feel I have something in error, please don't be shy about telling me. I'm trying to get this right, and I'm trying to get it out there in whichever way I can. It isn't easy, as you know. If you think the articles are of value, please pass the link on to anyone else who might be interested. The election is just over a month away, and time is short ...

Thank you for listening,
Laurie Rogers
Children's Advocate
Safer Child, Inc.
lrogers@saferchild.org

I've added the emphasis.

oops --- must run

duty calls

back tomorrow

...... Have I mentioned I spent 5 hours in the local emergency room today?

Well, I did.

Apparently, there is such a thing as infectious colitis, which my oldest probably has, but who knows.

The main problem with having more than one or two kids is way too many bodies requiring way too much diagnosing.

the Abelian Grape

Another math professor down the rabbit hole!

The Good Samaritan

I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned the fact that C’s new school, Hogwarts, is in the city.

It’s in a part of the city folks around here don’t frequent, a neighborhood familiar to me almost entirely from movies starring people like Robert De Niro or Al Pacino or Johnny Depp playing policemen and/or members of the Mafia and/or policemen impersonating members of the Mafia and what have you.

So C. commutes to school. Because the city has no direct train lines from here to there, his commute involves changing trains in another part of the city that is also familiar to me entirely from movies featuring policemen, crime, drugs, “the projects,” and extended sequences of running, chasing, punching, shooting, bleeding (copious bleeding), and dying. Such is my image of the place.

Strangely enough, this particular change of venue seemed, and seems, like an excellent idea. I’m not sure why. Christian and his mom agreed: the two of them were adamant C. needed to exit his school district here in the “leafy suburbs”^* and decamp to a part of the city white people invariably describe as “gritty.” I'm sure Christian and his mom are right, but I'm not sure why.

The one thing that did make an impression on me, when we spoke to the Director of Admissions last winter, was his observation that “the kind of parent who will send his kid to school in this part of the city is a particular sort of person.” He meant that in a good way, and I thought, instantly: I bet I would like those parents.

So the whole undertaking seems to suit us. It suits us, but we’ve been nervous. The lady who washes my hair at the hairdresser’s told me, “Great school, but drive him to the door. The local boys know kids are coming in from the suburbs, so they wait in groups to mug them, and the school won’t tell you that it happens.” That sounded like an urban legend to me, but, at the same time, it also did not sound crazy, not to a person who’s watched as many police movies as I have.

So I began the new school year driving C to school. Drive him to the door because the local boys might or might not be lying in wait: that was the plan. But, finding the commute by car to be both harrowing (thank you, Robert Moses) and long, I made it through only 3 days before I found myself thinking that, really, the surrounding neighborhood seemed fine to me. (Along with: Wow. Fantastic prices on back-to-school clothes at the local back-to-school clothes emporium.)

Thus before the end of his first week in school, C. had joined the small army of businessmen and women headed into the city on Metro North each day, broadening his horizons and ours.

e.g.: In Week 2, C came home and reported that he had seen his first "crackhead" at the train station. He knew she was a crackhead, he said, because she was extremely thin and she was asking people for money.

Then, a couple of days ago, C. was between trains when two policemen came into the station with a dog and began to patrol the waiting room. The dog pulled up short at the entrance to the men’s restroom and began to bark ferociously at the door. The policemen knocked loudly, calling for whoever was inside to come out. But the door did not open.

Now C. is a cautious boy who looks young. All the new boys look young, of course. The principal told us: They’re still children when they come here, and when they leave, they’re men.

And this: “In the next four years there will be some long days and long nights, but the years will fly by in a blink.”

We are still in the beginning of the years that will fly by in a blink, and C. still looks young, and I can imagine the expression on his face, watching the dog and the policemen. In my mind’s eye, he is trying not to look scared.

At some point, as the scene unfolded, the lady sitting beside him, a middle-aged black woman from Connecticut, struck up a conversation. Where was he from? she wanted to know. And where was he headed? Hogwarts! Oh yes, a nice school.

About the dog barking ferociously at the bathroom door, she said mildly, “Oh, that’s not good.” But she made no move to get up from her seat. She would be standing her ground.

What came next, I gather, was that the dog carried on barking, and the policemen carried on knocking and calling on the man inside the restroom to come out, and the man inside the restroom carried on doing whatever he was doing behind the closed door: a stand-off. Finally, after some minutes of this, the woman said to C.: “If things get hairy, go upstairs and wait.”

On the day these events took place, C. told us the story of the lady from Connecticut and the policemen with their dog at least 3 times. He has told it again several times since. And always, the ending of the story is: “She told me, if things get hairy, go upstairs and wait.”

I didn’t think until yesterday to ask what became of the man inside the restroom. When finally I did ask, and C. told me, I realized I had already known the answer. The man came out of the restroom, C. said, and the policemen talked to him, "and then they let him go."

The reason I knew the answer was that in his telling of the story, C. had stopped at the end; he had stopped at the part where you know everything is going to turn out OK.

The lady from Connecticut, the policemen and their dog, the man inside the restroom, and C.: each will emerge from this episode unharmed. The adults will do their jobs, and the objects of their concern — the man inside the restroom and the boy inside the station waiting for his train — will be talked to and sent on their way.

A happy ending, and gritty in its way.

^* channelling Mike Petrilli

what is area?

Ed just talked to a young man who, while he was going to college, tutored in a New York City middle school. One day he overheard a math teacher in the school ask another math teacher how to calculate the area of a triangle. The teacher needed to know because, "I have to teach area of a triangle today."

the natives are restless

A No Vendor Left Behind thread on eduwonk.

Have I mentioned lately that public education in the United States sucks up a half-trillion dollars a year?

And we've still got teachers buying their own supplies?

Why is that, do you think?

distracted

Sorry to be scarce - I've been distracted by Armageddon.

Also by my 25th wedding anniversary!

Is there a reason these two things have to coincide?

I think not.

Clifford Stoll was right

breathless:

In today’s online era, the concept of a classroom extends beyond a walled room with desks and chairs and into the realm of cyber space. Computer screens are replacing the blackboard and keypads are replacing chalk.

To provide learners with the best experience, many educators are opting for a blended approach: a traditional classroom with face-to-face interaction supplemented by online resources. One University of Missouri researcher has found that while this approach is currently not necessarily more effective, there is hope for developing an effective hybrid approach to learning.

her findings:

• "Strickland discovered that there were few statistical differences between the effectiveness of a traditional course delivery method and a hybrid one."
  

• "The student satisfaction evaluation also revealed that students in the hybrid classrooms are more frequently confused regarding course requirements."
  

• "It also was noted that the students who completed the course in a traditional setting were more pleased with the course outcomes than the students who completed the blended course."

her conclusion:

“While there was slightly more confusion regarding hybrid classrooms, the results favor the continuing practice of blended learning environments as a viable option for course delivery in health care education...”

Effectiveness Of Traditional And Blended Learning Environments

Brace yourselves.

We the people are going to be buying a lot more of this stuff.


High Tech Heretic by Clifford Stoll

subprime

from Niki Hayes:

decline at the top part 2

You hear that up to 60% of kids learn to read using whole language [aka balanced literacy]. But I've always suspected that these children may have subtle deficits people miss. 

Today, confirmation arrived in the form of an email to the DI list written by a long-time teacher, reading consultant, and author who gave me permission to post (didn't ask whether I could use her name):

At least 30% of whole language taught readers will learn the code for themselves, but that doesn't always mean that they will always be fluent readers. I've been having discussions with young campaign workers in their mid to late 20's, almost all who have gone through whole language. These days I don't mince words anymore and am blunt, "Your generation was screwed." One English professor at OSU told me that she no longer can teach Dickens because the sentences are too long (i.e. readability level too high). If any group of college students were immersed in whole language, it's in Ohio where WL is still the order of the day.

They 20-year olds want to talk about their reading experiences and those who struggled always start by saying, "I'm not stupid, but........." Basically they fall into three camps.

1. the readers who broke the code for themselves or had parents who as they read to them did some sounding out things and don't understand what the big deal is because it's so easy to learn to read (unfortunately, this is the group of people that I suspect usually become gen ed literacy professors.)

2. the readers who started to fail early and whose parents of means got them early phonics tutoring. It's interesting that they still feel like failures in reading because they had to have this additional help. We can't forget that trauma starts young.

3. the readers who broke the code enough to be successful until they hit law school or medical school where the words were so "big." The kids I talk to made it through, but it was painful and remains so. THey talk about having to use rulers under the sentences and sounding out loud. When I remark that reading so slowly must have made it difficult to comprehend the text, they look at me as if I"m a sage. How did I know that? Everything took twice as long for them. These were the WL kids who needed the fluency and advanced word reading practice when they were younger.

4. The group that failed with WL didn't make it as far as these kids. They are already filling up the prisons in disproportionate amounts; they are working menial jobs; the brightest are entrepeneurs where they can hide their lack of reading.

Thus when you give that nonsense word test to whole language readers, those in group 1 and 2 will be able to do it, although there will usually be some errors for a few letter-sound combinations. Group 3 will do fine with the easier nonsense words and then start to slow down and make more errors as the multi-syllable ones are introduced. Group 4 bombs out.

I feel fairly confident that C. could have been in Group 3 without Megawords. He started Book 6 this weekend. 

I also think his years of Spanish instruction here have been a help (possibly a big help); I'm guessing the Latin he's required to take this year (and would have been able to take in our public school, too, fyi) will also be good for "big word reading."

I don't know any of these things but in this case I'm happy to act on a hunch.

Liz Brown's phonics page

I Speak of Dreams

help desk - info request for Project Lead the Way

I heard this week from a teacher-commenter on KTM who has just had word that her district has adopted Project Lead the Way (aka Project Bleed You Dry - scroll down) & is seeking info on the program. Teacher is disturbed by the fact that this program has appeared out of nowhere:

What is really bothering me about the adoption of PLTW is that there seems to be a lack of transparency in the decision making process and a sense of responsibility to the tax-payers. I'm so tired of districts and states being "sold" on these sorts of things. Maybe states and districts feel that if they buy these products/programs, then it will be up to the developers to prove their effectiveness and they'll be off the hook... (just speculating...)

Help a Teacher Out: Second-Language Competency Testing

Miss Profe teaches in an NE independent school:

I am a career middle and high school MFL/Spanish ToC (Teacher of Color). I have been teaching for 14years.

She blogs at It's a Hardknock Teacher's Life, and today's question is:

I have been struggling with whether or not to implement competency testing with my students. A fellow Spanish teacher at another school does this. In her opinion, there are certain things we teach students as part of their foreign language education that without exception must be mastered.

Go read the post and give your two cents.

writing to learn

Remember this photo?





caption:

WRITING TO LEARN: Brenda Mitchell, left, and Elizabeth Cooke show their notebooks during a science-writing workshop for teachers in Oakland, Calif.

source:
Writing to Learn
Education Week
Published in Print: August 27, 2008
page 1

Back to school night Hogwarts edition

I've been referring to C's new school, a Jesuit high school, as Hogwarts because the place feels like magic.

But "Hogwarts" seemed a stretch: How could a real school be Hogwartsian? I kept thinking I must be exaggerating, or missing something. Or possibly dreaming.

Thursday was Back to School night. Afterwards, on the drive home, Ed said "It's Hogwarts." So that's two of us.

Why is it Hogwarts?

I don't know.

Some of it is the physical layout of the building, which is nothing like the schools I'm used to. For one thing, it has practically no windows. The effect is to make you feel, not too long after you've gone inside and gotten disoriented and turned-around thanks to the unconventional layout, that the outside world has vanished. The school is your world now.

The school-world is a rabbit's warren of dimly lit hallways and out-of-the-way stairwells. The halls are exceedingly narrow, so narrow that the words "not built to code" have popped into my head unbidden both times I've walked through them.

The halls are so narrow, and so unconnected to any central corridor or architectural heart of the school, that they feel like secret passageways. At one point, seeking the biology lab, I asked directions of the polite and well-turned out young man standing at his post near the intersection of two corridors, his mission for the evening to re-direct the hopelessly. He turned, pointed down the hall we had just searched, and said, "Turn right at the end."

Following his eye, I saw only the same dead end we'd encountered the first time we tried to find a biology lab down that way. But we about-faced and walked to the end of the hall again, where, this time, a right turn materialized, and then a left turn, and suddenly we were inside a biology lab at the front of which stood a biology teacher.

That's another thing: the teachers seem all to exist inside their classrooms and nowhere else. These are their rooms, their domains; they aren't just using the room for a period or two, or passing through. And all of the teachers are characters. More on that anon.

I had been telling friends that the place was joyous and strict. That's the way it feels, from afar. Ed said, at the end of the night, that the school is both "more serious and more fun" than a regular school.

That's not a bad description of the real Hogwarts, if you think about it, a place so serious a boy playing Quidditch could plummet to his death, and yet no one ever does, and you know the children are safe.

one for all, all for one

Speaking of the "Middle Child," I also wrote a comment concerning the ways in which happy schools seem to work their magic.

I don't understand it well yet, and I imagine there is a literature on the nature of "happy" organizations that I haven't come across. If anyone knows titles, I'd like to hear.

Tracy W and Cheryl VT on "the middle child"

The 'Middle Child" is the type of student who does not feel at home at Langley because, while they may be smart and academically focused, they are not academically superior like many of their peers. Nor are they outstanding in extracurricular activities. This student does not enjoy the prospect of coming to school to face the intense competition, which is ubiquitous in excellent schools, only to be disappointed.

There is no simple answer to this problem. In my id eal world every student will walk through the front door on September 2 with an exuberant, positive attitude and feel comfortable and be happy throughout the entire year. Of course that does not happen. As we start the school year, the Instructional Council will open dialogue with the general faculty and I will talk with parents at PTSA meetings and parent coffees to solicit your input and ideas. As the discussion continues with all the stakeholders, I am confident we will find a way to serve the 'Middle Child'."

from: Open Letter from John Dewey to the Principal of Langley High School

There are a number of terrific comments in the "middle child" thread at Joanne Jacobs.

Tracy W on the bell curve

“Academically superior” and “outstanding in extracurricular activities” are relative terms. For there to be some kids who are academically superior, or outstanding, there must be some kids who are “academically normal” or “ordinary at extracurricular activities”. This is true no matter what the entrance criteria for the school are; as long as skills are distributed accordingly to a bell-curve the most rigorously selective school in the country is still going to have a few kids who are academically superior to the rest.

And thus it makes sense for any school to think about serving its non-superstars. Since it’s always going to have them.

It is most pragmatic to set high standards in school and let everyone know that they should strive to exceed them.

Indeed. But unless you are going to argue that kids are equal in academic ability and focus, there are always going to be kids who exceed them more than other kids do.

To put this in perspective: Would you take your car to a repair shop that had a reputation for working real hard and almost fixing the problem? Do you want your chest opened up by a doctor who worked real hard at being a “C” student and who possibly earned his credentials based on partial credit? Would you like to see your Astronaut nearly hit the moon?

Not relevant. There is always more to learn, and it is always possible to be better. Not everyone can take their car to the best mechanic in the best repair shop in the country. Not everyone can have their chest opened by the best surgeon in the country. I’m quite happy to take my car to a competent mechanic, and I just have to live with the knowledge that I’m unlikely to get the attention of the best doctor. The question of landing on the moon is an absolute goal: any number of people can achieve at that. Not everyone can win a medal at the Olympics 100m sprint, and not everyone can be “academically outstanding” by the standards of a certain school.

Cheryl v_T on the principal's meaning:

John Dewey and his child’s principal have obviously hit a nerve. I agree with Joanne, who wonders at the end of her post, if “…there’s no place for B students at a large public high school. What about C students? What about the not-so-smart, not-so-motivated students?”

The principal’s defeatist tone is inappropriate — regardless of his intentions. As a parent and educator, I understand exactly why Dewey is so ticked off.

It’s about sending the right messages and setting the appropriate tone for an academic institution required to serve all students. He has failed miserably. Like a previous commenter, I don’t want administrators to feed me and my fellow parents pablum or act like Pollyanna — but I also don’t want them to assume a position of defeat that accepts as “the way it is” that middle-performing kids will come to school unhappy and feel unsuccessful.

Hopefully Dewey’s principal will think twice before sending out the next missive. Or at least get a PR person.

and here is Tracy W on "rewarding for effort":

Achievement is difficult without effort. But effort does not guarantee achievement. Rewarding children for effort and not achievement does not prepare them for the adult world.

Oh dear, I feel so terrible. My 24-year old brother had a bad accident, and had to learn to walk again. And you know what ghastly things my family did? We celebrated the first time he walked two steps without aid! Then we celebrated the first time he walked down the corridor without aid! And then we celebrated the first time he walked upstairs without aid! How could we have been happy with such paltry achievements, when your average 24-year old can walk for miles without pausing! What messages did we send to our younger cousins?! And you know what, even though he still can’t walk as long as I can, I am still so thoroughly unenlightened as to be awestruck by the amount of effort he has put into working through his disabilities.

And I will say that I wish I had been obliged to put in more effort at school, rather than just being rewarded for achievement regardless of effort. I spent years achieving very easily, university came as a vast shock. Ideally, we should set goals that are a stretch, but are also achievable, for every kid.

Right on all counts, as far as I'm concerned.

I'll add that when Tracy and her family celebrated effort, they were also celebrating achievement. When a 24-year old person must learn to walk again, taking two steps without help is an achievement. A big one.

Same principle with Tracy breezing through school: no one was asking her -- or helping her -- achieve something difficult for her.

This is the problem with bell curves and bell-curve thinking. You're measuring students against each other, not against themselves. In a bell-curve school educators have no way of knowing whether any student, including the kids at the top, is achieving what he is capable of achieving.

Yet another argument for value added assessments.

And for introducing the concept of the personal best into edu-culture.

Singapore Math and journaling

From Out in Left Field:

"Math problems of the week: 6th grade Connected Math vs. Singapore Math"

My Special Number

1. The first assignment in Connected Mathematics Prime Time: Factors and Multiples

My Special Number

Many people have a number they find interesting. Choose a whole number between 10 and 100 that you especially like.

In your journal
*record your number
*explain why you chose that number
*list three or four mathematical things about your number
*list three or four connections you can make between your number and your world

I hold in my hands: Journal Writing in the Mathematics Classroom (Primary): A resource for teachers by teachers, written by professors from Singapore's National Institute of Education. It begins with 26 pages of instruction on what journal writing is and is not, how to conduct it, how to assess it and student samples. Then there is a collection of sample prompts. Below are a few for your perusal:

Topic: Whole Numbers

Level: Primary 1-6

Add the first twenty numbers 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... + 20 in two different ways. Explain your working.

Topic: Measurement

Level: Primary 4-6

Your best friend was absent from class when your teacher taught about area and perimeter. Write a letter to him explaining the difference between area and perimeter. Use diagrams as illustrations.

Topic: Whole Numbers

Level: Primary 4-6

How do you prevent getting your understanding of the term "factors" and "multiples" mixed up?

Topic: Whole Numbers

Level: Primary 2-6

2, 8, 4, 16, 20

Which number in the above does not belong to the group? Why?

Topic: Fractions

Level: Primary 4-6

Fandi said, "Multiplying always makes bigger. Dividing always makes smaller."
Hassan said he disagreed, "Only sometimes."

Is Hassan correct? Explain your thinking.

meet the parents

another Niki Hayes alert:

Come January, when the election frenzy is over and it's time to fix (again) our endlessly collapsing U.S. public education system, I can already see who'll be sitting around that West Wing conference table helping you craft your policies (aka, calculate the flow of dollars): the usual passel of political appointees, lifer administrators, think-tank policy wonks bearing white papers funded by the Gates Foundation, rock-and-rolly inner-city charter school innovators and the "social entrepreneurs." No actual public school parents like myself will have the remotest input.

Want Schools to Work? Meet the Parents

By Sandra Tsing Loh

Sunday, September 14, 2008; Page B03

No actual public school parents will have the remotest input except when our districts spend tens of thousands of dollars staging "Community Conversations" with a view to co-opting, reframing, or otherwise squashing the views of dissident parents.

exemplar:

My own district's Community Conversation seems to have transformed a widespread parent interest in "Singapore Math" into an item entitled "Global Awareness," which if all goes well will be inserted in the "Character education" portion of the revised Strategic Plan.

Now that's input.


bonus points:

Eduwonk admonishes suburban parents.

lefty book recommendation

Sorry to be absent -- I'm trying to revise my book proposal before the galleys of Temple's & my book get here -- !

So: a quick post for now of this book recommendation from lefty, who is a linguist: Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning edited by Eli Hinkel. I asked for a book or books to read because I'm curious about foreign language immersion programs: do they work?

Or do they suffer from the same (or similar) flaws as whole language or balanced literacy programs?

I'm curious because I ordered a copy of Fluenz Spanish 1 + 2 this week. I took enough Spanish courses to consider majoring in the subject in college, but never came close to fluency either in speaking or listening. That has always bothered me, and I've decided now is the time to do something about it.

I chose Fluenz because Concerned Parent said a while back that she thought it might be the better bet for C. Then, once I looked at Fluenz and Rosetta Stone I realized that Fluenz may have been created in "opposition" to Rosetta Stone, which teaches foreign languages through immersion while Fluenz explicitly says that English-speaking adults should learn foreign languages by relating the foreign language to English:

2. It really helps to use English to learn a new language. When learning a new language as an adult, nothing makes more sense than to understand the process in English. While small children learn arbitrarily, absorbing language like a sponge, modern linguistics points to how adults are better off having a clear understanding of what they're learning and how it works. It's rather difficult to understand how Italian works if the explanation is in Italian, not to mention if no explanation is given at all.

Fluenz is so committed to the idea of explicit instruction that it features an educational telepresence.

I don't like educational telepresences, it seems. I don't know why. (Does anyone?) I ended up purchasing Fluenz in spite of its educational telepresence, not because of.

More on that anon.


lefty book recommendation

uh-oh, part 2

Thought I'd check in with Greg Mankiw to see what he has to say about yesterday's meltdown...

Isn't "May you live in interesting times" supposed to be a Chinese curse?

Or is that an urban legend?

(I was going to say "old wives' tale but thought better of it.)