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.)