fuzzy charters

My email correspondent gave me permission to post this email response to "Building a Better Edsel":

This is an important issue, and I'm glad Pondiscio and Joanne Jacobs have put it out there. Many, even most, of the charter (and private) schools offer the same "all fuzzery, all the time" curricula and instruction as your neighbourhood Everyday Math Academy.  They can and do get better results (in some cases, but not in most) by creating an achievement-focused school climate, hiring young people with loads of energy (who rarely stay for long), having a certain selection bias -- not necessarily the accused "creaming" of high performers, but simply the ability to select students whose families support the "mission" of the school -- and the ability to remove students who are clearly dysfunctional or misplaced.

Nevertheless, schools like KIPP and HSA^* (who are firmly committed to fuzzery) could and should do much, much better and probably would do so with a better-constructed curriculum. They need to start out with an intensive compensatory model (DI or DI-like) that gradually morphs into more student-led investigative and project-based work. Morningside does this (Catherine, you may not see that so much at the summer session, because the summer school is not organized like the full-time school) with empirical evidence of success. The students need to develop the critical foundation skills early and fluently and then there can be more balance between teacher-directed instruction and student investigation (still pretty teacher-directed).

All the hoopla about teacher accountability, incentive schemes etc. is missing the mark.  It's like saying we're going to hire the top doctors and forbid them to use antibiotics, effective surgical techniques or diagnostics and simply command them to "heal the sick." 

Right.

What I see is few to NO "bad teachers" in the last 15 years -- the demands of the job are such that those who can't, quit or are pushed out. Not publicly "fired" but counseled out.  There are incredibly talented and hard-working (and smart and well-educated) people in the ranks now, but weak curricula and demands for "all fuzzery all the time" seriously handicap them -- and the students.

In a follow-up, my email correspondent suggested I point out that not all charter schools are fuzzy:

The Charter Day School has a significant precision teaching component.

The Arthur Academy has strong Direct Instruction and Core Knowledge elements.

^* Harlem Success Academy

Robert Pondiscio on building a better Edsel

Robert writes:

A fascinating email found its way into my inbox last week describing a visit to a high profile, “no excuses” charter school.  The email was written by someone who is solidly pro-reform and strongly pro-charter.   She spent the morning visiting Big Name Charter and pronounced herself aghast.  “The school is fantastically well run, and the kids are on task —- and it is all fuzzery all the time. The reading curriculum is Fountas and Pinnell; the math curriculum is so bad it has sparked parent uprisings across the country,” she writes.

I've had an email from a person involved in public education who says KIPP is firmly committed to constructivist curricula. I'll post if the person who wrote gives me permission.

For now, I'll share my correspondent's analogy: giving excellent teachers bad curricula and expecting them to perform miracles (which they do) is similar to depriving the best doctors of antibiotics, diagnostic tests, and effective surgical techniques and telling them to "heal the sick."

From my perspective as a parent who values a traditional liberal education taught via direct instruction and deliberate practice, I find myself asking once again: why is it parents in my group can't have what we want?

Why do we have to have what other people want?

And why do we have to pay for it?

Speaking of what other people want, our board of education election was held last Tuesday. The candidate we supported lost.

The candidate who won pledged to keep Math Trailblazers and said we would not be replacing Trailblazers with Singapore Math.

One of the candidates who won last year made the same promise.

Meanwhile we've got parents in town who are paying to have their children take private classes that use Primary Mathematics.

Are there any parents anywhere in the country paying out of pocket to provide their children private lessons in Math Trailblazers?

More and more, I'm thinking micro-schools could be an answer for parents like me.


update: my correspondent's email is up

Michael Goldstein on teacher choice

Vocational Education on Throwing Curves

Finland has done an amazing thing -- embraced vocational ed rather than treat it with disdain (as we do in the U.S.). A new post on Throwing Curves gives some reasons to rethink our national strategy of college for all when we know most won't finish with a degree.

Can't Believe It Took Me this Long to Discover Willingham

I've just discovered the work of Daniel Willingham and am finding it to be so relevant and helpful, not to mention seeing examples of "inflexible knowledge" everywhere I look.

Check out the comments in this post for real life examples of "inflexible knowledge" from an SAT tutor.

And Catherine's post about the woman who calls 911 because she can't figure out how to open her car door is worth reposting.

help desk - online tech

Does anyone know what technology they're using? I would love to be able to write out a problem and post.

The ShowMe SAT videos seem to be terrific, by the way. I've only looked at one or two, but they were very helpful.

Paying for college is top priority for parents

Is College Worth It? Pew Survey:

In the eyes of parents, being able to pay for their children’s college education is just as important as being able to own a home or live comfortably in retirement. And it’s more important than being able to leave an inheritance to their children....

A parent’s own educational background does not have a significant impact on the importance they place on being able to provide for their children’s educational needs. Parents who never attended college are just as likely as those who earned a four-year college degree to say being able to pay for their children’s college education is extremely important.

The vast majority of parents expect that their children will pursue a college education. Among those with one or more children under age 18, 94% expect at least one of their children will go to college. There are no significant differences across racial or ethnic groups—white, black and Hispanic parents are equally likely to think their children will go to college. In addition, there is very little variance across income groups. While 99% of parents with annual household incomes of $75,000 or higher think their children will go to college, 93% of those with incomes between $30,000 and $74,999 say the same, as do 91% of those making less than $30,000 a year. Again, parents’ own educational experience does not seem to influence the aspirations they have for their children. Parents who did not graduate from college (93%) are just as likely as college graduates (97%) to say their children will go to college.

The most surprising part of these results was that parents across the board have high expectations that their children will attend college.  However, these expectations are unrealistic according to the ACT study that found only 24% of high school graduates are prepared to do college-level work.  Colleges are adjusting, with 36% of first-year students taking at least one remedial class.  Meanwhile, high student loan default rates and graduation rates of under 50% suggest going to college is not the right path for everyone.

In a future post I'll address the issue of how many parents have actually started saving for college. 

(Cross-posted at Education Quick Takes)

The Finland Phenomenon on Throwing Curves

The latest post on Throwing Curves is a review and commentary on the recently released Bob Compton film, The Finland Phenomenon, which bloggers Rosemary and Lynn viewed at MIT last week.

Not learning how to write, apparently

Salon has an article from the point of view of a college comp prof re: just what are high school students *doing* in English class these days?

When I ask her why she thinks there's such resistance to prioritizing and teaching writing, given its numerous applications, given its overlap with critical thinking skills, analytical skills, basic communication skills, she hesitates for a moment, then answers in three words: "It's not fun."

Parker on the equal sign

On the subject of American students not knowing what the equal sign signifies, Parker writes:

I told my spouse the other day that I was convinced that many of my chemistry students did not understand what the equals sign meant and therefore they couldn't handle equations. It was just a hunch, but maybe I wasn't crazy. When they rearrange an equation they tend to just move letters around.

I don't know how we could screw up teaching this stuff.

I'm curious about this -- what happens in a chemistry class when students don't understand the equal sign?

damn you autocorrect

have just discovered this -- hilarious!

Autocorrect is constantly tripping me up, but so far it's produced nothing as diverting as the stuff on other people's phones, it seems.

equation

from Science Daily:

Texas A and M University researchers ... have found that not fully understanding the "equal sign" in a math problem could be a key to why U.S. students underperform their peers from other countries in math.

"About 70 percent of middle grades students in the United States exhibit misconceptions, but nearly none of the international students in Korea and China have a misunderstanding about the equal sign, and Turkish students exhibited far less incidence of the misconception than the U.S. students," note Robert M. Capraro and Mary Capraro of the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture at Texas A&M.

[snip]

The problem is students memorize procedures without fully understanding the mathematics, he notes.

"Students who have learned to memorize symbols and who have a limited understanding of the equal sign will tend to solve problems such as 4+3+2=( )+2 by adding the numbers on the left, and placing it in the parentheses, then add those terms and create another equal sign with the new answer," he explains. "So the work would look like 4+3+2=(9)+2=11.

"This response has been called a running equal sign...

[snip]

The Texas A&M researchers examined textbooks in China and the United States and found "Chinese textbooks provided the best examples for students and that even the best U.S. textbooks, those sponsored by the National Science Foundation, were lacking relational examples about the equal sign."

Students' Understanding of the Equal Sign Not Equal, Professor Says
August 11, 2010

They had me until that last line.

How do Everyday Math and Terc teach the equal sign?

a grave injustice

The interesting thing is that the teacher had tenure. We can fire teachers over personal past history within weeks, but it takes years to fire a teacher with tenure over professional competence.

I have two master's degrees, five years' experience in the nonprofit sector and three years' experience teaching -- and I cannot get a job. Why? Just google me. I'm the "Hooker Teacher" -- at least that's what I've come to be called ever since Sept. 27, 2010, when I found myself on the cover of the New York Post.

"Meet Melissa Petro," the story began," the teacher who gives a new twist to sex ed." The piece describes me as a "tattooed former hooker and stripper" who was "shockingly upfront about her past." Indeed, earlier that month, I'd written an Op-Ed on the Huffington Post that criticized the recent censoring of the adult services section of Craigslist and came clean about my own sex-worker past. Because I was arguing that sex workers shouldn't be ashamed to speak for themselves, I signed my name to it. The New York Post wasn't interested in my politics, however; its interest seemed only in cooking up shock that an elementary school teacher would dare admit such a shady history.

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/05/04/hooker_teacher_what_i_was_thinking/index.html

I mean I wouldn't have minded her as a teacher I think. She had clearly separated her private past from her public present.

My country's elections are finally over; so the NY Post's reporting-with-an-agenda-to-destroy now really sickens me. More than a teacher's hooker past.

tired and overpaid

patentlawyer, Bonnie, and Steve H on careers in computer science and manufacturing--

patentlawyer:

We read this story every few months but most of these "manufacturers" aren't telling the whole truth.

They aren't talking about how they gutted their own training programs in the 80's and 90's, because someone @ the WSJ/Harvard Business School told them to get lean, downsize, rightsize, or out source.

They aren't talking about how automation has really decimated their bread and butter parts and they have to move up to small runs of specialized parts @ high margins to make the money they're used to making.

They aren't talking about how most of their want ads require years of experience and often times a degree.

They aren't talking about how boring it is to work on a lathe for 8 hour stretches.

The reality is that they want experienced people, but they do not want to spend the money to train and retain their employees.

At least in Houston, there are more than enough people that can read blue prints, calculate sin/cos/tang/hyp if necessary. That area of Houston they're talking about is about 10 miles away from NASA and the aerospace/defense contractor hub in Clear Lake City.

We shouldn't have any sympathy for short sighted companies. Nor should we think that the US is in some kind of STEM bind.

There are plenty of out of work born in America engineers now, and plenty of would-be-engineers creamed by grade curves and weed out courses. If you head over to any of the comp sci/it/science/engineering fora, you'll see just how vast and deep the pool is.

Bonnie:

Actually, in CS, enrollments have plummeted in the last few years, to the extent that CS departments are being closed. However, I agree with you on the role of companies. The reason students chose not to major in CS is that they saw their parents laid off from their tech jobs, forced to train their replacements in India (and I know several people personally that had to do that, including my husband). Companies refuse to invest in training or education for their technical employees, instead figuring they can be replaced once their 10 year technical lifespan has expired. Kids saw this happen, and decided that they would rather major in finance, where they can actually be paid well. 

Steve H:

I agree with patentlawyer. I've seen this argument before, and once again, it's not clearly defined. I deal with many companies that bring in computer-aided design and CNC technology. There is more demand than supply. Companies don't like to train because they see these people move on to better paying jobs. Why pay to train someone in SolidWorks who will immediately leave? Just demand that education provide them ready to go. But what, exactly, are these skills? It's not trigonometry.

"Manufacturers say the U.S. education system doesn't produce enough students strong in math, science and engineering."

People with science, math, or engineering degrees won't fill these positions, and companies can train bright high school graduates to meet this demand.

Let's say that a company buys a CNC cutting machine and it comes with a program that nests geometry and generates the G-code to drive the machine. Is this taught in school? Also, where does this geometry come from, a 2D CAD drawing program, a 3D solid modeling program, or a surface modeling program like Rhino? Do they teach these programs in school? You don't learn this in high school geometry. Do schools teach the issues of geometry transfer that cost companies so much time and money?

Look at the skills that companies have in their job ads. Do they say "trigonometry"? Do they ask for people who have critical thinking skills? No. They want specialized skills that are rarely taught in schools. That's why our local vocational school (which offers college degrees) is so popular. They teach these applications and skills. Companies should ask for more vocational schools.

How many job ads say that they are looking for those who had good grades in trig and that they will train. No, you see ads with very specific software or machine skills required, loaded with all sorts of product names (like MasterCAM) and acronyms. Companies might want critical thinking skills, but what they have in the ads are specific product skills. That's why older workers are vulnerable. Companies don't care about general educational background. They care about the latest products and skills. It doesn't matter how experienced you are if that experience is with DEC's VMS. If you don't manage your career carefully, you will end up on a legacy path where the company will not pay for training. One company where my wife worked made a comment about how people over 40 are tired, overpaid, and don't know the latest technology.

the return of bubbling errors

arrgh

In honor of his first go at the SAT this morning, C. and I took a math section from the Blue Book last night.

C.'s score jumped to 670 (he was scoring as low as 550 in January), and I would have jumped to 750 or thereabouts if I hadn't made another freaking bubbling error.

I thought I was done with those.

The one question I missed fair and square was in the careless error dumb mistake category.

Speaking of dumb mistakes, I've now taken so many SAT math sections that I can distinguish between careless error and dumb mistake.

careless error: you misread the question
dumb mistake: you misinterpret the question

21% correct

PWN the SAT links to an SAT math question only 21% of respondents got right.

academic skills or academic content?

In the new Education Week, word that the AVID program, which apparently teaches -- or attempts to teach -- critical thinking has not panned out in Chicago:

In a report set for release in the fall and previewed at the American Educational Research Association convention in New Orleans in April, researchers analyzed how AVID, a study-skills intervention for middle-achieving students, played out in 14 Chicago high schools. They found AVID participants in 9th grade gained little advantage that year over peers not taking part in the program, and remained off track for graduation and college.

[snip]

Doug Rohrer, a psychology professor at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, found the CCSR study more rigorous than prior AVID research.

In a September 2010 analysis, the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse found only one of 66 AVID studies met its quality standards. Based on that study, the clearinghouse found AVID had “no discernible effects on adolescent literacy.”

[snip]

“The critical question in my mind,” Mr. Rohrer continued, “is whether AVID is better than requiring students to go to another class, such as an extra dose of math or writing. Learning how to take notes is a fine strategy, but it might not help you in Algebra 2 if you haven’t learned Algebra 1.”

You can't think critically about algebra if you don't know algebra.

Here is Daniel Willingham on the subject (pdf file):

After more than 20 years of lamentation, exhortation, and little improvement, maybe it’s time to ask a fundamental question: Can critical thinking actually be taught? Decades of cognitive research point to a disappointing answer: not really. People who have sought to teach critical thinking have assumed that it is a skill, like riding a bicycle, and that, like other skills, once you learn it, you can apply it in any situation. Research from cognitive science shows that thinking is not that sort of skill. The processes of thinking are intertwined with the content of thought (that is, domain knowledge).

Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach?
American Educator
Summer 2007

a really big class size

from the Ed Week article on Reasoning Mind:

The Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, recently awarded a $742,996 grant for a pilot program of Reasoning Mind, which will test whether one Reasoning Mind-trained teacher can affect the math scores and proficiency of 250 students using the program in different grades at several schools.There will be nine teachers trained, responsible in total for 2,250 students.

Reasoning Mind

Are any of you familiar with Reasoning Mind?

The Compton students are using Reasoning Mind, an online-based math program modeled on a Russian math curriculum and developed by a nonprofit organization of the same name. The program is currently used at 165 public, charter, magnet, and private schools around the country by more than 20,500 students. Most of the schools and districts using the program, like the 26,000-student Compton district, have high percentages of minority and economically disadvantaged students, and are in communities whose schools qualify for federal Title I funding.

In the Compton schools alone, 1,170 students use Reasoning Mind in the district’s, or ASES. Because of state curriculum requirements, Compton students can use the program only in an after-school setting, not in their day classes as preferred by Reasoning Mind. But even in this environment, where daily attendance can be variable and retention uneven, the Compton students have seen notable results in improved math scores and general math proficiency the past 2½ years.

[snip]

The program is the brainchild of Alex Khachatryan, a Russian mathematician and scientist who created Reasoning Mind in 2002 after finding his son’s math education disappointing when the family immigrated to the United States. With the help of others, Khachatryan adapted a pencil-and-paper Russian math curriculum into an interactive Web-based program for American students. The program, which starts introducing some algebra and geometry concepts as early as 2nd grade, is designed to teach students in ways that the best teachers teach: adjusting content based on how students respond to the material in real time, and building on knowledge from the previous year’s studies.

“To really learn math, it’s not enough to solve simple, routine problems,” Khachatryan says.

“The reason why Reasoning Mind works so well,” he adds, “is that it brings together several important things: nonstandard problems to develop thinking skills, lots of interaction between students, individual attention from the teacher, and a solid, coherent curriculum.”

Web-Based Russian Math Curriculum Shows Positive Results
By Nora Fleming
Published Online: March 14, 2011
Published in Print: March 17, 2011, as Tailoring Mathematics for Young Minds
Education Week

Indiana

lots of changes in Indiana schools

sounds good to me, but the folks at Cato take a dim view...

calculus in prison

from the WSJ article on factories lacking skilled workers:

While community colleges and technical schools struggle to keep up with demand for skilled workers, some prisons are trying to help. At California's San Quentin prison, the machine shop offers training to prepare prisoners to pass exams demonstrating skills in such areas as operating computer-controlled lathes and mills. Some inmates get classes in calculus and trigonometry to help them work with machinery.

MAY 6, 2011
Help Wanted on Factory Floor
by James R. Hagerty