If Bedtime is Book Time, Why Not “Morning Math?”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 7, 2009 in Parents. 1 Comment

The best idea I’ve heard in a long time comes courtesy of Lisa Guernsey of Early Ed Watch (where is Sara Mead, anyway?) who points out that every parent gets the idea that bedtime is book time, but what about math?  She’s encouraging parents “to build math moments into the morning routine, just as book reading is part of the bedtime drill.”

Rummage through the sock drawer with your 4 year old, encouraging her to find a matching pair. Voila. You’ve covered one math concept already. Go to the freezer and pull out the frozen waffles for your 6-year-old. “You want one-and-a-half? How about three halfs instead?” Wink, wink, another concept down the hatch. Ask your 8-year-old to pour the juice so that the glasses are 75 percent full. Aha. A good opening for a chat about fractions.

Guernsey points out that we’ve had plenty of research and public service campaigns encouraging parents to read to their children, yet math skills trump reading skills as one of the best predictors of school success.  “Imagine what might happen with a similar campaign that suggests ways for parents to do math in the morning with their children,” she urges. ”Look for numbers on cereal boxes. Talk about the score of last night’s ball game. Point out patterns on their hats and mittens as you dress them for school.”

What a simple, brilliant idea.  Pass it on.

Core Knowledge Quiz: Ancient Egypt

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 6, 2009 in Core Knowledge. 3 Comments

On this day in 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter sent a telegraph to his sponsor announcing he had discovered an undisturbed tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.  His discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb stunned the world and revolutionized our understanding of Ancient Egypt.  Children encounter Egypt and other ancient civilizations in the Core Knowledge Sequence beginning in first grade, both in history and in art.   How much do you remember about Ancient Egypt?  Here’s this week’s Core Knowledge Quiz:

1. What was the name given to the religious and political leader of Egypt? 

2. Egyptians made a form of paper from fibers of a reed that grows in marshes along the Nile.  What was it called? 

3. What is the name for Egyptian writing that includes pictorial symbols?

4. This artifact, discovered in 1799, features the same text inscribed in three languages – Greek and two Egyptian languages – and enabled scholars to translate ancient Egyptian texts.  What is it?

5. What feature of the Nile River enabled Egyptian farms to produce large amounts of food? 

6. The Nile River empties into what body of water? 

7. What is a canopic jar and what was its purpose? 

8. Who was the Egyptian god of the afterlife? 

9. What figure, featuring a human head on the body of a reclining lion, is a symbol of both modern and ancient Egypt? 

10. Hatshepsut, one of the most successful pharaohs, expanded trade, grew the Egyptian economy, and  built and restored many temples.  What was unusual about Hatshepsut?  

Answers below Continue reading ‘Core Knowledge Quiz: Ancient Egypt’

Alter’s Ego

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 5, 2009 in Education News. 3 Comments

A suggestion by Claus Von Zastrow of Public School Insights that pundits like Jonathan Alter who write about education be subject to performance pay attracted the notice of Alter, who has been mixing it up with commenters to the post.  It started when Von Zastrow took issue with Alter’s KIPP cheerleading and broad brush take on reform.

What do we make of Alter’s suggestion that only charter schools and merit pay are “real reform?” Well what about better staff development? Better curriculum? Stronger ties between schools and communities? Much, much better assessments? Are those phony reforms?  All in all, Alter gets an unsatisfactory rating, so no performance bonus this year. In fact, his failure to improve since last summer puts him at risk of termination.

That was apparently too much for the Newsweek pundit, who showed up on the blog’s comments to defend himself and do a little advocacy work.  ”With the president’s support, the pool of reformers is growing,” Alter wrote.  “Come on in, guys. The water’s warm.” 

Alter gets points for showing up and opening himself up for further abuse.  The highlight of the thread so far: One anonymous wit who wickedly applies Alter’s take on merit pay to his own columns:

I’m glad you’ve accepted Claus’ merit pay proposal. The formula is clear. Since your job is to inform the public, we’re going to measure your readers’ knowledge. Then, a year from now, we’re going to measure it again. If they’re smarter, you’ll get a substantial bonus. If not, we’ll put you on a 90-day plan of review, support, and, if your readers don’t get smarter, we’ll have to regretfully let you go. Sorry, but it’s all about the readers, not the writers.

Tough crowd.

I Caught California Being Good!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 5, 2009 in Educational Policy and accountability. 3 Comments

It’s the oldest trick in the elementary school classroom management book:  using positive reinforcement to get children to behave in the hope of earning a reward or recognition.  When it’s time to clean up before lunch the teacher says, “Let’s see who’s ready to line up first.  I’m looking to see who has their desk cleaned up and is sitting up nicely.”  Suddenly 25 kids are racing to sit up straight with their hands folded on their spotless desks.  Works like a charm on seven-year-olds. 

State legislatures, too. 

President Obama’s education speech in Wisconsin reinforced the criteria the Adminstration wants to see in order for states to qualify for a piece of the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” fund.  What’s remarkable, however, is how much change in behavior is occurring in states just  hoping for a reward.  Like a first grade teacher, the President is essentially looking across the country and asking, “Who wants to be my special helper?  I’m looking for states that are doing the right thing and making good choices!”

“Oh, I like the way California is linking teachers and test scores!  You too, Indiana and Wisconsin! What an excellent job you’re doing!  Uh-oh, Nevada is definitely not ready!  Let’s see who else is doing the right thing?   Oh, look! Illinois and Tennessee must really want Race to the Top money. Look how they have lifted their charter caps!   Louisiana is ready!  Delaware is ready!  New York?  Are you making good choices? Let me see…”

“The administration has done a good job of having a lot of states make a long-odds bet that they’re going to win Race to the Top funds, so they’ve shaped their behavior a lot in advance of a single dollar being awarded,” Russ Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution tells the Christian Science Monitor.  “Most of what the administration is going to get [in terms of reform] it will get before the competition is actually completed.”

There must be some very shrewd former teachers at the DOE.

“And Thank You for Choosing Harvard University!”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 3, 2009 in Higher Education and Humor. 4 Comments

In most sectors of our economy, customer focus is paramount, as it should be in education, too. Customer focus could yield a more student-centric system through the development and dissemination of user-friendly “truth-in-education” information that helps students make “best-fit” choices regarding which education provider to select based on customer preferences such as: academic quality, price, convenience, learning style, beginning education level and the anticipated return on their investment in education.”  — Putting the Customer First in College: Why We Need an Office of Consumer Protection in Higher Education,” a report released today by the Center for American Progress

Hi, my name is Bruce and I’ll be your professor today!  We’re thrilled you’ve chosen to matriculate with us this Fall.  May I tell you about some of the special features of your college?

We’re committed to being the low-price leader in higher education.  This semester, we have a special Buy One, Get One Free promotion.  When you register for a class with us, choose a second class of equal or lesser challenge and get the second course absolutely free!  And remember, if you find a lower price for this course at any nationally advertised college or university, simply bring us the ad and we will beat their price.  Guaranteed!

I’d also like to tell you about out Frequent Learner program.  Sign up today, to earn class credits and education rewards.  You can use your frequent learner points to purchase clothing, housewares, books, and just about anything–even term papers!  Earn even more rewards when you put your tuition on your Phi Beta Kappa Gold Visa card.  In fact, you’re pre-approved just for registering for this class.

If at the end of this semester, you’re not happy with your grade for any reason, simply return it within 90 days for a full refund or a replacement grade.  In this class–and every class–customer satisfaction is Job Number One! 

I’m also happy to announce that starting with the 2009-2010 academic year, your undergraduate degree comes with a standard 10-year, 100-thousand dollar future earnings warranty.  If you’re not earning six figures within ten years of graduation, we’ll make up the difference no questions asked!

On behalf of the entire faculty, administration, support staff and our nationwide network of alumni, we’d like to thank you for letting us educate you.  We understand that you have a choice in colleges.  Our goal is to be your preferred provider of education and career services whenever and wherever you choose to be educated.

Thank you, and have a great day!

Great Job! Go Sit on the Bench

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 3, 2009 in Education Leadership. 0 Comments

Jay Mathews thinks Arne Duncan shouldn’t be the Secretary of Education.  In fact, he looks at recent Ed Secys Bill Bennett, Rod Paige, Dick Riley, Margaret Spellings and Duncan and asks why do we have the job at all? 

Their best work for kids, in my view, happened when they were NOT education secretary. So let’s abolish the office and get that talent back where it belongs, where school change really happens, in our states and cities.

Mathews may not realize it but the same thing, writ small, happens in schools everywhere.  How often does this year’s superstar teacher become next year’s math or literacy coach?  If this thinking applied to sports, Chase Utley would become the Phillies batting coach next year.

Einstein on the Fritz

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 2, 2009 in Education News and Research and Reports. 0 Comments

Interacting with Baby Einstein DVDs may not make your baby smarter. But interacting with Dan Willingham will make you smarter about the claims marketers make on behalf of educational products.  Dan’s take on the Baby Einstein flap is up at the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog.  ”Many parents already believe that visual stimulation and classical music (which the DVDs offer in spades) have been shown to help brain development,” Willingham writes.  “Both beliefs are based on solid research that has been twisted out of shape,” he concludes

Meanwhile, if Dan or someone else is looking to do a little more brain-based debunking, this looks pretty ripe.

What Teacher Ed Should Look Like

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 2, 2009 in Higher Education, Teacher Training and Teaching. 13 Comments

Teacher education programs should be selective, rigorous….and free, argues Susan Engel.  In a New York Times op-ed the psychologist and director of the teaching program at Williams College writes that admission to teacher ed programs should include “a stipend for the first three years of teaching in a public school.” 

Once we have a better pool of graduate students, we need to train them differently from how we have in the past. Too often, teaching students spend their time studying specific instructional programs and learning how to handle mechanics like making lesson plans. These skills, while useful, are not what will transform a promising student into a good teacher.  First, future teachers should continue studying the subject they hope to teach, with outstanding professors. It makes no sense at all to stop studying the thing you want to teach at the very moment you begin to learn how.

Hear, hear.  I’m all for organizing teacher training around subject matter, rather than what Leon Botstein once termed “the pseudoscience of pedagogy.”  But Engel’s not done yet.

Meanwhile, students should learn their craft the way a surgeon learns to operate: by intense supervision in a real setting with expert mentors. Student-teachers are usually observed only twice during a semester and then given a written evaluation. But young teachers, like young doctors, should work side by side with skilled mentors, getting plenty of feedback, having plenty of opportunities to observe and taking on greater and greater responsibility as they improve.

The key word is that paragraph is “craft.”  It’s common to hear teaching described as an art, a science, or a profession, but seldom as a craft, which has always struck me as exactly the right word.  Like becoming a writer, you become successful when you find your voice. That’s craftwork.  Toward that end, Engel also suggests that teacher ed steal a page from family therapy programs, whose students, she observes, “spend a great deal of time watching videotapes of themselves in action, reflecting on their sessions and discussing the most difficult moments with senior therapists to explore other ways they might have responded.”

Common Knowledge Newsletter

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 1, 2009 in Core Knowledge. 1 Comment

The Common Knowledge newsletter, which digests the news about curriculum and teaching, education policy and other subjects of interest to the Core Knowedge community, is published each Friday during the school year.  Here’s this week’s newsletter. To subscribe and receive Common Knowledge via email, click here.

Core Knowledge

E. D. Hirsch’s Curriculum for Democracy
City Journal
If the Obama administration truly wants to have a positive impact on American education, it should embrace E.D. Hirsch’s ideas and urge other states to do the same, writes Sol Stern, who describes Hirsch in this profile as “America’s most important education reformer of the last century.”

Farms, Field Trips and Test Scores
Broad general knowledge certainly correlates with reading ability, but the test of a school’s dedication to that proposition is best measured in its commitment to a rich, well-rounded curriculum day after day, not the occasional field trip. 

Two More Black Eyes for 21st Century Skills

Core Knowledge Quiz: American Symbols and Icons

Best of the Education Blogs

Remembering Ted Sizer
Flypaper
Ted Sizer, who passed away last week, was “a towering figure in American education-and a wonderful guy,” writes Checker Finn. “He viewed education through the eyes of a teacher more than a policymaker and he had boundless faith in the capacity—indeed the necessity—of educators to make and remake their own schools.”

Duncan Puts Education Schools on Blast
ASCD Inservice
Last week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s speech at Columbia University’s Teachers College criticized U.S. education schools for failing to prepare K-12 teachers to do their jobs well. The government has also been remiss in setting the licensure bar too low and disinvesting in high-quality mentoring programs, he added.

Is Homework Necessary? 
Washington Post
“I used to be Mr. Homework, frowning at all the hand-wringing softies who said we were hurting our kids by piling on the assignments,” writes Jay Mathews.  “But now I am wondering if my faith in homework for middle and high-schoolers has been misplaced

Teaching and Curriculum

Why We’re Failing Math and Science
Wall Street Journal
The U.S. lags far behind other developed countries at the K-12 level in terms of measured performance in math and science courses.  The Wall Street Journal asks Joel Klein; Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania; and Christopher Edley Jr. of the University of California at Berkeley, what can be done.

Why teach the arts? Art inspires learning
Christian Science Monitor
When American presidents talk about education, they inevitably stress the need to focus on math and science. “Science emphasizes quantities. Art emphasizes qualities,” argues writer and artist David Arzouman. “Their mix, although paradoxical, moves us closer to completeness.”

Turnover in Principalship Focus of Research
Education Week
While research has for years highlighted the large numbers of beginning teachers who leave the classroom in three or four years, no national study has documented the career moves that principals make, according to experts.

School district policy addresses social networking
Upstate Today (South Carolina)
A South Carolina school district is seeking to ensure its employees exercise caution when using Facebook and other social networking sites. A draft policy stipulates that the personal life of an employee, will be the concern to the school board “if it impairs the employee’s ability to effectively perform his or her job responsibilities or violates local, state or federal law or contractual agreements.”

Publisher enters new chapter in textbooks
Boston Globe
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has announced a $40 million, multiyear contract with Detroit public schools to provide a computer-based teaching system it developed with Microsoft Corp. that will connect teachers, students, and administrators.  It represents a radical shift away from the classic textbook publishing model and an industry transformation, as technology supplants books.

Education Policy

Are Teacher Colleges Turning Out Mediocrity?
TIME Magazine
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan delivered a speech blasting the education schools that have trained the majority of the 3.2 million teachers working in U.S. public schools today.  It was a damning, but not unprecedented, assessment of teacher colleges, which have long been the stepchildren of the American university system and a frequent target of education reformers’ scorn over the past quarter-century.

NCES Finds States Lowered ‘Proficiency’ Bar
Education Week
Academic standards became less rigorous from 2005 to 2007 in a majority of states, says a study by the National Center on Education Statistics.

Bill Gates Is Spending Millions To Influence The Nation’s Education Policy
Associated Press
The real secretary of education, the joke goes, is Bill Gates  The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been the biggest player by far in the school reform movement, spending around $200 million a year on grants to elementary and secondary education.

The Turnaround Fallacy
Education Next
For as long as there have been struggling schools in America’s cities, there have been efforts to turn them around.  But turnaround efforts have consistently fallen short.  “Quite simply,” writes Andy Smarick, “turnarounds are not a scalable strategy for fixing America’s troubled urban school systems.”

Parenting and Homeschooling

L.A. Unified to allow parents to initiate school reforms
Los Angeles Times
For the first time in Los Angeles, parents will be able to initiate major reforms at low-performing individual schools, rather than waiting for the school district to make changes, under a plan unveiled Tuesday.

As aid shrinks, more ’stuck’ for day care
USA Today
As budget problems worsen, states are tightening rules, eliminating enriched child care programs, raising fees that parents and providers pay, and halting new subsidies.  “The real impact of these cuts is on families,” says William Eddy, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Early Education and Care. “Parents are forced to find makeshift care, one day with a neighbor, one day with an aunt, in order to get to work.”

Et Alia

School chooses Kindle; are libraries for the history ‘books’?
USA Today
The 20,000-book library at Cushing Academy, a New England boarding school, was in danger of becoming a relic.  So the venerable boarding school began getting rid of most of the library’s books. In their place: a fully digital collection. Library watchers say it could be the first school library, public or private, to forsake ink and paper in favor of e-books.

Parental [Dis]engagement

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 31, 2009 in Parents and Teaching. 4 Comments

Middle school teacher Mrs. Bluebird loves PowerSchool, her district’s online grading system.  It lets her update students’ grades from home, run progress reports and all kinds of other tricks.   “Parents can check grades any time of the night or day, see that work is missing, and can even get grade updates emailed to them,” she writes at her blog, Bluebird’s Classroom.  “Students hate it because parents can keep a really close eye on what they are, or more precisely, what they are not doing,” she says.

In other words, for home-school communications, it’s the greatest thing since the parent-teacher conference.  Well, maybe not.

The District folks did a survey of PowerSchool usage and discovered that only 20% of the families in the District have ever logged on to PowerSchool.  Let me repeat that…20%. That’s it. 89% supposedly have access to a computer but only 20% have made the effort to check their child’s grades.  That silence you hear is the sound of parent involvement, or, more precisely, the lack thereof.

In response, Bluebird’s principal continues to send home report cards, despite the district’s move to go paperless.  “My team sent home 97 report cards. I had 47 students fail science for this nine weeks. To date, I have not heard a peep. No email, no call requesting a conference, nothing,” she laments.  ”It’s like they don’t even care.  And we wonder why the kids don’t care either.”

[H/T: Blogboard]