“Can you say “No?” And if you do, do you really mean it?” asks NYC Educator. “Because if you can’t, you might not want to go into teaching.” He might also have added “Will you be allowed to say it?”
Archive for June, 2008
A Fordham Foundation study finds that high-achieving students are the most likely to suffer from the effects of No Child Left Behind.
These are the students I refer to as “Not Your Problem” kids. As a teacher, when I raised concerns that my brighter student were bored and neglected, and expressed frustration at my inability to sufficiently differentiate instruction to challenge them, I was dismissed by an assistant principal who pointedly said “those kids are not your problem.” She meant I was to focus on getting my low-achieving students to proficiency; the high achievers were already there and could be left to their own devices.
I’m positively giddy to see this issue getting attention. It was my No. 1 concern as a classroom teacher.
The winner for the best, most reasonable take on the reform vs. “status quo” contretemps goes to Thomas Toch of Education Sector, who sees both right and wrong in the “Bigger, Bolder” camp as well as the Klein-Sharpton, “Education Equity” group:
Yes, we should find ways to reduce the effects of poverty on students. Doing so will allow them to achieve at higher levels. But no, we shouldn’t assume that schools can’t make a difference on their own. Yes, we need to hold schools and teachers accountable for their performance. Too many of them simply haven’t embraced high expectations on their own. But no, we shouldn’t pretend that poverty has no impact on students. No accountability system can work unless it is credible, and NCLB, as currently crafted, is not.
I struggled to find the same middle ground as Toch, but he said it far better than I did. And attention should be paid to his wise lead, noting “extremes in school-reform debates always seem to conspire against the middle, making change a lot tougher to achieve. ”
If Toch turns this into a compromise manifesto, I’d happily sign it.
College students who are “morning people” may have a higher chance of graduating near the top of their class according to a new study (Hat Tip: NYC Educator). Researchers at North Texas University found early birds had an average grade point average (GPA) that was a full point higher than night owls: 3.5 vs. 2.5.
Richard Whitmire must have been valedictorian. The USA Today scribe has an interesting new edublog. Check out what time that man has been posting.
School’s out! Long, languorous summer days playing in the street with your friends, with no adults in sight? “No so much,” writes Eve Pearlman in the San Jose Mercury News. “Most kids are kept on much tighter reins than they were in days of yore.
“The difference we’ve imposed on ourselves compared to how we ourselves were raised is really quite striking,” says Peter Stearns, a George Mason University professor who studies fear in our society. Media coverage of accidents and crimes has created an outsize sense of the risks children actually face. Plus, says Stearns, more and more parents have developed a phobia about taking any risk at all.
Kids used to break their arms and we’d say, ‘Oh well’ and sign the cast. But now when they do, we assume as a society that if things had just been properly organized this bad thing wouldn’t have happened….Most of our middle class kids are quite safe. We just need to think about the consequences of fussing over them quite as much as we do. Really, it’s just a matter of moderating our worries and becoming a little more tolerant.
This spring, Rhode Island’s high school graduating class became the first in the nation to face performance-based assessments as a state-mandated requirement for earning a diploma.
“To be sure, no one is saying that Rhode Island’s trailblazing move means it’s time to start writing the obituary for machine-scored standardized exams,” notes a report in Education Week. “After all, even Rhode Island still uses them, and most experts agree that multiple choice is here to stay.” The piece offers a strong recap of the history of performance-based assessment over the last several decades, noting that “subjectivity of grading student portfolios and dissertation-defense-style presentations” has derailed previous attempts to work around standardized testing. Given the widespread disenchantment with NCLB and testing in general, it stands to reason, however that we’ll be reading lots more of this in the near future. Indeed, EdWeek reports eight other states have “expressed an interest” in Rhode Island’s initiative.
One of them is probably Ohio, where education officials have won a $1.3 million grant to explore alternative assessments, such as portfolios, senior projects, journals, small-group collaborations or teacher observation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
Give a struggling student five great teachers in a row, and they’ll close the achievement gap all by themselves, right? The conventional wisdom says yes. A new study says maybe not. Eduwonkette has the goods.
By next fall, approximately 500 public schools nationwide will offer single-sex classes, reports the Washington Post.
The approach is based on the much-debated yet increasingly popular notion that girls and boys are hard-wired to learn differently and that they will be more successful if classes are designed for their particular needs.
I know lots of teachers who favor single-sex ed, but not one for this reason. It’s all about classroom management. I have no idea if elementary school boys learn differently (I doubt it). But they act differently, and suffer by comparison to the girls in the room in terms of behavior, attention, and energy level. That’s reason enough to make single-sex classrooms a more widespread option.
Over the weekend, I was reading Juan Williams interesting essay in the Wall Street Journal on the sorry state of fatherhood (HT: Joanne Jacobs) in America. Williams point was as familiar as it is depressing: an enormous number of children simply do not know their fathers in any meaningful way. “The nation’s out-of-wedlock birth rate is 38%,” Williams writes. “Among white children, 28% are now born to a single mother; among Hispanic children it is 50% and reaches a chilling, disorienting peak of 71% for black children.”
The numbers reflect what I saw teaching in the South Bronx, where fewer than a dozen of my students in five years lived with both biological parents. They were, not surprisingly, some of my best, most diligent students. Then, this passage got my attention:
A study of black families 10 years ago, when the out-of-wedlock birthrate was not as high as today, found that single moms reported only 20% of the “baby’s daddy” spent time with the child or took a “lot” of interest in the baby. That is quite a contrast to the married black mothers who told researchers that 88% of married black men, or men living with the mother, regularly spent time with the child and took responsibility for the child’s well-being.
There’s a name for someone who spends time with his child and takes responsibility. The name is “father.” It’s sure as hell not “baby daddy.” Continue reading ‘Who’s Your Baby Daddy?’
Our weekly roundup of the week’s most important news, information and blog posts about curriculum, teaching, education policy and other items of interest to the Core Knowledge community.
Core Knowledge
All Roads Lead to Early Childhood Ed
Want to know who will have the toughest time passing high school exit exams? Look at 4th grade test scores, grades and classroom behavior.
June: National Social Promotion Month?
Is social promotion happening in your school?
A Hippocratic Oath for Teachers?
Do we need a Hippocratic Oath for teachers?
O’Connor: NCLB Has Squeezed Civics Off the Curriculum
Sandra Day O’Connor says one unintended effect of the No Child Left Behind Act, is that it has effectively squeezed out civics education
Best of the Blogs
Still a Bobo in Paradise at Eduwonkette
At least half of the achievement gap that exists between black and white students cannot possibly be attributed to the K-12 schools.
A Dopier Approach to Education at D-Ed Reckoning
There’s nothing bigger or bolder about the “Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.” It’s the same old meme Rothstein and his ilk has been peddling for decades. The only thing that has changed is the packaging.
McCain Adviser: NCLB is Adequately Funded at Campaign K-12
John McCain education plan will likely not include additional funding for NCLB and will not direct Title I money toward private school vouchers.
100% Bull$#!% at Swift and Change Able
Two weeks ago, the Center for Education Policy published what we have come to refer to here at Swift & Change Able as “The Little Study That Cried Wolf”
What Sharpton and Klein forgot to ask at AFT NCLBlog
Apparently, Ed in ‘08, which has had little impact despite its 60 gazillion dollar budget, has been reincarnated as the Educational Equality Project (EEP). The “two” programs seem to have the same funders, a lot of the same players, and similar goals.
School of hate at Joanne Jacobs
Students at Islamic Saudi Academy, a Saudi-funded private school in northern Virginia, learn from Saudi textbooks that it’s OK for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam.
Teaching and Curriculum
Peer Review System for Teachers Spreads
National Public Radio
The teachers’ union in Toledo, Ohio, has spearheaded a controversial policy to purge the school district of incompetent teachers. It’s called “peer review” and no school system in the country has been doing it longer than Toledo.
Board-certified teachers boost student scores
USA Today
Students taught by educators certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards make bigger gains on standardized tests than students taught by other teachers a report finds.
Accelerated Math Adds Up To a Division Over Merits
The Washington Post
Montgomery County, Maryland is known for demanding parents, but its school districts math push has generated an unexpected backlash. Many parents say children are pushed too far, too fast.
Asian Americans’ academic success misleading, report says
Los Angeles Times
The success of some Asian American and Pacific Islander college students has given rise to a myth of the “model minority” that obscures important differences within a diverse population whose educational needs are often neglected
Teachers Want Better Tech Training and Support
eSchool News
After more than decade of investment in school technology, educators say they still don’t feel adequately prepared to integrate instructional software into their classrooms according to a joint study by the nation’s two largest teacher unions.
Education Policy
Standing Up for the Children
The Washington Post
Joel Klein and Al Sharpton are co-chairmen of a new national effort to push education issues from the periphery to the center of the 2008 presidential campaign. The Education Equity Project sees the failure of schools to educate black and Latino children as the overriding civil rights issue of the 21st century.
Mandated Tutoring Not Helping Test Scores
The Washington Post
Free tutoring that NCLB prescribes to help students at struggling schools has yielded little or no positive effect on student test scores in Virginia, Maryland and several other states, according to early evaluations.
Bush Loyalist Fights Foes of ‘No Child’ Law
The New York Times
Margaret Spellings is not running for office. But in the waning days of the Bush presidency, she is running one last campaign, to save No Child Left Behind.
2008 Enrollment In U.S. Expected To Set Record
The Washington Post
Public school enrollment across the country will hit a record high this year with just under 50 million students, and the student population is becoming more diverse in large part because of growth in the Latino population.
Homeschooling and Parenting
Home-Schooled Girl Denied Scholarship
WSMV-TV/Nashville
A girl who had the grades and the ACT scores was recently denied a scholarship to Middle Tennessee State University because she is home-schooled.
Seeking a few good men
The Baltimore Sun
At root, children need a loving home, but experts say that foster fathers, in particular, may offer children something that mothers can’t necessarily provide.
Colleges take different tack with home-schooled students
Redwood City News
Just because a home-schooled applicant’s transcript may carry less weight than that of a traditional high school student, home-schooled applicants’ transcripts are still important.
More Problems for Home-Schoolers in Germany
The Washington Times
In Germany, homeschool families continue to be aggressively pursued by school authorities and youth welfare officials.
Et Alia
Somber Students Outperform Cheerful Students
A study in the June issue of the journal Developmental Science found that children who feel happy don’t do as well on tasks that require precision as their peers who are sad or have neutral feelings.
‘Rewired’ brains help children read better
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
An intensive reading program conducted three years ago in 50 Allegheny County schools permanently “rewired” the brains of dyslexic children, Carnegie Mellon University researchers say.
Worrisome Rise in Underweight Babies
The Associated Press
The percentage of underweight babies born in the U.S. has increased to its highest rate in 40 years, according to a new report that also documents a recent rise in the number of children living in poverty.
A Half-Century of Serving, And Not Just Hot Lunches
The Washington Post
Helen Cook, 84, is still serving lunch to Lincoln Elementary students. This year marks her 50th year of service at the Purcellville, Virginia school. To honor that milestone, students and teachers surprised her with a special assembly Monday. A boxwood garden in front of Lincoln also has been dedicated in her honor.
Recent Comments