Archive for March, 2009

Take That, AIG

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 20, 2009 in Education News and Students. 0 Comments

An upstate New York high school student could teach a course in character to the bonus babies of AIG.  Nicole Heise of Ithaca High School was one of The Concord Review’s six winners of The Concord Review’s Emerson Prize awards for excellence this year. But as EdWeek’s Kathleen Kennedy Manzo tells the story, she sent back her prize, a check for $800 with this note:

As you well know, for high school-aged scholars, a forum of this caliber and the incentives it creates for academic excellence are rare. I also know that keeping The Concord Review active requires resources. So, please allow me to put my Emerson award money to the best possible use I can imagine by donating it to The Concord Review so that another young scholar can experience the thrill of seeing his or her work published.

The Concord Review publishes research papers by high school scholars.  It’s a one-of-a-kind venue for its impressive young authors.  Manzo notes TCR ”has won praise from renowned historians, lawmakers, and educators, yet has failed to ever draw sufficient funding.”

It operates on a shoestring, as Founder and Publisher Will Fitzhugh reminds me often. Fitzhugh, who has struggled for years to keep the operation afloat, challenges students to do rigorous scholarly work and to delve deeply into history. His success at inspiring great academic work is juxtaposed against his failure to get anyone with money to take notice.

Young Ms. Heise noticed.  Anyone else?

“Over-Aiding” Students on Exams on the Rise

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 20, 2009 in Assessment and Testing and Education Practice. 0 Comments

Teachers are becoming bigger cheaters than their students on standardized tests, according to a British study.  Allegations of British invigilators (that’s what they call proctors in the Mother Country) ”over-aiding” pupils is on the rise.

“Teachers’ leaders have warned that their members are under increasing pressure to make sure their pupils do well in tests because of schools’ desire for a good showing in government league tables listing primary school results,” Britain’s Independent newspaper reports. 

I haven’t seen hard data on “over-aiding” in U.S. schools but I suspect it’s not uncommon, especially in struggling schools.  Teachers in my elementary school were ordered by the district to engage in ”active proctoring,” continually moving among students, during state exams.  We were expected not to sit down.  Active proctoring, we were told, had been demonstrated to result in higher test scores. 

I suspect if that’s true it’s because “active proctoring” encourages “over-aiding.”

Conditions of Lying…I Mean Learning!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 20, 2009 in Education News and Education Theory. 3 Comments

Australian whole language guru Brian Cambourne has found himself in a minor dust-up Down Under for suggesting a “subliminal campaign” to undermine phonics as an approach to teaching reading by subconsciously linking it with the idea of failure.

Cambourne, best known in the U.S. for his “Conditions of Learning” theory, sent a mass email to literacy educators suggesting they flood an education minister’s office with emails linking phonics to “readicide”, which Cambourne describes as ”the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools,” the Australian reports.  Cambourne’s suggestion was in response to the official’s announcement of the nation’s “first direct comparison of phonics-based reading methods with other techniques.”

Asked why he had to resort to a subliminal campaign instead of relying on evidence, Professor Cambourne first said: “You don’t really believe we can influence the minister’s subconscious?”  Cambourne tells the Australian:

When the email was quoted back to him, Professor Cambourne said he and his colleagues had to rely on cognitive science’s framing theory. “It’s a way of making ideas change based on new theories rather than just denying or trying to argue with people you can’t argue with,” Professor Cambourne said. “When you rely on evidence, it’s twisted. We can also present evidence but we never get a fair hearing. We rely on the cognitive science framing theory, to frame things the way you want the reader to understand them to be true – framing things that you’re passionate about in ways that reveal your passion.”

Framing things the way you want the reader to understand them to be true?  Forgive me, but isn’t that a fancy definition of lying?

“We have to use the same kind of tactics that have been used to demean and demonise whole language,” he said before adding that, if The Australian reported his comments: “I will deny I ever said this.”

Oops.

Basketball? How About Academics?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 19, 2009 in Higher Education and accountability. 3 Comments

Teams in the NCAA basketball tournament kicking off tonight put very different numbers on the board when it comes to graduation rates. A study by the University of Central Florida shows among the four No. 1 seeds, North Carolina has the highest graduation rate for its players (86%), while Connecticut is the laggard (33%). Louisville graduates 42% of its athletes; Pitt 69%.

“The study also found that fewer tournament teams have failing Academic Progress Rates than last year,” the AP reports. “Twenty-one of the 65 tournament teams have APR scores under 925, the cutoff below which the NCAA can penalize schools. Last year, 35 teams had APR scores below 925.” Forty of the 65 teams in the tourney have graduation rates of at least 50 percent, based on the number of freshmen who entered school between the 1998-99 and 2001-02 school years earned diplomas within six years.

Seven teams had a 100 percent graduation rate: Binghamton, Florida State, Marquette, Robert Morris, Utah State, Wake Forest and Western Kentucky.

On the women’s side, the picture is much different – and brighter. Fourteen women’s basketball teams in the NCAA tournament have perfect graduation rates, including top-seeded Connecticut. The other schools with 100 percent graduation rates are DePaul, Evansville, Florida, Lehigh, Marist, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Sacred Heart, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas, Vanderbilt and Villanova.

The Boston Globe says the graduation rates for somee schools are so bad — especially for black athletes — that they shouldn’t be in the tournament at all.

On paper, the top 16 seeds have an average graduation rate of 53 percent for black players. But eight of those 16 are so bad, their average graduation rate for black players is 32 percent. Those teams include five of the top eight seeds: UConn, Louisville, Oklahoma, Michigan State, and Memphis.

“We will know the world is truly changing,” the paper notes ”when politicians write letters and make statements that embarrassing graduation rates for their flagship university basketball team are unacceptable.”

Incentivize Everyone!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 18, 2009 in Education Theory and accountability. 2 Comments

The normally mild-mannered Joanne Jacobs goes off on a former Oregon teacher, principal and superintendent, who writes in a letter to the New York Times that President Obama, if he’s serious about about improving education, should “lose the words ‘achievement’ and ‘rigor,’ which have no connection to the inquisitiveness, determination, creative thinking and perseverance students need for genuine lifelong learning.” 

No connection? I remain dubious about the idea that those who’ve learned little in school will become “lifelong learners” at some happy day in the future.  As for “inquisitiveness, determination, creative thinking and perseverance,” those traits usually lead to achievement in the here and now without the necessity of waiting till winged pigs are ice-skating in hell.  I don’t even think that “achievement” and “rigor” foreclose the possibility of “creative thinking.” Not unless “creative” is a synonym for “wrong” and “thinking” means “making a poster.”

Amen to all that.  Click through to the letter in the Times and the writer’s main point (if you can ignore the nonsense about rigor and achievement) actually proposes a provocative idea.

If the federal government wants to reward school success, it should split those rewards among all those who have contributed: parents; the whole school faculty, including the principal; and the students themselves. The government might also reward the community that gave its schools financial and moral support.

Each of these ideas is fraught with baggage and “moral hazard” but each has its champions: New York City has piloted a program to offer cash incentives for things like attending their child’s parent teacher conferences, for example.  Roland Fryer and others have promoted pay-for-grades schemes.  Merit pay plans are legion.  I remain skeptical about all of them for various reasons. But I’m equally skeptical about treating teachers as the only moving part in the incentive equation.   If you believe that cash incentives matter, it would be an interesting thought exercise to think through what a Total Incentive Plan might look like.

Protect Teachers? Or Protect the Profession?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 18, 2009 in Education Leadership, Teaching and accountability. 14 Comments

On Brittanica Blog, Dan Willingham takes a look at teachers’ wish for greater respect and the role of unions in winning it.  He observes that unions perform two important functions that are fundamentally at odds with each other: they protect the rights of individual teachers in personnel matters, and they undertake public relations and other activities in an effort to promote the profession.

On the one hand, if your mission is to protect the members of the profession from unfair termination, you will insist on a rigorous process by which their incompetence must be demonstrated. On the other hand it must be admitted that in any profession employing several million people some are incompetent, and if your job is to protect the reputation and integrity of the profession, you should want those people to leave.

Since the process of determining who is or isn’t a good teacher is far from foolproof, mistakes will be made, Dan notes. So the question becomes what kind of mistake do you prefer: firing someone who is actually a good teacher?  Or failing to fire an incompetent teacher?  If you’re cautious about not allowing good teachers to be fired, you’ll inevitably allow more poor teachers to remain.  If protecting the reputation of the profession is your main concern some good teachers will end up being drummed out of the corps unfairly. 

“If your diagnostic is imperfect, you’re going to make errors,” Willingham writes.  “All you can do is choose the proportion of error types.”  He argues that teachers unions have handled this tradeoff badly, harming the reputation of teaching as a profession. 

While Dan’s post is at Brittanica Blog, the debate over it is at Eduwonk.  Teachers’ unions “are in a purgatory of their own creation,” opines Andy Rotherham. ”They don’t want to use data to evaluate teachers and they don’t want to use managerial discretion.   I guess that leaves the Magic 8-Ball?”  After much back and forth about the union’s preferred role Willingham makes an observation that seems unassailable: “The President is talking about getting rid of poor teachers,” he writes. ”It appears likely that something is going to be done, so you may as well try to take control of the situation so it’s something you are doing, rather than something that is done to you.” 

Lead, follow, or get out of the way, in other words. 

N.B. Dan has a brilliant new book out called Why Students Don’t Like School, which if I had a magic wand would appear on the desk of every teacher in America. Absent that, I’m thrilled to report that Professor Willingham will be taking over the Core Knowledge Blog all of next week to talk about some of the insights from his work and his new book while I take a week off from blogging.  Don’t miss it.

PETA Protest Targets Elementary School

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 17, 2009 in Education News and Opinion. 5 Comments

Regardless of how you feel about animal rights, this move by PETA to show up unannounced and uninvited at a Long Island elementary school to convince children that circuses mistreat their animals simply feels wrong-headed.  Protesters reportedly handed out coloring books to children leaving for the day with stickers that read, “Circuses are no fun for animals” according to Newsday.  “I just think targeting children this age is inappropriate, in my opinion,” Rodney Gilmore, Hempstead district assistant interim superintendent for elementary education tells the paper.

PETA assistant director Kristie Phelps defended the group’s actions, saying there was no harm done to children by showing up at a school to inform them about abuses endured by circus animals. She said that with the circus using “glittery” ads and ticket discounts, children and adults “deserve to know that elephants don’t naturally stand on their heads and bears don’t ride bicycles.”

Others disagree.  “These children might go home and be very anxious,” Phyllis Ohr, a clinical psychologist at Hofstra University, tells the paper. “Children are less mature in their cognitive process.”

And of course, no sooner do I write this than I realize that doing so merely rewards this kind of attention seeking, ends-justify-the-means behavior….

Arguments For and Against National Standards

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 17, 2009 in Curriculum and Education News. 11 Comments

Mike Smith says he ”somewhat skeptical” about national standards.  A senior adviser to Ed Secretary Arne Duncan, who favors them, Smith gave the keynote at a Library of Congress Forum on American Education in the 21st Century Monday.  Taking care to say he was speaking only for himself, not Duncan or President Obama, Smith noted his biggest concern is that “you can’t keep ideology or politics out of the ball game,” according to Ed Week’s Mary Ann Zehr at Curriculum Matters.

He put in the category of “weak” arguments the idea that the nation needs common standards because, as matters stand now, all 50 states set different proficiency levels. The argument is weak, he said, because the proficiency levels can be standardized. Another bad argument for common standards, he said, is that even though policymakers and educators acknowledge they don’t know much about what constitutes high-quality standards or assessments, they claim it would be beneficial to create a single, nationwide system.

But Smith also said standards could foster a common curriculum. “The potential to develop a common curriculum is the ‘core reason’ that he supports the advancement of common standards,” Zehr reports. 

Read the rest on Mary Ann’s blog; Ed Week’s Politics K-12 also weighs in on Smiths “eyebrow-raising” speech.

“Another Meaningless Mandate”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 17, 2009 in No category. 7 Comments

Not content with the Pledge of Allegiance, Oklahoma’s House has unanimously passed legislation requiring students to recite the “Oklahoma Salute” as well.  The Tulsa World’s editorial writers are apoplectic, sniffing “this is what passes for education reform in the Oklahoma legislature this year.”

You could almost hear the exasperated voices of the public school teachers: ‘Great, another meaningless mandate.’ Those same teachers may not have the resources they need to do their jobs. Their classrooms may be overcrowded and dilapidated. They may not have a hope of a raise this year, meaning their colleagues will continue to be tempted by better paying jobs across state lines. But, thank goodness, that Oklahoma House of Representatives was Johnny on the Spot to make sure that no kid misses out on his obligation to pledge allegiance to the Oklahoma flag.

The 16-word salute reads: “I salute the flag of the State of Oklahoma. Its symbols of peace unite all people.”  It won’t take long.  I do wonder, however, who’s going to pay to put state flags in every classroom in the Sooner State.

4th Grade Science, 3rd Rate Answers

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 16, 2009 in Core Knowledge and Education News. 1 Comment

How long does it take the Earth to revolve around the Sun? Did the earliest humans and dinosaurs live at the same time?  What percent of the Earth’s surface is covered with water?  If you don’t know the answers to all three questions (1 year, no, and about 70%) then you have company.  Lots of company.  Only one out of five American adults know the answer to all three questions, according to a survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences.

Despite the low grasp of science knowledge, about 4 in 5 adults say science education is “absolutely essential” or “very important” to the U.S. healthcare system (86%), the U.S. global reputation (79%), and the U.S. economy (77%).  They would know. 

Take the quiz yourself at the California Academy of Science website. 

(HT: Joanne Jacobs)