Archive for the 'Core Knowledge School' Category

Top CK School Wants Charter Cap Lifted

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 19, 2009 in Core Knowledge School. 0 Comments

The Carl C. Icahn Charter School, a Core Knowledge School in the South Bronx, had 99 percent of its third- through eighth-graders score at or above grade level this year’s state math exams, while 94 percent of kids pass the state’s reading test.  The New York Post notes that three more Icahn schools have opened and three more are planned.  The only other Icahn school whose kids have taken the state tests saw 100 percent of its third-graders meeting or surpassing the benchmarks.

However, if New York State doesn’t lift its cap on charter schools, currently set at 2o0, plans for more Icahn schools will come to a halt.  “This is part of the answer to a better education for children, so why limit it only to a 200 cap in a large state like this?” said Principal Daniel Garcia. 

“It’s a joy for me to hear kids in second grade talking about why the South seceded from the North and about abolitionists,” Garcia tells the paper. “It’s no wonder by the time they get to the eighth grade, they’re superstars.”

Good Schools “Avoid False Choices”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 13, 2009 in Core Knowledge School and Education News. 5 Comments

Whole language or phonics?  Skills or content?  Equity or excellence? In visits to successful schools, Karin Chenoweth has “been struck by how free they are from the frustrating controversies other schools get mired in.”   Chenoweth who works for the Education Trust, writes  in Education Week  that high-achieving schools with significant populations of low-income children ”tend to avoid questions about the philosophy of reading instruction. Rather, they approach the issue with what I consider a cheerful empiricism.” 

One such school is PS/MS 124, a Core Knowledge school and a past winner of Ed Trust’s “Dispelling the Myth” award.  As part of the New York City school system, “it is expected to teach its students a district curriculum that emphasizes skills rather than a set body of content,” writes Chenoweth.  But principal Valarie Lewis, noticed “teachers would teach skills, but if [the children] didn’t have background knowledge, it didn’t stick.”

She and the school’s then-principal, Elain Thompson, brought the Core Knowledge program to the school. Its curriculum, developed in part by E.D. Hirsch Jr., focuses on providing students with a great deal of background knowledge, from nursery rhymes to Newton’s Laws. ‘Teachers still need to teach the skills,’ said Judy Lefante, the school’s Core Knowledge coordinator, ‘but we’ve worked hard through professional development to make sure they teach skills through content.’ Skills such as making inferences, drawing conclusions, and separating facts from opinion, for example, are all worked on within the science and social studies content areas.”

Student achievement at PS/MS 124 is “almost indistinguishable from that of wealthy, white schools,” Chenoweth notes, “despite the fact that more than 80 percent of its mostly African-American, Latino, and South Asian students qualify for free lunches,” 

“The point is this,” she concludes. “Arguments that for too long have fostered false dichotomies, pitting one practice against another, can be resolved—but only if educators have as their clear goal ensuring that all their students become educated citizens, and then focus closely on what it takes to help them reach that goal.”

Kudos to P.S. 124

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 26, 2009 in Core Knowledge School and Education News. 1 Comment

New York City’s P.S. 124, an Official Core Knowledge School, is profiled in the Christian Science Monitor as an example of how to build sustainable success with low-SES  students–even on a tight budget.

Ten years ago, the school won a three-year, $784,000 state grant to carry out a plan for comprehensive reform. Rather than looking for money to reduce class size or try the latest fad, as is tempting for schools that feel chronically underfunded, two successive principals committed to a curriculum approach called Core Knowledge, one they hoped would unify teachers and students in high expectations for learning. The school is still reaping the benefits of their decisions today.

When the grant ran out, the paper notes, the school “consistently set aside a portion of its Title I money–federal support for low-income students–to keep Core Knowledge going. ‘Staying true to one program and giving it time to take root is the key,’ principal Valarie Lewis says. ‘Too many schools … have tried to get quick fixes and they’ve brought in too many programs; they’ve spent too much money.’”

National recognition for PS 124  is nothing new.  The school was a 2007 winner of Ed Trust’s coveted ”Dispelling the Myth” award for exceptional success in educating low-income students and students of color to high academic levels. 

Kudos to Lewis and her staff for sustaining their success. 

Core Knowledge a Difference Maker in Colorado Charter Schools?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 19, 2009 in Core Knowledge School and Curriculum. 0 Comments

Much sturm und drang over this week’s Stanford University study, which indicates charter schools nationwide are not performing as well as traditional public-schools.  Among the bright spots, however, were charters in Colorado, which the study says ”demonstrated significantly higher learning gains for charter school students than would have occurred in traditional schools.”

What’s in Colorado’s special sauce?

The Colorado Charter School Blog considers several factors including this one:  “Compared nationally, Colorado is atypical by having almost half of its charter schools using the Core Knowledge curriculum. Most states have more ‘home grown’ or experiential charter schools.”

 

Goal Standard

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 21, 2009 in Assessment and Testing, Core Knowledge School and accountability. 3 Comments

Run, don’t walk, over to Joanne Jacobs where the talented Diana Senechal is guest-blogging for Joanne between now and May 29.  Diana, a teacher at a Core Knowledge school in NYC, has been a frequent contributor here on the Core Knowledge Blog and one of the more original and thoughtful classroom observers in the edusphere wherever her comments appear.

Check out her thoughts about why failure is important, and today’s  post on goal-setting for students.  Apparently, New York City schools now require every student to have explicit, written learning goals in every subject–and to show or recite them on demand. 

The goal requirement blurs the line of responsibility. Who is responsible for the learning? If teachers must set goals for students, then students do not have to set goals for themselves. If the learning doesn’t happen, students can simply say that they never got their goals or never discussed them in conference. The focus is on documentation (what was sent out, discussed, and signed) rather than the subject matter and the learning of it.

“A goal can be vital or banal,” Diana concludes.  “Mandating it (and setting the language for it) tips it in the direction of banality.”

This is a classic example of my First Law of Bad Education Practice, which holds there is not a single good idea in education that doesn’t become a bad idea the moment it hardens into orthodoxy.  Diana nails the reason why this is ironclad law: once the focus is on documentation (Student goals? Check!) it’s all about the To Do list.  The first, immediate casualty is whatever made the idea powerful in the first place.

CK School is NYC’s Top Charter

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 14, 2009 in Core Knowledge School. 1 Comment

The Carl C. Icahn Charter School in the Bronx was New York City’s toughest charter school to get into this year.  The school had spots for less than 3% of its 868 applicants, the Daily News reports.  On last year’s state ELA test, 85.1% of students were proficient, more than double the rate of the surrounding district–as good an argument for the efficacy of a content-rich curriculum on reading achievement as one could want.  Math proficiency is even higher–over 97%. 

The paper doesn’t mention it, but Carl Icahn is a Core Knowledge school.  The school’s mission statement is “to use the Core Knowledge curriculum, developed by E.D. Hirsch, to provide students with a rigorous academic program offered in an extended day/year setting. Students will graduate armed with the skills and knowledge to participate successfully in the most rigorous academic environments, and will have a sense of personal and community responsibility.”

“The first class of eighth-graders who graduated last year all went on to top-tier high schools,” the paper notes, ”including the specialized high school Brooklyn Tech, the elite private school Phillips Exeter on a scholarship, and parochial schools also on scholarship.”  The school is run by Jeffrey Litt, who is something of a legend in Core Knowledge circles.  Many years ago a South Bronx public school run by Litt became only the second in the nation to adopt the curriculum.

The huge surplus of applicants suggests there’s some serious untapped demand in the Bronx.  Do the math.  Or ask the kids at Icahn to do it for you.

Linda Darling-Hammond Gives Props to Core Knowledge

Published by Robert Pondiscio on February 20, 2009 in Core Knowledge School and Education News. 2 Comments

Tout le blogs, following Politics K-12’s lead, note that Linda Darling-Hammond will not be joining the Obama administration as many expected, but has instead opted to remain at Stanford.  Another interesting LDH note appeared in the form of a letter to the editor of this morning’s Boston Globe. Titled “Knowledge, skills are not mutually exclusive goals” Darling-Hammond responds to a recent op-ed by Kathleen Madigan of the Pioneer Institute:

We note that many of the Core Knowledge schools of E.D. Hirsch, whom Madigan cites in her attempt to polarize, develop solid knowledge and rigorous thinking skills through a project-based curriculum, defying the silly idea that we can’t develop both knowledge and skills in our schools.

I’m not sure where Professor Darling-Hammond (and DFER’s Joe Williams, who helped author it) got the idea that the Core Knowledge curriculum is “project-based” (it’s up to teachers to use their professional judgement to decide how to teach the material), but her observation that solid knowledge and rigorous thinking skills are not mutually exclusive is certainly welcome–as is her citing the accomplishments of Core Knowledge schools. 

Alas, several reports cite a seriously ill family member as a prime reason for Darling-Hammond staying in California.  We pray it proves to be not serious, and wish her well.

Alfie Kohn Smackdown

Published by Robert Pondiscio on February 2, 2009 in Core Knowledge School, Education Theory and Research and Reports. 6 Comments

Dan Willingham does a takedown of all-purpose education pundit Alfie Kohn over at Britannica Blog.  Dan cheekily titles his piece “Alfie Kohn is Bad For You and Dangerous for Your Children” to lampoon Kohn’s stock-in-trade of broad-brush oversimplification.  He details how Kohn ”consistently makes factual errors, oversimplifies the literature that he seeks to explain, and commits logical fallacies.”

Kohn specializes in attacking conventional wisdom in education.  He takes a common practice that people think is helpful and then shows it’s not helpful, and in fact is destructive. Most people think that homework helps kids learn, praise shows appreciation and makes them more likely to do desirable things, and self-discipline helps them achieve their goals.  Kohn argues that each of these conclusions is wrong or over-simplified. Homework may bring small benefits to some students, but it incurs greater costs and overall is likely not worth assigning.  Praise doesn’t help academic achievement, it controls children, it reduces motivation, and makes them less able to make decisions. Self-discipline is oversold as an educational panacea, and in some contexts may actually be undesirable.

Kohn raises interesting questions and is a useful provocateur, Willingham concludes, but he “cannot be trusted as an accurate summary of the research literature….He will lead you to something interesting and useful, but if you want to use it, you will have to do the work yourself.”  

Along with Stuart Buck’s recent blog piece, seconded by Jay Greene, it seems the spotlight is burning a bit more brightly on Kohn of late. He has richly earned the dressing down.  I’ve gotten out of the business of responding to Kohn’s deliberate and persistent mischaracterization of the Core Knowledge curriculum as ”rote memorization” and a “bunch o’ facts.”  (The offer still stands, Mr. Kohn: Let me know when you want to visit a Core Knowledge school.)    Clearly, Kohn has no incentive to let a bunch o’ facts get in the way of what is a lucrative business of books, articles and lecture fees– reportedly 200 speaking engagements a year at $5K a pop.   Indeed, it’s tempting to view Alfie Kohn, Inc. as the intellectual equivalent of professional wrestling.  He needs a heavy to go after to keep that income stream running strong.

Update:  Eduwonk questions Dan’s sanity and masochistic tendencies in taking on Alfie Kohn.  Dan’s response in the comments section discusses the real price of shrugging your shoulders and rolling your eyes.

Kudos to Two Great Core Knowledge Schools

Published by Robert Pondiscio on December 9, 2008 in Core Knowledge School. 0 Comments

What’s going on in Colorado?  Ridgeview Classical Charter Schools ranks No. 15 on U.S. News’ list of the 100 best high schools in the U.S.  The school uses the Core Knowledge curriculum K-8, and a traditional, Classical-Liberal curriculum in the high school.  “The charter school, which opened in 2001, has been at the top of the state’s School Accountability Report measures and was previously near the top 100 in the U.S. News and World Report study,” notes the Colorado Charter blog. 

Another Colorado charter, Peak to Peak in Lafayette, which also uses Core Knowledge in K-8, places #69 on the U.S. News list. 

Bravo!

Elvis Is In the Building

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 7, 2008 in Core Knowledge School. 2 Comments

Hats off to the Traut Core Knowledge Elementary School in Ft. Collins, Colorado, where 6th graders transformed their school gym into a living “wax museum” to show off what they learned about various historic people.  The kids created displays, gave presentations to classmates and with the help of parent volunteers, dressed up as the person for others to see. 

The 75 living wax figures in included explorers, presidents, inventors and entertainers including Elvis, Ansel Adams, Marie Antoinette, Jackie Robinson and Sacajawea, and earned the school a write-up in the local paper. 

The characters weren’t exactly made of wax like the famous mannequins at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum; Instead, they were sixth graders dressed in ornate costumes who assumed motionless positions when given the command. The silence was more representative of a library than a gym, and the posed students barely blinked as younger classes in single file lines walked by the 75 exhibits.

“When a person you know goes by and stares at you, it’s hard not to laugh,” said sixth-grader Summer Paulson, who was dressed as Elizabeth Blackwell, the world’s first woman doctor.

That Core Knowledge stuff…all that deadly dull rote learning and drills.