Tag Archive for 'achievement gap'

A Call for Direct Instruction

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 16, 2009 in Education News, Opinion and Research and Reports. 22 Comments

A solution for the achievement gap was discovered four decades ago, writes John McWhorter in The New Republic, and it has nothing to do with raising low expectations, improving parental involvement, or demanding accountability.  Starting in the late 1960s, he writes, Project Follow Through compared nine teaching methods and tracked their results in more than 75,000 children from kindergarten through third grade:

It found that the Direct Instruction (DI) method of teaching reading was vastly more effective than any of the others for (drum roll, please) poor kids, including black ones. DI isn’t exactly complicated: Students are taught to sound out words rather than told to get the hang of recognizing words whole, and they are taught according to scripted drills that emphasize repetition and frequent student participation.

Subsequent studies found similar results, says McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Indeed, he notes, ”a search for an occasion where DI was instituted and failed to improve students’ reading performance would be distinctly frustrating.”  So why no discussion of Direct Instruction as a means of addressing the achievement gap?

Schools of education have long been caught up in an idea that teaching poor kids to read requires something more than, well, teaching them how to sound out words. The poor child, the good-thinking wisdom tells us, needs tutti-frutti approaches bringing in music, rhythm, narrative, Ebonics, and so on. Distracted by the hardships in their home lives, surely they cannot be reached by just laying out the facts. That can only work for coddled children of doctors and lawyers. But the simple fact of how well DI has worked shows that “creativity” is not what poor kids need.

Matthew Yglesias describes McWhorter’s piece as “somewhat overblown but essentially correct” and nails an even larger issue:

It’s both strange and unfortunate that the education system is so unresponsive to this research and also strange and unfortunate that “education reform” efforts have so much focus on administrative structure of school systems and so little on these kinds of curriculum issues.”

McWhorter meanwhile urges Arne Duncan, the next Ed Secretary to consider “taking the blinders off and forcing America’s urban school districts to teach poor kids to read with tools that we have known to work since the Nixon Administration.”

 

Turnaround Without Turmoil

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 9, 2009 in Education Leadership, Educational Policy and accountability. 8 Comments

Are conflict and confrontation necessary ingredients in a school turnaround?  Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher files a provocative column about a Maryland school that is succeeding without the kind of bare knuckle brawls that are drawing national media attention to Michelle Rhee and the nearby Washington, DC school system.

Fisher goes to Broad Acres Elementary School in Silver Spring where scores were so low eight years ago that a state takeover loomed. Montgomery County Superintendent Jerry Weast and Principal Jody Leleck negotiated with the teachers union to add extra hours to the work week for extra pay. “Teachers would offer no more excuses about poor kids from dysfunctional families; expectations would soar. About a third of the faculty left; Leleck hired 27 veteran teachers that first summer” he reports. 

Rhee’s faceoff with the Washington Teachers’ Union creates a dynamic different from the cooperation between Weast and Montgomery County Education Association President Bonnie Cullison. She said she hears Rhee telling teachers, ” ‘You’re not doing the job,’ as opposed to ‘Let’s work together.’ You cannot make it happen in a district where you set up conflict”…Weast won’t criticize his D.C. counterpart, but he will say that narrowing the achievement gap is about expecting all children to work hard and love learning. “You can do it anyplace if you treat people like you want to be treated,” he says.

Today, 81 percent meet reading proficiency standards this year, up from 47 percent in 2003. “Broad Acres did this without Rhee’s reform tactics,” Fisher points out. ”No young recruits from Teach for America, no cash for students who come to class, no linkage of teacher pay to test scores.”  And what’s happening inside the classrooms?

Too often, schools desperate to boost test scores become grim factories in which children are force-fed rote skills. But at Broad Acres, teachers coach each other to keep kids engaged in rich material for its own sake. In Andrea Sutton’s fifth-grade class, 16 kids sit on the floor, jumping up to explain to one another the roots of the American colonists’ grievances with the British. The teacher’s voice never rises above a stage whisper as she plies the class with questions that would fit nicely in a high school course.  With all the pressure from No Child Left Behind, it’s so easy to cut out history and science,” Bayewitz says. “But these kids are going to need those complex skills in high school and college. And these kids are going to college.”

Claus von Zastrow at Public School Insights observes that Fisher’s piece reminds us “that school improvement does not necessarily require a death-match between high-profile ‘reformers’ and the education ‘establishment.’” Fisher is promising a follow-up column Sunday on ”a D.C. school that matches Broad Acre’s population, put presumably not its methods.  Stay tuned.

Whitmire’s Swan Song

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 6, 2009 in Education News, Parents and Students. 2 Comments

One of the real good guys education journalism is saying farewell, for now at least, from ink-stained wretchdom.  Richard Whitmire, USA Today editorial writer and Why Boys Fail edublogger, has taken a buyout and bows out with a piece in today’s paper “How to turn Obama’s success into gains for black boys.”

There’s no question Obama was elected by Americans of all races and ethnicities to be president of all America. But many hope that his presidency will have a profound impact on one group most in need, African-American boys.

Whitmire notes that the American Dream “remains a more distant hope for black boys than it does for any other group.”  And while there’s potency in the symbolic value of an Obama presidency, that’s not enough. 

What matters today is determining how to leverage Obama’s historic achievement into a fresh beginning for black boys. Confidence is important, but it’s not sufficient. As Obama often says, success begins with parents willing to take responsibility, set limits and turn off the TV. But successful education reforms have shown that the right academic atmosphere can help overcome dysfunctional family situations.

He specifically touts a focus on literacy, modeling the practices of successful schools like Washington’s Key Academy, and creating college mentoring programs for young black males.  ”These are all reforms worthy of support,” Whitmire concludes.  “Obama’s symbolism is undeniably powerful, but it will take more than symbolism to go beyond yes-we-can sloganeering.”

Quo vadis, Whitmire?

Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad…

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 30, 2008 in Assessment and Testing and Education Theory. 3 Comments

In a two-week trial of a cash incentive program for students at a Washington middle school attendance and punctuality have improved. Grades have not.  The Washington Post’s Bill Turque takes a look inside a school that is aggressively implementing the controversial concept.

The Northwest Washington school’s 307 students are among the roughly 3,000 middle-schoolers eligible to earn as much as $100 every two weeks — to a maximum of $1,500 for the academic year — for showing up on time, not disrupting class and getting high grades. Students have been buzzing about the pilot program, called Capital Gains, since they learned in late August that their school had been selected.

The program, as you might have guessed, is the brainchild of incentives guru Roland Fryer.  Every two weeks, students are evaluated on 10-point scales according to a series of performance indicators. “All schools in the program are required to review behavior and attendance, which means showing up on time for every class,” the Post reports.  “Individual schools can choose other criteria, including grades, homework, class participation and adherence to the dress code. Each point is worth $2.” 

For the first two pay periods, beginning Oct. 17, checks will be distributed by school staff. Later, they will be deposited directly into student-owned savings accounts at SunTrust Bank. Students will be able to access the money with or without their parents, and no one can withdraw money without the child, officials said.

Last week, it was announced the Fryer will lead a new education research center at Harvard University, which will monitor efforts to close achievement gaps.  Incentive programs, not surprisingly, will be the first idea under Fryer’s shiny new $44 million microscope.

Update:  I’m still agnostic on incentives, but a reader at Eduwonkette nicely summarizes the ick factor that many educators feel about it.  “The soul-crushing aspect of Fryer’s theoretical framework is that it lets the curriculum and the teacher and the school entirely off the hook,” observes Citizen X. ”It’s a much more cynical view on students living in poverty. They don’t care, they are only motivated by material objects that they don’t have, they have to be bribed into “learning” (or at least learning to get a better score on a bubble sheet).”

A Made Up Mind

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 29, 2008 in Education Theory. 2 Comments

Say this about Charles Murray: he’s very clear about where he stands.  Writing in the Times of London — and echoing the themes of his most recent book, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality — Murray rejects the idea that all children can succeed on the academic track if schools do their job. “There are both genetic and moral reasons that children of the professional classes come out on top,” he says.  Having limited academic talent is no more remarkable than being limited in art, music or sports, writes Murray, who describes the belief that every child can learn at a high level as nothing more than “educational romanticism.”

And yet to say such things in public is to invite shock and ridicule. The educational romantics will pummel you with four objections: 1) when children are below average we can raise their ability; 2) the schools are so bad that children at all levels of ability can learn much more than they are learning now; 3) the rising test scores of the past decade prove that big improvements are possible; and 4) there’s no reason why the high educational achievement of children of the professional classes cannot be achieved by all classes.

“The bottom line: at best, we can move children from far below average intellectually to somewhat less below average,” Murray concludes emphatically. “No one claims that any project anywhere has proved anything more than that.”

Karin Chenoweth had her way with Murray a few weeks ago on the Britannica Blog, noting that “Murray is ignoring the fact that good instruction makes a huge difference in what kids can and do learn.”

Winning Hearts and Minds

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 17, 2008 in Educational Policy and Parents. 1 Comment

If you’re over 40 years old and grew up in the U.S., you probably vividly remember a tsunami of roadside litter along American highways. It was fairly common as recently as 30 or 40 years ago for people to simply pitch trash from moving cars.  There was little societal pressure to do otherwise.  Then along came this guy: 

 

The “Crying Indian“ did as much as anyone to change Americans’ attitudes about littering, and their behavior.  Some have even credited this public service campaign from Keep America Beautiful, which debuted on Earth Day in 1971, with launching the modern environmental movement. 

I thought of the Crying Indian while reading this op-ed in the Washington Times.  Childrens’ book author Jennifer Bryan reminds us yet again of the benefit of reading to young children.  “In an era of high-stakes testing and education reforms and revolutions, research has repeatedly proved that one simple parenting technique is among the most effective,” she writes.  “Children who are read aloud to by parents get a head start in language and literacy skills and go to school better prepared.”

Right.  We know this.  But how many low-income Americans–the group least likely to read to their children–are going to hear about it in earnest op-eds?  If I’m Obama or McCain, I put a massive public service campaign touting the benefits of reading to young children at the top of my education “to do” list.   Done well, it might be the single most effective thing we can do right now, today, to close the achievement gap. 

Effective public service messages have a long history of changing behavior, and burning the ideas behind them into the public mind.  Buckle Up.  A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  Just say no.  Give a hoot, don’t pollute.  Only you can prevent forest fires.  This is your brain on drugs.  Any questions?

 Aim it at parents, air it where they’re most likely to see it, and plaster it on inner city billboards.  Make it direct and hard-hitting, not warm and fuzzy.

“It’s ten o’clock.  Have you read to your child today?”

Detroit Closes Achievement Gap!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 29, 2008 in Research and Reports. 1 Comment

Michigan has the nation’s lowest graduation rate for black male students, while Detroit has the second-lowest rate for big-city school districts, according to a report from the Schott Foundation for Public Education.  Other findings:

  • The state of New York has 3 of the 10 districts (NYC, Rochester and Buffalo) with the lowest graduation rates for Black males.
  • Indianapolis ranks dead last, graduating only 19% of its black male students.
  • The one million black male students enrolled in the New York, Florida, and Georgia public schools are twice as likely not to graduate with their class.
  • Illinois and Wisconsin have nearly 40-point gaps between “how effectively they educate their Black and White non-Hispanic male students.”

While Detroit graduates a mere 20% of its black male students, that’s actually higher than the 17% of white male students who graduate.

“Carlos Is Asian At Heart”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 18, 2008 in Education News. 0 Comments

L.A. TimesFriends of Carlos Garcia, a Latino student at with a knack for math at Lincoln High School tell him, ‘You’re more Asian than Hispanic.’” An Asian student, Julie Loc concurs. “I think Carlos is Asian at heart,” she says. And what do students at this Los Angeles high school say about their Asian peers who struggle in school? “I had an Asian friend, but he didn’t necessarily get that great a grades. We used to say, ‘He’s Mexican at heart.’”

The Los Angeles Times convened this frank discussion about race and achievement for a front page story.

Both the neighborhood and student body are about 15% Asian. And yet Asians make up 50% of students taking Advanced Placement classes. Staffers can’t remember the last time a Latino was valedictorian….According to a study of census data, 84% of the Asian and Latino families in the neighborhoods around Lincoln High have median annual household incomes below $50,000. And yet the Science Bowl team is 90% Asian, as is the Academic Decathlon team.

Asian parents are more likely to pressure their children to excel academically, the students agreed. The students talked not just about parental expectations, notes the Times, but also about those of peers. One girl drew laughter when she said of other students, “They expect me to be smart. Even if, like, I do everything wrong on purpose, they still copy off of me — as if I’m right just because I’m Asian.”

Teachers at Lincoln, meanwhile, detect a self-defeating attitude among Hispanic students. “I think the thing I always hear from the Latino kids is, ‘Oh, well, Miss, he’s Asian, she’s Asian. Of course they do well,’ ” said Alli Lauer, who teaches English. “It’s frustrating to hear them do it to each other.”

You Say “Achievement Gap” Like It’s a Bad Thing

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 15, 2008 in Educational Policy. 2 Comments

We all have our pet causes and issues in education that get us carbonated.  At the top of my list is the fate of potentially high-achieving kids, low-income kids who are left to languish in lowest common denominator schools.  Thus I’m happy to see the estimable Jay Mathews devote his Wash Post column to the recent Fordham report, High-Achieving Students in the Era of No Child Left Behind.  I’ll think twice, however, about casually tossing around the phrase “achievement gap” in the future, thanks to Uncle Jay.

Why don’t I like talking about the achievement gap? Because we use the term in a way that suggests narrowing the gap is always a good thing, when that is not so. Here are some ways the gap could narrow: Low-income scores improve but high-incomes scores don’t; low-income scores don’t change but high-income scores drop; low-income scores drop but high-income scores drop even more. In each of those cases of gap-narrowing, something bad is happening.

Mathews posits that concerns about the income gap have crept into the way we talk about academic achievement.  “I can understand distaste for people who build 50-room mansions with gold bathroom fixtures. But can anyone learn too much?” he asks.  “Wisdom tends to help everyone who comes in contact with it. Ski chalets in Aspen are less useful to those of us who can’t afford them.”

Labels, of course, tend to stick once they’ve taken root, and it’s unlikely “achievement gap” will disappear.  Low-income underachievement, perhaps? 

 

Toch Finds the Sensible Center

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 18, 2008 in Educational Policy. 1 Comment

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.