by Robert Pondiscio
March 14th, 2008
Tags: history, Literacy, literature, math
Posted in Curriculum, Educational Policy | No Comments »
I could kiss Michael Petrilli on the mouth.
A perennial, frustrating blind spot among ed reformers, with their monomaniacal focus on systems, structures and accountability, is curriculum. Trying to build good schools without looking at curriculum is like trying to build a winning baseball team by focusing on the parking lot, the stadium and the vendors and assuming the “baseball people” are the experts on the game. My new hero Mr. Petrilli gets this. Read his take in the Fordham Foundation’s Gadfly on the NY Times piece How Many Billionaires Does It Take to Fix a School System?
“In a 5,000 word forum on education, these words did not appear once: instruction, curriculum, reading, math, history, literature,” sayeth Mr. Petrilli, with the clarity of the child pointing out the Emperor is naked. “This ‘incentivist’ thinking is a fair reflection of the state of the ‘new’ education philanthropy. Staffed mostly by smart MBAs and obsessed with structures and systems and processes, their ignorance about the stuff of education leads to agnosticism. And, predictably, to trouble. (See Joel Klein’s embrace of Diana Lam and Lucy Calkins as Exhibits 1 and 2.).” As Petrilli sees it, to remain agnostic on curriculum and pedagogy is “like sending in nation-builders who can’t speak Arabic and never studied Iraqi history.”
He wraps up with a thought exercise. What if a billionaire wants to focus his philanthropy on smart instructionist investments? Petrilli offers three: Support the development of national standards and tests; create a voluntary national curriculum; and fund thousands of high-quality summer workshops.
Not a bad start. Bravo, sir! Discuss among yourselves, billionaires.
by Robert Pondiscio
March 11th, 2008
Tags: blogs, Literacy
Posted in Opinion | No Comments »
Before I blundered in to education some years ago, I did many years of service in Big Media. I acquired many of the habits of mind, I confess, that are still found in their halls. So for years I ignored blogs. I found myself taking in more and more of my news online, but blogs? A bunch of wannabes copping an attitude. Ho-hum.
Education has taught me what I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see. If you really care passionately about something, blogs (the best of them, anyway) are now the medium of first and last resort. Case in point, last week’s scathing Reading First report by Sol Stern for the Fordham Foundation. Go over to Google right now and key in “Sol Stern and Reading First” and be sure to choose “News” not “Web” on Google. Go ahead, try it. I’ll wait.
As I write this, there’s one print media result, from Ed Week. There’s also a great piece by Sara Mead if you’re just catching up to this story. Now, look again at Google. See that little link in the lower left that says “Blogs”? Click it.
There’s eduwonk, Joanne Jacobs, Ken DeRosa, Dean Millot, eduflack and a host of others. If you’re not following the blogs, you don’t know about it. This is happening more and more. Remember the last time Sol Stern set a match to powder with his heretical City Journal piece on vouchers? The blogs had picked the bones clean and left them bleaching in the sun when the New York Times finally got around to it a month later.
I suppose it’s the frustration of the major media not picking up on Stern’s Reading First smackdown that prompted the Fordham Foundation today to issue a statement calling for an investigation “into scandalous efforts by the executive and legislative branches to sabotage the Reading First program.” That call got just as much play as the original report, from the dead-tree traffickers. All I can say to Checker & Co. is fear not, gentlemen. The Times and the rest will be by eventually. Keep a light on for them.
by Robert Pondiscio
March 7th, 2008
Tags: Literacy, Reading First, Sol Stern
Posted in Assessment and Testing, Teaching | No Comments »
I’ve been meaning to get to Sol Stern’s eyebrow-raising exegesis of the rise and fall of Reading First. But whether you’ve read it or not, read this blistering response, which imagines a conversation between a smug reading teacher and a fourth-grader who can’t read. It may peel off your wallpaper. Tip ‘o the hat to Ken DeRosa of D-Ed Reckoning for posting this.
by Robert Pondiscio
February 17th, 2008
Tags: cultural literacy, Literacy, technology
Posted in Education Theory | No Comments »
Howard Gardner, who has made a lucrative career labeling skills and talents like musical ability and athleticism “intelligences,” is now doing the same for literacy. In an essay in the Washington Post, the Harvard professor is untroubled by dire reports of declining literacy because — what else? — “an ensemble of literacies — will continue to thrive, but in forms and formats we can’t yet envision.”
Thankfully, Gardner observes that “even in the new digital media, it’s essential to be able to read and write fluently and, if you want to capture people’s attention, to write well.” He doesn’t foresee books disappearing, although the printed word bound up at length between covers may lose its most-favored format status.
“But whatever our digital future brings, we need to overcome the perils of dualistic thinking, the notion that what lies ahead is either a utopia or a dystopia,” Gardner concludes. “If we’re going to make sense of what’s happening with literacy in our culture, we need to be able to triangulate: to bear in mind our needs and desires, the media as they once were and currently are, and the media as they’re continually transforming. It’s not easy to do. But maybe there’s a technology, just waiting to be invented, that will help us acquire this invaluable cognitive power.”
by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
February 16th, 2008
Tags: achievement gap, adequate progress, Literacy, NAEP, NCLB
Posted in Core Knowledge, Educational Policy | No Comments »
Why has the No Child Left Behind law left so many children behind? According to the latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the reading achievement of eighth-graders has declined since the law was passed in 2001, and the large reading gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children — “the achievement gap” — has stayed where it was. Today’s eighth-graders had recorded gains in fourth grade, but these have not led to improvements in later grades — when reading scores actually count for a student’s future.
Those in Congress in charge of crafting revisions should understand that the law’s disappointing results owe less to defects in the law than to the methods and ideas schools use in their attempts to fulfill the “adequate yearly progress” mandate for all groups of students; this causes schools, as many complain, to teach to reading tests rather than educate children. But intensive test preparation by schools has resulted in lower reading test scores in later grades. “Teaching to the test” does not effectively teach to the test after all.
Studies of reading comprehension show that knowing something of the topic you’re reading about is the most important variable in comprehension. After a child learns to sound out words, comprehension is mostly knowledge. Many technical studies support the assertion that after students can fluently sound out words, relevant knowledge is the crucial difference between students who are good or poor readers. In light of the relevant science, an analysis of the textbooks and methods used to teach reading and language arts — for three hours a day in many places — indicates some of the reasons for the disappointing later results. These test-prep materials are constructed on the mistaken view that reading comprehension is a skill that can be perfected by practice, as typing can be. This how-to conception of reading has caused schools to spend a lot of unproductive time on trivial content and on drills such as “finding the main idea” and less time on history, science and the arts.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Robert Pondiscio
February 2nd, 2008
Tags: Literacy, Reading First
Posted in Educational Policy | No Comments »
As first reported by Ed Week’s David J. Hof, President Bush will ask for $1 billion to fund the Reading First program in his FY 2009 budget. Education Secretary confirmed it Friday, and the Associated Press has a copy of the $60 billion White House education budget request, which will be sent to Congress Monday.
by Robert Pondiscio
January 31st, 2008
Tags: Karin Chenoweth, Literacy
Posted in Education Practice | No Comments »
At the suggestion of today’s ASCD “Smart Brief” I clicked over to the Britannica Blog to check out its education section. Good suggestion. While there, I stumbled upon a terrific Karin Chenoweth piece that escaped my notice when it was posted late last year. What Exactly are Kids Reading in those “Reading Blocks”? Go. Read. Discuss.
by Robert Pondiscio
January 31st, 2008
Tags: Literacy
Posted in Education Practice, Education Theory, Opinion | No Comments »
If you missed Garrison Keillor’s lament about the state of education on Salon yesterday (thanks A. Russo) take a look. Stick around to scroll through the responses, many of which can be summarized as “I love Prarie Home Companion, but…”
“This is a bleak picture for an old Democrat,” writes Keillor. “Face it, the schools are not run by Republican oligarchs in top hats and spats but by perfectly nice, caring, sharing people, with a smattering of yoga/raga/tofu/mojo/mantra folks like my old confreres. Nice people are failing these kids, but when they are called on it, they get very huffy. When the grand poobah Ph.D.s of education stand up and blow, they speak with great confidence about theories of teaching, and considering the test results, the bums ought to be thrown out.”
Lots of nice people getting very huffy in the comments section.
by Robert Pondiscio
January 10th, 2008
Tags: Literacy
Posted in Education Practice, Teaching | 4 Comments »
Is it better to have read and learned, than never to have read at all? The question is posed by Chicago school teacher Will Okun on the New York Times website. His essay is titled “None,” the response he gets when he asks his high school juniors and seniors, many low-income and minority, to list their favorite books. They literally sleep through “The Great Gatsby” and “The Scarlet Letter,” but come alive when the book being discussed is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” or “The Color Purple.”
Dutifully reflective, Okun blames himself for his failure to get his students interested in the classics. But he’s not exactly beating himself up. “Why should we continue to mandate the teaching of British literature (for instance) if teachers such as I are unable to provoke such little student thought, reflection or learning in the classroom?” he asks. “All the benefits of studying and learning the classics are irrelevant if few students are actually reading or engaged in the material.” I’m not about to be dismissive of how hard it is to get students interested in classic literature, but no teacher can do so if he’s not excited by his subject, and Okun makes it clear he was just as indifferent as a student, calling his high school literature classes “tiresome, uninteresting and irrelevant.”
The real treat is reading the passionate responses to Okun’s post. which is playing to mixed reviews, with some agreeing, but many raising the roof. “Perhaps the classics should be scaled back, but can Toni Morrison really replace Homer? Can Raisin in the Sun replace the Oresteia?” writes one. “It would be a shame if schoolchildren in Germany read Shakespeare, in English, and children in the United States were unable or unwilling.”
Left undiscussed: Is it enough to be familiar with the classics or must they be read cover to cover? If someone describes a relationship as a real life Romeo and Juliet story, and you don’t know the play, you might say “how nice!” If you’ve seen West Side Story and learned it’s based on Romeo and Juliet, you’d say “how sad!” Just knowing that the play is about star-crossed lovers in the middle of a family feud is what allows you to appreciate the allusion. If someone describes her new boss as Lady Macbeth, you might think she’s regal and elegant. If you’re even passingly familiar with the play, you’d offer to help write her resume.
Breadth and depth are ideal, but if I had to choose one or the other for my students, I’d choose breadth.
by Robert Pondiscio
December 30th, 2007
Tags: blogs, Literacy, math, NCLB, proficiency, state standards
Posted in Educational Policy, School News | No Comments »
The RAND Review gives NCLB a mixed midterm. RAND makes a good case for national standards and curriculum, noting that while every state has complied with the law by testing students in required grades in reading and math, “student ‘proficiency’ on these tests has little common meaning across states.” The reports first recommendation: “Congress should require similar yardsticks for all states.” RAND also says “Congress should look beyond math, reading, and science” to determine proficiency. Hear, hear.
Writing in the New Yorker, Caleb Crain wonders what life will be like if people stop reading. In 1982, 57% of Americans had read a work of creative literature in the previous twelve months. Twenty years later it was down to 47%. Last month, the National Endowment of the Arts report “To Read or Not to Read,” showed correlations between the decline of reading and everything from income disparity and exercise to voting. Meanwhile spending on books is at a 20-year low. “More alarming are indications that Americans are losing not just the will to read but even the ability,” writes Crain, who backs it up with this eyebrow-raising statistic: Only 13% of adults are capable of such tasks as comparing viewpoints in two editorials.
Researchers at Oxford University have determined that there’s no such thing as a “cultural elite,” those who love opera and fine arts but wouldn’t stoop to anything as common as prime-time TV. Most people fall into four categories: univores, who only like popular culture; omnivores, who like everything from opera to soap opera; paucivores, who absorb very little culture; and inactives, who absorb practically none.
The Corvallis (Oregon) Gazette Times in a year-end education roundup replays the plans to redraw school attendance boundaries in the district. Franklin School, which is an Official Core Knowledge visitation site, has no attendance boundary and is open to families by lottery. It also has a long waiting list. Unfortunately, it also has the lowest percentage in the district of low-income students, who would benefit the most from Core Knowledge.
The Washington Post notes that teaching elementary math is tough and will get tougher since U.S. 15-year-olds trail peers from 23 industrialized countries in math. (23 is the number between 22 and 24). Math is too hard? Don’t teach it! A University of Pennsylvania professor says fractions are as “obsolete as Roman numerals” and recommends dropping them from the curriculum in favor of decimals. A five-tenths baked idea if ever I heard one.
In the Blogs… New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum adds her voice to the growing chorus of those complaining about standardized tests in the Big Apple. NYC Public School Parents spanks the DOE for its “condescending” response… . Mamacita at Scheiss Weekly lays on a passionate rant about the need to see every child as an individual. Hard to do, she notes, in classrooms that are bursting at the seams… . Check out the education jargon generator. Learn to throw around smart-sounding eduspeak like delivering meaning-centered assessment! Enhance child-centered critical thinking! Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for pointing this one out.
