Tag Archive for 'student mobility'

Student Mobility: Good Answer, Bad Question

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 19, 2008 in Curriculum. 0 Comments

Having a supportive teacher who encourages other students to accept newcomers “can go a long way toward helping children make a smooth transition” and perform better when they change elementary schools, a new study shows. 

It’s not news that high rates of student mobility lead to a decline in academic performance and classroom participation. Researchers from Western Washington University and the University of Washington followed 1,040 elementary school students for four years “to determine how moving disrupts children’s attitudes toward school and their behavior in the classroom, such as how much they participate and whether they are cooperative,” Science Daily reports. 

In an effort to identify protective factors, they looked at the role of students’ ties with teachers and peers at school. They found that children who are accepted by their peers are more likely to do well academically and have better attitudes toward school. But perhaps the most important factor in the equation was that of the teacher: Teachers who were supportive of mobile students had an especially strong influence on their attitudes toward school, particularly for children who moved a lot. In addition, teacher support had a positive influence on children’s behavior in the classroom.

Did the researchers attempt to figure out if a coherent, sequenced curriculum – students’ ability to pick up where they left off in their old school — was a “protective factor?”  I suspect not.  You can’t study a condition that doesn’t exist.

On Curriculum: The Silence of the Dems

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 14, 2008 in No category. 10 Comments

Elizabeth Green of Gotham Schools has laid her hands on a 34-page transition memo written by Democrats for Education Reform, and puts it online for all to see.  She leads with DFER’s touting Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp or Chicago schools boss Arne Duncan for Secretary of Education over NYC’s Joel Klein (the memo is pretty clear, however, that in DFER’s ideal world, Klein or Washington’s Michelle Rhee would get the job).  

Here’s what you won’t read in the DFER memo: anything about curriculum.  The word appears only once in 34 pages, and that’s in someone’s job title.  The memo to the President-elect lays out dozens of staffing recommendations and a legislative strategy that addresses accountability, teacher quality, and a 20% increase in Title I funding.  DFER even suggests the Obama Administration ”steer clear of getting involved in any aspect of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind until it has firmly gotten its footing.”   On what kids should actually be learning?  Cue the crickets.  Chirp. 

This is not to single out DFER.  Ed reform groups across the board have much to say about funding, structures, choice, charters, incentives and myriad other topics yet virtually nothing about what children are actually taught inside the classroom.  There are clear connections to be made between curriculum and reading achievement, but with 15% to 18% of school age children moving in a given year, student mobility alone is reason enough to support a uniform national curriculum.  Without it, we institutionalize the gaps and repetitions that occur as student’s move from class to class, school to school or town to town.  In particular, low-income children, who move far more often, are profoundly impacted by this. 

To her credit, Kati Haycock touched briefly on the issue in her address at the start of the Education Trust National Conference in Washington yesterday, asking educators to consider not just common standards but ”common curriculum, some common lessons and assignments, and a carefully sequenced development of skills, knowledge and vocabulary.”

At least someone’s talking about it.  Anybody listening?