2008 July Archive at The Core Knowledge Blog

Archive for July, 2008

What’s In It For Me?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 22, 2008 in Education Practice. 6 Comments

Rewarding students for high performance has been discussed here and elsewhere, now a pending California bill would authorize and encourage school districts to provide nonmonetary incentives to middle and high school students.

“What we’re really looking at is recognition and motivation and incentive to achieve,” Sen. Elaine Alquist, a Santa Clara Democrat who proposed the measure, tells the Sacramento Bee. Not everyone agrees. “At some point, students need to be taught that every good deed does not require reward,” said Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

I’m a pragmatist. I favor whatever works. But there will always be something that rubs me the wrong way about having to reward people for acting in their own self-interest.

Update: The Gradebook, a really good edublog by the St. Petersburg Times’ Jeffrey Solochek, has more on this, including similar proposals in Florida and New York.

Delaying School is Potentially Bad for Kids

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 21, 2008 in Research and Reports. 0 Comments

Waiting until children are 6 to enroll them in kindergarten is having a negative impact on academic achievement, and potentially the U.S. economy, according to a new Harvard study. The New York Sun makes front-page news of it:

The practice has grown substantially: In 1968, 96% of 6-year-olds were enrolled in first grade or above. In 2005, the number had fallen to 84%, according to the paper by the Harvard researchers, part of a series issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Children across the country are entering primary school at older and older ages — and opening themselves up to a likelier possibility of dropping out with less education,” report the Sun, which also notes that public school kids are much more likely to be affected by “redshirting” than their private school peers. It also means one fewer year that the children, once they are adults in the workforce, will pay into America’s Social Security system, the authors report.

Spare the Rod

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 21, 2008 in Education Practice. 1 Comment

A Georgia school board has reinstated corporal punishment. Misbehaving students in Twiggs County can now be spanked to curb misbehavior–with parental permission and witnesses in the room.

Amazingly, 22 states have not explicitly banned corporal punishment. “Sometimes these little ones are hard headed and you have to show them you mean business. “I haven’t used it often, but I have used it,” says one principal.

The Unlived Life Is Not Worth Examining

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 21, 2008 in Curriculum and Higher Education. 7 Comments

Why do colleges insist on personal essays with applications? Could changing the requirement create better prepared students?

The Associated Press ran a piece about college admissions essays over the weekend and the sturm und drang associated with them. Since the die is already cast on SAT scores and grades, the essay gets a disproportionate amount of attention from students and families, the AP notes, spawning a veritable industry with books and counseling and editing services.

Does it matter? “Applicants and their families have somewhat of a belief in the redemptive value of the essay,” Barmak Nassirian, of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers said. “It’s an urban myth that a student who has goofed off his whole academic career can get in with a come-from-behind epic struggle in which the essay serves as the primary tool. It’s not a substitute for a rigorous curriculum, good grades and evidence that you’re going to do well,” he said.

What if applicants were asked to write or submit a research paper instead? Which is more predictive of college success, past academic work, or a personal essay, where students labor to make themselves seem well-rounded, fascinating and irresistible to schools?

Dropping personal essays could have an interesting trickle-down effect as far down as elementary schools. The “curriculum” in my elementary school (the tedious and content-free Teacher’s College Writer’s Workshop), forces children as young as third grade to grind out endless personal essays, “small moment” stories and memoirs (!) designed to plumb the depths of their eight-year old souls. But it seldom, if ever, called for kids to write anything approaching a simple five-paragraph expository essay, let alone a research paper. That might change if doing so became a requirement for college admissions.

Last year’s common application, used by scores of colleges and universities around the country, asked students to discuss an issue of personal concern, a person, fictional character or historic figure who influenced them, a life experience or a topic of their choice, the AP notes. At the risk of sounding churlish, the unlived life is not worth examining. Rather than require 17 year old to unburden themselves of their life experiences, how about three pieces of actual academic work, graded by the student’s high school teachers?

Teenage Waistline

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 21, 2008 in Research and Reports. 0 Comments

Kids who were averaging three hours of moderate to vigorous activity when they were 9 barely manage to get more than a half-hour of daily exercise by the time they reach 15, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Kids’ activity is decreasing dramatically between 9 and 15,” said study author Dr. Philip Nader, of UC San Diego, who points to several factors behind the shift.

Loss of phys ed and recess in schools.
Fewer open spaces and parks
Changes in the way kids live

“Kids used to just run around and ride their bikes everywhere, and kids used to walk to school. Now, parents drive them,” Nader noted.

Teaching to the Tex

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 21, 2008 in Assessment and Testing. 1 Comment

A section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) is coming under scrutiny. Even Texas’ best students struggle with a section of the test that asks students to express themselves and back up their claims with evidence, revealing either faulty tests or preparation.

Three short-response questions require students to stretch their brains by generating clear, reasonable ideas from a reading selection, the Dallas Morning News reports. Then they must support those ideas with evidence from the text in a well-written response. ”Students are passing the ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade language arts TAKS at higher rates than ever, the paper notes. “Some even post near-perfect passing rates. But on the short-response portion, fewer than half of North Texas students pass.”

Texas Education Agency officials say the short-response questions provide a better window into how well students can think, communicate and write. ”This paints a much different picture for teachers and parents than the multiple-choice test,” Victoria Young, a testing official with TEA tells the paper. “You’re finding out two very different things about kids.” Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association said curriculum doesn’t have the depth it used to because teachers are pulled in so many different directions by the TAKS demands.

Here’s the scoring rubric for the short-answer reading section of the test. Seems a reasonable set of tasks for high school students.

Required Reading

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 20, 2008 in Weekly Roundup. 0 Comments

A weekly roundup of the week’s most important news, information and blog posts about curriculum, teaching, education policy and other items of interest to the Core Knowledge community.

Core Knowledge

Renegade Parents Teach Math! (Teachers Too.)
If you want your child to do well in math, teach ‘em long division at the kitchen table after school.

All Things To Everyone
Randi Weingarten calls for public schools to become “community centers that help poor students succeed by offering not only solid classroom lessons but also medical and other services.”

Dewey Need This School?
A Washington, DC area private school says its “inspired by the success of home-schoolers.” But is it rigorous? School founder Alan Shusterman responds in the comments section.

A Grand Education Bargain
Advice for Barack Obama: call for much higher pay for teachers in exchange for much more accountability in the classroom.

Things Thought But Seldom Expressed
Special education, IEPs and the high cost of low expectations.

Circle Time On the Rug at 08:00 Hours!
One state seeks more veterans in the classroom–and not veteran teachers!

In Other Blogs

Why Is Educational Technology So Far Behind? at The Elementary Educator
When I go to Amazon.com, the site knows me. So why is there no academic site out there that offers a comprehensive K-12 math program that quickly learns where kids are at and immediately begins to take them through a progression of learning based on their zone of proximal development?

Juvenile doomsday lit at Joanne Jacobs
Doomsday books for kids are hot. Are 21st-century children ready to trade in Pooh for a dead polar bear? Do they wish to trade The Secret Garden for apocalypse lit?

Gender and Stereotype Threat in Math and Science at Eduwonkette
Can asking women to simply bubble in their gender before a test hurt their performance on math tests? More than a decade of research on “stereotype threat” suggests that the answer is yes.

City Chiefs Lobby for Hot-Button Issues at NCLB: Act II
“We need to have national standards and national assessments so then everybody can understand that if you’re proficient in math in California, you’re proficient in math in New York,” say NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

Teaching and Curriculum

Forget About the Achievement Gap
The Washington Post
“I like talking about the achievement gap?” writes Jay Mathews, “Because we use the term in a way that suggests narrowing the gap is always a good thing, when that is not so.”

Push to double U.S. science grads is lagging
San Francisco Chronicle
A high-profile push by business groups to double the number of U.S. bachelor’s degrees awarded in science, math and engineering by 2015 is falling way behind target.

In squeeze, teachers do work of nurses
The Associated Press
Medical duties have become a part of the job for educators across the country as schools cut nursing staff or require nurses to work at multiple locations.

Engagement Is the Answer
Education Week
We need an infusion of motivationally rich experiences into the curriculum that will promote engagement, increase enjoyment, and produce a general enthusiasm for learning.

Hot for the Wrong Teachers
Slate
Researchers have looked at just about every possible determinant of teaching success, and it seems there’s nothing on a prospective teacher’s résumé that indicates how he or she will do in the classroom.

Education Policy

State raises minimum standards on proficiency tests
Newark Star-Ledger
New Jersey has made it harder for public school students to prove their proficiency on state exams - a change that could cause more schools to run afoul of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Obama Doesn’t Have to Run as a Liberal
The Wall Street Journal
Obama should make a $30 billion pot of federal money available to states and districts to boost salaries in poor schools, provided the teachers unions scrap their traditional “lockstep” pay scale.

Homeschooling and Parenting

Case that led to Calif. home school ban dismissed

The Associated Press
A legal ruling outlawing most forms of home schooling in California could come under renewed scrutiny because the court case on which it was based has been dismissed.

Even background TV can impact kids’ attention
USA Today
Researchers say that even having a TV on in the background could be “an environmental hazard” for children.

Et Alia

Why do Asian students generally get higher marks than Latinos?
The Los Angeles Times
Asian and Latino students at L.A.’s Lincoln High have a candid conversation about an uncomfortable subject.

Remarks by John McCain to the 99th Annual NAACP Convention
“If I am elected president, school choice for all who want it, an expansion of Opportunity Scholarships, and alternative certification for teachers will all be part of a serious agenda of education reform.”

La Rhee en Rose

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 18, 2008 in Podcast and Video. 0 Comments

I have nothing to say about Michelle Rhee’s appearance on Charlie Rose last night. But I just had to use the headline.

Michelle’s interview starts at 25:10.

Testify!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 18, 2008 in Assessment and Testing and Educational Policy. 0 Comments

“I know this is hard for you to hear Chairman Miller, but we need national standards and national assessments.”

- New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, testifying in Washington this week on what it would take to fix NCLB. (Thanks, A. Russo @ This Week in Education)

More: EdWeek’s David Hoff was there.

“Carlos Is Asian At Heart”

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

Friends 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.”

The Core Knowledge Blog