2008 September Archive at The Core Knowledge Blog

Archive for September, 2008

Notes on a Scandal

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 23, 2008 in No category. 2 Comments

Officials in South Carolina are investigating old test results at a poor, inner-city Charleston elementary school that had been hailed as a miraculous success story. Under principal, MiShawna Moore, standardized test scores went through the roof. But she departed last spring for a job in North Carolina, and scores from tests taken shortly before she left dropped dramatically, the Associated Press reports.

Officials are now questioning what they call an unusual number of erasure marks on old tests. Law enforcement is investigating, and parents once impressed with the school’s record are second-guessing enrolling their children and worried what the publicity will do to the school.

Paul Tough had an interesting piece on Slate about the potential for cheating on tests the other day. He noted that “basing teacher compensation in part on test scores gives teachers an incentive not just to ‘teach to the test,’ but to game the test completely. He quoted an email from a young New York City teacher whose students were outraged she wouldn’t help them on the test to illustrate his point.

Part of my own skepticism about the validity of tests was borne of my experience teaching 5th grade in the South Bronx. Every year I had students come to my room with very poor math skills, yet they had somehow managed to score at or above grade level on the 4th grade math tests. How did that happen? Hmmm.

Hardy Perennials

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 23, 2008 in Education Practice and No category. 7 Comments

Lots to cheer about if you’re a fan of lower standards and diminshed expectations.

One of Britain’s top grammar schools is slashing homework to no more than 40 minutes a night. The school’s headmaster more than that becomes “mechanical” and “repetitive.” His deputy adds that too much homework could be “depressing” and put pupils off learning. “We had boys doing three or four hours a night at the expense of sports, music practice or simply having fun,” he says.

In Toronto, the school board has passed a policy manadating a maximum of one hour of homework for 7th and 8th graders, while another in Barrie, Canada has banned it altogether. That earned an “atta boy!” from anti-homework scold Alfie Kohn. “The Toronto policy is a teeny first step,” he tells the Canadian website Parent Central. For parents who are concerned that homework keeps them in the loop about what their children are learning, Kohn sniffs, “We can solve that problem in five minutes. Teachers can send home annotated guides to the curriculum – here’s what we are teaching and why.” That will indeed take five minutes. To read.

Finally, what do you call 1+1=3? In Pittsburgh, it’s called half right. School officials in the Steel City are the latest to go for the no-grade-lower-than-50-percent strategy as a way to keep struggling students involved.

Get Up, Stand Up

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 22, 2008 in School News and Teaching. 3 Comments

Here’s an idea that will appeal to every teacher who has had students who can’t sit still (read: every teacher): Stand-up desks.

“As part of a small but growing movement in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota that many teachers say is bound to gain popularity elsewhere, several schools are experimenting with their physical learning environments by incorporating stand-up workstations in the classroom, or, in one school, stability balls instead of traditional school desk chairs,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Kids who are habitually fidgety or who suffer from attention disorders appear to show the most improvement, teachers tell the paper. Richard Whitmire predicts a rush on orders for the desks.

Algebra II

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 22, 2008 in Educational Policy and Teaching. 0 Comments

“If we want kids to master algebra by eighth, we need to focus at least as much energy on getting them proficient in whole number operations by fourth,” writes the New America Foundation’s Sara Mead, commenting on today’s Brookings report. “That’s a lot harder than simply mandating algebra for all eighth graders, but in the long term the results will be much better.”

Just so.

Mr. O Edges Mr. M As Favorite Teacher

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 22, 2008 in Teaching. 0 Comments

Asked which candidate they would want as their child’s teacher, Barack Obama beats John McCain 55 to 44 percent in an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll. They’d also rather watch a football game with Obama, but by a slimmer margin, 50 to 47 percent.

Interestingly four U.S. Presidents spent at least part of their careers as school teachers: Adams, Garfield, Arthur and Lyndon Johnson.

Counterfeit Equity

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 22, 2008 in Educational Policy and Research and Reports. 5 Comments

Twenty years ago, only one in six U.S. 8th graders studied algebra. Thanks to a national push dating back to the Clinton administration, today more of them take algebra than any other math course. Take it, yes. But are they learning it?

A new report from the Brookings Institution’s Tom Loveless notes many students are being pushed into algebra without having mastered basic skills such as multiplication, division and fractions. Among the poorest math students, nearly one in three were taking advanced math. As Loveless’ report, “The Misplaced Math Student: Lost in Eighth Grade Algebra,” notes:

These students tend to be some of the nation’s most vulnerable children. We already know that they struggle at mathematics, scoring among the bottom 10 percent of all eighth graders in the country. They also possess characteristics that make recovery from a lost year of math instruction unlikely.

The push to make algebra universal was about increasing educational equity. ”It’s really counterfeit equity,” Loveless tells USA Today, noting that the mismatch inordinately affects black, Hispanic and poor kids in urban schools.

The Washington Post’s Jay Mathews, a booster of 8th grade algebra for all, says the Brookings report is giving him second thoughts. “It would be better to think of algebra as we do swimming,” he writes. “Something everyone should learn, but most importantly learn well. Get everyone into the pool as soon as possible. But let’s not mark them as having passed the course until we are sure they can swim several lengths without drowning.”

Giving Homeschooling a Bad Name

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 21, 2008 in No category. 6 Comments

Benny has a rich, full life for a five-year old. He hangs out in bars. He attends grown-up movies like Juno with his parents (kid flicks like Finding Nemo scare him silly). And then there’s that way cool play group in Brooklyn. While other kids are off at kindergarten, Benny plays in the mud with his buddies. “His two friends are completely naked. Benny has on his underpants and a pair of socks,” author Joanne Rendell relates approvingly. ”The whole scene could be a performance art piece or perhaps an excerpt from a very twisted movie about child killers.”

Rendell is describing her decision to ”un-kindergarten,” a word she says she made up. “Decision,” in this instance, is a word I made up. Indeed, judging by her piece on babble.com Rendell doesn’t seem to expend much decision-making energy on things like routines, schedules and ”the whole school thing.”

Un-kindergarten for us means Benny can sleep late so I can write. It means we don’t have to worry about bedtimes and can go out on the town with friends any night of the week. We can go to Europe and visit my family when the flights are cheap. Un-kindergarten also means we can pick and choose how we spend our days and who we spend them with. Benny can go to free classes at the Metropolitan Museum in the week when it’s less crowded. He can read a book on sharks when he feels like it. He can experiment with bungee cords while eating his breakfast at noon.

Commenters on babble.com aren’t having it. But they’re letting Rendell have it–with both barrels. Says one, “I’ll coin a new tern to go with hers: un-parenting. When you really, you know, can’t be bothered, because you’re got bars to hit and a vapid chicklit novel to write and friends in Europe to visit. Let the kid play in mud and pat yourself on the back for what a fabulous job you’re doing because he can always, you know, read a book about sharks or something to get himself educated.”

Required Reading

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 21, 2008 in Education News and 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

You’re Not Going to Read This Post
Online reading is a kind of literacy, Mark Baurlein writes, but it breaks down in the face of a dense argument, a Modernist poem, a long political tract, and other texts that require steady focus and linear attention. Fast scanning doesn’t foster flexible minds that can adapt to all kinds of texts.

Winning Hearts and Minds
Effective public service campaigns have a long history of changing behavior from littering to smoking, and burning the ideas behind them into the public mind. Why not a campaign on the importance of reading to young children?

Interview: Core Knowlege Reading Program
Matt Davis of the Core Knowledge Foundation talks about the two major strands of the Core Knowledge Reading Program: a unique phonics-based “Skills” strand, and a “Listening and Learning” strand that enables very young children to build up vocabulary and background knowledge.

Core Knowledge School Helps Fulfill a Wish
Cañon City Daily Record
Students at the Mountain View Core Knowledge School help a little boy with leukemia in a local cancer center in his bid to make the Guiness Book of World Records by collecting at least 150,000 business cards.

The Best of the Blogs

Stacking the Deck Against Success at Talking Points Memo
The Education Trust’s Amy Wilkins says high-fliers represent only a fraction of the schools that serve our nation’s low-income students and students of color. As a result, they are often discounted as ‘flukes’ or ‘outliers’ rather than proof of the academic abilities of their students.

When Students Run the Classroom at Pajamas Media
A new policy at one of the largest school districts in the U.S. is the stuff kids’ dreams are made of. And that’s the problem

Parents Need a Union at Kitchen Table Math
Teachers unions seem no longer so closely allied with the Democratic Party, writes Catherine Johnson, “but you could disband the unions tomorrow and parents and taxpayers would have no more influence over public education than we do now.”

Teaching and Curriculum

How One’s “Number Sense” Helps With Mathematics
The Washington Post
Scientists have for the first time established a link between a primitive, intuitive sense of numbers and performance in math classes, a finding that could lead to new ways to help children struggling in school.

Building Blocks Math From Pre-K to Grade 2
The Washington Post
With math skills at a premium in a technology-driven economy, children are expected to learn more math, and sooner. The first years are considered crucial for laying a solid math foundation.

Teaching correct spelling is a waste of time
The Daily Mail
A leading British academic says we should stop worrying that ‘textmessage speak’ is creeping into general usage.

International Baccalaureate education method gains fans
The Houston Chronicle
As education buzz words go, International Baccalaureate is a mouthful. But the 10-syllable program is cropping up at many Houston-area schools, where educators tout its ability to foster curiosity, global citizenship and critical-thinking skills.

It’s Not Discipline, It’s a Teachable Moment
The New York Times
The most effective discipline typically doesn’t involve any punishment at all, but instead focuses on positive reinforcement when children are being good.

Education Policy

The Law That Dares Not Speak Its Name
National Review Online
Neither McCcain or Obama even mentioned NCLB in their convention acceptance speeches, writes the Fordham Foundation’s Checker Finn. “In the education sphere, that’s roughly equivalent to talking about America’s foreign and defense challenges without mentioning Iraq.”

From the Lehman Board to the Board of Ed
National Review Online
The Detroit Public Schools is the AIG of education. It’s big, it’s bad, and it’s broken, writes Mike Petrilli. The state should declare Detroit Public Schools bankrupt take it into receivership and slice through any red tape that would keep Detroit from creating a world-class system,

In Rush to White House, ‘No Child’ Is Left Behind
The Washington Post
In their race for the White House, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama are distancing themselves from what has become a tainted brand.

California falling way behind No Child Left Behind
The San Francisco Chronicle
California schools, required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act to lift more students over a higher academic hurdle this year, instead stumbled and slipped back, as nearly 1,400 fewer schools met test-score targets.

Teacher Residencies Gaining Notice
Education Week
Urban teacher residencies, which focus heavily on classroom-based training and on-the-job support for new teachers, are attracting attention as promising ways to staff city schools.

Homeschooling and Parenting

Parents opt to teach kids at home for growing list of reasons
The Detroit News
Homeschooling has emerged as a growing option for families of children who have special learning needs; are academically or athletically gifted; suffer from health problems; or just don’t fit the mold of traditional public schools,

Half S.F. kindergartners not ready for school
San Francisco Chronicle
Children who were ready for kindergarten more often were girls, attended preschool, were older, had no special needs, and had mothers who went to college, researchers in a San Francisco study found.

Parents Getting Into the Mix On Improving Public Schools
The New York Sun
A new group is urging the presidential candidates to pay attention to another constituency as they craft their education platforms: parents.

Et Alia

Why Are School Age Boys Struggling?
Newsweek
Let’s examine the way our child rearing and our schools have evolved in the last 10 years. Could some of the changes we have embraced in our families, our communities and our schools be driving our sons crazy?

You’re Not Going to Read This Post

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 20, 2008 in Education Theory, Higher Education and Literacy. 4 Comments

Digital technology has become an imperial force in education, and it should meet more antagonists argues Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein. Clearly he’s among those antagonists. Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, he makes a strong case for reading online as a lesser kind of literacy, with profound implications for teaching and learning.

Pointing to the work of Web researcher Jakob Nielsen, who has studied the eye movements of readers, Bauerlein notes that people read online in a physically different pattern than text on a printed page. Online, readers eyes move in a pattern resembling the upper case letter F. ”At the top, users read all the way across, but as they proceed their descent quickens and horizontal sight contracts, with a slowdown around the middle of the page,” says Bauerlein. ”Near the bottom, eyes move almost vertically, the lower-right corner of the page largely ignored.”

In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects read Web pages linearly, sentence by sentence. The rest jumped around chasing keywords, bullet points, visuals, and color and typeface variations. In another experiment on how people read e-newsletters, informational e-mail messages, and news feeds, Nielsen exclaimed, “‘Reading’ is not even the right word.” The subjects usually read only the first two words in headlines, and they ignored the introductory sections. They wanted the “nut” and nothing else.

In short, online literacy is simply not literacy as we conventionally understand it. “Yes, it’s a kind of literacy,” Baurlein writes, ”but it breaks down in the face of a dense argument, a Modernist poem, a long political tract, and other texts that require steady focus and linear attention — in a word, slow reading. Fast scanning doesn’t foster flexible minds that can adapt to all kinds of texts, and it doesn’t translate into academic reading,” he writes.

Bauerlein is writing from the persepective of a college professor, and he concerns himself with higher education, but his arguments pertain to all classrooms where we are worshipping at the altar of technology. “Given the tidal wave of technology in young people’s lives, let’s frame a number of classrooms and courses as slow-reading (and slow-writing) spaces,” he concludes. “Pencils, blackboards, and books are no longer the primary instruments of learning, true, but they still play a critical role in the formation of intelligence, as countermeasures to information-age mores. That is a new mission for educators parallel to the mad rush to digitize learning, one that may seem reactionary and retrograde, but in fact strives to keep students’ minds open and literacy broad. Students need to decelerate, and they can’t do it by themselves.”

Good, smart stuff from an iconoclastic thinker. Of course, you stopped reading two paragraphs ago.

Core Knowledge Cultural Literacy Quiz

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 20, 2008 in Core Knowledge. 4 Comments

More examples of how speakers and writers presume background knowledge on the part of their audience.

1) In a recent New York Time Op-Ed column, Gail Collins wrote “If the Obama brain trust seems relatively serene compared with its seething base, it’s because they live in the Electoral College world, where the presidential race only takes place in a third of the country. They don’t care about national polls - a concept as quaint as measuring one’s wealth by caribou pelts.” What is the Electoral College? Explain why would “living in an Electoral College world” make Obama unconcerned with national polls?

2) “Catch a look at next year’s spring men’s wear and you might find yourself saying, ‘What the Dickens?’” wrote fashion writer Patrick Huguenin in the New York Daily News. In a review of Fashion Week in New York, he described “roguish ensembles that call to mind the scrappy urchins of a Charles Dickens novel” and labeled the new look “Oliver Twisted.” Explain the reference.

3) Supporters of Barack Obama have been wearing this button:

Why do you think the creator of this button thought this would be an effective message? Justify your answer based on what you know about the personal histories of the presidential candidates, their running mates, and their political parties.

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