Category Archive for ‘Educational Policy’ at The Core Knowledge Blog

Archive for the 'Educational Policy' Category

Teacher Quality, Unintended Consequences, and the Baseball Achievement Gap

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 6, 2008 in Education News and Educational Policy. 2 Comments

New York’s Department of Education is beginning to measure the performance of thousands of elementary and middle school teachers based on how much their students improve on annual state math and reading tests, the New York Times reported last week. A joint letter to NYC teachers from Chancellor Joel Klein and UFT President Randi Weingarten explained the data is intended to “empower teachers with information useful in our teaching. In this same vein, the letter expressly prohibits the use of that information for evaluating teachers, in both annual ratings and tenure decisions.”

When the plan first came up in February, Ed Sector’s Kevin Carey wrote a much-discussed op-ed in the New York Daily News, comparing value-added data to the pioneering work done by maverick baseball general manager Billy Beane. The subject of Michael Lewis’ 2003 book, Moneyball, Beane has often managed to keep his small-market Oakland A’s competitive with deeper-pocketed teams by rejecting conventional baseball wisdom in favor of data-driven decision-making. “By crunching numbers without prejudice, Beane discovered that certain statistics that really mattered on the field, like on-base percentage, were being hugely undervalued in the player job market,” Carey wrote. “While scouts and other executives made decisions based on personal bias and flawed perceptions, Beane kept to the statistical bottom line.” Seen through this lens, the hope and promise is that we can find equivalents to on-base percentage in teacher performance that drive student achievement.

The Moneyball comparison, however, strikes me as a potentially dangerous analogy. Here’s why: Players are to baseball teams as students — not teachers — are to schools. Teachers succeed by getting the best performances from their students. Their closest counterparts in baseball are managers and coaches. Baseball executives like Billy Beane do not use data to help ordinary players over-perform. They use data to replace underperformers with overachievers. To run a school like Billy Beane runs the Oakland A’s would mean regularly replacing low-scoring students with high-scoring students.

That would be one way to close the achievement gap. Continue reading ‘Teacher Quality, Unintended Consequences, and the Baseball Achievement Gap’

The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 6, 2008 in Educational Policy. 0 Comments

Influential Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews is no fan of merit pay, warning that Michelle Rhee’s plan to pay Washington, DC high-fliers up to $20,000 extra a year has the potential divide teachers, instead of getting them to work together for struggling kids

The idea troubles me, because it is at odds with what I have learned from charter leaders who have made great achievement gains in their independent public schools. Their staffs thrive on teamwork. Everyone shares lesson plans, swaps ideas and reinforces discipline to help each child. Won’t big checks to just a few members of the team ruin that?

“Teams with all players pulling hard are also more likely to attract more committed people,” Mathews correctly observes, “happy to escape schools where co-workers make fun of strivers.” He quotes several leaders of successful, high profile urban charter schools, each of whom takes issue with the idea off rewarding individual teachers for gains made by their students

Dave Levin, co-founder of the KIPP school network, said, “Given the interconnectivity of teaching kids, the best incentives are school incentives which the school itself can then decide how to allocate.” His fellow KIPP co-founder, Mike Feinberg, quoted Rudyard Kipling: “The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

Digital Divide

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 3, 2008 in Educational Policy. 0 Comments

Utah’s Board of Education today will take up a proposal to require the state’s school districts to put guidelines in place governing the use of cell phones and other electronic devices in classrooms. Past board discussions have run the gamut from banning cell phones from campus to using them for educational purposes, the Deseret News notes.

Utah’s education officials and lawmakers point to recent incidents of students using camera phones to take nude photos of themselves and others. Texting is being used for harassment or bullying. But many adults admit there is an opportunity to harness this technology that teens are so obsessed with and potentially use it to promote education.

The state’s legislators rejected a measure earlier this year to require all school districts to adopt an electronic-device policy. The bill didn’t pass, the paper notes, but state education officials took notice.

Meanwhile over at The Tempered Radical, teacher Bill Ferriter worries that “those who are in the position to make decisions about how dollars are spent or how instruction should change struggle to understand the range of ways that digital tools can be used to facilitate the work of groups or the learning of individuals.”

Disadvantaged DC Kids Gaining Under NCLB

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 2, 2008 in Assessment and Testing and Educational Policy. 0 Comments

Students from poor families in the Washington, DC area have made major gains on reading and math tests and are starting to catch up with those from middle-class and affluent backgrounds, a Washington Post analysis shows.

In Montgomery County, for instance, students in poverty have earned better scores on Maryland’s reading test in each of the past five years, slicing in half the 28 percentage-point gulf that separated their pass rate from the county average. They also have made a major dent in the math gap. In Fairfax County, another suburban academic powerhouse, such students have slashed the achievement gaps on Virginia tests.

In the DC proper, reading and math scores have risen since 2006, but fewer that half passed last Spring’s tests. “The results show substantial progress in the Washington area toward the law’s core goal: raising performance of disadvantaged children,” the paper reports. “Although concerns persist about the law’s emphasis on standardized tests, many educators say it has forced schools to concentrate more systematically on each struggling student.”

Florida Mandates Online Education

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 2, 2008 in Education Practice and Educational Policy. 1 Comment

Starting in the Fall of 2009, children in Florida will be able to complete their entire K-12 public school education without ever setting foot inside a classroom. Indeed, under the terms of a new state law, they must be able to. Districts are now required to create their own full-time virtual schools, collaborate with other districts or contract with providers approved by the state, the Palm Beach Post reports.

The law is believed to be the most wide-ranging virtual mandate in the nation. “The rest of the country will be watching to see how it goes,” said Julie Young, president and chief executive officer of Florida Virtual School and a board member of the North American Council for Online Learning. By August, school superintendents must settle everything from how to provide the needed technology to how to engage squirmy kindergartners who lack the attention span to sit at a computer for hours.

The state already funds two online schools catering to students in kindergarten through eighth grade as well as the Florida Virtual School, which offers middle and high school courses, notes the Post.

Required Reading

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 28, 2008 in Assessment and Testing, Core Knowledge, Curriculum, Education News, Educational Policy, Homeschooling, No category, Parents, Research and Reports, School News, Teaching 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.

Core Knowledge

Counterfeit Equity
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.

Hardy Perennials
From generous grading for failing work to “no homework” policies, there’s lots to cheer about if you’re a fan of lower standards and diminshed expectations.

Notes on a Scandal
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.

Core Knowledge School Raises Money With Math
O’Dea Core Knowledge Elementary School students in Ft. Collins, Colorado are raising money for their school each time they take a math test until Oct. 3. Students are asking friends and family to pledge money for each correct math problem they get on a marathon test.

Best of the Blogs

The Community Schools Con at the Education Gadfly
Checker & Co. find the idea ”gooey and emotional, focusing on the externalities of daily life that drip into America’s classrooms-poor healthcare, single parent families, unemployment–rather than on what schools can do with the kids who actually turn up there.”

Evolution in Play in Texas at Curriculum Matters
Texas officials are embarking on a revision of their state’s science standards, a process that has generated a furious debate in several states in recent years—most of it focused squarely on the topic of evolution. A first draft of the new standards, released this week, seems likely to please the scientific community.

Cool People You Should Know: Sean Reardon at Eduwonkette
Until recently, we did not have a clear portrait of the differences between black and white high-achievers in elementary school. Thanks to Sean Reardon, a Stanford sociologist of education who studies school segregation and the sources of racial/ethnic achievement gaps, we’ve come a long way.

My Kingdom for a Parking Space at It’s Not All Flowers and Sausages
“If one more person tells me to do it for the kids, I might throw a kid at them,” writes Mimi, who teaches at a NYC elementary school. “It just seems at times as if this job teeters on the brink of being inhumane.”

Teaching and Curriculum

FCAT analysis finds misconceptions about science
Associated Press
Florida students have misconceptions about science, and they need more practice demonstrating its concepts and relating them to the real world, according to an analysis of the state’s standardized test.

Recalculating the 8th Grade Algebra Rush
The Washington Post
“Nobody writing about schools has been a bigger supporter of getting more students into eighth-grade algebra than I have been,” writes Jay Mathews. “Now, because of a startling study, I am having second thoughts.”

Joy in School
Educational Leadership
If the experience of “doing school” destroys children’s spirit to learn, their sense of wonder, their curiosity about the world, and their willingness to care for the human condition, have we succeeded as educators, no matter how well our students do on standardized tests?

Education Policy

NCLB Testing Said to Give ‘Illusions of Progress’
Education Week
Harvard University researcher Daniel M. Koretz says rampantly inflated standardized test scores are giving the misbegotten impression that, as in the fictional town made famous by radio personality Garrison Keillor, all children are above average

Consensus on Learning Time Builds
Education Week
Under enormous pressure to prepare students for a successful future—and fearful that standard school hours don’t offer enough time to do so—educators, policymakers, and community activists are adding more learning time to children’s lives.

Study Details Barriers to Career-Changers Going Into Teaching
Education Week
Experts are pointing to a new opinion survey and research analysis as evidence of a need to overhaul teacher training, compensation, and support, in order to appeal to potential career-changers interested in teaching.

Are high-stakes tests making the grade?
Richmond Times-Dispatch
After a decade, have standards and high-stakes tests improved public education in Virginia? It depends on whom you ask.

Colorado Targets Achievement Gap
The Rocky Mountain News
School districts must focus on and organize help for failing students if Colorado is to close the achievement gap between rich and poor students.

Homeschooling and Parenting

Minneapolis Sets Covenant on Black Achievement
Education Week
The Minneapolis school board and the local African-American community have taken an unusual step toward healing fractured relations and improving schooling for black children by signing a “covenant” that places responsibility for improvement on the shoulders of parents and district leaders.

Homeschooling Surges in U.S. as Parents Reach for Legal Rights
Fox News
States and school districts have a disjointed jumble of ordinances and measures that can make it tough for parents to know exactly what they are permitted to do as homeschoolers.

Father Abandons Nine Kids Under “Safe Haven” Law
KETV.com
A Nebraska father who dropped off his nine children at a hospital emergency room apparently cannot be charged under the state’s new Safe Haven law, which says any child under the age of 19 can be left at a hospital if they’re in immediate danger.

Et Alia

Learning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12, Study Suggests
Science Daily
Eight-year-olds learn primarily from positive feedback (’Well done!’), whereas negative feedback (’Got it wrong this time’) scarcely causes any alarm bells to ring, a new study suggests. Twelve-year-olds are better able to process negative feedback, and use it to learn from their mistakes.

Stand-up desks provide a firm footing for fidgety students
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Several schools are experimenting stand-up workstations in the classroom. Anecdotally, teachers report greater attentiveness, fewer behavioral problems, better posture and more enthusiasm.

Bay Area Schools Need Earthquake Proofing
Contra Costa Times
Engineers say nearly 8,000 older school buildings in California are prone to collapse during a major earthquake.

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.

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.”

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?”

Tilting at Windmills

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 17, 2008 in Educational Policy. 0 Comments

Apparently no one told Ed Secretary Margaret Spellings that No Child Left Behind is a damaged brand. In a speech to the Aspen Institute, Spellings urged support for the law’s core principle: requiring states, school systems and schools to show that students can handle reading and math at grade level, the Washington Post reports.

“We must resist pressure to weaken or water down accountability,” Spellings said. “To those who reject this goal, I ask, ‘What’s your answer?’ I have yet to meet a parent who doesn’t want their child on grade level right now, today, not 2014.”

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