Archive for the 'Opinion' Category

Wonk vs. Wonk

Published by Robert Pondiscio on February 7, 2008 in Assessment and Testing, Curriculum, Educational Policy, Opinion and Teaching. 1 Comment

I have been watching the renewed hostilities between Eduwonk and Eduwonkette this week over the issue of No Child Left Behind’s impact on curriculum. I feel honor-bound to weigh in, since I inadvertently started the fight. A few thoughts on their posts:

The issue of whether testing has crowded science and social studies off the curriculum is beyond dispute, and I’m not swayed by the argument that if 44% of schools report a narrowing of the curriculum under NCLB, then the legislation is not the culprit, since 56% report no deleterious impact. If 44% of patients reported an adverse reaction to a medication, it would be off the shelves before the sun set. So it’s a problem.

Eduwonk is absolutely correct, however, in noting that good schools focus on curriculum and instruction. “While low-capacity schools may have spent time on social studies pre-NCLB,” he writes, “it’s a safe bet that many of them were not teaching it very well.” But the opposite is also true: most good schools were good schools without any external accountability measures whatsoever, so that’s not where our focus belongs. If the functional structures are in place — strong leadership, good teachers, active oversight, engaged parents who are informed consumers of education, etc. — there are multiple levels of quality control to assure good outcomes. NCLB is all about making bad schools act more like good ones in the absence of those self-policing mechanisms.

Continue reading ‘Wonk vs. Wonk’

The Children Aren’t Above Average

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 31, 2008 in Education Practice, Education Theory and Opinion. 0 Comments

SalonIf 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.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

Hallway Culture

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 20, 2008 in Essay and Opinion. 0 Comments

Gazette.netBefore we can do our jobs as educators, students must see what’s going on in our schools and classrooms as a means to some viable end. That many do not is the powerful subtext of Lynn H. Fox’s essay (“Getting students out of the halls and into the classrooms”) in Maryland’s gazette.net. A tip of the hat to Joanne Jacobs for pointing out this gem.

A high school teacher, Fox finds the story of contemporary education in a single moment — a choice his student makes between “classroom cuture” and “hallway culture” as class begins one morning. “So much depends on the choice David, and every other American student, will make. In or out? Classroom or hallway?”

Hallways, Fox observes, are “the meeting and greeting ground where young people play out popular fantasies of violence, sexuality, and, especially, consumerism. The hallway rules are easy, the rewards immediate, and the rituals provide culturally approved media roles young people have been fed since birth.” By comparison classrooms “for most of our school’s young people, are places of crushing boredom.” David — predictably, inevitably — chooses the hallway.

What Fox knows that we need to come to terms with is that delayed gratification, the essential valuable proposition of education, is a heroic choice in a world that seldom reinforces it. It’s a brilliant, powerful essay that deserves a wide audience.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

Who Do You Believe? Me or Your Lying Eyes?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 18, 2008 in Assessment and Testing, Curriculum and Opinion. 0 Comments

Education SectorI respect and admire eduwonk, but I have to strenuously disagree with his characterization of the impact of testing and No Child Left Behind as “hysterics.” I wholeheartedly support accountability, and I don’t have a problem with standardized tests. Really, I don’t. But one cannot blithely dismiss the narrowing of the curriculum that has occurred in schools — especially struggling inner city schools — in order to beef up test scores. It’s literacy, math and not much else, despite compelling evidence that content knowledge is the key to reading comprehension. We’re serving students in our most challenged schools a thin gruel that doesn’t meet any reasonable standard for an education. We simply have to do better, not dismiss the critics. The NY Times highlighted a few schools that are aiming higher, but to suggest that this shows testing concerns are overblown is a curious conclusion.

It bothers me to hear a well-respected policy analyst take such a stance, for I fear it could invite other less serious observers to downplay the deleterious impact of testing culture, rather than do the hard work of creating and implementing an accountability strategy that resists being gamed, dumbed-down, or measures only the thinnest slices of school performance. “All that test prep isn’t that bad,” it will be argued. “At least they’re learning something.” Isn’t it pretty to think so?

Make no mistake. There are classrooms where students go weeks, months, an entire school year without social studies, science, art and music. I’ve seen them, been in them, and worked with teachers who, despite great misgivings, felt pressured to run them. It’s neither hysterics nor hyperbole. It’s a legitimate issue that left unaddressed or blithely dismissed, could ultimately stop reform dead in its tracks. The very worst thing that can occur is if people believe the accountability cure is worse than the disease. “Drill and kill” is not the issue. It’s kids who can decode, but can’t comprehend. It’s kids who get to high school and college without the functional knowledge they need to succeed in higher education and as full participants in society. It’s complacency that kids who score on grade level are being educated, when all they’re doing is stepping over a hurdle that is conveniently lowered year after year.

Dismiss it at your peril. It’s real. I’ve seen it, lived it. I’ll introduce you to the students who’ve been damaged by it. Accountability was designed to help them, not do further harm. Good enough is not good enough.

Oh, my. I’m having a Hillary moment….I just don’t want to see us fall backwards.

Update: The redoubtable eduwonk thinks I doth protest too much. Perhaps so. But why use two words when ten will do?

Update II: eduwonkette has my back.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

The Edupundit: Will NCLB Be Reauthorized?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 13, 2008 in Educational Policy and Opinion. 2 Comments

Why should Tim Russert and Wolf Blitzer have all the fun on Sunday morning? Welcome to The Core Knowledge Blog’s Edupundit, where we email a question to the best and the brightest minds of the edusphere. This week Chester Finn, Andy Rotherham, Paul Peterson, Nelson Smith, Karin Chenoweth and others weigh in on No Child Left Behind’s chances for reauthorization.

The legislation turned six this week, and for its birthday, NCLB received an op-ed in its defense from Sen. Ted Kennedy, the promise of a veto from President Bush if anyone waters it down, and a commitment from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to tour the country to fight for reauthorization. But most of the Democrats who are running for President didn’t come to NCLB’s birthday party, while Richard Rothstein has already written its obituary. Will NCLB die the death of a thousand cuts in Congress? Let’s go to the crystal ball…

“NCLB isn’t going away, though it may look very different after a new President and the 111th Congress get their claws into it. Nothing is going to happen before the national election, but beginning in 2009 lawmakers need to get serious about the law’s reauthorization. Keep in mind that NCLB did not arrive deus ex machina in 2002. It is, in fact, the umpteenth refurbishment of the LBJ-era Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)–and many billions of federal education aid dollars now flow through it. Each iteration of that law has brought more strings, conditions and complexities, but NCLB is, to my eye, the lineal descendant of the ESEA version (called “Improving America’s Schools Act”) that Bill Clinton got through Congress in 1994. George W. Bush’s successor will surely do something similar. For my money, the current iteration is faltering on several key points and definitely needs a makeover. But it has pointed the country in a good direction and I hope (and predict) that we stay pointed there.”

Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University &
President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

“According to Education next polling, the public supports accountability but has doubts about NCLB. Very likely, Congress will mend it rather than end it, but only after election day. Look for an extension of most, perhaps all, existing law until 2009 or 2010, when fairly major overhaul is likely—for better or worse.”

Paul E. Peterson
Editor in Chief
Education next

“Of course [it will be reauthorized]. NCLB is merely the latest iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the cornerstone of federal investment and involvement in K-12 schooling. Despite all the rhetoric there is little appetite to actually walk away from that. Instead, the debate today is about what the law should look like and what it should do. In the 1994 reauthorization the federal government made standards-based reform a part of federal policy and the 2001 reauthorization built on those changes. No one argues that No Child shouldn’t be changed and it has problems that were foreseen and unforeseen in 2001 but the debate is about when change it, how to change it, and specific changes aside, at a very core level about whether we are serious about school improvement or not.”

Andy Rotherham
Co-Founder and Co-Director
Education Sector

“It will indeed be reauthorized. Good people like Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. George Miller will stake their reputation on it. The only question is what NCLB will look like once the ink is dry.”

Joe Williams
Executive Director
Democrats for Education Reform

“NCLB should have been reauthorized on time, in 2007, and now we’re in an election year and hopes are dimming. Since the new administration will be dealing with a war (and maybe a recession), it might be 2010 before a new Act is approved. Which, of course, plays right into the hands of those who never joined the “grade level by 2014″ bandwagon in the first place, and who are hoping the whole structure implodes. What’s really a shame is that there’s wide agreement on some of the things that need to be fixed (like adding “growth” to AYP). Even the diehard opponents have to admit that the Act has done an amazing service by saying that all kids can achieve, and by disclosing the achievement gaps between groups. Progress has ground to a halt because of what our sixth-anniversary NCLB statement called “the well-financed antagonists of accountability.” They have nothing better to offer, and are simply trying to play out the clock.”

Nelson Smith
President
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

“I think it is too early to make any prediction. Tell me who the next president is first. Nothing will happen until 2009.”

Michael W. Kirst
Emeritus Professor of Education and Business Administration
Stanford University

“Certainly Senator Kennedy seems committed to recommitting the federal government’s education policy, so we may see a reauthorization this spring—he knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. But I get very impatient with the education world’s endless debates about how federal law should be structured (status model of accountability or growth? tutoring before or after transfer?) instead of what good instruction is and how to make sure every child has it.

“Last week I was in a high school in Boston that takes in very poor kids from Dorchester and South Boston and sends almost all of them to college, most of them four-year colleges. Every year the school improves in terms of percentage of students who meet state standards. The principal there, though she has quibbles and problems with No Child Left Behind as it currently exists, told me that she would rather live with the current law than have a huge upheaval that will cause people to have to figure out a new system, giving them permission to avoid the tough issues of teaching and learning that they should be focused on. “We need stability,” the principal said. And, she added, “we need accountability.” That seems to be the consensus among the principals in all the high-performing schools I have visited. They spend a lot more time on improving instruction than on meeting accountability goals, and their efforts pay off—not only are their kids better educated than most of their peers, their schools easily meet federal accountability goals.”

Karin Chenoweth
Writer
The Education Trust
Author, It’s Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools
http://www.hepg.org/hep/Book/65

“No Child Left Behind won’t vanish if it’s not reauthorized. It will continue with all its deficiencies. That will push critics — at least, some of them — to look for compromises that backers will accept. President Bush says he’ll veto a bill that guts accountability. Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. George Miller will lead on the Democratic side. Polls show strong public support for accountability and standards. So I have some hope for NCLB II in 2008. But I wouldn’t bet the farm.”

Joanne Jacobs
http://joannejacobs.com/
Author, Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea and the Charter School That Beat the Odds

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

What Would Horace Mann Do?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 12, 2008 in Educational Policy and Opinion. 0 Comments

The AtlanticIt’s time to finish what Horace Mann started in 1843 and end local control of schools. Writing in The Atlantic, Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, says we must carry the insights of Mann, the father of public education to their logical end and nationalize our schools to some degree.

Describing local control of schools as a uniquely American obsession, Miller convincingly analogizes, “It’s as if after Pearl Harbor, FDR had suggested we prepare for war through the uncoordinated efforts of thousands of small factories. They’d know what kinds of planes and tanks were needed, right?”

When states are allowed to set their own standards, they set the bar low, as the Fordham Foundation’s essential The Proficiency Illusion conclusively proved. Local control also leads to fiscal inequity, Miller argues, since wealthy communities can tax themselves at low rates and still generate more dollars per pupil than poor communities that tax themselves to death. But Miller really hits it on R&D. Local control means there are 15,000 curriculum departments in the U.S., none of which can afford to invest heavily in research. The federal government “now spends $28 billion annually on research at the National Institutes of Health, but only $260 million—not even 1% of that amount—on R&D for education,” Miller writes.

Can’t happen, right? Republicans will reject national standards like a body rejecting a baboon liver. Democrats hate standards, right? Wrong. Miller quotes former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta who believes the public is far ahead of the conventional wisdom.

“Once upon a time a national role in retirement funding was anathema; then suddenly, after the Depression, we had Social Security. Once a federal role in health care would have been rejected as socialism; now, federal money accounts for half of what we spend on health care,” writes Miller. “We started down this road on schooling a long time ago. Time now to finish the journey.”

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

Suspension of Disbelief

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 9, 2008 in Education Practice and Opinion. 0 Comments

About half of all 9th graders are suspended at least once a year in the Milwaukee Public Schools, which may have the highest suspension rates in the country. Superintendent William Andrekopoulos tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We’re doing a lousy job of sending kids out of the classroom.” Actually, it sounds like they’re doing an excellent job of sending kids out of the classroom. Keeping them inside seems to be the problem. But is it a problem?

When I began teaching in New York City, I was caught off guard by the outrageous, over-the-top student discipline problems in many classrooms, especially my own. But what really shocked me was the unwillingness of principals to suspend kids, regardless of the infraction. It didn’t take long to figure out the reason for the reluctance. At the time, principals were being judged by two criteria: test scores and suspension rates. You could have low test scores as long as your suspension rate was also low; it was believed to be indicative of running a tight ship. If you didn’t suspend kids, it meant you had few discipline problems. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that the best way to achieve a low suspension rate is by not suspending students.

In my first year of teaching, I was in a collaborative team teaching classroom. One afternoon, I sought out the AP to complain about a seriously disruptive student. “Well, Mr. Pondiscio,” she replied in her most condescending tone, “imagine how much harder it would be if you were the only adult in the room!” She flashed me a Professor Umbridge smile, indicating the conversation was over. The very next morning my plan book was collected for review. It was returned with a note reminding me to have all of my plans for the week in writing, in advance, with instructional aims and state learning standards clearly written out.

Message received. Control your class and don’t bug me with this nonsense. We will not be suspending this, or any child. My school was not necessarily indicative of all schools, or even all inner city schools. Still, it is an article of faith in the era of high expectations and every-child-can-learn-at-a-high-level that if a child is disruptive, the fault is the teacher’s for bad classroom management, poor lesson planning, or both. It’s a lovely, idealistic notion that gets in the way of student achievement.

It is a testament to how deeply ingrained is the notion of teacher accountability for student misbehavior, that my palms are sweating as I type this. Even now, I feel like I am admitting to something dark and shameful. But it’s the truth: I had students that I couldn’t consistently and effectively control. And if I’m brutally honest with myself, the fear of disruption learned in my first days as a teacher probably led me to be much more authoritarian than I would otherwise have been as a teacher. That, in turn, is part of the reason why I’m writing this post right now, instead of a lesson plan. Disruption in many struggling schools is endemic. It sucks the life out of classrooms and gets in the way of teaching and learning to a degree that few people outside of the classroom appreciate. Suspending disruptive students is not a particularly elegant solution to the problem, but not doing so sends a powerful message to other students that their education doesn’t matter very much.

American EducatorA few years ago the AFT did a poll in which 17 percent of teachers reported losing four or more hours of teaching time per week because of disruptive student behavior; another 19 percent said they lost two or three hours. In urban areas, the figure rose to 21 percent losing four or more hours per week; 24 percent in urban secondary schools. “It’s hard to see how academic achievement can rise significantly in the face of so much lost teaching time, not to mention the anxiety that is produced by the constant disruption (and by the implied safety threat), which must also take a toll on learning,” reported the American Educator. Just so.

Let’s go back to that disruptive student whose instructional time is being lost when he or she is suspended. In a class of 21, for every three minutes the disruptive student is in the room, 60 minutes of student on-task time is lost (3 mins x 20 other students). Take a seriously disruptive student out of class for three days, and he’s lost three days. Keep him in, and the class has lost 60 instructional days cumulatively.

Remove a disruptive student from the class and that child does not learn. Leave him inside, however, and neither does anyone else.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

What If They Gave a Test and No One Came?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 4, 2008 in Assessment and Testing, Educational Policy and Opinion. 0 Comments

New York SunBack during the Vietnam War, “What if they gave a war and no one came” was a popular anti-war slogan. I was thinking about that in the run-up to the New York State ELA tests here in New York City. The pressure over standardized tests is enormous everywhere, but it seems especially acute here in the Big Apple, where the mayor and chancellor have made it a cornerstone of their reforms. A piece by yours truly in this morning’s New York Sun wonders out loud what might happen if parents in New York, who are clearly fed up with testing, decided to keep their kids home from school the day of the test.

As a teacher, I never had a problem with standardized tests. I still don’t. If you don’t want to be held accountable, you’re probably in the wrong line of work. The problem, obviously, is not the test but test prep. One of my graduate students last year, a first year Teach for America corps member, told me that her school mandated two-hours of test prep a day starting the first week of school. Clearly this level of anxiety is counterproductive. It’s not reasonable to place enormous consequences on a test and then expect a school to conduct itself as if this Sword of Damocles isn’t hanging over its head. If we want children to have a well-rounded, content-rich education it’s simply not going to happen (especially in high-poverty, low-performing schools such as the one where I worked) with the existing prep-and-test strategy.

What to do? In a previous piece in the NY Sun, I argued for random testing. If schools didn’t know when they would be tested, the grade or even the subject matter — reading, science, math, etc. — the only way to produce a good result would be (mirabile dictu!) to educate children. One of the interesting issues going forward in ed reform, I think, is how to preserve accountability, which is necessary and good, without turning the accountability measure into one’s sole and exclusive reason for getting out of bed each morning.

Got a better idea? Love to hear it.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 1, 2008 in Educational Policy and Opinion. 0 Comments

The American ProspectModeration may top many lists of New Year’s resolutions, but it’s in short supply as holiday break winds down. Richard Rothstein dances on the grave of No Child Left Behind, pronouncing it incoherent, unworkable and doomed. “It will not be reauthorized,” he writes, “not this year, not ever.” His article in the American Prospect condemns NCLB for narrowing curriculum and derides the NCLB-inspired notion that teachers can make up for socioeconomic differences “simply by trying harder.”

Jonathan Kozol gets called out in the Weekly Standard. Playwright Jonathan Leaf, a former teacher, goes for the takedown, describing Kozol’s books as full of “barely credible details.” Kozol vehemently opposes charter schools, vouchers, testing and descibes himself as a defender of public education even while attacking public schools as “dehumanizing.” Leaf lays on the full smackdown calling Kozol “a deeply frustrated man…[who] spends his life promoting resentment.”

Over at the gleefully intemperate NYC Educator, reality-based educator has been on a two-day vitriol bender since reading in the NY Daily News about a school that brought kids back to school the day after Christmas for test prep, and offered an Xbox 360 for top scores on the upcoming state ELA test. Judging from the comments on the site, he’s not the only one who’s upset.

Happy New Year.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

That’s Not What It’s All About, Alfie

Published by Robert Pondiscio on December 26, 2007 in Education Theory and Opinion. 1 Comment

USA Today“There you go again…”

Will somebody please invite Alfie Kohn to a Core Knowledge school? Kohn responds to today’s USA Today editorial praising Core Knowledge with the usual clichés and misunderstandings: It’s a “list of facts,” rote memorization, it’s at the expense of critical thinking, etc. As Elvis Costello once sang, “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.”

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how exactly critical thinking works as a skill, divorced from content knowledge. Some years ago, I sat through a social studies professional development workshop, with the theme “No more trivial pursuit!” The particulars of The War of 1812 and the Vietnam War didn’t matter, the trainer insisted, as much as the students’ ability to grapple with essential questions, such as “Is war ever justified?” How exactly can you form a credible opinion about all wars without understanding the causes of a particular war? That was never explained, naturally.

A foolish example? It’s no more silly than the estimable Mr. Kohn dismissing Core Knowledge classrooms as “organized around a ‘bunch o’ facts.’” Critical thinking without content knowledge is like playing tennis without a net. It can be done, but not very well. And certainly not at a high level.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]