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.
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Archive for the 'Podcast and Video' Category
Readers of certain age probably remember with fondness The Electric Company on PBS. At the very least, it was acceptable “educational” TV for 6 to 9-year olds who had outgrown Sesame Street. The New York Times reports PBS is reviving the show, although it will have to work harder to find an audience in the increasingly crowded, (if content-free) kids media arena:
“Refitted for the age of hip-hop and informed by decades of further educational research on reading, the 2009 version of “The Electric Company” is a weekly, more danceable version of its former daily self. The series, which is expected to make its debut in January, faces challenges the original never did (trying to stand out amid so much children’s programming and to shake the stigma of educational television) as well as familiar ones (trying to make reading a positive experience for youngsters).”
Now if someone would only revive Schoolhouse Rock, which probably did more to get me interested in social studies than any of my teachers. More than 30 years later, I still know all the words to those songs.
The Common Core survey by Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, which shows a troubling lack of historical background knowledge among American 17-year-olds, is enjoying a nice run this week, with stories in USA Today, the New York Times, and lots of broadcast coverage. But alas, the coverage has been all cause and no effect. At best, it irritates people that students are ill-informed. At worst, it’s seen as irrelevant. There’s a lot of “tsk-tsk” reporting. How embarassing! It would be nice to see a few journalists take the next step and look at the impact of a content-free education on outcomes.
The CBS Evening News did a piece on the Common Core report which started out as a standard issue “tsk-tsk” piece. In the words of correspondent Ben Tracy, “A lot of educators say all this talk about the ‘dumbest generation’ is quite stupid…students don’t need to know a litany of dates because they can just Google them.” The problem here is twofold: the continued absurd association of content knowledge with rote memorization of dates (does any school do that?) and the idea that content and critical thinking are mutually exclusive. One high school teacher in the CBS piece says, “I know that this generation is the smartest that we’ve had.” Based on what empirical evidence, exactly?
“Students are expected to analyze concepts rather than memorize dates,” Tracy reports knowingly. I continue to await an example of a concept that can be analyzed in the absence of content knowledge. This kind of thinking by educators (and uncritical reporting by journalists) implies a content-free education that infantilizes the learner. Some years ago, I was marched off to a social studies professional development session. The theme of the session was “No More Trivial Pursuit.” “It doesn’t matter if your students don’t know when the War of 1812 happened,” the staff developer said. “It’s more important to grapple with ‘essential questions’ like ‘Is war ever justifiable?’” Clearly no meaningful response would be possible without a solid grasp of history to bolster one’s point of view.
Linda Bevilacqua, the President of the Core Knowledge Foundation, was a guest on G. Gordon Liddy’s Radio America show yesterday to weigh in on the Common Core study. A caller described how he was taught in school that Martin Luther and Martin Luther King were the same person. It’s not merely embarrassing to not know the difference between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King. Even those—especially those—who believe that critical thinking is the purpose of school should be alarmed. How much critical thinking about the Reformation and the Civil Rights movement is a student capable of who doesn’t know that Martin Luther and Martin Luther King are two different people separated by 500 years, language, culture and the Atlantic Ocean?
Until and unless we start to make a connection between content knowledge, reading comprehension, and critical thinking, I fear we’re not going to move the level of concern above the level of “tsk-tsk…these kids today!”
This You Tube video of a toddler who can do what few high school students can do—ID nearly every country on a world map—has been viewed over two million times. Thus, I’m probably the last person to have heard about it. At an age when most kids would be happy merely to be put in front of a video of Madagascar, she can actually find it on a map.
Other than David Tyree’s catch, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen all week.
Greg Toppo of USA Today, Ed Trust’s Amy Wilkins, Joel Packer of the NEA and others chew on No Child Left Behind on WAMU’s Diane Rehm show (Katty Kay of the BBC guest hosts). Listen here.
Wilkins understates the degree to which testing has narrowed curriculum, but lays the blame on the states anyway. “What we’ve seen in too many states and too many school districts, is they’re leaving teachers without a good strong curriculum,” says Wilkins, who wants to see the Feds “provide states with money to develop good strong rich curriculum tools. The way to raise student achievement is a broad, rich, deep curriculum. The problem is the states and the districts haven’t provided teachers with those curriculum tools leaving teachers with only the tests to teach too.”
Toppo points out the futility of talking about comparisons between the U.S. and other countries since “there 50 different standards, one for each state.”
Author: Kevin Carey
Despite the poor performance of Birmingham City Schools,
The Alabama Department of Education … says everything is fine, that Birmingham City Schools made “adequate yearly progress” last year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). And only five of the district’s 65 schools are “in need of improvement.” The serious consequences and strong interventions that NCLB’s authors envisioned for chronically underperforming districts like Birmingham are nowhere to be found.
The reason is simple: While NCLB was designed to raise achievement standards … , the Alabama Department of Education has lowered standards annually, to the point where even abjectly failing districts like Birmingham make the grade. And it’s not alone — every one of the accountability-avoidance gambits used in Alabama has been adopted in many other states. Indeed, the most noteworthy thing about Alabama’s elaborate plan to avoid NCLB accountability, and the impact of those actions on Birmingham, is how mundane they really are. Similar stories could be written about states and districts across the nation.
Collectively, these states and districts provide a case study in how determined states can undermine even tightly constructed laws like NCLB. And, as importantly, they provide a cautionary tale for members of Congress working to write the next version of the nation’s most important education law.
Read the full article on Education Sector’s website
Valarie Lewis, Principal of P.S. 124 — Osmond A. Church School in South Ozone Park, NY, a Core Knowledge Visitation School, was a guest on a California NPR talk show about NCLB and school reform. This podcast is offered in full by permission of KCRW.
Time to Reform No Child Left Behind?
No Child Left Behind is called President Bush’s crowning domestic achievement, and it passed five years ago with support from liberal Democrats in both houses of Congress. NCLB is supposed to make every American kid “proficient” in reading and math by 2014, but after five years that sounds like a pipe dream. Proficiency standards differ wildly from state to state, and some tests are being made easier so that scores will improve. Schools that have not improved are not being held accountable and angry parents in many places have gone to court. Is it time for national standards? Are test scores the best measures? What about merit pay for teachers?
Guests:
- David Hoff: Associate Editor, Education Week
- Jeff Kuhner: Communications Director, Fordham Institute
- Karin Chenoweth: Senior Writer, Achievement Alliance
- Valarie Lewis: Principal, Osmond Church School
- Monty Neill: Co-Executive Director, FairTest Coalition
The discussion follows news about the California wildfires, starting 17 minutes into the podcast.
An amusing criticism of the ignorance of Americans, posted by “Web Pundit” on YouTube, who identifies himself as an ex-teacher.
He offers a link to the Core Knowledge website, and promotes the Core Knowledge curriculum.
Please note that this is intended as a humorous, but scathing critique; we are offering it for those readers who will enjoy this sort of video. The views expressed are those of the author, and not of the Core Knowledge Foundation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaN6Rx8X6_I
Meteorologist M.J. McDermott explains the current state of math education in 4th and 5th grades.
She criticizes the approach of two popular Math curricula, “Investigations in Numbers, Data, and Space” also known as “TERC”, and “Everyday Math”.
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