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KIPP Founder Supports National Standards and Assessments

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 9, 2008 in Assessment and Testing and Educational Policy. 5 Comments

Add KIPP founder Mike Feinberg to the chorus of voices calling for national standards and assessments. In an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, Feinberg calls on President-elect Obama to choose an education secretary who is “committed to accountability and public school choice.”

President-elect Obama should pick a secretary of education who deeply understands the issues of funding and accountability on the federal, state and local levels, and who is passionate about student achievement and growth. Having one national test with one rigorous set of national standards will ensure our children can compete in the global marketplace as well as help parents know how well their children are progressing in school.

I’m increasingly convinced Diane Ravitch has the exact right approach to this with her recent call for national testing based on coherent curriculum standards, but without stakes or sanctions. “The federal role should be to provide accurate information about student performance,” she wrote recently. “It should be left to states and districts to devise sanctions and reforms. If states and localities don’t want to improve their schools, then we are in deeper trouble as a nation than any law passed by Congress can fix.”

In his op-ed, Feinberg also calls for streamlined pathways to the teaching profession, the growth of public charter schools, and a focus on pre-K and early childhood education.

Teacher in Trouble for Anti-McCain Comments

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 8, 2008 in School News. 1 Comment

Charges of political bias and bullying have landed a North Carolina teacher in hot water. A clip from a Swedish documentary captures 5th grade teacher Diatha Harris talking to her class last May about the presidential election. She’s not shy about expressing her point of view (responding “Oh, Jesus!” when one her students says she supports John McCain). At one point she describes the conflict in Iraq as a “senseless war” and tells one of her students whose father is in Iraq that he could be there ”for another hundred years” if were elected.

Conservative bloggers picked up on the clip a few days ago, now the school system’s Superintendent has weighed in, saying he’s shocked by the video and promising an investigation. “While neutral discussion of the political process is appropriate,” says Dr. William Harrison, “at no time, particularly with elementary students, should a teacher infuse his/her political views into the discussion.”

The classroom conversation does seem to cross the line when Harris tells 5th grader Cathy Thompson, who supports McCain, “It’s a senseless war. And by the way, Cathy, the person you are picking for president said that our troops will stay in Iraq for another 100 years if they need to. So that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years.”

Lost in all the sturm und drang, however, is that the student herself and her parents are supporting the teacher. “She is usually messing around,” Cathy Thompson, tells the Asheville Citizen-Times. “When she said that, I knew she was messing around.” Her parents, Angela Moore and Army Staff Sgt. Robert Thompson, also said they weren’t mad at the teacher, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times. “Mrs. Harris is always active with the children like that,” Moore said. “I have sat in her class when my Cathy was a student, and she was very active with the children. She tries to get them involved with everything.” Robert Thompson said he thinks Harris is “getting a rough deal.”

Required Reading

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 8, 2008 in No category 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

Thoughts on Election Day
May our students understand and appreciate that regardless of what lever is pulled inside the voting booth, every vote cast is a vote of confidence in something both grand and delicate.

How Not to Evaluate Teachers
UVA professor and Core Knowledge board member Dan Willingham says plans to evaluate teachers based on standardized test scores are “fatally flawed.”

Elvis is in the Building
Hats off to the Traut Core Knowledge Elementary School in Ft. Collins, Colorado, where 6th graders transformed their school gym into a living “wax museum” to show off what they learned about various historic people.

“I’m a Teacher and I’m Tired”
Educating all of our children requires “something more than sounding warning bells and asking teachers to pull up their boot straps time and again,” notes teacher-blogger Bill Ferriter.

In the Education Blogs

An Open Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama at Eduflack
Now is the time to be innovative and offer new ideas for the problems that have ailed our public schools for decades now. Now is the time to build a non-partisan approach based on what is needed, what is sought, and what works.

Post Election Odds & Ends at Eduwonk
Real reform has an edge and, in the short term, requires picking some winners and losers if you really want to focus on traditionally ill-served students, writes Ed Sector’s Andy Rotherham. “Balancing all this will be a tougher political act. But, if the last two years are a guide, this guy’s up to it.”

Obama Wins! Have We Overcome the Scourge of Race? at Eduwonkette
Despite the election of Barack Obama, the social, economic and political forces that shape the educational opportunities of African-Americans in U.S. society remain deeply entrenched.

Looking Forward to NCLB at Ed Money Watch
The list of topics that is likely to make or break reauthorization of NCLB process is extensive and overwhelming, writes Jennifer Cohen of the New America Foundation. First and foremost is the looming 2014 deadline for 100 percent proficiency on academic tests.

Curriculum and Teaching

An Addition to the Classroom
Washington Post
As pressure mounts to prepare elementary students for high-stakes tests and for algebra in middle school, the focus on instilling math’s most basic skills is intensifying.

Goal is to help those struggling in classes
San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Unified School District will put together its most detailed account of student progress this year with help from new data analysis using the so-called “value-added” method.

Time Invested In Practicing Pays Off For Young Musicians
ScienceDaily
A Harvard-based study has found that children who study a musical instrument outperform children with no instrumental training on tests measuring verbal ability and visual pattern completion–skills not normally associated with music.

Texas considers online teacher certification
Cox News Service
Texans seeking an alternate way to a teaching certification could obtain some of their required training online under a proposal being considered by a state education panel.

Education Policy

Obama’s Possible Candidates for Education Secretary
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The suggested names include campaign advisers, current and former governors and state education officials, policy-research professionals, and people Mr. Obama knows through personal friendships or home-state ties.

Oregon public boys school to close
The Associated Press
Oregon’s only public all-boys school has failed to attract enough students and will be shut down.

Incentives Can Make Or Break Students
The Washington Post
Critics of student incentive initiatives are pointing to a body of psychological research suggesting that tangible rewards can erode children’s intrinsic motivation.

Healing America’s Sick Schools
The Boston Globe
Public and political support for NCLB reauthorization will require changes that give good schools some freedom from inflexible federal requirements while providing failing schools with more hands-on help.

Homeschooling and Parenting

5 Ways to Improve Children’s Literacy Skills
Stargazette.com
“Spending time together and learning as a family can be a simple, inexpensive and easy activity. It just requires a little time, imagination and creativity,” says the head of the National Center for Family Literacy.

Program trains parents to weave reading into kids’ lives
The Tennesseean
Even the busiest parents can play a big role in helping their children learn to read. That’s the message behind “Love. Read. Learn!” a new program to teach parents how kids learn to read.

Et Alia

When Homework is a Headache–Literally
Children who develop headaches while reading or who struggle to complete their homework may be sufferring from an under-diagnosed vision problem.

Online Grading Systems Mean No More Changing D’s to B’s
The Washington Post
Parents and students can track fluctuations in a grade-point average from the nearest computer in real time, a ritual that can become as addictive as watching political polls or a stock-market index.

Bulldog Fever? No, Just Bull…

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 7, 2008 in No category. 1 Comment

Tired of struggling to find enough teachers to staff its classrooms on the Friday before the annual Georgia-Florida football game, the Clarke County (Ga.) School District last Friday decided to cancel school altogether. Last year, 137 teachers were absent the day before the big game. Yes, that says teachers not students.

Georgia lost 49-10. At least someone learned a lesson.

(Hat tip: The Gadfly)

Elvis Is In the Building

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 7, 2008 in Core Knowledge School. 2 Comments

Hats off to the Traut Core Knowledge Elementary School in Ft. Collins, Colorado, where 6th graders transformed their school gym into a living “wax museum” to show off what they learned about various historic people. The kids created displays, gave presentations to classmates and with the help of parent volunteers, dressed up as the person for others to see.

The 75 living wax figures in included explorers, presidents, inventors and entertainers including Elvis, Ansel Adams, Marie Antoinette, Jackie Robinson and Sacajawea, and earned the school a write-up in the local paper.

The characters weren’t exactly made of wax like the famous mannequins at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum; Instead, they were sixth graders dressed in ornate costumes who assumed motionless positions when given the command. The silence was more representative of a library than a gym, and the posed students barely blinked as younger classes in single file lines walked by the 75 exhibits.

“When a person you know goes by and stares at you, it’s hard not to laugh,” said sixth-grader Summer Paulson, who was dressed as Elizabeth Blackwell, the world’s first woman doctor.

That Core Knowledge stuff…all that deadly dull rote learning and drills.

Cleveland Schools Frustrated By Tardiness

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 7, 2008 in Education Practice and School News. 3 Comments

School officials in Cleveland are concerned with chronic student tardiness. Just over 24 percent of elementary students were late more than 15 days during the 2006-07 school year. By high school, it’s more than 41 percent, reports Cleveland.com

Tardiness is epidemic in the district, with double-digit percentages of students showing up late at some schools on any given day. School board members want to put an end to what they see as a casual attitude toward education, not only among children but also by parents seen dropping them off well after what are typically 8 a.m. starts.

Some blame not lax attitudes, but children seeing younger siblings off to school for working single parents, long walks and rides on multiple public buses in a district that limits transportation. Metal detectors at the schools also may prevent students from getting to class on time.

At the city’s John Marshall High School, tardiness continues despite detentions, phone calls to parents and other strategies to curb it, says Principal Rhonda Saegert. She reminds the students that they would be fired from their jobs for being late. “A lot of times I will hear, ‘But this is not my job,’” Saegert says “I say, ‘You need to treat it as if it were your job.’

Music To Our Ears

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 6, 2008 in Research and Reports. 2 Comments

Another potential data point in the argument for a broad, content-rich education: A Harvard-based study has found that children who study a musical instrument for at least three years outperform children with no instrumental training in several key ways, Science Daily reports. Not just on tests of auditory discrimination and finger dexterity, but also on tests measuring verbal ability and visual pattern completion–skills not normally associated with music.

White House Full of Teachers

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 6, 2008 in Higher Education and Teaching. 3 Comments

It’s common knowledge that President-elect Barack Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for over a decade. We’ve also read quite about about the career of Jill Biden, the wife of the future V-P, who teaches community college English in Delaware. But this almost certainly the first time that the President, his Vice-President, and their spouses all have direct experience working in education. Michelle Obama works for University of Chicago Hospitals, while Joe Biden has also taught constitutional law for many years as an adjunct professor at Widener University School of Law.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 6, 2008 in Educational Policy. 1 Comment

Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli at Fordham survey the new education landscape under Obama and find reasons to cheer. “In a year when the Democratic nominee was practically guaranteed to win the White House, the most reform-minded Democratic candidate won,” they note. “Barack Obama’s positions on charter schools, merit pay, and even No Child Left Behind point toward a thoughtfulness and willingness to buck the status quo that were strikingly different from the postures of his closest competitors.” They also note that the unions were not major players in the victory, so in theory he’s not beholden to them and can pursue programs they may not support.

As the first African-American president, Obama will be uniquely positioned to use his bully pulpit to exhort parents, particularly minority parents, to uphold their responsibilities to foster their children’s moral and intellectual development. Done right, this could be a powerful complement to whatever formal policies he puts forward.

On the hand, given what else is going on in the world, “education is likely to loom no higher on Washington’s agenda than it did during the presidential campaign,” say Finn and Petrilli. Meanwhile tout le monde has a take on who is going to be the next ed secretary. Lots of interesting names, but this strikes me as a lot of anxiety looking for a place to affix itself, as folks with various agendas look for proof that the new President is on their side.

“I’m a Teacher and I’m Tired”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 5, 2008 in Opinion. 9 Comments

The edublogs have been brimming with advice for the President-elect in the last few days, but teacher blogger Bill Ferriter’s stands out. ”I’m a teacher and I’m tired,” he writes. More than the relentless demands of the job, he’s exhausted by the crisis mentality that attends teaching. Educating all of our children requires “something more than sounding warning bells and asking teachers to pull up their boot straps time and again,” he writes.

Subtly, the message is being sent that if teachers would work harder, America’s “educational crisis” could be solved. If only all teachers were “highly qualified,” we’d lead the world again. If only all teachers held “advanced degrees in the subjects they were teaching,” we wouldn’t fall behind China, Japan and India in engineers and scientists. If only we could recruit “our best and our brightest” to our nation’s classrooms, no child would be left behind. The responsibility for addressing each of these issues inevitably ends up on the shoulders of teachers.

While I may not agree with every one of Ferriter’s prescriptions, it’s hard to disagree with his broader theme. We’re not going to get anywhere as long as teachers are expected to bear the load alone.

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