A New Shot at Testing and Accountability

Well, this is my first blog post ever.  I am used to just mulling things over in my head, grumbling to my pals, or telling students what to read.  Today, though, my topic is a few overlooked gems I would like to assign as reading to aides to members of Congress regarding decisions they will soon have to make about our nation�s testing policies.

My expectation is that Congress will, at least some time in 2013, resume debating whether to keep mandated state testing in grades 3 through 8 under No Child Left Behind, and what kind of stakes to require states to attach.  So once again, staffers have to figure out how to design a policy that works for all students.  Collectively, the readings below point to some clear flaws with current policy, and suggest possible alternatives. 

One is from five years back, a 2007 Education Week Commentary entitled �No Child Gets Ahead,� by Anthony P. Carnevale.  Colleen Donovan, David Figlio, and Mark Rush of the National Bureau of Economic Research used data from the federal early Childhood Longitudinal Study to analyze low to middle income, high-achieving students� educational attainment. Specifically, there were "more than a million grade school students from families making less than $85,000 a year who start out in the top half of their class but fall off the college track on the way to high school." Part of the story was that these achievers were being harmed by NCLB�s focus on the lowest-performing students in the schools they attended.  They found that teaching to the test �dulls creativity and generally ignores the students who can meet the standards.�

As Carnevale writes: "With lower standards on offer, many high-performing students from working families rush down to meet them.  They give in to lower standards because their college and career expectations are fragile and they get less support at home and at school than students born into affluent families." The way forward, he says, "is to move beyond uniform standards altogether, toward individualized standards."  Hmm, how does that fit with the onslaught of Common Core assessments?

The second is the 2011 report of the National Research Council, Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education, which interrogates what the behavioral and social sciences (in particular, economics and experimental psychology) tell us about the use testing and incentives to improve performance.  Based on 10 years of empirical work, this group of psychologists, economists, and testing experts concluded that "the available evidence does not give strong support for the use of test-based incentives to improve education and provides only minimal guidance about which incentive designs may be effective"(p. 91) The report explains the trade-offs in different kinds of accountability systems, and reviews the various considerations about incentives: target, performance measures, consequences, and support (p. 33).   NCLB, obviously, has provided "many ways for schools to fail" (p. 49); wouldn't it be better to have test scores instead serve as a trigger for a deeper examination of instructional and organizational norms inside the schools? 

Last but not least is a new piece by Andrew McEachin and Morgan Polikoff in the October 2012 Educational Researcher, "We are the 5%: Which schools would be held accountable under a proposed revision of the ESEA?" The authors model the bill�s proposed accountability criteria, which seek to identify lowest performing, largest within-school achievement gaps, and lowest performing subgroups, to schools in California, attempting to answer questions about the stability of the various classifications, as well as whether they identify the schools they were designed to identify. Based on their findings, they have numerous important policy recommendations, including �considering alternatives to the proposed Lowest Subgroup Achieving Schools [LSAS] criteria, which, as written, target schools serving significant numbers of students with disabilities,� such as stratifying the LSAS by subgroups, such as Hispanic, special education, etc. (p. 250).  They also note the importance of administering accountability separately by school level (elementary, middle, and high) � say, 15% of each type if the policy goal is to hold 15% of all schools accountable per year.   McEachin and Polikoff highlight the importance of state policymakers using 3-year averages of combined proficiency level and growth measures to give the most optimal picture of persistently low-achieving and low-growing schools.  The authors recommend that Congress should commission similar analyses from all states to look at possible implications.  

Now some may argue that the Common Coreassessments will, in time, solve some of the problems with low-level state standardized tests driving instruction down.  But does that tell aides to members of Congress what kind of testing and accountability system to enact next year, 2013?  What are the likeliest measures to build state capacity for intervention while not harming instruction?  The 1994 Improving America's Schools Act, with its mandate of testing just once in three grade intervals between the early grades and high school was too loose for many in the civil rights community, who pushed for the sub-group tight enforcement model.  How do you tend to the lowest-performing students without dragging down Carnevale's "low-hanging fruit" of high-performing, middle-income students (many of whom he points out are likely to become teachers and public servants themselves)?

If the answer is obvious, it has eluded me.  One thing I do know is that there is no substitute for good congressional deliberation, and that just might involve bringing some of these researchers to testify, run more models, answer questions, and even be permitted to debate each other as well as interact with state officials who have to run these programs. Aides, happy mid-air reading after you go flying over the cliff. 

By: Elizabeth DeBray

Students with Disabilities and Charter Schools � Legal Watch

Three weeks ago, I attended the Education Law Association Annual Conference.  Over the course of the three-day conference there were many discussions regarding whether charter schools are appropriately serving student with disabilities.  These conversations were quite intriguing considering that I handled special education legal matters for almost ten years.  Over the last decade, the number of students enrolling in charter schools has increased.  Many education professionals see charter schools  as a way to fix some of America�s failing schools.  To date, much research has shown that charter schools have not achieved the significant improvements in American education that were expected.  

Charters are not exempt from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.  They are still responsible for providing students with disabilities with a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).  In the recent years, there have many complaints regarding charter schools and their ability to serve students with disabilities, and advocacy groups have began disseminating publications and information regarding parent�s rights. (See here, here, here, here , and here.)  Many charter schools are trying to find ways to appropriately serve students with disabilities, including joining together to collaborate special education services and attending trainings specific to servicing students with disabilities.  

As the number of students enrolling into charter schools increases, it is vital that education professionals and policy makers have appropriate data regarding the impact that these schools have on students with disabilities.  Currently there is a lack of research available pertaining to charter schools and their ability to serve students with disabilities.  In June, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that analyzed data from 2008-2010 and found that charter schools enrolled a lower percentage of students with disabilities than traditional public schools.  However, the GAO was unable to outline the factors that contributed to the difference.  The GAO also found that charter schools faced challenges serving students with severe disabilities.   After the GAO�s report, the findings became highly publicized. (See here, here, here, here, here.) This month, a study by Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) also suggested that additional research is needed to understand why charter schools appear to have an lower enrollment of students with disabilities than traditional schools.  I am interested in seeing the data from the U.S. Department of Education 2011-2012 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). Unlike the 2009-2010 CRDC, the 2011-2012 CRDC will include enrollment data from all public schools and school districts, including charter schools, therefore giving a nationwide picture of enrollment.  

There are lessons we should learn from the GAO and CRPE reports.  First, that there is insufficient data to effectively analyze or criticize charter schools� overall ability to comply with special education law.  Second, in order to get appropriate data, it is imperative that charter school operators provides an open and untouched picture of what is actually going on in regards to students with disabilities.  Any research should take a very close look at the quality of service being provided to students with disabilities that are already enrolled in charter schools.

Based on the recent reports, I anticipate an increase in special education litigation as it pertains to charter schools.  There are already cases popping up that I will be watching.  The Louisiana case, Berry, et al. v. Pastorek, et al, is one of those cases.  In this class action lawsuit, the parents are suing the State Education Agency for the alleged violations of the charter schools.  I am waiting to hear the court�s ruling on this case because it might cause other State Education Agencies to start taking a closer look at their students with disabilities that are enrolled in charter schools.   

        

Many traditional charter schools have difficulty implementing services for students with disabilities, therefore it would not be a surprise to anticipate potential noncompliance issues with virtual charter schools.  In July, the National Education Policy Center released a study on virtual schools.  That study made recommendations for additional research questions pertaining to how virtual charters are providing services to students with disabilities and how the funding is being used? One can envision the potential complications of a virtual charter school implementing IEPs and 504 plans for some students with disabilities.  With the national campaign for digital learning, and as more school districts embrace digital charter schools, districts/charters will continue to try to determine how digital learning can work for students with disabilities.   
        

The bottom line is that we must invest in additional research in this area to ensure that student with disabilities are not discriminated against and are receiving appropriate services.  On another note, I wonder if voucher programs will receive the same scrutiny, considering some of the same arguments are being made regarding discrimination of students with disabilities.  Civil rights groups have filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)  alleging that the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program discriminates against children with disabilities. (See here, here, here.) As policies change and school reform continues, new legal issues will arise, therefore we should be prepared to handle them.  

By:  Tiffany Puckett

The Better Story - How Movies Promote Reading!

Ang Lee's interpretation of Yann Martel's novel, Life of Pi opened this week at our local theatre. Pi has been one of my favorites both as a personal read and as a novel for classroom study ever since it first came out back in 2001. While much of the buzz around this story centers around Pi's relationship with the tiger, Richard Parker, the novel goes much deeper than that, exploring themes of spirituality, courage, survival, and the value and meaning of life. Its question of which is the better story, always gets students talking.

As a rule, I don't like film adaptations of great books. By their very nature, motion pictures offer a limited vision that illustrates a director's interpretation of the story.  Such interpretations are often at odds with the version I imagined in my own reading. Lilly O'donell describes just such a point of view eloquently in her recent article Ang Lee's Visual Splendor Will not Live Up to the Book. Ms. O'donnell may be in the minority however. Students in my English class are keenly anticipating movie treatments of some of their favorite titles including The Perks of Being a Wallflower  and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

Movies undoubtedly have the ability to generate interest and turn young readers on to a title or author. Film adaptations of books like The Hunger Games,  The Hobbit,  and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows have, or will soon have, thousands of young readers either checking to see if the film has been loyal to a beloved text or being introduced to new and exciting worlds only a turn of a page away.

So whether one is a printed word purist, or an advocate for using more modern media to broaden student horizons, anything that gets students reading must have an upside. Life of Pi was just one of more than half a dozen titles available to students in our lit circle unit. Having the movie come to town inspired many to take on, and enjoy, this challenging but ultimately rewarding read. Whether they like the film or not remains to be seen, but even if they don't,  their interest was piqued, and they are better read now than when they entered the class! (And as Pi might have asked "isn't that the better story?")

Freedom to be College Ready? Reforming Community College Developmental Education

I am fresh off the fall conference season having most recently attended the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), the leading scholarly organization on all things postsecondary education. The conference theme was �Freedom to Learn,� which ASHE President Anna Neumann eloquently defended in her keynote and further challenged the association membership to consider how teaching and learning touches their work, including work in the policy domain. This challenge could not be more central to the predominant policy conversations and research related to college readiness and developmental education. Inspired by several sessions at the ASHE conference and my own work on college and career readiness and developmental education, here I focus on developmental education (also known as �remediation�) reform and the role of teaching and learning.

Developmental reading, writing, and math courses, offered at both community colleges and universities in some states (but more often at community colleges), have garnered a significant degree of policy attention. This is, in part, because accumulating evidence suggests that many students participate in developmental education but do not progress into college-level credit course or complete college; this is especially the case at community colleges. For example, data from Complete College America show that approximately 51% of all students at public 2-year colleges in 33 states need developmental education. Of those students who need developmental education, 62% complete developmental education but only 22% complete a college-level course (in the associated academic discipline) within 2 years and even fewer graduate. Other data from community colleges participating in the Achieving the Dream initiative show similar disappointing results.

The point I want to emphasize here, and what the evidence suggests, is that existing developmental education programs and policies are not working and students are not succeeding. Though existing K12 reforms may reduce the need for developmental education courses at colleges, as many as 40% to 60%of incoming community college students are enrolled in developmental coursework and colleges must act now to ensure these students are college ready. More troubling is that we know students of color and low-income students are overrepresentedin the total population of developmental education students, so these students are disproportionately affected by existing policies. The question left unanswered by this body of research and other quasi-experimental research focused on testing and placement policies (see here, here, and here), however, is why? Why is developmental education not working and what is needed to improve student success?

As I was reminded by the ASHE conference theme, we need to better understand how and why developmental education students are or are not learning in the classroom to better inform practice and policy. Let me offer a few theories or explanations and related solutions from the literature�explanations that are relevant to the teaching and learning process. One theoryis that traditional developmental education instruction is decontextualized from the students� lives and experiences, and proposes the use of contextualized or integrated forms of instruction can improve student learning through both cognitive and effective mechanisms. Another explanationis that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of expectations that faculty and students have of one another, and proposes to create stronger faculty learning environments to support community college faculty. A third theorysuggests the sequential and multi-semester structure of developmental education sequences is too lengthy and takes students too long to complete, and proposes accelerating the pace of instruction as a solution. And a fourth explanationsuggests that traditional face-to-face instruction is disengaging, and proposes the use of technology be integrated into the classroom, where students use self-directed technologies or receive supplementary technological instruction.  

This is not an exhaustive list by any measure, particularly relative to the sweeping state and national strategies penetrating community college developmental education. The similarity among these four ideas, however, is a set of pedagogical issues about the relationship between content and student experiences; the assumptions and expectations of faculty and students in the classroom; the pace at which students learn and faculty teach; and the instructional environment and platform of developmental education courses. Returning to Anna Neumann�s point in her ASHE Presidential address, state and national policy conversations often ignore these pedagogical issues, especially in the policy context of college completion and college readiness. If we believe teaching and learning are important as researchers, and more importantly, as educators, we need to look for intersections between teaching and learning and our policy work. I would argue we need to elevate the relevance of teaching and learning in our research, and the models and policy solutions we research or evaluate need to make pedagogical assumptions explicit.

I do not pretend these are easily achievable goals for researchers, but I extend Anna Neumann�s invitation to those studying developmental education. I particularly extend it because those students who matriculate to college in developmental education are often those that have already been failed by educational systems and by society, and we need to know why these students have been failed and then work toward not reproducing that failure in developmental education. These students deserve the freedom to learn and to be college ready. 

By: Jason Taylor

Last week, I wrote a post for the Office of Community College Research and Leadership. This post focuses on the need for state education agencies to collaborate around establishing research agendas. As states begin developing state longitudinal data systems for collecting student information, it is important that a coherent and developed research agenda exists as a framework for conducting educational research.

You can read the entire post here:  http://occrl.illinois.edu/collaboration-and-statewide-research-agendas/

Must Be Nice - Teaching Talented and Gifted Students

"Must be nice" I am often told "to work with a class of such talented children".  I do have the good fortune to teach English to a secondary class of 32 talented, gifted or honours students. The class can be extremely rewarding, but also enormously challenging. Far from being a homogeneous group of quiet overachievers, this class is as diverse and different as any I've ever met.

 Many people believe that talented and gifted students should be a dream to work with. They envision a group of diligent, well behaved over achievers who meet all deadlines, and exceed all expectations. That description might fit a few students in my class, but the majority are very complex young people of wide ranging abilities.  They include students with attendance and motivation issues and others who are obsessively anxious about their work and grades. There are those that will happily do whatever the teacher asks and others who will challenge every assignment for relevance, necessity or interest. We have our introverts, our extroverts, the class comedians and the students who would love to be anywhere else but at school. The class includes 3 different grade levels, 11 students on individualized education plans (IEPs), and 6 students preparing for required provincial exams. Outside of class many are balancing heavy academic loads, active commitments to jobs, sports teams, fine arts pursuits and busy personal social lives. In short, there is very little about working with such students that is straight forward or easy. Congregated as they are, they are as challenging as any special needs group. Their needs are just different.

The CNN Education blog Schools of Thought recently ran an excellent piece on gifted education. Written by Carol Coll, the entry is entitled My view: Ten myths about gifted students and programs for gifted. After noting how educators have struggled for decades to properly even define giftedness, Coll outlines ten common misconceptions about gifted students. She accurately harpoons stereotypic beliefs about how gifted students look, how they interact with teachers and other students, how they work and how they behave. She also takes on the critics who alternately suggest that either all students are gifted or that gifted students really don't require any specialized assistance. (My personal favorite is myth #7 -that  teaching gifted students is easy).

For a gifted class to function well there can be no coasting, either by the students or the teachers! These kids very much represent the individualized 21st century learners described in the BCEd Plan! Different students have respectfully challenged nearly every aspect of my instruction and assessment practices. When things are going well, such students produce amazing results. However, these same students are very quick to speak up or act out when they find lessons less than stimulating or to challenge assessment practices they don't like or completely understand. I'm fortunate to be assisted and supported by two other talented instructors. Our district principal of student learning, and the district itinerant for gifted education are also actively engaged with the class. Through collaborative efforts, we generate and design lessons that work to student strengths and interests, analyze our practice for what works and what doesn't,  and generally act as a support network for each other. In addition to noting those practices unique to gifted instruction, we also look for techniques that might be used to advantage by all teachers and students. 

So what do I say when I'm told "It must be nice?" It is,but working with gifted students has challenges, just like every other class. Really, its just nice to be working as a teacher, helping students and helping to ensure their education matters.

Earlier this year, Z�calo Public Square asked several higher education policy experts: Will America�s public universities remain competitive with elite private universities in their teaching and research? Several researchers and experts responded (you can view the full discussion here). Among them was Forum Fellow and University of Illinois Assistant Professor, Dr. Jennifer Delaney.

Dr. Delaney�s response:

Only if funding is properly restored�which is unlikely. Both public and private institutions suffered in the last recession, but there is increasingly cause to be concerned about a growing stratification between elite public and private universities.

State support for public higher education tends to be cyclical. However, the length of time to recovery following a cut in state general appropriations has been increasing. Whereas recoveries were swift in the 1980s, they slowed in the 1990s and stagnated in the 2000s. Past public campus leaders could be reasonably assured that state appropriations would eventually be restored; however, today, cuts may be permanent. Going forward, the problem is likely to get worse, since most states face structural budget deficits, and public higher education is one of the largest discretionary�and therefore cuttable�spending areas in most state budgets.

Elite public institutions can generate funds from non-state sources (such as tuition, federal grants, private giving, etc.), and political leaders can make different choices about state investments in public higher education. However, privates are likely to recover fully as endowments rebound, while publics will continue to face challenging futures with regard to state support. As such, there is likely to be increased stratification in wealth between elite publics and privates, which portends disparities in teaching and research quality.

This article was originally published at Z�calo Public Square. 

Turnaround, Transformation, and now Trigger: Repositioning parents in reform recipes

It is worthwhile to think about the ways parents are positioned in school reform models, old and new ones. Until 2010, parents were engaged in education policy primarily, if at all, through School Site Councils, in Chicago known as Local School Councils, which are local decision-making bodies of parents, teachers, and community members that make school policy such as but not limited to curriculum, principal hiring and termination, and budget. This has changed in some ways with the US Department of Education School Improvement Grants Programendorsed school reform models: turnaround, transformation, restarts, and school closure. Of the 4,941 eligible Struggling Schools: 71% of schools have chosen turnarounds, 21% transformation, 5% restart, and just 3% of schools have chosen closure. In turnarounds and transformation models, parents� roles are not explicitly outlined, whereas charter and voucher models position parents as consumers and choosers.

Seeking to reposition parents higher on the decision-maker ladder, Parent Trigger allows parents to choose their own reform recipe. Working closely with Parent Revolution, California Democrats passed the first Parent Trigger law in January 2010. Their bill held that parents who lived within the boundaries of, or whose children attended, an eligible failing school could sign a petition that would, with 51% parent body endorsement, trigger the school district to turnaround, transform, restart, or close the school. California remains the only state to allow all four reform recipes. With the exception of Louisiana, six other states have moved in a restart-to-charter-only direction. Here�s a state-by-state synopsis:

Revolutionary? Yes. Progressive? Sure. Policymakers are demonstrating efforts to move beyond involvement and toward engagement. Effective? We don�t know yet, but probably not. For now, here is a working hypothesis of why: The causal relationship between �pick a reform� and �watch your school transform� is weak, at best. Rather than jumpstarts, a more likely improvement scenario would include building authentic relationships around the co-construction of a school that includes community, parents, teachers, and students. Let�s look at this a bit further:

Parent Trigger supporters contend that the law will affect change, reform, and school improvement. The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, thinks this is pretty easy: �A. Organize with fellow parents; B. Pick your reform option; C. Get signatures on your petition; and D. Watch your school transform!� Yet, we can see that parents are empowered to neither change, reform, nor improve schools. In California, they are simply empowered to choose a preferred reform recipe. Elsewhere, they are simply empowered to ask for a restart. Instead, several data reveal that what parents want is to see change happen within their own schools, in their own communities, and in their own unique contexts.Parents� comments from McKinley Elementary School, the site of America�s first Parent Trigger, reveal that they wanted to see change happen within the walls of their own school. Perhaps this is why only approximately one-third of parents who signed the pro-charter petition actually moved their children to the new nearby charter school. Desert Trails Elementaryparents, reveal similar discontent: after a year-long, highly public fight to pass their pro-charter petition in Adelanto, CA, less than one-third of parents who signed the petition voted the new charter authorizer for their school. Their choice of charter authorizer came down to the charter that demonstrated experience with students and families of color, despite its �traditional� approach to education. And in March of 2012, in a last minute flood of letters to Florida Republican Senator Rory, parents demanded a recall against Trigger on the grounds of false empowerment.

These parents� perspectives do not stand alone. Data on parent engagement in school improvement reveal true value in cooperation, inclusivity, and validation of parents� roles as partners in school decision-making. Findings from a few recent studies are particularly provocative:

- The Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) found that community organizing over time led to mutual support between under-served communities and school districts that yielded several stronger metrics of school improvement;

- In her study on Chicago�s Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Soo Hongfinds that trusting relationships and equalized distribution of power are �core strategies� for school improvement;

- In their study of community organizing efforts in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, San Jose, and the Mississippi Delta, Warren et al. found that collaborations between educators, parents, and communities led to �deep, and sustainable school reform�;

- and in his participatory study with Latino/a high school students, Irizarry et al. uncover improved educational experiences for Latino/a youth through connections to Latino cultural and linguistic communities (Irizarry, 2012).

We need to do a lot more to better understand parents� roles in school improvement. Empirical evidence is indeed hard to come by, as experimental models have to draw a strong, statistically significant causal relationship between parent engagement and school improvement. That aside, the rigor and richness of the qualitative data above and of other high quality studies remind us why Parent Trigger is unlikely: it�s nothing new. It�s the same four reform recipes, at best. The �easy as A-B-C-D� Trigger process jumpstarts reform but does not necessarily extend toward improvement. Reversing the effects of a historically tenuous relationship between parents and schools, particularly for low-income communities of color, is a complex process. Perhaps new Reform Recipes should consider repairing the parent-school relationships as a vehicle by which to move from reform and toward improvement.

Irizarry, J. G. (2011). The Latinization of U.S. schools: Successful teaching and learning in shifting cultural contexts. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

By: Priya Goel

Keep It Creative: Student Perspectives on Education

Recently, my English 11Honours students read an excerpt from A.A.  Milne's classic Winnie the Pooh story, Rabbit's Busy Day. Before anyone gets too excited about my literature selections for grade 11s, they should consider that this story has a very grown up subtext about education, its value, and its impact on imagination. In it  Rabbit wonders where Christopher Robin has disappeared to in the mornings. Piglet and Eyeore each observe and express opinions about a letter A. Piglet thinks it might be some sort of a trap. Eyeore regards it as "A great and glorious A" something of tremendous value to the educated, until he is disillusioned by discovering that A "is something a Rabbit knows'.
Class discussion on this reading raised the idea that formal schooling often stifles imagination and creativity. Several students submitted written responses on the theme that public education in the 21st century needs to promote creativity, not smother it with more formal or outdated instruction. 

With the students permission here is a listing of some of their ideas.
1. School pressures children to grow up too fast. The expectation that they should know what they want to be in life by their teens comes way too soon.
2. In kindergarten students write stories and draw pictures. By grade 8 the stories have stopped and students are thrown into the bitter world of the 5 paragraph expository essay. School starts creative fires just to choke them out again.
3. Schools need to provide alternate pathways to learning. The accomplished artist isn't always great at math, but aren't both skills valauble?
4. Students are to told to grow up and put away their arts and crafts and yet some teachers still treat them like children. Perhaps the system needs to get its messaging straight!
5. Educators need to stop forbidding drawings or art that depicts violence or death. War is a modern reality and death is part of life. Pretending these things don't exist does little to prepare students to cope with them.
6. Teachers need to let students think for themselves rather than always tell them what to think. Sometimes even well intentioned instruction can close minds rather than open them.
7. Grading practices need to change. The current percentage letter grade system of ranking can cause a student to feel stupid when potentially they could be a genius in another way.
8. Bring more music into classrooms while students are working. Some learn better to a rhythm, others find it a calming force and still others can find inspiration in a familiar or favorite song.
9. Allow more sharing of lives like the show and tells that happened in primary. Not being able to share and connect with teachers and other adults can lead to the build up of tremendous personal pressures, sometimes with tragic circumstances.
10. Students should not be pressured to feel worthless or to feel they need to change their views on creativity. Students should not be called out based on grades, race, gender or physical attributes. Such interactions make students feel like its not ok to be creative and just themselves. By urging conformity teachers can suppress the urge to create for years.

The students have some notable supporters. Scholars like John Abbott and Sir Ken Robinson are also spreading a similar message.  In a recent visit to Fort St John, John Abbott spoke of the instinctive need for adolescents to do things for themselves. His views are outlined further in his book "Overschooled but Undereducated". Sir Ken's views can be seen by viewing the TED talk Schools kill Creativity, where he speaks to the challenge of using the methods of the past to sort out an unknowable future. These creative thinkers are recognized world wide for their innovative ideas. It should be exciting to know that we have access to minds every bit as clever right here in our own schools. Our students have strong opinions on how to better their education. Our challenge will be to listen to them and act on their advice!

Curriculum Review: Times Tales

Rote memorization is not fun for anyone.  Many children despise it.  Some hate it and others are just no good at it.  So what have generations of despairing teachers and parents done?  Turn to mnemonic devices.  Little trick images or phrases to help students remember the unmemorable.

I cannot read music and have no musical talent whatsoever.  I can actually have several preschool parents attest to having witnessed my inexplicable inability to clap to the beat of the easiest of preschooler tunes.  (Pathetic and sad yes, but hopefully I have gifts in other areas.  I would not however, suggest, you ask me to sing either.)  I can however tell you the notes on a scale (Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge and FACE) thanks to Mrs. Miller, my second grade teacher.  She employed the ever popular mnemonic device.

The beauty, simplicity and ease of a mnemonic device is clear.  So why on Earth has it taken so long for someone to come up with the ingenious idea of appling mnemonics to the multiplication tables?  Thank goodness Jennie Von Eggers did!  We are ever so grateful that we have discovered Times Tales.

I remember (and not too fondly) having spent countless hours each evening drilling my daughter on her multiplication tables when she was in 3rd grade.  She would master one table, take the quiz at school and then move on to the next one.  Each grueling step moved us closer to our goal, mastery through the nines.  When we finally got there, we discovered that she was losing the early tables which she had learned due to lack of practice.  Grr!  More drilling!

So alas, I was not looking forward to beginning the same drudgery with my son now that it is time for him to learn his multiplication tables.  I knew that this was going to be excruciating for him, since rote memorization is just about the worst task I could ask of him given the way he learns and processes information.  Oh joy, were we in for a treat then! 

We were working on the 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s.  We had been drilling these almost daily for months, to no avail.  He could get the correct answers by calculating them.  He did not have them memorized.  So we kept on drilling.  I saw another mom post on Facebook about Times Tales and how amazing they were for her son.  Huh?  Times Tales???  What in the heck is that?

Oh, only an answer to prayers.

Times Tales has created characters that represent each number and then incorporated them into an extremely brief (2 sentence on average) �story� that illustrates the answer to the multiplication problem.  Since it was less than $20 on Amazon, I figured I might as well give it a shot.  

In less than 15 minutes and reviewing the characters and stories three to four times, my son knew the 3s and 4s times tables, COLD.  And the angels began to sing ... Quite literally, I had tears in my eyes.  We had found what worked for him.

Pros:  Times Tales has simple stories that are �catchy� for kids.  They are easy to recall.  Once the child can recall the story, the instruction manual has flash cards that contain the number characters in a multiplication equation.  After the child has mastered this, there are traditional numerical flash cards.  The program includes character number practice tests as well as numerical ones.  There are also crosswords and cube templates that you can cut out for a dice game.  

Once the child has mastered multiplication, there are two types of division flashcards.  The character-based division flashcards ask, �What is missing?�  Once the child has this part learned, then there are traditional numerical division flashcards too.

Cons:  Why, oh why, did they not create stories for all of the times tables???  Apparently the Times Tales creators felt that most kids can easily learn the 2s and 5s on their own.  While they may certainly be easier tables than others, we sure could have benefited from having stories covering the 2s and 5s.  

Since Times Tales did not have any stories for the 5s and we had a need for them, I used a computer image of a unicycle and turned it into a �5� to create a few stories for my son.

Bottom line:  This is one purchase that was worth every single penny I paid.  It worked beautifully.  My son felt such pride in being able to quickly and painlessly learn his multiplication tables.  I could not possibly give a higher endorsement of this product.  We love it!

Myopic Perspectives/Reforms Are No Match for Systemic Inequalities

Love it or hate it, Teach For America (TFA), continues to grow as an alternative route to teaching.  Marketed as an organization committed to closing the achievement gap, TFA recruits high performing college students (who often also hold campus leadership positions) to teach, often outside of a content area not supported by an undergraduate degree, in low-income urban and rural schools plagued by underperformance on standardized tests, graduation rates, and college acceptance (Urban Atlanta, New Orleans, and Chicago for example).  The idea is that if you take smart, more than often White, graduates from Harvard (and the likes), give them a crash course in teaching (which breaks down into 5 weeks of courses and 18 hours of student teaching in an unrealistic setting), get them excited about �other people�s kids� and the �civil rights movement of our time,� teach them to employ strict behaviorism and a �no excuses� attitude towards student outcomes�then poverty will be eradicated.   Nevertheless, a primal aspect of the reproduction of poverty via schools is not only overlooked; it is actively subverted as a paradigm.  How honest can an organization that markets �equity� actively ignore the root causes of economic and educational disparities.

TFA�s Academic Impact Model (at right) holds that teachers, and teachers alone, are the fundamental determinant of student outcomes (not parents, principals, the students themselves, access to healthcare, food, housing, parental jobs, cultural/social capital, parental educational attainment, safety, etc. � think Maslow�s Hierarchy of Needs, 1966 Coleman Report).  I've written about this topic previously; but, as studies continue to confirm decades old understandings of the realities of poverty, this framework must continue to be scrutinized.

The naivety about and complete disregard for individual student backgrounds, aspirations, volition, etc., is indicative of the neoliberal �no excuses� paradigm sweeping across education reform.  To be sure, if a teacher enters a classroom and fundamentally believes that students cannot learn the educational environment can be ruined.  But, what of the opposite mindset?  If teachers, TFA corps members or others who subscribe to the no excuses paradigm, are taught to believe that socioeconomic status, access to healthcare, student volition, parental educational attainment, for example, are a zero sum component of student outcomes then are those corps members operating under a paradigm that is destined for failure?  As an educator, I believe in having high expectations for students.  But, I also understand that there are limits to what I can accomplish.  Many education reformers call this an excuse.  However, studies and science continue to confirm that students living in poverty begin school with more disadvantages than their affluent peers, seen here, here, and here.  Should we then relegate poor students to a life without education?�of course not.  But, the naivety in believing that we can eradicate systemic inequality by �fixing teachers� (especially by putting inexperienced corps members with only 18 hours of training in the classroom) is not only ludicrous, it shows a willingness to ignore larger systemic issues � like poverty and racism. 

If schools mirror society, we cannot progress towards more equality by trying to fix the reflection we see in the mirror.  We must dramatically increase our investments in anti-poverty programs and continuing education for parents.  We must commit to ensuring that every adult has access to a job that pays a livable wage.  We must protect and further attempts to provide access to affordable healthcare.  And, we must eradicate racist and classist policies that subvert equality and only promulgate a stratified economy.  All of these efforts need to take place and there is little - dare I say no - room for inexperienced do-gooders who ignore student cultural backgrounds (namely because they typically do not share the same backgrounds � ethnically and economically) who believe that teaching students to do well on standardized tests will give them the chutzpah to overcome poverty.

By: Jameson Brewer

Excellent blog post by Larry Cuban, "Online Instruction Outsources Jobs." http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/online-instruction-outsources-jobs/

Presidential Politics and Education Policy: Pell Grants with Consequences

I should preface this whole blog by saying that I am not a scholar of education finance. But since one can hardly talk about education in this election season without talking about the federal budget and the economy, it�s pretty hard to write something about the future of public education following the upcoming election without talking about money. 

When Education Week and Teacher�s College at Columbia University teamed up to host an education debate on October 15^th titled �Taking the Election to School: Making Education a Focus of the 2012 Election�, the budget, economy and the role of federal government in education were front and center. The debate featured education advisor to the Romney campaign, Phil Handy, against Obama education advisor, John Schnur; the president of Teachers� College, Susan Furhman, served as moderator. This debate was a welcome respite from the high profile and very tense presidential and vice-presidential debates, characterized by two collegial men sitting next to each other, clearly at ease with the topics of debate, and respectful of their opponent�s time to talk, never interrupting or talking over the other.

In what followed (you can read the full transcript here), these surrogates provided details about each candidate�s plans for education, which reflected starkly different positions on the role of the federal government in all levels and arenas of education. Teacher�s College provides a bi-partisan summary of the debate that touches on the major issues including Common Core standards, NCLB Waivers, Pell Grants, early childhood education, teaching force.

But, it was the discussion of the Pell grant program was particularly compelling to me because of a point that Handy made at the end. He said, �the one thing we do with Pell grants, for example, is to have a completion requirement.� Using an analogy, he described how a Florida virtual school that offers a course does not get paid until the end of the course when the student is proficient in that course.  �That should be the same with federal programs which allows kids to go to school, not complete school, but still get the money�there�s a much more rigorous criteria that should be, I think, administered as it relates to give out federal money for going to school and not completing a course or completing a program.�

While his words are open to interpretation, this statement seems to support requiring students to complete college in order to keep their Pell grant monies. It implies that if students do not complete, there would be consequences as well (such as having to pay it back). It proposes holding individual students accountable for the spending of federal dollars on education! Indeed, Handy earlier referred to the Pell grant program as accruing �tens of billions� of dollars of �unpaid liability� (because helping low-income students go to college isn't worth it if they don�t become stock brokers and pay 15% tax rates�).  

Let�s backtrack a moment. If you remember, in the first debate, Romney indicated that he does not want to cut spending on education but also indicated that he does not plan to spend more money on education either. During the second town hall style debate, Romney was a little more promising in trying to sway undecided voters by saying�I want to make sure we keep our Pell grant program growing.� And during this particular debate between education advisors, Handy agreed that the Pell grant program is a good thing but given the budget deficit and uncertainty of how Pell will be funded, the program needs to be �radically fixed.�

By putting a system of consequences in place, the amount of money currently invested in the Pell grant program does not have to change. In fact, I�d bet my student loans that if Romney was elected, the federal government will spend less money on Pell. To gain access to higher education through a Pell grant would be a risk for low income students who are already four times less likely to finish college than students who are not low income.

This sort of system reminds me of the welfare drug testing law that was instituted in Florida last year. Attorney to Florida governor Rick Scott saidthat requiring welfare recipients to take a drug test in order to receive benefits was a �common-sense measure to make sure the purposes of the program are advanced.� The law was proposed to save the state money by eliminating persons from the program who were using benefits for drug use and scaring those who use drugs from applying. A Pell program of consequences would serve to do the same � scare students out of taking Pell money for fear that if they could not finish, they would not be able to pay back the federal government.  While we know now that the Florida law did not work, I still find this strategy of �scaring people straight� quite alarming and contradictory to the goals of the Pell Grant program.

None of the articles I read addressed Handy�s comment (see here, here, here, and here). Perhaps the comment appeared to be given off-handedly in a broader discussion of student debt and college affordability. Or perhaps, and I suspect this is more likely, that no one picked up on this is actually indicative of two campaigns so focused on the middle class that comments like this don�t quite make the radar. Pell Grants are need-based program for poor Americans; in 2010-2011, 58% of Pell Grant recipients dependent on parents for support came from families with incomes of $30,000 or less (College Board, 2012). Yet, both Romney and Obama defined the �middle-income� as households who make less than $250,000, despite the realitythat the median income for American households is just over $50,000 and that only 9% of households make over $150,000. Like I said, you just can�t talk about this election without talking about money.

By: Nora Gannon-Slater, a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology (QUERIES division), studies educational evaluation, assessment, and accountability.

Time to Learn

This weekend, while the rest of the world is turning its clocks back an hour to mark the end of daylight saving time, in the BC Peace, time will not change. It won't fall back, it won't stand still. Just as the Steve Miller Band sang back in 1976, time will just keep on slip, slip, slippin, into the future!

Time is a funny and paradoxical thing. There never seems to be enough of it to do a job well or properly the first time but later,  time can always be found to fix a problem. Many devices proclaim their value as "time savers" even though its not often terribly clear what the time is being saved for.  Others urge people  to spend "quality time" on things that "really matter" as opposed to just "marking time" on matters that are trivial or numb the spirit. Instead of wasting time we are urged to manage it wisely. Saved, spent, running out, being marked, managed or wasted, time seems to have a powerful role in our lives.

With life expectancy in Canada nearing 81 years, the average lifespan is about 700,000 hours. Between the ages of 5 and 18 Canadian children will spend about 14,000 of these hours at school. While that amount may amount to about 12% of their youth, school time will actually only take up between 2 and 3% of the average Canadian's total lifespan. Compared with the 30% of a lifetime that will be spent sleeping,  formal education has an all to brief a window into a person's life. Recognizing the brevity of the opportunity, it  becomes even more important that educators and students not waste it.

Identifying just what needs to be taught and learned, and the best ways to do so in a short period of time has been a challenge dating all the way back to the Bible's 90th Psalm with its reminder to "number our days that we may seek a heart of wisdom". British Columbia's BC EdPlan, with its emphasis on 21st Century learning, is one of the latest efforts to define better ways to utilize time spent in schools. While some degree of reflection is inevitable and healthy, its important to recognize that time, as the proverb says, waits for no man. Ultimately, the goal remains to provide a meaningful education that inspires and engages learners in the very short time they spend within the formal school system.

What Monster are we Creating?

More "great" news in our (Tacoma) school district...they're using iPads for little kids to learn letters. 

One teacher says, the iPads "enhance instruction" and the reporter notes that one student sat, "beguiled" by it. 

One effect that our short-term vision of 'enhancing' things like letter learning now is that we stimulate an expectation for "wow" later.  For some thought on this, read all the articles on electronics, brain development and attention (start with the NY Times from two days ago).

I see it routinely in 8th grade, where 76 of my students acknowledged owning a total of 247 personal electronic gadgets, and using 181 of them while doing school work, though not using them FOR school work.

On the other end of the (socio-economic) spectrum, it's not hard to imagine a student getting WOW letter learning on the school iPad then going home to much less 'engaging' reading material so not spending more time in reading at home.  

There is an implicit assumption underlying all this enthusiasm for technology that the reading mechanics learned on the WOW device will seamlessly transfer over to reading in any and all media.  My experience in 8th grade, however, is that the technology transfers, not the reading.  So youngsters are doing more with and on their gadgets, where socializing and entertainment grip them much more than reading (even on the gadgets) or schoolwork.

Yes, these electronics may 'help' now, but they also might create a path dependence that leads to educational difficulty later.  Unfortunately, school districts find themselves unable but to start down this path.  Faith in technology, plus social demand that schools--not parents, families or communities--do everything possible to improve outcomes, times Bill Gates insisting that computers are more effective than people equals a cultural climate in which schools MUST get more computers or they'll be deemed derelict. 

What gets lost in the discussion is that the parents committed to and involved in their children's education is much more potent than any Apple product.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/11/03/2354529/ipads-are-their-favorites.html#storylink=cpy

Won't Step Up: Idealism, Evidence, and Entertainment

The most interesting thing about the recent box-office bomb of Won�t Back Down wasn't just how big-money ideologues backed such a dog of a movie, but that audiences handed a resounding �two thumbs down� to this attempt to alter the time-tested teacher-as-hero formula that has been so profitable to Hollywood over the years.

In the 1980s and 90s, movies about troubled schools had a common theme:  get tough on students.  Stand and Deliver, Lean on Me and Dangerous Minds, for instance, reflected the common wisdom that charismatic educators could force those unruly urban (and usually minority) kids to shape up, allowing the US to compete with Japan in the global economy.

But the heroic teacher myth has recently been flipped to the teacher-as-villain, as indicated by a new crop of films that pounce on teachers for not improving the inner cities.  Recent Hollywood movies such as Won�t Back Down and Bad Teacher are buttressed by documentaries like Waiting for Superman, The Lottery and The Cartelin promoting the notion that education failure is due primarily to bad schools and, more specifically, to those who teach in them.  In this narrative, without finding ways of identifying, sanctioning, and firing ineffective teachers (who all happen to work at schools with lots of disadvantaged kids), the US will be unable to compete with India and China in the new global economy.  

This embrace of teacher effectiveness and rejection of student disadvantage as the primary factor influencing student outcomes has become something of a theme with the self-described �reform� crowd, as when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels made the amazing claim that �Teacher quality has been found to be twenty times more important than any other factor, including poverty, in determining which kids succeed.�  The �Rhee-formers� believe that good teaching trumps the �demographic determinism� of bad background factors.

Improving teacher quality is, of course, a laudable goal.  But what does the evidence actually tell us? 

Going back at least to the Coleman Report of the mid-1960s, researchers have consistently found that non-school factors are the primary � if not overwhelming � consideration in predicting student outcomes (see, e.g. here, here, here, here, here).  Decades of research suggest that school-factors may explain perhaps one-third of the variance in student achievement, while teaching itself may influence one-fifth, at best.  And it�s not at all clear that exceptional teaching has the sustained impact over time that we might wish.  Great teaching can make a difference, and it does for many students.  But for many more, the environment soon re-asserts itself.

Certainly, it�s much easier for policymakers to mandate better teaching than it is to mandate better parenting.  We can�t legislate that all parents care about their child�s education, take prenatal vitamins, or limit exposure to lead� and that wouldn�t make for a very good movie.

But what we see in Won�t Back Down is a willful disregard of evidence in favor of Rhee-formist idealism � the appeal of simplistic solutions to complex problems.  This is not to say that we shouldn�t try to improve the educational experiences of poor kids.  But idealism and ideological desire cannot counter data.  Without a foundation in facts, any reforms are likely to go the way of the many other efforts that are based on good intentions and ideological assumptions, but which ignore evidence.  (Recall the Gates Foundation�s expensive and ineffective foray into smaller schools.)  There will be little overall impact on academic outcomes from reforms that neglect the primary problems� outside of schools.

Divorced from evidence, idealism may make for a good movie, but it is not the best strategy for improving educational outcomes. 

By: Christopher Lubienski