Yale history major George W. Bush, aka "The Decider," aka the 43rd President of the United States, acknowledged before a group of high-tech executives on Friday, 4/21/06, that "history may not make it." His comments about teaching the subject of history came as he stressed the need to focus on math and science to stay competitive with the rest of the world.
Here is my sonic meme, intended to contextualize this approach and throw a bit of cold water on it.
For more and more children, the exposure to American history --- the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, how the government was formed, how laws are passed -- has been eliminated. The sociopolitical implications of poor black and Hispanic children not learning about the Civil Rights movement, not learning about women's suffrage, not learning about the US Civil War, and not learning about any historical or contemporary instance of civil disobedience is more than just chilling. It smacks of an Orwellian attempt not merely to rewrite history, but to get rid of it.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Friday, April 21, 2006
NCLB vs. IDEA in Missouri
A new form (Form D, Part 2 - "State Accommodations") used for state assessment testing was introduced this year for the 2005-2006 school year to be used in conjunction with IEP's. This new form came from MO DESE (Missouri Department of elementary and Secondary Education) in the summer of 2005.
In the past, accommodations for the IEP were listed and were adhered to for regular classroom instruction, assessment, and state MAP assessment.
However, the new form was designed specifically for state assessment purposes. In other words, accommodations for regular classroom instruction and assessment were, for the first time, separated and distinguished from state assessment accommodations. According to a special ed teacher in a neighboring district, the IEP teams met in August of 2005 to review the new state policies and procedures. They were told about the new form and were made aware of the new distinction between (a) accommodations for regular classroom instruction and assessment and (b) state assessment accommodations.
During these meetings, they were also made aware that if the reading or paraphrasing accommodation were listed as part of the state assessment accommodations, then the scores of the students for whom this accommodation was made would be labeled "Level Not Determined" or LND.
If more than five percent of the students in any given subgroup receive this LND ranking, then the entire subgroup does not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), thereby penalizing the students and the school district regardless of how well the students perform on the test.
A colleague confirmed with the special ed teacher that none of her students' IEP's included the accommodation of reading on the communication arts portion of the state assessment because all of the students who were given the accommodation would receive "LND" when they took the test. In other words, the scores would not count if they were given the accommodation. I know for a fact that at least one other school district responded to the new policy by completely withdrawing the accommodation from state assessment, despite the fact that it had been given to the majority of special needs students over the last five years and had been considered an important part of each IEP. Prior to the '05-06 school year, students that had an IEP with the accommodation of reading for ANY test would also have that accommodation for the state assessment tests.
In sum, the reading and/or paraphrasing accommodation was removed from these students' IEP's for state assessment purposes in order to avoid the penalty of having the scores on these assessments invalidated. In those cases where the accommodations are not listed in the IEP on Form D, Part 2 - "State Accommodations" - the school and the district are not technically violating federal IDEA law. However, there are numerous instances where the reading and/or paraphrasing accommodation is listed in the IEP for accommodations for regular classroom instruction and assessment but is not listed for state assessment purposes.
I would argue that this practice violates the intent of IDEA. Children who receive the reading/paraphrasing accommodation for regular classroom instruction and assessment are suddenly told one day to take a test without this accommodation. The results of this test are then used to determine the quality of teaching and learning in that school and in that district. This is neither logical nor consistent. It may be technically legal, but it undermines what IDEA was designed to do, i.e., protect the rights of individuals with disabilities. Moreover, it increases the likelihood that entire schools and school districts will be labeled "in need of improvement."
Finally, I'd like to underscore the dilemma that special education teachers and IEP teams were faced with last year as they considered their options. They could follow the intent of IDEA and make the accommodations for regular classroom instruction and assessment consistent with state assessment accommodations, or they could follow NCLB and withdraw the accommodations from the state assessment. If they followed IDEA, they would violate NCLB. If they followed NCLB, they would violate IDEA. The new form gave them a way out of the dilemma so they could be in compliance with both federal laws. Although DESE told the districts that they were free to include the reading/paraphrasing accommodation in the new state assessment portion of the IEP, this "freedom" was somewhat disingenuous.
At the end of the day, DESE did not have to make the tough decisions. The IEP teams did. The decision was ultimately about picking their own poison: do they assure their school of AYP failure by including the reading/paraphrasing accommodation or do they take the chance that children with IEP's might somehow miraculously achieve grade level proficiency on a single test without the accommodation they were accustomed to having? Clearly most schools and districts have chosen to role the dice. We'll have to wait until August when the scores come out to see what happens.
This is not meant as a condemnation of IEP teams, public schools, or even DESE. They are just following orders from Washington. If we want to point fingers, then we need to look at the unintended (intended?) consequences of NCLB and the Bush administration's insistence that sticks and threats are the way to help children learn.
In the past, accommodations for the IEP were listed and were adhered to for regular classroom instruction, assessment, and state MAP assessment.
However, the new form was designed specifically for state assessment purposes. In other words, accommodations for regular classroom instruction and assessment were, for the first time, separated and distinguished from state assessment accommodations. According to a special ed teacher in a neighboring district, the IEP teams met in August of 2005 to review the new state policies and procedures. They were told about the new form and were made aware of the new distinction between (a) accommodations for regular classroom instruction and assessment and (b) state assessment accommodations.
During these meetings, they were also made aware that if the reading or paraphrasing accommodation were listed as part of the state assessment accommodations, then the scores of the students for whom this accommodation was made would be labeled "Level Not Determined" or LND.
If more than five percent of the students in any given subgroup receive this LND ranking, then the entire subgroup does not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), thereby penalizing the students and the school district regardless of how well the students perform on the test.
A colleague confirmed with the special ed teacher that none of her students' IEP's included the accommodation of reading on the communication arts portion of the state assessment because all of the students who were given the accommodation would receive "LND" when they took the test. In other words, the scores would not count if they were given the accommodation. I know for a fact that at least one other school district responded to the new policy by completely withdrawing the accommodation from state assessment, despite the fact that it had been given to the majority of special needs students over the last five years and had been considered an important part of each IEP. Prior to the '05-06 school year, students that had an IEP with the accommodation of reading for ANY test would also have that accommodation for the state assessment tests.
In sum, the reading and/or paraphrasing accommodation was removed from these students' IEP's for state assessment purposes in order to avoid the penalty of having the scores on these assessments invalidated. In those cases where the accommodations are not listed in the IEP on Form D, Part 2 - "State Accommodations" - the school and the district are not technically violating federal IDEA law. However, there are numerous instances where the reading and/or paraphrasing accommodation is listed in the IEP for accommodations for regular classroom instruction and assessment but is not listed for state assessment purposes.
I would argue that this practice violates the intent of IDEA. Children who receive the reading/paraphrasing accommodation for regular classroom instruction and assessment are suddenly told one day to take a test without this accommodation. The results of this test are then used to determine the quality of teaching and learning in that school and in that district. This is neither logical nor consistent. It may be technically legal, but it undermines what IDEA was designed to do, i.e., protect the rights of individuals with disabilities. Moreover, it increases the likelihood that entire schools and school districts will be labeled "in need of improvement."
Finally, I'd like to underscore the dilemma that special education teachers and IEP teams were faced with last year as they considered their options. They could follow the intent of IDEA and make the accommodations for regular classroom instruction and assessment consistent with state assessment accommodations, or they could follow NCLB and withdraw the accommodations from the state assessment. If they followed IDEA, they would violate NCLB. If they followed NCLB, they would violate IDEA. The new form gave them a way out of the dilemma so they could be in compliance with both federal laws. Although DESE told the districts that they were free to include the reading/paraphrasing accommodation in the new state assessment portion of the IEP, this "freedom" was somewhat disingenuous.
At the end of the day, DESE did not have to make the tough decisions. The IEP teams did. The decision was ultimately about picking their own poison: do they assure their school of AYP failure by including the reading/paraphrasing accommodation or do they take the chance that children with IEP's might somehow miraculously achieve grade level proficiency on a single test without the accommodation they were accustomed to having? Clearly most schools and districts have chosen to role the dice. We'll have to wait until August when the scores come out to see what happens.
This is not meant as a condemnation of IEP teams, public schools, or even DESE. They are just following orders from Washington. If we want to point fingers, then we need to look at the unintended (intended?) consequences of NCLB and the Bush administration's insistence that sticks and threats are the way to help children learn.
Schoolhouse Rock
Do you remember Schoolhouse Rock? If so, you probably remember "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here," "Conjunction Junction," etc. Two I saw recently with my three-year-old daughter that I don't remember seeing when I was a kid are called "Fireworks" (about the Declaration of Independence) and "Sufferin' 'til Suffrage" (about women's rights).
Some of the lyrics from each are below.
The songs are cute. Catchy tunes. But as I was watching with my daughter -- someone who knows nothing about the Declaration of Independence or women's rights -- it hit me: this is really powerful stuff. Here's a sample from "Fireworks": "It's only common sense that if a government won't give you your basic rights, you'd better get another government." Here's a sample from "Sufferin' 'til Suffrage": "Susan B. Anthony and Julia Howe, Lucretia Mott, (and others!) they showed us how; they carried signs and marched in lines until at long last the law was passed."
But these messages, sent to kids between breaks in Saturday morning cartoons in the early 70's, aren't getting much air time these days. And, if you believe the Center on Education Policy's recent report that 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts have reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music, and other subjects since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, then it seems that these messages aren't getting much air time in public schools, either.
Imagine the poor African-American and Hispanic kids at Edison singing these songs instead of being trained in phonemic awareness. Imagine the poor African-American and Hispanic kids at KIPP wearing shirts that read, "Stand Up for Your Civil Rights" instead of the required slogan, "Work hard. Be nice."
Imagine if the original colonists had worked hard and been nice. Imagine if Susan B. Anthony, Julia Howe, and Lucretia Mott had worked hard and been nice. Imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, or Cesar Chavez had worked hard and been nice.
For more and more kids, especially kids in urban apartheid schools, working hard and being nice is all that is expected of them. Some might say it's all that's required.
---
"Fireworks" (http://www.schoolhouserock.tv/Fireworks.htm)
In 1776 (fireworks!)
There were fireworks too (red, white, and blue!)
The original colonists,
You know their tempers blew (They really blew!)
Like Thomas Paine once wrote:
It's only common sense (only common sense)
That if a government won't give you your basic rights
You'd better get another government.
Ooh, when England heard the news, (Kerpow!)
They blew their stack (They really blew their cool!)
But the colonies lit the fuse,
There'd be no turning back (no turnin' back!)
They'd had enough of injustice now
But even if it really hurts, oh yeah,
If you don't give us our freedom now
You're gonna see some fireworks!
--
"Sufferin' 'til Suffrage" (http://www.schoolhouserock.tv/Sufferin.html)
Those pilgrim women who ...
Who braved the boat
Could cook the turkey, but they ...
They could not vote.
Even Betsy Ross who sewed the flag was left behind that first election day.
(What a shame, Sisters!)
Then Susan B. Anthony (Yeah!) and Julia Howe,
(Lucretia!) Lucretia Mott, (and others!) they showed us how;
They carried signs and marched in lines
Until at long last the law was passed.
Oh, we were suffering until suffrage,
Not a woman here could vote, no matter what age,
Then the 19th Amendment struck down that restrictive rule. (Oh yeah!)
And now we pull down on the lever,
Cast our ballots and we endeavor
To improve our country, state, county, town, and school. (Right On! Right On!)
Some of the lyrics from each are below.
The songs are cute. Catchy tunes. But as I was watching with my daughter -- someone who knows nothing about the Declaration of Independence or women's rights -- it hit me: this is really powerful stuff. Here's a sample from "Fireworks": "It's only common sense that if a government won't give you your basic rights, you'd better get another government." Here's a sample from "Sufferin' 'til Suffrage": "Susan B. Anthony and Julia Howe, Lucretia Mott, (and others!) they showed us how; they carried signs and marched in lines until at long last the law was passed."
But these messages, sent to kids between breaks in Saturday morning cartoons in the early 70's, aren't getting much air time these days. And, if you believe the Center on Education Policy's recent report that 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts have reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music, and other subjects since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, then it seems that these messages aren't getting much air time in public schools, either.
Imagine the poor African-American and Hispanic kids at Edison singing these songs instead of being trained in phonemic awareness. Imagine the poor African-American and Hispanic kids at KIPP wearing shirts that read, "Stand Up for Your Civil Rights" instead of the required slogan, "Work hard. Be nice."
Imagine if the original colonists had worked hard and been nice. Imagine if Susan B. Anthony, Julia Howe, and Lucretia Mott had worked hard and been nice. Imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, or Cesar Chavez had worked hard and been nice.
For more and more kids, especially kids in urban apartheid schools, working hard and being nice is all that is expected of them. Some might say it's all that's required.
---
"Fireworks" (http://www.schoolhouserock.tv/Fireworks.htm)
In 1776 (fireworks!)
There were fireworks too (red, white, and blue!)
The original colonists,
You know their tempers blew (They really blew!)
Like Thomas Paine once wrote:
It's only common sense (only common sense)
That if a government won't give you your basic rights
You'd better get another government.
Ooh, when England heard the news, (Kerpow!)
They blew their stack (They really blew their cool!)
But the colonies lit the fuse,
There'd be no turning back (no turnin' back!)
They'd had enough of injustice now
But even if it really hurts, oh yeah,
If you don't give us our freedom now
You're gonna see some fireworks!
--
"Sufferin' 'til Suffrage" (http://www.schoolhouserock.tv/Sufferin.html)
Those pilgrim women who ...
Who braved the boat
Could cook the turkey, but they ...
They could not vote.
Even Betsy Ross who sewed the flag was left behind that first election day.
(What a shame, Sisters!)
Then Susan B. Anthony (Yeah!) and Julia Howe,
(Lucretia!) Lucretia Mott, (and others!) they showed us how;
They carried signs and marched in lines
Until at long last the law was passed.
Oh, we were suffering until suffrage,
Not a woman here could vote, no matter what age,
Then the 19th Amendment struck down that restrictive rule. (Oh yeah!)
And now we pull down on the lever,
Cast our ballots and we endeavor
To improve our country, state, county, town, and school. (Right On! Right On!)
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Bush Announces "Math Now"
Reading First and the National Reading Panel are tough acts to follow. But it looks like Fearless Leader, aka "The Decider"* is up to the task.
http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/innovation.html
According to an Ed Week article from February, "at issue, in broad terms, is whether teachers should focus more on building students’ conceptual understanding of the subject, or emphasize nurturing their mastery of basic math skills."
Here we go again. So, barring a conversion reminiscent of water into wine, it's not hard to guess how this one will shake out. So why waste the tax-payers' and panelists' time? Can you say "fait accompli"? Or how about "done deal"? And if those don't work, how about "self-fulfilling prophecy"?
See, we've been burned on this stuff before. We haven't quite finished sublimating our rage about the last report on "research-based practices" sponsored by the NICHD. We haven't quite gotten used to the fact that "scientific evidence" is whatever The Decider says it is. In my mind, rage is an appropriate response to deliberate deception. It may be the only appropriate response.
Here are some of my favorite parts from the ED press release:
1) "To Encourage Private-Sector Investment In Technology, The President Supports Making The R&D Tax Credit Permanent. America's private sector funds two-thirds of all R&D conducted in America—about $200 billion a year. This tax credit encourages R&D spending by allowing businesses to deduct part of those investments from their taxes. The tax credit has been allowed to expire in the past. The R&D tax credit should be made permanent, so that companies have greater certainty in their tax planning and therefore can be bolder in their R&D investment strategy."
To his credit, The Decider is no longer making any attempts to conceal the relationship between corporate America and public education. In very clear language, His Deciderness has included tax cuts for businesses in with a teacher education plan. In the good old days, tax cut bills and public education bills were separate. But, since he only has two and a half years left in office, I suppose Decider has elected to make things more efficient and role them into one. The irony, of course, is that tax cuts for businesses means less money for teachers.
2) "Adjunct Teacher Corps: This initiative would provide children with the opportunity to learn from people with real-life experience by encouraging up to 30,000 math and science professionals over the next eight years to teach in our Nation's classrooms."
I was an adjunct instructor in higher ed settings for years. Yes, I brought real-life experience to the classroom. But in exchange for my real-life experience, the institutions that I worked for payed me a fraction of what they had to pay full-time instructors. And, as an adjunct, I was not part of a union. I was hired easily. I could have been fired just as easily. 30,000 underpaid, non-union math and science "professionals" would constitute a very large foot in a very large door.
*"I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."
President George W. Bush, 4/18/06 (speaking about Donald Rumsfeld staying on as Secretary of Defense)
http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/innovation.html
According to an Ed Week article from February, "at issue, in broad terms, is whether teachers should focus more on building students’ conceptual understanding of the subject, or emphasize nurturing their mastery of basic math skills."
Here we go again. So, barring a conversion reminiscent of water into wine, it's not hard to guess how this one will shake out. So why waste the tax-payers' and panelists' time? Can you say "fait accompli"? Or how about "done deal"? And if those don't work, how about "self-fulfilling prophecy"?
See, we've been burned on this stuff before. We haven't quite finished sublimating our rage about the last report on "research-based practices" sponsored by the NICHD. We haven't quite gotten used to the fact that "scientific evidence" is whatever The Decider says it is. In my mind, rage is an appropriate response to deliberate deception. It may be the only appropriate response.
Here are some of my favorite parts from the ED press release:
1) "To Encourage Private-Sector Investment In Technology, The President Supports Making The R&D Tax Credit Permanent. America's private sector funds two-thirds of all R&D conducted in America—about $200 billion a year. This tax credit encourages R&D spending by allowing businesses to deduct part of those investments from their taxes. The tax credit has been allowed to expire in the past. The R&D tax credit should be made permanent, so that companies have greater certainty in their tax planning and therefore can be bolder in their R&D investment strategy."
To his credit, The Decider is no longer making any attempts to conceal the relationship between corporate America and public education. In very clear language, His Deciderness has included tax cuts for businesses in with a teacher education plan. In the good old days, tax cut bills and public education bills were separate. But, since he only has two and a half years left in office, I suppose Decider has elected to make things more efficient and role them into one. The irony, of course, is that tax cuts for businesses means less money for teachers.
2) "Adjunct Teacher Corps: This initiative would provide children with the opportunity to learn from people with real-life experience by encouraging up to 30,000 math and science professionals over the next eight years to teach in our Nation's classrooms."
I was an adjunct instructor in higher ed settings for years. Yes, I brought real-life experience to the classroom. But in exchange for my real-life experience, the institutions that I worked for payed me a fraction of what they had to pay full-time instructors. And, as an adjunct, I was not part of a union. I was hired easily. I could have been fired just as easily. 30,000 underpaid, non-union math and science "professionals" would constitute a very large foot in a very large door.
*"I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."
President George W. Bush, 4/18/06 (speaking about Donald Rumsfeld staying on as Secretary of Defense)
Friday, April 14, 2006
Whither Higher Education?
Improving educational quality in higher education requires (1) a great deal of time and energy on the part of faculty devoted to teaching and (2) a similar amount of time and energy on the part of students to learning. Some faculty might be willing to put in more hours for teaching, and some students might be willing to put in more time for learning.
Some might, but most won't. Here's why.
Higher education knowledge workers come in four flavors: tenured faculty, non-tenured faculty, adjuncts, and grad students. For non-tenured faculty, what reward is there for them to spend time away from the thing that will get them tenure, i.e., research and publication? Should they just wait until they get tenure, and then they can focus on teaching? Perhaps. But the problem here is that lots of institutions only pay lip service to high-quality teaching. This reality manifests itself in large intro classes (Econ 101, Biology 101) being taught by graduate students, i.e., by knowledge workers who cost the institution nothing. In fact, this flavor of knowledge worker -- the lowly grad student -- more often than not makes money for the institution, as grad students are only partially compensated for their teaching work and end up paying the institution to teach its large intro classes. The institutions recognize that their best and brightest knowledge workers -- the tenured flavor -- are those that attract and retain grant money from private and public funding sources. Further, nearly half of all faculty are adjuncts these days. Adjuncts simply are not paid to put in the long hard hours to give high-quality teaching and learning experiences. So they won't do it, nor should they be expected to do it without appropriate training, support, and financial compensation. Universities employ adjuncts because they are cheaper and easier to hire and fire. But, due to the reliance on cheap (adjunct) and free (grad student) labor, teaching and learning suffer.
Sure, there are some great and committed adjuncts out there -- I was once one of them! And there are equally great and committed grad students out there, too. But you can't expect to improve educational quality when you won't put your money where your mouth is.
As for students, certainly some want to go to college to learn. But most want to go to college so they can leave. John Merrow, et al's work in Declining by Degrees suggests the vast majority of students in higher ed are there to do whatever necessary to graduate with a degree that will allow them to get a job. In the end, students in these institutions are doing time. Like prisoners, they can't wait to get out. And when they do get out, they will finally be able to do what they have longed to do for most of their lives: engage in the acquisition of material goods.
Even for students who go to college to learn, what would motivate them to spend more time and energy on a course that is not in their major? In the minds of students who intend to graduate with a degree in business or chemistry, Greek architecture and the works of Shakespeare have nothing to do with them.
And understandably so, especially if they have been told their entire lives that going to college and getting a degree was the only way to achieve happiness and fulfillment in this country, that going to college was the whole point of their K-12 experience, and that not going to college would be a failure on their parts. No one ever talked about going to college to learn, as if learning could ever be a goal in itself.
No, college is an investment that has to pay off, and so it has to be worth it.
Worth what?
For me, it had to be worth $30,000. (I'm still paying off my student loans nearly 20 years after having graduated, and I'm still wondering whether it was worth it or not.) For today's students, it has to be worth a lot more than this. $30,000 is a drop in the bucket for a lot of students these days. They leave college saddled with astronomical debt, so it sure as hell better be worth it. After all, if it turns out that it's not worth it, how are they going to pay off their loans? Therefore, out of necessity these days, college has to be about job training and job placement and getting a degree so you can earn an income if for no other reason than to pay for it after you've been through it. So the "worth" of college is not realized until after you're done. If you get a good job and can pay your loans, then it was worth it. But if you don't get a good job and can't pay your loans . . .
For today's students, most of them came from a factory model of education in K-12 where they received carrot and stick treatment in Skinnerian systems that shaped behavior and were not terribly concerned with learning. As NCLB takes an ever greater hold, K-12 is more about superficial, illusory learning rather than substantive learning. According to a story in The NY Times on 3/26/06, a survey by the Center on Education Policy found that since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music, and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math. "Narrowing the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern," said Jack Jennings, the president of the center. The phenomenon of dumbed-down curricula coupled with an extraordinarily powerful, all-pervasive, 24/7 barrage of consumer culture coupled with pre-adolescent and adolescent anxieties about self-worth and self-image and you have the perfect recipe for the students we see in higher ed today.
What Do Students Want?
Students, increasingly being referred to as "customers" in higher ed circles, want good value for their time and money. They want to get through their courses so they can get that degree, get that job, and buy that SUV they've been after. Higher ed costs are going up. Pressure from the marketplace for more advanced degrees, promotions and salaries based on degrees, market niches expressing an interest in life-long learning, and ongoing professional development needs have opened up unprecedented revenue opportunities for institutions savvy enough to recognize and serve the real needs of students/customers.
Exigencies and Double Messages
Yet higher ed administrators are still caught up in the model of education for education's sake, romantic notions of the virtues of a liberal arts degree, and demand of the professoriate, a.k.a., knowledge workers, to publish or perish. Now K-16 educators are being scrutinized by administrators and told to produce evidence that learning has actually occurred in their classrooms. At my institution, new faculty are being told to spend more time on teaching. But they are rewarded for what they publish. Administrators say, "We want you to be a better teacher," but they do little to assist them. Nor do they compensate them through pay or through release time. They simply say, "We expect you to do both, to be a great teacher and a great researcher/writer." This double message only serves to undermine efforts at improved teaching methods, as faculty clearly understand that when the rubber meets the road, they must adhere to the time-honored mantra to publish or perish. Simply put, time spent on teaching is time wasted. Yet, with the new pressure to produce demonstrable evidence of learning and the implicit (and undoubtedly soon-to-be explicit) connection between this evidence and promotion/tenure, knowledge workers are faced with perhaps the greatest challenge the profession has ever known.
Whither Academia?
While there will always be a market for students interested in a traditional, liberal arts education, the number of students in this market will shrink over the coming years to the point where it becomes a rarefied niche. The reasons for this shrinkage are quite simply these: (a) no one except the ultra-elite will be able to afford these institutions, and (b) these institutions will seem increasingly out of touch with the needs of most students as they fail to deliver what they want. As for the non-elite institutions, now is the time to begin re-engineering and transforming their core missions to serve the majority of students. They can do this by yielding to the pressure for evidence of student learning outcomes and supporting faculty to help them produce this evidence.
So how do faculty produce the evidence of greater student learning outcomes? By improving the means by which these outcomes are produced, i.e., by becoming better teachers. And how do faculty become better teachers? Drop the antique notion that good teachers are also good researchers/writers; eliminate the need for faculty to do research and publish, allowing them to focus their efforts exclusively on teaching; base rewards, tenure, and promotion solely on the quality of teaching; create a mechanism by which faculty teaching is measured through multiple means, e.g., portfolios, interviews, student mid-term and end-of-term reviews, peer review, etc.; provide a mechanism for training, supporting, and developing faculty as teachers throughout their careers at the institution; recruit and hire new faculty based on their qualifications as teachers and their commitment to developing as teachers.
What impact will this have on these institutions? In being able to show evidence of student learning by showcasing both the students themselves (through video testimonials on the institution's web site) and their work (though links on the web site to their projects), these institutions can prove to prospective students that they can meet their needs. By basing their marketing and recruiting efforts on this evidence, these institutions can expect to increase their enrollments dramatically, thereby increasing revenue.
But wait. Is the system really broken? And, if it ain't broke, does it need fixing? Perhaps all we have to do is serve our customers and give them what they are asking for -- a ticket out called a "diploma" as a way to get what they (say they) need.
But if the system is broken, it's precisely because we give them what they say they need, not what we need from them. So what do we need from them? If our way of life and our country is to have a substantive future, we have to do more than produce tax-paying consumers. Sure, tax-paying consumers serve the short-term interests of the economy. But long-term, where will the innovators come from? Where will the researchers and scientists originate? More importantly, where will the future citizens come from that have more than their own self-interests in mind, who not only know what the Constitution is but have a passion to defend it and the rights that are guaranteed within it? Such citizenship and such civic engagement come out of experiences in learning institutions that inculcate in students a deep love for critical thinking and thoughtful analysis. Allowing students to skirt this kind of engagement in learning not only short-changes them, but it also jeopardizes our future as a nation.
But in the end, we must give the customers what they want. We have to give them what they want because if we don't, someone else will. And we'll be out of business.
Some might, but most won't. Here's why.
Higher education knowledge workers come in four flavors: tenured faculty, non-tenured faculty, adjuncts, and grad students. For non-tenured faculty, what reward is there for them to spend time away from the thing that will get them tenure, i.e., research and publication? Should they just wait until they get tenure, and then they can focus on teaching? Perhaps. But the problem here is that lots of institutions only pay lip service to high-quality teaching. This reality manifests itself in large intro classes (Econ 101, Biology 101) being taught by graduate students, i.e., by knowledge workers who cost the institution nothing. In fact, this flavor of knowledge worker -- the lowly grad student -- more often than not makes money for the institution, as grad students are only partially compensated for their teaching work and end up paying the institution to teach its large intro classes. The institutions recognize that their best and brightest knowledge workers -- the tenured flavor -- are those that attract and retain grant money from private and public funding sources. Further, nearly half of all faculty are adjuncts these days. Adjuncts simply are not paid to put in the long hard hours to give high-quality teaching and learning experiences. So they won't do it, nor should they be expected to do it without appropriate training, support, and financial compensation. Universities employ adjuncts because they are cheaper and easier to hire and fire. But, due to the reliance on cheap (adjunct) and free (grad student) labor, teaching and learning suffer.
Sure, there are some great and committed adjuncts out there -- I was once one of them! And there are equally great and committed grad students out there, too. But you can't expect to improve educational quality when you won't put your money where your mouth is.
As for students, certainly some want to go to college to learn. But most want to go to college so they can leave. John Merrow, et al's work in Declining by Degrees suggests the vast majority of students in higher ed are there to do whatever necessary to graduate with a degree that will allow them to get a job. In the end, students in these institutions are doing time. Like prisoners, they can't wait to get out. And when they do get out, they will finally be able to do what they have longed to do for most of their lives: engage in the acquisition of material goods.
Even for students who go to college to learn, what would motivate them to spend more time and energy on a course that is not in their major? In the minds of students who intend to graduate with a degree in business or chemistry, Greek architecture and the works of Shakespeare have nothing to do with them.
And understandably so, especially if they have been told their entire lives that going to college and getting a degree was the only way to achieve happiness and fulfillment in this country, that going to college was the whole point of their K-12 experience, and that not going to college would be a failure on their parts. No one ever talked about going to college to learn, as if learning could ever be a goal in itself.
No, college is an investment that has to pay off, and so it has to be worth it.
Worth what?
For me, it had to be worth $30,000. (I'm still paying off my student loans nearly 20 years after having graduated, and I'm still wondering whether it was worth it or not.) For today's students, it has to be worth a lot more than this. $30,000 is a drop in the bucket for a lot of students these days. They leave college saddled with astronomical debt, so it sure as hell better be worth it. After all, if it turns out that it's not worth it, how are they going to pay off their loans? Therefore, out of necessity these days, college has to be about job training and job placement and getting a degree so you can earn an income if for no other reason than to pay for it after you've been through it. So the "worth" of college is not realized until after you're done. If you get a good job and can pay your loans, then it was worth it. But if you don't get a good job and can't pay your loans . . .
For today's students, most of them came from a factory model of education in K-12 where they received carrot and stick treatment in Skinnerian systems that shaped behavior and were not terribly concerned with learning. As NCLB takes an ever greater hold, K-12 is more about superficial, illusory learning rather than substantive learning. According to a story in The NY Times on 3/26/06, a survey by the Center on Education Policy found that since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music, and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math. "Narrowing the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern," said Jack Jennings, the president of the center. The phenomenon of dumbed-down curricula coupled with an extraordinarily powerful, all-pervasive, 24/7 barrage of consumer culture coupled with pre-adolescent and adolescent anxieties about self-worth and self-image and you have the perfect recipe for the students we see in higher ed today.
What Do Students Want?
Students, increasingly being referred to as "customers" in higher ed circles, want good value for their time and money. They want to get through their courses so they can get that degree, get that job, and buy that SUV they've been after. Higher ed costs are going up. Pressure from the marketplace for more advanced degrees, promotions and salaries based on degrees, market niches expressing an interest in life-long learning, and ongoing professional development needs have opened up unprecedented revenue opportunities for institutions savvy enough to recognize and serve the real needs of students/customers.
Exigencies and Double Messages
Yet higher ed administrators are still caught up in the model of education for education's sake, romantic notions of the virtues of a liberal arts degree, and demand of the professoriate, a.k.a., knowledge workers, to publish or perish. Now K-16 educators are being scrutinized by administrators and told to produce evidence that learning has actually occurred in their classrooms. At my institution, new faculty are being told to spend more time on teaching. But they are rewarded for what they publish. Administrators say, "We want you to be a better teacher," but they do little to assist them. Nor do they compensate them through pay or through release time. They simply say, "We expect you to do both, to be a great teacher and a great researcher/writer." This double message only serves to undermine efforts at improved teaching methods, as faculty clearly understand that when the rubber meets the road, they must adhere to the time-honored mantra to publish or perish. Simply put, time spent on teaching is time wasted. Yet, with the new pressure to produce demonstrable evidence of learning and the implicit (and undoubtedly soon-to-be explicit) connection between this evidence and promotion/tenure, knowledge workers are faced with perhaps the greatest challenge the profession has ever known.
Whither Academia?
While there will always be a market for students interested in a traditional, liberal arts education, the number of students in this market will shrink over the coming years to the point where it becomes a rarefied niche. The reasons for this shrinkage are quite simply these: (a) no one except the ultra-elite will be able to afford these institutions, and (b) these institutions will seem increasingly out of touch with the needs of most students as they fail to deliver what they want. As for the non-elite institutions, now is the time to begin re-engineering and transforming their core missions to serve the majority of students. They can do this by yielding to the pressure for evidence of student learning outcomes and supporting faculty to help them produce this evidence.
So how do faculty produce the evidence of greater student learning outcomes? By improving the means by which these outcomes are produced, i.e., by becoming better teachers. And how do faculty become better teachers? Drop the antique notion that good teachers are also good researchers/writers; eliminate the need for faculty to do research and publish, allowing them to focus their efforts exclusively on teaching; base rewards, tenure, and promotion solely on the quality of teaching; create a mechanism by which faculty teaching is measured through multiple means, e.g., portfolios, interviews, student mid-term and end-of-term reviews, peer review, etc.; provide a mechanism for training, supporting, and developing faculty as teachers throughout their careers at the institution; recruit and hire new faculty based on their qualifications as teachers and their commitment to developing as teachers.
What impact will this have on these institutions? In being able to show evidence of student learning by showcasing both the students themselves (through video testimonials on the institution's web site) and their work (though links on the web site to their projects), these institutions can prove to prospective students that they can meet their needs. By basing their marketing and recruiting efforts on this evidence, these institutions can expect to increase their enrollments dramatically, thereby increasing revenue.
But wait. Is the system really broken? And, if it ain't broke, does it need fixing? Perhaps all we have to do is serve our customers and give them what they are asking for -- a ticket out called a "diploma" as a way to get what they (say they) need.
But if the system is broken, it's precisely because we give them what they say they need, not what we need from them. So what do we need from them? If our way of life and our country is to have a substantive future, we have to do more than produce tax-paying consumers. Sure, tax-paying consumers serve the short-term interests of the economy. But long-term, where will the innovators come from? Where will the researchers and scientists originate? More importantly, where will the future citizens come from that have more than their own self-interests in mind, who not only know what the Constitution is but have a passion to defend it and the rights that are guaranteed within it? Such citizenship and such civic engagement come out of experiences in learning institutions that inculcate in students a deep love for critical thinking and thoughtful analysis. Allowing students to skirt this kind of engagement in learning not only short-changes them, but it also jeopardizes our future as a nation.
But in the end, we must give the customers what they want. We have to give them what they want because if we don't, someone else will. And we'll be out of business.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
What to assess and how to assess it?
While there’s certainly a role for teacher-directed learning involving direct instruction and pre-selection of learning outcomes, I’m wondering how the question of what to assess gets answered in a student-directed pedagogy. In my classes, I try to give students a set of very broad standards to work with that they are charged with interpreting in dialogue with me and with other students. It is up to them to choose work that shows they have met these standards and then make arguments (written and oral, formal and informal) about how the work meets the standards. I ask students to work on projects of their own design, come up with the goals and outcomes, and then ask them to determine if those goals and outcomes were met. I then ask them to reflect on this process of articulating and meeting goals.
In the case of student-directed learning, the question of what to assess is left to the student. But how can the student know what to assess? How can the student be taught how to assess it meaningfully such that the assessment produces insight and insight produces learning? I’m thinking specifically of the pedagogy and curriculum of The Met School, where each student creates his/her own curriculum and drives his/her own learning. While the notion of involving students in assessment and having them be key players in assessment is radical (and crucial), the implicit context in which this radical innovation occurs is often pretty conventional. So how to take a radical notion of formative assessment for learning and put it in a radical context of constructivist learning?
Which brings me to rubrics. The Six Traits of Writing rubric keeps coming to mind as a great model of formative assessment. In addressing the issues I described above, i.e., the issues of what to assess and how to assess it in a student-centered pedagogy, the Six Traits rubric has this to say: introduce the six traits of writing as a possible model for what “good” writing is. Have students work with it to get familiar with it. Then, once they have used it and begun to internalize it a bit, invite them to critique it. Invite them to add more traits. Invite them to refine the performance descriptors. In so doing, it strikes an ideal balance between teacher-directed and student-directed learning. The teacher, as a more knowledgeable and experienced learner, brings in the Six Traits rubric and says, “Try this. I think it’s pretty useful. What do you think? But before you answer, get to know it really well so that your answer will be thoughtful and meaningful and based on your personal experience.” The students respond to the direction of the teacher and come back with their analysis. “Yes, it works well, but how about this?” or “No, it doesn’t work well: I tried applying it to Shakespeare and it was terrible!”
So what to assess and how to assess it? In this case, the teacher starts the dialogue with a specific example: here is what to assess, and here is how to assess it. The students are then free to respond. But their response is also potentially generative, i.e., it critiques the model but also introduces new ways of thinking. These new ways of thinking are posed to the teacher and to the other students, who then critique these new ways of thinking and generate yet more ways of thinking. So the Six Traits rubric is not merely about learning the traits of writing to become a good writer; it’s about using the traits as a point of departure for critical reflection and analysis.
In using the traits, we can get beyond the whole subjective/objective debate and the validity/reliability conundrum and say, “Yes, these are wholly subjective and wholly arbitrary measures and traits. HOWEVER, they apply pretty well to most kinds of writing done in academic settings AND they provide the ground for an inquiry into what we mean by ‘good writing.’” The traits are pretty good on validity, but not so good on reliability (without intense training and without having multiple raters checking each other’s work, i.e., without a lot of money!) BUT, we can relax a bit by recognizing that most measures tend to lean one way over the other, i.e., that measures tend to be more valid than reliable or more reliable than valid. Yes, I know the hard-core psychometricians will argue this point. But you will never be able to convince me that a high-stakes, multiple-choice, standardized, norm-referenced test taken in a timed environment is ever going to be anything more than reliable. Valid? Hardly. By the same token, you’ll be wasting your breath if you want to argue that trait-based or rubric-based assessment of student work samples is as reliable as the US postal service. Sure, it’s sort of reliable. Sort of. But valid? Oh my word, yes!
My point? As long as we have multiple measures of student learning, and as long as some of these measures are high in validity and others are high in reliability, and as long as the measures attempt to be both valid and reliable (recognizing this might not actually be possible, but it’s a good goal to shoot for), and as long as these measures can be used in combination with each other and serve to corroborate or question their findings, we can relax. And if this doesn’t reassure us, then perhaps Albert Einstein can. Einstein, the most brilliant high-school dropout to walk the planet, said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” With this, Einstein gives us the freedom to do the most comprehensive assessment work possible, keeping in mind that our work will always be flawed, will always be somewhat contrived and artificial, and will never fully account for what a student knows and can do – indeed, will never tell us who a student is. But, having said this, it’s not like we can dance in the streets and do The Nihilist Shuffle, shouting, “Hurray, everything counts! And nothing counts!” It’s not like this gets us off the hook. In fact, it does precisely the opposite. Because our measures are flawed, because the questions of what counts and why are shaped socially, culturally, and historically, and because there is no divine Law of Assessment that says, “Thou shalt have criterion-based tests,” we have to work very hard to say, “This is what counts, and here is why it counts, and here is how I know it counts, and here is evidence of it counting.” This forces us to make arguments, to do the work of assessment, and not kick back and rely on the unquestioned wisdom of the ancients. Getting to say what counts and why is a profoundly powerful experience. It is an inherently contested conversation. It will always produce disagreement. But these disagreements are good. They are not outside the issue of assessment. They are the issue of assessment.
In the case of student-directed learning, the question of what to assess is left to the student. But how can the student know what to assess? How can the student be taught how to assess it meaningfully such that the assessment produces insight and insight produces learning? I’m thinking specifically of the pedagogy and curriculum of The Met School, where each student creates his/her own curriculum and drives his/her own learning. While the notion of involving students in assessment and having them be key players in assessment is radical (and crucial), the implicit context in which this radical innovation occurs is often pretty conventional. So how to take a radical notion of formative assessment for learning and put it in a radical context of constructivist learning?
Which brings me to rubrics. The Six Traits of Writing rubric keeps coming to mind as a great model of formative assessment. In addressing the issues I described above, i.e., the issues of what to assess and how to assess it in a student-centered pedagogy, the Six Traits rubric has this to say: introduce the six traits of writing as a possible model for what “good” writing is. Have students work with it to get familiar with it. Then, once they have used it and begun to internalize it a bit, invite them to critique it. Invite them to add more traits. Invite them to refine the performance descriptors. In so doing, it strikes an ideal balance between teacher-directed and student-directed learning. The teacher, as a more knowledgeable and experienced learner, brings in the Six Traits rubric and says, “Try this. I think it’s pretty useful. What do you think? But before you answer, get to know it really well so that your answer will be thoughtful and meaningful and based on your personal experience.” The students respond to the direction of the teacher and come back with their analysis. “Yes, it works well, but how about this?” or “No, it doesn’t work well: I tried applying it to Shakespeare and it was terrible!”
So what to assess and how to assess it? In this case, the teacher starts the dialogue with a specific example: here is what to assess, and here is how to assess it. The students are then free to respond. But their response is also potentially generative, i.e., it critiques the model but also introduces new ways of thinking. These new ways of thinking are posed to the teacher and to the other students, who then critique these new ways of thinking and generate yet more ways of thinking. So the Six Traits rubric is not merely about learning the traits of writing to become a good writer; it’s about using the traits as a point of departure for critical reflection and analysis.
In using the traits, we can get beyond the whole subjective/objective debate and the validity/reliability conundrum and say, “Yes, these are wholly subjective and wholly arbitrary measures and traits. HOWEVER, they apply pretty well to most kinds of writing done in academic settings AND they provide the ground for an inquiry into what we mean by ‘good writing.’” The traits are pretty good on validity, but not so good on reliability (without intense training and without having multiple raters checking each other’s work, i.e., without a lot of money!) BUT, we can relax a bit by recognizing that most measures tend to lean one way over the other, i.e., that measures tend to be more valid than reliable or more reliable than valid. Yes, I know the hard-core psychometricians will argue this point. But you will never be able to convince me that a high-stakes, multiple-choice, standardized, norm-referenced test taken in a timed environment is ever going to be anything more than reliable. Valid? Hardly. By the same token, you’ll be wasting your breath if you want to argue that trait-based or rubric-based assessment of student work samples is as reliable as the US postal service. Sure, it’s sort of reliable. Sort of. But valid? Oh my word, yes!
My point? As long as we have multiple measures of student learning, and as long as some of these measures are high in validity and others are high in reliability, and as long as the measures attempt to be both valid and reliable (recognizing this might not actually be possible, but it’s a good goal to shoot for), and as long as these measures can be used in combination with each other and serve to corroborate or question their findings, we can relax. And if this doesn’t reassure us, then perhaps Albert Einstein can. Einstein, the most brilliant high-school dropout to walk the planet, said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” With this, Einstein gives us the freedom to do the most comprehensive assessment work possible, keeping in mind that our work will always be flawed, will always be somewhat contrived and artificial, and will never fully account for what a student knows and can do – indeed, will never tell us who a student is. But, having said this, it’s not like we can dance in the streets and do The Nihilist Shuffle, shouting, “Hurray, everything counts! And nothing counts!” It’s not like this gets us off the hook. In fact, it does precisely the opposite. Because our measures are flawed, because the questions of what counts and why are shaped socially, culturally, and historically, and because there is no divine Law of Assessment that says, “Thou shalt have criterion-based tests,” we have to work very hard to say, “This is what counts, and here is why it counts, and here is how I know it counts, and here is evidence of it counting.” This forces us to make arguments, to do the work of assessment, and not kick back and rely on the unquestioned wisdom of the ancients. Getting to say what counts and why is a profoundly powerful experience. It is an inherently contested conversation. It will always produce disagreement. But these disagreements are good. They are not outside the issue of assessment. They are the issue of assessment.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Voices of Dissent 3: Interview with Mickey Vanderwerker
The state of Virginia has long been in favor of high-stakes testing through its Standards of Learning (ironically referred to as "SOLs"). The state is also a Republican stronghold: the Republicans control the state House, Senate, and the Governor's Mansion. But Virginia has come out strongly against No Child Left Behind, going so far as to create legislation that would remove Virginia from participating in NCLB. Great news, right? Wrong. Very wrong.
In this interview, Mickey Vanderwerker, one of the founders of Parents Across Virginia United to Reform SOLs (PAVURSOL), tells us why. She paints a picture of what has happened in Virginia over the last several years, an eerily prescient tale of what will likely happen to the rest of the country in the next few years. Her story is both inspiring and chilling.
The web site descibes PAVURSOL as "an internet-based, growing grassroots network of over 6,000 parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens who want to ensure that the standards and assessments used with our children are educationally defensible. As parents, grandparents and supporters of school-aged children, we recognize the need for ensuring that all students acquire the knowledge and skills needed for success in school and beyond. However, we believe that our current 'one-size-fits-all' SOL system will fail to accomplish this and will hurt, not help, students, schools, and communities."
In this interview, Mickey Vanderwerker, one of the founders of Parents Across Virginia United to Reform SOLs (PAVURSOL), tells us why. She paints a picture of what has happened in Virginia over the last several years, an eerily prescient tale of what will likely happen to the rest of the country in the next few years. Her story is both inspiring and chilling.
The web site descibes PAVURSOL as "an internet-based, growing grassroots network of over 6,000 parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens who want to ensure that the standards and assessments used with our children are educationally defensible. As parents, grandparents and supporters of school-aged children, we recognize the need for ensuring that all students acquire the knowledge and skills needed for success in school and beyond. However, we believe that our current 'one-size-fits-all' SOL system will fail to accomplish this and will hurt, not help, students, schools, and communities."
Friday, April 07, 2006
EDU 2020, Part Deux: The Worst Worst Case Scenario Gets Worse
Research in Education - By 2020, research is now called "REserch" and scientific evidence is called "The New Science" thanks to the brave, pioneering souls from the NICHD who brought us the Report of the National Reading Panel (NRP). REserch and The New Science are bold new efforts to set the record straight on the truth. Let's face it: prior to REserch and The New Science, most research was conducted by people we had never heard of. Worse, it was conducted by people that we didn't regularly have lunch with, people whose grandparents didn't vacation with our grandparents, and whose methodologies included that icky, yucky, ethnographic and qualitative "research data." Yeah, right! Give me The Gold Standard Double-Blind Experimental Study With Meta-Analysis and a Side of Mayo or Give Me Death! With REserch, we only trust our friends to tell us the truth. After all, what are friends for? And if you can't trust your friends, who can you trust? Are you really going to trust someone you don't even know with a funny last name and a fuzzy agenda? Yeah, right! As if I'm going to turn my kids' futures over to some stranger! Thank God for The New Science and its emphasis on REserch!
Teacher Preparation and Curriculum - By 2020, colleges of education will be dissolved. At long last, all the Commies in those festering pools of wacko left'ism will be on the street, begging for change, desperately trying to convince people at bus stops to listen to their pathetic pleas for "social justice." America will finally realize that teacher preparation is about preparing teachers to teach, not pumping young students up with Kumbaiya Commie Crap about racism and equality. No sir, teachers will learn how to be teachers! In 2020, there will be a fourth R added to the classic three: it will be Reading, (w)Riting, (a)Rithmetic, and (psychomet)Rics. In addition to Reading classes on Phonemic Awareness, Phonemic Analysis, Phonemic Phonemics, and Phonemic Phonecalls (aka "How to Talk to Parents So You Are Understood Clearly"), there are (psychomet)Ric classes in Standard Deviation, Deviant Standards, Standardizing Deviance, and Deviating from Standards. Writing instruction has been replaced by a critical job-training skill tied to real-world needs. Formerly called "shorthand," the new writing instruction -- called "Everyone Is Write!" -- prepares young inner-city children to be critical members of office support teams. (a)Rithmetic -- now called "Rithmetic" -- introduces Kindergartners to spreadsheet programs and, as part of their real-world instruction to prepare them to be competitive in the global marketplace, demands utmost rigor of them as they prepare the district's financial statements for state auditors. In 2015, this service was outsourced to a company in India, but parents got wind of it and demanded that their children be prepared to crunch numbers for large corporations, saying that Kindergartners could do the work for even less money than the Indians. They were right! Thank God for parental involvement!
Principal Preparation and Educational Technology - As part of their preparation, principals are trained to assess students' level of competence from 500 feet away using a Visual Rubric Enhancement Data-Driven Tool Facilitation Mechanism (VRED-DTFM), pronounced "Vee Red Dash Do It For 'Em." The VRED-DTFM is mounted on the head of the principal and features a laser ocular mechanism (LOM) that the principal looks through in order to assess students. Between classes, the principal walks the halls, wearing the VRED-DTFM. As the principal scans the students through the LOM, an alarm goes off inside the helmet when the LOM locks on to a student on the verge of passing the state standardized test. The alarm, called the "Bubble-Kid Audial Assistance Guide" (B-KAAG), saves hours and hours and thousands of dollars. In the stone age of 2005-2006, principals had to give benchmark assessment tests every month to find out who the bubble-kids were so all the school's resources could be focused on them. But with the VRED-DTFM, all the principal has to do is walk the halls and --- BINGO -- the B-KAAG goes off and there's your bubble kid!
Teacher Preparation and Curriculum - By 2020, colleges of education will be dissolved. At long last, all the Commies in those festering pools of wacko left'ism will be on the street, begging for change, desperately trying to convince people at bus stops to listen to their pathetic pleas for "social justice." America will finally realize that teacher preparation is about preparing teachers to teach, not pumping young students up with Kumbaiya Commie Crap about racism and equality. No sir, teachers will learn how to be teachers! In 2020, there will be a fourth R added to the classic three: it will be Reading, (w)Riting, (a)Rithmetic, and (psychomet)Rics. In addition to Reading classes on Phonemic Awareness, Phonemic Analysis, Phonemic Phonemics, and Phonemic Phonecalls (aka "How to Talk to Parents So You Are Understood Clearly"), there are (psychomet)Ric classes in Standard Deviation, Deviant Standards, Standardizing Deviance, and Deviating from Standards. Writing instruction has been replaced by a critical job-training skill tied to real-world needs. Formerly called "shorthand," the new writing instruction -- called "Everyone Is Write!" -- prepares young inner-city children to be critical members of office support teams. (a)Rithmetic -- now called "Rithmetic" -- introduces Kindergartners to spreadsheet programs and, as part of their real-world instruction to prepare them to be competitive in the global marketplace, demands utmost rigor of them as they prepare the district's financial statements for state auditors. In 2015, this service was outsourced to a company in India, but parents got wind of it and demanded that their children be prepared to crunch numbers for large corporations, saying that Kindergartners could do the work for even less money than the Indians. They were right! Thank God for parental involvement!
Principal Preparation and Educational Technology - As part of their preparation, principals are trained to assess students' level of competence from 500 feet away using a Visual Rubric Enhancement Data-Driven Tool Facilitation Mechanism (VRED-DTFM), pronounced "Vee Red Dash Do It For 'Em." The VRED-DTFM is mounted on the head of the principal and features a laser ocular mechanism (LOM) that the principal looks through in order to assess students. Between classes, the principal walks the halls, wearing the VRED-DTFM. As the principal scans the students through the LOM, an alarm goes off inside the helmet when the LOM locks on to a student on the verge of passing the state standardized test. The alarm, called the "Bubble-Kid Audial Assistance Guide" (B-KAAG), saves hours and hours and thousands of dollars. In the stone age of 2005-2006, principals had to give benchmark assessment tests every month to find out who the bubble-kids were so all the school's resources could be focused on them. But with the VRED-DTFM, all the principal has to do is walk the halls and --- BINGO -- the B-KAAG goes off and there's your bubble kid!
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Voices of Dissent 2: Interview with Don Perl
Don Perl, a former middle school teacher, founded the Coalition for Better Education in 2004 after organizing a ballot initiative seeking to put the elimination of the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) on the November 2004 ballot. Don's defining moment as an activist committed to social justice came in 2001 when he refused to administer the state standardized test to his students, an act of civil disobedience that resulted in a two-week suspension. Three years later, Don and other volunteers gathered signatures for a citizens’ initiative designed to eliminate the CSAP.
In this interview, Don discusses practical ways that you can organize against educational injustice.
I asked him after the interview, "Were you aware of the consequences of your act of civil disobedience? In other words, did you know what you were getting into? Did being fired ever loom as a possibility?"
Don replied, "Yes, I thought about this quite a bit before refusing to administer the test. I would have these conversations with myself. 'They might fire me. Hmmm. Well, let's be a bit of a poker player here and call their bluff. First of all, who are they going to get to teach both English and Spanish? Second, I don't think that they really want to make a hero out of me by firing me.' And finally -- the clincher -- was that I had seen just too much injustice day after day to not raise my voice and say, 'Nope, I will not be a party to this.' I come from a family of Holocaust survivors, and the message about speaking out against injustice is very much ingrained in me. If we don't speak out when we see injustice, how can we expect others to speak out for us?"
Don is now a professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Northern Colorado.
In this interview, Don discusses practical ways that you can organize against educational injustice.
I asked him after the interview, "Were you aware of the consequences of your act of civil disobedience? In other words, did you know what you were getting into? Did being fired ever loom as a possibility?"
Don replied, "Yes, I thought about this quite a bit before refusing to administer the test. I would have these conversations with myself. 'They might fire me. Hmmm. Well, let's be a bit of a poker player here and call their bluff. First of all, who are they going to get to teach both English and Spanish? Second, I don't think that they really want to make a hero out of me by firing me.' And finally -- the clincher -- was that I had seen just too much injustice day after day to not raise my voice and say, 'Nope, I will not be a party to this.' I come from a family of Holocaust survivors, and the message about speaking out against injustice is very much ingrained in me. If we don't speak out when we see injustice, how can we expect others to speak out for us?"
Don is now a professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Northern Colorado.
"Soft bigotry of low expectations" vs. "The Emperor has no clothes"
I'm not an expert in the realm of IEPs and IDEA and how they connect to NCLB, so I would greatly appreciate someone who is an expert to look at this message carefully and tell me if I understand this correctly.
I just read a disturbing document from the Federal Dept of Ed. It can be found here. (at http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/speced/toolkit/faqs.doc)
What I found most relevant was the following: (1) the Feds figure that app. 10% of all students with disabilities can be categorized as having "severe cognitive disabilities" and (2) the Feds also figure that app. 20% of the learning disabled population "are not likely to achieve grade-level proficiency within the school year covered by the students’ IEPs."
The documents I read all say that this 30% figure is based on research, yet I did not see a single reference to any study or finding that shows this to be the case. So who knows where these numbers come from . . . Does anyone know?
The students with "severe cognitive disabilities" are to be given alternative assessments. Their proficient and advanced scores can be used to report AYP. But only 1% of these scores for the entire student population of the state or the district can be counted. According to the above document, "If more than 1.0 percent of proficient scores come from such assessments, then the state must establish procedures to count those scores as non-proficient for the purposes of school accountability." Translation? These kids above the 1% threshold are reported as "not proficient," i.e., as failing the test.
The students who "are not likely to achieve grade-level proficiency within the school year covered by the students’ IEPs" are to be given "modified assessments." According to the document, states are to "(1) develop modified achievement standards, that is, standards that are aligned with the state’s academic content standards for the grade in which a student is enrolled, but may reflect reduced breadth or depth of grade-level content, and (2) develop assessments to measure the achievement of students based on such modified achievement standards ." The proficient and advanced scores of these students can be used to report AYP. But only 2% of these scores for the entire student population of the state or the district can be counted. If more than 2% of proficient scores come from such assessments, then the state must establish procedures to count those scores as non-proficient for the purposes of school accountability." Translation? These kids above the 2% threshold are reported as "not proficient," i.e., as failing the test.
According to the Feds, therefore, app. 30% of all students with learning disabilities who are given some kind of modification in their assessment can be counted towards AYP. However, the remaining 70% of the population of all students with learning disabilities CANNOT be counted towards AYP if any modifications are made in their assessments. So 7 out of 10 kids with learning disabilities have to score proficient or advanced on the state test without any modifications in order to make AYP. If only 6 out of 10 score at the proficient or advanced level, the IEP subgroup fails to make AYP. And here come the sanctions . . .
Since this is the first year that all children in grades 3 - 8 will be taking their states' reading and math tests, there will be a greater number of students with learning disabilities taking the tests. The odds that 70% of them will score at the proficient or advanced level seems remote.
"Soft bigotry of low expectations" or "The Emperor has no clothes"?
This appears to be a move on the part of ED to stop states from classifying students as "learning disabled" to escape punishments. Note, too, that under this proposal, states can no longer have a larger sub-group size for IEP kids. The subgroup number has to be the same as the others.
Also, it appears that the number they concocted -- 30% -- is a direct challenge to the diagnosis of "learning disabled" with the belief that such a diagnosis is not legitimate and that so-called "learning disabled" students are just faking it and could score well on tests if they weren't given this label.
What is the so-called "science" that supports this conclusion? Surely it's of the same ilk that produced the "science" of the NRP report.
I just read a disturbing document from the Federal Dept of Ed. It can be found here. (at http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/speced/toolkit/faqs.doc)
What I found most relevant was the following: (1) the Feds figure that app. 10% of all students with disabilities can be categorized as having "severe cognitive disabilities" and (2) the Feds also figure that app. 20% of the learning disabled population "are not likely to achieve grade-level proficiency within the school year covered by the students’ IEPs."
The documents I read all say that this 30% figure is based on research, yet I did not see a single reference to any study or finding that shows this to be the case. So who knows where these numbers come from . . . Does anyone know?
The students with "severe cognitive disabilities" are to be given alternative assessments. Their proficient and advanced scores can be used to report AYP. But only 1% of these scores for the entire student population of the state or the district can be counted. According to the above document, "If more than 1.0 percent of proficient scores come from such assessments, then the state must establish procedures to count those scores as non-proficient for the purposes of school accountability." Translation? These kids above the 1% threshold are reported as "not proficient," i.e., as failing the test.
The students who "are not likely to achieve grade-level proficiency within the school year covered by the students’ IEPs" are to be given "modified assessments." According to the document, states are to "(1) develop modified achievement standards, that is, standards that are aligned with the state’s academic content standards for the grade in which a student is enrolled, but may reflect reduced breadth or depth of grade-level content, and (2) develop assessments to measure the achievement of students based on such modified achievement standards ." The proficient and advanced scores of these students can be used to report AYP. But only 2% of these scores for the entire student population of the state or the district can be counted. If more than 2% of proficient scores come from such assessments, then the state must establish procedures to count those scores as non-proficient for the purposes of school accountability." Translation? These kids above the 2% threshold are reported as "not proficient," i.e., as failing the test.
According to the Feds, therefore, app. 30% of all students with learning disabilities who are given some kind of modification in their assessment can be counted towards AYP. However, the remaining 70% of the population of all students with learning disabilities CANNOT be counted towards AYP if any modifications are made in their assessments. So 7 out of 10 kids with learning disabilities have to score proficient or advanced on the state test without any modifications in order to make AYP. If only 6 out of 10 score at the proficient or advanced level, the IEP subgroup fails to make AYP. And here come the sanctions . . .
Since this is the first year that all children in grades 3 - 8 will be taking their states' reading and math tests, there will be a greater number of students with learning disabilities taking the tests. The odds that 70% of them will score at the proficient or advanced level seems remote.
"Soft bigotry of low expectations" or "The Emperor has no clothes"?
This appears to be a move on the part of ED to stop states from classifying students as "learning disabled" to escape punishments. Note, too, that under this proposal, states can no longer have a larger sub-group size for IEP kids. The subgroup number has to be the same as the others.
Also, it appears that the number they concocted -- 30% -- is a direct challenge to the diagnosis of "learning disabled" with the belief that such a diagnosis is not legitimate and that so-called "learning disabled" students are just faking it and could score well on tests if they weren't given this label.
What is the so-called "science" that supports this conclusion? Surely it's of the same ilk that produced the "science" of the NRP report.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Oregon Trail District Strike
I've been doing research on the Oregon Trail District strike from last year. It was settled after 16 days, but the "settlement" is rather murky. I hear and read different things about how NCLB was or was not a major issue. I read that teachers were opposing a militant administrator imported from Arizona who was doing the typical top-down union-busting stuff we've come to expect from people who love public schools and teachers. Implicated in this -- surprise, surprise -- was that little detail in NCLB that says that teachers -- the ones that work in classrooms -- could be fired if the school does not make AYP for 4 years in a row.
The teachers at Oregon Trail, from what I gather, interpreted this to mean, "Holy cow! They're gonna fire us for low test scores!!!" Other teachers across the country have not (yet?) come to this conclusion.
Ultimately, it's all about the stare-down. It's a game of chicken, both sides waiting for the other to blink. "You can't fire teachers!" say the unions and the teachers. "Oh, yeah?!?!" shouts back the Feds.
Meanwhile, on March 29th, in a completely unrelated move, the State Superintendent of Schools in Maryland ordered that 11 public schools be taken over by the state because they were "failing" under NCLB. Apparently these 11 public schools are staffed by workers called "teachers" and that these teachers no longer have jobs.
The teachers at Oregon Trail, from what I gather, interpreted this to mean, "Holy cow! They're gonna fire us for low test scores!!!" Other teachers across the country have not (yet?) come to this conclusion.
Ultimately, it's all about the stare-down. It's a game of chicken, both sides waiting for the other to blink. "You can't fire teachers!" say the unions and the teachers. "Oh, yeah?!?!" shouts back the Feds.
Meanwhile, on March 29th, in a completely unrelated move, the State Superintendent of Schools in Maryland ordered that 11 public schools be taken over by the state because they were "failing" under NCLB. Apparently these 11 public schools are staffed by workers called "teachers" and that these teachers no longer have jobs.
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