RI rejects sanity.

From Joanne Jacobs:

Rhode Island should stick with a single diploma, says Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, who’d proposed creating standard, “regents” and honors diplomas. Instead, she said districts should be able to add “endorsements” to the diploma to indicate higher levels of proficiency and honors.

Which is a shame, really. Having more than one diploma makes the students work harder for the better one.

Retests.

I agree, mostly, which is why I have retests. 

However, many students need incentive to study now; instead of "I'll wait til after the first try at test. Then, I'll know what's on it." That's test-prep that won't last, not understanding.

Additionally, I do have other things to work on. Take algebra. Section 3 is writing and graphing linear equations. Section 4 is systems of linear equations.  Johnny can't do 4 if he truly doesn't understand 3.

I get the idea that students take different amounts of time to master material, but at some point, it is better to tell him that retaking the course would be a better option than retaking every test.  I don't mind if he completes algebra I in two years.

That image is being very disingenuous, though. Those exams don't lead to more learning ... they're the end-of-course exit exam, the final exam, the high-stakes test that so many reformers hate.

"What's Your Plan For Making This Happen?"

Originally published here in July 2008. Not much has changed. We're still blindly forging on.

Alexander Russo asks "What's Your Plan For Making This Happen?"

The big problem in education reform right now isn't that there aren't any good ideas out there about what to do to make things better, but that no one has any real idea how to get them moving.

I think he's got it backwards. We have plenty of people willing to "make this happen" on a small scale. That's not difficult. The problem is that no one asks whether the change SHOULD happen. We go merrily on changing things every year, instituting reforms and rejiggering the educational process constantly.

We do "academic teams," "cross-curricular work," "differentiated instruction." We do "literacy across the curriculum" but not "math or science or history or art across the curriculum". We remove art and music to prepare for tests, add art and music to make a more well-rounded individual. We drop Hamlet and MacBeth and Mythology, or we don't. We put kids into cohorts of 20 for every course of their day. We STEP them up from the course they should be in to the course we'd like them in and then we place them in remediation because they need more help.

We've tried integrated math, sequential math, Integrated algebra, SIMMS, Univ. of Chicago vs Saxon. We try changing the order of the courses from "A1, Geom, A2" to "Geom, A1,A2" or "A1,A2,Geom."

Then, there's the grading system behind the report cards. We tried to change to a 1,2,3,4 grading system with rubrics and then found out that our parents hated the idea. They didn't want lengthy rubrics full of lists of standards and individual grades, nor did they like the idea that 1 was the lowest you could get. "If he does nothing, he shouldn't get points for it! Those averages mean nothing now!"

So we changed back.  For a while.
 
We've rewritten the curriculum at least seven times in my experience and done curriculum maps in four different systems.The only thing that seems to change is the logo: now it has "Building Standards-Compliant Systems" as a tagline. (Update: Looking at this now, I notice they've updated the logo to Common Core ... awesome. That will make the maps more relevant for today's learners).

We integrate technology before most teachers have a clue what they're doing with it. We lessen the need for brains and glorify button-pushing or we improve the educational methodologies by implementing technological pedagogy to teach the 21st century student.

We changed to 4x4 block scheduling, or modified block, or traditional 40, traditional 50, or 5x60s. We have single-sex or not, We try charter schools, magnet schools, engineering only school, KIPP schools.

For what? Are we sure any of it works?

No.

Have we looked at anything before and after each "revolution" to see if anything, in fact, did change? And for the better?

No.

We change everything in education without ever examining the results of the change. The most common "evidence" I have heard as justification is "My students seem to like it better. One kid said to me just this month, 'This is cool.'"

This is the only business that uses case-control as its top sampling method, if it uses any scientific studies at all. That's nuts.

Then the anti-public school activists chime in.

"If schools were free-market, competition-based entities that had to succeed or fail based on their own merits and their effectiveness for their customers, we would quickly zero in on the most effective teaching techniques. We would stick with what is proven, and what works, because whatever doesn't work would quickly be rejected by patrons and customers -- if only choice were an option."

I've talked about "choice" before. Choice is the parents using sketchy information to make dubious choices. The only saving grace is that they are at least invested in the children they're trying to place.

If there anything that the free-market teaches us, it should be that those who are trying to make a profit will lie or stretch the truth whenever they can. When the 13 billion dollar fine for improper practices is less than 1/4th of the money the company set aside to fight the charges, you should realize that the free-market is not the friend to the consumer. As a former private school admin, I can tell you that private schools are no different from Goldman-Sachs, except in size.

Their methods are traditional, not because it's best, but because it doesn't scare away the paying customers. Decisions are made for the benefit of the school, not for the benefit of the students. (Although if the students DO benefit, they'll take every opportunity to remind everyone how wonderful they were to make those "obvious" changes and portray themselves as better than the other private schools. The opinion that public schools were cesspits filled with poor people's stupid children went unsaid, but was understood by all because "Ivy-Covered Academy" was and is a naturally superior traditional school, with traditional values.).

But we're still dancing around the real problem.

Russo goes on

Take any number of interesting proposals -- national standards, weighted student funding, differential pay, community schools, inter-district choice, universal preschool -- and what you'll see are lots of arguments and policy specifics but no real plan for getting any of these things implemented in the real world. (You know, enacted into law. Paid for.)

We're doing research without knowing what we're looking for.

What would be nice is if you could first define the goal. Then define your method of measuring that goal. Finally, see if your changes progress you towards that goal. Then you can make all the changes you want.


Until we actually do some research with appropriate statistical methods, improving education in America will remain guess- and- check.

The problem is, of course, that most of your guesses are wrong and you're not checking. Worse than that, they're not your kids.

100% proficiency in everything is a pipe-dream.

Joanne Jacobs links to the question:

Do all students need to be equally good in all subjects? Standards for aircraft differ based on what a plane is going to do. Why not for students? Proficiency might be enough in math for a student heading into the arts. It would surely be too low for one aspiring to an engineering career.

When every Eduwonk, Administrator and Reformer is equally good at Calculus, Physics, Shakespeare, writing, Biology, History, Art, Music ... then we can expect that every student will be proficient across the board.

I'm not saying we shouldn't teach them everything, but we can't expect total proficiency.

I Don't Do Math - Accepting False Limits

Seth Godin (Marketing Expert) has this: Accepting false limits and you'll probably guess that I'm about to throw out "I Don't Do Math", but bear with me.

I will never be able to dunk a basketball. This is beyond discussion.

Imagine, though, a co-worker who says, "I'll never be able to use a knife and fork. No, I have to use my hands."

Or a colleague who says, "I can't possibly learn Chinese. I'm not smart enough."
This is a mystery to me. A billion people have learned Chinese, and the failure rate for new kids is close to zero. If a well functioning adult puts in sufficient time and the effort, she'll succeed.

The key to this disconnect is the unspoken part about time and effort and fear. I agree that you will never ship that product or close that sale or invent that device unless you put in the time and put in the effort and overcome the fear. But I don't accept for a minute that there's some sort of natural limit on your ability to do just about anything that involves creating and selling ideas.

This attitude gets me in trouble sometimes. Perhaps I shouldn't be pushing people who want something but have been taught not to push themselves. Somewhere along the way, it seems, I forgot that it's none of my business if people choose to accept what they've got, to forget their dreams and to not seek to help those around them achieve what matters to them.

Not sure if you'll forgive me, but no, I'm not going to believe that only a few people are permitted to be gatekeepers or creators or generous leaders. I have no intention of apologizing for believing in people, for insisting that we all use this moment and these assets to create some art and improve the world around us.

To do anything less than that is a crime.

Not exactly.

There's a huge difference between the picture above (girl being told she isn't good enough, pretty enough, fat enough, skinny enough, smart enough, slutty enough) and a girl making an honest self-assessment of her abilities.  There's a big difference between giving up too early (accepting FALSE limits) and accepting true limits.

Not everyone seems to be able to do math as well as I can. I can't draw or paint as well as my uncle. My uncle can't drive (and doesn't need to) and certainly can't do math. My grammatical sense is better than that of most teachers, if I can believe what I read and hear on the Internet.

I know scads of folks who "can't do algebra" but who consider themselves successes, engineers who could never understand related rates or scale factors, artists who understand percentages and accounting but not much more, actors who couldn't write to save their lives, and scientists who can't speak to an audience or write coherent sentence without endless rewrites and help from their significant other. White Men Can't Jump ... but that didn't stop him from playing basketball and pretty damn well.

The California teachers who signed a letter saying that students should not be required to pass algebra 2 as a graduation requirement are probably spot on with their assessment of the kids' abilities and completely off the mark when it comes to assessing the political and academic climate. Eighth grade math seems to be about the least you can learn and still have a shot at claiming yourself a success in life.

"I don't DO math" should be an incentive rather than an excuse, I know, but I also have to accept that not everyone is going to be "proficient" in this topic or any other. We need to tell them "Do your best and don't let the stupidity of youth drive you to deny an ability that you may develop in a field you haven't got a clue about yet" but we also must accept that not everyone can be good at everything.

Even math teachers.

Cost of Changing to Common Core?

Joanne Jacobs - What will common standards cost?

It will cost $800 million for California to implement Common Core Standards, down from an earlier estimate of $1.6 billion, according to the state education department. That includes training, learning materials and testing.

Other states are starting to worry about the cost. Washington state estimates it will take $300 million to prepare teachers and principals and buy new textbooks; updating the state’s testing system will be extra.

Give me a break.

“Washington state estimates it will take $300 million to prepare teachers and principals and buy new textbooks; updating the state’s testing system will be extra.”

This is a silly point. Washington will buy new books regardless. They will also spend money in Professional Development to train new teachers (and old) in the current system or they can spend money in Professional Development in Common Core. What would be interesting would be the amount EXTRA needed with Common Core. My guess is zero.

I’ve personally gone through full curriculum rewrites and what seems like dozens of formatting changes in order to to align to old standards, new standards, frameworks, GLEs, etc. This is simply the new fad. The real problem isn't the Common Core. It's "Change the Standards Because We Don't Know What Else to Do".

It's the idea that all students will succeed if we could just find the ONE SINGLE PERFECT WAY TO DO THINGS. Watch Malcolm Gladwell's discussion of finding the perfect spaghetti sauce.

Public schools can never be the perfect solution to all students, all the time, by 2014 or any other date.

Bill Gates and Teacher Spaghetti Sauce

Bill Gates is at it again.  For such a smart guy, it is amazing how dense he can be when it comes to education reform. To wit:

We can “flip the curve,” raising performance “without spending a lot more,” if we “measure, develop and reward excellent teaching." ... of all the variables under a school’s control, the single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching. To flip the curve, we have to identify great teachers, find out what makes them so effective and transfer those skills to others so more students can enjoy top teachers and high achievement.

SO, Billy, we have to identify great teachers and find out what makes them so effective. Then we have to transfer that to other teachers. That will flip the curve.

Hey !  "Find out what makes them so effective"???

If you don't know WHY the great teachers are great, how in Bloomberg's Bloomers can you say definitively that

1. You can identify these great teachers and find out what makes them so effective.
2. These unknowns are transferable.
3. This transference will raise performance “without spending a lot more."

Sometimes life is like judging pasta sauce.

There might not be a best, only a best for you. That teacher might not be the BEST because you can't define best for more than one type of student. There are more types of teachers than there are types of spaghetti sauce. Go watch the Malcolm Gladwell talk at TED.

Cheating starts with The Administration

From the NYTimes

One day next month every student at Loyola Law School Los Angeles will awake to a higher grade point average. But it’s not because they are all working harder.
The school is retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market.

No. The goal is to make the school look more attractive. The student benefit is secondary.

Colleges have been playing this game for years: paying students to retake the SAT to raise the USNews rankings, gaming the enrollments to increase "diversity", fiddling with grading to improve student "satisfaction", and now they're out and out lying about GPA calculated from the inflated grades of watered down courses presented by professors who have lessened their requirements and overlooked more.

Changed to pass/fail so the pressure is reduced but "This new grading system also makes it harder for employers to distinguish the wheat from the chaff, which means more students can get a shot at a competitive interview." Total bullshit.

and we wonder why the students feel entitled?

Tough Times for Unemployed Teachers - or not.

According to the NYTimes: Teachers Facing Weakest Market in Years, it's tough to get a job because of all the other teachers out looking. Of course, this IS Westchester County, Long Island so it's not surprising that there are 3000 applicants for 8 jobs.

With all these teachers available, I wonder about the other complaint floating around the blogosphere: that of unavailable people to fit into charter school jobs. Charter schools were complaining to the Wall Street Journal about the oh-so-onerous restrictions on hiring non-teachers that I wrote about the other day. Either they can't find SchoolSpring.com or are simply offering too little money for too much work. Gotta keep up the salaries of the administration - inexperienced teaching at any cost.

Read More:

Football for College Credit.

Everyone seems to be all up in arms about this but I don't agree. I think the football players should be able to legitimately get a credit in football.

One credit. Two. It doesn't really matter.

I got a credits for athletics when I was in college - kayak was 1 and archery was another. We had to have two PE credits. You showed up. You learned a few terms, shot a few flights, took a silly multiple choice exam. It was a nice break from the 18-21 mechanical engineering credits per semester (on top of the ROTC and the stuff for commissioned officers).

What's the big deal? I like it that the rest of the school can have its courses without the lunkheads slowing everything down. They would never have made it to college other than for football, so it's not like they're being deprived of anything. Any players who do have brains will get their education regardless of what the lunkheads do.

With all the people majoring in FillinTheBlank Studies or some other touchy-feely joke, I can't think that 100 football players is going to skew the median all that much.

National Standards

A Great Pontificator was Emitting Fumes Yesterday:

"National standards is the same thing as requiring every state to grow orange trees. We don't need national standards. What we can have is a national curriculum that schools can use, partially use or ignore, depending on what makes sense locally."

That's just silly – not every state can grow orange trees because of climate. Are we seriously suggesting that all states couldn't adhere to a national curriculum?

Local control is not a panacea. The kids aren't going to stay local, for one thing. Second, the people making decisions are variable in their abilities to make those decisions and their reasons for doing so.

First, I can't expect my students to stay in the area after HS. I can't expect them to only need to know what my local school board has determined to be important, whether it's evolution or pi=3. When my kids go to RPI or RISD, they need to be on par with the kids from Boston Latin and from East Podunk HS in terms of what they know and have taken. They need to have a consistent definition of what "Biology" and "Algebra II" are and what they encompass.

Similarly, we need to develop consistent definitions of what "success" means. Is it a good score on a state-wide assessment or a couple 60s on the teacher's quizzes?

Does success only include math, science, English, history? Or do languages, art and music count? How about wood-working, cooking, needle-work? When Johnny gets a diploma, what does it mean? Can he be a good math and science student but a lousy writer and still be considered a success? Without National Standards, we are all casting about and going our own way. I'm not sure that's the best or most efficient.

I'd always been a big fan of the Regents exams and the Regents diploma until recently. This was the closest Americans had gotten to a national curriculum. Criticisms such as "You're teaching to the tests" don't matter to me because those exams were always a minimum, but a really good one. If you passed it, you knew your stuff. I'm in favor of the SAT for the same reason. I don't care if you can study for it and take prep classes and raise your score; it's still a good test. Besides, the "improvements" are really just eliminating common mistakes. SAT test prep won't teach you anything you didn't already know, only remind you.

What about Local Control?

I understand that many people have their pet peeves; this is one of mine. I dislike local control of curriculum as it's practiced in my state - it means that one or two teachers in a math department can radically change what and how the district teaches.

Some times this works out beautifully - witness the success Escalante had in reforming his program; after five years he was able to make a difference. Some times, the changes do not affect things positively or negatively. Some times, they are terrible. Witness the changes to Escalante's program after he was pushed out - the local control managed to "reform" everything back to the way it was, forgetting all of the lessons learned over those years.

In my school, a couple of people changed the school's math curriculum – 3 of 4 were non-teachers, none of the four ever looked to see if the hoped-for improvement ever happened at any other school. They had anecdotal "evidence" but nothing that would count as proof. They made the change but never set into place any way of determining whether the change had improved anything at our school either. How crazy is that?

At another time, the entire middle-school curriculum rested on the shoulders of one teacher. "They chose the books seven years ago. Now it's my turn." He then chose the one with the niftiest graphics. (Actually, I don't really know his criteria. I'm in the high-school, you understand. I guess it doesn't matter to me?)

The positive aspect of a national curriculum is that the country acts as one in what it expects as minimums, and the system changes slowly. Any changes are made only after deliberation and much discussion. That is, of course, its greatest weakness as well, if all one is concerned with is immediate flexibility. I'm not.

Education, unfortunately, is one of the few areas where changes are based on shoddy, biased or non-existent research. "Studies" are performed on a select group and results are extrapolated far beyond the scope of the study. For example, KIPP schools have success in a specific testing regimen with a biased and selected sample; suddenly every public school administrator is talking about imitating small portions of their program but not necessarily the part that made KIPP successful. Computer-based learning works for a few kids in a small number of courses and people want to expand that to all students in all situations.

Some years ago, I asked our State Education Commissioner for help. We were considering a change from Block scheduling back to 7*45 and I asked what data the state had kept. "We don't do anything like that."

If I could wish for anything, it would be for someone to settle some questions with some real research, double-blind, controlled and all that: What was the effect of Block Scheduling? Reform Math? Schools within a School? Open Classrooms? Everyday Math? Connected Math? Singapore Math? Step Up and 8th Grade Algebra? The True Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds? (Just checking to see if you were paying attention.)

How about it? Let's make changes AFTER we figure out what success is and whether what we're doing is wrong. Then let's make changes AFTER we figure if they're improvements.

Once more into the Breach of Reform

D-Ed Reckoning is talking about Bill Gates again.

First, Bill sets a silly goal: "Our goal as a nation should be to ensure that 80 percent of our students graduate from high school fully ready to attend college by 2025."

The problem isn't that all our kids aren't going to college. We still need to have the discussion on WHETHER all our kids should go to college. It is truly irresponsible to encourage a kid to be a really good mechanic? I'll teach him as much algebra and "Real-World" mathematics as I can but my gut tells me that he'd be happy and prosperous, and live a fulfilled and rewarding life as a mechanic.

The Gates Foundation has really bought into improving education and I'm glad. I just don't think he or any of the others have a clue.

A fundamental flaw is that no one has defined a goal in education - I mean a real one, not the silliness described above.

Businessmen measure themselves by the size of the company, income, number of employees, gross market share, etc. These are all readily quantified. You can argue whether (a)(b) or (c) is a more important indicator but you are still talking numbers. You are also talking about 2-3 years at most. What you do now has immediate ramifications and the effects can be seen clearly.

Education is not so easily defined and analyzed. Children take far longer to display changes caused by your reforms. They have their own ideas about what their education should look like and they have their own frame of reference through which your reforms must pass.

The over-arching problem is the lack of a true set of finish lines or yardsticks. Everyone can claim expertise because no one has any idea of what we're measuring. You can't toss out the charlatan because you're never able to identified them as such. We have no better idea of what makes a good education that we have ever have.

What is the goal?

Are we looking at
- Scores on a test?
- Graduation rate?
- Survey results?
- College admissions?
- College Graduation?
- Time in seat?
- Number of computers hacked?
- Number of books read?
- Number of books understood?
- Number of KIPP drills?
- Varsity Letters?
or ... what?

Bill comes in with his definitions, throws around some money and says "Follow me" but the results take 12 years to come to fruition. By then we're on education reform #392 and his definitions are no longer in play by the time someone realizes that his goals were pretty self-serving all along and not applicable to the vast majority.

Bill (and his ilk) also have trouble remembering that students are not widgets. The same ruthless adherence to standards in manufacturing cannot be applied to education - you cannot simply send back to the supplier for better parts with fewer flaws or blemishes.

Children are also not adults. They are not responsible and cannot make decisions on their own. Don't yell at me - society will not allow them to drive, drink, smoke, have sex, or drop out of school, among other things. To expect young people to make good decisions about education when they can't apparently make decisions about any other aspect of their lives makes for an impossible paradox – how to get the one person with control over his/her own behavior, attitude and work ethic to exercise that control responsibly? The analogy to herding cats never looked so apropos.

Teachers, too. Be a Sage on the Stage or Guide on the Side?

What if the teacher fundamentally doesn't agree with the new reform? Is he at fault or is the reform effort the true problem? Did you train that teacher in the new methods or give him a book and say "Have at it!" When it falls flat, did that teacher deliberately sabotage the reform or is the reform poorly thought-out, poorly imagined and dead wrong for the students?

D-Ed Reckoning then has a different take than I when he lays out two approaches to answer this question:

"Next, Bill asks an easily answered rhetorical question:
Unlike scientists developing a vaccine, it is hard to test with scientific certainty what works in schools. If one school’s students do better than another school’s, how do you determine the exact cause? "

I'm asking all of us - Before you figure out why this group did better than that one, kindly explain how you determine which school's students did better? What's your criteria and why?

This is not as easy as it might be at first blush. Take the KIPP schools - arguably the best at what they do. What do they do? They prepare kids for a drill-and-practice kind of world and their kids do very well on recall tests. That's fine as far as it goes, but I for example would have hated it. I was fine in a much more loosely defined world in high school and quite successful in life - even if you avoid the "He became a teacher because he couldn't do anything else" joke. I didn't need to spend 7:30 - 5:00 every day at school, practicing my math facts and being taught to write. My teachers would never have tolerated it and I had some fine teachers. KIPP is excellent at what they do but it's not for everyone. Probably not even for much more than a small minority.

So - is KIPP the standard of success? Not for me but something had to generate this idea of Gates's ...

It is amazing how big a difference a great teacher makes versus an ineffective one. Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

If that's the case, then why doesn't teacher certification seem to matter?

For my money, it's that we haven't decided what we're ultimately doing.

Performance based on this?

I'm watching an English class give presentations based on their reading of some "To Build a Fire" type story - not the London tale but similar. This particular group is ninth graders, very remedial reading. These are not strong students but most gave a good attempt at a presentation. There was one, however, whose entire presentation on wilderness survival consisted of holding an aluminum energy-drink can and saying

"To start a fire, take a piece of chocolate and rub the bottom of the can to make it shiny and then shine it on the tinder and um, yeah."

That's it. That was the whole thing. Right out of SurvivorMan and not even that good.

So I'm thinking ... These are the kids whose math and English scores are going to be used tojudge us all and our effectiveness as teachers? How well I teach seems such a small part of the overall performance of our students. Their mood, the time of year, the help they get from parents or not, their attitude.

If I were grading this and gave the kid the grade it deserved, am I being too mean? Will the kid learn more from seeing the true worth of his work or should I pat him on the back and praise away my standards? At what point does the "Gotta make them learn" run up against the need for students to do their part and accept some responsibility for their laziness or screw-ups?

Am I at fault for the lazy student?

What is the goal here? Good performance on the NCLB test? Or preparation for the Real-World (tm) of bosses who are not happy with a 32-word presentation? Or some other vague notion of teaching to the best of your ability?

Is it any wonder I'm not in favor of performance bonuses for teachers?

Teachers who can't pass either.

On Nov 24, 2008 a New Mexico station broadcast the names and failure frequencies of some teachers who took the state certification tests.

I can't believe they mentioned anyone by name and school, but I suppose the information is available publicly. What bothers me is the way they collated and made public the information, and by their action emphasized its importance when it might have had none. I have to wonder, on the other hand, if these teachers should be actively examining their career choice.

These certification exams are pathetic in their simplicity - at least at the initial levels. The Praxis I, which I had to take because I was following the Peer-Review track to certification, was laughable. I had to correct one of the math problems for them. The Praxis II content test was much more reasonable. It was a decent test and covered all of the types of things I would have been expected to have been able to do as a first year teacher.

One of the viewers commented, in essence, that English teachers shouldn't have to pass math tests and vice versa. Interesting in it's narrow-mindedness, don't you think? The English teachers still need to calculate grades and the math teachers need to write. Besides, these tests are terribly easy.

Which of the following is equal to a quarter of a million?
A) 40,000
B) 250,000
C) 2,500,000
D) 1/4,000,000
E) 4/1,000,000

How can you possibly fail a test like that?

Great Expections, the eduWonk edition.

I ran across this assignment today:

Expectations: 7th Grade High Level Writing Assignment
Essay on Anne Frank
Your essay will consist of an opening paragraph which introduced the title, author and general background of the novel.
Your thesis will state specifically what Anne's overall personality is, and what general psychological and intellectual changes she exhibits over the course of the book
You might organize your essay by grouping psychological and intellectual changes OR you might choose 3 or 4 characteristics (like friendliness, patience, optimism, self doubt) and show how she changes in this area.

I'm no English teacher, but if this is for a 7th grade class, how much are we realistically expecting? I'll repost my comment ...

At first, I thought they were making fun of the grammatical errors in the first slide. Then I read the rest of the blog entry and realized they were praising this as the better of the two. Having thought about it, I'm not sure that I don't find the first to be one of those over-written and quite pretentious lesson plans that pretend to high expectations while grading everything easily and accepting anything.

I am always suspicious when obvious mistakes are made in a piece that is released to the public in this fashion - did no one check or notice?

High expectations need to be followed by high standards in grading. That is where I would focus in this situation. What was received and how was it measured?

Anyone can copy a good assignment from the internet and butcher the execution.

The second page is just silly, but maybe it was meant to be? I could see this on the first day of a new block class, second semester. At least it gets the subjunctive mood.

Failure is an option

What is wrong with Education in America is embodied in this one sentence:

For the first time in seven years, Seattle public high-school students who do poorly can receive a failing grade on their report cards.

Science scores are back - we're #1

So the scores are back in for the NCLB science testing - we're in the top three in the state for one grade and #1 in another.

So what? Just as low scores are meaningless in the long run, so are these high scores. The students are the difference, not the teaching. Last year, these same teachers were "below average" because the students didn't do well and probably next year we'll be back down in the pack again. Does this mean that their skills as teachers have somehow improved for this cohort and then will have diminished next year? Pretty silly if you think about it that way, isn't it?

When are the bean counters going to figure out that the manufacturing model isn't an appropriate analogy for education. You have a group of students here. You can't reject any with flaws as you can with raw materials for the assembly line. You can attempt to standardize the process but without consistency in the construction material, you get variations in the final product. Those variations can neither be eliminated nor minimized.

You can improve the process but it'll only be incremental. The students are the key and they are not consistent. Sometimes you get lucky and the kids get it and sometimes you don't get lucky and the state puts you on the checklist.

MEAH.

I celebrate because they're my friends, not because they're superior to the rest of the state. When the 11th grade scores come back, let's hope the coins comes up heads again.

Algebra expansion - $3.1 Billion

WTF?

Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer with lots of reader comments
August 13, 2008
SACRAMENTO -- California's schools will need an additional $3.1 billion annually - $2,100 more for every middle school student - to implement the governor's new eighth-grade algebra testing requirement, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Tuesday.

What a concept. First, it's silly to assume that 100% of eighth graders are ready for anything, not to mention algebra. From the Newsweek article on Teach For America,

Locke High School in Watts. At Locke, a school hemmed in by competing gangs, 2 percent of ninth graders are proficient in algebra; 11 percent read at grade level. Too many can't read at all.

so we're now going to accomplish state-wide algebra proficiency at the 8th grade level instead?

Second, spending that much only to realize that a large percentage of the students are not ready for algebra seems somewhat counter-productive.

Thirdly, that's a heck of a lot of money and I doubt that much of it is going to any teachers. I think it more likely that some testing company is scoring a big, fat juicy contract here (assuming the number isn't wildly inflated to score PR victory).

Most troublesome from my perspective, the unintended consequence will be that algebra 1 will have to be watered down to the level of the test that 90% of the kids COULD pass.

Of course, they could always set the passing score to 30 out of 90. That seems to be the way of the world these days.

Math Scores Show No Gap for Girls, Study Finds

By TAMAR LEWIN / NEW YORK TIMES
July 25, 2008

Three years after the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, got into trouble for questioning women’s “intrinsic aptitude” for science and engineering — and 16 years after the talking Barbie doll proclaimed that “math class is tough” — a study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests.

Although boys in high school performed better than girls in math 20 years ago, the researchers found, that is no longer the case. The reason, they said, is simple: Girls used to take fewer advanced math courses than boys, but now they are taking just as many.

“Now that enrollment in advanced math courses is equalized, we don’t see gender differences in test performance,” said Marcia C. Linn of the University of California, Berkeley, a co-author of the study. “But people are surprised by these findings, which suggests to me that the stereotypes are still there.”

The findings, reported in the July 25 issue of Science magazine, are based on math scores from seven million students in 10 states, tested in accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The researchers looked at the average of the test scores of all students, the performance of the most gifted children and the ability to solve complex math problems. They found, in every category, that girls did as well as boys. (To their dismay, the researchers found that the tests in the 10 states did not include a single question requiring complex problem-solving, forcing them to use a national assessment test for that portion of their research.)

Janet Hyde, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the study, said the persistent stereotypes about girls and math had taken a toll.

“The stereotype that boys do better at math is still held widely by teachers and parents,” Dr. Hyde said. “And teachers and parents guide girls, giving them advice about what courses to take, what careers to pursue. I still hear anecdotes about guidance counselors steering girls away from engineering, telling them they won’t be able to do the math.”

Girls are still underrepresented in high school physics classes and, as noted by Dr. Summers, who resigned in 2006, in the highest levels of physics, chemistry and engineering, which require advanced math skills.

The study also analyzed the gender gap on the math section of the SAT. Rather than proving boys’ superior talent for math, the study found, the difference is probably attributable to a skewed pool of test takers. The SAT is taken primarily by seniors bound for college, and since more girls than boys go to college, about 100,000 more girls than boys take the test, including lower-achieving girls who bring down the girls’ average score.

On the ACT, another college entrance test, the study said, the gender gap in math scores disappeared in Colorado and Illinois after the states began requiring all students to take the test.

Bleah. Curriculum mapping ... again.

Curriculum mapping today. I'm so enthusiastic I could just spit.

Years ago, it began as a piece of paper that briefly said what material and concepts were happening when. This basically worked well. It was called a syllabus and it was "The Course." You used it to guide your teaching. Teachers talked to one another and compared notes. Life was good.

Then the State Frameworks arrived and all was "Wrong, wrong, wrong."

So a few brave souls from each department earned much summer stipend money and aligned everything with the State Frameworks. Each course had it's section in the Big Folder and things were good. Every chapter had it's place and every teacher could look up what happened when and why. (Few did -- the syllabus was still pretty useful -- but the point was that we could.) Life was good and students were taught.

Then the State decided they wanted to update things. "Frameworks BAD. New Standards GOOD." Yep, you got it. Time to change the Book.

So after many hours of work over another summer, the Book was aligned to State Standards and all was good. (We didn't actually change very much, just re-referenced the new sections to the appropriate spot in the Standards, but hey!) Every chapter had it's place and every teacher could look up what happened when and why. (Few did -- the syllabus was still pretty useful -- but the point was that we could.) Life was good and students were taught. The Book ruled.

Then, out of the darkest night, came the GLE's, the Grade Level Expectations. "The Standards are wrong, wrong, wrong. We must align to the GLE's. " Not even the dreaded teacher whine "We won't do it unless we get stipends" was enough to derail this latest round of editing super-goodness. Money was found because NCLB was threatening on the horizon.

But this time there was a new wrinkle. The Secretary had been ordered to make up a "Template" - in Excel because the Principal had no idea that you could make a table in Word. So the Book was transcribed into Excel. Anyone who knows Excel knows how badly this went.

Then the superintendent's office purchased licenses for an on-line system, $5 per student per year. Why did they charge for an online curriculum mapping system by the student? No one knows. It was so slow and cumbersome, no one ever used it. It could insert the particular GLE for you, if you were patient enough to click through all the tiny little plus-boxes and expand every branch of the tree each time you inserted a standard. After the inservice training, though, no one did.

So that initiative failed.

So we now have a new system, CLI. That's where we are today, transcribing our courses into a new on-line system. We have to write "essential questions" and indicate the content, skills, assessment, activities and resources. (You know, make something up.) "Can the students manipulate binomial and trinomial expressions and use algebraic representations for real-world situations?" As a bribe to get us to do it, we're paid an hourly stipend AND we get 3 graduate credits toward recertification.

Who says there's no waste in education?