August 2008 Archives

It's funny how school improvement ideas around the globe often sound similar themes.

As part of Australia's "education revolution," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced a plan to require school report cards as a condition for receiving federal funding, according to this recent article in The Australian.

Rudd, who was elected in November, has also promised to appoint a board to craft a national curriculum, an effort that has been pushed in Australia for decades. The call for national academic standards here in the U.S. has also gained new traction recently.

Believe it or not, the plan to put a national curriculum in place throughout the commonwealth by 2011 has fueled fierce debate.

Sound familiar?

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If you've got a strong interest in school policy and testing (seems likely if you're reading this blog), you might consider making a bid for one of the soon-to-be-open spots on the National Assessment Governing Board.

NAGB, as it is known in Washington, sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. That gives the governing board an outsized influence on testing nationwide since many states look to NAEP, "the nation's report card," in trying to craft their own exams in various subjects.

While NAGB members are appointed by the secretary of education, it's an independent board, designed to go about its business without political interference of any kind. The board is made up of members from many different backgrounds who serve four-year terms. When one member's term is up, the board seeks to replace that individual with someone from the same professional background or interest area.

For 2009, the governing board is seeking five new members: an elementary school principal; two members of the general public, or parents; a state legislator from the Democratic Party; and a testing and measurement expert.

The current NAGB members who are scheduled to leave next summer are Gregory Cizek, a professor from the University of North Carolina; Cynthia Nava, a Democratic state legislator from New Mexico; Robin C. Hall, a principal from Atlanta; Alan J. Friedman, a science consultant from New York; and James S. Lanich, the president of California Business for Education Excellence.

Organizations and individuals can nominate people for consideration as board members. Interested parties can call (202) 357-7504, and read more about the process and the board itself here. The deadline is Sept. 30 of this year. Nominations can be submitted to Mary Crovo, Deputy Executive Director, the National Assessment Governing Board, 800 North Capitol St., Suite 825, Washington, DC, 20002-4233.

The board conducts quarterly meetings around the country, and the tone of those discussions, at least as long as I've been covering them, is unfailingly collegial.

In addition to having an interest in testing, it helps to have thick skin. It's not unusual for the governing board's policies—on test content and policies such as those for dealing with limited-English students and those with disabilities—to be criticized by researchers and elected officials.

But that's as much a measure of the importance of the board's work as anything else.

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If they are looking for an inspiring and compelling speaker to promote the cause of public education at the conventions, organizers should put Dalton Sherman on the next plane to Denver or St. Paul.

Here the 5th grader at the Charles Rice Learning Center gets thousands of Dallas teachers on their feet and psyched up for a new school year:

This kid is awesome!

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It may have been a bit depressing following the Fordham Institute's "Education Olympics" or Bob Wise's video commentary comparing the nation's fixation with the Beijing Olympics and athletic excellence with the inadequate attention given students' academic performance. But there was at least one shining achievement.

I almost missed it by assuming that all the posts would reflect dismally on U.S. schools and students (and because of the temporary jolt I got from seeing Mike Petrilli with red, white, and blue face paint for his final broadcast).

The top finish came not in math or science or even literacy, but civics. U.S. students took first on the CivEd Civic Skills test, "which measures the abilities of a country’s students to distinguish fact from opinion, interpret political cartoons, and comprehend political messages."

So for those who are counting, the U.S. won 110 medals in Beijing, but just one here at home, by Fordham's tally anyway.

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Another documentary filled with history, emotion, and visual splendor ran on PBS this week, this one about the photographers who documented "the face of Depression-era America." For Frank Baker that means another chance to help teachers use media resources for their lessons.

The longtime educator and media literacy consultant has created a teachers' guide for using the film, "Documenting The Face of America", in the classroom. It includes background, readings, preview and review questions for students, links to national standards in several subjects, and suggested assignments.

Baker, who's become somewhat of a guru on media literacy education for his efforts to prepare students for a media-driven world, has a number of suggestions for using documentaries—from An Inconvenient Truth to Ken Burns' different series on the Civil War, baseball, and jazz—to draw students into a lesson.

There are too many resources on his website to count, but they include topics such as teaching about the Olympics, the role of the media in presidential politics, and helping kids "see through media peddled culture of celebrity."

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Democrats have descended on the Mile High City this week for their party's national convention (Ed Week coverage galore here and from our home page). One of the headliners will be former Vice President Al Gore, who is expected to speak the final night of the event, around the same time as presumptive nominee Barack Obama.

Gore is certain to carry a strong pro-environment message to the podium. But whatever your political views, if you're listing speakers who've made a mark on what gets taught in the classroom over the past few years, you'd probably be hard-pressed not to at least include Gore's name.

There's little doubt that his film, "An Inconvenient Truth," has brought public attention to climate change, and it's shaped discussions in classrooms, too. As I've written, some teachers have used his documentary in their presentations of science and energy issues, and presumably, as an invitation to support or counter Gore's conclusions. Some educators have said they've struggled to find reliable and age-appropriate curricular material on climate change. Many textbooks still don't say much about it.

Efforts to talk about climate change—and to discuss possible links between human activity and global warming—can create a backlash, too. In the above-mentioned article, I noted that parents in at least one school district, in Washington state, initially fought efforts to show Gore's film in class, viewing it as too political. I was reminded of this today, when I noticed the recent editorial in an Iowa newspaper: "Core Curriculum? It's More LIke Gore Curriculum."

(The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released last year, says evidence of global warming, and resultant sea and ocean temperatures and rising sea levels is "unequivocal." It also says "there is very high confidence that the net effect of human activities" over the last few hundred years has been one of warming.

Gore also has many backers, of course, in the classroom and outside it. For that viewpoint, look no further than the editorial pages of the very same Iowa newspaper, where "The Energy Challenge Has Been Issued," as stated by another op-ed.

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In the No Child Left Behind era, it's hardly unusual to see teachers "restructured" out their jobs—basically, fired or reassigned as part of the major changes that the law allows administrators to make at continually poor-performing schools.

But not many of those teachers have as devoted a lobby as Art Siebens.

Siebens, who until recently worked as a science teacher at Woodrow Wilson Senior High School in the District of Columbia, lost his job as part of what has been described as a school restructuring effort under NCLB. He had taught biology, anatomy, and physiology at the school for 18 years and is a "remarkable, dedicated, and inspiring" educator, according to a description posted on a Web site created by his supporters, many of them parents. In particular, they point to Siebens' skill in helping students master Advanced Placement science material. (A high percentage of his students ended up scoring at least a 3 on the AP's 3-5 point scale, his followers attest.)

Siebens' interests stretch from the pedagogical to the musical. He's written and recorded at least 30 songs aimed at helping students master biology concepts, according to the Web site. (You can check out "Bio-Rhythms I, II and III" here.) Wilson is located in an affluent neighborhood in northwest D.C., though it serves students from a diverse socioeconomic and racial profile. Students in a recent incoming class hail from at least 70 different schools, and its population includes students originally from 85 countries, the school's Web site says.

Siebens' backers argue that his case is an example of a No Child Left Behind-driven overhaul gone awry. While it's hard to know all the factors that go into any personnel decision, at the very least the situation reflects the deep discords that often emerge during school restructuring, when administrators make decisions that at least some of the community of parents and students vehemently oppose. How is the teacher being judged? By test scores? By the ability to motivate students? By some other standard? Are they being judged fairly and objectively?

The principal at Wilson, Peter Cahall, did not return a call late last week about the matter, and an employee at the school later referred my questions to the D.C.'s district administration. A spokeswoman for Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, Mafara Hobson, told me that the decision to remove Siebens from Wilson High was "made at the school level, with the support of the chancellor," and declined further comment, saying it was a personnel matter. In her first year on the job, the hard-charging Rhee has shown a willingness to remove or reassign school employees whose performance she deems unsatisfactory, for which she's drawn both praise and flak.

Siebens' lawyer, Beth Slavet, said he has been assigned to a different school, but that he still hopes to return to Woodrow Wilson.

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After-school and informal science education programs have become a fixture in school districts around the country. It's easy to see why. They offer a way to introduce students to the natural world in a fun and pressure-free (free of tests, for example) environment.

But how can educators and parents judge the strengths and shortcomings of those programs? And how can researchers evaluate them in a consistent way?

A new study, prepared for the Noyce Foundation, attempts to provide some answers to those questions. It recommends the development of specific criteria for judging informal science programs, in areas such as student engagement and students' acquisition of science content knowledge and reasoning skills. It recommends the creation of an online database with tools for evaluating programs, which could be used by evaluators and updated continuously. It also suggests the creation of quantitative tools to assess the progress of students taking part in afterschool and informal science.

The authors of the study, which was released by the Program in Education, Afterschool & Resiliency at Harvard University and McLean Hospital, say they are seeking comments on the document. You can send them to pear@mclean.harvard.edu, with "Science Assessment in Out-of-School Time" in the subject heading.

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The issue of boys' literacy has been fueling a lot of chatter lately. It is a topic that has come to my attention a lot throughout my years of covering reading policy and practice for Ed Week. Like every time girls outperform boys on national reading assessments.

But lately the coverage has expanded beyond the test scores.

USA Today columnist Richard Whitmire has launched a blog solely dedicated to boys and their struggles in school. Why Boys Fail is not all about reading, but it's loaded with material from research, media reports, and online discussions. (There's some interesting guest commentary this week from Peg Tyre, author of the forthcoming book, The Trouble With Boys.) Several recent posts have hit on this topic of book choice.

This Wall Street Journal online article last month reports how Scholastic Inc. and other publishers are banking on books on topics boys might find appealing: bloody battles, bodily functions, and mischievous lads. Will the likes of Captain Underpants, Oh Yuck: The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty, and A Wicked History: Genghis Khan 13th Century Mongolian Tyrant draw them in to the wonders of reading?

The article irked some longtime proponents of classical curricula.

"Does time spent with Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger help reading comprehension?" asks Robert Pondiscio over at the Core Knowledge blog. "As a teacher, I’m all for engaging boys, but a steady diet of this fare invites the law of diminishing returns."

Will Fitzhugh of the Concord Review is aghast:

"Now that military history and any whisper of male heroism have been banished . . . only gross books for boys, to balance the vampire books for girls, are the right choices....??" he asks.

Fitzhugh argues that boys through the ages have lost themselves in well-written biographies and historical nonfiction.

Pondiscio continues: "I think we shortchange students when we simply assume kids will be disengaged by good books, and therefore don’t make the effort to engage them."

I'm open to some suggestions for engaging my 8-year-old son in a broader array of texts. As summer vacation winds down, he and my 10-year-old daughter still need a daily reminder about the reading hour in my house (which has dwindled to a 20-minute reading block since the Olympics have kept us up late and sleeping in). His book choices: a 200-page Pokemon guide, Dorling Kindersley books on reptiles, space, and football, and Horrible Harry in Room 2B.

Now that he's discovered the three boxes of comic books my husband has been hoarding for the last 20 years, maybe that habit will develop on its own.

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Few concepts are as fundamental to students' understanding of biology and plant life as photosynthesis. And everybody knows what photosynthesis is, right?

Right?

Well, a study published this year makes the case for introducing students to scientific concepts and phenomena, such as photosynthesis (the process by which plants use light energy to convert water and sunlight into oxygen and high-energy carbohydrates) in plain English. The study, published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, found that students who were introduced to science concepts in "everyday English" before learning the exact scientific language fared better on tests than students who were not taught that way.

The research was conducted by Bryan A. Brown and Kihyun Ryoo of Stanford University. They worked with 49 minority students, randomly assigned to two groups, one taught with everyday language before scientific vocabulary, and a control group taught with scientific language. The study used computer software to introduce the 5th grade students to science in different ways.

The study shows that "teaching using a content-first approach yields greater conceptual understanding, as expressed in everyday language, as well as an improved ability to understand and use science language," the authors say.

"The findings of this study have the potential to contribute to theories on scientific language, classroom pedagogy, and computer-based learning."

Researchers have been exploring how students express basic scientific ideas in nonscientific language for years, as the Stanford authors note. Educators and advocates have looked at how they can capitalize on this nascent understanding and build on it. One organization conducting research in this area is the Cheche Konnen Center, in Cambridge, Mass., which I wrote about earlier this year for our Tech Counts report.

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College Board officials have confirmed that they are working on a pre-PSAT, a voluntary assessment for 8th graders designed to gauge their progress toward success on the college-entrance exam and beyond. The Los Angeles Times broke the story Friday when an official with the New York City-based board discussed it at a conference, not realizing a reporter was in the room taking notes (don't you love when that happens?).

The board would not give Ed Week details, but said an announcement and more information should be ready in the fall.

"It’s designed to provide schools with insight about students’ academic progress and academic potential," board spokeswoman Jennifer Topiel wrote in an e-mail this week. "The goal is to help schools create a road map for students with the ultimate aim of ensuring that all students are on a path toward college admittance and then college success."

She said that the development of the test comes after requests from school districts. Apparently, many schools are giving the preliminary, or practice PSAT—a qualifying exam for the National Merit Scholarship program—to students earlier than in the past. It is generally recommended for 10th or 11th graders.

There are some great quotes in the Times article from critics about the program potentially increasing pressures on test-weary students and a more cynical take about it being a "marketing ploy".

As well as some justification from the College Board.

"By the time they're taking the PSAT, it's much too late to determine whether they should be taking algebra in the eighth grade, biology, and other important gatekeeper classes needed for college," Wayne Camara, the board's vice president for research and analysis, said at a conference at USC last week, according to this story by Times reporter Gale Holland. "This test will help schools identify students who have some talent and could likely succeed if they take honors or AP courses, but have not been recognized."

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It's hard not to get drawn in to the record-breaking heats in the Olympic swimming competition, or the excitement of the early matchups in soccer and basketball. But before you get all patriotic about the dozen or so medals the United States has already won in Beijing this month, you might temper your enthusiasm with two different takes on international competition.

Here Bob Wise of the Alliance for Excellent Education weighs in with his second broadcast of the "Education Olympics," as he shares disappointing data on where the U.S. stands against other nations on literacy measures. And Fordham's Mike Petrilli has a competing broadcast, one that's more theatrical, and complete with rankings, medal counts, and reports from "news" correspondents.

In Fordham's Education Olympics, Norway gets gold for what we think of as high school graduation, while Germany earns silver, and Korea gets bronze, while the U.S. lags in 18th place.

Using PISA data, Petrilli also ranks countries based on specific skills, such as the percentage of 15 year olds who excel at explaining phenomena scientifically or how boys and girls do on problem-solving tasks.

You can go to Fordham's homepage for today's and future broadcasts.

Unlike the Olympic Games, I think we all can figure out how the Ed. Olympics will turn out, based on previous reports about international comparison tests. And I don't think we'll be celebrating our feats. That is unless some of the critics of those comparisons—who generally believe that they are apples to oranges comparisons and that the U.S. is still a grand success story, academically and otherwise—come up with their own Olympic-like event.

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There's been a growing interest in recent years in holding U.S. students to a higher standard—specifically an international standard. As we've reported, more state policymakers and researchers seem attracted to the idea of states judging their academic progress against foreign nations by competing directly with them on international exams.

But Mark Schneider, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, recently spoke about the difficulty of making those state-to-nation comparisons at a meeting with federal oficials in Washington.

Schneider recounted that he had met earlier this year with representatives for a few education organizations, including the Council of Chief State School Officers, to talk about cross-national testing issues, such as how the material tested on international exams such as PISA and TIMSS compares with the U.S. test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The commissioner summed up portions of that earlier discussion on international education, while speaking before members of the National Assessment Governing Board, at their quarterly meeting in Washington a few weeks ago. NCES administers NAEP; the governing board sets policy for it.

Some have argued that as the U.S. moves into an increasingly competitive global economy, individual states would be well advised to measure themselves not only on NAEP, but on international tests such as as PISA—on which the United States hasn't fared especially well. A recent study found that if states were compared against foreign nations, their performance would be mediocre, at best.

But Schneider said that one of the points that became clear during his discussion with researchers and policy advocates was that NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA measure very different things. (Some states have based their own state tests and academic standards, which dictate much of what is taught in the classroom, at least partly on NAEP.) Another issue is that the age groups tested on the American and international tests don't line up, he added. Plus, participating in international tests can be financially costly, he told the board.

Schneider made it clear that he sees the international assessments as valuable. But he suggested that state policymakers should move carefully in deciding whether those exams suit their purposes for judging student progress. "There is a fundamental problem ... when we have different frameworks and different organizations running these things," he told the board.

Scott Montgomery, a CCSSO official who has worked on international education issues, told me he agreed with many of the points raised by the commissioner. Cost is probably "the biggest drawback" to states getting their own individual scores on PISA, he said. He estimated that could run states $500,000-$700,000. No state gets those results now. But Montgomery said he knew of 8-10 states that are keen on the idea—cost perrmitting.

This is an issue to watch for in the years to come, as the push continues to hold American students to higher standards, in the name of promoting academic "competitiveness."

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Everybody seems to agree that the United States needs to improve the quality of its math education. There's less consensus, however, on how to get there.

A conference scheduled for next month in Washington will focus on that topic, specifically on the math taught in high schools. Hosted by the University of Maryland's Center for Math Education, the two-and-a-half day event will highlight such topics as improving the math curriculum, professional development in high schools, and the essential math skill needed to succeed in college.

The conference will be held Sept. 25-27 at the Renaissance M Street Hotel in D.C. A link to the event can be found here. So mark your calendars.

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As the world turns its eyes toward China for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games, former W.Va. Gov. Bob Wise has donned a sweatsuit, ready to talk international competition. But in a series of video messages being released over the next two weeks, Wise, the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, will outline the need for the U.S. to aim to be among the best in the world not just in athletics, but in academics.

In his kickoff message, Wise talks about the "Academic Olympics" and the need for high school students to compete on the world stage.

"We train some of the best, the fastest, and most agile athletes in the world," he says, standing in front of an image of the Birds Nest Stadium, the site of this Friday's opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. "But while our U.S. athletes usually bring home gold, silver, and bronze, there's one international competition this year in which our young people ranked 13th! I'm talking about high school graduation rates."

I don't think Wise will get the kind of market share for his broadcasts as NBC will when Michael Phelps tries to add to the six gold medals he has for swimming, or when Shawn Johnson tumbles for the women's gymnastics team. When you see the video, you'll know why. But his screen presence aside, he makes his point. If the U.S. saw preparation of young scholars as similarly important as the development of athletic talent, we might make some headway in gaining an international reputation for our education system as well.

The video will be available here on Wednesday morning.

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The board that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress has been meeting in Washington over the past few days, attempting to solve some of the trickiest issues in the world of testing.

An ad hoc committee of the National Assessment Governing Board gathered Thursday to consider one such topic: how to bring more uniformity to the proportions of students that states and cities exclude from taking NAEP, or provide with special help known as accommodations, on it.

It's not easy, as I discussed in a recent story. States set their own policies on how to deal with English language learners and students with disabilities, and local school officials have a strong say, too. As a result, their exclusion and accommodation rates vary greatly on different NAEP tests, leading critics to question the validity of the results.

The ad hoc committee decided to put several possible fixes out there for public consumption. Those general options include leaving NAEP policies the way they are now (basically, following individual states' policies); making figures known as "full-population estimates," which seek to estimate how well jurisdictions would have done without exclusions, as the official test scores; setting some kind of mandatory exclusion or accommodation policy; or setting a recommended exclusion/accommodation rate and indicating whether jurisdictions were meeting that guideline.

Another interesting option, discussed by the ad hoc committee, would be using some sort of automated "screener" to test students' abilities in advance of taking the test.

The ad hoc committee is likely to put forward those options for public comment, and possibly hold a public hearing at a later date to consider them.

Another tough issue being mulled over by the governing board is that of "preparedness" -- or determining whether NAEP could be used to report on how ready 12th graders are for college or the workforce.

In theory, doing so would allow the public to look at students' NAEP scores, broken down by state or demographic group, and make a judgment about their preparation for higher ed or a job. The board is trying to determine if including that information would be feasible by 2009 for 12th grade tests in reading and math.

Michael Kirst, a professor from Stanford University who has been chairing a seven-member technical panel studying the issue, presented findings and possibilities to the board on Friday. One of the difficulties in judging student preparedness, of course, is determining what standard to use. For instance, should a college's placement test for incoming students be used to judge readiness for higher ed? Or some other test measure?

Federal officials have long sought to increase the public's understanding of NAEP, and its value in demonstrating student academic progress. Including information on students' preparation for college or the job market in NAEP results could increase the public's regard for the test, Kirst told me after his presentation.

"It would help in communicating what the purpose and implications of the NAEP are," he said. "The public might find [the test] much easier to understand."

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