September 2009 Archives

Students at Zuni High School in New Mexico are learning how to plant a "waffle garden" as part of a project intended to revitalize traditional agricultural practices among the Zuni tribe.

A waffle garden, I learned from a press release about how some of these students took away ribbons for agricultural produce at the New Mexico state fair, is a garden constructed of parallel square or rectangular depressions in the ground. The depressions create a pattern that looks like a waffle and make good use of water resources.

The press release says that the proportion of Zuni adults engaged in agriculture has decreased over the past century from 30 percent to 1.5 percent. Partners in a horticulture project, which attempts to teach traditional agricultural practices to Zuni youths, hope to reverse that decline.

The partners include the New Mexico education department and New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I write in this week's issue about how schools and organizations are using technology to put students in direct contact with scientists in the field (on a remote research vessel in the Pacific, for example). The idea is that students get a much deeper understanding of science—maybe even a love for it—when they interact with somebody who's actually doing it.

The takeaway point here, I would argue, is not the technology. Many of the tools described in the story—blogs, Webcasts, videos—are not new, and probably won't strike the techies out there as especially impressive. You'll find fancier and costlier tools elsewhere. What will probably interest most scientists and science teachers is the application of it, and the promise of presenting their favorite subject the way they see it: as a fun, dynamic way to explore and understand the natural world. The comments of Alan Friedman, a longtime museum director who I interviewed for the story, are instructive. Students don't want to just read about scientists, he said. They want to see and hear and communicate with scientists, as those researchers struggle and push forward.

In this respect, scientists in the field and students in the laboratory, who taste success one day and cope with setbacks the next, have a lot in common.

Photo from the New England Aquarium.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In an online opinion piece in the Washington Post, Daniel Willingham argues that the draft common standards released last week wrongly suggest that reading comprehension is a skill, or single strategy that can be taught. In fact, reading comprehension is built on prior knowledge—"the stuff readers already know that enables them to create understanding as they read," the University of Virginia psychology professor contends.

Willingham says that schools tend to teach reading comprehension as a series of reading strategies "that can be practiced and mastered." The writers of the "Common Core" standards reinforce the theme, he contends. The document recommends that students have a strong "content base," because that's part of what makes a reader ready for college, he notes. But they miss the essential point, he says: that content is a way "to ensure that they are good readers!"

Why is prior knowledge so crucial to reading comprehension? Because writers leave out information they assume is understood, Willingham says. What happens if a reader lacks that prior knowledge? Comprehension comes off the tracks:

"This is exactly what happens for millions of poor readers," he writes. "They can 'read' (they can sound out the words on the page), but they can't consistently comprehend. They read it, but they don't 'get it.' "

Remarkably, if you take kids who score poorly on a reading test and ask them to read on a topic they know something about (baseball, say, or dinosaurs), all of a sudden their comprehension is terrific—better than kids who score well on reading tests but who don't know a lot about baseball or dinosaurs."

How do students, he asks, pick up this prior knowledge?

"It accumulates through years of exposure to newspapers, serious magazines, books, conversations with knowledgeable people. It should also come from a content-rich curriculum in school."

[Editorial comment: The world's print journalists salute you, Mr. Willingham.]

I'll invite the reading teachers and scholars out there to offer their own opinions on his essay.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:35 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

I recently wrote about the latest draft of common standards, which were released for public consumption last week. OK—technically, they're the first official draft of the "college and career-readiness" document, since an earlier version was leaked on the Web unexpectedly over the summer. As you would guess, the new draft is picking up a pretty wide range of reactions. If I had to make an unscientific analysis of the tide of opinion I've seen so far, I would say that is has broken in a positive direction. Of course, it's a long road: This version's open for comment until Oct. 21. The K-12 standards will come next. After that, state officials will be asked to review and approve the whole thing.

Here are a couple of additional reactions that I wasn't able to get into my original story.

Carol Jago, the president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of English, tells me she thinks the draft has improved in two ways. First, it emphasizes "quantity in reading." Jago, an author and former high school teacher, served as one of several outside reviewers of the English-language arts version of the document.

"More is more when it comes to students and reading," Jago told me in an e-mail. "I was delighted to see this important point addressed so directly...The dramatic difference between the number of books students read in high school and the number they are assigned in college I believe contributes enormously to student failure in the first semester at university." A lot of first-year college students would no doubt agree with Jago on this point. (Language about quantity in reading can be found on page 1-A of the document.)

Jago also credits the draft for giving more attention to "independent reading," which she describes as a critical skill needed for success in college, or on the job. "Students need to be able to pick up a challenging, fat book and know how to approach it, read it, and learn from it," she argued. "Students should be reading whole biographies like David McCullough's John Adams and historical books like Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror as well as novels and plays."

Will Fitzhugh, the founder of The Concord Review, who often comments on this and other EdWeek blogs, said the draft should have placed greater stress on nonfiction documents and research papers. Students are routinely asked to read scholarly articles in college, yet they're often befuddled by the structure, and the unfamiliar, jargon-filled language. (The standards do include several nonfiction works, I should note, such as Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," as well as excerpts from business and science documents.)

Standards "that don't include a research paper or a single nonfiction book are not preparing them for college," Fitzhugh told me. As written, the document "is not going to raise any standards."

Fitzhugh has a big interest in that sort of scholarship, albeit from a different angle. His journal, based in Massachusetts, describes itself as the "only quarterly journal in the world to publish the academic research papers of secondary students."

And for those of you who can't get enough of standards talk, EdWeek is hosting a live, online chat tomorrow, Tuesday, at 2 p.m. Eastern time, moderated by my colleague Michele McNeil. Readers are invited to submit questions a half hour before the chat begins, and our two guests are certainly equipped to answer them: Dane Linn, of the National Governors Association, which is helping lead the common standards project; and Alan Farstrup, the former executive director of the International Reading Association.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:41 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

The U.S. Department of State continues to have persistent shortages of staff with critical language skills, despite the fact that such skills help to advance U.S. policy and economic interests around the world, says Jess T. Ford, the director of international affairs and trade for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, in testimony released last week by that office. He says the gaps are particularly high in Afghanistan, where 33 of 45 officers in language-designated positions don't meet the requirement, and in Iraq, where 8 of 14 officers lack adequate language skills.

The statement gives several specific examples of how some State Department staff are not best able to represent the United States because of their lack of language skills, including the fact that officers aren't invited to certain events that would enable them to expand their contacts. It also says intelligence gathering may be hindered because local informants are reluctant to communicate through local interpreters.

Ford recommends in his statement that the Secretary of State create a comprehensive strategic plan to meet the nation's foreign-language requirements.

The report makes no mention of how elementary and secondary schools could possibly help to increase the number of people in this country who speak both English and another language that is critically needed for State Department posts in places such as Afghanistan or Iraq.

But the National Research Council, an entity chartered by the U.S. Congress, criticized the U.S. Department of Education in a report two years ago for not having a "master plan or unifying strategic vision" for the teaching of foreign languages and culture.

So now we have recommendations for at least two federal departments to create strategic plans for this area of education.

Ford's statement in the GAO letter doesn't emphasize financial resources. But every time I talk with people in K-12 education about the need to create a pipeline of students with high proficiency in foreign languages, they express the need for the federal government to step in with more funds for foreign-language programs.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

"Creation," a movie that focuses on Charles Darwin's groundbreaking scientific work and his questions about religious faith, has found a U.S. distributor, after something of a wait.

The British-made film, which stars Paul Bettany as Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Emma, will be distributed on this side of the pond by a company specializing in independent films, Newmarket. A story in the Hollywood Reporter has details. Landing a U.S. distributor potentially increases the biopic's reach into many more theaters. Newmarket has been involved in several notable films, the Reporter says, including "Memento" and "The Passion of the Christ." The film's inability to find a U.S. distributor was lamented by scientists, and by the film's own producer, Jeremy Thomas, who, according to the U.K.'s Telegraph, said he believed the delays were due to anticipated opposition from religious conservatives.

"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America," Thomas is quoted as saying. "There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules."

It looks as if filmmakers have cleared that hurdle now. In a statement, Newmarket officials said they were aware that the film might raise hackles about those who don't accept evolutionary theory, but they felt that "Creation" was too good to pass up:

"We at Newmarket pride ourselves in getting behind important films that help open the door for discussion and conversation, as is the case with 'Creation,' said Newmarket's Chris Ball. " While Darwin's name has come to symbolize one side of a debate between the scientific and the theological, 'Creation' depicts the man as the debate in total, with both sides contending, sometimes violently, within him. In that sense, we believe that the film will appeal to people of faith and people of science."

Photo of Bettany, as Darwin, for the film "Creation."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:10 AM | Permalink | 6 Comments | Recommend

The leaders of an effort to draft common, college-and-career readiness standards have named members of a "validation committee," charged with giving final review to the document. That project is being directed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, and a new draft is now out for public comment. The list includes a lot of names familiar to devoted EdWeek readers, among them scholars and experts in all sorts of education policy areas.

A few of the recognizables: Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University professor and adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign; Lauren Resnick, professor of psychology and cognitive science at the University of Pittsburgh; and, coming to us from Paris, Andreas Schleicher, head of indicators and analysis for the education directorate of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.

Interestingly, Schleicher is just one of several on the list who has background in international standards and country-by-country comparisons. William Schmidt, of Michigan State, is another. Also included: Barry McGaw, a professor of education at the University of Melbourne, in Australia, who's the OECD's director of education.

Some of those named have previously served on separate "feedback" panels, named over the summer, tasked with reviewing earlier drafts of the document. Members of the validation committee were nominated by state and national organizations; final selection was made by a team of six governors and six state education chiefs, according to the CCSSO and NGA.

I'm told that the full list will be posted on the Common Core standards site soon.

On a related topic: In case you missed it, the New York Times staged an online forum this week with comments from various scholars and interested parties on standards. The Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey, Sandra Stotsky of the University of Arkansas, and others offer their thoughts.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

One of the nation's best-known environmental organizations has released a report that it believes makes a strong case that providing students with more time outdoors increases their academic preparation and success.

The report, "Time Out: Using the Outdoors to Enhance Classroom Performance," released by the National Wildlife Federation, offers a compendium of research on the link between outdoor time and student learning. Oftentimes, the key step in getting students outside is turning off the TV or the computer monitor.

The report draws not only from case studies and other documents related to student performance, but also from medical studies and surveys. Limiting outdoor time can reduce students' attention spans and increase their aggressive behavior, the report says. It can also improve academic performance and maybe even promote better eyesight, according to the document. The report offers tips for parents and policymakers looking for ways to increase the amount of time children spend outdoors.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:39 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

I've been backlogged with a couple assignments recently, so I didn't have time to give my impressions of "Two Million Minutes: A 21st Century Solution," a film that debuted in Washington late last week. I attended the premiere. The crowd included a lot of business representatives and education-policy types, though the big-ticket draws were probably the Rev. Al Sharpton and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The unlikely duo have moving through the talk-show and public-appearance circuit, talking about the need to improve American schools, among other things. They came in support of the documentary, which is a sequel to a similarly themed 2007 film.

Both men addressed the audience after the showing, and they directed some good-natured jabs at the other. Said Sharpton, while musing about politics making strange bedfellows: "When you roll over on the bed one morning and Newt's on the other side of you, it can be a little traumatic."

In the spirit of journalistic objectivity (I reported on the film's release last week), I'll refrain from writing a review. I'll just make some general observations, and invite the comments of others who've seen the film, or its predecessor.

Like the first "Two Million Minutes," the film makes the argument that U.S. students are performing at a mediocre level, at best, in math and science, and that this cannot stand, given the growing economic and educational might of nations like China and India. Unlike the earlier film, this one makes that case through a profile of a single school—BASIS Tucson, a charter school in Arizona—and scaffolds out from there. BASIS is depicted as a high-performing, pioneering school that has succeeded despite initial community opposition and relatively meager state financial support, which caused all sorts of problems for the founders in the beginning and creates continued budgetary woes to this day. The kids at BASIS are not math-and-science drones. They're presented as smart and engaged—with interests ranging from dance and roller derby to art and fire-juggling (I kid you not). One key difference in the school's approach appears to be that very advanced concepts in math and science and other subjects are integrated as far back as middle school. (The school serves grades 5-12.) The curriculum is demanding; the filmmakers interview students who struggled to keep up after arriving from lesser schools, but who eventually made it.

The film features interviews with the recently retired chairman of Intel, Craig Barrett, and former Arizona schools superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan, both of whom argue that the current educational system is not cutting it. It also includes some direct and indirect jabs and teachers' unions and teachers' colleges; at one point a narrator refers to the education "bureaucrats" who "keep our children locked in the 20th Century."

In one segment, Barrett, who has a Ph.D. in materials science, and who and taught at Stanford University for 10 years, remarks that he wouldn't be allowed to teach in a California public school without going back and picking up certification. Keegan, who was also an adviser to Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, praises Teach for America. One of the BASIS school's founders talks about how she rewards teachers not only with financial incentives for student performance on AP tests, but also with the promise that they'll be given autonomy in the classroom. She praises the College Board for creating a "community of Advanced Placement teachers," held to similarly high standards.

I suspect that reaction to "Two Million Minutes" will depend on viewers' willingness to buy a premise. Actually, two of them: 1) That the United States' education system is falling behind those of high-performing nations (not everyone buys that argument); and 2) that the story of what ails the United States' schools, and the answer to how they can be improved, can be told through the story of a single school. The filmmakers obviously believe it can. Here's a school, as they present it, that through determination and a willingness to fight through the constraints of the public school establishment, produces some of the world's best K-12 students.

Other viewers could be more skeptical. For instance, I wonder about the reaction from principals and teachers at other top-notch public schools, whose curricular approach, teacher corp, and governance is much different than the Arizona charter's. They might read the message in the film's trailer—"The world has outpaced us, and the solution is right here in America"—and respond: "The solution is in America. And not only at BASIS Charter."

There are probably plenty of EdWeek readers who will be sitting through showings of "Two Million Minutes" at schools, colleges, and other settings in the weeks and months ahead. Here's an invitation for them to play film critic, on this blog.

Photo courtesy of NASA.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:27 PM | Permalink | 20 Comments | Recommend

A new version of the Common Core multistate standards has been released for public consumption. Many of the biggest changes were made in the language arts section, as opposed to the math, as I reported in my story today.

The new draft greatly expands the number of "illustrative texts," meant to show reading materials at the level of complexity that students need to be ready for on-campus studies and life in the labor market. The Declaration of Independence is in there, as was the case with the earlier draft, but so are documents like the Rev. Martin Luther King's 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," written to ministers and others who had been critical of him. Check out the Common Core documents to see more of those texts. The authors are quick to point out that this is not meant to be a prescriptive "reading list" for states.

The Council of Great City Schools is out the gate with a positive response to the latest draft. The organization says it offered comments on the early draft, and it even suggests that some of the big cities it represents might serve as "initial test sites" for implementing the standards.

UPDATE: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who has offered states a financial carrot to adopt common standards through Race to the Top funding, speaks favorably of the revised document:

"I applaud the leadership of this coalition of states in joining together to develop a common core of academic standards. The draft college- and career-ready standards that were released today as part of those efforts are an important step forward, and it is now in the hands of the public to provide critical feedback to state leadership. There is no work more important than preparing our students to compete and succeed in a global economy, and it is to the credit of these states that this work is getting done."

The American Federation of Teachers also likes what it sees. The union's president, Randi Weingarten, who has spoken favorably of creating national standards in the past, said AFT representatives had looked over an earlier draft, and the views of teachers are being taken seriously.

"We expect to see even more teacher input during the comment period and in future efforts to develop standards to guide the work of K-12 teachers," Weingarten said in a statement. "We encourage math and language arts teachers from across the country to make suggestions throughout this process...The question is: Do these standards reflect what we expect our children to know and what they should be able to do upon graduation, whether they enter the workforce or go onto college? We realize the answer is far from simple, but these standards are a solid first step."

Lynne Munson, of the group Common Core (not to be confused with the group drafting the standards) advocates for students receiving a content-rich curriculum. She likes the changes from the earlier draft, particularly the inclusion of more illustrative texts. But she questions why business memos, newspaper pages , and the like appear alongside passages of literature and historical documents. "It would be hard to imagine that someone who could master Austen, Whitman, and King would struggle to grasp the contents of a homepage, front page, or a memo on medical benefits," she writes in a blog post. "Sure, these resemble the kind of reading people must navigate daily, but school is a time when you encounter uncommon works of enduring value. The standards make that point, but more obliquely than they should."

Photo of MLK, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:10 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

Steve Robinson, a math and science adviser at the U.S. Department of Education, will be working out of the White House. Robinson will still be officially a part of the department of ed, but he will going about his business from the White House's Domestic Policy Council. My colleague Michele McNeil explains it all on Politics K-12.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

When Louisiana officials recently passed a new law governing the classroom materials that can be used to cover evolution lessons, some predicted that controversy—and possibly lawsuits—would follow. Now a committee of the state board of education has signed off on new rules that seek to clarify how complaints and challenges stemming from the law will be handled in school districts.

Whether those rules clarify things, or merely roil the waters on the bayou, remains to be seen.

Here's the background:

Last year, Louisiana's legislature and Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal enacted a law that allows teachers to use supplemental classroom materials that will help students "analyze, critique, and review" scientific theories, including evolution. (The law also says teachers can use those materials for discussions of the "origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.") The measure specifies that teachers can use materials "as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board," but it also left it to Louisiana's Elementary and Secondary Board of Education to create rules and regulations for carrying out the law.

That's what a committee of the board recently set out to do. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate, which has been doggedly following the issue, if a parent or member of the public complains about a supplementary material, a five-member panel will be set up to review that objection. The panel will consist of two reviewers named by the department and one reviewer each named by the challenger, the school, and the publisher, according to the story. The panel is supposed to judge the materials on whether they "promote any religious doctrine," are "scientifically sound," and are grade-appropriate.

How do you foresee the new law playing out in Louisiana's science classrooms? Will the state's review process resemble what went on in Texas this year, with the state board debating the merits of the language in standards and textbooks? Given that seemingly any Louisiana district could propose a supplementary material—and anybody could challenge its scientific basis—will state hearings on these issues become a regular thing?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:00 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | Recommend

Hi folks. The Curriculum Matters blog will be closed for some technical upgrades on Saturday, Sept. 19. Check back with us on Sunday, Sept. 20. We should be rolling again shortly.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 7:57 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Back in August, my colleague Debbie Viadero blogged about a study that showed students recall more factual information when they read text and watch a movie about a historical event rather than if they only read about it. But the researchers for the study also pointed out that when historical movies have errors, and they document that many do, students are more likely to remember the film version, even if it's wrong.

Now Washington University in St. Louis, where the researchers who conducted the study work, has put out a press release about the study that includes a link to a slide show with historical inaccuracies in nine movies.

The 1984 movie "Amadeus," for example, depicts music composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as childish and vulgar when, in fact, no evidence shows he was like that in public. In fact, it's believed he had impeccable manners when relating to royalty and had a professional manner with colleagues, the researchers say.

I think the slide show would be a good tool to use with high school students to send the message that when they watch a historical movie, they should be skeptical about its accuracy.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

If you're worried about the ongoing ruckus over social studies standards in Texas devolving into a "Chavez vs. Franklin"-style battle, you might have legitimate concern, judging from this summary in the Associated Press.

The Texas state board of education is slated to discuss the proposed standards at a hearing today. Known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, the standards guide textbook content and testing. Earlier this year, an expert panel working on the standards recommended that the attention paid to labor-rights activist Cesar Chavez be minimized and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall be reduced, relative to figures like Ben Franklin, according to the AP. My colleague Mary Ann Zehr weighed in on the Texas debate last month.

The state board is considering changes to the proposed standards that would refer to the United States as a republic instead of a democracy and require students to be able to "identify prominent conservatives such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly," the AP says. The story suggests that some advocacy groups and others are counting liberal and conservative historical figures, in gathering evidence that one side or another is getting ignored.

"Liberals overwhelmingly outnumber those who are publicly known as conservatives," David Barton, a Republican activist on the board-appointed advisory panel, wrote in board documents about the proposals, according to the AP. The story says that he "counted 16 liberals in classroom lessons, including former President Bill Clinton, farmworkers' advocate Dolores Huerta, and feminist Betty Friedan, to seven conservatives, such as former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor."

Earlier this year, the board approved new science standards after a prolonged fight over the teaching of evolution. Not long afterward, Texas legislators voted to change the leadership of the state board of ed, a move aimed at reducing what some of them saw as an overly narrow focus on divisive cultural issues.

Wonder what those legislators are thinking now.

Photo of Cesar Chavez by Joel Levine

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The organization Common Core, which calls for giving students strong grounding across academic disciplines, has organized an open letter critiquing the program put forward by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and calling for the group to revise its goals.

That letter is signed by some big names in education policy, including Randi Weingarten, of the American Federation of Teachers; education historian Diane Ravitch; Core Knowledge founder E.D. Hirsch Jr.; Chester Finn, of the Fordham Foundation; and John Silber, the retired president of Boston University. Some of those people have been on record previously as opposing the 21st-century-skills push.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, as we've discussed in the pages of EdWeek, promotes the cultivation of a broad range of critical-thinking, creative, and analytical skills among students, including technological know-how, as well as "soft skills," in areas such as communication. Those skills are vital to succeeding on the job and in life, the organization argues, and schools should nurture them. Supporters of that approach say they are not overlooking the importance of hard-and-fast academic content, but critics of the skills movement have not been assuaged.

In its open letter, titled "A Challenge to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills," the letter-writers say the approach of the Partnership, or P21, "marginalizes knowledge and therefore will deny students the liberal education they need." They add that "skills can neither be taught nor applied effectively without prior knowledge of a wide array of subjects."

The letter accuses P21 of attempting to "teach skills apart from knowledge," and calls for the program to be "fundamentally revised." As it now stands, it is "undermining the quality of education in America."

While the AFT's Weingarten's name is on the letter, her objections are definitely not shared by the 3.2 million-member National Education Association. The NEA is a founding member of P21, the union's executive director, John Wilson, noted in an e-mail, when I asked him for comment. Wilson took a dim view of the letter, which he said mischaracterizes P21's agenda.

"This group continues to amaze me," he said of the letter-writers, "that they would pit core knowledge against 21st-century skills, when our students need both. ... I have witnessed first- hand teachers using 21st-century skills and new technology to enhance the teaching of core subjects. To relegate today’s students to rows of desks, a teacher at the front of the classroom espousing content, and a textbook with paper and pencil is to guarantee that our students will be left with the lowest skills and the lowest-paying jobs."

Ken Kay, the president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, had this response in an e-mail: "We have never advocated, in any context, the teaching of 21st century skills separate from content. It is clear that you can’t just teach students to think, you have to teach them to critically think, problem solve and innovate about something – knowledge is the base of learning."

Added Kay: "Why don’t we all agree on an agenda of improving curriculum, assessment and professional development to ensure students acquire deep content knowledge and at the same time develop the skills vital to success in today’s world?"

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 5:05 PM | Permalink | 10 Comments | Recommend

Can’t get enough of all this talk of national or common or multistate standards? The College Board has plenty of new reading material for you.

The New York City-based nonprofit, probably best known for its work sponsoring the SAT, has released its first-ever science standards for college readiness, known as Science Standards for College Success. The 242-page document seeks to outline crucial science knowledge, and how it can be used and broken down into the 6-8 and 9-12 grade spans. College Board officials, who have a major role in the ongoing “Common Core” effort to create college-readiness standards in language arts and math, hope that the science document will serve as a resource for teachers, districts, and states around the country.

The College Board has created similar documents for language arts, math, and statistics. The science document is not meant to serve solely as a suggested academic path toward Advanced Placement courses, which are designed by the College Board, but rather to help students meet the “overarching goal of college readiness," as the organization puts it. In their introduction to the document, the authors explain that the new standards are “more purposefully targeted than many standards documents because they are deliberately aligned with expectations for entrance into college-level science courses and because they include performance expectations (PEs) that specify how content knowledge is to be used and developed through reasoning and in problem-solving.” Performance expectations describe how students should "use and build their science knowledge to accomplish a goal or task," the document states.

The standards, which have been in the works since 2006, were constructed with the advice of a committee made up of middle and high school teachers, college subject-matter experts, testing gurus, teacher education faculty, and others with knowledge of science learning and standards-building.

When I recently interviewed Francis Eberle, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, I asked him for his thoughts on the College Board document. While he had not studied it closely, Eberle said that the basic structure of the document looked similar to some of the more prominent science standards out there—by which he meant that it seemed primarily organized around particular disciplines, such as earth science, physical science, chemistry, and so on. Another way to organize science standards, which has received some attention in recent years, is around core ideas, like the nature of matter, or evolution. (The College Board document does have a specific section called "Unifying Concepts," which include evolution, matter and energy, scientific models, and other topics.) To the extent that the College Board document encourages students' girding themselves for college-level science early in K-12, Eberle said that's a good thing.

“We really need to think about standards in terms of a pre-K through 16 system,” Eberle told me. Yet he also suggested that as K-12 systems look to retool their science standards, higher education institutions, if they really want to retain more students in science studies, need to re-examine their teaching methods and curricula, too.

“The assumption is that what’s done in college is correct," Eberle said. "I think that’s an open question.”

Photo of Huntsville, Ala., student by Dave Martin for EdWeek

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Readers of EdWeek will recall the hubbub over a 2007 film that warned of U.S. schools losing their competitive edge to those in China and India. Now a sequel to that documentary, which takes a different approach to the topic, is coming to the big screen.

It's called "Two Million Minutes: A 21st Century Solution." Unlike the first film, which profiled individual students in the United States, China, and India, this documentary singles out a top-notch charter school serving students of modest means, which nonetheless challenges them in math and science. In my story for EdWeek, I interview the film's executive producer, entrepreneur Robert Compton, who describes his motivation for making the film, and its message.

The first film drew criticism from some viewers who said it overhyped China's and India's educational gains, while not giving U.S. schools enough credit. Compton doesn't sound like he's backing away from that premise in his new film, but rather taking it in a new direction.

The film's trailer will give you a taste of what it's about.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 12:46 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

A new magazine is geared toward getting students charged up about engineering studies by going to where young people live and breathe: the Internet.

The American Society for Engineering Education has launched eGFI —Engineering: Go For It, a digital magazine with a bevy of online features, which includes articles on engineering's role in the workplace and the world, videos, search engines, and links to Twitter and Facebook.

The digital magazine grew out of an online version of a print product offered by the ASEE, which is based in Washington. That magazine circulates to about 400,000 readers, said Bob Black, ASEE's deputy executive director. On the new site, students can search for a topic—say, alternative energy or biomedical engineering—and they'll be provided with articles, videos, and other relevant links. The goal is to create a resource for both students and teachers to use in class, and for young students to look at in their spare time, Black told me.

The ASEE plans to rework the site continually to draw more young people in. One idea the organization is kicking around is to arrange engineering contests online. Another is to stage regular quizzes, with prizes for students.

Going online, and building upon existing features, gives the magazine "wider appeal," Black said. "The great thing about the Internet is it's dynamic."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Math and science teachers shaping federal education policy? It's happening through the Einstein fellowship program, which I wrote about this week.

The program allows K-12 educators in math- and science related fields to come to Washington, D.C., for one-year stints, where they work in Capitol Hill offices or in federal agencies. Most of them go back to the classroom. Some of them stay, like Steve Robinson, who worked as a fellow for former Sen. Barack Obama and now serves as a math and science adviser in his administration.

Photo of Einstein fellow Ed Potosnak, who works in Rep. Mike Honda's office, by Christopher Powers of EdWeek.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:39 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

An organization of state officials has sharply criticized recently proposed standards to test students across the country in technological literacy, saying that without changes to the current draft, the document will "cause confusion across the nation" and ultimately "not have a positive impact on students and education."

The State Educational Technology Directors Association, or SETDA, warns that the proposed tech-lit framework for the National Assessment of Educational Progress defines skills in that area in a much different way than what is currently being used in the states. States are required to report on their definitions of tech literacy, SETDA officials say, as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, Title II, Part D, and in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The mismatch could lead to "detrimental effects for policy, funding, and educational outcomes," according to SETDA's board of directors, in a letter to the governing board.

The National Assessment Governing Board, for those who don't know, is an independent panel that sets policy for the NAEP test. It released a draft of the tech-lit framework (basically, a blueprint for writing the exam) earlier this summer. It's not unusual for the board to receive feedback—sometimes strongly worded feedback—on draft frameworks, a testament to NAEP's influence over testing and curriculum around the country.

All states have already created their own definitions of tech-literacy, the letter says. Their primary sources have been definitions established by SETDA and the International Society for Technology in Education, according to the letter. The proposed NAEP framework breaks tech literacy into three, interconnected areas: design and systems; information and communication technology; and technology and society. That three-part definition, SETDA says, does not mesh what the states have established, which have been in place for at least seven years.

If the three proposed areas of NAEP tech literacy are reported to the public as one test score, those results "will not have any relevance to the states' adopted definitions of technological literacy or reported results," which will "cause confusion across states and by federal policy-makers," the authors of the letter assert.

SETDA asks the governing board to consider two-part solution: Divide the NAEP tech-literacy assessment into the three sections being proposed and report them separately, rather than as a composite score. That way, they won't "conflict with federal laws or state and national efforts." The letter-writers also want the test to be given a name that clearly spells out what the NAEP is testing in tech-lit, like "technology and engineering" or "technology and innovation."

Defining tech literacy is tough to do. My former colleague Andrew Trotter laid out many of the longstanding debates over tech terminology, and turf, in a story earlier this year. What do you make of SETDA's concerns, and of the proposed NAEP framework overall?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 1:35 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

When the title of the article is “Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule the School,” it’s safe to assume that the author is not buying the prevailing line about the United States’ shortcomings in those subjects, and their alleged consequences for society. Mark Slouka, in a piece in published in this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine, derides the continuous “ritual” of pointing out new crises in math and science, a campaign that he says is being pushed along by corporate America with uncritical assistance from politicians, colleges and universities, and the news media.

Slouka is not arguing that math and science are not important. His point is that business and political leaders have become so intent at revamping those subjects in the name of job creation, economic prosperity, national security and so on, that they ignore that vital role that the humanities play in encouraging students to think critically and function as active, intelligent members of a civic society. “The humanities, in short, are a superb delivery mechanism for what me might call democratic values,” Slouka said. “There is no better that I am aware of.”

About the current wave of interest in improving students’ math and science skills, he writes:

"Typically, the call to arms comes from the business community. We’re losing our competitive edge, sounds the cry. Singapore is pulling ahead. The president swings into action. He orders up a blue-chip commission of high-ranking business executives (the 2006 Commission on the Future of Higher Education, led by business executive Charles Miller, for example) to study the problem and come up with “real world” solutions.

Thus empowered, the commission crunches the numbers, notes the depths to which we’ve sunk, and emerges into the light to underscore the need for more accountability. To whom? Well, to business, naturally. To whom else would you account? And that’s it, more or less. Cue the curtain. The commission’s president answers all reasonable questions. Eventually, everyone goes home and gets with the program.”

But it’s a shortsighted point of view, Slouka argues:

“The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult—to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization—not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do but how to be."

The humanities “complicate our vision, pull our most cherished notions out by the roots, flay our pieties,” he says. Grounding students in the humanities moreover, is “value—and cheap at the price,” Slouka adds. “This is utility of a higher order. Considering where the rising arcs of our ignorance and our deference lead, what could represent a better investment?”

Slouka is, of course, hardly the only observer to warn of the downside for U.S. schools focusing on core academic subjects without giving sufficient time to history, literature, social studies, and the arts. I recently reported on the work of some scholars who believe that the roots of innovation and creativity in math and science rise are made stronger by the cultivation of arts and music skill.

Slouka’s point is different: not that the humanities are important because they build a math and science workforce, but because they build the individual, and build a better democratic society. What do you make of his arguments?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:42 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

From Guest Blogger Stephen Sawchuk

Move over Education Equity Project and Broader Bolder, there's a new coalition in town!

Called Rethink Learning Now, this group of philanthropic organizations, civil rights groups, and education groups supports three pillars of education reform: "learning," teaching," and "fairness." It envisions a policy agenda for education that is based on promoting high-quality learning conditions and effective teaching, and equal opportunities for all kids to have a great education.

It has a bunch of rather sensational public service announcements up on its Web site (grade school kids in orange jail jumpers and an NFL-like draft for teacher recruiting, for instance).

You will not, I expect, be surprised to learn that this coalition already features a testimonial from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Duncan, famously, was a signer of both the EEP and BB manifestos before winning the top ED job.

The group plans to add a variety of other testimonials about what makes for a conducive environment for teaching and learning and then plans to cull common features from those testimonials.

All that said and done, this coalition's thrust sounds decidedly more in line with the BB group, which has been critical of the role of standardized testing in today's climate, than that of the EEP group. Witness lines like this on the Rethink Learning Now Web site: "We can end the nationwide culture of testing, and create a national culture of learning instead." Or, "Good teaching is about more than preparing students to take a test."

Partners now include the NAACP, the Forum for Education and Democracy, and the Public Education Network.

There isn't a lot of information about where the financial backing for all this is coming from (those PSAs do not look cheap), but a spokeswoman for the group told me that this is a Ford Foundation-sponsored effort.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 2:48 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

As the United States commemorates the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, teachers have an increasing number of resources available to help them to create lessons focused on the events of that day, and their implications for the country.

My reading of various materials put together by teachers and advocacy groups suggest that educators have more options available today than they did three or four years ago. Back then, as my colleague Kathleen Manzo reported, teachers were often left cobbling together lessons about 9-11 on their own. I profiled a teacher in a New Jersey school who had, in the wake of Sept. 11, crafted a vocational curriculum that was tied to public safety, emergency response, and national security.

The classroom resources that have floated across my computer screen in recent weeks include an interdisciplinary curriculum created by the Sept. 11 Education Trust, a nonprofit group representing survivors of the attacks and their families, and the Social Studies School Service, a commercial provider of education products.

The two groups created a multimedia curriculum that can be used as independent lessons or as a yearlong course of study, made up of seven curriculum units. The resources include 70 first-person interviews with survivors, victim’s families, and public officials. The curriculum also includes interview transcripts, a video timeline of the day, lesson plans, an interactive Web site, student handouts, and activities that focus on acts of public service and civic participation.

In an Associated Press story about the unveiling of the curriculum in New York schools, the executive director of the Sept. 11 Education Trust suggests that some of the images in the materials are difficult to watch. “We're not sugarcoating the event," he said. “"We've included images that are challenging

I would imagine that K-12 teachers face several questions in creating lessons based on the 9/11 attacks. An obvious one is how to choose age-appropriate lessons. Another is deciding how broad, or narrow, to make those lessons: How far should a teacher delve into the ideology of the attackers or expand the lesson into a broader discussion of U.S.-Middle East relations? An additional, very practical question comes to mind: Since the anniversary comes at the beginning of the school year, some teachers may think that their students don't have enough background on some of the national and international issues to discuss the attacks, and the U.S. response to them, with a sufficient level of depth.

For teachers who have led discussions of the 9/11 attacks in their classes, what was your approach? And what were the biggest challenges you faced in trying to stage a meaningful discussion?

Photo: Diane Massaroli of Staten Island, N.Y., holds a picture of her late husband, Michael Massaroli, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center, during a ceremony on Sept. 11 at ground zero to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York. Chris Hondros/AP

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Students in California may not have textbooks that tell about the election of the nation's first African-American president until well into the next decade because of the state's four-year suspension of its textbook adoption process, according to an article written by my colleague Kathleen Kennedy Manzo and published this week by edweek.org.

The article is about how California's budget cuts are affecting the school curriculum. The postponement of textbook adoption is a huge financial loss for publishers.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Would students take a stronger interest in math if they knew that an ancient African bone (from 20,000 B.C.) might be one of the world's oldest known counting tools? Or that the work of Muslim mathematicians was essential to the advancement of algebra? How about if they knew that Descartes was captivated by math's connections to science and philosophy? Or that he may have gained insight into applied math while serving in the army, as one historian I stumbled across suggests.

These questions came to mind when I saw a notice of a new scholarship that seeks to help math teachers who want to study the history of math at the college level and bring that knowledge back to their classrooms. Offered by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the scholarship will provide $3,000 to an interested educator. See this link for more details.

Over the years, I've seen a number of courses at schools of education that probe the history of math. What I'm less clear on is the extent to which these classes offer teachers practical guidance for blending these studies into their day-to-day lessons. A lot of people today argue that K-12 schools should be trying to find ways to make math seem more relevant to students by linking it to practical problem-solving situations in the workplace or in engineering. Could blending relevant examples of math's uses throughout history, even on a very limited scale—such as when a teacher is introducing a new concept—inspire a student? A student who might say, "You're telling me the Greeks used geometric shapes to solve algebraic problems?"

If you've seen examples of math history being used to make math content more interesting or clearer to students, let me know.

(Image of Descartes, courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The "UTeach" model for training aspiring math and science teachers will be launched at a state university outside of Dallas, as part of a growing effort to replicate the program on college campuses around the country.

UTeach, developed at the University of Texas at Austin, places an unusually strong emphasis on the recruitment of math and science majors to the teaching profession. It heavily involves faculty from the math and science departments at the Austin campus in teaching future educators in both core content and pedagogy—as opposed to leaving those duties to faculty from the education school—and it also gives enrollees a lot of exposure to the rigors of teaching through classroom observation. Backers of UTeach say its record of producing teachers who stick with the profession is especially strong; about 80 percent are still in their teaching jobs after 5 years, according to program officials.

A few years ago, a nonprofit in Dallas, the National Math and Science Initiative, set out to replicate that model around the country by offering to give grant support to teacher colleges to refashion their systems in the UTeach approach. This week, the NMSI awarded a $1.4 million grant to establish a UTeach-style program at the University of Texas at Arlington. Much of the funding will come from the Texas Instruments Foundation and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. The CEO of NMSI is Tom Luce, who served as a top education official in the administration of President George W. Bush.

In addition, existing UTeach-style programs at the University of North Texas and UT-Dallas will be expanded, with the backing of the TI Foundation.

Since 2007, the UTeach model has been replicated at 13 institutions around the country with NMSI support. By the initiative's count, that means 1,500 math and science majors have joined the profession.

If you're at a campus that has implemented the UTeach model, what have been the results so far? What are the drawbacks and benefits to overhauling a teacher education system? Is it worth the investment?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The National Council on Teacher Quality has argued that the courses offered by teacher colleges to prepare elementary math teachers are impractical, vague, and both short on math content and the specific training necessary to get math concepts across to students.

Now NCTQ is offering a new Web site meant as a resource for college faculty and others involved in shaping college elementary math courses. It includes recommendations about specific topics math-aspiring teachers should be taught, as well as specific math textbooks and syllabi the Washington-based organization deems to be of high quality.

One model set of syllabi cited is that of Louisiana State University; another that receives a plug is from the University of Georgia. There are others. NCTQ is inviting college faculty to submit other course materials it believes make the grade. In some cases, the organization says it's looking for syllabi that support particular textbooks it rates highly. The NCTQ is also trying to collect what it calls "hybrid" course materials that "combine content and methods instruction."

To get a better sense of NCTQ's standards for judging the quality of a teacher program in elementary math, see the organization's report titled "No Common Denominator: The Preparation of Elementary Teachers in Mathematics by America's Education Schools."

The audience for the Web resource are instructors at the nation's teacher colleges, who train thousands of elementary teachers annually, an NCTQ official told me. One question I had was how much discretion these instructors would have to change the coursework or syllabi they follow from year to year; NCTQ officials evidently believe faculty have enough sway that it's worth reaching out to them.

If you're immersed in an elementary teacher education program, I'll pose a question to you: How satisfied are you with the curriculum you're following, and where does it fall short? (Maybe you'll tell me you won't know until you are actually a teacher in your own classroom.) After looking at NCTQ's model coursework, how much of a departure would this approach represent for you in terms of the training you're receiving now in math?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:05 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

As nations around the globe, including the United States, attempt to crawl out of a deep recession, the evidence suggests they would be wise to invest in education because of the strong economic payoff it brings across their societies and to individual workers, a new report says.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, makes that case in a new report, "Education at a Glance,” which offers comparisons across countries in various educational and economic indicators.

Part of the reason that encouraging students to stick with K-12 education and pursue higher education, the authors say, is that despite some glimmers of an economic rebirth, unemployment is likely to remain high for some time. If recent high school graduates or college students can further their training, rather than seeking out a job that may not be there, that’s a sound investment, according to the report. And OECD’s data show a strong payoff from education: A male worker who obtains a college education, on average, earns $186,000 more in gross earnings benefits over a lifetime than a worker who does not, in the nations studied.

How does the United States compare? For American males who obtain a college education, the difference in the lifetime payoff is $367,000, according to the OECD, the highest gross earnings payoff among the industrialized nations studied. It’s $229,000 for females.

The OECD, which is based in Paris, notes that while governments invest significant public funding in college education, private investment exceeds public spending in this area in most of the nations studied. Students in the United States are asked to pay a greater amount, about $90,000, in direct and indirect costs, such as lost earnings, than students in any other country evaluated. Tuition fees in the United States are also the highest of any country, the report says. In the United States, tuition costs, as opposed to lost earnings, make up a significant chunk of that private investment.

The report is not meant to provide a “policy prescription,” Andreas Schleicher, the head of indicators and analysis for OECD's education division, explained in an e-mail.

“What it shows is that the net present value of the total public economic benefit of higher education is significantly larger than the total public economic costs,” he said. “We infer from this that public investment in higher education bears high returns, particularly in countries where high private costs may be the bottleneck for expanding higher education participation."

That does not mean the OECD is telling these countries that they should spend more on higher education, he added.

On the whole, there has been a strong growth worldwide in the share of people seeking something beyond simply compulsory education, the OECD reports. The growth has been especially “dynamic” in the area of early-childhood education. In 1996, 41 percent of children 4 or younger were enrolled in educational institutions, the report says. In 2001, the proportion had risen to 71 percent. The authors note in that in Sweden, the share went from 40 percent to 98 percent, “virtually universal.” The United States ranks relatively low in its rate of growth in this area, though that is partly the result of the large gains made by other nations that had very little early-childhood education, Schleicher explained in an interview. Early-childhood enrollment rose from 34 percent in the United States in 1996 to 50 percent today, in the age group studied, the OECD says (table C.1.1).

The report also notes the discrepancies in how nations spend money on education. The United States, for instance, spends relatively little on teachers’ salaries, despite its high overall spending on schools. The United States instead spends a lot on capital investments in education and compensation for nonteaching staff, relatively speaking, the OECD says. While below-average teacher salaries and above-average teacher working time push spending down, longer student-learning hours and below-average class sizes bring it up, the report finds.

I've simply touched on a few highlights here. When you've looked at your favorite indicator, give me your read on the data.

(Photo courtesy of NASA)

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I know that you’ve read a lot of accounts, in EdWeek’s pages and elsewhere, of Singapore’s prowess in math and science, not to mention vocational education. But this profile of Singapore's education system in the Miami Herald is definitely worth the time. It's written by Andres Oppenheimer, best known for his coverage of Latin America. His story is a reminder (for journalists as well as education policy types) of the power of a salient detail.

Singapore’s obsession with education “even shows up on its dollar bills,” the author notes. “While U.S. and Latin American currencies portray images of national independence heroes, Singapore's 2-dollar bill—the most widely circulated since there is no smaller denomination —shows students in a classroom listening to a professor, with a university in the background. Underneath, there is just one word, 'Education.'''

Later, the author makes this observation about the heavy pressure in Singapore for students to succeed in education (though whether this feature is something countries should emulate is a matter of opinion): “U.S. expatriates here like to say that while America is a guilt-driven society, Singapore is a shame-driven society: Parents here dread others seeing their children doing poorly in school.”

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:00 AM | Permalink | 5 Comments | Recommend

President Obama is being criticized by Republicans for making a nationally broadcast speech at a school, which his critics allege is an attempt to “indoctrinate” students into his political philosophy.

I can’t help wondering if teachers and students in Iowa are watching all this with some curiosity and amusement.

Maybe the reaction in my native state is similar to what’s occurring among hard-core partisans around the country. I know that Iowa has an unusually outsized influence over presidential elections, but when I was growing up, the presence of national political figures at schools was a pretty routine thing. At my high school, I heard former President George H.W. Bush speak during my senior year, if memory serves me. (The school seemed to be swarming with Secret Service agents, some of whom we speculated were dressed up as students during the speech. These are the sorts of things teenagers obsess about.) Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, spoke there, too, for my high school graduation on June 3, 1990. (Thanks to Grinnell Senior High School for looking it up.) At the time, Harkin was locked in a tough re-election fight against Republican Tom Tauke, whom he eventually defeated. I can’t remember any objections to these visits from parents, students, or other members of the community from either party.

While I can't recall any presidential candidates stopping by my school during caucus season, an endless number of them stumped through my hometown and surrounding communities. My teachers sometimes encouraged us to go to these campaign events, regardless of the candidate's party tag, for in-class projects or extracurricular activities.

A lot of Iowa schools, in fact, actively seek to have students review and critique presidential candidates’ speeches and platforms as part of their lesson plans, as I reported in a story a few years ago. Back then, I visited the classroom of an enterprising teacher in a Des Moines suburb who had encouraged his students to doggedly court 2004 presidential candidates to make visits to their school. One candidate, Howard Dean, took them up on it. Of course, Obama’s critics seem to be arguing that his speech will have unprecedented reach (that's unclear) and that students were somehow being asked to approach his speech uncritically. It’s hard for me to imagine many teachers (or many parents, for that matter) encouraging that, especially given the state of political dialogue in this country today.

So I’ll broaden this discussion beyond Iowa’s borders. What memories do you have of a national political figure visiting your school? And under what circumstances? Graduation ceremony? Was it during a campaign? Was any mention made of his or her policies—and if not, then what did the politician have to say?

Photo of President Barack Obama at a Washington, D.C. charter school in February, by Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images-File. Undated photo of George H.W. Bush, above.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:34 AM | Permalink | 7 Comments | Recommend

As schools swing back into session, the Environmental Protection Agency, through its "Energy Star" program, is encouraging district leaders to consider energy-efficiency measures—touting them as steps that could be used to save teacher jobs and cover other costs. They're also inviting schools to incorporate more lessons about energy usage into school curriculum.

Under the "Teach Kids," link on this site, the Energy Star program has created resources for students, parents, and teachers, which include links for energy-related vocabulary terms (everything from "carbon footprint" to "photovoltaic cells" ), facts, lesson plans, and games that can be played at home and school. Energy Star is a joint effort run by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The EPA is also making a broader case for energy efficiency in schools. Among the agency's arguments: Districts spend $8 billion annually on heating, cooling, lighting, and energy-related costs, more than the amount spent on textbooks and computers combined. The agency also cites the specific savings raked in by school systems around the country, including Oregon's Gresham-Barlow district. That district cut energy savings by 48 percent, paring $1.3 million in costs—an amount equal to 24 full-time teachers' salaries, the EPA says. Over three years, the Council Rock school district in Pennsylvania cut $4.7 million in energy costs, the agency says.

The EPA would like to see more districts join its Energy Star Challenge, a pledge to reduce energy costs. About 2,000 schools have earned the agency's "Energy Star" label for superior energy efficiency so far.

If you're in a school district that has staggered under the weight of high energy bills, what options are you considering to reduce them? What are the barriers to making changes to your energy usage?

Photo of solar panels being installed on Walden III Middle and High School in Racine, Wis., by Mark Hertzberg/Journal Times/AP.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:39 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Over at my blog about English-language learners, Learning the Language, I discuss how many teachers don't spend much time teaching oral English to ELLs, particularly in the upper grades. My experiences in observing classrooms indicate that the teaching of speaking and listening often gets squeezed out of the curriculum.

It's very important for ELLs to practice speaking and listening in English, and I'm sure that some of you have these students in your classroom. But do you feel that all students can benefit from more of an emphasis on oral language, speaking well, or do you see this only as an issue for ELLs?

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:33 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

One of most common objections that gets lobbed at efforts to create national standards is that they will require state and local officials to give up control over curriculum to a centralized, federal bureaucracy.

Yet that perception is not reality, according to a study from Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

The report released last week, put together for Fordham by researchers from Michigan State University, added some potentially important insight and context to ongoing discussions of national, or common academic standards. The majority of 10 countries with national standards studied "incorporate elements of flexibility and are not based entirely on a top-down approach," the report says, but rather allow for heavy doses of regional and local authority.

We summarized some highlights from the report in this week's issue. A couple other points in the study worth noting:

—As the multistate, "common-core" standards effort rolls ahead, the study offers some of the clearest suggestions I've seen on the potential future role of the nation's premier test of student academic performance, NAEP. It says: "National assessments (including open-ended questions) should be administered at grades 4, 8, and12 every two years. Most countries do not test every year in every grade. Given that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) already tests U.S. students in grades 4, 8, and 12, we suggest retaining that pattern and testing every other calendar year. ... Eventually the 12th grade end-of-high-school assessment could become a high-stakes test with implications for college admissions, course assignment, and employment (as in Singapore, South Korea, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, and India). Such an assessment, of course, would have to be given annually."

As I read that, NAEP retains a very strong role in the scenario described by the authors. They also emphasize the importance of open-ended questions as promoting teaching and learning of reasoning and analytic and communication skills. While some European and Asian countries have shifted toward multiple-choice questions, partly because of cost, the authors also say that other nations they studied place a strong emphasis on open-ended items. Interestingly, in almost all the countries studied, teachers were expected to read and score those test items as part of their work responsibilities and for professional development.

—In a foreword to the report, Chester Finn, Mike Petrilli, and Amber Winkler mostly applaud the current "common core" venture, though they also say it will have to change to succeed. "As yet there’s not a durable organizational structure for the standards-setting and standards-revising process, much less one to operate an ongoing assessment system based on these processes. It’s all ad hoc. And that’s a big problem that needs to be fixed in short order lest the whole effort collapse under its own weight."

They go on: "Someone, or something, must 'own' these standards. That means enlisting first-class content experts, educators, and laypersons to develop them. Keeping them up to date and relevant. Adding other subjects."

How relevant are the experiences of other nations to a U.S.-based "common core"? And are the Fordham officials correct in their breakdown of what's needed in the time to come?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:15 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | Recommend

Parents and students in Broward County, Fla., were angered when a district form, sent out to collect information on race and ethnicity, included the term "negro" as a descriptor for African-Americans.

Officials in the big South Florida district sent out a revised form last week, but it wasn't enough to quell the outrage. One student organized a petition drive, according to a story in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The article says the loaded term was put in a student code of conduct book, which also listed "black," and "African-American" as acceptable descriptions.

What's interesting is the district's explanation for the mishap. The district says it was collecting racial data using new categories provided by Florida's state department of education. The state, in turn, says that it was using guidance for the racial descriptions provided by the federal Office of Management and Budget. It could be that the district and state were collecting this data as part of a complex, and much-debated new set of federal guidelines, aimed at bringing more precision to counts of race/ethnicity, particularly when it comes to multiracial students. But unless I'm missing something here, that doesn't really explain the use of the outdated term.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:33 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

The United States trails most industrialized nations in the amount of public spending on younger children, according to new data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD. This spending increases, however, as children get older, and the U.S. system outpaces other developed countries in resources channeled toward students in the 6-11 and 12-17 age groups.

While overall U.S. public spending on children ranks among the highest across the OECD, child poverty rates in the United States stand at 21.6 percent, nearly twice the OECD average, the report says. Public support for children, as measured in the study, includes cash benefits and tax credits for families, education, and childcare. It does not include public spending on health, according to the OECD report.

Educational attainment in the U.S. compares poorly to the average among those nations, it finds. Additionally, this country has higher rates of infant and child mortality and of low birth weight than the OECD average, the report finds.

To OECD officials, the message from the data is that the U.S. should spend more on young children and disadvantaged teenagers. "Despite the United States' strong research and policy tradition in the area of child well-being, too many American children are still behind," Simon Chapple, the co-author of the OECD report, said in a statement.

It's probably worth noting that, when OECD has released reports in the past, not all researchers have agreed with the Paris-based organization's policy ideas. Some observers, like Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution, have said the organization oversteps its bounds and strays into subjectivity when it issues policy recommendations in reports that put forward statistical data.

What's your view—are the OECD's latest findings on the money?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:30 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

I recently received an e-mail about the upcoming release of a new film about the life of Charles Darwin, and the personal turmoil he coped with on the path to his groundbreaking research on the theory of evolution. A major focus on the film, titled "Creation," is the British naturalist's difficulty reconciling his scientific discoveries with religion, and particularly the beliefs of his devoutly religious wife, Emma.

The film, which stars Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly (*bonus points* if you can name another film featuring both of them) as Charles and Emma Darwin, is based on on the book Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution. It was written by Randal Keynes, a conservationist and the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin. The title is a reference to Darwin's first daughter, Annie, who died at the age of 10, eight years before the publication of his landmark work on evolution: On the Origin of Species. The movie, by BBC Films, is scheduled for a Sept. 25 release, according to a Web site promoting it. It's coming out on the 150th anniversary of the year of the publication of Species, and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth.

Many biographies and accounts of Darwin's life and work have been released over the years, though it seems as though there's been much less interest in telling his story on screen. Ironically, one of the most publicized films to discuss evolution in recent years was Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," which made the case for intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. That film was widely panned by scientists as misleading in its depiction of evolutionary theory and its promotion of design.

I'll be very curious to see scientists' response to "Creation," and the film's exploration of how personal tragedy and inter-family relationships influenced Darwin's views of faith and reason, and his groundbreaking work. Of course, biologists, teachers, and others are likely to judge the film by another standard: Does it get the science right?

The filmmakers are also offering a series of educational resources for teachers, and students ages 14-18, aimed at helping with science lessons, as well as general studies and "critical thinking," according to a link on the promotional web site. Those materials include excerpts from historical documents, student worksheets, and other background materials.

* Bettany and Connelly worked together in "A Beautiful Mind," Hollywood's portrayal of the Princeton mathematician John Nash, and his struggles with schizophrenia.

UPDATE: One potentially important note about “Creation”: Despite its impressive cast, at this point, it doesn’t have a U.S. distributor, a representative for the film confirmed to me today. This could affect American audiences’ ability to find it. Judging from the e-mails I’ve received, there’s strong interest among some scientists in trying to ensure that the film makes it into as many theaters as possible, stateside.

In the above photo, courtesy of BBC Films, Darwin arrives in Tierra del Fuego during his exploratory scientific voyage aboard the Beagle.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:41 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend