October 2009 Archives

Some of the individuals who have been selected to provide feedback on mathematics or English/language arts standards for college- and career-readiness are also part of the group of people charged with "validation" of the standards. My colleague Sean Cavanagh blogged about the fact that some people were members of more than one group in the common standards effort already this fall, but I heard more discussion about it when reporting on a story this week about the common standards push.

Four people—Arthur Applebee, Brian Gong, James Milgram, and Catherine Snow—are both in a feedback group and the validation group. Gong is actually in feedback groups for both math and English/language arts, as well as the validation group. All of these people are heavyweights in their field.

"There is some benefit to having a small number of individuals who serve on both groups," said Jodi Omear, a spokeswoman for the National Governors Association, one of the organizations overseeing the process. "This allows for some continuity in ensuring that we stay true to the goals of the initiative."

But Kyleen Beers, the president of the National Council of Teachers of English, said she believes it's a conflict of interest for individuals to provide both feedback and validation. "How can they turn around and offer accreditation on something they helped create?," she said.

Her group nominated two people for the validation group before the list of people in the feedback groups was released. She said she was surprised that one of the nominees ended up on both lists.

Gerald E. Sroufe, the director of government relations for the American Educational Research Association, said he believes it would better for the people in the feedback group and validation group to be different individuals representing different constituencies.

"Having as many different perspectives involved in the various stages of this is highly desirable," he said. "It's not that we only have a dozen people who can do this in the country."

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The National Academies has just released a handbook of sorts that seeks to give educators and others practical advice on how they can use museums, science centers, and other "informal" forms of education to improve student learning.

The guide, titled "Surrounded by Science: Learning Science in Informal Environments," is based on the research found in a study of informal science learning, released by the National Research Council earlier this year. Museums and science centers, as well as TV shows and other efforts, can be a major resource for science teachers and parents—if they know how to use them.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Some of the country's top researchers on science education have been meeting at the National Academies in the hope of laying the groundwork for new and improved standards in that subject.

The goal is to create a conceptual framework built around "core ideas," in science. That framework could in turn inform the future development of standards as part of the multistate Common Core State Standards Initiative, an ongoing project we've been writing about a lot.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the researchers at the Academies, a congressionally-chartered entity that provides advice to the federal government, are using language that will sound very familiar to followers of the Common Core. They want to establish a framework that promotes the study of "fewer, deeper, clearer, and higher" ideas in science, which echoes the fewer-clearer-higher theme of the Common Core. The Academies organizers also believe that recent research on student cognition in science can help shape better standards, said Martin Storksdieck, the director of the the board on science education at the National Academies. For instance, researchers today take a strong interest in a concept known as "learning progressions," basically, ordering lessons in a way that reflects how students learn and builds on what they already know.

Research is showing that students "are capable of learning much more in science than we thought them capable of before," Storksdieck told me. He described a prime goal of science standards this way: "We need to teach science in a way that gives students a stronger sense of just how exciting science is."

I've written a bit about the potential for the Common Core to move on to science, after finishing language arts and reading standards. As part of its work on a science framework, the Academies staff have been working with the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Storksdieck noted. The science researchers have also stayed in touch with Achieve, which is a partner in the Common Core, he added.

Here's a useful page that offers papers and presentations from an Academies conference held this month on the creation of standards. Stay tuned.

Photo of Albert Einstein courtesy of Library of Congress.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

"Dear editors," the letter reads, "Please do not continue to encourage the improper use of the word 'forensics.' The courses referred to in the article ... are courses in forensic science. Forensics is to argue in a court of law. It is also used, and has been for the past 100+ years, to refer to debate."

A reader from Colorado takes exception to my use of the word "forensics" as shorthand for the study of "forensic science" in schools. I wrote about the proliferation of classes on that topic this week.

Ask teachers and students today what's meant by forensics, and I'll bet that most of them will associate it with the study of crime scenes, criminal evidence, "CSI," and so on.

Yet this was not always so, and it should not be the case today, the reader contends. He explains that his school offers "forensics" classes that focus on the study of debate—in addition to forensic-science classes, which look at "finding evidence for argument in criminal cases." (A colleague in my office recently said a similar thing, observing that she could remember when forensics meant "debate.")

But it appears that the definition of "forensics" has evolved over time.

An edition of the 1985 American Heritage Dictionary defines "forensics" as simply "the study or practice of formal debate; argumentation." It defines "forensic," as an adjective, as 1) "pertaining to or employed in legal proceedings or argumentation: forensic medicine; 2) Of, pertaining to, or employed in the debate or argument; rhetorical." No mention of crime scenes, blood spatter, fingerprint analysis, etc.

Yet when I consult my own 2001 edition of Webster's New World College Dictionary, it defines "forensic" (from the Latin term forensis, for public) as 1) "of, characteristic of, or suitable for a law court, public debate, or formal argumentation; 2) specializing in or having to do with the application of scientific, esp. medical, knowledge to legal matters, as in the investigation of a crime." Used as a noun, it refers to "debate or formal argumentation."

So it seems the definition has shifted a bit toward the CSI-side-of-things in recent years. Even so, to the reader from Colorado, I say point taken! You may be waging a lonely, and ultimately futile battle against the weight of popular culture and journalistic imprecision, but it's a distinction worth noting. Of course, if you really want your argument carried to a larger audience, you'd lobby the creators of "CSI" to slip some relevant dialogue on this subject onto the show.

I'll pose this question to teachers and school administrators: Do you refer to the debate classes and activities in your schools as "forensics"? Or simply "debate"?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:25 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

African-American students who took part in one of the most time-honored school activities—debate leagues—had higher GPAs, were more likely to graduate from high school, and were more college-ready in English and reading than those who did not take part, a new study has found.

The study looked at 2,500 students in the Chicago public schools who took part in at least one Chicago Debate League tournament over a 10-year period, out of a total pool of about 12,000 teenagers.

Not only was debate participation linked with achievement, but the more involved students were in it, the greater their gains, the research showed. While the student-debaters studied in Chicago had, on average, stronger academic records than non-debaters, they were still relatively low-performing by state standards. So while better students were drawn to debating, many of those who benefited were struggling students.

The study was conducted by Briana Mezuk of Virginia Commonwealth University, who drew from data collected by the Consortium on Chicago School Research. It was published this month in the Journal of Negro Education, which is based at Howard University in Washington. While the journal article focuses on the gains among black males, the improvements were seen among female students, too, Mezuk told me.

One of the more intriguing pieces of Mezuk's study is that she found that debate participation was linked with college-readiness gains in English and reading—but not with improvements in science and math. (This was measured by scores on the ACT test.) The result suggests that students benefited from the specific skills that debating builds, Mezuk says—English composition, understanding nonfiction texts, evaluating evidence, using arguments, and the development of vocabulary.

The Chicago Debate League is an affiliate of a larger organization known as the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues, which seeks to improve big-city education through the promotion of critical thinking and an active citizenry. Urban Debate leagues operate in 18 of the nation's largest cities; participating schools typically offer a course during the school day in argumentation and debate, the organization says.

One aspect of the Chicago debate model that should not be overlooked, Mezuk explains, is that it accepts many students from weak academic backgrounds—not just the talented and motivated ones. That should be encouraging for advocates looking for strategies to help the most disadvantaged students in urban schools, she says.

Photo: Richard Nixon and JFK hash it out in one of their televised presidential debates in 1960.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:31 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

In this week's issue, I have a story about the continued growth of forensic science courses in schools, a trend that can almost certainly be attributed partly to the "CSI effect" or the public's fixation on cops-and-crime TV shows.

When reporting on teachers taking on a relatively new topic in science, one question I'm always curious about is where educators get their classroom materials, and ideas for lessons? The teachers I interviewed for this story tapped some interesting sources, including local police departments and forensics experts, as well as research on forensic science and the TV shows themselves—sometimes to test the veracity of an idea or concept presented on the show.

One teacher whose account I was not able to include in my story was Brian Pressley, who teaches science at Brunswick High School in Maine. Pressley is also a textbook author, and he recently wrote a new book on forensics, published by Walch Education. In addition doing a lot of research and reading about forensics, Pressley gathered ideas from his school's security staff, who have law-enforcement training. The teacher said he knew that forensics would be a popular topic for a book after witnessing the reaction at several professional development conferences of science teachers.

"Teachers were standing in the doorway, trying to get information," he said of one crowded session. He thought he'd have better luck at another one later in the day, but "people were out the door at that one, too," he recalled.

About three-quarters of the members of the National Science Teachers Association who responded to a survey a few years ago said some kind of forensic science was being taught in their schools. If you're teaching forensics, how did you develop a curriculum for your class?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 8:53 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

At least five Northwest states have academic standards that address Native American culture and history, and the subject is included in the school curriculum, according to a study released yesterday by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory of the Institute of Education Sciences.

The study is the most comprehensive so far to analyze Indian education policies in states, according to its authors.

Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington all have six policies in common related to Indian education, the study says. In addition to the two I noted at the beginning of this post, all five states involve Native Americans on advisory boards, permit them to learn their native language as part of a school program, promote teacher certification in Native American languages, and provide college scholarship and tuition assistance for Native Americans.

The researchers didn't try to evaluate the merits of the Indian education policies or how well they were implemented. In a story I wrote last year for Education Week, I delved into some of the challenges of carrying out such policies. For example, a lack of funding to support some that were on the books was a problem in some states.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Many school districts around the country have seen an influx of Hispanic students, who also occupy a growing portion of the workforce in their communities. How can educators and policymakers encourage those students to pursue a college education, and a career in science, technology, engineering, and math (the so-called 'STEM' occupations), specifically? This week, a forum hosted by the Hispanic College Fund on Capitol Hill will explore that topic.

I've written a bit in the past about schools' efforts to build non-native English speakers' skills in math and science at an early age. This event looks the experience of Latinos later in the K-12 pipeline. A number of Hispanic students and business leaders will offer ideas on strategies to help students. The event is set for Thursday, Oct. 29, at 9:30 a.m., in the south congressional meeting room, in the Capitol Visitor's Center.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:31 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

Arne Duncan spoke before a top White House advisory panel on science today, hammering home a couple points. The nation will need many more, and more talented math and science teachers in the years ahead, the secretary said. He also echoed worries that too many schools have pushed science out of the curriculum in the No Child Left Behind era, and said the administration wants to find ways to end that erosion, as part of efforts to reauthorize the law.

On these and other points, Duncan was speaking to a receptive audience: the President's Council of Advisors on Science in Technology, a part of the White House executive office. The panel heard the secretary's thoughts on the state of 'STEM' education, and threw some questions his way afterward.

One of Duncan's points was that, given an anticipated wave of teacher retirements in the years ahead, policymakers will have to work harder to lure aspiring math and science educators into the profession—through pay incentives, by loosening certification requirements to allow career-changers, and so on.

"Our ability to attract and retain great talent over the next four, five, six years is going to shape education over the next 30," Duncan told the council.

The secretary has plugged differential pay for teachers of math, science, and other high-need subjects before. He told the science council he wasn't sure of what dollar amounts are necessary, but argued that there needs to be more of a market in which schools can bid more for outside talent and recruit it. "It's not the solution," he said of math-science teacher shortages, "but it's a piece of the solution."

Council members also voiced worries about what they saw as the poor quality of many state science tests, which in their view, place far too much emphasis on multiple-choice and rote memorization, and have the effect of killing many students' love of the subject. Duncan predicted that the $350 million pool of federal funding the administration is putting toward supporting common standards and tests would have an impact, and said he, too, wants to support "less fill-in-the-bubble, more critical thinking," on science exams.

The secretary also voiced concerns about science getting ignored, as districts scramble to raise math and reading scores. He recounted a recent meeting with a school superintendent who told Duncan that he'd recently visited 100 schools and didn't see science being taught in any of them. Duncan said he and his staff are looking at ways to encourage schools to cover a broad range of subjects, as the administration considers ways to revamp No Child Left Behind.

"I worry tremendously about the loss of science and engineering," Duncan said at one point. The main question, he added is: "How do we create the incentives so that students have a well-rounded curriculum?...We're thinking these things though."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:43 AM | Permalink | 6 Comments | Recommend

A coalition of parents interested in promoting high-quality math instruction says the draft of common, multistate standards gets some things right, but is off the mark in a couple key areas.

The U.S. Coalition for World Class Math, by its description, supports giving students a strong grounding in procedural math skills, which it believes will also lead to their acquisition of "conceptual skill," or higher-order thinking. It says its members include state coalitions of mathematicians, engineers, and others with strong math backgrounds, a collection of voices, the group says, is often neglected in developing math standards and curricula.

While "needing some work," the draft math standards "are substantially well written," it says. "If these standards are to serve as the forerunner of future K-12 grade-by-grade objectives and standards, however, we believe more clarity is needed and [we] made suggestions for improving the discussions and the standards themselves."

Update: Barry Garelick, of the math coalition, says my initial post did not adequately describe his group's concerns about the draft standards. And after re-reading their position, I see his point. The coalition worries that the standards do not do enough to address the math standards that students who are interested in pursuing math and science careers, or advanced studies, will have to meet. "[A]ppropriate standards must be developed for them," they write, "so that teachers, school administrators, and textbook publishers can develop appropriate courses of instruction for STEM-intending students." The coalition also argues that the draft places too much emphasis on statistics, probability, and math modeling, which it says aren't as essential for college readiness as other topics. I've changed the headline and first line to reflect this point. See Garelick's comment below, or the link, above, for more detail.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:23 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | Recommend

A couple of my colleagues have written about Grover "Russ" Whitehurst's recent paper on the importance of curriculum in improving schools. To sum it up, Whitehurst, the former director of the federal Institute of Education Sciences, says the research suggests there's a greater payoff for students in addressing curriculum than on the issues that seem to be receiving the most attention from the Obama administration, at least publicly—charter schools, early childhood ed, common standards, merit pay for teachers. Whitehurst makes that analysis based on his examination of the "effect sizes" of various education policies—basically, the relationship between an ed policy and an outcome, as judged on statistical-numerical terms.

I'd like to touch on one of Whitehurst's observations that some EdWeek readers may have overlooked. In his introduction, the former IES chief says he sees a very different focus in ed-policymaking from the Bush and Obama administrations. He argues that the Bush team, in which he served, was very keen on improving curriculum. This occasionally caused problems: the administration was accused of overstepping its legal grounds on curriculum through the federal Reading First program, as Whitehurst notes in his paper. But the administration also delved into the topic in other ways: creating the What Works Clearinghouse to conduct rigorous evaluations of curriculum, and launching a number of other studies of curricula across subjects. (He also could have mentioned Bush's creation of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, which probed curriculum, as well as other issues, in its study of how to prep the nation's students for algebra.)

Whitehurst then looks at the Obama administration and sees different interests:

"In light of the legislative prohibitions on endorsing curricula and the political taint surrounding Reading First, one can imagine high-level meeting in the Obama administration in which curriculum and third rail were mentioned in the same sentence. But one can also imagine an administration that is staffed with policy makers who cut their teeth on policy reforms in the areas of school governance and management rather than classroom practice, people who may be oblivious to curriculum for the same reason that Bedouin don't think much about water skiing.....

"People who are trying to create more charter schools, or pressure unions to allow more flexibility in hiring and firing teachers, or transform schools into one-stop shops for community needs, do not sort with people who are trying to improve the teaching of fractions or children's reading comprehension. The disciplinary training, job experience, professional networks, and intuitions about what is important hardly overlap between governance and curriculum reformers. For the governance types, teaching resolves to the question of how to get more qualified teachers into the classroom, e.g., 'How can we remove the artificial barriers to entry into the profession so that smart people who want to teach don't have to jump through the hoops of traditional teacher training and certification?' For the curriculum reformer, teaching is about specific interactions between students and their curriculum materials as shaped by teachers. For a curriculum reformer, teachers with higher IQs and better liberal arts educations are desirable, to be sure. But just as people with musical talent have to work hard to develop musical skills and have available to them exceptional compositions if they are to be successful musical performers, so too bright aspiring teachers have to learn a lot about how to teach and have good curriculum materials if they are to be effective with students. Thus being smart is the starting point of becoming a good teacher for a curriculum reformer whereas it is often the end point of governance reforms.

"Let's assume the Obama administration has ignored curriculum inadvertently because it is staffed with governance people who are simply valuing what they know. If so, then the administration would do well to heed Obama's assertion that, 'you do what works for the kids.' The administration should be open to all the categories of reform and innovation that could have an appreciable impact on student learning."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 8:59 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

The federal What Works Clearinghouse, which some have dubbed the "nothing works" clearinghouse because of its stringent criteria for deeming studies as valid, has determined that Read 180 shows "potentially positive effects" on student reading achievement. I write about the review by the clearinghouse in an article just published at edweek.org.

Out of 101 studies of the popular computerized reading program, the clearinghouse found seven met its standards "with reservations." The clearinghouse concluded on the basis of those studies that the evidence for the impact of the curriculum is medium to large for reading comprehension and general literacy achievement.

I recently wrote a post about how a federal evaluation released this month had found Read 180 to have an impact on student reading achievement in one of the four sites that has used it as part of the Striving Readers program for adolescent literacy. In the post, I quoted Margery Mayer, the president of the education division of Scholastic Inc., as saying that when Read 180 "is implemented with fidelity, the program works."

A reader contended in a comment on the blog, citing Table 5 of the evaluation, that the Striving Readers site using Read 180 found to have an effect on student achievement had the "lowest in-class fidelity to the study." At that site, the Ohio Department of Youth Services used Read 180 as the primary reading curriculum for struggling readers in juvenile-correction facilities.

But according to Braden Goetz, the group leader for high school programs for the U.S. Department of Education, the data on fidelity from different sites are "not directly comparable" because each grantee chose its own intervention and own evaluator.

Table 5 says that evaluators found "high implementation" in 43 percent of the Ohio facilities and "moderate implementation" in an additional 43 percent of them. They found "low implementation" in the remaining 14 percent of facilities, according to Goetz.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It's not unusual for teachers of science and other subjects to use popular films, or clips from movies, to introduce or reinforce a topic or present it in an engaging way. But judging the academic merits of Hollywood creations is not easy.

One of the better resources I've seen that tries to help teachers answer those questions is "Blick on Flicks," a Web site run by the National Science Teachers Association that offers movie reviews for science teachers. The critic is Jacob Clark Blickenstaff, an assistant professor of physics and the assistant director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Blickenstaff judges movies not only on their scientific accuracy, but also on whether they present science in an engaging way and how they depict the work that scientists do. Many films obviously present a lot of misconceptions about science, but they can still present phenomena that are useful, which teachers couldn't possibly demonstrate in the classroom, Blickenstaff explained in an e-mail. His reviews include suggestions on how teachers can integrate what's occurring on screen into their lessons.

The professor's work for NSTA began when he heard the organization was looking for a reviewer. He contacted the teachers' group, submitted a sample column, which was favorably received, and a film critic was born.

His recent reviews of films (which are also podcast) include the latest Batman installment The Dark Knight, M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, and the animated film Up. The recent, critically acclaimed District 9 is also written up.The headlines offer a taste of his opinions: "Jumping to Conclusions" (about the sci-fi fantasy Jumper) and "Physics and Batman: A Troubled Relationship."

In his review of The Happening, Blickenstaff is pleased to see that the protagonist in the film, played by Mark Wahlberg, is a science teacher. He takes issue, however, with the character telling students in his class that many of the concepts that end up in science texts amount to "just a theory." Writes Blickenstaff: "This dreadful sentence works to reinforce one of the most problematic misunderstandings between scientists and the general public: a theory in science is not an unsubstantiated guess, it is an explanation of a process or phenomenon that has a great deal of evidence backing it up." The teacher later redeems himself, Blickenstaff says, by reviewing the process for answering scientific questions.

Some of the movies on his site, at first glance, would seem of little use to science teachers. He reviews The Devil Wears Prada, for instance, a popular film starring Meryl Streep about the pretensions of the fashion industry. Yet Blickenstaff sees science on-screen. A physics teacher could use the film to discuss the pressure, or force per unit area, created by high-heeled shoes. Biology and life-science teachers, he says, can draw from its depiction of the pressure women face to stay slender to discuss body image and nutrition.

"In contrast to some of the other people who write about movies and science, I try to balance the negative and positive," Blickenstaff told me. "I try to have a balance of life and physical sciences, and also to go beyond the sci-fi and action genres to show that science is truly ubiquitous."

Note: Blickenstaff is the assistant director of the math and science center at his university, not the director, as I originally wrote.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:20 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

President Obama keeps tab of what Sasha and Malia are reading, according to a report by pool reporter George Condon of CongressDaily about the president's visit to a Maryland elementary school yesterday.

Here's an excerpt:

He asked each kid what he or she was reading. One kid said "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." The president said, "Sasha and Malia loved that. They think it is hilarious."

In addition, the president told students at Viers Mill Elementary School that he had read the Harry Potter books with Malia and thought they were "pretty good."

Credit: Gerald Herbert/AP

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 2:45 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

A coalition of business and technology organizations is launching a major effort to get Massachusetts students interested in STEM careers—by reaching out to them at an early age.

The organizers of the project, known as "DIGITS," will arrange to have workers from various science, technology, engineering, and math fields visit 6th grade classrooms and present information on what they do in their careers. The plan is to set up presentations in 568 schools across Massachusetts.

The project is being overseen by the STEMTech Alliance, a coalition of six statewide science and industry associations. "Ambassadors" working in various STEM fields will visit classrooms to talk about their work; they will also be given written resources and materials for video presentations to students, including interactive graphics (presumably on computers). You can find more information on the DIGITS Web site, linked above. The program was piloted over the summer and showed good results, alliance officials say.

How common is it for supporters of STEM fields to tout their work to students as early as middle school? What advantages and drawbacks do you see to this approach?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Effect sizes in research studies of curriculum are "larger, more certain, and less expensive" than education reforms favored by the Obama administration, according to a paper by Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, the former research chief of the U.S. Department of Education. He's now the director of the Brown Center on Education at the Brookings Institute.

He makes the case that federal education officials should consider ways to support improvement of the curriculum over such efforts as expanding charter schools and teacher merit-pay programs because research has shown that the impact of the curriculum used has been greater than the impact of charter schooling or merit pay.

My colleague Debbie Viadero has highlighted Whitehurst's arguments over at Inside Research.

Robert Pondiscio of Core Knowledge and Joanne Jacobs also feature the paper on their blogs.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 12:30 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

The science and math community places a high value on student competitions, which reward students with cash, college scholarships, or simply recognition for innovation. We at EdWeek are flooded with information about these contests. But this week I received a notice about one in particular that earns points for its creativity and eccentricity.

A new contest called "Dash+" challenges high school students to put their creativity, design, and math and science skills toward a mission of interest to millions of auto-dependent Americans everywhere: building the car dashboard of the future.

The contest, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, opens for registration today. The goal is to have student teams design dashboards with gauges, instruments, and interfaces that will prod drivers to maximize fuel efficiency and have less of a deleterious effect on the environment. Student competitors will be required to submit a written technical plan and video presentation that would help convince both automakers and the general public to adopt whatever tools they come up with.

The high school competition is a part of a larger automotive "X Prize," sponsored by Progressive Insurance, a contest that invites adult teams of scientists to develop and submit ideas for more fuel-efficient vehicles. The rules for the high school Dash+ contest say that teams must include between two and five students in grades 9-12, ages 14 and older, and they must have an adult mentor.

I've seen some very innovative, and potentially patentable ideas come out of high school science clubs over the years. Maybe the next great dashboard won't come out of Detroit, but rather from the school down the street.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:50 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

If you're looking for additional analysis of last week's lackluster NAEP math results, the New York Times offers a useful forum with online commentaries. The opining authors include college faculty and parents. Some call for less-punitive testing systems that encourage teachers to instead use test results to improve instruction. Others say the results call for rethinking of curriculum at the elementary level.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

There's a ton of interest these days in the possibility of creating common academic standards across states, as a multistate effort led by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association rolls forward. So far, that project has focused on two subjects: math and English-language arts. Over the past couple months, I've also heard from educators and interested parties in other subjects, particularly science, asking "what about us?"

The answer: Your time could be coming soon.

Leaders of major science education organizations have already had preliminary discussions with folks from the NGA/CCSSO effort, known as Common Core State Standards Initiative, about cooperating on science standards. NGA and CCSSO officials have talked in fairly broad terms about eventually trying to forge common standards in other academic subjects. But after getting additional details from some of the people involved, I thought I'd put some of what is playing out behind the scenes on the record.

For about three years now, the National Science Teachers Association has been working on creating a new set of science standards. That project is known as "Anchors," and is being undertaken in cooperation with officials from Achieve, as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Research Council, two prestigious scientific organizations, the NSTA's executive director, Francis Eberle, explained in a recent interview. The NSTA, which has 58,000 members, has had tentative talks with Common Core folks about eventually merging "Anchors" with the Common Core, as opposed to producing two different documents, Eberle told me. "The hope is it's not a separate effort," he said. The goal is to bring more consistency to science lessons nationwide, he added, arguing that this would help "re-energize the field."

The AAAS and National Research Council, as many science teachers know, produced their own standards documents in the 1990s, which are widely cited in individual states' standards documents today. NSTA officials say they hope "Anchors" could draw from those documents but also present science in a more focused and streamlined way, placing an emphasis on major concepts in science. (I described the goals of "Anchors" in a story a few years ago.)

Dane Linn, who directs the education division at NGA's Center for Best Practices, confirmed that Common Core officials have had some tentative talks with folks involved in "Anchors." He also said that discussions have been held with various social studies organizations about future standards work in that area.

"We've heard from several states about their interest in moving into other subjects— particularly science—next," Linn said. Discussions with advocates from the social studies community, he added, are ongoing.

While the NGA and CCSSO officials don't want to put off the move into science and social studies for too long, Linn also emphasized that the organizations are determined to make sure that math and language arts are on solid ground before moving on. "We need to demonstrate success in the first two subjects we're focused on," he said.

If you've been following the standards push to this point, how easy or difficult do you think it would be to create multistate standards in science and social studies, compared to those in language arts and math?

Photo of student in science class by Dave Martin for Education Week.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 5:38 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

We've written, as have others, about high school graduates who lack the academic skills necessary to make it in college and the workforce, and efforts to rectify that problem. But a new report examines a different, and perhaps equally vexing issue: What if students simply aren't interested in going into the fields where the jobs are?

A new report by the ACT looks at that mismatch and unearths some interesting results. The report lists the five highest-growth occupations, based on U.S. Department of Labor projections, requiring at least a two-year college degree. In this order, they are: education, including secondary school teachers and administrators; computer/information specialists, who would include computer programmers, database administrators; community service professionals, such as social workers and school counselors; management, such as hotel and restaurant managers; and marketing and sales employees. In all five fields, the percentage of high school graduates who said they were interested in those careers—ACT takers were the ones surveyed—falls short of projections. See the accompanying chart from the ACT, below.

Some academic researchers have questioned state and local efforts to raise academic requirements in subjects such as math and science, saying the new, tougher mandates aren't always aligned with what the job market is actually demanding. The ACT report, on the one hand, notes that too many high school graduates aren't meeting academic standards for college readiness. Yet it also seems to beg the question: Even if students have the academic talent and academic preparation needed to make it in the job market, are they going to end up in the jobs where they're needed the most?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave. ... But his soul goes marching on.

Those are lines from a folk song that I've heard sung here in the Washington area, but John Brown is not just a character in a song. He's a historical figure who led an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, W.Va., with the intention of ending slavery. The Washington Post retells the story of that attack in an article published today.

Now, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is marking the 150th anniversary of the attack with an online exhibit about Brown's legacy, intended to be a resource for teachers. The attack happened on Oct. 16, 1859. Brown was executed by hanging in Charlestown, W.Va.

A press release characterizes the exhibit as delving into "the beliefs, activities, and continuing significance of John Brown, vilified by some as a murderer and venerated by others as a martyr."

For teachers in the Washington area, it might be worth taking a field trip with students out to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park this month to tour the museum on the site where Brown made his attack. The park is hosting a number of activities to remember Brown this coming weekend.

Frankly, I didn't learn about John Brown in school but rather through a field trip of my own to Harpers Ferry.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:40 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

This is the the second blog post I've written this week about Mark Schneider, the former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. Must be because he's been saying some interesting things lately.

Schneider, in a blog item for the American Enterprise Institute, examines the recent NAEP 4th and 8th grade results and concludes that the No Child Left Behind Act "has not worked the way it was intended and the nation is worse off because of it."

The former chief of the NCES, the U.S. Department of Education's statistical office, bases his argument on a breakdown of 4th and 8th grade test scores in seven years pre-NCLB compared with scores after the federal law took effect, from 2003 on. The gains for the overall student population, and for black and Hispanic students, in the pre-NCLB period were greater. He also says that the law has created an incentive for states to water down performance standards and assessments, in their rush to get to meet proficiency thresholds (an issue he examined as NCES commissioner). The new NAEP scores are bound to heighten the debate over the reauthorization of NCLB, he says.

Schneider's argument is likely to surprise some folks, because he was nominated to the NCES post in 2005 by President George W. Bush and served as statistics chief during his administration's second term. (Bush, of course, signed No Child Left Behind into law and actively promoted it.) But Schneider, a longtime academic scholar, also won a reputation for objectivity during his time at the NCES. Some of his research, such as a book he co-authored that described mixed results for charter schools, had little in common with the administration's political philosophies. So in that sense, people who know Schneider and his work aren't likely to be surprised that he's calling it like he sees it now.

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The new NAEP scores are out, and at the 4th grade level, the results do not impress. Scores were flat for the first time in nearly two decades, while the upward climb continued at the 8th grade level.

Federal officials generally caution against overinterpreting any given set of NAEP scores, but Massachusetts Commissioner of Education David Driscoll said the results should provide clear incentive to focus on improving math teaching early in the K-12 cycle. Elementary and middle school teachers are usually generalists, who are asked to cover all topics, but Driscoll, who now chairs the panel that oversees NAEP, said too many teachers are not asked to show that they have a grasp of math content knowledge, particularly in state licensure requirements. And when they are asked to show that, they struggle on state certification tests, he said. Driscoll, at a press conference announcing the results, talked about his own state's efforts to toughen math-reporting requirements on teacher-certification exams. He also noted that Massachusetts had increased teacher-preparation requirements in another subject area, literacy, his point being that it can be done in math, too. There are many ideas about how to build content knowledge among elementary math teachers. Some say creating more specialists could be a key.

Driscoll backed up his argument with NAEP data: Information collected on this test shows that 8th graders whose teachers had majored in math scored 9 points better than peers taught by educators who did not.

"Strong content knowledge needs attention," said Driscoll, the head of the National Assessment Governing Board. Teachers at early grades, he added, "provide the building blocks for mathematics."

Driscoll was also asked about the link between NAEP and ongoing efforts to establish common academic standards across states. He noted the strides made by a cluster of New England states—New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont—which have taken part in their own effort to establish common standards and assessments, the New England Common Assessment Program. It's reasonable to assume, Driscoll said, that those states' gains have "something to do with the standards."

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A large-scale evaluation of the U.S. Department of Education's Ready to Learn initiative found that preschoolers taught with a literacy curriculum that included video clips from PBS shows made significant gains in literacy skills, such as naming letters and knowing the sounds associated with those letters. I write about the study in an article just published by edweek.org.

But the researchers for the study provided a caveat in talking with me about their findings. Professional development for the preschool teachers who taught the literacy curriculum was key in its effectiveness. Parents won't likely get the same learning effect simply by turning on shows such as "Sesame Street" and "Between the Lions" at home.

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The main research arm of the U.S. Department of Education is funding the creation of three new centers, two of them focused on math curriculum and instruction, the third of which will examine how to "scale up" effective schools and revamp low-performing ones.

It's probably no accident that those topics are getting a lot of attention from policymakers today, as part of the effort to craft common standards and revamp struggling schools. The federal Institute of Education Sciences invited applicants to apply through a competition to be selected to run the centers, and bids were due earlier this month.

One center would seek to examine what kinds of standards and assessments produce the best academic results for children. Currently, standards and test frameworks are usually developed by expert consensus, IES notes in its request for applications. Yet there's "little empirical basis" to make those decisions, it says.

"[W]hich early skills are most predictive of those mathematics skills that are currently assessed in upper elementary grades, middle school, or high school? " the IES says. "What do skills that are currently assessed in elementary, middle, and high school predict in terms of later mathematics achievement? Although there is an emerging consensus among experts as to the content and skills that should be taught and assessed to prepare children for algebra, the empirical evidence to support the predictive validity of these skills is quite limited."

The IES currently funds 13 research and development centers, which probe aspects of education policy ranging from college access to pay incentives for teachers and other school employees to the use of technology. Two additional centers focus on special education.

The second newly proposed math center would examine strategies to improve student achievement through cognition—basically the study of how people think and learn—and redesign math curriculum based on that research. The agency says it is not interested in supporting a project that results in a redesigned math curriculum that is "entirely teacher-centered" or "entirely teacher-directed," a reference to a common ideological feud in the so-called math wars. (And an issue that some experts, like those who served on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, say is overblown.)

The third center would seek to identify "policies, programs and practices" in schools that have strong records of improving performance in "underachieving populations," and examiend ways to scale up those strategies. As it now stands, many practices that are touted as effective have not been rigorously studied, says IES, echoing a common refrain among ed policymakers. As a result, districts and schools are forced to make decisions "on the basis of little empirical evidence," the agency says.

How likely are these centers to contribute to the ongoing debates and discussions about national standards and overhauling poor-performing schools?

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An evaluation of Striving Readers, the federal government's first reading program focused solely on adolescents, contains some good news about Read 180 Enterprise Edition, a program developed by Scholastic Inc. The evaluation found that the Ohio Department of Youth Services' use of Read 180 in juvenile correction facilities had a statistically significant impact on student achievement. The same was not true, however, for the three other Striving Readers sites that also used Read 180.

As I wrote in an article just published by Education Week, the Striving Readers program was found to have a statistically significant impact on student achievement at three of eight sites, in comparison with control groups at those same sites. But one reading expert I interviewed considered the effect at those three sites, including the Ohio one, to be small.

Nevertheless, Margery Mayer, the president of the education division of Scholastic, said she does not consider the effect size in Ohio to be small. "Every one of those young people grew a year in reading," she said. "It's a huge effect for them."

When I asked her why Read 180 in Ohio had an impact while it didn't at three other Striving Readers sites, she said she believes it's because the Ohio educators implemented the program particularly well. "When the program is implemented with fidelity, the program works."

The evaluation pointed out that reading achievement for the Striving Readers program in Ohio was measured by the Scholastic Reading Inventory, and since Scholastic is the developer of both that test and Read 180, it is possible that students in the Striving Readers group received instruction that was more closely aligned to the test than the instruction received by the control group. "This reduces the confidence with which the estimated impacts on [Scholastic Reading Inventory] scores can be considered a true impact of Read 180 on reading comprehension," the evaluation says.

The evaluators said that in the future, they will use scores on the Ohio state assessment to measure student achievement.

But Mayer said the findings of the impact on student achievement are credible because the assessment is not aligned with Read 180 in particular. She said it's a real feat that Striving Readers helped students in Ohio's juvenile correction facilities to improve their reading because their reading levels were very low. "How life-changing it can be to have the confidence and ability to read. That's what this is really all about," she said.

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Mark Schneider, the former chief of the U.S. Department of Education's statistical office, lays bare the discrepancy between American high schoolers' enrollment in tougher math classes, their alleged success in those courses, and their continuing mediocre academic performance in that subject.

Policymakers have long been flummoxed by U.S. students' failure to make gains in high school math, during the same period when math scores among younger students have risen. Schneider, writing for the American Enterprise Institute, suggests that American states and schools are fixated on putting students in the kinds of math courses that are supposed to be "rigorous," but in truth are anything but.

On the one hand, more students than ever are taking tougher math high school math classes—Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and calculus—and taking them earlier in school, he explains. On paper, Schneider explains, it seems like a "remarkable change." They're also getting better grades in those classes: The average math GPA has risen from 2.2 to 2.6 since 1990.

But here comes the rub. Schneider, the former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, notes that students who take various high school math classes are actually doing worse than they did 30 years ago, as judged by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. (Check out Figure 5.) He also looks at data from international tests.

"Students who stopped at Algebra I, geometry, and Algebra II all scored lower on NAEP in 2008 than the students enrolled in the same courses in 1978," Schneider writes. "The only bright spot is that students completing calculus now do about as well as their peers from thirty years ago."

Schneider also knocks down a couple possible explanations for these unsettling trends. One of them is that the flat scores are primarily due to a decline in the U.S. population of higher-scoring white students at the high school level. That trend is indeed occurring, he says, but so what? It hasn't prevented an increase in the math scores among 9- and 13-year-olds.

Many of the math courses with impressive-sounding titles, Schneider concludes, are simply not what they seem. The responsibility to ensure that math courses are top-notch rests largely on states, which have not shown an inclination to make sure that curricula and tests are holding students to high standards. (Some say that under No Child Left Behind, states haven't had much incentive to do so.)

"If policymakers decide that a mark of a successful high school career is completion of Algebra II, then schools enroll more students into a course called Algebra II," he says. "But not all math courses are equal—and it is easier to rebrand courses and still teach low-level math than it is to increase the rigor of math instruction."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:39 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

I neglected to note the confirmation last week of Brenda Dann-Messier as the new assistant secretary for vocational and adult education at the U.S. Department of Education. Dann-Messier, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, most recently served as the president of Dorcas Place, an adult and family learning center in Rhode Island. Dann-Messier was given the Senate's blessing at the same time that lawmakers confirmed Alexa Posny, former Kansas commissioner of education, as assistant secretary for special education and rehabilatative services.

As I've noted previously, Dann-Messier brings a somewhat different background to the job than those who served in the role under former President George W. Bush. Some people I've spoken with have suggested that her selection, along with that of other officials in the department, could reflect the Obama administration's desire to pay more attention to community colleges and adult education, particularly in light of the need to improve the skills of workers and help those who have lost their jobs. Obama has pledged to create a greater role for community colleges in the nation's education pipeline, though there are a lot of unresolved questions about how that will play out. One voc-ed group notes that Dann-Messier, in her pre-departmental career, authored a number of papers about strategies for increasing college access to students from different backgrounds.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

"School newcomer centers," which educate English language learners who have recently arrived in this country, are increasingly offering academic content to go with basic training in English, my colleague Mary Ann Zehr reports on her Learning the Language blog. Those results were included in the findings of a survey conducted by the Center for Applied Linguistics. Among the academic subjects of interest? Pre-algebra, according to the center.

Lack of English skill is a major hurdle for many students in math classes, as well as in science, as I've discussed in previous stories.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:23 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

The Corporation for National and Community Service and a number of nonprofit organizations launched this week the third annual national "learn and serve challenge," a 9-month effort aimed to support youths to learn academics at the same time that they are serving other people.

"We aim to catalyze young people through schools, colleges, faith-based organizations and youth organizations to engage in service-learning," Nelson Nash, the director of the Corporation for National and Community Service, said in a conference call with reporters about the effort. Education, protecting the environment, and health care are some of the areas in which youths might serve, people participating in the call suggested.

On Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives approved a resolution introduced by Rep. Todd Platts, a Republican from Pennsylvania, that recognized the value of service-learning.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

President Obama hosted a group of students at the White House last night for an event aimed at stirring their interest in science, and more specifically, astronomy. Telescopes were set up on the White House lawn (I'm assuming they were sufficiently high powered to cut through Washington's light pollution) and real-life astronauts (Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride) were on hand. In remarks at the event, the president plugged some of his administration's math and science initiatives—specifically talking up the Race to the Top's potential impact on curriculum and instruction. But mostly, Obama seemed intent on describing science as both important and cool:

"Galileo changed the world when he pointed his telescope to the sky, and now it's your turn," Obama told the students. "We need you to study, do well in school, explore everything from the infinite reaches of space to the microscopic smallness of the atom. We need you to think bigger and to dig deeper and to reach higher. And we need your restless curiosity and your boundless hope and imagination. Our future depends on it.

"So, don't let anybody tell you that there isn't more to discover. Don't let anybody tell you that there's knowledge that's beyond your reach. There's something out there for each and every one of you to discover."

Photo by Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:37 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Earlier this year, President Obama spoke of the need to have students spend more time in school, by extending the school day, and possibly shortening the summer recess. The current school calendar, he argued, puts the United States at a "competitive disadvantage" with top-performing nations. Over the past few weeks, there's been a surge of recycled interest in what Obama said months ago, much of apparently stemming from a recent story in the Associated Press, which lays out some of the pros and cons of extended learning time (Though the headline on the story version I saw was the rather doomsdayish "Obama Would Curtail Summer Vacation.").

A new white paper by the National Academy of Education examines extended learning time in more depth, saying that its success usually depends on several factors, particularly whether the extra time is tied to new efforts to improve instruction, rather than just doing more of the same.

I saw a mix of positive and ambivalent reactions to Obama's pitch, but the white paper suggests that strong majorities of Americans support different kinds of extended learning time, at least in theory. Ninety-six percent of respondents in a 2007 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll said that extended learning time would be a way of helping more low-performing students.

The Academy report recommends that the federal government support research to test "promising" practices to increase learning time, to determine what exactly is about them works well.

A second white paper (which you can link to, above) from the Academy calls for the federal government to support the redesign of tests to accomplish several goals. Those include establishing clearer connections between "content" and "performance" standards—basically, expectations for what students need to know, and standards by which their performance is judged. The paper also calls for the feds to support testing that more precisely measures not only students' current performance, but also their academic progress.

"We are poised to make dramatic advances in assessment within a decade if we can make the commitment needed now," Lorrie Shepard, a University of Colorado professor who co-edited the paper on assessment, said in a statement that accompanied the paper. "We need to marshal the resources of the federal government and our best researchers in a program of research and development to significantly improve our assessment tools."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Many readers are no doubt familiar with the work of 4-H, a 6 million-member-strong youth organization that promotes citizenship and life skills, often with an emphasis on agricultural training. Now that organization is throwing its weight behind a venture of major interest to educators and policymakers: getting more students interested in science, technology, engineering, and math—the so-called "STEM" education fields.

The nonprofit is organizing a a nationwide science experiment today called "Biofuel Blast," which seeks to show middle school students how cellulose and sugars in plants (like switchgrass and algae) can be made into fuel. The event is part of 4-H National Youth Science Day, an effort the organization began last year to bring more American young people into science careers. The youths taking part around the country will create biofuel, and following the experiment, the 4-H will host discussions about alternative energy in different locations around the country. The development of biofuels is a major economic and political issue in many of the communities where 4-H is popular.

STEM-ed advocates would seem to have reason to be enthusiastic about 4-H's promotion of those subjects. The 4-H organizes a lot of year-round out-of-school programming, which is developed by the nation's 106 land-grant colleges and universities and implemented through 3,100 local cooperative extension offices, according to background provided by the organization. 4-H officials estimate that more than 5 million youths currently take part in the organization's science, engineering, and technology programming in topics such as robotics, rocketry, wind power, GPS mapping, agricultural science, film making, and water quality and conservation. The organization has also set a goal of luring another million youths into science, engineering, and technology programming by 2013, through its "One Million New Scientists, One Million New Ideas" campaign.

As they roll out the new program, 4-H officials are also touting research that they say shows their program's positive impact on students' in- and out-of-school development. A longitudinal study found that young people who take part in 4-H are two times more likely to get better grades than youths who do not; two times more likely to go to college; 40 percent less likely to engage in risky behavior; and more likely to contribute to their families and communities. The study was conducted by researchers at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University.

What impact do you think an organization with the grassroots reach of 4-H—which says it can be found in every county in every state—is likely to have on STEM?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:42 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

California's superintendent of schools, Jack O'Connell, is urging state officials to reconsider their unusual decision to issue a five-year suspension on adopting curriculum "frameworks," saying the delay will hurt teachers and students.

Academic standards, in California and other states, are expectations for what students should know in various subjects. California's curriculum frameworks are documents that explain and translate the state's academic standards for teachers, essentially helping them craft lessons out of them. They also serve as the basis for textbooks and other instructional materials.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other state officials have been forced to take a budget ax to many aspects of state government, schools included. A law passed recently cut support for curriculum development and supplementary materials, blocks the state board of ed from adopting any materials, and prohibits any framework development. My colleague Kathleen Kennedy Manzo provided some of the background in a story from a few weeks ago.

In a teleconference and a statement this week, O'Connell argued that cutting framework development will result in nearly completed documents in history/social science and science getting left on the curb. At the very least, the situation in California is a reminder of what is often the glacial pace for drafting and approving standards and curriculum in states. Restarting the process in California, once the suspension on frameworks is lifted, O'Connell said, will take years—meaning that students today will not receive instructional materials until at least 2017. In the meantime, teacher credentialing and professional-development programs for teachers will drop the frameworks, the superintendent contends, "and the connection between content standards and teaching will be lost."

Do you agree with O'Connell's view of the severity of these cuts?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:53 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | Recommend

One of the voices to weigh in recently on where U.S. schools stand internationally is that of Yong Zhao, a professor at Michigan State University who was born and raised in China. Zhao, in a new book published by the ASCD, draws upon his own experiences in the Chinese education system and argues that much of the U.S. angst over whether we're losing "competitiveness" on the global stage is misplaced. American policymakers, he says, are drawing the wrong lessons from the growing economic might of nations like China—and becoming overly enamored with high-stakes testing, to our peril.

Zhao observes, as others have, that Chinese officials are refashioning their education system to adopt some American-style features, namely less emphasis on high-stakes admissions tests and more promotion of critical-thinking skills and independent projects. One of the more interesting changes he cites is the government's decision in 2008 to give 68 Chinese colleges the freedom to admit or reject students on their own criteria, placing less emphasis on the gaokao, or national college entrance exam.

The author disapproves of what he sees as the United States' growing fixation on testing and the "accountability" measures of the No Child Left Behind era. One of his chapters is titled "Myth, Fear, and the Evolution of Accountability," which should give you a taste of his point of view. Here's an excerpt:

"Clearly, American education has been moving toward authoritarianism," he writes, "letting the government dictate what and how students should learn and what schools should teach. This movement has been fueled mostly through fear—fear of threats from the Soviets, the Germans, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Indians. The public, as any animal under threat would, has sought and accepted the action of a protector—the government."

Pretty strong language. Zhao goes on to praise what he sees as the strengths of the U.S. education system, such as its diversity, which he says breeds innovation and allows it to bring about and respond to changes in the American economy. He also describes American education as a system of "second chances," in which students who struggle initially have many chances to correct their course, seize upon a talent and prosper. (Presumably unlike other nations, where students are directed onto an academic track on the basis of test scores and kept there.) The United States needs to find ways to replicate these strengths, he says.

Zhao is by no means the first scholar to caution that fears of the United States falling behind educationally are overblown. If you've had a chance to read Zhao's work (the ASCD has published some excerpts online), are you persuaded by his reasoning?

Photo of students at Beijing's Fourth Secondary School, April 2007, by sevans for EdWeek.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:49 AM | Permalink | 10 Comments | Recommend

David Driscoll, a former Massachusetts commissioner of education, has been named the new chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, the independent panel that sets policy for the test known as the "nation's report card." Driscoll was named to the position by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who also appointed five members to the board, which oversees much of the crucial behind-the-scenes work on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP.

The former Massachusetts schools leader, who was already a board member, takes over for Darvin Winick, who is scheduled to remain on board until his term ends in 2010, according to NAGB. The secretary also named five others to the panel: Alan J. Friedman, a science education consultant and current board member, who was reappointed; Doris Hicks, the principal and CEO of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology in New Orleans; Tonya Miles, the chief departmental administrator in the office of the general counsel for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and a former member of the Maryland State Board of Education; W. James Popham, a testing and measuring expert from Oregon and a professor emeritus of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Leticia Van de Putte, a five-term state senator from Texas.

They bring varied experience, to say the least. Hicks, for instance, took a major role in bringing her high school back to life after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It was the first public school to reopen in the city's severely damaged Lower Ninth Ward. See my colleague Lesli Maxwell's coverage on the school for EdWeek here.

Photo of Driscoll from NAGB.

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A computer software math program is being credited with helping a number of California districts made big jumps in their state test scores. Developed by the MIND Research Institute, the program places a heavy emphasis on using visual clues and strategies to help students, particularly those who have floundered with traditional approaches.

The MIND institute says its approach is grounded in neuroscience research and what reveals says about how spatial, temporal, and language skills affect students' ability to learn math. I wrote a bit about MIND's approach to helping struggling middle and high school students in algebra a few years ago. The program that's being credited with raising test scores in Orange County and Silicon Valley-area schools is an elementary computer software program called "ST Math." Elementary math scores in Orange County rose by bigger much more than state averages, according to this story in The Los Angeles Times. The San Jose Mercury News describes an elementary school in that city that saw its percentage of students reaching proficiency jump from a meager 9 percent in 2007 to 39 percent in 2008 and 70 percent in 2009. Students proceed through problems and exercises that use animated figures. Teachers receive daily input on students' progress, and focus on building students' grasp of key concepts and vocabulary.

One of the chief architects of the MIND Research Institute's strategy is its co-founder, Matthew Peterson, who knows something about young students' academic struggles. As I described in my 2008 story, Peterson is dyslexic, and didn't learn to read until 5th grade. He found that visual clues helped him remember and comprehend things, and he still uses those visual aids today. (During my interview with him, I remember seeing some of the figures and pictures he'd drawn on a whiteboard in his office.) He helped launch the institute when he was working on his Ph.D. in neuroscience at UC-Berkeley.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Stanford University professor Mike Kirst lays out his concerns about the proposed common academic standards, in a new online essay. Kirst's basic argument is that the draft document wrongly suggests that the skills that students need for colleges (two- and four-year) and very different jobs in the workplace are the same. The Stanford scholar made some of these points in our recent EdWeek story on the draft, but he goes into more detail here.

Kirst discusses his recent work on an expert panel that examined the feasibility of judging college and workforce preparation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, scale. That panel, he notes, found that many occupations don't have consistent training requirements; some require a lot geometry, for instance, while other demand more algebra, or number computation. It examined job training programs for certain "exemplar" occupations, he says. This seems like a more precise way of judging the skills need for workforce success than what the standards-writers are using.

Do you agree with Kirst's point of view?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I'm neither a mathematician nor math teacher. Plenty of the readers of this blog do fall into those categories, however, and today I'm seeking them out.

A new report by Achieve, released today, shows students in 13 states struggling, big-time, with algebra, both at the introductory and advanced level. More than 80 percent of students in each of the states (which took part voluntarily in the exam) were not prepared for college-level math in Algebra 2, by the standards of the test. Those results won't strike a lot of people as surprising, given the fact that students are flummoxed by algebra, and that this exam was designed to be an especially tough one.

Yet the Achieve report also includes breakdowns of where students struggled the most, by algebra topic. In Algebra 1, it was in data, statistics and probability. They did better, on the other hand, in non-linear relationships. In Algebra 2, students had difficulties with polynomials (a math expression with three or more terms) and rational functions. They fared a bit better on exponential functions.

Here's a snapshot of the percent of students reaching "mastery," as defined by the test, by category:

Algebra 1
—Non-linear relationships, 26.5 percent reached mastery
—Linear relationships, 24.6 percent
—Operations on Numbers and Expressions, 22.5 percent
—Data, Statistics, and Probability, 18.9 percent

Algebra 2
—Exponential Functions, 24.3 percent
—Function, Operations, and Inverses, 22.7 percent
—Equations and Inequalities, 21.8 percent
—Operations on Numbers and Expressions, 20.2 percent
—Polynominals and Rational Functions, 18.8 percent

A couple questions for readers who are tasked with explaining these math concepts to students every day—either at the K-12 or college level: Are these results what you would have expected? Do you find that your students tend to flail in data, statistics, and probability, and polynominals, more than other math topics? Or could these results simply be a function of this test's content?

UPDATE: Here are some thoughts on the question I posed from William McCallum, who directs the mathematics department at the University of Arizona. I wasn't able to get his comments about students' specific algebra shortcomings in my original story. While he notes that his interpretation would depend on knowing more about the test items, he also says:

"[P]olynomials and rational functions are a topic that many students struggle with because they require a real proficiency in algebraic manipulation that goes beyond just being able to perform the steps." That type of problem-solving "really requires an ability to step back from a calculation," he added, "and foresee which way it's going to go, and maintain some supervision of the calculations to detect error...This is a higher level of proficiency in symbol manipulation than many students acquire."

The Achieve test also found that students struggled most on constructed-response math questions, as opposed to multiple choice. Said McCallum:

"[Of] course [these] are always going to be more difficult, because they require an independent ability to plan a solution and marshal techniques, rather than just perform the techniques. But I have to believe that the large number of students who got zero on those is partly (perhaps largely) the result of the test not having any consequences, so that students would have just blown those off."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:16 AM | Permalink | 7 Comments | Recommend

EdWeek just published a story I wrote about a federal study that shows math materials used in after-school programs had a notable impact on student learning while reading materials did not.

The math materials were developed by Harcourt School Publishers and the reading materials were created by the Success for All Foundation.

But as Robert Slavin, the chairman of the Success for All Foundation, pointed out to me, the findings could have more to do with the difficulty of demonstrating gains in reading in an after-school program than the quality of the materials.

Elizabeth J. Warner, the project officer for the report, which was commissioned by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, said that the researchers learned how carrying out instruction during an after-school program is different from doing so during the school day. "This experience suggested to us you have to be cognizant of the after-school setting," she told me in an interview, "These are people who come in at the end of the day. They don't have a lot of prep time."

From year one to year two of the study, the 27 after-school programs involved experienced a fair amount of turnover of both teachers and students.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:47 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend