Living in Dialogue

How closely have you been following education reform this year? Here is a pop quiz to see if you are on your toes and following the latest trends. The answers will appear in the first comment below. If you want to do some research, there is a link to the source in each question. After you take the quiz, please share any surprises, insights or ideas that came to you as a result. Better than 50% makes you an official EduWonk!

1. How many of the sixty individuals involved in writing education standards for the nation’s fifty million students are classroom teachers?
a. 0
b. 1
c. 7
d. 23

2. What technological advance is education leader Bill Gates excited about?

a. Educational computer games
b. Virtual teacher collaboration
c. Videotaped lectures
d. Online student portfolios

3. How do charter schools compare with public schools in their math scores?

a. 26% the same, 52% (of charters) better, 22% worse
b. 46% the same, 17% better, 37% worse
c. 74% the same, 20% better, 6% worse
d. 38% the same, 44% better, 18% worse

4. How much greater is the percent of charter school teachers who quit the profession compared to teachers in traditional schools in the same state?

a. 20% more
b. 40% more
c. 100% more
d. 230% more

5. The United States, with 5% of the world’s population, has what percent of the world’s prisoners behind bars?
a. 5%
b. 10%
c. 18%
d. 25%

6. What percent of the nation’s prisoners are Black or Hispanic?
a. 10%
b. 20%
c. 40%
d. 60%

7. Percent of the Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundation three member Board of Directors that is of color:

a. 0%
b. 33%
c. 66%
d. 100%

8. Percent of Latino children that lack healthcare:

a. 5%
b. 12%
c. 20%
d. 32%

9. Percent of California K-12 students that are Latino:

a. 14%
b. 25%
c. 33%
d. 49%

10. Percent of California students that qualify for free/reduced lunches:

a. 12%
b. 22%
c. 31%
d. 50%

11. Ranking of California’s spending on education in 2008 (prior to recent cuts)

a. 22nd in the nation
b. 37th in the nation
c. 49th in the nation
d. 46th in the nation

12. Amount California spends per year to keep a juvenile inmate incarcerated:

a. $19,000
b. $27,000
c. $53,000
d. $115,000

13. Amount the State of California plans to cut from Education funding this fall to balance the budget without raising taxes (per k-12 student):

a. $1 billion ($165 per child)
b. $2 billion ($330 per child)
c. $4 billion ($660 per child)
d. $6 billion ($1000 per child)

14. Amount the state has already cut from education funding to balance the budget over the past two years:

a. $2 billion ($330 per child)
b. $4 billion ($660 per child)
c. $6 billion ($1,000 per child)
d. $12 billion ($2,000 per child)

15. Proportion of California schools expected to fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress according to NCLB goals in 2010:

a. 1/2
b. 1/3
c. 3/4
d. 1/4

The first "comment" below will contain a list of the correct answers.

Any surprises? Does this give you any new thoughts about education reform? Any further facts or figures we should be aware of?

(special thanks to Jim Horn at the Schools Matter blog for bringing many of these things to light.)

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

As teachers we renew our credentials every five years. But we need a much deeper renewal. Many of us get worn down by the pressures we face, and the inadequacy of our schools to meet the needs of our students. We often work in isolation, and lack support for our own creative side. We spend so much time nurturing others, and often there is no place where we are nurtured. The Tomki Center will be a place to heal the healers.

The goals of this center:
• Live in harmony with the space
• Restore the spirit and courage of our educators
• Inspire creative artistic expression
• Unleash and explore innovative ideas
• Build community among participants
• Provide space for focused collaborative work on educational issues or projects

The Tomki Center is to be an occasional gathering place for small groups (a dozen or less) of creative teachers. A cluster of small cabins will sit at the edge of a meadow, nestled under Douglas fir trees. The largest cabin will be an octagon 28 feet in diameter. Inside this cabin will a warm kitchen and a large round table for conversation, art, games and shared meals. Along the walls are beds that transform into casual seating during the day. Windows on one side face the sunny meadow, and on the other side, the ferns and tree trunks of the forest. Electricity will be limited to what we gather from a couple of small solar panels, and used mainly for lights in the evening. There is no cell phone service, TV or internet.

A few hundred yards down the road lies Tomki Creek, and a swimming hole that is eight feet deep and a hundred feet long. The Tomki feeds into the Eel River, and is a salmon spawning ground. Bear and deer roam during the days, bats and owls rule the nights. The property is ten miles east of the nearest town, off the grid, at the end of a dirt road in the heart of Mendocino County, about three hours north of San Francisco.

Over the past few months work has begun to make this a reality. In the past month, my teenage sons, a couple of their pals, and my partner joined me for several four-day long work parties up at the site. We worked with a local builder who is very skilled and energetic. We ran about a thousand feet of pipe around the hill to a spring, and connected it to a 2600 gallon storage tank, so now we have running water and a shower. And over the past two weeks, we laid an eight-sided concrete perimeter foundation for the main cabin.

My hope is to spend next summer actually building the cabin atop this foundation.

I have shared this idea on a Facebook page, which has more information and photographs. If you are interested, you can sign up as a “fan” there to get updates.

What do you think of this idea? What would a teacher’s retreat look like for you?

(all photos by Anthony Cody or Randi C., used with permission)

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Education reformers sometimes take on stances that carry good ideas to absurd lengths. One of those that has concerned me recently is the idea that the only acceptable outcome for a K-12 student is completion of a four-year college degree. This is what the jobs of the future will demand, we are told. But when I look at the shambles our economy is in, I begin to wonder who is better off, a college graduate with a degree in English and $50,000 worth of debt, or someone who has managed to get a strong set of skills as a carpenter, an electrician, or any number of technical positions that require training but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree.

There is little question that attending college confers advantages. Those with less education find themselves economically and socially marginalized. However, when we make college the ONLY choice in our schools, we seem to be losing a large number of students, who drop out when they cannot identify with that objective. Can’t we allow for some more options? And how can we do so in a way that avoids the trap of tracking?

A new book has been released that says, yes, we can. “Beyond Tracking, Multiple Pathways to College, Career and Civic Participation,” (Harvard Education Press, 2008), edited by Jeannie Oakes and Marisa Saunders, is a collection of essays that explains how.

Here are some of the key ideas from the book.

Jeannie Oakes and Marisa Saunders explain the basic elements of the Multiple Pathways approach:

1. A college-preparatory academic core that satisfies the course requirements for entry into a state’s flagship public university through project-based learning and other engaging instructional strategies. These strategies intentionally bring real-world context and relevance to the curriculum by emphasizing broad themes, interest areas, and/or career and technical education.

2. A professional or technical core well-grounded in academic and real-world standards.

3. Field-based learning and realistic workplace simulations that deepen students’ understanding of academic and technical knowledge through application in authentic situations.

4. Additional support services to meet the particular needs of students and communities, which can include supplemental instruction, counseling, transportation, and so on.

Mike Rose states,

Our notion of intelligence is strongly influenced by the IQ test and traditional verbal and quantitative school tasks. Doing well on such tests may indicate some dimensions of cognitive competence, but what about other ways that intellectual ability reveals itself? There is the plumber making a judgment by the feel of old pipes behind a wall. Or a hairstylist determining a style from a client’s imprecise description. Or the technician with an intuitive sense of how to use an instrument to its full capacity. Or the ICU nurse ordering and reordering the flow of tasks emerging in a dynamic, changing environment. A Multiple Pathways agenda could provide opportunity to move beyond traditional measures of intellectual ability through multiple high school curricula/programs that are at once academically rigorous and inclusive of the range of aspirations and abilities of a diverse student population.

Michael A. Stoll writes,

The Multiple Pathways approach, especially one that uses career academies as an educational option, can engage students and keep them in school by providing concrete links between schooling and career options. Academies can prepare students for multiple trajectories and changes in skills in the changing labor market, partly through an experiential learning curriculum that allows for reflection and problem solving in the classroom. Moreover, if designed appropriately, career academies can provide incentives and the institutional structure for students to move seamlessly in and out of training and career over a career lifetime.

But Stoll warns,

…tracking in any educational program that combines some form of work-based learning with general education remains a concern. These concerns can be allayed if career academies are fundamentally committed to preparing all students for college.

W. Norton Grubb suggests,

Motivation and engagement are enhanced when students have multiple paths to competence. In contrast to the monolithic college-prep curriculum, which allows only one path to success measured by grades and SAT scores, theme-based pathways can provide multiple avenues for success, including artistic success, success in making and fixing things, and success in developing competencies related to employment. Internships provide opportunities to master additional skills.

Mike Rose describes why this is such a challenging approach;

It is difficult. It means developing classroom activities that represent the authentic knowledge and intellectual demands of the workplace and, conversely, bringing academic content to life through occupational tasks and simulations. It means the house or the automobile could be the core of a rich, integrated curriculum: one that includes social and technical history, science and economics, and hands-on assembly and repair. It means learning about new subjects and making unfamiliar connections: the historian investigating the health care or travel industry, or the machinist engaging the humanities. It means fostering not only basic mathematical skill, but also an appreciation for mathematics, a mathematical sensibility, through the particulars of the print shop, the restaurant, the hospital lab. It also means seeking out the many literate possibilities running through young people’s lives – on the street, in church, in romance – and connecting them to the language of the stage, the poem, but the tech manual too, and the contract, and the Bill of Rights. Of course such teaching might well mean providing instruction in “basic skills,” but in a manner that puts the skill in context, considers its purpose, and pushes toward meaning beyond rote performance.

To me, this sounds like why I became a teacher in the first place.

In California there are several initiatives along the lines suggested here.
ConnectEd offers grants and ideas to districts interested in the multiple pathways approach.

The Buck Institute for Education offers training and resources in project-based learning.

Update: The editors of this book have published an essay further describing their recommendations and citing more examples here.

What do you think? Should we expand multiple pathways for our students? Are there other resources you might suggest in this arena?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Sixty individuals, ONE teacher among them, will write national education standards in the next five months, in a secret process that excludes effective input from students, parents or teachers.

As teachers we spend a lot of time thinking about what we teach our students, and how to engage them in learning. When the National Governor’s Association (NGA) called for national education standards a few months back, some educators optimistically believed that we might be consulted in the process. After all, didn’t the entire No Child Left Behind fiasco teach us what happens when policies are enacted without the active engagement of the professionals expected to carry them out?

However, I had a sinking feeling history might repeat itself, when I wrote this entry a few weeks back.

Now the other shoe has dropped. On Wednesday, the NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released their plan for developing national standards for Mathematics and English.

They propose a process that will result in new national K-12 standards by next December, and launched a new website where we can watch the magic unfold. They also released the names of those on the Mathematics and English “Work Groups” that will draft the standards, and the “Feedback Groups” who will advise them once drafts have been offered. We are informed that “The Work Group's deliberations will be confidential throughout the process.” As far as public input, “States and national education organizations will have an opportunity to review and provide evidence-based feedback on the draft documents throughout the process.” There does not appear to be any avenue for the public at large, students, parents or teachers to provide direct input.

So who makes up the two Work Groups? Of the 25 individuals on the two teams, (four people are on both) six are associated with the test-makers from the College Board, five are with fellow test-publishers ACT, and four are with Achieve. Zero teachers are on either Work Group. The Feedback Groups have 35 participants, almost all of whom are university professors. There appears to be exactly one classroom teacher involved in the entire process, on one of the Feedback Groups.

I am not personally or professionally acquainted with the sixty people who are being handed the power to determine the curriculum for our nation’s fifty million school children. But I know I have had zero say in selecting them, and there appears to be no opportunity for teachers to influence or even observe this process.

Dane Linn, one of the leaders of this project, states in a recent interview “…if we can leverage resources from state to state -- for example, on student assessments -- we can stop spending the approximately $700 million we are spending collectively and reach an economy of scale that is not obtainable in one state alone.” This sets the stage for a national test, which presumably can be used in conjunction with No Child Left Behind to compare schools, teachers and students from coast to coast. Furthermore, the agreement reached by the NGA with the 49 states that signed on pledges that the national standards will not be “lower” than those of any state. You should be aware that current California math standards call for Algebra in the 8th grade, so that presumably will become national policy by fiat.

One might expect our newspapers to be champions of a democratic process. But my own newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote last month that secrecy in this project is “… a wise decision. A truly open process would result in the experts being lobbied by countless interest groups, and - given the still-controversial nature of national standards - it could torpedo the plan altogether.”

Heaven forbid “interest groups” such as teachers, parents and students should be given the opportunity to muck up these standards. They do not seem to be asking, but perhaps our first bit of input could be in the form of a collective howl of outrage. After the dismal failure of NCLB, which was caused in no small part by the exclusion of classroom teachers from its design, how can we launch another major reform effort in a similar way?

Teachers have a deep understanding of what is possible in a classroom. When academics, policy wonks and testing experts get together to write standards, they often leave reality behind. We experienced this first-hand in California, where we have highly prescriptive content standards that were drafted by such people, without the participation of teachers.

Would standards for the practice of medicine be written without the participation of doctors? Standards for the practice of law without lawyers? It is not only insulting, it is undemocratic and counterproductive in the extreme.

And how about students? We have made the schools all about passing the tests, and now a small group is poised to decide, over the next six months, what will be on the tests across the country in a few years? Shouldn't this be the result of some broader dialogue, including our students?

I think we need to make our voices heard loud and clear on this. What do you think?

Update #1: Education activist Susan Ohanian has launched a new website: Stop National Standards.

Update # 2: Take a look at this short film featuring scholar Yong Zhao's critique of the drive towards standardization.

By the way, here is contact information for the directors of the two organizations responsible for this process. And perhaps your governor and state superintendent of education might want to know what you think as well:

Mr. Ray Scheppach
Executive Director
National Governors Association
Hall of the States
444 North Capitol Street
Suite 267
Washington, DC 20001-1512

Mr. Gene Wilhoit
Executive Director
Council of Chief State School Officers
One Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20001-1431

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBacks (0)