Criticism of Vouchers, Defense of Monopoly

January 31, 2004 Over at Assorted Stuff, Tim Stahmer says U.S. Secretary Rod Paige is "Full of it" simply because he has positive words for vouchers and negative words about the government monopoly over schools in poor neighborhoods.

He quotes from a CNN article:

Paige said the experiment "isn't about dismantling the public school system. And this isn't a plan to federalize the schools." Rather, he said, it is a means to offer choice to those who couldn't afford it otherwise.

Mr. Stahmer's response is, "No, this isn't about federalizing the schools, it's about privatizing them."

Critics often level the charge of "privatizing" without bothering to define the term, or to even to mount a significant argument that "privatizing" is even what would happen if vouchers were enacted. The term simply serves as a scare word, and just mentioning it does all the arguing that's needed.

We disagree.

Wholesale privatization is a straw man. While small-scale privatization would be a welcome change from the current monopoly, it is precisely this increase of choices that will spur failing urban schools to improve.

A good analogy of what we mean is what happened to the U.S. auto industry after the 1970s, when competition opened up for foreign car manufacturers. While a cynic might have said at the time that "the government's just going to force everyone to buy Japanese," what actually happened is that Detroit responded, and began to match Japanese quality. So today, not everyone's buying Japanese, people are buying whatever car brand they want.

But two previously-unthinkable side effects to the increased competition is that American auto exports to Japan increased dramatically, and that Japanese auto manufacturers would start building plants here in the U.S., hiring American workers.

Getting back to education, voucher programs will enable poor parents (who've previously had zero options) to now select schools. Public schools will improve to increase the likelihood that parents will chose to stay. (Those who don't believe this will happen must feel that public schools are even more ossified than they already are, thus making our argument for us!)

The bottom line is that increased competition improves almost everyone. Those that don't improve don't survive the market.

The CNN article continues (emphasis ours):

"When students are required by law to attend a particular school, the school doesn't have to do anything to secure quality or produce scholarship," Paige said. "It just has to open the door and collect the local and state stipend for each student."

But Mr. Stahmer's response is over the top, putting words in Dr. Paige's mouth that he never said (emphasis ours):

So according to our national "educational" leader (and I'm being very charitable with that phrase), those of us who work for a public school system are simply sitting around, drinking coffee and waiting for the next check to arrive from Washington or Richmond. Dr. Paige believes public schools have a "monopoly" and therefore no one is even trying to improve student learning.

He doth protest too much.

Dr. Paige isn't saying that all public schools are crap, full of apathetic teachers. He isn't even saying that most schools fit that description. All he said was that public schools in poor neighborhoods (where the parents cannot afford private school tuition) don't have any requirement to produce scholarship.

Make no mistake, there are quite a few schools in poor neighborhoods that do bend over backwards to educate children (see NoExcuses.org for details), but these schools swim against the grain.

We can tell you firsthand that what Dr. Paige says is absolutely correct. We've taught in inner-city schools where there was zero competition for children (this was before the state passed its charter school law), and we can tell you honestly that it was a living hell. Violence (against staff and fellow students), the fungal spread of graffiti, trash-strewn hallways and classrooms, and a general aura of mayhem were the norm.

Why was it this way? Two reasons.

First, the adults in charge of the school didn't give a rat's rear end how the school performed, since they were getting paid either way! Thanks to a powerful teachers union and an equally powerful principals union, no staff member was ever in danger of even receiving a strongly-worded memo. Plus, at this particular school the principal was a master of information, and saw to it that serious incidents weren't reported.

While there were a few courageous teachers who closed their doors and had an academic program within their classrooms, these folks were rare. In the rest of the school, educational malpractice was the law of the land.

And second, there were no pressures for it to be otherwise. None.

We suspect that Mr. Stahmer's a good teacher in a good school, a good public school. We are happy that his kids are probably getting a decent education.

But far too many schools in our inner cities aren't fit for a dog. Competition and parental choice are desperately needed.

And about those high-poverty, high-performing public schools which are already turning out young scholars? They've got nothing to fear from competition.

New French Education Reform Blog!

January 31, 2004 The birth of a blog is a wonder to behold. From France comes a new blog called ReformEducation (en Français), all of 24 hours old.

Of all the international visitors to ReformK12, by far the most people hail from France. We can only imagine that they're struggling with the same reform issues that we have here in the U.S.

Using Babel Fish, we translated their first posts and cleaned up the language a bit, albeit poorly. But while the rote translation of idiomatic phrases can be amusing, we think we know exactly what this French blogger's saying. From the inaugural post yesterday (all italics are ours):

Let us have courage to call a spade a spade: The LEVEL IS NOT GOOD.

I have impassioned myself for approximately two years for this problem. I have extensively read, sought on the Internet, and studied the situation abroad (in particular in the United States).

In my opinion, the root of the evil is a conflict between two philosophies of education: education known as "traditional" and education known as "progressive."  I think that the second philosophy has a crushing responsibility in the current situation.

It seems the author's gone through a process very similar to our past decade of experience.

Many criticize schools (public or private) by claiming that they've remained fixed a hundred years behind, a kind of horrible prison where sadistic professors cram useless heaps of knowledge down the throats of poor terrorized pupils, etc..., you know the song. It is the mantra of the press, of left-thinking people, and of the official "pedagogues" of the ministry, for example of Meirieu (I will speak again lengthily of this character).

One weapon Progressive reformers have in their impressive arsenal is the abuse of history. They attack "traditional" education as cruel factory schooling, with the poor pupils beaten with sticks and forced to learn to read and do paper-and-pencil math, while sitting in desks which were (gasp) bolted to the floor. Oh, the humanity!

Nothing is false any more! How can one hold such a belief? For fifty years, the reforms have piled up one on another, without any evaluation, with an insane acceleration since the law of orientation of 1989 (thank you Mr. JOSPIN). Think of the "modern maths", the "total method", with the PAE, TPE, ECJS, IDD and other jokes . . .

We think of how "new new math," "whole language," "bilingual education," "project-based learning" and the like have wreaked havoc in our schools, all without any evaluation! (That is, without any supporting evaluation.)

It appears that "pedagogues" believe that so that the pupils learn better, it is necessary that the professors do not teach!!! It is the "autonomous construction of the knowledge by learning." Do not laugh! Or then laugh yellow, because it is what your dear fair children undergo every single day.

In American Schools of Education the concept of "sage on the stage" is mocked in favor of "guide on the side." And our favorite topic: Constructivism! (Musician extraordinaire Susan Werner defined the French yellow laugh as "you laugh, but you go 'Eww.' ")

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From their second post yesterday:

To remove the IUFM

Since their creation in 1991 by Jospin, the University Institutes of Training of the Masters, these "straw huts" of pedagogy did not cease extending their capacity, at the same time as their nothingness burst at the great day.

An ever increasing capacity, bursting with self-congratulations, yet having a foundation made of straw? Reminds us of our Schools of Education here in America, the progeny of John Dewey. (The French word paillotes is misspelled in the original.)

Behind the project of the IUFM is a hiding place for a totalitarian and levelling ideology: "sciences of education", which are sciences only in name. They are to true science what astrology is to astronomy . . .

(Emphasis ours.) Ouch! We wince at this description, because we personally possess the self-important "Science of Instruction" degree.

But it is interesting that the author refers to a "hiding place for a totalitarian" ideology. This is very true in the United States, where many early Progressive education reformers really sought to remake society with their efforts, and were heavily influenced by Marxism, Socialism and Communism. These folks were in direct opposition to the Traditionalists, who believed that the purpose of education was to teach children a body of knowledge and skills.

As for "levelling ideology" we see this daily, as schools seek to eliminate the distinctions between groups of students by pretending such distinctions don't exist (dumbing down the education for everybody, as seen in today's "Defining equality down" post by Joanne Jacobs).

Did the school situation improve one iota since their creation? NO. Unfortunately, they are not reformable.

How true. The real path to education reform largely is getting rid of those Progressives who are trying to "reform" education, reformers who have a near-complete absence of success! A vicious cycle.

The United States has known for a century the "schools of education," the analog of our IUFM, where the situation is still worse. The Americans at the present time try to develop "alternative certification," i.e. the recruitment of professonals who've not passed through these "Ed. Schools:" young graduates of the universities, people having professional experience . . .

We wrote about alternative certification yesterday.

The reforms which I propose:

- Closing of all the IUFM

- Closing of the INRP (national institute of educational research)

- In all the universities, closing of the departments of "sciences of education"

We like this guy! Gotta love the scare quotes around "sciences of education."

And the reference to the national institute of educational research reminds us both of our federal Department of Education (which we advocate disbanding), and the What Works Clearinghouse (because we don't know what works? Please).

The level is not good, indeed.

If you're a Francophone, please visit ReformEducation. Bonne chance, mes amis!

The Scientific Method and Reading

January 30, 2004 Joanne Jacobs' "Feds for Phonics" post today really floored us. She noticed that out of one hundred thousand studies on reading that the feds examined in forming new guidelines, only forty used the scientific method.

What the . . . ?!

And here we thought we were exaggerating when we said that most educational research isn't trustworthy. We had no idea, really.

For those of you not in the know, the Scientific Method is actually really cool. Basically, the principle is to apply rigor to any study, in four general steps:

1. Analyze the problem (either by direct observation, or by reading up on it)
2. Form a Hypothesis (basically, make a statement which may or may not be true, something that can be possibly proved--or disproved--by experimentation)
3. Design and perform an Experiment (remember the best experiments have a control group which receives "no treatment" and can serve as a comparison for your experimental group)
4. Form a Conclusion (after analyzing your experimental data, does your Hypothesis hold up?)

If all this sounds quite obvious--that you should perform an experiment to find out the outcome--then you clearly are not familiar with education research.

A good example is exploring the hypothesis "Heavier Things Fall Faster."

Many folks don't know this, but for millennia the brightest scientific minds thought that heavier objects fell faster due to gravity pulling on them with greater force. The ancient Greeks had a lot of good ideas, but they did not have the Scientific Method! They believed that if you studied a problem (and thought about really, really hard) then you could deduce a conclusion that would be sound.

So without ever picking up and dropping an object, scientists believed (up until about the 16th century) that heavier things in fact fell faster.

It is only when one actually drops two objects (of similar density, such as a coin and a textbook) that the hypothesis "Heavier Things Fall Faster" is soundly disproved.

But if you just make casual observations, such as Aristotle did, you may notice that most objects fall faster than an autumn leaf, which in turn falls faster than a dandelion seed--hence the incorrect conclusion . . .

. . . Which brings us back to Educational Research. In our view, since there are so many ideologically-driven folks (not bad people, really, just misguided) who really want their progressive theories of education to be proven correct, we end up with a lot of really bad research.

One joke in the sciences is "plot the curve, then fit the data"--essentially saying the conclusion comes first, then the search for data that fits. We noticed this when we analyzed the research from the University of Chicago's Everyday Math program. What they'd done is pick one pre-test which showed a control group and an experimental group as being on the same level, then they picked a different post-test to show that the Everyday Math group did better.

If their post-test was in the affective domain--that is, measured "math appreciation"--then we have no doubt the Everyday Math group would score higher.

Another way to conduct bad research is by pure obfuscation. We noted an example of this when we examining a research study touted by proponents of small class sizes. In fact, the study had done four things with the experimental group--including using a rigorous curriculum--thus permanently obscuring any effects attributable to the small class size.

In all fairness, the Scientific Method is not the only way to conduct research, because it is not always possible to perform an experiment with real people. (Think of child seat belts: could you do an experiment where you have one group not wear seatbelts?) So yes, it is possible to take data that has already been collected and perform analyses on that.

But while such research may be valid, it is not as rigorous as an experiment performed using the Scientific Method. As you can imagine, it is far easier to manipulate the results of a study performed benefit of experimentation.

This is probably why there are a hundred thousand studies on reading, but only a handful which use the Scientific Method, and it is those studies which show that the explicit teaching of phonics gives children the best start to reading.

There's probably a good reason why it's called The Scientific Method, not The SkyBeatific Method.

We know which flavor we prefer in our educational research.

Instruction in Another Language: A Parent's Right?

January 30, 2004 The following is a true story.

Mauro E. Mujica reports that when 15-year old Kiet Tran emigrated from Vietnam in April 2002 to a country where millions of citizens speak Spanish, the local school district set about trying to teach him Spanish, using one of the best methods of instruction, which is immersion. Thus for three hours a day, all of his major subjects were taught in Spanish.

Makes perfect sense, no?

The father protested, demanding that his son be taught English in school, because that's what they speak in America.

No, the school district responded, his son would be best served learning Spanish. In no way, shape, or form would school officials be pressured into teaching young Kiet Tran English.

Because of the conflicting pressures of a father wanting him to learn English and a school system doing its best to teach him Spanish, the boy became very frustrated at school and began to suffer emotional problems.

Disgusted, the father packed his family up and moved all the way to a town not far from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, here in the United States. There, Kiet completed a 4-week intensive English program at a campus of the University of Wisconsin, where he won an award for "most improved English" and is looking forward to the coming school year.

Question: Where do you think this story took place?

A) Madrid, Spain
B) Havana, Cuba
C) San Juan, Puerto Rico
D) Madison, Wisconsin
E) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ok, we tried to fool you with that last one, since Rio is a Portuguese-speaking place.

The correct answer is D).

Yep, the progressive folks in Madison, Wisconsin know that Bilingual Education is best for our new immigrants, or anyone who doesn't speak English. Since Kiet Tran was not only a recent immigrant, but didn't know English, it was off to Bilingual Ed. for him!

You see, "bi" means two, as in bicycle. Bilingual Education means that the school delivers instruction in two languages. One is English, for all the students who don't have Hispanic-sounding surnames* and who "get" all the esoteric references on Frasier.

For everyone else, we have language number two, Spanish. As in all Spanish for all school subjects.

It matters not whether the parents wish* their children to be taught in English, the well-schooled education experts know better. A side benefit is that the school can hire teachers who speak only Spanish, even Superintendents who "dont no English so good."

* (From an article by Andrew Wolf: The Aspira agreement requires all students with Spanish-sounding surnames to be tested for their ability to speak English, and if found to be deficient, are required to be taught in bilingual classes. . . A parent of such a child cannot place their child in regular English-only classes.)

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Portions of this entry originally appeared in TheInternetParty.org, dedicated to smaller government and greater individual liberty.

New Route Needed for Certification

January 29, 2004 We've mentioned before that we're not enthusiastic with the entire concept of teacher certification as is stands today. It has two strikes against it, in our view, for not only is an artificial barrier, but it also serves as a process of indoctrination into the values of progressive education. (See our personal experience with certification.)

We'd be pleased if principals of public schools were permitted to hire whom they think would best do the job, certification or not. Shocking? How do you think private schools do it, most of which aren't required to hire certified teachers?

Of course the public at large wouldn't accept the floodgates being opened to anyone with a pulse, especially after years of hearing "we need more certified teachers!" so often repeated on the airwaves. (At the public hearings prior to the opening of one big-city charter school, we heard parents frequently asking if the school hired only certified teachers. It is clear to us the connection they've made in their minds.)

Rather, our vision of "alternative certification" would go something like this:

Take folks with a bachelor's degree in a subject other than education, give 'em some standardized tests to prove they actually know English and are fairly intelligent and/or well informed, in addition to specialty tests in the field or fields in which they want to teach. (The good news is that these tests already exist.)

After passing these exams, give these candidates a provisional certificate, with which they can seek employment.

Then permit these folks to teach! After, say, two satisfactory years of teaching, the provisional certificate would be turned into what is currently the entry-level teaching certificate (what freshly-minted grads from the School of Education receive).

It turns out at least one state thinks this plan is a good one. Since 1985, New Jersey has maintained an alternative route to certification, through which several thousand teachers have passed. Their plan is nearly identical to ours, with the additional requirement that provisional teachers take after-school training in the first thirty weeks of employment.

The Council for Basic Education has a report on alternative-route certification from the former state education commissioner in New Jersey, who writes that not only has that state's teacher shortage been stemmed, but that it has dramatically increased the pool of minority teacher candidates.

It also details some of the current problems with "traditional certification" in that Schools of Education tend to draw from the bottom of the barrel--attracting the lowest-performing of any given crop of college students (often with the next-to-lowest SAT scores of any academic major). The best and brightest are also not attracted to an Education degree (with the attached teaching certificate) simply because such a degree makes candidates next to unemployable in any field besides teaching!

It makes far more sense to open teaching to graduates from all majors (plus older professionals), who have their options open (and actually know something besides Education theory).

Lower the barriers, and let 'em teach!

18 Students Ace Math SAT in one school

January 29, 2004 This just in from the Arizona Republic (via Education News):

Four years ago, math teacher Larry Strom told then-freshman Cristina White that she would ace the math portion of her SATs.

White never forgot her teacher's words and, sure enough, the Desert Vista High School senior recently nailed a perfect math score on the test.

"I wasn't surprised at all," White said of her flawless test score.

Turns out eighteen students at this one school got a perfect 800 on the math SAT. This got our attention. Is this school just mechanically turning out standardized-test-taking drones, or is there more to this story? The Desert Vista High School Math Department webpage gives us a little glimpse as to what's going on at that school.

Welcome to the Desert Vista High School Math Department. I’m Larry Strom, the math department chair and I feel we provide the best math education in the world for all students.

Our school is 8 years old. We have great math students.

A simple message, but there's elegance in simplicity, and they've got the data to prove it. The past four years they've either placed first, second or third in the state on the Math portion of the Stanford-9. But the school's success isn't just measured in standardized test scores, they also field very strong teams in assorted state-wide math competitions.

So how do they do it?

One goal we have at ReformK12 is to find schools that are meeting success, and to learn from what they do. Desert Vista gives us a few clues.

A homework policy with teeth. Refuse to do homework, and get removed from class. Doing homework doesn't cost anything, but is essential to success in any scientifically-based course such as higher math. If a school insists that students do homework, students can and will rise to the challenge.

Strict promotion guidelines. No social promotion in Desert Vista math, no sir. Not only must students have a C to advance to the next course, but must score a 50% or higher on the math final. And we're pretty sure they stick to their guns on this one, for to do otherwise would set up the child to fail.

Proper role of calculators. Any calculus teacher will tell you, modern graphing calculators are absolutely amazing. There are activities you can do with students in the teaching of higher math that can really expand student's math horizons, and are impossible without them.

Having said that, at Desert Vista, calculators are not permitted in any math course geometry or below. They seem to know that students must have a solid foundation in paper-and-pencil computations, before going higher. Once a student has that foundation, then bring on the technology!

Extra assistance. Before school and after school "ask any teacher" math help is available for a total of two and a half hours each day. Successful programs know that not everyone will get the skills in the classroom, and many students need extra help. If a school is relentless about student success, they will help those students--nine thousand per year at Desert Vista--at any time.

Other factors. Being strict with students who don't come to class, maintaining constant communication between school and home and students, and using high-quality textbooks also contribute to their success. And all the recent drama over honor rolls? These folks publish the list of the top math students, with their scores. How refreshing.

High Standards. Sure, it's a lot of work. Having and maintaining high standards always is. But the results speak for themselves. But more than hard work, there seems to be a relentless pursuit of success in math at Desert Vista. Mr. Strom's telling a freshman that four years later she'd ace the SAT test is just an anecdote, but a telling one.

It is difficult to put one's finger on what quality that infects this school's math program with such energy, but we dare say it's optimism. They say they hired only those expert math teachers "who know the math, who can teach anyone math."

Lots of people know math. Lots of people can teach math. But it is a special quality to teach anyone math, to have the intangible feeling, deep in one's bones, that no matter what happens, the students can and will succeed in mathematics.

Let's hope other schools can learn from Desert Vista's self-fulfilling prophesy.

Blowing the lid off Homeschooling

January 28, 2004 Regular readers of Daryl Cobranchi, Chris O'Donnell and the Homeschooling Revolution (to name but a few)--bloggers who are positively fanatical and self-serving with their views on "homeschooling"--may think that "homeschools" are all fine and dandy.

Don't be fooled.

Where is the standardization? Where are the certified teachers? Where is the state- and locally-approved sex-ed curriculum? Where are the Cafeteria Ladies?

What is needed is an investigative reporter to go into one of these "homeschools" and tell the world exactly what is going on. Sunlight makes the best disinfectant.

Luckily one investigative reporter for Eye Off the Wall was able to enter the perilous domain of one such "school." Here, we excerpt from her report, entitled "Homeschool Spin: The Dark Side."

What about the children? These children are being forced to read and learn. Their home is cluttered with books and so-called educational objects. Okay, that's fine, but where are the video games that children need to develop good fine motor and social skills? The images below will scare you. You will see just how these children are lacking in social skills. It's a disgrace.

Just who is teaching these kids?

To begin, let us introduce you to the mother of these poor children. Right off the bat you can tell there is something not right about her. I don't know about you but she's not quite what you picture when you think about home- schooling moms. This woman also has a drinking problem.

We can't emphasize this enough. This mother--the one supposedly responsible for teaching these poor children--has a drinking problem! (The intrepid reporter even photographed the contents of the refrigerator as evidence.) But the story only gets worse.

Gambling, Weapons, and Dangerous Animals abound in this homeschool. The first thing you see when you open the door is a pair of rodents scampering about. Then, a vicious dog comes from nowhere and tries to bite you.
[ . . . ]
Why else would there be a poker chip on the floor but for gambling? This mother insists it's a math manipulative, but I don't remember any such nonsense in my days at public school.

The reporter also found numerous weapons--sharp scissors--in this "homeschool."

But what about the children? They're crying for help:

The children are sending dangerous messages with the way they leave their toys and art work scattered about. They seem to be crying out "Please let us free!" We all know that children definitely send messages with their toys . . . dinosaurs heading off the edge of a counter, a picture pasted onto a door, a school bus headed for the back door . . . all say one thing: help us escape! (note the hairbrush on the floor by the toy bus. obviously this family does not take hygiene seriously.)

Is it normal for one family to have so many of these . . . inflatable globes...?

"Homeschoolers" are clearly a meanace to children. Get these kids to the nearest Government school, posthaste!

For their own sake.

Myth of Drill and Kill

January 28, 2004 Some progressive educators love to call any repetetive exercise that helps children learn important facts or skills "drill and kill."

But this begs the question: Exactly what (or whom) is being killed?

Think about professions where certain members are recognized to be the best of the best. How did Barry Bonds get to be such a slugger? Not by simply playing baseball—after all, he spends most of each game either with a glove on his hand or on the bench waiting for his turn at bat.

No, he attends batting practice.

What about the world's most gifted musicians?

Take Miles Davis, in his prime arguably one of the most influential trumpeters of the twentieth century. A young trumpeter approached Miles, eager to learn how he got such an intimacy with his instrument, with technique obviously not learned in any school, so he asked the older musician for some beginning advice. With an orotund voice, Miles responded slowly, "Learn your scales."

Progressive educators claim that "drill" kills one's spirit. This would be true if that's all one ever did. May we go on record as saying that if "Drill and Kill" is the use of drill and practice as the sole method of instruction, we're likewise against it!

But overzealous critics want all or most drill eliminated. Barry Bonds and Miles Davis would argue that their drills increased their skills to the point of automaticity.

Automaticity essentially frees part of your mind so you can focus your brain on other details. In educational terms this means you can learn more since you have to focus less on what's been learned already.

And that is the whole point.

Cheating Pep Rally in Phoenix

January 27, 2004 "Gimme an A! Gimme an A! I said gimme an A!" Why? Not because I earned the A, but because I'm skilled at cheating! "Hooray!"

While no such words were ever uttered at a pep rally (we hope), the story of an auditorium full of juniors and seniors at a Phoenix, Arizona high school finds us in high dudgeon. Number 2 Pencil has a report of Marianne Jennings, who was asked to give a talk to the high school on the malignance of cheating.

There was less noise and more order in "Braveheart" battles...I explained that 75% of high school students cheat. Most of the student body found that stat funny, with some in the crowd cheering "Yes!"... There was growing insurrection as I outlined the consequences of cheating. They booed, and then they laughed hysterically.

There are two separate issues here. First, why are upperclassmen permitted to behave like zoo animals for a guest speaker? Secondly, why do students have such apathy towards cheating?

The answer is the same for both questions.

The adults in charge of the school have cultivated the environment for both, and they, not the children, are responsible for the fruits of their efforts.

While it may seem that we're letting the students off the hook, we instead are stating that their actions are perfectly logical given the boundaries (or lack thereof) which the adults in the school have set. We've said previously that the message is clear: "We, the adults of the school, have effectively lost control of you kids."

Our take on the riotous auditorium behavior for a guest speaker? It seems to be perfectly acceptable at that school, because the adults have given their tacit approval. But if it were our school, during the first assembly of the year (and every one afterwards), any misconduct would be met with severe consequences. We don't care if some doddering old codger was reading the elegiac verse of Ovid, in the original Latin, our students would be expected to show a modicum of respect.

It's only right.

Our take on the what-me-worry attitude towards cheating? Same thing, the adults have broadcast loud and clear that cheating is perfectly acceptable.

"Wait a minute," you protest, "didn't that school hire Professor Jennings to speak to the students about how cheating is wrong? Doesn't that mean that the administration doesn't approve of cheating?"

Ahh, Grasshopper, you have much to learn. Students don't learn by being told, they learn by what they see with their own eyes. Actions speak louder. Witness this, from the good Professor's story:

Last year several students at this school cheated on a math final. When the instructor proposed a penalty, the parents protested mightily. No action was taken against the students.

What is interesting is that the school not only caved in the face of parent protest, they capitulated to unreasonable demands! Let's say the parents raised a stink, and went to the media, or the school board, or to whomever would listen. What exactly could they say, in defense of Johnny not getting an F for Falsehood?

[cue sound of crickets chirping]

Exactly. But schools don't like parent complaints, and rarely stop to think if there's any weight to them. All parent complaints are baaaad, so capitulation is seen as the best course of action.

And the students don't miss a beat.

Please notice that in the above story of the math final, the lackadaisical attitudes toward cheating can so easily be blamed on the parents, but only if you don't consider the school's duplicity. Cheating is fully within the school's boundaries, it can either be excised or tolerated, regardless of what Johnny's parents say.

William F. Buckley recently noted that time was when cheating was treated as the cancer it is. At Princeton University, students who were caught cheating did not simply receive an F for the course, they were expelled from the university. And expulsion was followed by a Carthaginian delisting--the offending party had his name struck from the rolls as if he'd never been a Princeton student at all.

It's only right.

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Update: Marianne Jennings' column can be found here at the Jewish World Review (thanks, Joanne).

Deconstructing "I Am Your Public School"

January 26, 2004 Frosty Troy wrote a warm little essay called I Am Your Public School, published by an affiliate of the NEA, the biggest teacher union on the planet.

While heartwarming and treacly, the essay appears to have not much basis in reality, but instead repeats the union party line, which insists there's nothing wrong with our public education system (other than their opinion that our teachers are underpaid and overworked, natch), so stop criticizing it already.

It is so full of half-truths, innuendos, and pretzel logic that it was just begging to be fisked. Chris O'Donnell rose to the challenge, offering an impressive point-by-point deconstruction.

Here we review a few key fallacies offered in I Am Your Public School:

Public Schooling is 200 years old, and has given the U.S. the strongest economy on the planet. (Actually, it's less than half that age, and the twin concepts of capitalism and a free citizenry have worked wonders on the economy.)

"SAT math and science test scores are at a 33 year high . . . ACT scores are up for 11 consecutive years." (We think Number 2 Pencil could set those numbers straight. But if we're doing so wonderfully, then how come our kids bomb out compared to the other industrialized nations of the world, in comparisons such as TIMSS?)

Our teachers are among the "least paid among the industrial democracies of the world" (Tricky! How many industrial democracies are there in the world? But if you compare the U.S. to all the other developed nations of the world, and standardize for exchange rate, or GDP, or any economic measure you choose, you'll find American public school teachers are among the highest paid in the world.)

Children fail in public schools due to lousy parenting. (Blame the parents! Yeah!)

Black children fail in public schools due to single black mothers. (No comment.)

"We are the only education system that educates the student to the level of his or her ability" (Unfortunately, we're not telling you that we've already pre-decided that Johnny can't read or do math, so we won't push him very hard. "Educating to the child's ability level" is edu-speak for a dumbed-down education for all.)

Studies show public schools do better than charter schools or parochial schools. (Um, which studies?)

"Vouchers require zero accountability." (This just in: formerly known as "parents" we shall now call them "zeros.")

"I leave no child behind, but some of you would dim my lights, leaving in the shadows the poor, the halt, the blind, the lame and the special education student." (What a dystopia! It breaks our heart how critics of public education hate the poor and the lame. Pass us the tissues.)

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No, public education isn't universally bad, in fact there are many, many places where public schools are excellent. However the story isn't so rosy in our inner-cities, where the teacher unions rule the roost, and parents have a dearth of choices.

The author of I Am Your Public School, in deflecting any and all criticisms of public schools, seeks that it stays that way.

The Battle for History Standards in Minnesota

January 26, 2004 Excellent news from Minnesota!

We've posted previously about our dismay at poorly written standards, especially those at the state level, which is quite a few levels away from the classroom that the standards can be--and have frequently been--disfigured into an incomprehensible mess.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Now, in Minnesota, they've completed the final draft of their Social Studies standards (pdf), an announcement not notable in and of itself, for states are constantly writing standards documents across the U.S.

What is notable, however, is who did the work, and who was leading them. From Minnesota Education Reform News, which has been all over this story:

The [forty committee] members were appointed by Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke from over 600 applicants from across Minnesota. The committees consist of parents, teachers, administrators, college professors, businesspeople, and other Minnesota citizens.

In other words, the committee wasn't just made of educators (a major plus), and only about 7% of those who applied were selected. You may also recognize the good Commissioner from our story yesterday--she's the author of The War Against Excellence.

It seems she's declaring war on ideological, vague, or overwrought standards.

While the standards aren't without criticism (one History professor wrote they were "screwball" and "transparently ideological"), the reviews have been very favorable. One interesting phenomena is the outpouring of support for the standards from college and university professors. In higher education, professors usually see the aftermath of K-12 education: their incoming students don't know anything!

Within the social sciences, twenty-four professors co-signed a letter which made some interesting points:

In our experience, too many high school graduates lack the basic grasp of human institutions and of the physical world that ought to be presumed for college-level courses. We continually meet students who have no clue when the Renaissance was, or do not know what the word ‘monarchy’ means, or cannot tell, on a map of the world, which country is France and which is China.

A big reason why students don't know where anything is located is that the term Geography has been co-opted to be next to meaningless. Instead of studying actual places around the country and the globe, students learn the Five Themes of Geography which emphasize process over facts, and cultures over location. The students end up learning not much geography at all.

The professors continue:

But part of the problem stems from a curricular philosophy that makes Social Studies a field unto itself, with history and geography coming into play only insofar as they supply materials for discussing contemporary issues.

In other words, Social Studies has become a bloated form of Current Events.

Twenty-six professors outside the social sciences signed a letter of their own, stating, "The proposed History/Social Studies K-12 Standards will move Minnesota to a content-rich education for our children."

EdWatch wrote of the new standards:

However, in the proposed standards, students will learn states, capitals, countries, and major physical features of the world. That's real progress! The committees included [that] the U.S. economy is "primarily a free market system" that is regulated by supply and demand, and the role of entrepreneurship is highlighted. That, too, is major progress . . .

At this point, the non-educators in the group are probably asking, "What's the big deal? Isn't that just common sense?" You are absolutely right, but unfortunately our academic standards have taken a beating in the past few decades by the forces advocating a dumbed-down, vagued-out curriculum.

This new set of Social Studies standards are a breath of fresh air. One of our favorite Education Reform authors, Diane Ravitch, had this (pdf) to say (emphasis ours):

I read the draft of the Minnesota standards for history and social studies and want to commend you for the careful work that went into them. The old standards for Minnesota were simply dreadful. They were vague generalities that provided no guidance to teachers, students, parents, or anyone else. The new standards, however, are clear and crisp. They identify what students will be expected to learn in each grade.

Any questions?

Doing the Math with Public School budgets

January 25, 2004 Well-meaning people often suggest that we should fund our public schools better. We think this is a bit misguided.

In a November post from his blog, homeschooler Chris "Not the Actor" O'Donnell reports from the back of his property tax bill:

School Operating	$171,059,126	63%
School Capital Projects	$37,644,885	14%
Public Safety	$21,058,812	8%

Using an estimate of 14,913 students for 2003 results in $11,470 per student in the Operating budget. He writes, "The school system is not short on funds."

Another interesting analysis comes from the campaign website of Ken Krawchuk, the 2002 Libertarian candidate for Pennsylvania governor:

To come up with hard numbers, I pulled out the Yellow Pages and called all the private schools in my local Abington area: the Catholic schools, other religious schools, Montessori's, community schools, Abington Friends school, etc. and asked what they charged per year. I heard numbers ranging from the $3,000s through about $6,000, with exclusive schools like the Friends topping out at over $10,000. Then I took the Abington school district budget of $67 million and divided it by the 6,600 students, yielding a cost of over $10,000 a child.

$10,152 per student, to be more precise.

At this point critics usually point out that private schools get to "pick their own students," are "free to discriminate" and "don't serve special-education students and troubled youth" and all sorts of odious accusations. Straw men, all. Anyone ever see any serious reports of any of the preceeding happening at private schools across the nation?

Annecdotal evidence suggests the opposite. Rather than "creaming" Catholic schools, for example, often more than their fair share of discipline problems precisely because they're so successful at dealing with school discipline. You could make the same argument for the teaching of English.

Yet another argument for private school vouchers for poor parents, and for the elimination of the government monopoly on public education.

The Death of Excellence

January 25, 2004 Here are three related stories on our pursuit of Mediocrity.

The War Against Excellence
There's a new book by Cheri Pierson Yecke, Minnesota's commissioner of education. In a Townhall review, Jonathan Butcher writes:

The War Against Excellence is so meticulously researched and well-documented, so thoroughly explained and rich with supporting evidence that it could only have come from witnessing a set of events over and over again until an appalling scene became etched in the author's mind.

Which reminds us why we created this site. In her book, which focusses on middle schools, Ms. Yecke describes how attempts to achieve egalitarian ends have not only sacrificed our best and brightest, but has resulted in the dumbing-down of education for all students. All in the name of social justice.

Honor Rolls
Joanne Jacobs reports that, "Afraid of lawsuits by the parents of mediocre students, Nashville schools won't post honor rolls." Dustbury.com drolly responds, "Light, meet bushel."

Rejecting the Best and Brightest
Speaking of lights and bushels, the Photon Courier points readers to a story from the Atlanta Journal Constitution which highlights a big reason why our schools are failing.

Marquis Harris writes of his education and life experiences, after which he made an important career decision. In Mr. Harris' words:

I am a 22-year-old African-American male and recent graduate of a respectable liberal arts college in Kentucky. I acquired a 3.75 grade-point average with a double major in Social Studies Secondary Education and sociology.

I was a Rhodes Scholar nominee, inducted into the Mensa society in May 2001, named to the National Dean's List for three consecutive years, successfully competed in intercollegiate forensics and served as student body president.

While in college I was also privileged to serve on mission trips to Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica. In the summer of 2002 I was granted the opportunity to intern with Saxby Chambliss, who was then a U.S. representative running for the U.S. Senate. I served for two years as a court-appointed special advocate for the state of Kentucky.

Essentially, the man could have written his own ticket to any of a number of career paths. But he writes, "I came to realize that my true calling lay in inspiring, motivating, challenging and educating other young adults."

Bravo.

After applying in numerous school districts in and around Atlanta, he received the following in an email from a principal at a school where he'd interviewed:

Though your qualifications are quite impressive, I regret to inform you that we have selected another candidate. It was felt that your demeanor and therefore presence in the classroom would serve as an unrealistic expectation as to what high school students could strive to achieve or become. However, it is highly recommended that you seek employment at the collegiate level; there your intellectual comportment would be greatly appreciated. Good luck.

Light, meet bushel.

Thomas Sowell writes:

Just as any village idiot can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and fad-ridden people in our public schools can undermine and ultimately destroy a civilization that took centuries of effort and sacrifice to create and maintain.

All we have to do is abandon the pursuit of excellence.

ReformK12 meets World

January 24, 2004 Up to 25% of the visitors to ReformK12.com hail from outside the United States. A recent sampling includes Canada, France, Great Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Australia and a few souls from the Pacific rim.

The issues of education reform are global.

In many places, the traditionalists are fighting the progressives, and the battle is one that will probably never end. The progressive movement is so pernicious because they believe in what they're doing, and thus has taken hold in an unfortunate number of countries.

This is illustrated by an email we received from a college professor in France, who writes, "Here we have the same problems that you have in the States, especially in primary and secondary education (low expectations, fuzzy curricula, lack of discipline....)."

And on the other end of the spectrum, the students aren't exactly blind to what's going on. One problem is political indoctrination, especially in high school. A 17-year old Canadian blogger describes her midterm exam in English class, complaining that the teacher threw a curve on the exam and had students contrast several political articles, asking how people affect change. (Ah yes, one of the social justice goals of Progressivism is to affect change!)

She writes, "Therefore, I don't think the exam was really a test of our English skills, but rather, a test of the political knowledge we already had and the ability to form an opinion about something I have no clue about."

Hello world!

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Update: (2/1/2004) The actual daily average is anywhere from 10% to 25%, so we changed the first line. We've also posted a colored map and a list of countries here.

What's wrong with Constructivism?

January 24, 2004 Ms. Frizzle has an interesting post called "Teaching Methods: Just going in circles?"

If you read Number2Pencil or Joanne Jacobs or ReformK12 regularly, as I do, you hear a lot of anti-constructivist, anti-ed-schools talk. They don't like the "new" (somewhere between 10-100 years or older) ways of teaching math and reading.

We can't speak for our esteemed colleagues, but what we don't like aren't new methods, it's methods that have been proven to be inferior to time-tested ones. Which isn't to say innovation isn't all bad, it's innovation for its own sake that we don't favor.

Constructivism is a great example of this. We posted on it a little while ago, noting that the benign form simply puts a new label on what effective teachers such as Ms. Frizzle have known for 4000 years.

Quite literally, teaching and learning are impossible if the learner doesn't construct meaning in his own brain about the topic at hand. Thus constructivism could refer to the construction of new neural pathways. None of this is news.

Where our objection arises is when Schools of Ed. pretend that they've discovered some amazing new phenomena, recommending that truly effective methods that have been used forever be abandoned, and that we now need to teach "using constructivism."

So concepts like teaching the long-division algorithm--and the cursed times tables--get tossed out the window, because the learner didn't construct these things himself, while "Invented Spelling" gets a pass, because that was. This "rabid" form of constructivism insists that teachers pretend that thousands of years of intellectual development never occurred, because what is important is the "discovery learning" aspect of constructivism.

Truly effective teachers know the difference. But freshly minted teachers might not. Which is why we're not big fans of most Schools of Ed, which play up the theory, but not the effective practice.

With regards to teaching factual knowledge, versus the more hands-on activities, Ms. Frizzle writes:

I try to combine the two approaches in my classroom. Certain skills must, eventually, be taught. Directly, explicitly, formally. But when kids figure something out for themselves, they are much less likely to forget it. And when they take their knowledge and DO something with it, they will probably NEVER forget it!

We heartily agree. But again, this isn't news, for the best teachers have always done just that. When educational theorists wrap an effective concept--especially one that teachers have long used--in a new mantle such as "Discovery Learning," they begin the process of divorcing it from reality.

Ms. Frizzle has good instincts. She needs to give herself more credit, and less to "new" theories such as Constructivism or Discovery Learning.

Teach on!

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Update: Jeff at So You Want to Be a Science Teacher has an excellent post supporting the teaching of constructivism. We're in complete agreement. We just don't like constructivism and discovery learning to displace rigor, which happens too frequently. If his training embraces rigor, training teachers to use a big bag of tricks--including constructivism and discovery learning--we are very pleased. (1/25/2004)

"And then he goes back to class" (A bully's tale)

January 23, 2004 This pathetic story begins one year ago, in a post from A Small Victory. Seems a bully had been having a grand old time terrorizing Michele's son, so she tried to take action:

Today I called the principal. He gave me a touchy-feely response about how we must take into consideration the bully's feelings. After all, Mr. Principal said, Big Bully's mother died.

Yes, I say. I am aware that Big Bully's mother died four years ago. For how long will he continue to get a sympathetic pat on the back every time he acts up?

I mean, what is the statute of limitations on using your mother's death as an excuse for atrocious behavior?

Well, Mr. Principal says, we have tried peer mediation and peer review with Big Bully. I sent home a pamphlet that will help his father and step-mother go over the proper way to express anger.

Ah yes. The infamous Four Ps of perpetual placation: Peer Mediation, Peer Review, Pamphlets and Proper Anger.

See, that's the thing, I say. He has no reason to be angry at my son or my son's friend. If he wants to express anger, I suggest that the classroom is not the appropriate place to do it.

Oh, says Mr. Principal. When he expresses anger in the classroom, he gets sent up here to me.

And then what happens?

He has to sit on the bench for a few minutes while he thinks about his behavior.

And then?

And then he goes back to class.

"And then he goes back to class."

That about sums up their discipline policy, doesn't it? Unfortunately, when she tried going up the chain of command to the district level, she got more of the same:

The school district, when made aware of the problems, asked me if I wanted to have [my son] speak to the social worker in order to "work out his issues." When reminded that my son was not the one who needed to deal with his issues, the kind woman told me "we have to tread lightly with people like Big Bully. They need to be encouraged, not discouraged. Sending him to counseling will only hurt his self esteem and make him behave worse."

Fast forward to today, and things have gotten much much worse, because the bully has now begun the psy-ops phase of his campaign. Michele writes:

You would think that after a year of complaints about this child, after all the trouble he has caused - and not just with my son - after all the times he has been sent to the main office to sit on the bench and sulk, they would stop with the touchy-feely, root cause, search inside yourself crap and realize what the true problem is: this kid is rotten to the core and he does not belong in a classroom with children who are there to learn, not to be bullied.

We happen to believe that children and adults make rational decisions based on their boundaries--perceived or otherwise. While this bully may or may not be a truly nasty individual, it seems he's surrounded by a phalanx of full-time enablers willing to bend over backwards to prevent him from ever experiencing the consequences of his actions. We believe that if they stopped enabling him, he'd probably change his behavior.

What should the school do? First they need to fire that incompetent rube they've got for a principal (we hear the U.N. is hiring). Next they need to start enacting meaningful consequences. Something like a "due process" ladder we've mentioned before.

Violate rule X, receive consequence Y. And the consequence cannot be "sitting on a bench" or any other ineffective measure, it must have teeth. For example, suspending the child when he resorts to violence, setting in motion the finite procedures for expulsion.(This part is important, since a lot of kids treat suspensions as a joke, which they are, if they can be issued interminably.)

They say that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. How true. But what if each discipline infraction resulted in another step on the ladder, a ladder with a definite set of steps, like 5 or so, resulting in expulsion? This would give the kid plenty of time to get his act together (none of this zero tolerance nonsense suspending a kid for 25 days for bringing a nail file to school), yet would also not postpone indefinitely the time at which the school says enough is enough.

We believe children act within their boundaries.

The bully in the story clearly has no boundaries, for each time he resorts to violence, he has to sit on a bench--which may well be enjoyable, taking a break from class to spend time with Mr. Mollify, the principal. Unfortunately for the bully's classmates, one thing people do when confronted with vague or imaginary boundaries is to test them even more.

If this student knew that when he bullies another, there would be a real consequence, which may result in his being expelled from the school, we think that just maybe that kid would change (but that's the optimist in us speaking). And if he really is rotten to the core, the procedure still works, since he gets expelled before the heat-death of the universe.

It's up to the adults of the school to do kids a favor, and set firm boundaries, with unambiguous consequences which have real teeth. The vast majority of students will shape up.

Those that don't can be shipped out.

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Postscript: The comments section following Michele's post is full of practical advice for parents of bullied kids. As we're dealing with an ineffective school system, most involve legal action, media pressure, and martial arts. A worthy read, with many personal tales of everyday folks overcoming bullies.

Jack Welch on leadership: A primer for principals

January 23, 2004 We are convinced that great schools don't have mysterious origins, they emerge from great leadership, and by that we mean the principal.

One of our favorite education reform books is No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High Performing, High Poverty Schools by Samuel Casey Carter. But the book really isn't about the schools, it is about the principals of those schools. Even though it was the teachers in those buildings who taught those kids how to read and do math, and to succeed when conventional wisdom of high-poverty schools says otherwise--these teachers had extraordinary principals.

Today in the Wall Street Journal, Jack Welch writes about the qualities of an excellent leader (albeit in the context of the Democratic presidential primaries).

Every time I speak to a group, I get asked about leadership. Mainly, people want to know how I feel about that age-old question: Are leaders born or made? And I always answer the same way: Who knows? What I do know is what leaders look and act like.

In his decades in the leadership business, he got to know his way around, developing a checklist called the Four E's. But we couldn't think of any presidential candidate as we read his words, all we could think about were school principals.

Basically, my process assesses four essential traits of leadership (each one starting with an E, a nice coincidence). One, successful leaders have tons of positive energy. They can go go go; they love action and relish change. Two, they have the ability to energize others--they love people and can inspire them to move mountains when they have to. Three, they have edge, the courage to make tough yes-or-no decisions--no maybes. And finally, they can execute. They get the job done.

If a candidate for a leadership role has the four E's, then you look for a final trait--passion. By that I mean a heartfelt, deep and authentic excitement about life and work. People with passion care--really care in their bones--about neighbors, employees, colleagues and friends winning. They love to learn and grow themselves, and they get a kick when the people around them do the same.

Passion, luckily, can't be faked for very long, so this is usually a pretty easy call. Either people have a genuine zest for living and giving, or they're just showing up.

Now, an important point. You absolutely cannot even start to think about the Four E's until you get a solid yes on two questions. First: Does the leadership candidate have integrity? That means, does he or she tell the truth, take responsibility for past actions, admit mistakes and fix them? Does he demonstrate fairness, loyalty, goodness, compassion? Does she listen to others? Does he truly value human dignity and voice? These may seem like fuzzy, subjective questions, but you have to get a strong "AMEN" in your gut to all of them to even consider a person as a leader.

Second: Before applying the Four E's, you have to ask, is the candidate intelligent? That doesn't mean a leader must have read Kant and Shakespeare (if it did, I would have been out of a job). It does mean the candidate has to have the breadth of knowledge, from history to science, which allows him to lead other smart people in a world that is getting more complex by the minute. Further, a leader's intelligence has to have a strong emotional component. He has to have high levels of self-awareness, maturity and self-control. She must be able to withstand the heat, handle setbacks and, when those lucky moments arise, enjoy success with equal parts of joy and humility. No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can't ignore it.

What do you say, principals and superintendents? You think these qualities would work for our schools?

Education Reform is NOT rocket science!

January 22, 2004 Which means Educational Research should not be rocket science, either!

Joanne Jacobs links to an Education Week article (registration required) that gets so many things so very wrong, and we'd like to set the record straight.

Karin Chenoweth, the author of the piece, seems to feel the "dirty little secret of education" is that we don't know what works in education.

Yes, you read that correctly. She feels that we, as educators, don't know what works.

Now we'd agree with her halfway, in that our Schools of Education at universities across the nation are churning out certified teachers indoctrinated in precisely the worst methods to use in teaching. So yes, a great many teachers, administrators, and educational bureaucrats don't know what works. They're just doing the job the way they've been trained to believe it should be done, which is a huge reason why public education, especially in our cities, is in the toilet.

But come on, does she really feel that there are no schools in this great land that aren't meeting success daily, including those doing it "against the odds?" Does she believe that the education of children is so completely mysterious that we honestly don't know how to do it?

Does she feel that there isn't a network of educators who have resisted the banner of Progressivism, and thus are highly successful in their craft, either in individual classrooms or schoolwide, or even district-wide?

This would come as a surprise to the folks manning the stations at The Center for Education Reform, School Reform News, the No Excuses project, the Thomas B. Fordham foundation, Mathematically Correct, the National Right to Read Foundation, the KIPP Academies, and the Black Alliance for Educational Options, just to name a small handful.

Instead, with regard to our knowledge in how to best teach kids, she says, "Unfortunately, we have no idea." (Here, we means her and just about every other progressive educator on the planet.)

Individual educators may have implemented successful practices in their schools, but without linking those practices to research demonstrating that what they do could be successful with other kids, all we have are individual experiences, not standard practice.

Translation: she claims there's no research that backs up the staggering volume of evidence of what really works with students and in schools.

This leaves us with philosophies. We have a bilingual philosophy and an English- first philosophy, complete with testimonials about what worked for whose grandparents, but these really are political--bordering on the religious--arguments, rather than scientific ones.

Ahh, now we get down to brass tacks. The message is, "See, all these competing theories are just rolling around on a level playing field, and no one theory is better than any other." This is the educational version of moral relativism: "we shouldn't be judgemental of others because, face it, we're all different and everyone's opinion is just as valuable as ours." Pardon us, but we beg to differ.

She even gets the "what works" testimony wrong. We don't know of anyone's grandparents talking about how wonderful it was to be forced to take all their classes in Spanish while struggling to learn English. We also have never heard anyone complain that they were taught to sound out words using phonics, giving them the ability to pronounce words and names they've never seen before.

It is precisely this "turning one's back on what works" (yes, even what worked with one's grandparents) that opens the door for all sorts of malodorous theories. But if you believe that kids should be taught phonics and learn their times tables, and if you believe we should have English-only classes for new immigrants--Ms. Chenoweth writes you off as being merely "political--bordering on the religious," and not scientific at all.

Thus she sounds the clarion call for more educational research, which we can fully support.

But we're pointed to a site called the "What Works Clearinghouse," which immediately got our attention, because we're all about doing what works. She writes, "the idea behind the What Works Clearinghouse is to set standards for judging the evidence about the effectiveness of educational approaches."

Unfortunately, the Clearinghouse (a U.S. Department of Education project) turns out to be a maze of gobbledygook, blathering on and on about "interventions" but never about actual programs in use in real schools to routinely teach real children.

Even though it was established in 2002, there doesn't seem to be any actual content on the site.

They just go on and on about how they're proposing to begin a facilitation process to open the door to a conceptual development for circumspection, which will enable the furtherment of the potential streams of the deliberation about theoretical paths into fact-finding investigative research . . . (deep breath) . . . at some point in the future.

So, we figured we'd check out their standards for educational research, a category prominently located on their main menu bar. (After all, Ms. Chenoweth said the whole point to the Clearinghouse was to set standards for educational research, right?) Here is the introductory paragraph from their site titled Standards (note that we didn't pull this out of the middle of some technical manual, this is how they introduce the topic of standards):

The Study DIAD (Version 1.0) and CREAD (Version 1.0) were unanimously approved by the Technical Advisory Group at their June meeting. The approved version of the Study DIAD (Version 1.0) is posted below. The approved version of the CREAD (Version 1.0) will be posted in mid-August. The WWC standards undergo frequent revision and improvement. For example, the WWC is currently working on a modification to the Study DIAD to guide the review of single-case research designs. This new version will be posted later this year.

We swear, we are not making this up.

It would appear as though one of their study goals is to dramatically increase the bullcrapificiation of educational research. We think it stinks.

Okay, repeat after us. Education Reform, and Education Research, and heck, Education itself, is not rocket science! We know what works. Let's go with what works.

Any questions?

Abolish the U.S. Department of Education: For the Children!

January 22, 2004 It's all about educash and edulaws.

Two articles by Heartland Institute staffers on school budgets and red tape raise some questions regarding the connection between dollars and regulations. In Where Do Public Education Dollars Go? we learn that out of $410 billion spent on US public education in the school year ending 2001, 52% went for instruction, while 29% went for support services.

Only fifty-two percent!?

The same article reports that only 7% of public education revenue comes from federal sources. Is it possible that many of the dollars going to "support services" are because of regulations, especially federal ones? But isn't there something absurd about the fine citizens of Duluth helping fund school children in Philadelphia? Isn't a more reasonable solution to have the good people of Philadelphia and the rest of Pennsylvania be responsible for their own schools?

David W. Kirkpatrick's article The Schools and Red Tape contains an especially eye-opening section:

A school superintendent in suburban Philadelphia once said he had to comply with 1,027 mandates, 70 percent of which were unfunded. Ohio Governor, now U.S. Senator, George Voinovich estimated Ohio school administrators spent 50 percent of their time filling out federal forms, which accounted for only 6 percent of education funding there. Arizona's chief school officer, Lisa Graham Keegan, said it took 165 of her staff, 45 percent of the total, to manage federal programs that comprised only 6 percent of her budget.

The USDoE has estimated its requirements impose 48.6 million hours of paperwork, the equivalent of 25,000 full-time employees.

Isn't it just possible that the Federal government gives more of a burden than a helping hand to schools? If 45% of Arizona's state education staff manage programs that comprise 6% of the budget, wouldn't the money saved by eliminating the management of the federal programs (and complying with the miles of red tape) help defray the lost revenue by eliminating the federal funding?

The anguished knee-jerk reaction to the proposal that the U.S. Dept of Ed be abolished is usually "doesn't the United States care about the education of its children?" Sure, it sounds cold-hearted if you look no further than the end of your nose. But consider a few facts.

• There was no Department of Education before 1979. (Does this mean school kids were out in the cold prior to that watershed date? Hardly. It was created by President Carter as a sop to the teacher unions.)
• There are Departments of Education in every state of the union. (Isn't it possible that these good people, who are tending bureaucracies of their own, can manage the education of their state's children without the Fed's meddling?)
• The US Constitution doesn't support a role of the Federal government in public education. (There's this little thing called the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.")
• Isn't reducing the size of our beloved Washington D.C. bureaucracy always a good thing?

We'll conclude with this nugget from the Cato Institute in their Handbook for Congress (pdf):

Former secretaries of education Lamar Alexander and William Bennett have stated that the department has ''an irresistible and uncontrollable impulse to stick its nose into areas where it has no proper business. Most of what it does today is no legitimate affair of the federal government. The Education Department operates from the deeply erroneous belief that American parents, teachers, communities and states are too stupid to raise their own children, run their own schools and make their own decisions.''

Are we saying that there aren't good ideas in Federal programs like No Child Left Behind? No. But ideas are free, federal regulations and programs aren't.

Break the chains.

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Portions of this entry originally appeared in TheInternetParty.org, dedicated to smaller government and greater individual liberty.

Myth: Teaching a Love of Reading

January 22, 2004 Many people think the love of reading is something that can be taught.

What is frustrating for us are the constant claims of Balanced Literacy and Whole Language folks who say that their method "turns kids on to reading." In reality, they might get turned on, but too many very soon will figure out they can't read well.

This reminds us of the elementary school which used MathLand for its math curriculum. The kids loved it, the teachers loved it, and the parents loved it. It was full of fun activities and the kids were really turned on to math. The school soon found out that the kids weren't really learning much math, but they were having a lot of fun. (We might suggest that the kids weren't turned on to math as much as they were turned on to MathLand.)

This highlights a basic premise behind Progressive programs: by employing creative and fun approaches to teaching, without much rigor, you can teach the love of a subject by teaching the child to love the subject.

This is patently false.

Children may be enthusiastic in a Balanced Literacy classroom, but hand them books (with no illustrations) that they've never seen and their enthusiasm will be tempered by their ability (or inability) to read well. Children in a new-new math class are equally enthusiastic, but take away the calculator and ask them to do the most elementary problems, and all of a sudden reality smacks them between the eyes.

What teachers have known for millenia is that the best way to turn a student onto reading is by teaching the child to read. (Of course, by "teaching a child to read" we mean using the time-honored phonics method.)

We've heard hundreds of stories by parents who've used phonics instruction to teach their children to read (or supplement the instruction received in the child's whole-language-based classroom), who say that after so many lessons it just "clicks" and then the child is off, devouring books on his or her own.

In the preface to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Engelmann, Haddox and Bruner, the authors write:

And because the program works, something very nice happens: perhaps not on the first lesson or on the fifth, but long before Lesson 100 your child will turn on to reading. The child's surroundings are full of written words that the child will read with great pride.

While countless parents use phonics to attempt to undo the damage wrought from Whole-Language based reading instruction, we've never heard of a parent using Balanced Literacy or Whole Language to supplement phonics instruction.

Why? You guessed it, phonics instruction seems to have an uncanny ability in simply teaching kids to read, period.

Former student of Jaime Escalante turns out okay

January 21, 2004 We first were introduced to Jay Mathews by reading his book on Jaime Escalante, the East L.A. high school calculus teacher who inspired the movie Stand and Deliver.

Mr. Mathews' latest Washington Post column catches up with one of Escalante's former students.

One of the many things I envy about teachers is the joy they feel when students come back to tell them how grateful they are for what they were taught. Journalists like me don't get visits like that, but I received an e-mail last week that was almost as good.

It came from Greg Rusu, whom I met 18 years ago when he was a senior at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. He was one of the many students of Jaime Escalante, the soon-to-be-famous math teacher I was writing a book about. I was very impressed with Rusu, but soon lost track of him.

Mr. Mathews speaks of the efforts of Garfield's staffers to prevent Rusu from taking Escalante's course:

Many Garfield administrators did not like Escalante. They thought he worked his students too hard to pass the AP tests. They feared that all the fragile adolescents from immigrant families, mostly Mexican, that made up the Garfield student body would burn up and drop out.

The words from one administrator are especially harsh:

The magnet program director told Rusu: "Don't try to grow up too fast. If you invest all that time, you're going to flunk all your other classes. Your grade-point average will go down. Nobody's gonna give you scholarships. Your parents are going to get mad."

Rusu took calculus anyway, getting the top score on the AP exam his junior year and again the top score on the advanced calculus AP exam his senior year.

Emphasis ours. Alas, in college, the real world intervened and Rusu's engineering plans got sidetracked, much as ours were. He's now quite successful in the computer industry, and has his sights set even further.

His story does reinforce our strong belief that education is meant to open doors for our children, the more, the merrier.

Students, as young adults, will chose their own doorways, which makes life so interesting.

Overrepresentation of foreign-bred students in U.S. specialties

January 21, 2004 Yesterday, psychometrician Kimberly Swygert gave us "The inside scoop of Harcourt Assessment." In her post, she suggested that readers note "the names of the four doctoral fellows who spent the summer at Harcourt in 2003, learning the ropes." We did, and they are Saengla Chaimongkol (Florida State University), Pei-Hua Chen (University of Texas at Austin), Shuhong Li (University of Massachusetts), and Yungchen Hsu (University of Arizona).

In an online essay titled Johnny Can't Add--But Suresh Venktasubramanian Can, Fred Reed addresses the success of foreign students (and the children of new Americans). Here are a few choice samples:

Maybe we need to wake up.

The other day I went to the Web site of Bell Labs, one of the country's premier research outfits. I clicked at random on a research project, Programmable Networks for Tomorrow. The scientists working on the project were Gisli Hjalmstysson, Nikos Anerousis, Pawan Goyal, K. K. Ramakrishnan, Jennifer Rexford, Kobus Van der Merwe, and Sneha Kumar Kasera.

Clicking again at random, this time on the Information Visualization Research Group, the research team turned out to be John Ellson, Emden Gansner, John Mocenigo, Stephen North, Jeffery Korn, Eleftherios Koutsofios, Bin Wei, Shankar Krishnan, and Suresh Venktasubramanian.

Here is a pattern I've noticed in countless organizations at the high end of the research spectrum. In the personnel lists, certain groups are phenomenally over-represented with respect to their appearance in the general American population: Chinese, Koreans, Indians, and, though it doesn't show in the above lists, Jews. What the precise statistical breakdown across the world of American research might be, I don't know. An awful lot of personnel lists look like the foregoing.

Overrepresentation can mean one of two things: American companies and universities are discriminating against Americans, or foreign-bred students are better prepared than we are.

Why are members of these very small groups doing so much of the important research for the United States? That's easy. They're smart, they go into the sciences, and they work hard. Potatoes are more mysterious. It's not affirmative action. They produce. The qualifications of these students can easily be checked. They have them. The question is not whether these groups perform, or why, but why the rest of us no longer do. What has happened? It is not an easy question, but a lot of it, I think, is the deliberate enstupidation of American education.

We tend to agree with Fred, although we take issue with "deliberate." We don't believe it is a conspiracy by the forces of evil for evil, we believe it is the natural consequence of taking Romantic notions to their logical extremes, under the banner of Progressive Education. (However, if one were to engineer a plan to gut the educational standards in America, it could not have been done more brilliantly than has been accomplished by the Progressives. So maybe Fred has a point.)

It appears that a few groups are keeping their standards up and the rest of us are drowning our children in self-indulgent social engineering, political correctness, and feel-good substitutes for learning.

Progressive reforms have been designed for the good of the child, and yet the reformers seem blind to their actual consequences.

It's not them. It's us. I've heard the phrase, "the Asian challenge to the West." I don't think so. When Sally Chen gets a doctorate in biochemistry, she's not challenging America. She's getting a doctorate in biochemistry. Those who study have no reason to apologize to those who don't.

Kimberly Swygert says "America is a mecca for would-be psychometricians from around the world (the Netherlands is a close second)."

We'd opine that America is a mecca for any technical specialty. Legions of students cross the oceans to study at our universities, then either return home or stay here. Either way, someone in the world's rolling up their sleeves in the primary and secondary grades.

Let's roll up ours.

When school adults refuse to set standards

January 21, 2004 Carl Seppala, of the Amherst Town Select Board, was on Bill O'Reilly show last night, defending Amherst Regional High School's decision to mount a student production of The Vagina Monologues.

We try to be open-minded, but come on, there are no other plays that the high school could put on? (When we were in High School we put on Cabaret, which was pretty racy, but the worst language was Juden and the worst theme was an ended pregnancy.) But we have to wonder, what's wrong with putting on a show appropriate for high school, say, West Side Story?

Get this, they nixed the choice of West Side Story, because they said it stereotyped hispanics.

A recent Townhall column by Izzy Lyman quoted Larry Kelley, "who organized a rally on the Amherst Town Common in support of the Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim classic:"

"Amherst Regional High School Committee became the only ruling authority in history to cancel a production of West Side Story because a distinct minority in town thought it was racist. Yet they embrace allowing young teenagers - who could not get into an R-rated movie without a parent or guardian - to revel in sexually-explicit material," stated Kelley.

We have nothing against "The Vagina Monologues." We just feel it's inappropriate for high school. "Permissive Parenting" has evolved into "Permissive Educating."

Add this to the list of ten thousand reasons why homeschoolers want out.

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Update: Thoughtful commentary by Dr. Lyman in the Washington Dispatch, dated Jan 21, 2004.

Update: Joanne Jacobs weighs in, with comments from Time. (1/23/2004)

Spelling woes in the UK

January 19, 2004 Question: What word in the English language is most often spelled incorrectly? (Answer at the end of this article)

"Creative and inventive spelling have taken a toll on students," says Education News, who pointed us to this BBC article on the challenges students are having with spelling.

In the United Kingdom, only 75% of 11-year olds passed the spelling, reading, and writing tests, and folks are becoming concerned. One area of interest is the fairly new national literacy strategy instituted recently, which reminds us of any number of top-down reforms here in the U.S. But should teachers toe the line?
From the BBC article:

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "I think that, rather than concentrating on whether schools are actually slavishly following the literacy strategy, we want to make sure that teachers are doing what they were traditionally doing before the literacy strategy was ever invented - namely, making sure their children can spell properly before they leave primary school.

(Emphasis ours.) Here in America, we have the "traditionalists"--who teach explicit phonics and actually correct students' spelling mistakes to ensure they become better spellers--and the Whole Language proponents, who say that phonics and spelling harm children in ways not fully understood (but they're working on it).

Thus was born "invented spelling," an enabling term for not correcting children's attempts at written language. When we say enabling, we mean the negative connotation, as in "Josh's coworkers covered for him at work, enabling him not to have to deal with his drinking problem."

Invented Spelling enables children not to deal with their spelling problems.

The BBC article has a quiz of words 11-year olds got incorrect. (When you take it, scroll down to the bottom of the article to see your results.) Maybe you can do as well as we did:

You got 8 right! Well done. You're now good enough to start secondary school.

We're feeling pretty proud of ourselves right now.

And the English word which is most often spelled incorrectly? That would be the word incorrectly, but only thanks to the people who can spell.

Educational Jargon: a Vaccine against Respect

January 18, 2004 Overheard on a ship:

"Seaman, lower the chain-stayed ship-movement arrester."
"Yo Skipper, you mean the anchor?"
"Aye."

Now here's a question for you: The Skipper sounds like . . .
A) He's highly educated regarding the tools of marine craft.
B) An idiot.

The Washington Post has a depressing article today on the viral spread of edu-jargon, or as we like to call it, "edu-babble."

We think there are many reasons why teachers don't get more respect. One culprit is our unfathomable knack for swallowing the most insipid educational jargon dreamed up by theorists with nothing better to do than to obfuscate the painfully obvious. (Translation: stuff made up by B.S. artists.)

When someone is profoundly unable to call a spade a spade, either the person genuinely doesn't know what to call it, or even worse, knows darn well what it's called but uses some linguistic puffery in an attempt to sound more sophisticated. Educators fall foursquare into the latter category.

Is anybody fooled by this? We certainly know students aren't. Anywhere in the English-speaking world, if you walk into a building or a room with wall-to-wall bookshelves, it's not called a bloody IMC--Instructional Media Center.

Even worse than using these terms is defending them. The Post article speaks about one such fellow:

Steve Gibson, a Montgomery County community superintendent (de-jargoned: he oversees a group of schools), defends some of the changes. From "multiple choice" to "selected response": "When I grew up, oftentimes it was 'multiple guess,' and we don't want kids guessing, but selecting their response." From "paragraph" to "brief constructed response": "We want them to be very brief and right to the point with something they are going to construct."

What is it they say about people rising to their level of incompetence? He actually said (and we're quoting), "My hope is that we're creating language for kids that is more explicit and to the point than it is confusing." (Small matter that no child in the history of the Universe was ever, ever confused by the terms multiple choice, essay and paragraph.)

We have a simple message for Mr. Gibson. You can try all you want, but you just can't put ten pounds of manure into a 5-pound bag. And no one--especially mortals outside the educational community--is fooled.

For teachers to earn more respect, the teaching profession needs to be more respectable.

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Update: Joanne Jacobs weighs in on the subject.

"The Bottom Line" in public and private schools

January 18, 2004 One of the arguments against privatization in K-12 education is the jaundiced view that "they're just going to look out for the bottom line."

This is true, they've got to make their payroll and pay their utility bills, so yes, money is the bottom line. But this is a specious argument because the unspoken assumption is that other K-12 entities don't have to watch their bottom line!

Every school principal we know has had a yearly budget with which to run the school. Sure, they've got to pay everyone's salary and handle normal operating expenses such as buying cases of paper for the photocopiers. But choices can be made to add more staff, such as support personnel, or to buy new sets of textbooks or computers.

Since all entities have money as the bottom line, let's take a different approach to the concept.

What's the "bottom line" at the local widget factory? You could say that it's money. But how does the factory get the money? By being successful in making widgets! It is only through success in its core mission that the business can meet the bottom line. So you could just as well argue that its bottom line is just as much "success in widget production" as it is "money."

Here's where the critics chime in "but students aren't widgets, and schools aren't widget factories!"

Well, duh.

Such a phrase is intended to end the argument on privatization. But a glib retort like "students aren't widgets" doesn't change the fact that core business principles still apply, to both factories and schools!

We've got two words for the concept: free market. Here's where public schools and private schools part company.

Obviously private schools make their budgets by having parents choose not only to pay for their children's education, but to chose their particular school. Public schools in affluent areas operate in a similar fashion, and must compete with the local private schools for pupils.

But how do public schools in less-affluent areas, such as our cities, get their budgets?

Just by the mere fact of their existence.

Urban schools just need to be there, and the money comes year after year. While some are successful (and some have stellar records of achievement), far too many are underserving their students.

Which is to say they're not very successful at their bottom line, which is educating children.

What the public needs to know is that it is with only the worst of the worst that much of anything is done to change the picture at schools daily committing educational malpractice.

What usually happens with failing public schools is a new principal or leadership team is brought in. Often supports (such as more money!) are offered to help the school improve. In extreme cases the school is "reconstituted"--a percentage of the staff simply transfers out, with new folks transfered in--but never 100%!

But an option which is simply not on the table is for the school to be shut down.

Now you tell us that govenment schools aren't a gravy train!

Make 'em compete "in the real world" and folks will wake up, smell the coffee, and teach the children.

No Soda for Philly Schoolkids

January 17, 2004 We see (by way of Number 2 Pencil) that Daryl Cobranchi questions the Philadelphia school district's decision to remove soda machines from school cafeterias.

Noting that the machines will still be available in faculty lounges, he writes, "I guess fat teachers are ok. What a stupidly mixed message." One of his commenters, a homeschooler, says of her daughter, "I'm glad that she doesn't go to public school to be put on a diet along with all the fat kids."

Please, people.

When we were young'uns, not only did we have to walk to school, barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways, but there were no soda machines in any school!

In elementary school and middle school: no vending machines of any sort. You either brought your lunch, or you bought lunch (which we remember was actually really good) from the Lunch Ladies. In high school, there were vending machines in the cafeteria, but these were limited to juice and snacks.

And as we recall, there were no howls of protest that vending-machine choices didn't include soda. And we certainly didn't complain that everyone was being put on a diet.

So Philly's removing soda machines from cafeterias? More power to 'em!

They're not removing choice from students, they're simply making a less-healthy choice less convenient.

If the school banned all children from bringing soda in their home-packed lunches, then I could understand the uproar.

We are all for the steady forward march of progress, and think it is pathetic when some folks strive to "turn back the clock."

But this isn't one of those cases.

Slice of life: Iraqi public school students

January 17, 2004 The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on one reporter's stay with a Baghdad family.

A year ago, the youngest children - twin girls Duha and Hibba, now 12 - and their youngest brother Mahmoud, often broke into pro-Hussein chants when they heard the president's name, as they had been taught at school.

But today, education couldn't be more different for the twins. In a school renovated by US forces and fitted out with new air conditioners and chairs, students have been told to put tape over Hussein's face on notebooks still printed with his image.

"The headmaster told us: 'This is the Saddam that everyone used to fear. He didn't even [have courage to] kill himself. He's trash,' " says Duha, fighting to get a word in among the rush of comments of her older siblings. "Before the war, the same headmaster used to hang up Saddam's picture!"

The headmaster now has a photo of an apprehended, bearded Hussein on his office wall that was circulated among students.

We have little doubt that the headmaster still rules the roost. But it seems he's now ruling it according to his own guidance, rather than the heavy hand of the State.

Teachers have promised a tour of palaces, and the twins can't wait. They say they "love" American soldiers, and were photographed by journalists a couple weeks ago, shaking hands with US troops at the site of a explosion nearby.

This sounds like a typical story from any American newspaper on an average day in the U.S.: "Teachers have promised a tour of the Smithsonian (or St. Louis Arch or Grand Canyon etc.), and the twins can't wait." School life has the same culture the world over.

The Iraqi siblings in the article love to debate the issues, and they argue about Saddam's place in history.

Such debates over Hussein today will determine his legacy as leader of Iraq. Amal says she loves history, and asked her teacher: "What will they read about Saddam in the future?" Her teacher answered: "History shows the good and the bad. It shows the facts."

Let us hope.

Hastening the removal of the Incompetent

January 15, 2004 Good news! David Herszenhorn writes in New York Times today that, thanks to a new cooperation between the teachers' union and the city, failing teachers can be terminated quicker:

As part of a broad overhaul of the disciplinary process and evaluation s