Free Market Triptych (part one): Parental Choice

March 31, 2004 We are convinced that if K-12 education were to become more like the rest of the world--that is, if it were to join the free market--many of the problems we now face with failing schools (and the wild pendulum swings of governmental mandates in response to failing schools) would disappear in short order.

While there are several different aspects of freedom in the free market for goods and services as it exists today, today we'll focus on the consumer side of things. (Future installments will cover the employment aspects of the free market.)

Consumer Choice: If people are not given a choice, there is nothing to guarantee the quality of the goods or services provided. Competitive market pressures make it difficult for a company with an inferior product to stay in business. But here's the catch: there's nothing to force any company with an inferior product to maintain that inferiority!

Thus, in the real world, if a lackadaisical business has been "the only game in town" and suddenly is faced with a competitor, it will usually improve to match the competition. If not, it risks going under.

The comparison to schools should be obvious: enabling parental choice in where to send Johnny (or even to send Johnny to school at all) would give our school system a boost.

Why is it that, with a fraction of public school budgets, we don't hear of the rampant failure of private and parochial schools? When we say "rampant failure" we don't mean closing doors--many public and parochial schools close every year with declining enrollment in certain neighborhoods, especially as urban populations decrease.

Rather, we mean schools which show a chronic inability to teach children, especially elementary schools which graduate kids who can't read, and high schools which graduate students who are hopelessly unprepared for college. Aside from the occasional rarity, we don't hear of private or parochial schools matching those descriptions, for the simple reason that if they were to exist, no parent would send their Johnny there.

Parental choice is the key.

We see four ways to enable parental choice in the educational marketplace:

• Public school choice: In areas with multiple schools serving the same age ranges (especially districts with an existing transportation network), the parent should be able to choose. (This is not a terribly effective means of offering choice, for some public school districts suffer from systemic problems.)
  
  
• Charter Schools: While it is true that many states authorize independent operators to open charter schools, the per-pupil allotment is always significantly less than the local public schools, with the additional burden of having to pay for facilities. To compound the problem, many states have significant lengths of red tape to prevent operators from even opening a charter school in the first place.
  
  
• Vouchers: Billions of dollars are collected as tax monies each year, for the purpose of educating children. It only makes sense to take a portion of these funds and give them to parents as a voucher, redeemable at any private or parochial school of the parent's choosing. It matters not that the school may be religious, what matters is the parent is doing the choosing. Nothing unconstitutional about that.
  
  
• Homeschooling: Parents should be free to homeschool their children, period. They should not be forced to comply with any regulations whatsoever--a simple declaration of intent should be sufficient.

The bottom line? Failure is simply not tolerated in a free consumer market. Give power back to the parents, and watch how quickly the system improves.

(Future entries will cover two other aspects of the free market: the freedom to work and the freedom to hire.)

The Solution to Discipline Problems: Empowered Administrators and Teachers

March 28, 2004 Joanne Jacobs writes about a school in Oklahoma City where the majority of the 6th graders have been suspended for unacceptable conduct.

Essentially the principal, in her first year, has been having a real challenge with student behavior. Things came to a head this week when students began slamming tables in the cafeteria and back talking staff members, even trashing a teacher's room. Ninety-two percent of the school's sixth graders have been suspended this week alone.

It seems this problem hasn't just started, but is chronic. From Tulsa's NBC affiliate KJRH:

"It's been going on and on and on and on,'' [vice principal Tommy Smith] said. "All we're trying to do is have an environment conducive to learning and get our test scores up.''

[Elaine] Ford, in her first year as the school's principal, said teachers can't improve test scores until disciplinary issues are resolved. She estimated teachers spend 85 percent of their time reprimanding students.

For starters, one should never mention "test scores" in the same breath as discipline. First comes civil behavior, then comes teaching and learning. As for test scores? They should naturally follow.

While we applaud their efforts at trying to get the school under control, we have to wonder, why are teachers spending 85% of their time on discipline? How could nine-tenths of the sixth grade class be suspended in one week?

Being that we refuse to believe that any group of students is incorrigible, we have to conclude that this school has been poorly run this year, and the students are naturally behaving within their boundaries (which don't appear to be many). Then, when the "suspension" trap swings shut, they're caught. Sure, this is due to their own actions, but it comes as a surprise, since they've most likely been permitted uncivil behavior all year.

This is not the way to get a handle on a school discipline problem.

Our approach to discipline is painfully simple:

• Set reasonable and fair limits.
• Select consequences for violations of these limits.
• Communicate these guidelines clearly to students.
• Follow through: do exactly what you said you'd do when students test their limits.

One anecdote we'd like to share involves a middle school serving the same neighborhood as the middle school where we began our full-time teaching career.

The school was in chaos, and a new principal was hired. This principal followed the four steps above, without debate or discussion. The consequence for most serious violations (like the wanton disruption of school) was an out-of-school suspension, after which the parent had to "reinstate" Johnny or Suzie.

In the first month of school, massive numbers of children received suspensions, and the line of parents complaining about these new policies (while reinstating their children) stretched out of the main office and down the hallway.

The principal took each parent into his office, and it went something like this:

"Here is the rule, and here is the consequence of the rule. Both of these things have been taught to your child. Unfortunately, your son/daughter broke the rule, and received the consequence. Any questions?

Next!"

Within two months, the students got the message, and the school became a civil place, where teaching and learning could blossom. The number of suspended students dropped to miniscule levels, once the students realized there was no use resisting this principal.

It was at this point that the teaching staff was able to roll up their sleeves and get to work teaching academic knowledge and skills.

The interesting thing is that none of this happened at our middle school, even though the demographics of the kids were almost identical in terms of geography, race and poverty. So we suffered, while that other middle school flourished.

We'll end with a comment by teacher Rita C., in response to Joanne's post:

I suspect a lot of this behavior is about exploring limits. When I set firm limits, I have happier students. They know what to expect from me, and I think teenagers really crave that kind of structure. When I get distracted and wishy-washy, I end up with VERY surly kids.

Any questions?

Overseas outsourcing: Blame society and standardized tests?

March 25, 2004 It seems everyone's talking about the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

Some folks argue that there be restrictions on whether companies should be permitted to build overseas, for these factories and other centers of employment take jobs away from Americans. Others say that sure, companies build factories where they can get a steady supply of cheap labor. But if trade policies are truly liberalized, there is no net loss of jobs, as more and more sophisticated avenues of employment open up in the U.S.

Over at Assorted Stuff, Tim Stahmer writes about the role of education in the outsourcing debate, mentioning a report written up in Wired magazine:

According to the American Electronics Association, American public education is the reason why so many companies are exporting jobs to other countries. The AEA says that students don't get a strong education in math and science so high tech firms are forced to look for skilled workers in other countries.

The researchers admit that this really is speculation, since they've got no hard numbers to back up this thesis.

While Tim concedes that "we don't do a good job of math and science instruction in this country" (a point with which we agree), his aim is off when looking for culprits. He writes (emphasis ours):

Part of the blame for that goes to society in general which gives lots of lip service to learning those subjects but then has an adult population which is largely (and often proudly) ignorant of even the most basic math and science concepts. How many people actually understand the odds behind the lottery or what the theory of evolution actually says?

So, we blame society for our low math and science achievement!? This is just a hair's breadth away from blaming parents and "the neighborhood" when looking at school failure, a specious argument, to be sure.

But then he says that since so many adults don't have math and science skills, then we can't teach math and science skills. Then these folks grow up and add to the adults in society who don't have math and science skills, and on and on, in a vicious cycle.

This neat circular reasoning cleverly omits schools from the equation or at least gets them off the hook indefinitely, for as long as they graduate students with poor math and science skills, we get to place the blame on society (with no end in sight).

Might we suggest the reason so many adults have poor math and science skills is because too many schools fall down on the job?

We know it's a stretch, but if schools are supposed to teach math and science--but don't--maybe, just maybe, we should actually look inside the perimeter of the building. (We're still trying to figure out from where our tenth graders came who don't know what a perimeter is!)

But Tim says society's not the only culprit, as he sets his sights on a meaty topic:

I'll probably get blasted for this, but I also blame the tsunami of standardized tests we spend a large part of the year preparing for. The math on these exams hardly gets up to the "high tech" level that the AEA report is referring to and most exams barely touch science at all since it's not one of the indicators that NCLB requires. When the test becomes the target of instruction, learning settles for the lowest common denominator of the test.

Tim generously provides us with a "target-rich environment," but since he's a good sport, we'll help ourselves to some blasting:

• Tsunami of standardized tests? (Sure, if you measure the wave heights in Duluth.) While there are a number of tests in the water, a student will most likely take only two or less standardized tests in a given year.
• A large part of the year is spent on test prep? When you say "test prep" do you mean, uh, how do you say . . . teaching? Any school system worth its salt has little to fear from standardized tests, however we can completely understand how a system which routinely fails to educate might get a little antsy.
• The low level of math on standardized tests is responsible for the failure of schools to teach math? This really is a head scratcher. Is "teach to the test" so ingrained that if a dumbed-down exam were given, all of the teachers would teach dumbed-down content? This would make sense only if children's brains could only contain one type of learning, sharp squares or dull circles.
• Since "most exams barely touch science at all since it's not one of the indicators that NCLB requires" then this means schools have forgotten how to teach science? Gee, how many years has NCLB been in full effect? For decades the SAT (probably the most well known of all High School standardized tests, used by millions of students in their applications for college) has tested exactly two areas: Math and Verbal. Somehow we never saw schools ejecting three-fourths of their curriculum because of this. But now that NCLB focusses on math and verbal skills, then it's suddenly curriculum-decimation time?
• Finally, he writes, "When the test becomes the target of instruction, learning settles for the lowest common denominator of the test." Uh, no it doesn't. For starters, the passive voice slays us. "Learning" doesn't settle for anything, however teaching is another story! (Let's not forget flesh-and-blood teachers.) If schools or teachers want to dumb down their own curriculum, then they're welcome to do so (hey, it's a free country)! But don't blame a standardized test for an inability or unwillingness to teach!

The argument seems to be this: first standardized tests are criticized because schools must spend "most of the year" on test prep, which leads us to believe that they're really, really hard. Then the tests are criticized because apparently the math and science on the test is not high tech (which we read as "easy").

Maybe this argument's lack of cohesion is due to the fact that these dog-noises are at the base of the wrong tree?

While there's no shortage of critics of standardized testing, he's the first we know to make a connection between the loss of American jobs to overseas outsourcing and standardized tests.

Not exactly an open-and-shut case.

10k Blogiversary: Thank You!

March 24, 2004 After three months in existence, ReformK12.com had its 10,000th visitor today. This probably sounds quaint, since a lot of sites get that many hits in a week or a day, but we're very proud, being that we're still so young.

While we get a number of hits from search engines (Alfie Kohn is our most popular search), and we get a fair amount of people directly typing "ReformK12" into their browser, we wouldn't be as successful if it weren't for a few generous folks.

First we'd like to thank the Academy.

Next we'd like to acknowledge Kimberly Swygert and Joanne Jacobs, who, unbeknownst to them, comprise ReformK12's publicity department. Without the boosts from these two veteran bloggers, we'd still be generating about twelve hits a month (our total from December 2003).

Kimberly can be found frequently sharpening her Number 2 Pencil, while Joanne shows no restraint in making bad puns about amorous princes at her eponymous site.

While we read a number of education-themed blogs regularly, such as the ones by Daryl Cobranchi, Chris O'Donnell, Brian Micklethwait, and Izzy Lyman, we'd like to pay special recognition to the two heart-and-soul teacher bloggers we turn to for some sane counterpoint to our views: Ms. Frizzle and a school yard blog.

Sure, we like to bang the Traditionalist drum and knock Progressives every chance we get, and we harp on how much more effective teacher-centered instruction is over child-centered, yet Ms. Frizzle and school yard always bring us back to earth, for which we're grateful.

We've also been very pleased at the international interest in our site. Our biggest fan base is in France, followed by Canada and Australia, with these three nations alone representing 5% of our visitors. (We have been keeping a running tally, with map, of nations represented, 46 at this writing.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Arlen Specter vs. Pat Toomey on Education Issues

March 23, 2004 Sometimes a political race--which is of no direct interest to folks outside the geographic boundaries of that contest--can serve as a metaphor for a greater issue, in this case, education reform.

This April, Pennsylvania Republicans will go to the polls to nominate their choice of candidate to run in the general election in November for one of Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate seats.

The choice is between incumbent Senator Arlen Specter (left) and Representative Pat Toomey (right).

Technically, while only the 3.2 million PA Republicans can vote in this matchup--exactly 1% of the U.S. population (or one two-thousandth of the world total!)--this race should be watched by anyone interested in education reform. It provides an interesting perspective into the intersection of education and politics, especially because both legislators are from the same party.

To compare the two candidates fairly, we went to their respective websites, where each has a position page on education.

We'll begin with Specter, whose Education Issues page details his record as a Senator. As Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, he's been quite an advocate of increased funding for a variety of educational issues.

The salient points (as we see them) of his Education page:

• "strongly advocated for Senate passage of a $554.6 billion budget for the U.S. Department of Education"
• "supported the No Child Left Behind Act"
• "worked to provide $20 million for the Pennsylvania Department of Education in fiscal year 2003" for low-performing school districts
• "provided $6.81 billion in the Senate Fiscal Year 2004 Appropriations Bill for Early Head Start and Head Start"
• "worked to ensure $10.76 billion in the [2004] Senate Appropriations Bill for Special Education programs"

We just have one question: Why must monies be collected in the form of tax revenue from citizens in the 50 states, then (after paying for the salaries at the U.S. Department of Education, of course), doled out at the federal level back to those 50 states? Especially since there isn't one mention of "Education" in the U.S. Constitution?



Now we'll contrast this with Toomey, whose "Promoting Educational Excellence" Issues page speaks more of his position and philosophy.

The page is so brief that there's little need to summarize. We'll quote the juiciest part (emphasis ours):

In order to provide children with the best possible start, Congressman Toomey firmly believes that parents should be in control of their children’s education decisions, not government bureaucrats.

The best way to put parents in charge of their children’s educations is let them choose the schools their children attend. Congressman Toomey has advocated and voted for giving parents this freedom, believing that parents know best what is good for their children and that the competition that would result from a variety of choices would elevate the quality of education for all children.

There really isn't much more to say than to advocate parental choice. This is the single most important thing that any politician could do to improve quality of our schools, for a rising tide lifts all boats.



Increased funding versus increased freedom. How can two Pennsylvania Republicans differ so widely?

Millersville University's Center for Politics and Public Affairs, in their September 2003 analysis of the race, speaks of the conflict between nearly the entire Pennsylvania (and national) Republican leadership (which supports Specter) and the more conservative members of Pennyslvania's GOP (who favor Toomey): "This internal struggle is essentially a conflict between pragmatism and ideology."

What they mean is that the GOP leadership is interested in holding onto Specter's seat in Congress, therefore they're the pragmatists.

We disagree. We'd call this conflict one between pure politics and core values. It is a measure of just how truly the Republican leadership supports their core values where, when push comes to shove, they end up taking the nakedly political path.

Meanwhile schoolchildren--and their parents--are nowhere to be found.

A few thoughts on grading

March 21, 2004 Grades are due tomorrow.

There are a number of students whose numerical average doesn't reflect their total lack of effort (they're passing by a healthy margin) and a number of students who're really struggling, yet still failing.

What to do?

In Among Schoolchildren, by Tracy Kidder, the author details his 9 months with elementary school teacher Christine Zajac, after which she burns out and quits. Mrs. Zajac is a gifted educator, but one firmly planted in the student-centered education mode.

When it comes time to turn in grades for her children, Mrs. Zajac takes a sick day. Every single time.

She doesn't do this to shirk her responsibilities, she does this because she's actually sick! Her body and mind are completely drained of energy, provoked by the mere thought of having to assign grades to her students. She frets about this dilemma, internalizing it until she's raw, until finally she can't even report to school and must take a day to recuperate.

How can a few little letters on a report card represent Johnny or Suzie as human beings?

It doesn't have to be that way.

Here's our approach. At the beginning of the term, identify to students exactly what they'll need to do and perform to earn a certain grade. If you've got weighted categories--such as 50% for tests and projects, 25% for homework and classwork, and 25% for quizzes--tell the students what these weights are. Then, on each assignment, test, quiz, or whatever, be sure the students know exactly how they scored.

Here's the really tough part: At the end of the term, assign the children grades based upon their numerical average. In other words, give the kid the grade he or she earned.

If you're a non-teacher or a "traditional" teacher, you're probably shaking your head, saying "isn't that completely obvious?"

Meanwhile our child-centered teacher readers are saying, "No, you can't do it that way!"

The argument is simple. Traditional educators know that children should be graded on performance, pure and simple. A student either has the knowledge and skills to earn a passing grade, or doesn't, with higher levels of performance earning higher grades.

Progressive, or "child-centered" educators think this is cruel and heartless. "How dare a teacher just mechanically punch numbers into a calculator and come up with a cold numerical average, and then say that this is what a child is worth? It is up to the teacher," they say, "to take into account a myriad of factors in determining a child's grade, including things like effort, attendance, and even factors like socioeconomic status and home life."

Traditional educators have an easy reply to this complaint by the progressives: Grades are not (and never have been) a measure of a child's worth! If Johnny's report card has a D in Mathematics, that doesn't mean Johnny the human being is worth a D, it simply means that Johnny's performance in the knowledge and skills of Mathematics is worth a D!

Traditional and Progressive educators can debate back and forth on this issue, but there is real danger in taking the wrong path. That hazard is: what happens when the child leaves your classroom?

Let's say you grade a child on "effort" or you take into account the fact that he's got a really tough homelife. (For example, one of our girls has a three-year-old baby, and is pregnant again. She's all of sixteen.) Does this mean the student should pass your course?

• What happens in next year's class, when there's an expectation of mastery of certain knowledge and skills?
• What happens when that student takes a standardized test, which will most certainly not take into account all the human factors that you valued in assigning that child a grade?
• What happens in college, when the student attending State U. enrolls in a freshman lecture course, with 250 other students?

The further you divorce a child from his or her actual performance, the more of a disservice you're doing that student.

Let's take another look at the three bullets above.

• Passing kids on who shouldn't be passed on is called social promotion. There are two side-effects here. For starters, the next year's teacher's work is made doubly difficult because twice as much material must be taught. Even worse, in a system where social promotion is the norm, students quickly learn that there's no expectation to put forth any effort, since they know they'll be promoted anyway. (Either way, the kid's screwed.)
• The argument that "standardized tests don't measure what's really important" is often used to slam standardized tests. These critics have it exactly backwards, as our friend Kimberly Swygert often writes, if the tests measure knowledge and skills, shouldn't teachers get to work teaching knowledge and skills?
• We feel very strongly about not setting children up for failure. And in college, we know that there isn't even one percent of the hand-holding that goes on in K-12 schools. Therefore, to best prepare for college, why not hold students accountable for their mastery of the knowledge and skills of your particular subject? If a high school senior passes trigonometry (or pre-calc) with flying colors, that student is most likely ready for freshman calculus, even if it is taught lecture-style.

Do your students a favor, and don't do them any favors! Just do your best to teach them, and at the end of the term, give them they grades they earn. They'll thank you later.

Two kinds of tests, two roles for tests

March 20, 2004 Recently we wrote of the abrupt imposition of top-down, high-stakes tests, such as the standardized bubble-in tests now mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind law, and the new 3rd-grade exit exams.

In the comments section, faithful reader Mike McKeown wrote:

It is my understanding that good programs have diagnostic tests built in at many stages so that student weaknesses and errors can be corrected early on.

It may be abrupt to test at third grade, but if the programs being used were appropriately testing and intervening early, would most students find such a test of third grade level skills too difficult?

Mike hit the nail on the head.

We responded that this "is why the best-performing schools rely on bottom-up (teacher-made or -selected), low-stakes (diagnostic) tests, the very antithesis of this high-stakes testing craze we're in."

'M' writes, "As an engineer who often deals with QA issues, I'm appalled by your post."

Nice to know we're provoking some strong emotions, but unfortunately this is a simple misunderstanding, as we shall explain. M continues:

"Bottom-up (teacher-made or -selected), low-stakes (diagnostic) tests" rely upon an employee to rate the results of her own work. Conscientious teachers will do it honestly and get useful evaluations, although they might not be comparable from teacher to teacher. Lousy teachers will bias the evaluations in their own favor (that is, kids that haven't learned the curriculum will still pass). It's no good without an objective test that can be compared between teachers and between schools.

We have to agree with M's criticism of using teacher-made tests to perform evaluations of schools, but we were speaking of using tests to improve the quality of teaching. This second role of tests is often forgotten, but in the best performing schools, local tests are used to drive instruction.

M's point reminds us of the provisions in No Child Left Behind which allow states to determine their own yardstick for measuring a whole host of attributes, everything from "persistently dangerous schools" to school failure.

This is why the great city of Philadelphia somehow ended up with half of the "dangerous" schools in the entire country! While we've actually taught at several of those schools (and once had to receive emergency-room treatment for a human bite) we can't but help think this is an exaggeration. And some states have no failing schools, while other in other states half the schools are failing? Please.

To return to the point, when we mention teacher-made or teacher-selected tests, we're speaking of schools and teachers that use tests to improve their own effectiveness in the job of educating kids.

If your students are well-grounded when they walk into your classroom, that's great, you just teach them the knowledge and skills in your portion of the curriculum, and you're set. But it is rare that incoming kids will be so well-prepped, so instead of complaining about the absence of the utopian ideal, why not use tests to determine where kids are, and where you need to take them?

Testing--meaning school-based testing, not that at the state level--helps drive instruction at the best schools.

This is a common theme running through one of our favorite books on education reform: Samuel Casey Carter's No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing High Poverty Schools, which, while out of print, is available as a 125-page pdf file.

Casey Carter says simply, "Diagnosis is not Discrimination."

"The more you test, the better the students do," says David Levin of the KIPP Academy in the Bronx. "Regardless of what teaching style you use, there has to be a constant assessment in place that demonstrates real mastery of what you are teaching."

Angelo Milica, who was then principal of Philadelphia's Stephen Girard school, agrees:

Like so many other high-performing principals, Milicia puts a premium on testing: "Assessment drives instruction. If the kids aren't tested regularly, how are we to know what they need? And standards drive assessment. If we don't know where they're going, how will we get them there?"

Now, what about those standardized tests that have folks in a fit of conniption? We have no problem with these tests, provided they are well-written, reliable, valid, and field-tested standardized tests. We'd also like to share Nancy Ichinaga's perspective, emphasis ours:

"Every profession uses objective measures to determine effectiveness. Educators don't like the results of their tests, so they condemn the measure. But only a poor workman quarrels with his tools."

News Flash: Same-age children aren't all the same!

March 18, 2004 Conventional wisdom says that children are developmentally identical. All three-year-olds have the exact the same capabilities as all other three-year-olds. Being that all children are identical, all five-year-olds should be in kindergarten, and all six-year-olds should be in first grade. Under no circumstances should a six-year-old be placed in second grade.

Absurd, right?

Any living human being who's been within an arm's reach of children know that the preceding is a bunch of baloney. Children are most emphatically not developmentally identical. You've got your early bloomers and late bloomers, bean sprouts and bean poles, pre-verbal, verbal, and late-talkers, crawlers, walkers, and runners. By the grace of Mother Nature, kids are all over the map, which is a pretty good thing.

Enter school administrators.

Educrats can't abide all these bell-curve straddling kids all over the place, they need to set some policy! So they usually say something like "if your kid is six years old, we'll place the little bugger in first grade." Nice and neat, tied with a bow.

In broad terms, the bigger the school system, the more entrenched the bureaucrats, and the more farcical the lengths to which bad policy will be defended. Parents enrolling their bright young children in school are often given the run-around (or even worse: a quick "no") when trying to place their youngsters in a grade level other than the proscribed norm.

So if six-year-old Johnny is intelligent and precocious, and is fully capable of second grade work? They'll stick him in first grade anyway.

No, no, no, you protest, Johnny blew away his standardized tests, with percentiles in the 90s! Can't he enroll in second? Nope! It's off to first grade with him!

But he was reading at a third grade level in first grade! Um, you seem like a nice lady and all, but F-I-R-S-T spells "First," as in First Grade for your little Johnny!

Hey wait a minute, you shout, Johnny's already finished first grade at another school and is halfway through second! He's just transferring into the system as a current second grader!

The educrats' response? He's six years old, you say? What part of first grade don't you understand?

This would make for some comedy if it weren't such a real-life tragedy. Education News documents this week the efforts of a New York City teacher (on medical leave) to place her son in second grade. Even though he matches the description of our fictional Johnny above, young Francis Riviera is very real, and has in fact done quite well in second grade at a private school.

When his mother tried to transfer him into public school, the educrats insisted on placing him in first grade. The assistant principal of the local school said, in regard to placing children by ability, "We don’t do that here, we go by age."

Quick, someone grab the ClueBat!

Fortunately, Francis' mother contacted the press. With this big Klieg light shining on the staggering boneheadedness of it all, the school district finally respected the mother's wishes, and reversed their earlier decision.

While Francis may now continue his second-grade studies, we wonder how many other bright children are out there bored to tears in classrooms below their level, without the power of the press behind them?

His case was extraordinary because he'd already completed most of second grade (at a private school) when the all-knowing school district declared he was fit for first grade. But what about children who're not transferring? The problem rears its head when kids first start school, or more accurately, when parents attempt to enroll their children in school. We've known of parents of very bright four-year olds being refused even consideration for Kindergarten, purely due to age.

On a tangential note, recall the big flap over social promotion in the third grade, where schools routinely promote kids even when they've not mastered the material. Imagine someone suggesting to these schools that they promote only those kids who've mastered that year's set of knowledge and skills. The response?

"We don’t do that here, we go by age."

Is Holistic teaching wonderful?

March 17, 2004 "The aim with holistic teaching is to teach the child, not a subject, and to speak to the child's spirit. You want to teach the whole child, not just one part."

At least that's the theory.

This touchy-feely, fuzzy-wuzzy nonsense is not why parents send their kids to school. We are supposed to give them an education in academic subjects like reading, math and science! Elaine McEwan had this to say in 10 Traits of Highly Successful Schools:

To create a school environment that is "nurturing, collaborative, meaningful, and authentic" sounds impressive. But stop to think about why we are sending our children to school in the first place. I did not send mine to be nurtured. I did that at home. I sent them to learn how to read, write and do math. (p.135)

Saying we need to "speak to the child's spirit" is like suggesting that the strightforward teaching of an academic curriculum would somehow be harmful to a child's spirit! This would only be true if the child had a rare allergy, and broke out in hives when in close proximity to knowledge. (Fortunately these allergic children are screened out in Kindergarten and sent to the Progressive bastion of Summerhill, where they get to do whatever they want all day.)

Think about five areas in a child's life: family, friends, community, church, and school. The first four areas can focus on the "whole child" and speak to the child's spirit 'til they're blue in the face. But while at school, you better believe we're going to work on academics.

Parents wouldn't have it any other way.

Myth of "creaming" and school choice

March 16, 2004 In Townhall.com's C-log this week, they report on the "creaming argument" that schools of choice (usually charter schools and recipients of voucher students) "cream" the best and the brightest from the public school population.

The traditional argument is that public schools will suffer because only the best students will make the choice to switch to a school of choice, either to a private school using a voucher, or to a charter school. Because of this fear, the argument is made to not permit parents their choice of school.

As is often the case with any argument against freedom of choice, there is little data to support this assertion. Townhall's Patrick McDougal reports:

When faced with evidence that charter schools deliver better academic results than public schools, opponents of school-choice have argued that charter schools skim the cream of the student population, thus resulting in skewed results.  A study [pdf] released today by the Goldwater Institute contradicts that assertion:

"Findings indicate that charter school students, on average, began with lower test scores than their traditional public school counterparts, and showed overall annual achievement growth roughly three points higher than their non-charter peers. Charter school students who completed the twelfth grade surpassed traditional public school students on SAT-9 reading tests."

Lest you think that this is yet another biased study, reporting all is coming up roses, the review of charter schools was mixed, for "high-school achievement growth actually favors public school attendees."

Shocking! Actually, we think results like this help bring some sanity to the debate. No, charter schools are not all universally better than public schools, and no, they all aren't creaming off the best students. The entire point of charter schools is they offer parents yet another choice (where there currently is next to none).

An interesting phenomena happens when you increase the avenues of choice: it acts like a lubricant in the cogs of the educational market. Just as freedom is better than bondage, and free trade is better than tariffs and quotas, a free market improves the lot for everyone. "A rising tide lifts all boats."

Freedom is egalitarian, and thus serves everyone, not just the well off.

Free up the market for charter schools, and (surprise!) you'll find charter schools springing up to serve vocational students, at-risk youth, the physically handicapped, students interested in the arts, and all sorts of academically-oriented students.

You'll even find charter schools specifically serving disciplinary students who've been expelled from public school! While it may seem counter-intuitive that anyone would open a school for disciplinary students, don't forget one key aspect of the free market: entrepreneurs will always offer solutions where there's demand.

Ironically, what are fairly rare are charter high schools which are academically head-and-shoulders above their public school peers, for by law charter schools in most states must enroll whomever registers (with waiting lists and lotteries when demand exceeds capacity). This open-enrollment policy keeps charter schools grounded in reality.

As for "creaming"? It's yet another myth.

3rd grade exit exam: Another top-down high-stakes test?

March 16, 2004 First came New York City, where mayor Bloomberg announced that they'd end social promotion in elementary schools by hanging a "The Buck Stops Here" sign on all 3rd grade classrooms. Students who don't pass standardized tests at the end of 3rd grade won't be promoted to 4th.

Now Iowa is considering legislation to do the same, about which Kimberly Swygert has an excellent blow-by-blow analysis. Cedar Pundit, who provided some commentary on this issue, says "Allowing children to advance to another grade level without the ability or skills to do the work is nothing short of child abuse."

Our feelings on 3rd grade exit exams are mixed. On the one hand, we agree with Cedar Pundit: children lacking skills for their grade level shouldn't be promoted to the next grade simply because they're a year older. All this does is set the child up for failure, which will become exponentially worse.

On the negative side we're not enamored with the whole top-down, high-stakes testing scene.

It plays out like this:

• Begin with the status quo, which permits appalling levels of failure.
• Ossified educrats finally sit up and take notice, usually after decades of inaction.
• By fiat, they declare that a new standardized test will be used to determine pass or failure.
• Teachers and schools bristle with resentment.

It's not the fault of the tests--ostensibly they're simply being used as an information-gathering device--but rather with the abrupt imposition of the tests. Of course, anytime the rules of a game are changed when the game is in session, resentment is bound to flow.

Our suggestion is to not impose a new testing regime overnight, but rather, use tests as a tool to help schools genuinely meet the new goal, with the high-stakes part being phased in.

The Iowa plan seems to do this, with the 3rd-grade exit exam being implemented three years from now. In other words, students who are kindergarten now will be the first students expected to pass the third grade exit exam. That should be enough time to give them the knowledge and skills they'll need to do well on the exam.

We also suggest that tests be used as a diagnostic tool, rather than purely in a high-stakes fashion. For example, why not test the kids in second grade as well? This information would be valuable to schools so they can know on which students they need to focus their efforts, for the important third grade test a year later.

Cincinnati is doing just that. In an article published three years ago (from which we gleaned the above picture), the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the city has a "third grade guarantee" which ensures that all graduating third graders can read before being promoted to fourth grade. Not only that, but the test is given to all second and third graders. This makes perfect sense, for no school will be caught unawares.

The bottom line is we want our children to be on grade level before moving to the next grade. Standardized tests, if utilized effectively, can be a tool to help provide us with the information we need to focus our efforts.

Consequence of Child-Centered approach: Difference of Opinion

March 13, 2004 Earlier today we quoted an Iraqi teacher:

"American classrooms are very free. I see in the movies that the students challenge the teachers," said Dalel Khamel, an English-language teacher at the Baghdad High School.

It's not just in the movies, Mr. Khamel!

One consequence of child-centered approaches is that students begin to feel that they're equal to the teacher, thus when differences arise, students view it as merely a difference of opinion. Consider this account, by a math teacher in an American city:

Just this week I had a number of 12th grade students (who had all attended the same elementary school) insist that a 40x30 rectangle was, in fact, a square. In fact, the only thing they wanted to call a rectangle was a right-angled quadrilateral with dramatically different heights and widths, like a door or a chalkboard. If the height was close to the width (like a 4:3 TV screen ratio, or even an 8.5x11 sheet of paper) they insisted it was a square.

But here's the kicker: when I tried to actually teach the correct definition of a square, students refused to listen, because they acted like it was just my opinion.

This has happened a number of times to this teacher, who reports that an area like Math is so easily poorly-taught--or mistaught--in the early grades. It is a real challenge to try to layer proper instruction over the poor foundation these kids received in their early years of schooling.

While it is human nature to cling strongly to the first things we're taught, in this case it is compounded by the student's insistence that if the teacher disagrees with them, it is just his opinion against theirs. (After all, he could just be making it up!)

Is Progressive Education coming to Iraq?

March 13, 2004 Periodically we like to link to stories related to education in Iraq. (See Iraqi Schools and the U.S. Military and Slice of Life: Iraqi public school students.) But now we have some bad news, more closely related to education reform: Progressive Education may be creeping into Mesopotamia.

The title of this Christian Science Monitor article says it all: "Lesson for Iraqi teachers: Loosen up!"

While a very important task in the rebuilding of Iraq includes repairing and restocking schools, Creative Associates International Incorporated (CAII) has been also contracted to train Iraqi teachers in American-style education.

US teacher-trainer Nadia Al Jadir hardly considers student participation a revolutionary educational concept.

But her audience of 400 Iraqi high school teachers at Al-Kharka High School for Girls look stunned when Ms. Al Jadir tells them to "listen to your students and let them express themselves."

"There will be chaos in the classroom," protests one teacher, in a pink head scarf.

We suspected that the new teacher-trainers parachuting into Iraq were in fact Progressive educators. To be sure, we emailed a representative at CAII and asked him what the Institute's educational philosophy was (since we're all too familiar with the battles between content- and teacher-centered Traditionalists and child-centered Progressives).

We received the response: "The methodologies we are training for promote student centered learning."

Hoo boy.

In CAII's press release on their Iraqi project, they write:

Education reform efforts will underscore accelerated learning and enhanced teacher and school capacity, breathing life into an education system that was once among the strongest in the Middle East.

What they don't ask is why the Iraqi school system was once so strong. We'd suggest it was not due to child-centered approaches! Rather, it was one grounded in a solid, rigorous curriculum, taught by instructors who were in full command of both their subject matter and their classrooms.

But here's what the edu-experts say about that:

"They are used to a dictator style in which the teacher's power is unquestioned," says Hind Rassam, senior education adviser for Creative Associates Inc., of Washington, D.C., the educational company contracted to improve education in Iraq. "We tell them you can be strong, but also respect everyone and not rule by fear."

This is very disrespectful. While one description of a teacher-centered approach is a "benevolent dictatorship," it is very thoughtless to compare Iraqi teachers to dictators after their country has suffered under one of the most brutal dictatorships in modern history.

So, even though Iraq has had for decades a well-educated populace, long before the Butcher of Baghdad ever appeared on radar, here the "experts" arrive to tell the Iraqis that their teacher-centered approach is one based on ruling by fear.

It would be nice if these experts did their homework. When the teacher has a thorough knowledge of the subject matter, the teacher-centered approach has been proven to be more effective than the student-centered one. Without a butcher in sight.

The Monitor article closes with a telling quote:

"American classrooms are very free. I see in the movies that the students challenge the teachers," said Dalel Khamel, an English-language teacher at the Baghdad High School. "Maybe we won't do everything like they do. But we want to be exposed to all the new techniques, and then we will decide what is useful to us."

Thank goodness for Iraqi skepticism!

We hope that they remember what's worked well in the past, and stick to that, no matter how these innovative teacher trainers try to convince them otherwise. Sure, it's good to learn new techniques, as long as they are proven to be more effective than what they replace.

Just go with what works!

"Stop teaching my kid?" Stop whining!

March 10, 2004 The Irascible Professor has a recent guest commentary by a teacher, which was picked up by Joanne Jacobs and Number 2 Pencil, so we figured we'd chime in. The turgid piece, "Stop Teaching My Kid" has to be the worst abuse of superlatives and absolutes that we've ever seen in our entire lives. (Well, maybe not that bad.)

The pseudonymous Elise Vogler writes:

The vast majority of Americans would be shocked to learn of one potent force that keeps the quality of public education low. Budget problems, you ask? No. I'm talking about parents.

We just love it when public school folks blame parents for their woes. Parents make such handy whipping boys (and girls)! We've often mentioned our desire for increased options for parental choice, such as vouchers, charter schools, and deregulated homeschooling--for the simple reason that parents (when given the power to choose) make a potent force.

But here we learn that parents make for a potent force to keep quality down. Very interesting, here we thought the culprit was collectivist unions and progressive educators, with dumbed-down curriculum and self-esteem puffery. We apologize for the confusion.

In complaining about the progenitors of her students, she writes:

All these parents want is that which is safe and comfortable for their children. This includes a curriculum where there are no real expectations of the students.

Sounds pretty dire. Surely she's only talking about the parents who happen to have jobs in government, right? No, she insists that "most parents want an easy pass" but we at first suspected that she meant to say some parents. We were proven wrong.

She then expended a great deal of prose on a lazy student named "Mark" who is a decent reader, but wanted an easier course than the one taught by Ms. Vogler. Stop right there! A student who's both capable and lazy? Who'da thunk it?

As luck would have it, this student also has an enabling parent, backing up the student's request to transfer to an easier course, and willing to take the complaint all the way to His Holiness the Pope if necessary. Now this is just too incredible: a capable but lazy student who also happens to have an enabler as a parent? Gee, what are the chances?

She completely glosses over the truly remarkable aspect of her story: the part where her administrators backed her up despite this parent threatening to go to the school board of the entire state!

No, she draws the completely wrong conclusion:

What's frightening, though, is that in my experience, Mark's father is the norm, not the exception. I have had dozens of such incidents over the years.

Dozens! Ok, let's have some fun. Let's assume Ms. Vogler, English Teacher, who admits to have been teaching for over ten years, teaches only 5 courses a year (we're being conservative and assuming they're full year courses). Assuming dozens means about 25, and that she's got a class size of 25 (another conservative estimate), let's do the math:

25 complaints divided by ten years, divided by 5 periods, divided by 25 students per class, gives us a whopping 2% complaint rate. Here we thought that "norm" meant that something was in the clear majority. In any given class of Ms. Vogler's, apparently that is a majority of one-half-of-one-student.

Next she recounts a painful description of the lengths to which she's gone to make her course easier (and supposedly easier to pass), including practically handing out an answer key during each exam, yet still large numbers of students fail.

We're surprised that a teacher with over a decade of experience has never heard of the universal maxim: "Lower your standards at your own peril." In school terms, this means that if you lower your expectations, your students will exceed them. In the wrong direction.

Has she never considered that by dumbing-down her own course, she's telegraphed a very clear message that she doesn't expect very much from her charges? And this becomes a deadly self-fulfilling prophesy. Good thing parents are waiting in the wings to take the fall, because she claims it's all their fault!

We have a few suggestions for Ms. Vogler:

• Grow a spine and/or thicker skin.
• Realize that most folks are silent until they have a complaint.
• Take a course in basic Statistics. This might help you understand that the self-selected group of complaining parents does not a representative sample make.
• Try earning your students' respect by making your course appropriately difficult. We trust you know what is appropriate. Give your students a challenge, then inspire them to meet it (as in this story of Dr. Brockhaus).
• Get down on your knees and thank your lucky stars you have such supportive administrators, who will stand their ground in the face of a parent who takes his complaint straight to the superintendent. Apparently they have great confidence in your abilities as a teacher.

The Irascible Professor provides some sanity in an editor's postscript:

The IP always views anecdotal evidence with some skepticism, so he is not sure that those parents who really would prefer that teachers lower both their expectations and their standards are in the majority.  However, there are enough of them, and they are vocal enough to explain Elise's experiences.

No one said that teaching was going to be a complaint-free profession. Deal with it.

---

(3/13/2004) Retroactive update: We didn't realize it at the time, but Joanne Jacobs had a post up where she quoted a Computer Science professor on the nature of high standards and free rides:

The impression that students are looking for an easy ride is completely inaccurate, at least for most students. The problem, from my perspective, is a vicious cycle in which nonchallenging high school courses result in disrespect from students, which in turn gives teachers the impression that students don't want challenge, so the courses get watered down even more, etc. The solution is for teachers to make their courses demanding and not to apologize about it.

Fred on Schools: Guaranteed Reprehensible.

March 09, 2004 That irrepressible grouch Fred Reed weighs in today on the unacceptable role of government in our lives, and how we just accept it (we like his take on dogs).

Government schools (better known as "public schools") are another unwelcome intrusion into our lives. Says Fred:

Why is the government involved in the schools? If the public schools worked, an argument could be made for them: If children don’t learn to read, they are more likely to end up on the public nipple, which is everybody’s business. In fact, if the schools worked, you wouldn’t have to make an argument for them. In the fifties and early sixties, they did work. They taught the educable to read, did a reasonable job of preparing the bright for college, and did very little else. Which was exactly right.

If public schools worked, you wouldn't have to make an argument for them. One problem is the equality-of-results dogma which drives a distressing number of folks. In our society we should strive very hard to provide equality of opportunity. But results? That's up to the individual.

This is the bane of those who believe we should all be equal in form and deed, because if you leave it up to the individual, you won't get equal results. Enter the government, with its dumbed-down curriculum, so that all can achieve on the same level.

Today they don’t work—endlessly, badly, overwhelmingly, highly documentably don’t work. They don’t work because they are chiefly means of imposing social agendas for powerful lobbies and of hiding the failures of the swing vote in presidential elections.

Gone are the days when the schools' role is seen as teaching kids to read, write, and to do arithmetic. Now schools are seen as a means to indoctrinate our young into belief systems with which a number of parents find objectionable.

Note that government is the cause of the failure.

Emphasis ours. Why don't we hear of the rampant failure of private schools? Maybe because they are completely independent, and simply wouldn't survive the market for students if parents didn't choose to send their youngsters there?

But in public schools, the government (in the form of Federal or State Departments of Education, or of the local school board) has its proboscis everywhere.

It is government in one form or another that mandates the hiring of low-grade (read certified) teachers, insists on hiring according by color instead of competence, forbids the firing of the demonstrably useless, and mandates the purchase of terrible texts.

Eliminate teacher certification and you free up the market for new teachers. Permit hiring by whomever the local school administration wants, and you permit them to hire the best.

We worked in a school that received a new (temporary) gym teacher. He was excellent, and got along famously with the students, and everyone at the school wanted him to stay. He was forced to pick another school when his year was up, because his skin color didn't match the students. The year was 1995.

Government requires teaching to the level of the dullest-witted.

This is why gifted-education programs are on the chopping block, because they are deemed inherently unfair.

Government also prevents the establishment of good schools in competition with itself. Don’t think so? Try to start a school and run it as you wish.

In many places, if folks want to start a charter school they must apply to the very school district with which they hope to compete! (We've been there, believe us.) A breath of competition would be very welcome in our monopoly government school market.

In affluent areas, there already is competition (parents can afford the choice) so there's a limit as to how bad the government schools can be. But in our cities and poorer areas, if we were to enact a voucher program, parents could choose.

Anyone opposed to giving parents a choice?

Sampling, and the point of standardized tests

March 08, 2004 A while back, we made some fun of anti-testing screedmeister Alfie Kohn. Recently gentle reader Pam posted the following comment:

I'm sorry but I think you're all missing the point of what Alfie has to say. It's not that grades and assessments aren't necessary--it's just that there needs to be more than one way to assess growth, achievement and success. Standardized testing provides one approach-- a pencil and paper approach to measure what a student knows, but this one-size-fits-all method to measuring individual learning is NOT a true assessment of mastery--or knowledge.

Pam, you are exactly correct in that paper-and-pencil assessments aren't "true" measurements of mastery or knowledge.

For a true measurement, you'd need either a Vulcan mind-meld, or you'd need to observe this person over a period of months or years in an authentic setting, to truly gauge learning and skills.

Neither of those is terribly practical (and Vulcans are notoriously hard to find).

Enter Standardized Tests.

There aren't many folks who'd claim that these bubble-in tests are the best way to measure learning. They are, however, the least worst solution. Out of all the ways to measure learning (direct observation, "authentic tasks," portfolio-based assessments, open-ended response, juried competitions, and standardized tests) there's only one that has any hope of providing some sort of standard at a reasonable cost.

We don't want to be cynical and claim it's all about money, but one shouldn't dismiss practicality. Any method of measuring learning must survive real-world criteria, and if your goal is to measure all the students in the state (any state), standardized tests are the way to go.

One reason they're so effective is because of the concept of sampling.

Statisticians know there are two ways to measure a population: measure every element in the population, or sample. For example, say you want to measure how well a candidate is doing in the polls in the weeks before an election. You could contact all registered voters and ask them how they're going to vote, which is extremely expensive, although you'd get a very accurate number. Or you could pick a "sample" of voters and ask them. The result you get isn't the best result, but it's a pretty good one.

Standardized tests work in much the same way. Although they can be designed such that you're not "sampling students" (for example, if you want to test every child in your population, say every 4th grader in the state), the point of the tests is you're sampling knowledge.

For example, a math standardized test cannot include every problem of every type that the student should know how to solve, the student would need a whole box of number 2 pencils! Rather, the test includes a variety of problems, sampling the skills for a given educational level.

To help put standardized tests in perspective, here's this comment from The Educated Child, by William Bennett:

Standardized tests can be useful instruments, but take their results in context. They are not necessarily evaluating whether your child knows what a well-educated pupil at her grade level ought to know, but rather how she compares to other pupils who've taken the same test.

This of course doesn't prevent the abuse of standardized tests, holding them up as the be-all, end-all result of education.

Getting back to Pam's original point, she writes, "there needs to be more than one way to assess growth, achievement and success."

Your wish is our command. The name of the means of assessing growth, achievement, and success? They're called "teachers."

Myth: Phonics is optional, because there's no one "right way" to teach reading

March 07, 2004 Many people think explicit phonics is optional because there isn't one right way to teach reading. While it may be true that there isn't "one right way," consider the following:

"There's no one right way to build a skyscraper" is just as true.

Most skyscrapers are made of steel columns and beams, individually bolted and welded, making a skeleton resembling a jungle gym. But some, like the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysa are made of reinforced concrete.

The recently destroyed World Trade Center towers used an ingenous tube construction to eliminate most interior supporting columns. (Had it not been for the conflagration of jet fuel, they'd be standing today, despite each being hit by a jumbo jet.)

However there's one thing that all the world's skyscrapers have in common. They are supported by forests of driven piles and subterranean columns reaching toward bedrock.

Every single one.

Progressive educators dream of a skyscraper of literacy and they immediately look toward the sky. All of their efforts serve the attempt to reach high, and there are a bewildering array of innovative methods they use in the skyward attempt to teach reading (Whole Language and Balanced Literacy embody this view).

Traditional educators, in contrast, know that literacy must be built on a foundation, so they look toward the ground, grab a shovel, and start digging. It is thankless, dirty work, to be sure (also known as phonics drills) and it might not be much "fun." But over time, after patiently building this phonics foundation (the basis for written language), our stalwart reading teacher finally sees success when the budding reader sees daylight.

Once the foundation is finished, the climb skyward may begin, and the world's literature becomes available for consumption.

Time after time we hear of the "aha" moment from teachers of early reading. That's the moment when the phonics drills have taught enough translation (of symbols into sound), so that the child can actually begin to read.

What is interesting is that before that "aha" moment, the child wasn't doing much reading at all. After that moment, you won't be able to keep that child away from books! Schools that employ this explicit phonics approach (such as using Direct Instruction program) regularly report kids reading by the end of Kindergarten.

Phonics instruction doesn't end there, continuing to teach children the less-common and more obscure spellings of phonemes, or sounds, such as the "Zh" in Dr. Zhivago by grade three. All the while the child is independently reading books without any help from anyone.

Progressive experts like to say, "There's no one right way to teach reading," because they want to eliminate or minimize phonics, as if phonics were just another method. Trouble is, phonics is not a program, it is a body of knowledge!

It is a cruel joke to deny children this knowledge and call it "teaching reading."

Expectations, Achievement, and the "Toughest grader in the state"

March 06, 2004 At one all-black, inner-city high school, there was a conversation between a veteran teacher (who permits calculators in math class), and a new math teacher (who does not):

"One thing you have to realize is," as he lowered his voice, "these kids are low achievers. And once you realize that, things go much smoother."

I responded, "Well, I want to push them."

He replied, "Oh, sure you can, but it's hard."

The soft bigotry of low expectations.

Many students of this school have been held to consistently low standards for their previous eight years of schooling, then they arrive almost-all-grown-up at this high school, where some folks feel perfectly justified in maintaining these low expectations because, after all, these kids are low achievers.

The achievement in math in this particular school is quite low. If you were to lose one arm (and most of the fingers of your remaining hand) in a tragic industrial accident, you'd still be able to count on your fingers the percent of students who are proficient in Math on the 11th grade standardized test.

There are two approaches to this problem. One is to be simply acknowledge the lack of preparation these students have had before they even reached high school, and the other is to take that awareness one step further: redoubling one's efforts and holding these students to appropriate standards.

And yes, the second course is hard.

It can be called "tough love" or "hard grading" or other names, but the point is that if teachers don't push these students in school to achieve, who will? (Some would say "parents," but that's a cop-out. If parents don't encourage high academic achievement, the student should not be written off!)

In the Spring 2004 issue of Education Next quarterly, Martin West recounts his experience with one such "tough grader:"

In my high school, rumor had it that Richard Brockhaus was the toughest grader in the state. Others disagreed. They insisted it was the whole country.

Dr. Brockhaus taught AP Calculus, and despite struggling hard, young Martin only got a C in the fall semester.

Dr. B was not wholly devoid of sympathy. A relentless encourager, he constantly reminded us that the material we were trying to learn was “not rocket science.” Thus motivated, I managed to improve my grade modestly in the spring.

When time came for the final exam, he had his students watch Stand and Deliver instead, to reward them for meeting his standards.

Still, those of us who had struggled through the course had little idea of what to expect as we headed into the official AP exam later that month. As it turned out, the College Board’s questions were among the easiest we had encountered all year. Dr. B had taught “to the test” and well beyond it; every member of our class passed with flying colors.

Sure, the students may have resented his relentlessly tough standards, and at times it must have seemed that their best simply wasn't good enough for Dr. Brockhaus. But when these students' skills were measured on a tough independent exam, they received their reward.

This may sound all well and good, but it is very, very hard to pull off in practice. There are many forces aligned against teachers with high standards. For starters, very few students will demand to be pushed, while the vocal majority will protest continually that the teacher "go easier" or "slow down."

Come report card time, many students may do poorly (translation: fail), which usually will prompt a meeting with the principal. It just doesn't "look good" to have high numbers of students failing, so often the teacher will be pressured to raise the grades. (At one school where we've taught, the principal had a ceiling for failing grades, and woe to the teacher who tried to accurately and fairly grade students who didn't perform.)

Students' classroom performance (and report card grades) aren't the end of the story. As Mr. West writes, "Teachers who hand out misleading grades allow some students to be blindsided by [standardized] tests."

Middle Schools Begone?

March 04, 2004 What is it with these big-city school districts and their crazy egg baskets? Achievement is sorely lagging behind the suburbs and private schools (for lots of very simple reasons, as outlined briefly in our reform blueprint), yet would-be reformers continually jump on each passing fad as if yet more innovation will solve our school problems.

The latest basket into which they're going to dump yet more eggs has middle schools (typically grades 6, 7, and 8) in the crosshairs. Eliminate middle schools (convert them to either K-8 schools or 6-12 schools) and you'll solve a whole lot of problems, or so they claim.

Joanne Jacobs covers a New York Times article (free registration required) which describes Gotham's plan to eliminate most of the middle schools in the city. Be sure to check out the comments section of her post, there are a number of good perspectives on the positive and negatives of this move.

For the record, we aren't terribly opposed to New York's plans, some of which sound compelling. It's just the sense that the educrats in charge even hope to get any boost in learning out of this restructuring.

When we were in school, it was K-6 in elementary schools, then 7-8 in junior high, then 9-12 in senior high, and it seemed to work fine. When we began teaching, the big push was for "middle schools" which would be grades 6-8. We've always thought the distinction between junior high and middle school to be rather silly.

Show us ten arguments why 6th graders are too old for elementary school, and we'll find ten reasons why 6th graders are too young for middle school.

We find it amusing when people make broad statements on the natural role for particular grade levels, such as "seventh graders are natural leaders" or "ninth graders are too immature for high school." We hate to break it to these folks, but students refuse to conform to their rigid ideas of their development, for one reason: the bell curve.

The bell curve is an interesting (and ubiquitous) creature. Take any good sized group of people, and measure any of a bevy of characteristics (for example, height, weight, IQ, education level, age, hair length, etc), and graph the data. Chances are, you'll find a bell curve lurking about.

Taking up the issue of middle-years students, what many folks don't realize is that these kids are the results of swirling interactions of multiple bell curves (age in months at the onset of puberty being only one of these bell-curve-shaped distributions). Typically in these normal distributions the width of the bulk of the curve (plus/minus one standard deviation) is wider than one year.

This means that declarations that such-and-so grade can or can't do this-or-that--or that X grade shouldn't be in the same school as Y--are little more than meaningless platitudes.

If you're going to restructure schools because you'd like to better utilize your resources (bigger schools tend to favor more efficiency), then fine, go ahead and restructure!

Just don't claim to do so because of pet childhood development theories.

Scoring the FCAT: Calling all rocket scientists and psychometricians!

March 03, 2004 One aspect of modern schooling which we find frustrating is the irresistable urge to make things more complicated. Which is a crying shame, because education reform is not rocket science.

Today we turn to a favorite subject of Number 2 Pencil (in a shameless attempt to steal thunder), Florida's FCAT. (We typed "FCAT" into Kimberly Swygert's search engine and smoke came out of our CPU.)

Lakeland, Florida's Ledger has a story critical of the FCAT's scoring methodology. Initially, the criticism centers on the fact that some questions are weighted, thus two students can get the same raw number of answers correct, but end up with different scores.

But FCAT officials with the Florida Department of Education say it's more complicated than that.

"The scoring is the most fair and widely accepted method among . . . professionals in the field because it incorporates so much more about the students than just a simple number (of correct answers)," [Cornelia] Orr said.

By "professionals in the field" we assume he means psychometricians. But the phrase "incorporates so much more about the students" sounds a bit Orwellian.

The program factors in three things about every question for each student: the question's difficulty; how many students usually try to guess its answer; and the distribution of students who know the skill involved and those who guess right or wrong.

This sounds horribly complicated. Exactly how do they determine all these things? How do they figure out how many students "usually" try to guess an answer? Wouldn't this mean the question is worded in a certain way so as to be possibly misleading? (In other words, a hard question which looks like an easy question.) How exactly did they separate students (in their pilot testing phase) who got a question right due to skill from those who got it right due to a lucky guess?

For example, if a student named John and his classmate Mary answered 20 questions correctly, their scale scores could be different. John correctly answered questions deemed easy, so his final score is lower than Mary's, who correctly answered more questions considered difficult.

Um, hello? Can someone explain to us why Smart Mary skipped the easy questions? We don't buy this argument for a second, but truth be told, our quarrel is not with weighted questions. However, we could make the test simpler still (remember, standardized testing is not rocket science) if each correct answer was worth a point. Period. End of discussion. (They'll never go for such a crazy idea.)

But here's where it turns creepy:

Even if John answered a few harder questions correctly, the computer would deem these answers as lucky guesses based on his pattern of answers. Lucky guesses carry a lesser value than those calculated correctly.

In other words, since John's belt doesn't go through all the loops, he doesn't even stand a chance answering hard questions! He's still going to lose points, even if he gets them right! The kindly computer will simply assume that he guessed. (Memo to John: Bend over.)

We fully admit we're not experts at testing, but we'd hope our BS detector still works out here in these waters.

Our questions are simple: Why all the drama associated with psychoanalyzing each question and each student? Is this a psychology test or a skills test? Why all the complicated (and unexplainable to parents and students, therefore they aren't told) blather about point shaving due to "possible" lucky guesses? Only the student and the Man Upstairs knows if any given answer was a lucky guess!

What especially irks us is that this "problem" (of trying to counter lucky guesses) was solved years ago, and in a manner that is immediately understandable by students and parents alike!

We're speaking of the College Board's SAT, and the way they deal with wrong answers.

In a multiple-choice test (which we infinitely prefer over any subjective human-scored assessments), technically a student could guess his way though an entire test and get around 25% (assuming 4 possible answers per question) just from brute luck. In any group of four questions, chances are that one will be right (the lucky guess) and three will be wrong (the unlucky guesses).

The SAT folks figured that if a third of a point was subtracted for each wrong answer, then an all-guessing strategy would be a wash: One point minus three thirds, for a sum of zero.

But what's brilliant is how easy this is to communicate to students. Just tell them that if they don't know the answer, to leave it blank, without guessing! If they have narrowed down the choices (like 50/50 on that insipid Who Wants to be a Millionaire), then maybe they can make an "informed guess." But if they don't have a clue, leave it blank.

Returning to our group of 4 questions, say a student knows a little bit about each question, and is thus able to reduce it to a "50/50" for each, and makes four informed guesses. On average, this student will get two right and two wrong, and the SAT will score this with one and a third points (Two minus two thirds).

We consider this 1.3 points to be like "partial credit" for knowing partial knowledge. Contrast this with the student who knows all four correct answers, who'll get four points, or with the student who knows nothing, who will get zero points, whether he guesses or not.

We think that's a pretty simple system. Easy to communicate, easy to score, and no psychoanalysis.

But returning to Flordia's FCAT, we feel their method of scoring, while it may be oh-so-sophisticated, using cutting-edge techniques and all that, is increasing the drama associated with the test! Our friend Kimberly's already got her hands full trying to convince folks that rational, reasonable standardized testing is not one of the Four Horsemen.

But since the FCAT will help determine if a student even receives a diploma at the end of high school, we can't help but think a mind-reading, point-shaving computer isn't the best way to go.

Teachers and Principal "On Strike" for more respect from kids? Pathetic!

March 02, 2004 From Joanne Jacobs we learn that all 16 teachers and administrators from a pair of charter schools in Tucson, Arizona went "on strike" demanding more respect from students and more dedication to school work.

This is one of the most pathetic stories we've heard in a while, those teachers and administrators should be ashamed of themselves for several reasons. First, for going on strike and leaving children unsupervised (older students had to spontaneously fill in), because apparently parents weren't informed! They should also be embarrassed because this entire "problem" is entirely of their own making! How dare they blame their shortcomings on students!

We're deadly serious here. We do not fault students (or parents, or the neighborhood, or any of a number of irrelevant external factors) for school discipline problems. Discipline is the domain of the adults, period.

School discipline, like all other areas of school reform, is not rocket science.

The Tucson Citizen covered the story, which listed some of the strike placards carried by the teachers:

• "We're tired of excuses." No doubt the students are tired of your whining. A student uses an excuse for exactly one reason: it works. If you remove the currency value of excuses, students won't use them even a tenth as much.
• "I Quit Until You Care." This fairly begs the student response: "I don't care if you quit!" (Duh.) Our suggestion for the teachers? Quit worrying about whether students care, and do your jobs! If you are competent at teaching--rather than whining--you just might find students will in fact care.
• "Quit Wasting Your Time." Translation: "Transfer to a school that is not a waste of time." Good thing Tucson has a cornucopia of other charter schools (are you listening, parents?) from which to choose.
• "Quit Stealing Our Time." Is it being stolen, or is it given away? If teachers or administrators permit a student to disrupt the learning of others, the operative word is not "disrupt" but permit. Get it straight.
• "Try, Damn It, Try." It's not clear why grown ups felt the need to use profane language to get a point across to students, but why the plea for students to try? This only makes sense if students can survive in those schools (pass tests, pass courses, earn credits, be promoted from grade to grade, etc.) without trying.

The principal (who participated in the strike), Sister Judy Bisignano seems like a real progressive paragon:

"When students are disruptive, they're cheating you also. So why don't you tell them, 'Knock it off'?" Bisignano asked.

Yeah, that's real effective. Students just love it when folks do more talking in response to discipline problems. Talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah. Heaven forbid the two schools should employ consequences for disruptive behavior, oh, that students might respect?

"We had peers on our back this morning," 14-year-old Stephanie Lopez said yesterday, adding that the strike was like "the school just gave up on us. We're all a community so it's everybody's problem. We never said anything when someone was being bad in class. Sometimes we'd even laugh."

While we're tempted to throw a Pity Party, the reality is that these kids are caught in the middle. We adults cannot expect students who're given no behavioral guidance whatsoever to always do the right thing. That's sort of why there are adults in the school, to help guide students in a positive direction.

Absent this guidance, these kids can be expected to behave like kids.

"I really didn't realize how I was affecting the teachers," said Michael Muñoz, 15, who comes to class late and sometimes goofs off so the teachers can't teach.

Poor Michael was completely unaware of his negative behavior, oh, probably because he never received any consequences. They probably patted him on the head and told him how wonderful he was (and reminded him for the umpteenth time that the Mayans invented Zero, natch).

Rubbish. Might we dare suggest that Michael knew exactly what he was doing? Not that we fault him of course, it's fun to disrupt school when there's no piper to pay!

The students and teachers planned to continued their discussions today. "We don't know how it's going to end," said strike organizer Dace Park, an English teacher. "We'll make mistakes as we go along because that's part of life. But everyone has made a commitment to make changes and solve the problem."

Translation: "We don't know how it's going to end because we don't know what the heck we're doing or what we want. In fact, we don't even know the cause of the problem, but we're trying to score points by admitting that we're making mistakes as we go along, although any untrained observer could have told you that. What's important is our commitment." (Like syrup of ipecac for the soul . . . )

Park hopes the strike will encourage students to become good problem-solvers. "We need to find creative ways to understand the choices people make have consequences."

One symptom of chronic terminal progressive education syndrome is the inane ability to tie everything and anything to "problem solving." Note the focus is on "understanding" when these folks could use a few lessons in consequences.

"Are you still striking?" asked one girl at the end of yesterday's meeting. "I don't think we're still striking," Park began.

Real organized, knuckleheads, way to inspire confidence. Small wonder the students don't respect you.

"We're negotiating," hollered another teacher in the back of the big room.

"I think there's a good possibility of ending our negotiations tomorrow," Park added.

Could someone please tell us with whom in tarnation these morons are negotiating? (Oh, and way to sound like a union thug, although the overall effect is one of rank amateurs. Nice try.)

"I'm more hopeful than I've been in a long time," Bisignano said. Shortly after classes ended a parent called asking if she should send her child to school the next day.

"Absolutely," Bisignano said. "This is the best learning day we've had in a long time."

Hello? Let's get this straight, first you don't tell parents that you're going on strike, then you leave the kids unsupervised for five straight hours, leaving that job up to the older students. You then tell a parent that this was the best day of learning you've had in a long time?

That makes us wonder what kind of "days of learning" those schools usually have!

On the picket line, one striking teacher carried a sign asking "What part of respect don't you understand?" Memo to Principal and Staff: Students don't respect you because you're not respectable. Don't get it twisted.

School as Prison, and other useless ways to improve safety

March 01, 2004 Number 2 Pencil carries a sad Washington Times article on the beefed-up security at one high school which recently had a fatal shooting:

The plan, which Mr. Williams described as "custom-designed" for the Southeast high school of 1,097 students, will include up to 30 police officers and security guards patrolling the building in a combination of fixed and roving patrols during school days. The 24 security guards, six police officers and one school investigator called for in the plan will be under the command of a police sergeant . . .

Other changes at Ballou will include the purchase of four metal detectors, three X-ray machines, a computer system with a photo-ID database that will include student schedules and disciplinary infractions. Images from the school's 53 surveillance cameras also will be fed to the police department's Joint Operations Command Center.

Kimberly writes:

That's no longer a school. That's a prison. "Joint Operations Command Center?" Barricades around security equipment? Fixed and roving patrols?

She's right, of course. We have a number of ideas of what leads to school discipline problems, and a lack of metal detectors and armed patrols aren't on the list.

Yet again, school administrators completely lose their already-slim grip on sanity when reality smacks them in the face. Reality in this case taking the form of a homicidal gun-wielding student.

The solution, of course, is to beef up security! Of course, that's it! Johnny wouldn't have shot his classmate had there been police in the building, right? And if he'd had to pass through a metal detector, his negative feelings for his classmate also would have been screened out at the door, right?

Do school administrators really think like this? By their actions, it is sometimes hard to tell.

But when you build a prison, you have to run it like one. And that "single entry point" just won't cut it for a host of practical reasons. We'd be willing to bet that if someone wanted to get a gun in that building, he'd have little trouble. All one has to do is come after school and stash it someplace.

For starters, there's the question of special after-school activities. Do they make all parents and teachers walk though the metal detectors? If there's a school play, will the entire cast, crew, and audience have to file through that single entry point? On parent-teacher conference nights, will they make all the parents file through? We don't think they have the guts to maintain their "secure perimeter" 24-7 because it's too much work, not to mention expensive.

No, it's folly to think that you can "guarantee" security or safety 100% of the time.

Administrators should instead look in the other direction, towards core discipline and self-esteem programs.

Discipline
Show us a school with a discipline problem and we'll show you a group of ineffective administrators.

Yes, it is that simple. It doesn't matter what demographics you have in that school, it can be public or private; rural, suburban, or urban; large or small; well-to-do or high-poverty. Discipline is a factor of leadership, not your student body (although it is much easier to blame the student body or "the neighborhood").

No, effective administrators can enforce any sane and reasonable code of conduct, as long as it is firm and fair, and consistently enforced, without "wiggle room." Students respect that. This desire to eliminate "wiggle room" is what spawned "Zero Tolerance," largely by clueless administrators (effective administrators have no need for Zero Tolerance policies because their discipline code is already an effective tool).

Zero Tolerance policies are just one symptom of ineffective administrators. Get caught with Tylenol? "We have zero-tolerance for drugs!" Bring a half-inch GI Joe prop to school? "We have zero-tolerance for weapons!"

Another symptom of ineffective administrators is the flip side of zero tolerance. We mean the ultra-tolerant indulgence given to genuine threats, such as chronically violent or abusive bullies. We wrote about one principal, whose policy was to simply send the bully back to class, as opposed to giving the kid a meaningful consequence to encourage the student not to do it again.

Meanwhile students are watching, and learning. They are learning that administrators have no sense and cannot be trusted. They are learning that discipline policies are "anything goes" with largely random consequences, which are often upside down: real threats are appeased, and harmless behavior is given a Def-Con 4 response.

And these same administrators feel metal detectors will make their schools safe.

Self Esteem
After the Columbine shootings, there was some muted commentary on the role "self-esteem" building may have played. One aspect of certain self-esteem programs is to praise the child for nothing, building not self-esteem, but narcissism.

Another aspect is to have the student never experience failure or disappointment, for that can harm the child's self-esteem, as if it were made of crystal. Of course, insulating people from reality doesn't do beans for their self-esteem, but the experts rarely acknowledge that.

At some point, reality will make an unwelcome appearance.

It's been suggested that the simple act of being dumped by your girlfriend can have drastic consequences, if you've never had to face disappointment. And what happens when you have narcissism combined with social rejection? Aggression, says this study by researchers at the University of Georgia.

Heaven forbid you should be in the "wrong" clique at school. From a 1999 story on Columbine High in The Onion:

"We have begun the long road to healing," said varsity-football starting halfback Jason LeClaire, 18, a popular senior who on Aug. 16 returned to the school for the first time since the shooting. "We're bouncing back, more committed than ever to ostracizing those who are different."

Added LeClaire's girlfriend, cheerleader Kellie Nelson: "A school where the jocks cannot freely exclude math geeks, drama fags, goths and other inferiors without fearing for their lives is not the kind of school I want to go to."

Maybe administrators will outlaw cliques next?