Back to School: Looking forward

A reflection as kids head back to school: What must they think about all the news surrounding their lack of performance, their inability to progress? Most of the radical chic currently blame the teachers. But must not the students feel some personal "shame" that they don't measure up? Anger at the teachers painted as villainous thieves of their intellect and future success? Doubt over their abilities to craft their own futures with the help of an institution that was once held up as a beacon of U.S. democracy? The media does this while it stands by and watches state and district budgets be decimated; ignores research that shows that high stakes tests do not measure state standards; and glosses over that state texts do more for the revenue of book publishers than for teachers trying to teach state standards from their unremarkable, encyclopedic, and archaic tomes. Blaming the teachers is a political ploy perhaps. It takes our minds off the war; off waning educational budgets; off low teacher pay; off irrelevant high state test items that don't measure student learning but rather student test taking ability; and off  ambiguous and generic state and common standards that stand in the way of time to think, read, write, and dream. Let's not fiddle while Rome burns. Donate to schools, get in and work with teachers, sweep the classrooms, bring in technology.

Race to the Top Second Round

Caught between a rock and a hard place. What's a state to do? Out of money and faced with widespread teacher layoffs, shorter school days, and a higher teacher-student ratio, states are pushing and shoving to the finish line of the Race to the Top second round. Duncan created a furor when he visited NYC schools because of the tension over charter schools. Broward County signed a MOU to participate in Florida's Department of Education application, hoping for 8.5M over the next four years.Pennsylvania plans on submitting for its chance for the big money, even though 8 of its charter schools are under investigation for misappropriation of funds. In California, the election for school superintendent of public instruction squares off at Race to the Top requirements. Charter school performance has mixed evidence. Tying teacher performance to faulty high stakes testing is not a viable way to ensure student achievement. The administration is determined to foist these actions on states that want their money. I object. But -- is turning down federal money a way to right the wrong? What do you think?

Cart before the horse: Where are the rubrics for teacher effectivenss?

As most states rush to conform to the guidelines of the Race to the Top for the second round of grant applications (3.4B is Left in Race to Top Aid), I wait for some modicum of common sense. What are the rubrics for this evaluation? We're in the midst of writing new national standards and these will of course dictate that we have new national assessments. And while there is some agreement that a high stakes test should not be the sole criterion for evaluating educators, we haven't come up with national criteria. Common sense tells me that even if we agree that teacher and principal pay and tenure should be based on student achievement, we should probably develop the rubrics first. Not a good idea to enter a race before you know its endpoint.

Race to the Top: And the Winner Is...

Education, March Madness, and Metaphors

Metaphors can lend insight to the objects compared. For example, Arne Duncan's caveats regarding colleges and basketball players and school performance have been described as part of March Madness. Add this to recent articles regarding the Chicago VIP list and then layer in articles about Race to the Top finalists (for example, Andrew Smarick's Race to the Top: The Full Story). Race to the Top smacks of competition among the elite, a kind of winner takes all intellectual Olympics. At least the play on the Marine Corps epithet No Man Left Behind had a stirring quality -- all of us in battle against ignorance. Race to the Top implies leaving a bunch of us behind. Unless of course we can get our name on the list.

Common Core Standards: Everything but the Kitchen Sink

There are lots of articles espousing the common core standards because they will clear up all the anomalies of the individual state standards. I wonder how many  authors have read the standards? On the plus side, the ambiguity of the standards will indeed make it easy for testing companies and education publishers to correlate with few if any revisions to their content. On the negative side, these abstract and dense vagaries replace the English language arts standards written, revised, and rewritten by a cadre of experts from the National Council of Teachers of English and International Reading Association. Pure arrogance not to at least start with these. 

Key Ideas and Details

1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

3. Analyze in detail where, when, why, and how events, ideas, and characters develop and interact over the course of a text.

Craft and Structure

4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and explain how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section or chapter) relate to each other and the whole.

6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

7. Synthesize and apply information presented in diverse ways (e.g., through words, images, graphs, and video) in print and digital sources in order to answer questions, solve problems, or compare modes of presentation.

8. Delineate and evaluate the reasoning and rhetoric within a text, including assessing whether the evidence provided is relevant and sufficient to support the text’s claims.

9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Range and Level of Text Complexity

10. Read complex texts independently, proficiently, and fluently, sustaining concentration, monitoring comprehension, and, when useful, rereading.

Swept Away

Is the media being swept away by the Obama/Duncan hyperbolic description of the changes they are making with common core standards? The Wall Street Journal's "Obama Outlines Sweeping Education Revamp," would have us believe that the administration is attending to the criticism of educators toward high stakes assessment and sanctions for low-performing schools. However, even the authors of the article (Neil King Jr. and Barbara Martinez) have a difficult time writing about the sweeping changes without bumping into contradictions: "The administration plans to drop those prescriptions, thus leaving it up to states and local administrators how to improve lagging schools. The administration does plan to be more forceful, though, in pushing for significant changes—including mass firings of teachers—in the country's worst schools, which Mr. Duncan describes as the 'bottom 5%'."

How do you know when you've finished the Race to the Top?

Metaphors can lead to comparisons that demonstrate weakness rather than strength. Take the Race to the Top metaphor and compare it to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) slogan. As the Obama/Duncan educational campaign unrolled, it took a hard stance against NCLB. In a 2008 campaign speech, Obama called NCLB "one of the emptiest slogans in the history of politics." Now when discussing educational reform, the Obama/Duncan wordsmiths use the slogan "Race to the Top." What questions arise to those of us who like to play with metaphors? Race to the Top of What? If someone wins the race, doesn't it mean someone loses? Do we have to race? Can't we walk or jog? And if it is a race, where is the finish line? Moreover, shouldn't Race to the Top be subject to the same evaluation strictures as the states, districts, and schools who receive the monies? Read "More Dollars for Race to the Top?" and see what you think! How will we measure the effectiveness of dollars awarded?

Academic Writing: the Write Free Zone

What makes a book a book?