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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Writing, Ringing and Texting
The latest micromanagement trial balloon from Queen's Park has lots of parents and teachers pretty annoyed. The Prem has suggested that cell phones be used in Ontario classrooms in an educational context. Yah Right. Teachers have enough trouble keeping kids focused and this may pose too much of a temptation for kids who already have a 30 second Sesame Street attention span.
Literacy skills are bad enough and this will not help. The counter-argument from QP is that at one time slide-rules and calculators were not permitted in the classroom either. It's not like you could be absolutely distracted by a slide-rule. What did they think kids would do? Calculate square roots to distraction? And what concerned education reformer hasn't rued the day that calculators became de rigueur in grade three. But I digress.
Just when I think things are getting totally out of hand, I come across this beacon of hope that the art of writing is not yet dead. Malkin has often written, both in this blog and our SQE newsletter, about the importance of inculcating good handwriting skills. So when I saw this article about postcrossing, I was interested in learning more.
Postcrossing has over 200,000 people in 209 countries who mail postcards to total strangers. To date, the number of postcards sent has passed the five million. As the lead in to the article says: "In an increasingly online world, thousands of people are connecting through their real-life mailboxes."
"While most people sign up for Postcrossing as a hobby, Magalhaes said a number of people use Postcrossing for education. 'In schools, teachers — or parents in homeschooling — are using Postcrossing in creative ways as a teaching tool. Postcards coming from far away make kids interested in geography, English and even other cultures and societies. Its randomness helps in learning about places that might not be so common in textbooks too,' he explains."
For more information on Postcrossing www.postcrossing.com
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On a personal note: If readers were wondering about Malkin's absence from this blog, she will be returning in a week from her travels to Scandinavia. She did stop off in Finland but said she was NOT investigating their famous school system. Wonder why? I may take a very short break as my eldest is getting married this weekend! Not to worry I've prepared some entries in advance and John Bachmann, our VP will pitch in as well.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
If They Could Just Get Some Kryptonite…
I predicted that Waiting for Superman would be controversial in Toronto. Well, I was not proved wrong. The former dean of OISE herself has come out swinging in an op-ed dripping with Kryptonite in today's Toronto Star.
OISE professor Jane Gaskell slams charter schools and asks that it is time "to stop importing American beliefs about education into Canada." Would that were true before we imported whole language, fuzzy math, and other constructivist and progressive fads, that had been first tried and then failed in American schools, yet still encouraged by the very institution she once headed!
What she sees as the challenge to improving education isn't making sure student teachers are trained in proven effective methods but to "attract great people to teaching, to build their capacity over a career, and to create public respect for their skills" and of course, spending more money.
She reports on the Ontario Edubabble, sorry Education, Summit that I blogged about the other day and asks, "What can Canada learn from Finland, Singapore, Australia and other high-performing systems?" Hmm. The Singapore math curriculum is considered one of the best in the world, but it lacks any of the constructivism that I blogged about yesterday. Finland students don't start school until aged six. Australia has a policy of local school autonomy. Ontario is hardly moving in their direction, but we will have to wait and see. (So far, allowing students to use cell phones in the classroom was the only newsworthy item to be mentioned by the Ontario Premier yesterday.)
Gaskell points out, correctly, that Canada outperforms the U.S. in international tests, but what she does not mention is that it is Alberta's performance that brings up the Canadian average. Alberta, the only Canadian province with the most school choice options in particular, charter schools, also partially funds some private schools and home schooling parents.
Moira MacDonald at the Toronto Sun has probably the most honest analysis of the documentary's effect on educators in the audience. MacDonald nails it when she writes:
"The film’s premise is for most kids living in the same desperate conditions, school could be the ticket out — but despite big spending increases, even their schools are failing them. The only option for the inner-city minority children the film follows (save one white middle-classer) is admission via an excruciating public lottery process into an independently-run, publicly-funded charter school.
"Great teachers are praised and their mission branded as courageous.
"Teacher unions take it on the chin for protecting crappy teachers and blocking efforts to evaluate, recognize and promote good ones while rooting out the bad.
"Charter schools are held up not as the solution but the only place at the moment where solutions are allowed to take root. In truth, not all charter schools are as successful as Canada's. And the film leaves out the fact Canada had already introduced a mass of community supports previously not provided by government before the school was started. But movies have never been a place to get into cumbersome details.
"Still, what might a film about the foibles of the American school system mean for us?
"Very little, I was told last Friday at the Ontario Public School Boards Association - except to reflect on how good we've got it and avoid made-in-America solutions. OPSBA, backed by the group People for Education, held a media briefing in anticipation of both Waiting for Superman's premiere and a Toronto speech Monday by U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan."
Probably the meanest comment in Gaskell's Toronto Star op-ed is this zinger: "This movie is made by a man who sent his kids to private schools, but feels guilty."
Gee, kind of like a lot of People I could mention...
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PS My letter to the Toronto Star on this issue was published Friday.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
The New NEW, But Not Improved, Math
HT to a reader who alerted School for Thought to this article by Barry Garelick, a frequent contributor to the Kitchen Table Math blog. The article first appeared in Educational Horizons as a critique of "Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design" by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe, which he was required to read for a teaching course. If you thought edubabble was bad before, this article is a must-read.
Garelick examines the authors' belief in constructivism, which has pervaded most North American curricula, including Ontario's. In a nutshell it is the epitome of the child-centred, facts and drill are bad, progressivism at its worst.
In a paean to constructivism and the abandonment of textbooks, Tomlinson and McTighe, dispose of the notion that sequence of topics and mastery of skills is important, calling such beliefs the “climbing the ladder” model of cognition. “Subscribers to this belief assume that students must learn the important facts before they can address the more abstract concepts of a subject,” the authors state, and then quote Lori Shepherd, a University of Colorado education professor to make their point:
'The notion that learning comes about by the accretion of little bits is outmoded learning theory. Current models of learning based on cognitive psychology contend that learners gain understanding when they construct their own knowledge and develop their own cognitive maps of the interconnections among facts and concepts.'
In fact, this is the crux of how they approach differentiated instruction. Sequence doesn’t matter. Each student constructs his or her own meaning at their own pace, by being immersed in what the authors term “contextualized grappling with ideas and processes”. What does this mean?
The class sounded like something out of a teaching-fad nightmare. His frustration is evident and understandable:
This book is popular in the education school and professional development circuit. It also hit every hot button I had as evidenced by my copy of the book: it is missing the front cover, which tore off when I hurled it across my bedroom.
Even worse than the book itself were the discussions in class that came out of it. One event in particular stands out. In a chapter that discussed the difference between "knowing" and "understanding", a chart presents examples of "Inauthentic versus Authentic Work". In this chart "Practice decontextualized skills is listed as inauthentic and "Interpret literature" as authentic. The black and white nature of the distinctions on the chart bothered me, so when the teacher asked if we had any comments, I said that calling certain practices "inauthentic" is not only pejorative but misleading. I asked the teacher "Do you really think that learning to read is an inauthentic skill?"
She replied that she didn't really know about issues related to reading. Keeping it on the math level, I then referred to the chart's characterization of "Solve contrived problems" as inauthentic and "Solve ‘real world' problems" as authentic and asked why the authors automatically assumed that a word problem that might be contrived didn't involve "authentic" mathematical concepts. "Let's move on," she said."
Let's move on indeed. Teachers and parents would love to move on out of public schools that, for the most part, teach using this flawed philosophy.
According to my tipster, who is as concerned a teacher as Garelick is by the way, "He is right on with his critique here. Unfortunately, the very flaws he enumerates are required practice by the M of E now, and the 'Math Police' will enforce them, so there is little point in arguing for something else. That battle is over for the moment." So that seems that--a dismal prospect.
When good teachers do not have a choice to use proven practices, they must surely be frustrated and feel powerless to see that their students are not succeeding to the fullest extent of their abilities. This is why giving professionals the freedom to teach in schools that encourage effective teaching methods is important. School choice is not just about giving parents freedom to choose schooling that works for their children, it's also about giving teachers a choice as well.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Edubabble Overload - or what goes on at an education summit
For the past two days the Premier has been hosting education experts from around the world at an education summit here in Toronto. The link to the government website for the summit even looks like the word babble if you squint (talk about subliminal!) http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/bb4e/
SQE was not invited to participate, and the cost of $575 per person plus the hated HST, is a bit steep to have to listen to the same old same old. This means that various educrats, trustees, and federation-types probably got a nice junket to Toronto for a couple of days. The summit will look at four topics: standards and targets, assessment and use of data, capacity building and leadership development. Like I said, same old same old edubabble. If educators haven't learned by now how to do this, they never will.
The list of international speakers would warm the heart of our former prolific poster especially--the Director General of the Finnish National Board of Education no less. The education minister from Singapore might be worthwhile --please sir may we have your math curriculum? Oh, and careful, if your schools start to look like ours maybe we can finally move up on you in international tests!
The only fresh idea to come out of this may actually come from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who was just here last week at the Rogers Centre rally for the Toronto District School Board, and who toured a local high school with the Premier. Could it be that the REAL hidden agenda is his? Maybe Race for the Top, merit pay, and charter schools? Hmmm.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
A wonderful example of Eduspeak re teacher evaluation
In the September 7th Globe and Mail, columnist Margaret Wente called for the evaluation of teachers using a value-added approach, i.e. based on how far their students progressed during a year of their teaching. Three days later, the following rebuttal appeared in the letters to the editor. (I could not provide a link to the letter because the newspaper’s website seems to be frozen on September 9th).
Teachers are graded Margaret Wente is on the mark about teachers being the most important factor in children’s education. However she gets a poor grade for not identifying that Ontario’s system has one of the most comprehensive teacher evaluation systems in existence. The province’s Education Act and regulations provide for intensive methods of regular teacher appraisal, carrying on throughout a teacher’s entire career. Teachers are paid not only based on seniority as she asserts, but through a system which recognizes them for their academic achievements and teaching experience.
Sam Hammond, President, Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario
This letter provides as good an example of “eduspeak” as you’ll find anywhere. Is the evaluation system comprehensive? You bet – but not in a constructive way. Those of us who sat through the development process several years ago were appalled to see the educrats eventually settle on an evaluation process that required the evaluator to assess the teacher on 161 “look fors” – not one of which was “how much are the students learning (as confirmed by objective tests)”.
The resulting process is so complicated and time-consuming that it is not used anywhere as frequently or completely as Mr. Hammond thinks. As one Ontario principal told me when I asked him about the use of this evaluation system at his school: “I can’t use this sh***!” When Frank Gue and I (representing the public on an advisory panel) suggested early in the consultations that we include some metrics on student progress in the teacher’s evaluation, there was stunned silence from most of the other panel members followed by “You CAN’T do THAT!” Mr. Hammond’s letter confirms that things haven’t changed since those days. Note that the “their” in front of academic achievement refers to the teachers, not the students!
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Waiting for Superman
While the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is giving us in TO our share of celebrity watching, one documentary that has received front page attention at the festival is Waiting for Superman, which I blogged about earlier in the summer here. The documentary follows several families as they seek to win a place in the charter school lottery and a better education for their children.
At the panel discussion after the screening, panlists, Bill Gates (yes THE Microsoft Bill Gates), Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children's Zone charter school, and the film's director, Davis Guggenheim spoke about the film and did not mince any words:
"People need to stand up and say, ‘Enough.'"
Gates, who now devotes himself to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has made education reform a priority, giving over $2 billion (U.S.) in grants to create better high schools. Gates said his foundation is investing in building evaluation systems to help systematically uncover schools and teachers that are not performing.
"The problem is we've gone a long time with a seniority-based system. When we come in and say there should be evaluation . . . people say that's very hard," Gates said.
"I think this film is going to force Americans to pay attention to this issue," Canada said. "We have to get Americans to understand that we're not asking anything from teachers that we aren't asking of any other professionals. If you really can't teach, you should probably be doing something else."
According to the Toronto Star article quoted above, the film is sure to be controversial:
"Despite decades of promises by politicians that no child will be left behind, drop-out rates are sky-high and many children fail to learn even the basics. The film details how the system has been paralyzed by complacency, a bloated bureaucracy and powerful teachers unions. It also follows activist educators who are desperate to make changes, especially in inner city schools."
The film opens in Toronto theatres October 1st, but you can see trailers here. A thumbs up from School for Thought!
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Denial is a long river in Africa
Of course the documentary was going to strike controversy and the usual suspects (trustees, a certain "parent" group) are speaking out. Further to yesterday's post above, the Toronto Star, naturally, printed an article that denies Canadian schools have any problems. The article is not yet posted online yet, but as soon as it is I will put a link here.
"Our education system is not in a state of crisis, critics say, as filmmakers call U.S. woes a warning"
Tell that to parents of schools in high-needs areas of any big city in the country.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Evaluation IS part of education
Let’s face it. The goals of “education” are very complex. We all want our kids to graduate competent in literacy and numeracy, but we know that having a sense of place in terms of history, geography, politics, and the sciences as well as an appreciation of the arts are also parts of a truly “educated” person.
But our children gain these skills, knowledge and abilities to appreciate art as part of a process which can and should be continually monitored and improved. Also, their ability to obtain and benefit from this more broadly defined “education” is contingent upon their possessing adequate literacy and numeracy skills. And like any process, education has specific outcomes, some tangible, some not so, that it is trying to achieve. The education system owes it to our country, its taxpayers, and, most importantly, our children to monitor outcomes against expectations and continually refine the process.
No evaluation process can possibly capture everything that a student gains going through the schooling process, but, at a minimum, we must do everything we can to ensure that students are obtaining the literacy and numeracy skills that are the gateway to higher order skills and other subject areas (how can you solve problems or appreciate the majesty of the universe or the beauty of great literature if you can’t read and compute?)
Consequently, when I learned that that Elementary Teachers Union in Ontario was calling for a two-year moratorium on province-wide testing, I felt this needed to be challenged. My opinion column on this topic has just been published in the Mississauga News (http://www.mississauga.com/opinion/columns/article/870566--don-t-drop-eqao-tests) .
By the way, the fact that the elementary teachers’ union commissioned a poll to find out what their members thought about EQAO testing rather than, say, what they thought about whacky constructivist methodologies prevalent in Ontario classrooms, is quite telling.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
The Three R’s
Judging by the number of requests for SQEs Stairway to Reading and Stairway to Math resources, I'd say the first couple of days of school must have been doozies for some families. It's amazing how the requests to download them go way up around this time of year. I thought I would remind regular visitors that there is more to SQE than our great School for Thought Blog.
If you take a peek at the menu bar to the left, you will find two great resources that are our most read and downloaded materials. Stairway to Reading is a 40-lesson complete systematic phonics remedial program that is based on effective methods of direct instruction. Stairway to Math is a series of practice worksheets that help reinforce fundamental math skills. They are free and you are most welcome to use them with your child or your students. Thousands from around the world have used them.
I also encourage parents and teachers to take a look at other useful information targeted specifically for their needs. Check out some of our other ideas--you just might find that you like some of our solutions!
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
There Are Credits And Then There Are Tax Credits
Ontario Premier McGuinty has floated the idea of a $50 tax credit for parents who have their kids enrolled in sports or other activities, similar to the the plan the federal government has in place. Well now that the littlest ones are at school all day, what's left for the government to spend our money on? (It's an election year, fill in the blank here ______.)
SQE would rather that the Education Tax Credit be reinstated. It probably would have been cheaper in the long run for the province to to keep it. Considering it was taken away, rather cruelly AFTER parents had already committed themselves to use it, this nickname may start to stick.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
How Good Will My Kid’s Teacher Be?
As you send your child off to start a new school year today, you may be pondering that very question. This New York Times Magazine article on teacher accountability looks at new ways that teacher accountability is going to be measured and reported on in Los Angeles. What was once a guessing game and schoolyard gossip is now going to undergo unprecedented scrutiny and a sort of "Consumer Reports" analysis of schools and teachers is being undertaken:
"A few months ago, a team of reporters at The Los Angeles Times and an education economist set out to create precisely such a consumer guide to education in Los Angeles. The reporters requested and received seven years of students' English and math elementary-school test scores from the school district. The economist then used a statistical technique called value-added analysis to see how much progress students had made, from one year to the next, under different third- through fifth-grade teachers. The variation was striking. Under some of the roughly 6,000 teachers, students made great strides year after year. Under others, often at the same school, students did not. The newspaper named a few teachers - both stars and laggards - and announced that it would release the approximate rankings for all teachers, along with their names.
"The articles have caused an electric reaction. The president of the Los Angeles teachers union called for a boycott of the newspaper. But the union has also suggested it is willing to discuss whether such scores can become part of teachers' official evaluations. Meanwhile, more than 1,700 teachers have privately reviewed their scores online, and hundreds have left comments that will accompany them."
Electric reaction is probably an understatement! Can readers imagine what a similar report in Canada would lead to? (Can you say Days of Action?)
"One way to think about the Los Angeles case is as an understandable overreaction to an unacceptable status quo. For years, school administrators and union leaders have defeated almost any attempt at teacher measurement, partly by pointing to the limitations. Lately, though, the politics of education have changed. Parents know how much teachers matter and know that, just as with musicians or athletes or carpenters or money managers, some teachers are a lot better than others."
So it will be interesting to see, in these times of scarce public funding and declining enrolments, has the politics of education really changed?