SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Sunday at the Movies (Zero Chance of Passage)

This is an interview with the Minnesota lawyer who wrote the legislation for the first charter schools in the United States. I would be very surprised if she doesn't correct at least one misapprehension on your part.

The Character Factory

Here at School for Thought, we often bang on about how schools' job number one should be academic achievement and how a decent education is all disadvantaged students need in order to have a fair chance at life. Now comes this fascinating column in the New York Times about the importance of "character".

Not only is character important in terms of improving students' odds of succeeding, but also it helps them be better learners. Character and academics are intertwined. 

While hectoring and character development programs have failed to work, nevertheless there are several effective avenues to making it easier for disadvantaged students to be able to climb. They are habits, opportunities, exemplars, and standards. 

Many of these avenues are already being used effectively by schools like the KIPP schools and, as Doretta points out, this is what the nuns used to do for their Catholic students. It's also worth noting that the word "self-esteem" appears nowhere in the article. H/T TB

A Civil Discourse

GUEST BLOG BY TOM BEREND, SQE DIRECTOR AND NEWER SHERIFF IN TOWN

We welcome your opinions, and we love getting comments on this blog. Our contributors tend to be knowledgeable, thoughtful, engaged, and passionate about education. But there's something about comments on the Internet that brings out the worst in people.

Education is a vital part of our professional and personal lives. Many issues we raise on this blog are hotly contested, and even the most placid readers may take strong positions on our posts and with other readers' comments. But that makes it even more important that we present our arguments in a positive and thoughtful way. 

I've asked Malkin if I can take over moderating the blog for the next two weeks, and try to raise the level of conversation. My rules are very simple.

1. Be polite and respectful.  
2. Stay on topic. 
3. State your position clearly and write succinctly. 
4. Provide support for your claims. 
5. Don't hog the microphone.  
6. Strong opinions are OK, but outrage is not. 
7. Don't post just to upset others.

If I reject your post, I will explain why in an email back to you. Feel free to contact me at [email protected]. 
 

Everybody complains about the parents but nobody does anything about it

As with the weather, there are many educator complaints about parents, but nobody does anything about it. Until now, that is. Click here for an article about a DC charter school that is educating parents along with their children. What a great idea!  H/T TB

A camel is a horse designed by a committee. So what is a school board?

In this Toronto Star op ed piece, Charles Pascal lambastes the Toronto District School Board, calling for a total clean-out. Interestingly, Mr. Pascal mentions in passing that there are lots of effective school boards in Ontario. I didn't know that. As we have readers from all over the province, I invite you to provide a comment about your local school boards  - effective or non-effective, functional or dysfunctional. In fact, it would be wonderful to hear from readers in other provinces as well about their school boards. 

25% High School Graduation Rate for the Poor

GUEST BLOG BY TOM BEREND, SQE DIRECTOR

Ontario's Minister of Education crows about successful measures to fight inequality and poverty, and boasts about our 83% high school graduation rate.  We are the best in the world. 

For the poor, that claim is a cruel fiction. The 83% counts only 'fully participating' students' - the ones who are around to take the test. For marginalized communities, the high-school graduation rate is closer to 25%, the rest having already dropped out. True graduation rates should be easily deduced from historical school attendance registries, but educators don't want to look too closely. Poverty advocates have suspected it, but can find no evidence in the education data.

Furtunately for us, three intrepid researchers in Manitoba went the other way around to get the true graduation rate for a poor neighbourhood in Winnipeg. In 2006, Brownell, Roos, & Fransoo took a population-based longitudinal approach, tracking the entire population of students through their health records instead of their education records. Here's what they found:

" ... we used the cohort of children born in Manitoba in 1984 and remaining in Manitoba until 2001-02. Then, for those residing in Winnipeg in 2001-02, we determined where they were in the school system at that time (that is, during what should have been their final year in school) and also identified those who had withdrawn from school. Figure 3B shows this very different reality: only 27 percent of the youths living in the low-SES areas who should have been writing the standards test that year actually wrote and passed the test."  

Their data excludes Winnipeg's Aboriginal youths which would likely have lowered the completion rate even further. Toronto has fewer Aboriginals but more immigrants, meaning that it is reasonable to assume we would get the same results in our inner-city neighbourhoods. To fight poverty we need to focus on that dreadful 75% failure rate.  We can start by being honest about how our inner-city schools are really doing.

The Polished Stones

Today, a longish article from the New York Times. It's worth reading in its entirety but I'll try to boil it down.

There is a better way of teaching mathematics than solely drill and rote, namely polished lessons that foster passionate discussions among students and lead to discovery and understanding of math procedures, properties, and proofs.
This better way was developed in the US but botched in its implementation, while the Japanese took it and ran with it - with great success.
The salient difference is teachers' ability to use the new approach, and Japanese teachers are strongly supported in their efforts to become better teachers.
The US Common Core math approach tries to embody this better way, but its implementation continues to be botched.

Most people think that Japanese elementary math lessons are snooze fests, but people are wrong. I have a wonderful VHS tape, The Polished Stones, that shows typical grade 5 Japanese math lessons - and they are fabulous. I'm not sure whether it's the the students or the lessons who are meant to be the polished stones - certainly both are polished to a very high standard. The tape shows what is possible, and it is far more than most people can imagine. Certainly, Japanese students do extremely well on international comparisons of student achievement.

I would be willing to lend out the VHS tape to anyone who is interested (and swears to give it back).

Click here for a short article from our archives about Japanese education in general. H/T TB

Sunday at the Movies (Khan Academy)

From time to time, we touch down on the Khan Academy to see what progress it has made, and the answer is always amazing. Click here for a column by Newt Gingrich about how the Khan Academy approach is catching on in US public schools. H/T CG

If we give all children a fair start, then the race is theirs to win

It would be difficult to read this blog and then maintain that disadvantaged kids can't learn.

It can be done, in fact it is being done

Take a look at this Ontario private school that heals learning-disabled students - typically taking three years. Tuition at The Dunblaine School costs $20,500. Direct Instruction in reading, Jump Math, one-on-one tutoring, average class size of seven....

There is no reason why school boards could not offer similar schools. It's impossible to be sure how much Ontario spends per learning-disabled student (see the grant schedule here), but the government's per-pupil cost has to be approaching $20,000 a year. And even if it's "only" $15,000 a year, the fact that the government continues to pay that amount every year until the student drops out of school means that $20,500 per year for three years is a bargain. H/T TB