Common Core just put out the results of a year- long study of PISA test results for 15 year-olds. They looked in depth at the approaches of nine countries whose students outperformed American kids on the test. They used data on the PISA tests given in 2000, 2003 and 2006. You can download the report on the web. It is 102 pages long but worth reading. To save you time in case you just don’t have time or to entice you to read further if you do, I’ll give you the conclusion: All of these countries emphasize a broad liberal arts, content- rich approach, we emphasize “learning strategies, weak in content.” This is the old “only process is important” attitude taught by the education schools over the past century. It hasn’t worked out well. E.D. Hirsch made this point in his book The Knowledge Deficit, “The dominant ideas in American education are virtually unchallenged within the educational community. American education expertise (which is not the same as educational expertise in nations that perform better than we do) has a monolithic character in which dissent is stifled.”
The report also points out that the current preoccupation with “job skills” as in the 21st Century Skill Movement will not allow us to correct course and learn from our competitor nations. We still have the “bit in our teeth” and are determined to avoid facing the reality of the trap we have gotten into with the overemphasis on pedagogy (process) at the expense of subject knowledge. Until we bring balance to this situation we will continue to waste billions of dollars and more importantly limit our kids futures because we refuse to force the required changes to our approach.
Also, our education system which is mired in the past is not putting in the time to get the results we need even if they were focused on the approach used by the top competitor countries. Let me give you a personal experience that emphasizes the difference. When I was working in high tech, I visited Japan a few times, as VP and Division Manager of a semiconductor process equipment operation in New York. The trips always involved meeting with important customers and visiting our Japanese equipment plant in Oita Prefecture on Kyushu to assess how it was progressing. Our Oita plant was on the sea next to a hotel that specialized in weddings. That is where I stayed. On one visit I was to leave early Saturday morning to fly to Tokyo and then on home to NY Kennedy Airport. The flight was early and I had arranged for a cab to take me to the airport. It was rural area, especially compared to the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka. On the way to the airport at 6:30 in the morning on a two lane road, we came upon a string of about a dozen school children riding their bikes to school. The oldest led the way and the smallest was last in line. I asked about it and was told, “Oh yes, our children go to school for a half day on Saturdays.” I thought, “Wow that explains a lot.”
I was reminded of this difference when I read the Common Core report. The length of the school year in the nine countries they studied in depth ranged from 180 days (some places in Canada) to 243 days in Japan, with an average of 206 days. In Colorado we specify a minimum of 160 days. I know trying to lengthen the school year here is a bit like tilting windmills. However, we need to face reality. I know the teachers would howl to high heaven if asked to work more days, especially without a pay increase. Our teachers are already paid really well in comparison and lots of things would need to change if we were to increase that significantly. Examples include merit pay, no tenure to protect poor performance, etc. I can see the heels being dug in and the foxholes being dug deeper over the mere thought of such changes.
However, it should be apparent that the great pay, good benefits, and great retirement plans enjoyed by teachers are all in great jeopardy if we continue to turn out human capital that is uncompetitive with the best in the world. Oh sure, we have gotten away with ignoring the reality of our poor performance for decades. We have to realize our economy is like a gigantic flywheel. That has helped maintain things in spite of our poor performance. But, it also will prevent swift action on the plus side from taking immediate effect as well. We continue to ignore this problem at great peril.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Dilutivity versus Robustivity and The Platte River Syndrome
Let me define the two words dilutivity and robustivity above. I coined them to describe different ends of the effects-of-activity continuum. First, dilutivity is activity that dilutes the strength of any endeavor. Robustivity is activity that enhances the strength of an endeavor. Additionally, nonotivity is activity that tends to preserve the status quo of any endeavor. Nonotivity is the most common activity followed by dilutivity and finally robustivity. However, even though many people aim for nonotivity, it is very hard to achieve because in effect, endeavors that don’t grow actually decline even if at a slow pace. The true status quo is a very rare occurrence.
People tend to fear and hate change. Nowhere is this more evident than in the education fiefdom. Educators have widely used a fourth kind of activity, talktivity for decades. Talktivity is talking about activities to improve things that turn out to be only talk in the end. However, they do end up consuming lots of resources which are wasted. Review the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission final report to refresh your memory. “Billions spent on improving the gap but the situation is only worse than when we started decades ago.”
I know you have been waiting breathlessly wondering what The Platte River Syndrome is. Well, it relates to the description of the Platte as the pioneers trekked the wagon trail to the west as “too thick to drink and too thin to plow.” Sometimes it was called a mile wide and an inch deep. The latter is the definition I want to use. It relates perfectly to our country’s approach to education. I remember when attending “parent nights” at my children’s high school being shocked to hear their teachers talk about topics I hadn’t been exposed to until I was in college. I thought, “Wow, these folks have figured out how to teach all of this stuff faster and at an earlier age than when I was in school.” I soon learned that they hadn’t. In fact, the approach was to “talk” about a long laundry list of topics as if they would be taught effectively but not to really “teach” them at all. Oh, they tried, I suppose, but you see, there was a reason I hadn’t learned those things until college. There simply wasn’t time to learn the prerequisites and those “gee whiz” topics too.
The too common result is that the educators set out the list of skills that are too long and then proceed to cover them superficially if at all. This is what I call The Platte River Syndrome (mile wide, inch deep). This approach guarantees that the kids are not taught anything to mastery. Oh, some learn it because their parents teach them or provide tutors or they are self motivated and work hard to learn it on their own. However, most don’t learn well enough. This is confirmed by any number of measures like the international tests to assess student achievement where our kids continue to score poorly compared to their best performing peers. Another confirmation is the high remediation rate of students who go to college, currently mired in place at about 30% in Colorado.
It would be far more productive to concentrate on learning the prerequisites with mastery instead of trying to bite off more than can be chewed. Why would anyone support such a foolish endeavor as represented by The Platter River Syndrome? I’ll let you vote among some possibilities. Feel free to come up with some of your own and share.
• Because education schools don’t teach subject knowledge well, the teachers don’t have the background to teach well and the “inch deep” approach makes it less likely that the public will catch on.
• Teaching to mastery requires focus and hard work. It isn’t nearly as fun as talking about advanced concepts at a superficial level.
• An inadequate understanding of what our foreign competitors are doing differently that create their better results. I have been amazed at reading reports of comments from study groups of educators after they have visited top competitor nations like Singapore. They view things through the filters they have developed here and miss the key differences completely because they can’t believe “those things” (which we wouldn’t consider from the start) are actually responsible for the difference in performance.
• The educators’ inability to face that many of the processes they believe in don’t stand scientific scrutiny. As E.D. Hirsch says in The Knowledge Deficit, “[M]ere scientific inadequacy can be a practical irrelevance in American education.”
• Education leadership is weak and allows this lack of intellectual honesty on what really works to go unchallenged.
Please contribute your possibilities or vote for any of the ones above.
Copyright © 2009 Paul Richardson
People tend to fear and hate change. Nowhere is this more evident than in the education fiefdom. Educators have widely used a fourth kind of activity, talktivity for decades. Talktivity is talking about activities to improve things that turn out to be only talk in the end. However, they do end up consuming lots of resources which are wasted. Review the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission final report to refresh your memory. “Billions spent on improving the gap but the situation is only worse than when we started decades ago.”
I know you have been waiting breathlessly wondering what The Platte River Syndrome is. Well, it relates to the description of the Platte as the pioneers trekked the wagon trail to the west as “too thick to drink and too thin to plow.” Sometimes it was called a mile wide and an inch deep. The latter is the definition I want to use. It relates perfectly to our country’s approach to education. I remember when attending “parent nights” at my children’s high school being shocked to hear their teachers talk about topics I hadn’t been exposed to until I was in college. I thought, “Wow, these folks have figured out how to teach all of this stuff faster and at an earlier age than when I was in school.” I soon learned that they hadn’t. In fact, the approach was to “talk” about a long laundry list of topics as if they would be taught effectively but not to really “teach” them at all. Oh, they tried, I suppose, but you see, there was a reason I hadn’t learned those things until college. There simply wasn’t time to learn the prerequisites and those “gee whiz” topics too.
The too common result is that the educators set out the list of skills that are too long and then proceed to cover them superficially if at all. This is what I call The Platte River Syndrome (mile wide, inch deep). This approach guarantees that the kids are not taught anything to mastery. Oh, some learn it because their parents teach them or provide tutors or they are self motivated and work hard to learn it on their own. However, most don’t learn well enough. This is confirmed by any number of measures like the international tests to assess student achievement where our kids continue to score poorly compared to their best performing peers. Another confirmation is the high remediation rate of students who go to college, currently mired in place at about 30% in Colorado.
It would be far more productive to concentrate on learning the prerequisites with mastery instead of trying to bite off more than can be chewed. Why would anyone support such a foolish endeavor as represented by The Platter River Syndrome? I’ll let you vote among some possibilities. Feel free to come up with some of your own and share.
• Because education schools don’t teach subject knowledge well, the teachers don’t have the background to teach well and the “inch deep” approach makes it less likely that the public will catch on.
• Teaching to mastery requires focus and hard work. It isn’t nearly as fun as talking about advanced concepts at a superficial level.
• An inadequate understanding of what our foreign competitors are doing differently that create their better results. I have been amazed at reading reports of comments from study groups of educators after they have visited top competitor nations like Singapore. They view things through the filters they have developed here and miss the key differences completely because they can’t believe “those things” (which we wouldn’t consider from the start) are actually responsible for the difference in performance.
• The educators’ inability to face that many of the processes they believe in don’t stand scientific scrutiny. As E.D. Hirsch says in The Knowledge Deficit, “[M]ere scientific inadequacy can be a practical irrelevance in American education.”
• Education leadership is weak and allows this lack of intellectual honesty on what really works to go unchallenged.
Please contribute your possibilities or vote for any of the ones above.
Copyright © 2009 Paul Richardson
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