Some of you may have seen the 8th Grade Final Exam from Salina, Kansas of 1895 before. It is appended at the end. The question I want to ponder is not, how would our current 8th graders do on such a test as it is obvious that even if modernized in geography, etc. that they would do poorly, but how would their teachers do? My guess is that if an updated test of this rigor were given to our teachers and administrators of all levels that the results would be very discouraging.
This look at the pre-progressive education era characterized by the American Common School approach of Horace Mann and others versus the current progressive, process only approach that eschews subject knowledge should point out clearly why our kids can’t compete well with their best performing global peers. Our kids are not being prepared to handle the kind of practical, real world problems highlighted by the 1895test. Our educators preach that the “how to” approach is superior. However, starting on every problem without a base of knowledge to build on is a process that doesn’t work in the global competition. Also, trying to communicate effectively when you don’t know the rules of grammar doesn’t help either. The kids of our competitor nations where the approach of the best performing ones is akin to the American Common School approach, have a knowledge base that allows them to not reinvent the wheel with every problem they face.
Our approach is so obviously to blame for the poor education our kids are getting that it would seem easy to fix. In principle it is easy, but our society flinches at the thought of applying the required KITA to our education establishment. KITA is short for Kick In The Attitude. It is not easy to tell our educators that they are not educated as Rita Kramer does in Ed School Follies. But it is true as would be pointed out clearly if a rigorous 8th grade test of the type below were given to graduate ed school products up to and including the doctorate level.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,' 'play,' and 'run.'
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7. - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.
Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Education FUQs
Everyone is used to FAQs showing up on websites, especially for tech support when they want you to figure it out for yourself so they don’t have to spend as much of their resources to handhold their customers through technical problems. In education the objective is the opposite. They don’t want any questions at all. Education FUQs are Frequently Unasked Questions about our education system and its realities. The thesis is that unasked questions are unanswered questions. Most of you are probably a bit nonplussed because for most school districts the flow of information from them is robust and it makes you assume that everything is as well as could be expected with the “stingy budgets” they have to work with. Following are some favorite unasked questions and some abbreviated answers. The hope is that they will motivate you to begin asking your local schools some of these questions and that you do not accept their answer as the truth without significant follow up questions and some independent research. If you do it well, your conclusion will surely be that the information from the educators is at best slanted propaganda and at worst outright lies. Sorry if that puts you off but it is true.
FUQs related to education in America
1. How does my local school’s student achievement compare to other education entities, globally? A favorite game played by school districts is to compare themselves to only other districts within the same state or local area. To assess your school district’s performance you must measure it against the best global competition. This is really the only metric that matters.
2. Why can’t we seem to make progress on reducing the achievement gap between the minority and poor kids and their demographically better off peers? Robert Kennedy called the achievement gap a stain on our national honor over 3 decades ago. Yet, the problem is worse now than when he commented on it. Billions of dollars have been spent but to no avail except for enriching the adults who work in education.
3. Why do educators always clamor for more money, more money, more money? Two reasons. First, it makes a great excuse for not performing better since they can claim we didn’t provide them with all the resources they say they need to do their job. Second, it is greed so that the individuals and the power groups who make their living at the public education trough can be further enriched and politically empowered. One fact to ponder is that the funding per pupil in American education has increased by about twice the rate of inflation for over 4 decades. Yet, achievement of the students has not improved and in some ways is worse.
4. Is it reasonable to use graduation from an education school teacher or leadership program as the basis for certification? No, the education schools are basically diploma mills whose purpose is to extract money from the education system to fund other parts of the university. They provide little rigor and virtually none in subject matter.
5. Is it reasonable to pay teachers based on years of experience rather than their performance? No.
6. Are education doctorates required for superintendents to perform their jobs? No, if they were of value our education performance would be top notch not abysmal as is the reality. We have an oversupply of education doctorates and an undersupply of competent education leaders.
7. Why do politicians legislate education funding by specifying process very tightly in a one size fits all formula rather than specifying the required results with penalties in resource availability if the results are not attained? Short answer—the legislatures want to lock the status quo in place to please their campaign donors.
There are many more questions that need to be asked. However, if you start with these you will be much further along than most on the road to objective understanding of our failed education process.
FUQs related to education in America
1. How does my local school’s student achievement compare to other education entities, globally? A favorite game played by school districts is to compare themselves to only other districts within the same state or local area. To assess your school district’s performance you must measure it against the best global competition. This is really the only metric that matters.
2. Why can’t we seem to make progress on reducing the achievement gap between the minority and poor kids and their demographically better off peers? Robert Kennedy called the achievement gap a stain on our national honor over 3 decades ago. Yet, the problem is worse now than when he commented on it. Billions of dollars have been spent but to no avail except for enriching the adults who work in education.
3. Why do educators always clamor for more money, more money, more money? Two reasons. First, it makes a great excuse for not performing better since they can claim we didn’t provide them with all the resources they say they need to do their job. Second, it is greed so that the individuals and the power groups who make their living at the public education trough can be further enriched and politically empowered. One fact to ponder is that the funding per pupil in American education has increased by about twice the rate of inflation for over 4 decades. Yet, achievement of the students has not improved and in some ways is worse.
4. Is it reasonable to use graduation from an education school teacher or leadership program as the basis for certification? No, the education schools are basically diploma mills whose purpose is to extract money from the education system to fund other parts of the university. They provide little rigor and virtually none in subject matter.
5. Is it reasonable to pay teachers based on years of experience rather than their performance? No.
6. Are education doctorates required for superintendents to perform their jobs? No, if they were of value our education performance would be top notch not abysmal as is the reality. We have an oversupply of education doctorates and an undersupply of competent education leaders.
7. Why do politicians legislate education funding by specifying process very tightly in a one size fits all formula rather than specifying the required results with penalties in resource availability if the results are not attained? Short answer—the legislatures want to lock the status quo in place to please their campaign donors.
There are many more questions that need to be asked. However, if you start with these you will be much further along than most on the road to objective understanding of our failed education process.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Progressive Education Wrong from the Beginning Three
Conclusions/Action Plan
What is to be done if we care about rescuing our kids’ futures let alone America’s competitiveness in the global society? First, we must overcome the belief that changing the system at its foundational level is not required and that incremental changes can solve the problems. As the E.D. Hirsch quote at the beginning of part one points out, the current Progressive dominated education system is evil. Why, because it harms kids and especially poor and minority kids. You cannot overcome evil through negotiations (I have tried). You cannot overcome evil by being “reasonable.” There is only one way to eliminate the progressive poison from the education system. Sadly, that is through all out war.
Now is a good time to reiterate JFK’s remarks from the introduction of Part Two. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” We could replace “nation” with educator, “assure survival” with assure a high quality education to our kids, and the “success of liberty” with ensuring the ability of our kids to compete in the global meritocracy.
No, I am not calling for taking up arms literally. But I am talking about setting clear goals for the total elimination of the current harmful system and its pseudo scientific underpinnings over time. It would be nice if we could convince the politicians of the danger to our kids with enough force to give them the backbone required to legislate the elimination of the current system, replacing it with a new one (modeled on the very successful American Common School movement that was trashed by the Progressives beginning a hundred years ago).
I don’t believe that is likely because the Progressives would throw lots of sand in the gears of progress trying to lead the pols off into the weeds. They would call for more “study” of the problem which is ridiculous. They have consistently failed to meet the needs of our kids and no amount of added time will provide productive approaches from within the insular and inbred education system. They simply don’t have the knowledge and objectivity to contribute constructively in solving the problem. Therefore, their inputs are worthless and do not justify wasting time on their machinations.
What needs to be done is known. It needs to be acted on quickly. The Progressives will never agree willingly. If we care about the kids we can’t allow compromise because what they do is harmful to kids and none of it must survive. We must remember they have had their way for most of the last century and have done immeasurable harm. They have no credibility and must give way for the right education system to be implemented so that our kids, all of them including the gap kids, can learn to their potential and expect a brighter future.
What will be difficult enough but will work is to structure the federal and state money going to education in a way that requires they perform MUCH BETTER QUICKLY. This would automatically cause movement away from the Progressive, content-free, discovery approaches because they take longer and never achieve the high learning levels of the content-rich approaches of the American Common School movement we used in the past and that our “much more successful in educating their kids” global competitors are using.
Money is the lifeblood that feeds the Progressive education machine. The waste of precious resources within the current system is gargantuan. To begin with, we must turn a deaf ear to the claims that will surely come if such an effort is undertaken. That is, the first cries of pain from the educators will be that “you are hurting the kids.” This will be untrue if the program is designed properly. They have been hurting the kids for decades, but when they do it that is OK. We need to put a stop to their depredations and finally serve the kids as they deserve. The new initiative would be structured such that the only ones to feel pain would be those who didn’t start performing better quickly. This would require a change in legislative approach from specifying process to nine decimal places to specifying required results with penalties for not producing those results. This is a much more sensible approach as it allows districts to tailor their approach to the needs on the local level, not the current top-down, central control process that represents a one size fits all approach.
Highly beneficial actions—getting rid of the disastrously wrong and harmful “Standard Operating Procedures”
1. Cut the salary budgets of the federal and state education bureaucracies by 10% per year for 5 years, then reassess whether to continue cutting. They are staffed by those trained (brainwashed) in the progressive process. They have no ability to be objective about the harm being done or ability to pursue quality improvement until they have seen the elephant (faced adversity which forces reality to set in).
2. Increase NAEP testing requirements to be equivalent to the average of the top 5 best performing nations by subject within one year. This is not a justification for a typical multi-year “research project, just take the latest data available from the global achievement tests and get on with it. The goal can be refined over time but initially a fast approach is required and very reasonable because it will put much higher expectations into the system putting educators on notice that the old ways will not suffice.
3. Require state achievement test scores to increase by 20% per year until they are equivalent to the NAEP levels. We must not let it take longer. It can be done. Educators will have a fit about how can you track something like this with changing standards, etc? You can do it accurately enough to measure positive results. Being 80% right quickly is FAR better than being 95% right in a few years. The over precision of nonsense is one of the well practiced delaying tactics that has prevented improvement for decades. That must end. There are times when a SWAG is more than adequate. Scientific Wild Ass Guess.
4. Require, if fed and state money is desired, that districts cut central administration salary budgets by 10% per year unless the district has improved their achievement test results in math and reading by at least 25% per year until they are within 25% of the goal. Then adjust the yearly requirement to getting half way to the ultimate standard for two years and the rest of the way in the following year. Put in place rules that the school-based admin cannot be grown to provide “homes” for central admin personnel or reduced to provide money to pay for current central administration activities. Thus, the cuts must impact the people who would be most responsible for improving the quality of education for the kids if they fail to perform. Also, the requirement should hit the superintendent and those administrators who report directly to him/her by 15% per year if the yearly improvements are not achieved. This will give them a strong incentive to perform as change leaders versus their current entrenched defense of the status quo. Some will say that might cause many to leave. Good, they are not doing anything positive anyway and certainly won’t be missed from a performance point of view.
5. Require districts to eliminate the Progressive doctrine, “how-to, no content” curricula within 2 years or face total loss of fed and state funding until they accomplish the task. These curricula are the foundational sources of the poison being injected into the system and must be eliminated immediately. Replace with content-rich curricula and direct instruction. There will be loud complaints that you can’t afford or get the books and other materials required in that amount of time. It can be done. You might not end up with shiny new color printed books for a few years but eliminating the current “pretty” trash being used on our kids and replacing it with materials on the positive side of the ledger would be a huge and immediate improvement. If you think about it the constructivist or discovery methods so favored by the Progressives are totally contrary to workable approaches to exploring new territories. Throughout history when people have gone into new territories they have used knowledgeable guides to help them successful get where they want to go safely. Shouldn’t our kids have the benefit of teaching that has the knowledge and experience to lead them on the way to subject understanding instead of the current wandering in the wilderness unstructured Progressive approach. It is so obvious why the direct instruction to high knowledge standards is working so well for our global competitors.
6. Decouple all education school training from teacher and leadership certification requirements. We need to stop the flow of more “brainwashed in the wrong doctrine” people into the system, especially since the education schools do not teach subject matter with any rigor. Replace with rigorous subject matter testing every two years to maintain certification both for new and current teachers. Provide alternative certification processes to allow those with real educations in subjects to fill the void created by current educators leaving because they aren’t motivated or capable of passing the rigorous subject matter tests within a year. If we want (need) to teach our kids to a level that allows them to compete globally, we must not allow educators who can’t perform well to remain in the system. Most will be able to perform acceptably if they decide to. If not, it is their choice.
You might be thinking, this would be a very contentious process. You are right. But, you need to realize that it is the only way that the current “harmful to kids” process can be repaired to something that will serve our kids and country well. Ignoring reality has gotten us where we are. Continuing down that path hoping things will get better is a craven fool’s approach to the problem. We know from the results of the last many decades that educators are incapable of positive change unless they are forced to do so to keep their jobs. It is easier to continue ignoring the reality but aren’t the kids worth some discomfort? Make no mistake though, the Progressives are formidable foes. Previous assaults on their “fiefdom” have failed because they had more staying power than the attackers, not because their doctrine was right. It will take consistent and strong long-term effort to finally break their disastrous for our kids grip on our educational system. Remember that any delay in action allows millions of kids to continue being harmed.
A last comment for our “political leaders”
Your initial reaction to this proposal is that it is unworkable. The first fear is that the teachers unions who are among the biggest campaign contributors will literally “kill” the candidacy of anyone who supports this approach. You are right to be concerned, but if this is done on a uniform basis across a whole state or country their impact will be greatly diluted. That is, their current fearsome reputation is based on their ability to devote overwhelming resources both monetarily and on the ground to given “problem” elections. They have been able to do that because the problem elections are localized and rare as is the occurrence of politicians with backbone and desire to do what is right not what will get them reelected. If they had to spread their resources over a much larger spectrum of political races their impact would be tiny in comparison.
Thus, everyone doing this approach at the same time provides a safe and sane way to go. That is why it needs to be done on at least a whole state basis and preferably on a whole country basis. If on a whole country basis the requirements must be tighter than those that are part of NCLB. That is, NCLB left “weasel room” for each state to set their own standard definitions of proficiency which has resulted in a great deal of “sandbagging” in that area to the detriment of the kids. That is, a lot of stripes were painted on the pavement and called high hurdles for proficiency levels. That must not be allowed in the future.
If the schools were forced to report their true performance in a global context, parents, business groups, the whole community; all but those feeding at the government education trough would be appalled and motivated to see the problem fixed immediately.
We all have work to do. We need to start immediately demanding that our kids get a rigorous education not a coddled one.
What is to be done if we care about rescuing our kids’ futures let alone America’s competitiveness in the global society? First, we must overcome the belief that changing the system at its foundational level is not required and that incremental changes can solve the problems. As the E.D. Hirsch quote at the beginning of part one points out, the current Progressive dominated education system is evil. Why, because it harms kids and especially poor and minority kids. You cannot overcome evil through negotiations (I have tried). You cannot overcome evil by being “reasonable.” There is only one way to eliminate the progressive poison from the education system. Sadly, that is through all out war.
Now is a good time to reiterate JFK’s remarks from the introduction of Part Two. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” We could replace “nation” with educator, “assure survival” with assure a high quality education to our kids, and the “success of liberty” with ensuring the ability of our kids to compete in the global meritocracy.
No, I am not calling for taking up arms literally. But I am talking about setting clear goals for the total elimination of the current harmful system and its pseudo scientific underpinnings over time. It would be nice if we could convince the politicians of the danger to our kids with enough force to give them the backbone required to legislate the elimination of the current system, replacing it with a new one (modeled on the very successful American Common School movement that was trashed by the Progressives beginning a hundred years ago).
I don’t believe that is likely because the Progressives would throw lots of sand in the gears of progress trying to lead the pols off into the weeds. They would call for more “study” of the problem which is ridiculous. They have consistently failed to meet the needs of our kids and no amount of added time will provide productive approaches from within the insular and inbred education system. They simply don’t have the knowledge and objectivity to contribute constructively in solving the problem. Therefore, their inputs are worthless and do not justify wasting time on their machinations.
What needs to be done is known. It needs to be acted on quickly. The Progressives will never agree willingly. If we care about the kids we can’t allow compromise because what they do is harmful to kids and none of it must survive. We must remember they have had their way for most of the last century and have done immeasurable harm. They have no credibility and must give way for the right education system to be implemented so that our kids, all of them including the gap kids, can learn to their potential and expect a brighter future.
What will be difficult enough but will work is to structure the federal and state money going to education in a way that requires they perform MUCH BETTER QUICKLY. This would automatically cause movement away from the Progressive, content-free, discovery approaches because they take longer and never achieve the high learning levels of the content-rich approaches of the American Common School movement we used in the past and that our “much more successful in educating their kids” global competitors are using.
Money is the lifeblood that feeds the Progressive education machine. The waste of precious resources within the current system is gargantuan. To begin with, we must turn a deaf ear to the claims that will surely come if such an effort is undertaken. That is, the first cries of pain from the educators will be that “you are hurting the kids.” This will be untrue if the program is designed properly. They have been hurting the kids for decades, but when they do it that is OK. We need to put a stop to their depredations and finally serve the kids as they deserve. The new initiative would be structured such that the only ones to feel pain would be those who didn’t start performing better quickly. This would require a change in legislative approach from specifying process to nine decimal places to specifying required results with penalties for not producing those results. This is a much more sensible approach as it allows districts to tailor their approach to the needs on the local level, not the current top-down, central control process that represents a one size fits all approach.
Highly beneficial actions—getting rid of the disastrously wrong and harmful “Standard Operating Procedures”
1. Cut the salary budgets of the federal and state education bureaucracies by 10% per year for 5 years, then reassess whether to continue cutting. They are staffed by those trained (brainwashed) in the progressive process. They have no ability to be objective about the harm being done or ability to pursue quality improvement until they have seen the elephant (faced adversity which forces reality to set in).
2. Increase NAEP testing requirements to be equivalent to the average of the top 5 best performing nations by subject within one year. This is not a justification for a typical multi-year “research project, just take the latest data available from the global achievement tests and get on with it. The goal can be refined over time but initially a fast approach is required and very reasonable because it will put much higher expectations into the system putting educators on notice that the old ways will not suffice.
3. Require state achievement test scores to increase by 20% per year until they are equivalent to the NAEP levels. We must not let it take longer. It can be done. Educators will have a fit about how can you track something like this with changing standards, etc? You can do it accurately enough to measure positive results. Being 80% right quickly is FAR better than being 95% right in a few years. The over precision of nonsense is one of the well practiced delaying tactics that has prevented improvement for decades. That must end. There are times when a SWAG is more than adequate. Scientific Wild Ass Guess.
4. Require, if fed and state money is desired, that districts cut central administration salary budgets by 10% per year unless the district has improved their achievement test results in math and reading by at least 25% per year until they are within 25% of the goal. Then adjust the yearly requirement to getting half way to the ultimate standard for two years and the rest of the way in the following year. Put in place rules that the school-based admin cannot be grown to provide “homes” for central admin personnel or reduced to provide money to pay for current central administration activities. Thus, the cuts must impact the people who would be most responsible for improving the quality of education for the kids if they fail to perform. Also, the requirement should hit the superintendent and those administrators who report directly to him/her by 15% per year if the yearly improvements are not achieved. This will give them a strong incentive to perform as change leaders versus their current entrenched defense of the status quo. Some will say that might cause many to leave. Good, they are not doing anything positive anyway and certainly won’t be missed from a performance point of view.
5. Require districts to eliminate the Progressive doctrine, “how-to, no content” curricula within 2 years or face total loss of fed and state funding until they accomplish the task. These curricula are the foundational sources of the poison being injected into the system and must be eliminated immediately. Replace with content-rich curricula and direct instruction. There will be loud complaints that you can’t afford or get the books and other materials required in that amount of time. It can be done. You might not end up with shiny new color printed books for a few years but eliminating the current “pretty” trash being used on our kids and replacing it with materials on the positive side of the ledger would be a huge and immediate improvement. If you think about it the constructivist or discovery methods so favored by the Progressives are totally contrary to workable approaches to exploring new territories. Throughout history when people have gone into new territories they have used knowledgeable guides to help them successful get where they want to go safely. Shouldn’t our kids have the benefit of teaching that has the knowledge and experience to lead them on the way to subject understanding instead of the current wandering in the wilderness unstructured Progressive approach. It is so obvious why the direct instruction to high knowledge standards is working so well for our global competitors.
6. Decouple all education school training from teacher and leadership certification requirements. We need to stop the flow of more “brainwashed in the wrong doctrine” people into the system, especially since the education schools do not teach subject matter with any rigor. Replace with rigorous subject matter testing every two years to maintain certification both for new and current teachers. Provide alternative certification processes to allow those with real educations in subjects to fill the void created by current educators leaving because they aren’t motivated or capable of passing the rigorous subject matter tests within a year. If we want (need) to teach our kids to a level that allows them to compete globally, we must not allow educators who can’t perform well to remain in the system. Most will be able to perform acceptably if they decide to. If not, it is their choice.
You might be thinking, this would be a very contentious process. You are right. But, you need to realize that it is the only way that the current “harmful to kids” process can be repaired to something that will serve our kids and country well. Ignoring reality has gotten us where we are. Continuing down that path hoping things will get better is a craven fool’s approach to the problem. We know from the results of the last many decades that educators are incapable of positive change unless they are forced to do so to keep their jobs. It is easier to continue ignoring the reality but aren’t the kids worth some discomfort? Make no mistake though, the Progressives are formidable foes. Previous assaults on their “fiefdom” have failed because they had more staying power than the attackers, not because their doctrine was right. It will take consistent and strong long-term effort to finally break their disastrous for our kids grip on our educational system. Remember that any delay in action allows millions of kids to continue being harmed.
A last comment for our “political leaders”
Your initial reaction to this proposal is that it is unworkable. The first fear is that the teachers unions who are among the biggest campaign contributors will literally “kill” the candidacy of anyone who supports this approach. You are right to be concerned, but if this is done on a uniform basis across a whole state or country their impact will be greatly diluted. That is, their current fearsome reputation is based on their ability to devote overwhelming resources both monetarily and on the ground to given “problem” elections. They have been able to do that because the problem elections are localized and rare as is the occurrence of politicians with backbone and desire to do what is right not what will get them reelected. If they had to spread their resources over a much larger spectrum of political races their impact would be tiny in comparison.
Thus, everyone doing this approach at the same time provides a safe and sane way to go. That is why it needs to be done on at least a whole state basis and preferably on a whole country basis. If on a whole country basis the requirements must be tighter than those that are part of NCLB. That is, NCLB left “weasel room” for each state to set their own standard definitions of proficiency which has resulted in a great deal of “sandbagging” in that area to the detriment of the kids. That is, a lot of stripes were painted on the pavement and called high hurdles for proficiency levels. That must not be allowed in the future.
If the schools were forced to report their true performance in a global context, parents, business groups, the whole community; all but those feeding at the government education trough would be appalled and motivated to see the problem fixed immediately.
We all have work to do. We need to start immediately demanding that our kids get a rigorous education not a coddled one.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Progressive Education Wrong from the Beginning Two
The Realities
• Constructivist approaches as pushed by Progressives are ineffective because they take too long (students wandering in the wilderness) and they don’t provide the growing base of subject knowledge required to succeed as grade levels increase. This is why the comparative failure of our students versus their global peers increases as grade level increases. That is, fourth grade pupils are more competitive with their peers that are our 15 year old students with their peers. Progressives muddy the water by doing slanted or myopic research studies that show that their approaches work. And to a point they do, just not nearly well enough to allow our kids to compete with their global peers. Our (progressive) car in the race is a Model T Ford and the competitor nations are driving fast, reliable current model cars. They run circles around us. So yes, the Model T works, just not well enough to allow our kids to compete for the high paying jobs in the global economy. A typical progressive “advertisement” for the superiority of their method is the ubiquitous claim that they teach critical thinking skills. But the skill they teach is worthless without knowledge of the subject which they never provide at any level worth talking about. Thus, they say things that sound reasonable and of value but there is no substance behind it as is proven by the huge gap between our kids performance and that of our strongest competitor nations’ kids.
• Educators are trained (brainwashed) in the progressive education doctrine in their education school training. This is extremely consistent across the country with very few exceptions; U of Virginia and Hillsdale College are a couple of lonely examples doing it right.
• Education school leadership training is weak (on purpose?) so that the so- called leaders do not have the ability to lead transformative change. “Go along, get along” status quo preservation is the best they can do. That is, they are earning at most a quarter of their high salaries.
• The bureaucracies tasked to provide leadership and quality control over the uses of education funding from federal and state sources are staffed virtually exclusively by education insiders, that is, those brainwashed in education principles that haven’t worked and can’t work to the required high standard.
• The favored educator approaches to criticism of our education system’s failed practices are;
o Ignore the criticism, maybe the complainer(s) will go away.
o Pretend to value the criticism and begin a “study” of the problem with committees and inputs from “education experts.” For educators, only those brainwashed in the party line have input worth listening to. And of course their input supports the harmful status quo.
Quotes from The Knowledge Deficit, E.D. Hirsch Jr.
The reason for this state of affairs – tragic for millions of students as well as for the nation – is that an army of American educators and reading experts are fundamentally wrong in their ideas about education and especially about reading comprehension.
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. This is because of the history of American education schools…the history of these schools, which are institutions that train almost all of the teachers and administrators . . . is the history of intellectual cloning.
o Even if action is taken it is in the form of “polishing the rotten apple.” Most often it takes the form of being determined to do the same wrong things that have never worked in the past, but this time do them better. A great example of this is the “best practices” idea. In education, best practices mean doing the wrong thing really well. You can begin to see why, even though huge amounts of money have been thrown at the education system over many decades, nothing gets better, except that the pay and benefits of the educators is increased out of all relationship to the results being achieved.
o The truth is suppressed within education by ironbound use of political correctness and Group Think methods. If you can’t openly search for and admit the truth, you will not be able to recognize and solve real problems. Outsiders recognize the problems very well and perhaps some insiders do too. However, the insiders know that speaking out is not allowed. While education entities are loath to fire a poor performer, they have over and over found the ability to fire a truth teller with no delay or remorse.
• The progressive doctrine is most harmful to the “gap” students, those who because of the demographic luck of the draw were born minority or have economically poor circumstances and who score at lower levels on achievement tests. They could score much better if taught in a way that works (content rich curricula that builds on previous year’s knowledge year to year). The Progressives use the untrue excuse that “those kids can’t learn” to justify what they are doing. The more advantaged students tend to overcome the poor schools to a degree through parental or outside tutoring and other help. However, the schools have dumbed down the standards to a degree that the number of even top students who score highly on SAT, for example, has plummeted since the late 1960s.
• The education power groups support maintenance of the status quo through large campaign contributions to politicians who will toe the line they set pertaining to education. That line is not positive change but defense of the status quo.
• In my research many education leaders told me when I questioned how the kids could be so poorly served, “You don’t understand. Education is run to benefit the adults who work here, not the kids.” In the Fenty/Rhee article in the WSJ article about their experience in trying to reform Washington DC schools they state the same principle.
Coming Segment 3—Conclusions/Action Plan
• Constructivist approaches as pushed by Progressives are ineffective because they take too long (students wandering in the wilderness) and they don’t provide the growing base of subject knowledge required to succeed as grade levels increase. This is why the comparative failure of our students versus their global peers increases as grade level increases. That is, fourth grade pupils are more competitive with their peers that are our 15 year old students with their peers. Progressives muddy the water by doing slanted or myopic research studies that show that their approaches work. And to a point they do, just not nearly well enough to allow our kids to compete with their global peers. Our (progressive) car in the race is a Model T Ford and the competitor nations are driving fast, reliable current model cars. They run circles around us. So yes, the Model T works, just not well enough to allow our kids to compete for the high paying jobs in the global economy. A typical progressive “advertisement” for the superiority of their method is the ubiquitous claim that they teach critical thinking skills. But the skill they teach is worthless without knowledge of the subject which they never provide at any level worth talking about. Thus, they say things that sound reasonable and of value but there is no substance behind it as is proven by the huge gap between our kids performance and that of our strongest competitor nations’ kids.
• Educators are trained (brainwashed) in the progressive education doctrine in their education school training. This is extremely consistent across the country with very few exceptions; U of Virginia and Hillsdale College are a couple of lonely examples doing it right.
• Education school leadership training is weak (on purpose?) so that the so- called leaders do not have the ability to lead transformative change. “Go along, get along” status quo preservation is the best they can do. That is, they are earning at most a quarter of their high salaries.
• The bureaucracies tasked to provide leadership and quality control over the uses of education funding from federal and state sources are staffed virtually exclusively by education insiders, that is, those brainwashed in education principles that haven’t worked and can’t work to the required high standard.
• The favored educator approaches to criticism of our education system’s failed practices are;
o Ignore the criticism, maybe the complainer(s) will go away.
o Pretend to value the criticism and begin a “study” of the problem with committees and inputs from “education experts.” For educators, only those brainwashed in the party line have input worth listening to. And of course their input supports the harmful status quo.
Quotes from The Knowledge Deficit, E.D. Hirsch Jr.
The reason for this state of affairs – tragic for millions of students as well as for the nation – is that an army of American educators and reading experts are fundamentally wrong in their ideas about education and especially about reading comprehension.
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. This is because of the history of American education schools…the history of these schools, which are institutions that train almost all of the teachers and administrators . . . is the history of intellectual cloning.
o Even if action is taken it is in the form of “polishing the rotten apple.” Most often it takes the form of being determined to do the same wrong things that have never worked in the past, but this time do them better. A great example of this is the “best practices” idea. In education, best practices mean doing the wrong thing really well. You can begin to see why, even though huge amounts of money have been thrown at the education system over many decades, nothing gets better, except that the pay and benefits of the educators is increased out of all relationship to the results being achieved.
o The truth is suppressed within education by ironbound use of political correctness and Group Think methods. If you can’t openly search for and admit the truth, you will not be able to recognize and solve real problems. Outsiders recognize the problems very well and perhaps some insiders do too. However, the insiders know that speaking out is not allowed. While education entities are loath to fire a poor performer, they have over and over found the ability to fire a truth teller with no delay or remorse.
• The progressive doctrine is most harmful to the “gap” students, those who because of the demographic luck of the draw were born minority or have economically poor circumstances and who score at lower levels on achievement tests. They could score much better if taught in a way that works (content rich curricula that builds on previous year’s knowledge year to year). The Progressives use the untrue excuse that “those kids can’t learn” to justify what they are doing. The more advantaged students tend to overcome the poor schools to a degree through parental or outside tutoring and other help. However, the schools have dumbed down the standards to a degree that the number of even top students who score highly on SAT, for example, has plummeted since the late 1960s.
• The education power groups support maintenance of the status quo through large campaign contributions to politicians who will toe the line they set pertaining to education. That line is not positive change but defense of the status quo.
• In my research many education leaders told me when I questioned how the kids could be so poorly served, “You don’t understand. Education is run to benefit the adults who work here, not the kids.” In the Fenty/Rhee article in the WSJ article about their experience in trying to reform Washington DC schools they state the same principle.
Coming Segment 3—Conclusions/Action Plan
Monday, November 1, 2010
Progressive Education Wrong From the Beginning
Introductory Remarks
I have no idea how many of you were in high school when John Kennedy was elected president. I do remember how thrilled I was while listening to his 1961 inaugural address. I wasn’t so thrilled later but the inaugural was a special time.
I want to quote from his speech that day.
[T]he same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. . . unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge—and more.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
I would ask you to remember his words as you read the three part call to stand on principle and finally correct the education system that inflicts so much harm on our children, year after year. Also, it is worth pondering on how far away we have moved from the high value placed on our founding principles as related by JFK in only 50 years.
Indictment/Background
“I can’t conceive of a greater social evil.” E.D. Hirsch Jr. The Making of Americans
Below are two references showing our educators’ attitude about content rigor separated by almost a century. When taken together it is easy to see that there has been no movement at all away from the disastrous progressive education doctrine that has so greatly weakened our nation’s education performance and hence competitiveness for about a century. Our economy is a huge flywheel that winds down slowly even when the driving force is taken away or reduced. The current economic malaise indicates that the slowing is starting to be serious and bodes poorly for our future if we don’t take immediate action. The harm being done to our kids and our country is catastrophic. If we don’t wake up and eliminate this “won’t work, can’t work” Progressive education doctrine from our schools, we deserve the reduction in living standards that will result. The two excerpts relate education attitudes now and at the turn of the Twentieth Century. They make the point that the Progressive education doctrine is still at full strength in our education system. While both examples are focusing on math, the Progressive approach is equally harmful in reading and all other subject areas as well.
Excerpt from Is There an Algebra Overkill? By John W. Myres (2010) Education Week
The current fixation with algebra, requiring, for instance, one or two years of it to graduate from high school or prescribing it for 7th and 8th graders without exception, strongly suggests the examination of an algebra requirement.
No doubt, algebra is a steppingstone to higher mathematics and quite necessary in professions that require extensive knowledge of math. Too, it offers insights not only into numbers, but also into general problem-solving separately. It is also reasonable for most students to have some experience with it before they leave school.
The difficulty, however, is assuming that algebra, in itself, will greatly increase everyone's ability to do the kind of mathematics that most people do in ordinary life.
Most people add, subtract, multiply, and divide, using whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percentages. They purchase food and clothing, balance checkbooks, create budgets, verify credit card charges, measure the size of rooms, fulfill recipe requirements, and even understand baseball batting averages or horse-racing odds. These activities don't require a real knowledge of algebra.
Excerpt from A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century by David Klein (2003)
With roots going back to Jean Jacques Rousseau and with the guidance of John Dewey, progressive education has dominated American schools since the early years of the 20th century. That is not to say that progressive education has gone unchallenged.
Challenges increased in intensity starting in the 1950s, waxed and waned, and in the 1990s gained unprecedented strength. A consequence of the domination of progressivism during the first half of the 20th century was a predictable and remarkably steady decrease of academic content in public schools. [emphasis added]
The prescriptions for the future of mathematics education were articulated early in the 20th century by one of the nation's most influential education leaders, William Heard Kilpatrick. According to E. D. Hirsch, Kilpatrick was "the most influential introducer of progressive ideas into American schools of education." Kilpatrick was an education professor at Teachers College at Columbia University, and a protégé of John Dewey. According to Dewey, "In the best sense of the words, progressive education and the work of Dr. Kilpatrick are virtually synonymous." Kilpatrick majored in mathematics at Mercer College in Macon, Georgia. His mathematical education included some graduate work at Johns Hopkins University, but his interests changed and he eventually attended Teachers College and joined the faculty in 1911. In his 27 years at Teachers College, he taught some 35,000 students and was described by the New York Post as "the million dollar professor" because the fees paid by his students to the college exceeded this amount. In some instances there were more than 650 students in a single one of his auditorium sized classes. His book, Foundations of Method, written in 1925 became a standard text for teacher education courses across the country.
Reflecting mainstream views of progressive education, Kilpatrick rejected the notion that the study of mathematics contributed to mental discipline. His view was that subjects should be taught to students based on their direct practical value, or if students independently wanted to learn those subjects. This point of view toward education comported well with theL pedagogical methods endorsed by progressive education. Limiting education primarily to utilitarian skills sharply limited academic content, and this helped to justify the slow pace of student centered, discovery learning, the centerpiece of progressivism. [emphasis added] Kilpatrick proposed that the study of algebra and geometry in high school be discontinued “except as an intellectual luxury.” According to Kilpatrick, mathematics is “harmful rather than helpful to the kind of thinking necessary for ordinary living.” In an address before the student body at the University of Florida, Kilpatrick lectured, "We have in the past taught algebra and geometry to too many, not too few."
In 1915 Kilpatrick was asked by the National Education Association's Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education to chair a committee to study the problem of teaching mathematics in the high schools. The committee included no mathematicians and was composed entirely of educators. [emphasis added] Kilpatrick directly challenged the use of mathematics to promote mental discipline. He wrote, "No longer should the force of tradition shield any subject from scrutiny...In probably no study did this older doctrine of mental discipline find larger scope than in mathematics, in arithmetic to an appreciable extent, more in algebra, and most of all in geometry." Kilpatrick maintained in his report, The Problem of Mathematics in Secondary Education, that nothing in mathematics should be taught unless its probable value could be shown, and recommended the traditional high school mathematics curriculum for only a select few.
It was not surprising that mathematicians would object to Kilpatrick's report as an attack against the field of mathematics itself. David Eugene Smith, a mathematics professor at Teachers College and renowned historian of mathematics, tried to stop the publication of Kilpatrick's report as a part of the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, the full report of the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, and one of the most influential documents for education in the 20th century. Smith charged that there had been no meeting of the math committee and that Kilpatrick was the sole author of the report. Moreover, Kilpatrick's committee was not representative of teachers of mathematics or of mathematicians. Nevertheless, Kilpatrick's report was eventually published in 1920 by the U.S. Commissioner of Education, Philander P. Claxton, a friend of Kilpatrick.
Hopefully you see the point but I want to make it anyway to make sure you do. Did you catch the Progressive’s core value, “subjects should be taught to students based on their direct practical value,” or “we have taught too many algebra and geometry, not too few” stated in Klein’s article and reiterated by Myres as, “The difficulty, however, is assuming that algebra, in itself, will greatly increase everyone's ability to do the kind of mathematics that most people do in ordinary life.” This statement shows that current educators still use the Progressive mantra invoking their view of “practical value” as the excuse for dumbing down our education system. You see the deception there of “most people do in ordinary life” as if educators have an accurate view of the present or particularly the future requirements. This is an attempt to reduce the algebra requirement so that the educators can go back to their easy ways of going through the motions with no quality control on whether they actually taught the kids anything worthwhile.
The algebra requirement is justified and important if you factor in the requirements to qualify for high paying jobs in the future. [see second Freidman quote below] The two examples point to an abject failure of the Progressives who control our education system nearly 100% to recognize that life is changing. In the rising global meritocracy, our kids cannot compete without a much higher level of education.
The Progressives who believe in central control of a credulous populous by “educated on the side” expert elites are happy with the way they have controlled the dumbing down of our education system over the last century. They are delusional because they fail to realize that making the country unable to compete takes them down along with the country. However, they remain tightly focused on their original aim to create a credulous populous which is easily swayed by their expertise. They purposely did not want to provide a robust education that would lead to independent thinkers. The progressive education methods gained full traction by the late 1960s when most children who were graduating had been exposed to the progressive methods for their whole school careers. At that time achievement plummeted in SAT verbal scores for example. Since then our students have achievement levels in literacy, math and science that are uncompetitive with their best global peers as a direct result of the Progressive education takeover.\
Quotes from The World is Flat, Tom Friedman
The sense of entitlement, the sense that because we once dominated global commerce and geopolitics—and Olympic basketball—we always will, the sense that delayed gratification is a punishment worse than a spanking, the sense that our kids have to be swaddled in cotton wool so that nothing bad or disappointing or stressful ever happens to them at school is quite simply, a growing cancer on American society. And if we don’t start to reverse it, our kids are going to be in for a huge and socially disruptive shock from the flat world.
Comments from a high end systems designer, “Were Congress to pass legislation to stop the flow of Indian labor, you would have major software systems that would have nobody who knew what was going on. It is unfortunate that many management positions in IT are filled with non-technical managers who may not be fully aware of their exposure…I am an expert in information systems, not economics, but I know a high-paying job requires one be able to produce something of high value. The economy is producing the jobs both at the high end and low end, but increasingly the high-end jobs are out of reach of many. Low education means low-paying jobs, plain and simple, and this is where more and more Americans are finding themselves. Many Americans can’t believe they aren’t qualified for high-paying jobs. I call this the ‘American Idol problem.’ If you’ve ever seen the reaction of contestants when Simon Cowell tells them they have no talent, they look at him in total disbelief. I’m just hoping someday I’m not given such a rude awakening.”
Coming Segment 2—The Realities
I have no idea how many of you were in high school when John Kennedy was elected president. I do remember how thrilled I was while listening to his 1961 inaugural address. I wasn’t so thrilled later but the inaugural was a special time.
I want to quote from his speech that day.
[T]he same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. . . unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge—and more.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
I would ask you to remember his words as you read the three part call to stand on principle and finally correct the education system that inflicts so much harm on our children, year after year. Also, it is worth pondering on how far away we have moved from the high value placed on our founding principles as related by JFK in only 50 years.
Indictment/Background
“I can’t conceive of a greater social evil.” E.D. Hirsch Jr. The Making of Americans
Below are two references showing our educators’ attitude about content rigor separated by almost a century. When taken together it is easy to see that there has been no movement at all away from the disastrous progressive education doctrine that has so greatly weakened our nation’s education performance and hence competitiveness for about a century. Our economy is a huge flywheel that winds down slowly even when the driving force is taken away or reduced. The current economic malaise indicates that the slowing is starting to be serious and bodes poorly for our future if we don’t take immediate action. The harm being done to our kids and our country is catastrophic. If we don’t wake up and eliminate this “won’t work, can’t work” Progressive education doctrine from our schools, we deserve the reduction in living standards that will result. The two excerpts relate education attitudes now and at the turn of the Twentieth Century. They make the point that the Progressive education doctrine is still at full strength in our education system. While both examples are focusing on math, the Progressive approach is equally harmful in reading and all other subject areas as well.
Excerpt from Is There an Algebra Overkill? By John W. Myres (2010) Education Week
The current fixation with algebra, requiring, for instance, one or two years of it to graduate from high school or prescribing it for 7th and 8th graders without exception, strongly suggests the examination of an algebra requirement.
No doubt, algebra is a steppingstone to higher mathematics and quite necessary in professions that require extensive knowledge of math. Too, it offers insights not only into numbers, but also into general problem-solving separately. It is also reasonable for most students to have some experience with it before they leave school.
The difficulty, however, is assuming that algebra, in itself, will greatly increase everyone's ability to do the kind of mathematics that most people do in ordinary life.
Most people add, subtract, multiply, and divide, using whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percentages. They purchase food and clothing, balance checkbooks, create budgets, verify credit card charges, measure the size of rooms, fulfill recipe requirements, and even understand baseball batting averages or horse-racing odds. These activities don't require a real knowledge of algebra.
Excerpt from A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century by David Klein (2003)
With roots going back to Jean Jacques Rousseau and with the guidance of John Dewey, progressive education has dominated American schools since the early years of the 20th century. That is not to say that progressive education has gone unchallenged.
Challenges increased in intensity starting in the 1950s, waxed and waned, and in the 1990s gained unprecedented strength. A consequence of the domination of progressivism during the first half of the 20th century was a predictable and remarkably steady decrease of academic content in public schools. [emphasis added]
The prescriptions for the future of mathematics education were articulated early in the 20th century by one of the nation's most influential education leaders, William Heard Kilpatrick. According to E. D. Hirsch, Kilpatrick was "the most influential introducer of progressive ideas into American schools of education." Kilpatrick was an education professor at Teachers College at Columbia University, and a protégé of John Dewey. According to Dewey, "In the best sense of the words, progressive education and the work of Dr. Kilpatrick are virtually synonymous." Kilpatrick majored in mathematics at Mercer College in Macon, Georgia. His mathematical education included some graduate work at Johns Hopkins University, but his interests changed and he eventually attended Teachers College and joined the faculty in 1911. In his 27 years at Teachers College, he taught some 35,000 students and was described by the New York Post as "the million dollar professor" because the fees paid by his students to the college exceeded this amount. In some instances there were more than 650 students in a single one of his auditorium sized classes. His book, Foundations of Method, written in 1925 became a standard text for teacher education courses across the country.
Reflecting mainstream views of progressive education, Kilpatrick rejected the notion that the study of mathematics contributed to mental discipline. His view was that subjects should be taught to students based on their direct practical value, or if students independently wanted to learn those subjects. This point of view toward education comported well with theL pedagogical methods endorsed by progressive education. Limiting education primarily to utilitarian skills sharply limited academic content, and this helped to justify the slow pace of student centered, discovery learning, the centerpiece of progressivism. [emphasis added] Kilpatrick proposed that the study of algebra and geometry in high school be discontinued “except as an intellectual luxury.” According to Kilpatrick, mathematics is “harmful rather than helpful to the kind of thinking necessary for ordinary living.” In an address before the student body at the University of Florida, Kilpatrick lectured, "We have in the past taught algebra and geometry to too many, not too few."
In 1915 Kilpatrick was asked by the National Education Association's Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education to chair a committee to study the problem of teaching mathematics in the high schools. The committee included no mathematicians and was composed entirely of educators. [emphasis added] Kilpatrick directly challenged the use of mathematics to promote mental discipline. He wrote, "No longer should the force of tradition shield any subject from scrutiny...In probably no study did this older doctrine of mental discipline find larger scope than in mathematics, in arithmetic to an appreciable extent, more in algebra, and most of all in geometry." Kilpatrick maintained in his report, The Problem of Mathematics in Secondary Education, that nothing in mathematics should be taught unless its probable value could be shown, and recommended the traditional high school mathematics curriculum for only a select few.
It was not surprising that mathematicians would object to Kilpatrick's report as an attack against the field of mathematics itself. David Eugene Smith, a mathematics professor at Teachers College and renowned historian of mathematics, tried to stop the publication of Kilpatrick's report as a part of the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, the full report of the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, and one of the most influential documents for education in the 20th century. Smith charged that there had been no meeting of the math committee and that Kilpatrick was the sole author of the report. Moreover, Kilpatrick's committee was not representative of teachers of mathematics or of mathematicians. Nevertheless, Kilpatrick's report was eventually published in 1920 by the U.S. Commissioner of Education, Philander P. Claxton, a friend of Kilpatrick.
Hopefully you see the point but I want to make it anyway to make sure you do. Did you catch the Progressive’s core value, “subjects should be taught to students based on their direct practical value,” or “we have taught too many algebra and geometry, not too few” stated in Klein’s article and reiterated by Myres as, “The difficulty, however, is assuming that algebra, in itself, will greatly increase everyone's ability to do the kind of mathematics that most people do in ordinary life.” This statement shows that current educators still use the Progressive mantra invoking their view of “practical value” as the excuse for dumbing down our education system. You see the deception there of “most people do in ordinary life” as if educators have an accurate view of the present or particularly the future requirements. This is an attempt to reduce the algebra requirement so that the educators can go back to their easy ways of going through the motions with no quality control on whether they actually taught the kids anything worthwhile.
The algebra requirement is justified and important if you factor in the requirements to qualify for high paying jobs in the future. [see second Freidman quote below] The two examples point to an abject failure of the Progressives who control our education system nearly 100% to recognize that life is changing. In the rising global meritocracy, our kids cannot compete without a much higher level of education.
The Progressives who believe in central control of a credulous populous by “educated on the side” expert elites are happy with the way they have controlled the dumbing down of our education system over the last century. They are delusional because they fail to realize that making the country unable to compete takes them down along with the country. However, they remain tightly focused on their original aim to create a credulous populous which is easily swayed by their expertise. They purposely did not want to provide a robust education that would lead to independent thinkers. The progressive education methods gained full traction by the late 1960s when most children who were graduating had been exposed to the progressive methods for their whole school careers. At that time achievement plummeted in SAT verbal scores for example. Since then our students have achievement levels in literacy, math and science that are uncompetitive with their best global peers as a direct result of the Progressive education takeover.\
Quotes from The World is Flat, Tom Friedman
The sense of entitlement, the sense that because we once dominated global commerce and geopolitics—and Olympic basketball—we always will, the sense that delayed gratification is a punishment worse than a spanking, the sense that our kids have to be swaddled in cotton wool so that nothing bad or disappointing or stressful ever happens to them at school is quite simply, a growing cancer on American society. And if we don’t start to reverse it, our kids are going to be in for a huge and socially disruptive shock from the flat world.
Comments from a high end systems designer, “Were Congress to pass legislation to stop the flow of Indian labor, you would have major software systems that would have nobody who knew what was going on. It is unfortunate that many management positions in IT are filled with non-technical managers who may not be fully aware of their exposure…I am an expert in information systems, not economics, but I know a high-paying job requires one be able to produce something of high value. The economy is producing the jobs both at the high end and low end, but increasingly the high-end jobs are out of reach of many. Low education means low-paying jobs, plain and simple, and this is where more and more Americans are finding themselves. Many Americans can’t believe they aren’t qualified for high-paying jobs. I call this the ‘American Idol problem.’ If you’ve ever seen the reaction of contestants when Simon Cowell tells them they have no talent, they look at him in total disbelief. I’m just hoping someday I’m not given such a rude awakening.”
Coming Segment 2—The Realities
Monday, October 18, 2010
Why
Why do we as a nation care so strongly about being competitive even dominant in the Olympics, but seem totally unconcerned about out education performance against the global competition? The National Academies Press just released an update to their report The Gathering Storm which 5 years ago pointed to the need for much better math and science education because innovation and technical prowess have been the key to our economic success and job creation. One of the many factoids to make their point was “The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in quality of math and science education.” Thus, being competitive in the education of our children has real value, much higher than that of being best in overall Olympic success.
Is it sane to ignore the reality that continually comes out showing how poorly we do in preparing our kids for the competition they will face from their global peers? Many of whom are much better prepared for the most important “game” they will play. Why are our priorities so “out of whack?”
Is our national pride in Olympic competitiveness more important than the preservation of our lifestyle and standard of living which is being threatened by our attitude of leaving the education of our kids to the education “experts” who aren’t. We seem to feel that always supporting more money for schools is fulfilling our duty. It is very clear that if educators were really expert the results would be far better than they are. Over the last 5 plus decades the education spending per student has risen at about twice the rate of inflation. Yet, our performance educationally has floundered getting worse in comparison to the competition because they are improving briskly while we improve not at all or at a snail’s pace. Where has all the money gone you might ask? To enrich the educators, it has not helped the kids get a better education at all.
I believe many educators are well meaning, but I also know that they are unable to face the truth of their performance in their politically correct, Group Think world. If you are unable to face the truth, you certainly will not be able to improve your performance no matter how much money a foolish public directs your way. The new movie, Waiting for Superman is bringing attention to the problem of poor performance. It is particularly telling about the impact that our “don’t work” education process has on the gap children. However, the conclusions that it draws are very superficial and do not address the most important problems that require addressing if things are to get better for our kids educationally. To lay the foundation for pointing out what makes up those “make or break” impediments to improvement, a definition of the key constituencies in the education fiefdom must be understood.
• The Education Schools; Faculties, deans, researchers
• The Federal and State Departments of Education
• The District Administrators; Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, Central Office Specialists, Principals and Assistant Principals
• Teachers; Teacher Unions, Teacher Assistants, Library Specialists, Para- Professionals
• School Boards at State and Local District Levels
• Book Publishers
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list but it does cover the biggest leverage areas in education. E.D. Hirsch comments in The Knowledge Deficit that an army of American educators have been taught “technically incorrect” education principles in their ed school training. He points out that what American educators “know” about education is different than what educators in other nations who are teaching their kids more effectively know. Yet the insular, defensive, delusional, and inbred education fiefdom is adept at suppressing this truth. Thus, for decades (beginning in the 1930s) American educators have been trained consistently in the same wrong principles. This continuous “poisoning” of the well of American education knowledge is a huge problem and is far more important to address than other areas given current focus. The key shortfall here is that the education schools teach the “how-to” process to the virtual exclusion of subject knowledge. Research shows that the “how-to” process doesn’t work and cannot work. While some kids will learn no matter how poor the education system because they have the safety net of parents who understand the subjects and can teach them outside of school or they have access to tutoring, private schools or other support mechanisms, many depend on the schools doing what they are supposed to do. They are the ones who are most harmed by the current system.
An extension of the education school impact is that their leadership programs do not produce effective leaders if anything more than preserving the status quo is required. You may be shocked by this assertion but if you deny it is a problem, then why is the performance of our education system so poor? This problem is very well documented. One of the most thorough and complete reports on the education school leadership programs is available in Arthur Levine’s (2005) Educating School Leaders. He concluded after studying every degree granting education school in the land that “they confer masters on those who display anything but mastery and doctorates in name only.” He also stated that they were in a race to the bottom and that the ed doctorate has no value in any public school administration job. So, why are most districts led by doctorate holders. Because the boards of education like the sound of the title and are able to kid themselves that a doctor title guarantees the ability to perform. In fact, it does carry a guarantee; that the person won’t be able to lead the needed productive change required.
Based on the above you might ask why do we still have the education schools providing a huge negative drag on our education performance that harms millions of kids? GOOD QUESTION. But to be honest, the people who have the degrees don’t want to admit they were defrauded and their education is not up to the task. This is especially true since the worthless degrees are used to justify higher pay scales and status for those who have them. The education system is very insular and defensive. They are careful to prevent as many outsiders, without the education school brainwashing in erroneous theories, from gaining entry into the fiefdom. They don’t want capable and truly educated outsiders coming in and performing in a way that casts doubt on their own credentials. And since the education system is run to benefit the adults who work there, the students continue to get dumped on decade after decade.
Thus, the two most important problems to solve are to correct the educators’ knowledge of what really works (expecting them to use the new knowledge immediately) and to upgrade the quality of education leadership. Fixing these problems is doable without throwing a bunch more money at the system. The currently available money will have to be spent differently to be sure but it will be far more productive than the current practices. Cutting back on the funding of the current harmful activities would only help the kids.
Thus, while the conventional wisdom lays the blame for poor performance predominately at the feet of the teachers unions that does not address the real and much bigger foundational problems of educators trained in faulty theories and the curricula that go with them. Plus, the lack of management competence among administrators adds the “stuck in the rut” permanence to the problems. The dual highest priorities are to upgrade the teachers and administrators in what they need to know and didn’t learn in education school. Don’t get me wrong, it is worth working on the union problems but that alone will not fix the problem and thus must take a lower priority than installing the right curricula, teachers who know the subjects adequately enough to teach them well and leaders who know how to lead productive change.
This will take a motivated public to insist that the kids take top priority in our education system, really. I say really because there is unending lip service to serving the kids well now especially when the adults in education want more money for their pay and benefits. Also, the education power groups have enormous political power through funding “in their pocket” politicians. This power can only be overcome by an active and united electorate who realize that the very future of our nation requires that we must solve this problem and that politicians who don’t agree need to be given their walking papers.
Is it sane to ignore the reality that continually comes out showing how poorly we do in preparing our kids for the competition they will face from their global peers? Many of whom are much better prepared for the most important “game” they will play. Why are our priorities so “out of whack?”
Is our national pride in Olympic competitiveness more important than the preservation of our lifestyle and standard of living which is being threatened by our attitude of leaving the education of our kids to the education “experts” who aren’t. We seem to feel that always supporting more money for schools is fulfilling our duty. It is very clear that if educators were really expert the results would be far better than they are. Over the last 5 plus decades the education spending per student has risen at about twice the rate of inflation. Yet, our performance educationally has floundered getting worse in comparison to the competition because they are improving briskly while we improve not at all or at a snail’s pace. Where has all the money gone you might ask? To enrich the educators, it has not helped the kids get a better education at all.
I believe many educators are well meaning, but I also know that they are unable to face the truth of their performance in their politically correct, Group Think world. If you are unable to face the truth, you certainly will not be able to improve your performance no matter how much money a foolish public directs your way. The new movie, Waiting for Superman is bringing attention to the problem of poor performance. It is particularly telling about the impact that our “don’t work” education process has on the gap children. However, the conclusions that it draws are very superficial and do not address the most important problems that require addressing if things are to get better for our kids educationally. To lay the foundation for pointing out what makes up those “make or break” impediments to improvement, a definition of the key constituencies in the education fiefdom must be understood.
• The Education Schools; Faculties, deans, researchers
• The Federal and State Departments of Education
• The District Administrators; Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, Central Office Specialists, Principals and Assistant Principals
• Teachers; Teacher Unions, Teacher Assistants, Library Specialists, Para- Professionals
• School Boards at State and Local District Levels
• Book Publishers
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list but it does cover the biggest leverage areas in education. E.D. Hirsch comments in The Knowledge Deficit that an army of American educators have been taught “technically incorrect” education principles in their ed school training. He points out that what American educators “know” about education is different than what educators in other nations who are teaching their kids more effectively know. Yet the insular, defensive, delusional, and inbred education fiefdom is adept at suppressing this truth. Thus, for decades (beginning in the 1930s) American educators have been trained consistently in the same wrong principles. This continuous “poisoning” of the well of American education knowledge is a huge problem and is far more important to address than other areas given current focus. The key shortfall here is that the education schools teach the “how-to” process to the virtual exclusion of subject knowledge. Research shows that the “how-to” process doesn’t work and cannot work. While some kids will learn no matter how poor the education system because they have the safety net of parents who understand the subjects and can teach them outside of school or they have access to tutoring, private schools or other support mechanisms, many depend on the schools doing what they are supposed to do. They are the ones who are most harmed by the current system.
An extension of the education school impact is that their leadership programs do not produce effective leaders if anything more than preserving the status quo is required. You may be shocked by this assertion but if you deny it is a problem, then why is the performance of our education system so poor? This problem is very well documented. One of the most thorough and complete reports on the education school leadership programs is available in Arthur Levine’s (2005) Educating School Leaders. He concluded after studying every degree granting education school in the land that “they confer masters on those who display anything but mastery and doctorates in name only.” He also stated that they were in a race to the bottom and that the ed doctorate has no value in any public school administration job. So, why are most districts led by doctorate holders. Because the boards of education like the sound of the title and are able to kid themselves that a doctor title guarantees the ability to perform. In fact, it does carry a guarantee; that the person won’t be able to lead the needed productive change required.
Based on the above you might ask why do we still have the education schools providing a huge negative drag on our education performance that harms millions of kids? GOOD QUESTION. But to be honest, the people who have the degrees don’t want to admit they were defrauded and their education is not up to the task. This is especially true since the worthless degrees are used to justify higher pay scales and status for those who have them. The education system is very insular and defensive. They are careful to prevent as many outsiders, without the education school brainwashing in erroneous theories, from gaining entry into the fiefdom. They don’t want capable and truly educated outsiders coming in and performing in a way that casts doubt on their own credentials. And since the education system is run to benefit the adults who work there, the students continue to get dumped on decade after decade.
Thus, the two most important problems to solve are to correct the educators’ knowledge of what really works (expecting them to use the new knowledge immediately) and to upgrade the quality of education leadership. Fixing these problems is doable without throwing a bunch more money at the system. The currently available money will have to be spent differently to be sure but it will be far more productive than the current practices. Cutting back on the funding of the current harmful activities would only help the kids.
Thus, while the conventional wisdom lays the blame for poor performance predominately at the feet of the teachers unions that does not address the real and much bigger foundational problems of educators trained in faulty theories and the curricula that go with them. Plus, the lack of management competence among administrators adds the “stuck in the rut” permanence to the problems. The dual highest priorities are to upgrade the teachers and administrators in what they need to know and didn’t learn in education school. Don’t get me wrong, it is worth working on the union problems but that alone will not fix the problem and thus must take a lower priority than installing the right curricula, teachers who know the subjects adequately enough to teach them well and leaders who know how to lead productive change.
This will take a motivated public to insist that the kids take top priority in our education system, really. I say really because there is unending lip service to serving the kids well now especially when the adults in education want more money for their pay and benefits. Also, the education power groups have enormous political power through funding “in their pocket” politicians. This power can only be overcome by an active and united electorate who realize that the very future of our nation requires that we must solve this problem and that politicians who don’t agree need to be given their walking papers.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Rising Above the Gathering Storm - Revisited
Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It is time to start thinking.
Sir Ernest Rutherford, Nobel Laureate—physics
Key messages from Rising Above the Gathering Storm—Revisited : Approaching Category 5, National Academies Press available at WWW.nap.edu
The original report sponsored by members of congress of both parties painted a bleak picture of our situation competitively. There were two glaring problems where recommendations were made. One was to increase government support for basic scientific research. The second and the biggest single cause of the problem was the poor performance of American K-12 schools. The initial report came out in 2005. The committee that prepared this new report unanimously agreed that our nation’s outlook has worsened.
“Further, . . . our overall public school system, or more accurately 14,000 school systems—has shown little sign of improvement especially in math and science. Finally, many other nations have been markedly progressing, thereby affecting America’s relative ability to compete for new factories, research laboratories, administrative centers—and jobs.” Thus, we are falling behind the competition because they are improving rapidly and we are plodding in a comfortable circle getting nowhere.
Thus, if Americans wish to continue our lifestyle we have to be competitive.
A sampling of factoids listed in the report:
• The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in quality of math and science education.
• In 2009, 51% of United States patents were awarded to non-U.S. companies.
• Of Wal-Mart’s 6000 suppliers, 5000 are in China.
• United States consumers spend considerably more on potato chips than the US Government spends on Energy R&D.
• In 2000 the number of foreign students studying physical science and engineering in United States graduate schools surpassed the number of United States students.
• GE has now located the majority of its R&D personnel outside the United States.
• In the 2009 rankings of the Information technology and Innovation Foundation the U.S. was in sixth place in global innovation-based competitiveness, but ranked fortieth in rate of change over the past decade.
• Sixty-nine percent of United States public school students in 5th through 8th grade are taught mathematics by a teacher without a degree or certificate in mathematics.
• Ninety-three percent of United States public school students in 5th through 8th grade are taught physical science by a teacher without a degree or certificate in physical science.
• The United States ranks 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science or engineering.
• The United States ranks 20th in high school completion rate among industrialized nations and 16th in college completion rate.
• According to the ACT College Readiness report, 78% of high school graduates did not meet the readiness benchmark levels for one or more entry-level college courses in mathematics, science, reading, and English.
The Gathering Storm (2005) concluded that the best measure of competitiveness is Quality Jobs. Jobs to a large degree define the quality of life of individual citizens. The evidence is that good jobs are created as a direct or indirect of advances in science and technology. A variety of studies over the last decades indicate that over 50% of quality jobs are a direct result of technological innovation. Advancement in communication speeds and travel and shipping speeds has meant that we now have to compete with those who are half a world away. Delhi, Beijing, and Denver are next door neighbors now.
“[T]he committee . . . expressed its commitment to help America to be among those nations whom it hopes will enjoy a truly global prosperity. In [that] regard, the committee concluded that the United States appears to be on a course that will lead to a declining, not increasing standard of living for our children and grandchildren.”
Recommendations, I am only listing the first one because without it all the rest will be futile.
• Move the United States K-12 education system in mathematics and science to a leading position by global standards.
Sir Ernest Rutherford, Nobel Laureate—physics
Key messages from Rising Above the Gathering Storm—Revisited : Approaching Category 5, National Academies Press available at WWW.nap.edu
The original report sponsored by members of congress of both parties painted a bleak picture of our situation competitively. There were two glaring problems where recommendations were made. One was to increase government support for basic scientific research. The second and the biggest single cause of the problem was the poor performance of American K-12 schools. The initial report came out in 2005. The committee that prepared this new report unanimously agreed that our nation’s outlook has worsened.
“Further, . . . our overall public school system, or more accurately 14,000 school systems—has shown little sign of improvement especially in math and science. Finally, many other nations have been markedly progressing, thereby affecting America’s relative ability to compete for new factories, research laboratories, administrative centers—and jobs.” Thus, we are falling behind the competition because they are improving rapidly and we are plodding in a comfortable circle getting nowhere.
Thus, if Americans wish to continue our lifestyle we have to be competitive.
A sampling of factoids listed in the report:
• The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in quality of math and science education.
• In 2009, 51% of United States patents were awarded to non-U.S. companies.
• Of Wal-Mart’s 6000 suppliers, 5000 are in China.
• United States consumers spend considerably more on potato chips than the US Government spends on Energy R&D.
• In 2000 the number of foreign students studying physical science and engineering in United States graduate schools surpassed the number of United States students.
• GE has now located the majority of its R&D personnel outside the United States.
• In the 2009 rankings of the Information technology and Innovation Foundation the U.S. was in sixth place in global innovation-based competitiveness, but ranked fortieth in rate of change over the past decade.
• Sixty-nine percent of United States public school students in 5th through 8th grade are taught mathematics by a teacher without a degree or certificate in mathematics.
• Ninety-three percent of United States public school students in 5th through 8th grade are taught physical science by a teacher without a degree or certificate in physical science.
• The United States ranks 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science or engineering.
• The United States ranks 20th in high school completion rate among industrialized nations and 16th in college completion rate.
• According to the ACT College Readiness report, 78% of high school graduates did not meet the readiness benchmark levels for one or more entry-level college courses in mathematics, science, reading, and English.
The Gathering Storm (2005) concluded that the best measure of competitiveness is Quality Jobs. Jobs to a large degree define the quality of life of individual citizens. The evidence is that good jobs are created as a direct or indirect of advances in science and technology. A variety of studies over the last decades indicate that over 50% of quality jobs are a direct result of technological innovation. Advancement in communication speeds and travel and shipping speeds has meant that we now have to compete with those who are half a world away. Delhi, Beijing, and Denver are next door neighbors now.
“[T]he committee . . . expressed its commitment to help America to be among those nations whom it hopes will enjoy a truly global prosperity. In [that] regard, the committee concluded that the United States appears to be on a course that will lead to a declining, not increasing standard of living for our children and grandchildren.”
Recommendations, I am only listing the first one because without it all the rest will be futile.
• Move the United States K-12 education system in mathematics and science to a leading position by global standards.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Congratulations Status Quo-ers
If you look at the 2009 and 2010 Math CSAP (state achievement tests) for one of the larger school districts in Colorado you will see that the status quo has been preserved although with a slight downward bias.
2009 Math CSAP
2010 Math CSAP
This performance is typical of large districts in Colorado. Since the methods used in Colorado are basically the same throughout the nation with a few exceptions it is highly likely that the national picture is essentially the same. In the most important metric, that of tenth grade proficient or better the result is down.
I am very familiar with the district whose charts are shown. There has been much talk of improving math instruction for a decade or more. It has been a war between the “expert” educators and the parents and outside math experts. It comes down to this. The outside experts know that the curricula used especially in elementary schools will not provide the foundational math knowledge required to be successful in middle school and beyond.
The educators have chosen to use an approach that converts the elementary teacher into a “facilitator” for the constructivist/discovery processes that are the predominant approach. While there are several curricula of this type the district has chosen EveryDay Math as the standard approach and is “rolling it out” as fast as they can to all of the schools in the district. This choice is made to try to “cover up” the fact that a large percentage of elementary teachers do not have the requisite math knowledge to teach math in a way that would provide the foundation the students require. If you doubt this and have a strong stomach you can read Liping Ma’s book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States.
The methods the administrators use to protect the status quo are very effective. The first arrow in their quiver is to listen attentively to the outside input, pretending to value it. The next step when it is obvious that the outside input is serious and has staying power is to hire “expert” consultants to evaluate the math curriculum and alignment for the district. This, of course, takes lots of time and money. It also is worthless because the “experts” who do the analysis are education insiders who don’t understand math either. This is because the education schools do not teach subjects with rigor. They concentrate only on process.
A third arrow in the quiver is to set goals that on the surface appear to be stretching in nature and to the benefit of the students. However, in years of observing this process it is obvious that there is no intention to actually do anything to meet the goals. They are only there to mollify the critics until they lose interest.
There is no closed loop process in place in education. There is no quality control in education. No one is tasked to close the loop and point out with vigor that goals aren’t being met. No one is tasked to point out that the kids are not being served nearly well enough. While the board of education could provide this function, they don’t have the moxie or skill. They have been trained by the “expert” educators to be rubber stampers of the administrator proposals, and most of all to “be nice.”
Thus, the children continue to be ill served but the educators are happy because they were able to avoid change which might require them to work harder and learn more. So, congratulations educators on successfully protecting your ability to continue to harm kids.
2009 Math CSAP
2010 Math CSAP
This performance is typical of large districts in Colorado. Since the methods used in Colorado are basically the same throughout the nation with a few exceptions it is highly likely that the national picture is essentially the same. In the most important metric, that of tenth grade proficient or better the result is down.
I am very familiar with the district whose charts are shown. There has been much talk of improving math instruction for a decade or more. It has been a war between the “expert” educators and the parents and outside math experts. It comes down to this. The outside experts know that the curricula used especially in elementary schools will not provide the foundational math knowledge required to be successful in middle school and beyond.
The educators have chosen to use an approach that converts the elementary teacher into a “facilitator” for the constructivist/discovery processes that are the predominant approach. While there are several curricula of this type the district has chosen EveryDay Math as the standard approach and is “rolling it out” as fast as they can to all of the schools in the district. This choice is made to try to “cover up” the fact that a large percentage of elementary teachers do not have the requisite math knowledge to teach math in a way that would provide the foundation the students require. If you doubt this and have a strong stomach you can read Liping Ma’s book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States.
The methods the administrators use to protect the status quo are very effective. The first arrow in their quiver is to listen attentively to the outside input, pretending to value it. The next step when it is obvious that the outside input is serious and has staying power is to hire “expert” consultants to evaluate the math curriculum and alignment for the district. This, of course, takes lots of time and money. It also is worthless because the “experts” who do the analysis are education insiders who don’t understand math either. This is because the education schools do not teach subjects with rigor. They concentrate only on process.
A third arrow in the quiver is to set goals that on the surface appear to be stretching in nature and to the benefit of the students. However, in years of observing this process it is obvious that there is no intention to actually do anything to meet the goals. They are only there to mollify the critics until they lose interest.
There is no closed loop process in place in education. There is no quality control in education. No one is tasked to close the loop and point out with vigor that goals aren’t being met. No one is tasked to point out that the kids are not being served nearly well enough. While the board of education could provide this function, they don’t have the moxie or skill. They have been trained by the “expert” educators to be rubber stampers of the administrator proposals, and most of all to “be nice.”
Thus, the children continue to be ill served but the educators are happy because they were able to avoid change which might require them to work harder and learn more. So, congratulations educators on successfully protecting your ability to continue to harm kids.
Friday, September 3, 2010
How do you get the pigs to move? Move the feed trough.
The analog question is “How do you get the education fiefdom to move?” Move the government money so that they have to move away from their erroneous beliefs to continue getting paid. First, we need to realize that the national and state departments of education are card-carrying fiefdom members. They have been brainwashed to believe incorrect dogma as all the other educators and hence are blind to the real problems and their solutions. Any efforts to improve (reform) our failed education system must acknowledge that fact. Unless the continuing supply of money is threatened, beneficial reforms will simply not be carried out effectively. That is, if the fox is guarding the hen house the chickens are going to continue being eaten.
In the story The Three Little Pigs, the moral is that if you build a shoddy house you have no protection against the wolf. In education if you build your whole endeavor on a false foundation too many kids will not learn what they need to learn to compete in the global meritocracy. Some kids will learn no matter the system because their support system outside of school enables them to overcome the negative effect of the schools. Those who are not as fortunate need competent schools to teach them and they exist now only as exceptions.
The Fallacies
Curricula—the current approach was fostered by John Dewey and other Progressives. It goes by many names; process, content free, discovery, constructivist, and “how-to” chief among them. The problem is that this content-free approach does not allow our children to gain the factual knowledge required to understand what the process approach tells them. One more important aspect of the current approach is that any knowledge learned takes a lot longer than with the more traditional, proven content-rich, direct instruction methods we used to use before the Progressives drove us into a ditch. It is also the method used by our best global competitors whose kids learn so much more than ours.
E.D. Hirsch, in his book The Making of Americans, relates why content knowledge is critical. “To understand a piece of writing (including that on the Internet and in job-retraining manuals), you already have to know something about its subject matter. . . My research had led me to understand that reading and writing require unspoken background knowledge, silently assumed. I realized that if we want students to read and write well, we cannot take a laissez-faire attitude to the content of early schooling. In order to make competent readers and writers who possess the knowledge needed for communication, we would have to specify much of that content. Moreover, because much of the assumed knowledge required for reading and writing tends to be long lasting and intergenerational, much of that content would have to be traditional.”
According to ACT, the biggest college readiness problem in reading is, precisely, inability to comprehend “complex texts.” The point is that reading comprehension doesn’t improve simply by practicing the “skill” again and again. Readers need to build domain knowledge in order to handle texts at the higher levels. The current “how-to” skills approach that is used in the vast majority of our schools does not provide the knowledge level required for anything approaching complexity.
The situation for math is much the same. Instead of building the required foundational knowledge the emphasis is on discovery methods and calculators. This does not prepare children for algebra and higher math studies they are exposed to in middle and high school work. By the time that realization comes, too many students are so far behind that they give up on math and turn off.
Teacher Subject Knowledge—A huge problem in elementary school is that the teachers generally do not have nearly enough subject knowledge to teach the content required during what should be foundation building for future success in middle school, high school and post secondary education endeavors. Liping Ma’s study of elementary math teachers in America and China (Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics) showed a huge gulf in the math knowledge of the two groups. The comparison was not favorable for American teachers who all had much more college level education than their Chinese counterparts. It is the quality of the post secondary training that counts not the quantity. Our education schools emphasize quantity. The Chinese emphasize quality.
Elementary teachers are brainwashed in the how-to skills approach for reading as well. They have not really studied in their education school training the structure of our language, its rules and usage with any rigor. Thus, they do not provide their students with basic knowledge which would be foundational to ever increasing reading (and writing) ability.
The Education Schools—for the most part these are “all the little puffer bellies all in a row” in their approach. And sadly it is the wrong approach of content-free methods at the expense of rigorous subject knowledge. There are a few exceptions (U of Virginia, Hillsdale College, etc) that are requiring subject knowledge rigor but the vast majority of new teachers whose certification is mostly based on their ed school training are not prepared to do the job that needs to be done. As long as the ed school degree is tantamount to certification there is no incentive for these “diploma mills” squeezing government money from the system and tuition from the students to clean up their acts.
To conclude, if we really care about improving the schools our kids attend, we need to get busy forcing the required changes on the educators. I say force because the educators have proven over the last many decades that they are incapable of leading the required change themselves. They aren’t expert in education even though they believe they are. Their results are the incontrovertible truth. The education leadership is “go along, get along” at best based on their worthless education school leadership degrees especially the doctorates which Arthur Levine in his Educating School Leaders said were of no value (worthless) in any public school administration job. Thus, they don’t know what to do, don’t want to change because they know they are overpaid and underworked now, and they don’t have the insider leadership moxie to change even if they wanted to. That is why they will have to be forced to change. That means that we will have to move the “pig” trough to a place that is better for our kids. The pigs will have to move to the new trough or starve. They will move. Not quietly but they will move. Each of the points above; content rich curricula, teachers who know the subjects to be certified, education schools who require subject knowledge rigor or risk being decertified, and education leaders who are paid for results not their position are all required.
We need to stop going off on tangents with other “improvement” initiatives until these problems are addressed. This is where the leverage is. Until the foundation is repaired all of the other cosmetic changes that cost so much money and time are a waste of valuable resources and our kids futures.
In the story The Three Little Pigs, the moral is that if you build a shoddy house you have no protection against the wolf. In education if you build your whole endeavor on a false foundation too many kids will not learn what they need to learn to compete in the global meritocracy. Some kids will learn no matter the system because their support system outside of school enables them to overcome the negative effect of the schools. Those who are not as fortunate need competent schools to teach them and they exist now only as exceptions.
The Fallacies
Curricula—the current approach was fostered by John Dewey and other Progressives. It goes by many names; process, content free, discovery, constructivist, and “how-to” chief among them. The problem is that this content-free approach does not allow our children to gain the factual knowledge required to understand what the process approach tells them. One more important aspect of the current approach is that any knowledge learned takes a lot longer than with the more traditional, proven content-rich, direct instruction methods we used to use before the Progressives drove us into a ditch. It is also the method used by our best global competitors whose kids learn so much more than ours.
E.D. Hirsch, in his book The Making of Americans, relates why content knowledge is critical. “To understand a piece of writing (including that on the Internet and in job-retraining manuals), you already have to know something about its subject matter. . . My research had led me to understand that reading and writing require unspoken background knowledge, silently assumed. I realized that if we want students to read and write well, we cannot take a laissez-faire attitude to the content of early schooling. In order to make competent readers and writers who possess the knowledge needed for communication, we would have to specify much of that content. Moreover, because much of the assumed knowledge required for reading and writing tends to be long lasting and intergenerational, much of that content would have to be traditional.”
According to ACT, the biggest college readiness problem in reading is, precisely, inability to comprehend “complex texts.” The point is that reading comprehension doesn’t improve simply by practicing the “skill” again and again. Readers need to build domain knowledge in order to handle texts at the higher levels. The current “how-to” skills approach that is used in the vast majority of our schools does not provide the knowledge level required for anything approaching complexity.
The situation for math is much the same. Instead of building the required foundational knowledge the emphasis is on discovery methods and calculators. This does not prepare children for algebra and higher math studies they are exposed to in middle and high school work. By the time that realization comes, too many students are so far behind that they give up on math and turn off.
Teacher Subject Knowledge—A huge problem in elementary school is that the teachers generally do not have nearly enough subject knowledge to teach the content required during what should be foundation building for future success in middle school, high school and post secondary education endeavors. Liping Ma’s study of elementary math teachers in America and China (Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics) showed a huge gulf in the math knowledge of the two groups. The comparison was not favorable for American teachers who all had much more college level education than their Chinese counterparts. It is the quality of the post secondary training that counts not the quantity. Our education schools emphasize quantity. The Chinese emphasize quality.
Elementary teachers are brainwashed in the how-to skills approach for reading as well. They have not really studied in their education school training the structure of our language, its rules and usage with any rigor. Thus, they do not provide their students with basic knowledge which would be foundational to ever increasing reading (and writing) ability.
The Education Schools—for the most part these are “all the little puffer bellies all in a row” in their approach. And sadly it is the wrong approach of content-free methods at the expense of rigorous subject knowledge. There are a few exceptions (U of Virginia, Hillsdale College, etc) that are requiring subject knowledge rigor but the vast majority of new teachers whose certification is mostly based on their ed school training are not prepared to do the job that needs to be done. As long as the ed school degree is tantamount to certification there is no incentive for these “diploma mills” squeezing government money from the system and tuition from the students to clean up their acts.
To conclude, if we really care about improving the schools our kids attend, we need to get busy forcing the required changes on the educators. I say force because the educators have proven over the last many decades that they are incapable of leading the required change themselves. They aren’t expert in education even though they believe they are. Their results are the incontrovertible truth. The education leadership is “go along, get along” at best based on their worthless education school leadership degrees especially the doctorates which Arthur Levine in his Educating School Leaders said were of no value (worthless) in any public school administration job. Thus, they don’t know what to do, don’t want to change because they know they are overpaid and underworked now, and they don’t have the insider leadership moxie to change even if they wanted to. That is why they will have to be forced to change. That means that we will have to move the “pig” trough to a place that is better for our kids. The pigs will have to move to the new trough or starve. They will move. Not quietly but they will move. Each of the points above; content rich curricula, teachers who know the subjects to be certified, education schools who require subject knowledge rigor or risk being decertified, and education leaders who are paid for results not their position are all required.
We need to stop going off on tangents with other “improvement” initiatives until these problems are addressed. This is where the leverage is. Until the foundation is repaired all of the other cosmetic changes that cost so much money and time are a waste of valuable resources and our kids futures.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Race to Nowhere
On August 24 the national department of education announced the winning states for their “Race to the Top” awards. The purpose of the process was to hold out money carrots as incentive for states to enact changes in their laws and ways of managing their education process in the hope of accessing a several billion dollar pot of money to be divided among “winning states.” After the first round of the competition, Colorado became a finalist and had been considered very likely to be a winner in yesterday’s awards. The following quotes from the Wall Street Journal’s coverage tell the story.
"Colorado, which finished 17th among 19 finalists, had been widely viewed as the top contender in the competition, and Mr. Duncan said Tuesday that he wished he could have funded the state. Dwight Jones, Colorado Commissioner of Education, said he was "shell-shocked" that his state didn't win and he pointed to the lack of teacher union support as one reason."
"There is a real disconnect for me because we did exactly what the administration urged us to do—adopt significant reforms," Mr. Jones said. "So we adopt the ambitious reforms and create the conditions to make dramatic changes, but we don't win because not everyone signed on. That worries me."
"Deborah Fallin, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Education Association, said the union supported Colorado's application in an earlier Race to the Top round, but the state didn't win then, either. The union withdrew support in the second round after lawmakers passed a teacher evaluation law that make it easier to get rid of low-performing teachers. "They want to blame us no matter what," she said."
This whole process is indicative of how money is the cocaine in education circles. More money for education is the primary goal of everyone in education from the public schools to the education schools to the consultants and book publishers, and to the politicians whose campaigns are financed by education power groups. The above quotes from Mr. Jones and Ms Fallin are great examples of the ubiquitous attitude among educators. “It is their fault, it couldn’t be mine.” Thus, Jones blames the unions and the unions blame “they” which is inclusive to those who made it easier to fire bad teachers.
Yet, no one talked about doing a better job of educating our kids. Oh, they would argue that getting rid of a few bad teachers would improve things. That is true as far as it goes. And it doesn’t go far compared to the “whopper” problems that the educators cleverly ignore or hide hoping the public doesn’t figure out what they are doing.
Some obvious questions come to mind
• How could Colorado consider entering a “Race to the Top” competition when Colorado standards as represented by the CSAP achievement tests are among the lowest in the nation? Did they really think they should be rewarded for such poor performance? Perhaps in the “Alice in Wonderland” world of public education that was a reasonable expectation since there are no real penalties for poor performance.
• When it comes to improving things for our kids, throwing out the content-free curricula and replacing them with content-rich curricula tied to much more rigorous standards and achievement tests would have immensely bigger positive impact than firing some bad teachers. Am I saying that the bad teachers should be ignored? Of course not, but I am saying that the priorities of actions do not in any way match the power of the potential improvements to be gained. Fixing the curricula is the only thing that will substantially impact the achievement gap favorably.
This list could go on and on but hopefully you get the point. The current education management process in America and especially in Colorado is built on a faulty foundation. Spending huge amounts of money on remodels that don’t address the foundational issues is a recipe for continued high costs and abysmal performance. It is not good stewardship of our vital resources.
We must expect our politicians and educators to stop the obfuscation of the truth and face facts. The current pet projects that only enrich educators without benefiting the students must be trashed and replaced by real and effective changes. Yes, some pain for the adults in education will be required. But the pain for children would be reduced greatly and that is as it should be. It is time to leave the dream world that is American education today and transition to the real world where continuous improvement and competitive performance are not only nice but required.
"Colorado, which finished 17th among 19 finalists, had been widely viewed as the top contender in the competition, and Mr. Duncan said Tuesday that he wished he could have funded the state. Dwight Jones, Colorado Commissioner of Education, said he was "shell-shocked" that his state didn't win and he pointed to the lack of teacher union support as one reason."
"There is a real disconnect for me because we did exactly what the administration urged us to do—adopt significant reforms," Mr. Jones said. "So we adopt the ambitious reforms and create the conditions to make dramatic changes, but we don't win because not everyone signed on. That worries me."
"Deborah Fallin, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Education Association, said the union supported Colorado's application in an earlier Race to the Top round, but the state didn't win then, either. The union withdrew support in the second round after lawmakers passed a teacher evaluation law that make it easier to get rid of low-performing teachers. "They want to blame us no matter what," she said."
This whole process is indicative of how money is the cocaine in education circles. More money for education is the primary goal of everyone in education from the public schools to the education schools to the consultants and book publishers, and to the politicians whose campaigns are financed by education power groups. The above quotes from Mr. Jones and Ms Fallin are great examples of the ubiquitous attitude among educators. “It is their fault, it couldn’t be mine.” Thus, Jones blames the unions and the unions blame “they” which is inclusive to those who made it easier to fire bad teachers.
Yet, no one talked about doing a better job of educating our kids. Oh, they would argue that getting rid of a few bad teachers would improve things. That is true as far as it goes. And it doesn’t go far compared to the “whopper” problems that the educators cleverly ignore or hide hoping the public doesn’t figure out what they are doing.
Some obvious questions come to mind
• How could Colorado consider entering a “Race to the Top” competition when Colorado standards as represented by the CSAP achievement tests are among the lowest in the nation? Did they really think they should be rewarded for such poor performance? Perhaps in the “Alice in Wonderland” world of public education that was a reasonable expectation since there are no real penalties for poor performance.
• When it comes to improving things for our kids, throwing out the content-free curricula and replacing them with content-rich curricula tied to much more rigorous standards and achievement tests would have immensely bigger positive impact than firing some bad teachers. Am I saying that the bad teachers should be ignored? Of course not, but I am saying that the priorities of actions do not in any way match the power of the potential improvements to be gained. Fixing the curricula is the only thing that will substantially impact the achievement gap favorably.
This list could go on and on but hopefully you get the point. The current education management process in America and especially in Colorado is built on a faulty foundation. Spending huge amounts of money on remodels that don’t address the foundational issues is a recipe for continued high costs and abysmal performance. It is not good stewardship of our vital resources.
We must expect our politicians and educators to stop the obfuscation of the truth and face facts. The current pet projects that only enrich educators without benefiting the students must be trashed and replaced by real and effective changes. Yes, some pain for the adults in education will be required. But the pain for children would be reduced greatly and that is as it should be. It is time to leave the dream world that is American education today and transition to the real world where continuous improvement and competitive performance are not only nice but required.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Local Control—Blessing or Curse
The A Nation at Risk report of over 25 years ago bemoaned the rising tide of mediocrity and observed that if a foreign power had imposed our education system on us we would consider it an act of war. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Where are the legions fighting for better service to our kids? Taking a nap, watching a sporting event, playing a stupid game on Facebook, watching some mindless reality TV program, taking a nice trip, whatever. The pro-kids legions are missing in action, taking the low and easy road of believing the false assertions that the education system is doing as well as can be expected. It is like the Alamo where kids’ futures are massacred. But in this case no one remembers this “Alamo” because it might cause them to have to get up off of their behinds and actually demand better for the kids.
Let’s look at the issue of government control of our schools. Education has controlling entities locally, at the state level and at the federal level. But local control is a large and popular piece of the total education pie. Should it be?
Local control has been waning for decades as the federal and state influences have increased. Now there is an effort to institute national standards which is causing lots of controversy and angst because the fans of local control see it as a battle that if lost will de facto do away with local control. It is the typical carrot and stick approach. States are told if they implement the new national model they will get more federal dollars, if not they will get less dollars.
It seems logical (not an oft used skill in political debate) that it would make sense to assess whether local control has proven a positive or negative force for our education performance. That is, has local control been an aid to doing the right things in education or a roadblock preventing education performance improvements? First, let’s look at some facts so that we can determine if local control is providing support for making the situation better. Or is the love of local control simply analogous to an infant throwing a tantrum if his environment doesn’t conform to his wishes. The infant doesn’t really know what is best for his development only what “feels good” now, the lack of parental control.
Facts—See references below
1. Our education performance is unacceptable, even in our best performing districts.
2. The education process that has been employed for the last six or more decades is based on technically wrong ideas about education.
3. While real spending (after adjusting for inflation) has increased dramatically, performance against our global competition has declined.
4. The achievement gap is here to stay unless major underlying changes in education philosophy to embrace ideas that are technically correct can be implemented.
5. Educators have been successfully brainwashed in false doctrines during their education school training preventing the truth being faced and corrective action from being taken.
Considering the facts above, what changes are required to move to an acceptable educational performance?
The biggest problem is to remove the current anti-curriculum approach and replace it with a content rich and coherent curriculum. Notice I am not saying replace the flawed local curricula with flawed national curricula. This is especially important in grades K-6. See Why the Absence of a Content-Rich Curriculum Core Hurts Poor Children Most. (reference follows) It makes the point with data that poor children also face a higher move incidence than those from higher income families. One conclusion is that children who change schools frequently are more likely to be low achievers. This reinforces the need for a nationally consistent content-rich core curriculum so that these children don’t have to start over from way behind in every new school they attend. A chart in the reference shows that based on General Accounting Office data the percentage of third grade low-income children who have attended three or more different schools since the beginning of first grade at 30%! Can a patchwork quilt of local control anti-curriculum approaches that vary from district to district make sense in such an environment? No! Well that isn’t exactly true but the conditions for sensible local control have been long ago abandoned. First, the consolidation of small districts into “more efficient” larger districts has made the local school boards servants of the political powers in their community not the parents and taxpayers in the heterogeneous districts as a whole. These political powers are centered on the education power groups who contribute heavily to school board candidate election campaigns making boards malleable to their agendas.
The contrast to the American Common School experience of the nineteenth century is stark. In that time, there were many smaller districts and an attitude that serving the kids well was the requirement. There wasn’t so much money sloshing around in the system to cause self-serving behavior. Thus, the boards of these smaller districts ended up with a de facto content rich curriculum because they knew it was the right thing to do. Today we have pseudo education experts who tell everyone on the local levels what they need to do. And that conforms to the “how to” approach with virtually no content which does not prepare our kids to compete well in the global economy. The current system is run to benefit the adults in education not the kids who attend school.
The anti-curriculum, content-poor approach hurts poor kids most because they need the structure of a knowledge based approach that builds sensibly from year to year through at least grade 6. The current discovery, child-centered approach is particularly harmful to children who do not get exposed naturally in their outside school environment to the background knowledge required to understand what they read or compute.
E.D. Hirsch in his book The Knowledge Deficit, comments on localism and its impact on education. "Along with the terrible trinity of naturalism, formalism, and determinism, localism deserves a dishonored place in American education. Among the wider public it may be the most powerful educational idea of all. On the surface it just implies that our state or our town will decide what should be taught in our schools. It says nothing about what those things should be, so localism is another content-free idea, and as a practical matter it powerfully reinforces an approach that is short on content. It brings liberals and conservatives together to collaborate in support of anti-content, process oriented ideas about education.
This suspicion fed collaboration between liberals and conservatives helps explain why the process point of view has persisted despite its inability to raise achievement or attain fairness. Educationist, process ideas thrive on the liberal-conservative standoff, and our schools and school boards operate under a gentleman's agreement that unites these groups behind the process-oriented creed."
The current patchwork local control facilitated approach works against a critical mass of educators realizing that the ed school catechism they are taught is fallacious and needs to be discarded. Until the “light bulb” turns on, our kids will continue to lag behind their best global competition in the knowledge required to compete. The light bulb will not be turned on by educators. They have proven incapable of facing the truth which the environment they work in so effectively suppresses. We have to turn on the light or better, multiple spotlights and point to the obvious fallacies of the education fiefdom.
To conclude, all three of the controlling entities in the education mess are complicit in its abysmal performance. It matters little what the control function is as long as it supports the status quo of dysfunctional theories that harm kids, especially the gap kids. Only when the control function is set up to perform by serving the kids’ and country’s needs will education be “reformed.” Otherwise “reform” is a null word in the education context. Billions of dollars and decades in the service of pseudo reform have not done anything positive for the kids, but have greatly enriched the adults working in education.
Let’s look at the issue of government control of our schools. Education has controlling entities locally, at the state level and at the federal level. But local control is a large and popular piece of the total education pie. Should it be?
Local control has been waning for decades as the federal and state influences have increased. Now there is an effort to institute national standards which is causing lots of controversy and angst because the fans of local control see it as a battle that if lost will de facto do away with local control. It is the typical carrot and stick approach. States are told if they implement the new national model they will get more federal dollars, if not they will get less dollars.
It seems logical (not an oft used skill in political debate) that it would make sense to assess whether local control has proven a positive or negative force for our education performance. That is, has local control been an aid to doing the right things in education or a roadblock preventing education performance improvements? First, let’s look at some facts so that we can determine if local control is providing support for making the situation better. Or is the love of local control simply analogous to an infant throwing a tantrum if his environment doesn’t conform to his wishes. The infant doesn’t really know what is best for his development only what “feels good” now, the lack of parental control.
Facts—See references below
1. Our education performance is unacceptable, even in our best performing districts.
2. The education process that has been employed for the last six or more decades is based on technically wrong ideas about education.
3. While real spending (after adjusting for inflation) has increased dramatically, performance against our global competition has declined.
4. The achievement gap is here to stay unless major underlying changes in education philosophy to embrace ideas that are technically correct can be implemented.
5. Educators have been successfully brainwashed in false doctrines during their education school training preventing the truth being faced and corrective action from being taken.
Considering the facts above, what changes are required to move to an acceptable educational performance?
The biggest problem is to remove the current anti-curriculum approach and replace it with a content rich and coherent curriculum. Notice I am not saying replace the flawed local curricula with flawed national curricula. This is especially important in grades K-6. See Why the Absence of a Content-Rich Curriculum Core Hurts Poor Children Most. (reference follows) It makes the point with data that poor children also face a higher move incidence than those from higher income families. One conclusion is that children who change schools frequently are more likely to be low achievers. This reinforces the need for a nationally consistent content-rich core curriculum so that these children don’t have to start over from way behind in every new school they attend. A chart in the reference shows that based on General Accounting Office data the percentage of third grade low-income children who have attended three or more different schools since the beginning of first grade at 30%! Can a patchwork quilt of local control anti-curriculum approaches that vary from district to district make sense in such an environment? No! Well that isn’t exactly true but the conditions for sensible local control have been long ago abandoned. First, the consolidation of small districts into “more efficient” larger districts has made the local school boards servants of the political powers in their community not the parents and taxpayers in the heterogeneous districts as a whole. These political powers are centered on the education power groups who contribute heavily to school board candidate election campaigns making boards malleable to their agendas.
The contrast to the American Common School experience of the nineteenth century is stark. In that time, there were many smaller districts and an attitude that serving the kids well was the requirement. There wasn’t so much money sloshing around in the system to cause self-serving behavior. Thus, the boards of these smaller districts ended up with a de facto content rich curriculum because they knew it was the right thing to do. Today we have pseudo education experts who tell everyone on the local levels what they need to do. And that conforms to the “how to” approach with virtually no content which does not prepare our kids to compete well in the global economy. The current system is run to benefit the adults in education not the kids who attend school.
The anti-curriculum, content-poor approach hurts poor kids most because they need the structure of a knowledge based approach that builds sensibly from year to year through at least grade 6. The current discovery, child-centered approach is particularly harmful to children who do not get exposed naturally in their outside school environment to the background knowledge required to understand what they read or compute.
E.D. Hirsch in his book The Knowledge Deficit, comments on localism and its impact on education. "Along with the terrible trinity of naturalism, formalism, and determinism, localism deserves a dishonored place in American education. Among the wider public it may be the most powerful educational idea of all. On the surface it just implies that our state or our town will decide what should be taught in our schools. It says nothing about what those things should be, so localism is another content-free idea, and as a practical matter it powerfully reinforces an approach that is short on content. It brings liberals and conservatives together to collaborate in support of anti-content, process oriented ideas about education.
This suspicion fed collaboration between liberals and conservatives helps explain why the process point of view has persisted despite its inability to raise achievement or attain fairness. Educationist, process ideas thrive on the liberal-conservative standoff, and our schools and school boards operate under a gentleman's agreement that unites these groups behind the process-oriented creed."
The current patchwork local control facilitated approach works against a critical mass of educators realizing that the ed school catechism they are taught is fallacious and needs to be discarded. Until the “light bulb” turns on, our kids will continue to lag behind their best global competition in the knowledge required to compete. The light bulb will not be turned on by educators. They have proven incapable of facing the truth which the environment they work in so effectively suppresses. We have to turn on the light or better, multiple spotlights and point to the obvious fallacies of the education fiefdom.
To conclude, all three of the controlling entities in the education mess are complicit in its abysmal performance. It matters little what the control function is as long as it supports the status quo of dysfunctional theories that harm kids, especially the gap kids. Only when the control function is set up to perform by serving the kids’ and country’s needs will education be “reformed.” Otherwise “reform” is a null word in the education context. Billions of dollars and decades in the service of pseudo reform have not done anything positive for the kids, but have greatly enriched the adults working in education.
Monday, August 16, 2010
The True Sad Story
The special school board meeting was set for 7:30AM to discuss the performance of the Superintendent of Schools. She had asked for the public forum believing erroneously that it would dampen the criticism and let her skate past the rising tide of board sentiment seemingly bent on removing her. She had had problems of both style and substance during her relatively short time on the job. In one of her original talks to the staff via closed-circuit TV she had said she was a 4-eyed, titty banger, which was not considered of an adequate professional standard. Also, the performance of the district had shown no real improvement in the areas she had signed up to “fix.”
As the discussions progressed that morning I was sitting next to the local paper’s education reporter. Not many people in attendance other than district administrators, the board and a very few of the public. During the board’s discussion, one board member told that he had visited one of the five larger high schools in the district the previous week. He had been told that 150 9th grade students were reading between the 1st and 6th grade level. This out of a total freshman class of about 450 students.
What was the response to this bombshell? Nada, Zip, Zero. Rather than discussing the issue which pointed to a very poor performance of the district and a very poor future for the students, the board president deftly moved the discussion on to another point. There was no response from the superintendent, the deputy or assistant superintendents (Doctors of Education, all). Did the newspaper reporter include the revelation in her report? She did not.
The fact that there was no response is strong evidence that “professional educators” believe the deterministic view that “those kids” (the gap children who are primarily poor and minority) cannot learn to high standards. This is not true, but because it provides a ready excuse for not really trying to improve the lot of the gap kids it is continuing to have negative effects. And the kids that the board member was talking about were gap kids. The 150 kids mentioned had to be a representative sample of many other kids in other high schools in the same predicament.
While there was no response at the meeting, there was a prompt response afterward. The next day the assistant superintendent of instruction emailed a copy of The Blueberry Story to all of the thousands of staff in the district. This was written as an apologist piece at the behest of the NEA. Its basic message is that, yes improvement is needed but we poor educators can’t do anything until society starts sending us high quality students ready to learn.
An even stronger response followed shortly. The person, who had displayed such poor judgment by telling the board member the truth, was fired. That is, in education your contract for the coming school year is not renewed. This sent a chilling message to the staff. Poor performance is OK, but telling the truth is a hanging offence. Thus, the status quo was strongly reinforced and those kids and the others following in their footsteps have continued to be harmed because educators couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs correctly.
This is a perfect example of the problem E.D. Hirsch so aptly describes in The Knowledge Deficit.
"The reason for this state of affairs – tragic for millions of students as well as for the nation – is that an army of American educators and reading experts are fundamentally wrong in their ideas about education and especially about reading comprehension. Their well-intentioned yet mistaken views are the significant reason (more than other constantly blamed factors, even poverty) that many of our children are not attaining reading proficiency, thus crippling their later schooling."
While it is true that most educators will tell you they have good intentions, their brainwashing and the iron bound rules regarding conduct in their work places, effectively prevent the truth seeing the light of day. When political correctness rules the communication you can’t discuss the reality of the organization’s performance and brainstorm actions which would solve the problems identified. Because of that the ongoing harm to kids goes unaddressed. We must stop giving educators the benefit of the doubt because of “good intentions” that aren’t good at all.
The educators have shown no ability to correct their problems. We must demand it and provide enough incentive to force the change. Otherwise the kids will continue to be harmed.
As the discussions progressed that morning I was sitting next to the local paper’s education reporter. Not many people in attendance other than district administrators, the board and a very few of the public. During the board’s discussion, one board member told that he had visited one of the five larger high schools in the district the previous week. He had been told that 150 9th grade students were reading between the 1st and 6th grade level. This out of a total freshman class of about 450 students.
What was the response to this bombshell? Nada, Zip, Zero. Rather than discussing the issue which pointed to a very poor performance of the district and a very poor future for the students, the board president deftly moved the discussion on to another point. There was no response from the superintendent, the deputy or assistant superintendents (Doctors of Education, all). Did the newspaper reporter include the revelation in her report? She did not.
The fact that there was no response is strong evidence that “professional educators” believe the deterministic view that “those kids” (the gap children who are primarily poor and minority) cannot learn to high standards. This is not true, but because it provides a ready excuse for not really trying to improve the lot of the gap kids it is continuing to have negative effects. And the kids that the board member was talking about were gap kids. The 150 kids mentioned had to be a representative sample of many other kids in other high schools in the same predicament.
While there was no response at the meeting, there was a prompt response afterward. The next day the assistant superintendent of instruction emailed a copy of The Blueberry Story to all of the thousands of staff in the district. This was written as an apologist piece at the behest of the NEA. Its basic message is that, yes improvement is needed but we poor educators can’t do anything until society starts sending us high quality students ready to learn.
An even stronger response followed shortly. The person, who had displayed such poor judgment by telling the board member the truth, was fired. That is, in education your contract for the coming school year is not renewed. This sent a chilling message to the staff. Poor performance is OK, but telling the truth is a hanging offence. Thus, the status quo was strongly reinforced and those kids and the others following in their footsteps have continued to be harmed because educators couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs correctly.
This is a perfect example of the problem E.D. Hirsch so aptly describes in The Knowledge Deficit.
"The reason for this state of affairs – tragic for millions of students as well as for the nation – is that an army of American educators and reading experts are fundamentally wrong in their ideas about education and especially about reading comprehension. Their well-intentioned yet mistaken views are the significant reason (more than other constantly blamed factors, even poverty) that many of our children are not attaining reading proficiency, thus crippling their later schooling."
While it is true that most educators will tell you they have good intentions, their brainwashing and the iron bound rules regarding conduct in their work places, effectively prevent the truth seeing the light of day. When political correctness rules the communication you can’t discuss the reality of the organization’s performance and brainstorm actions which would solve the problems identified. Because of that the ongoing harm to kids goes unaddressed. We must stop giving educators the benefit of the doubt because of “good intentions” that aren’t good at all.
The educators have shown no ability to correct their problems. We must demand it and provide enough incentive to force the change. Otherwise the kids will continue to be harmed.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Attempting to Lock-in the Dumbing Down Approach Common Core National Standards Push to Codify the Content-Free Approach
It could be argued that a common core curriculum which was the de facto case if not nationally codified, in the days of the American Common School movement would be a positive development. Perhaps the biggest benefit of a content-rich common core would be in grades K-6 where today’s patchwork quilt of local content-free standards is particularly harmful to students who change schools frequently and the economically disadvantaged. Thus currently, in the early grades students have no coherent process to build and enhance the foundational knowledge they will need to be successful in their higher level schooling.
When you look objectively at the newly proposed standards, it is obvious that the current effort is anything but positive. As is common practice in our education system this new initiative is an effort to justify throwing more good money after bad into the schools and the greedy support activities that depend on them. The process is to initiate a “new” program and wrap it with positive marketing and media to a credulous and/or distracted public. The standards are not new in their approach at all but an effort to cast in concrete the current extremely harmful, content-free approach which has not worked and as E.D. Hirsch states cannot work. It is just another of a long line of efforts to increasingly reward the adults associated with education at the expense of serving the kids well. This comes at taxpayer expense and starved out alternative priorities.
I think a couple of comments on the new standards from knowledgeable and involved people in the process would help to clarify the reality here. Jim Milgram, math professor at Stanford comments on the standards related to math at http://concernedabouteducation.posterous.com/review-of-common-core-math-standards
Professor Milgram states in his final remarks, “Overall, only the very best of current state standards, those of California, Massachusetts, Indiana and Minnesota are as strong or stronger than these standards. Most states would be far better off adopting the Core Math Standards than keeping their current standards. However, California and the other states with top standards would be almost certainly better off keeping their current standards. …[M]any of my objections were not addressed … before the final version was publically released.”
Another reviewer of the proposed standards, Bert Fristedt, a mathematician at the University of Minnesota, has critiqued the math portion of the CCSSI proposed standards. He is troubled by their diffuseness. He says the standards include way too many particular items and often scramble them in illogical ways. Seventh graders, for example, are asked to examine cubed numbers but aren’t taught integer exponents until high school. The standards also contain much vague language about having young students “understand” mathematical concepts before they have any practical grasp of them. Learning math is like learning to ride a bicycle. You have to be able to do it before you can theorize it. Fristedt sees problems with the progression from grade to grade in these standards and takes that as an indication that they are not “well-thought-out.”
Sandra Stotsky was appointed to the validation committee that reviewed the Common Core State Standards, a new set of K-12 standards produced by the National Governors Association's Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI).
As she examined the standards for English and Language Arts, Stotsky found that they were “culture-free and content-empty.” One of Stotsky’s strongest criticisms is that standards such as these don’t progress in difficulty from year to year. She was outspoken and meticulous in her objections, and when the validation committee approved the standards in June, she declined to endorse them. That same month, her term of service on the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education expired - and Governor Deval Patrick did not reappoint her to her position (he also did not reappoint Thomas Fortmann, another critic of the new standards).
Susan Wolfson, Professor of English at Princeton in written testimony to the New Jersey Board of Education commented, “We cannot endorse the absence of content-rich literary standards in “college readiness” any more than we can endorse just a sporadic and infrequent inclusion in the grade-level standards. This absence in this public-comment draft reflects what seems to us to have been a nearly systematic exclusion of those with expertise in literary study in the development of the standards. No one with expertise in the study of literature as a subject in itself was appointed to the standards development committees, and those who attended the open forum last December, and then again in February, reported that they were given no way to argue a case that had seemed to have been pre-decided. [emphasis added] We are surprised and concerned that the media have failed to note the exclusion of literary study from what are deemed “college readiness” standards. Without graduated, substantive content, adequate preparation for college study in any subject would be seriously compromised.
Do you smell the political taint that underlies this new standards effort? You should have your nose checked if you don’t. In short, these standards do not address the problems that are causing our education performance to be so poor when compared to the best global competitors. They do further solidify the harmful stranglehold that the education establishment’s status-quo-at-all-costs adults who continue to sacrifice our kids’ futures use so effectively to gain material benefit for themselves.
Thus, while common core standards could seemingly, based on the history or the American Common School experience be beneficial, these new standards are beneficial in name only and if adopted will prevent new quality efforts from being pursued anytime soon. The “we just updated standards to the best possible” excuse will prevail, continuing to harm kids and their futures.
Paul Richardson 2010
When you look objectively at the newly proposed standards, it is obvious that the current effort is anything but positive. As is common practice in our education system this new initiative is an effort to justify throwing more good money after bad into the schools and the greedy support activities that depend on them. The process is to initiate a “new” program and wrap it with positive marketing and media to a credulous and/or distracted public. The standards are not new in their approach at all but an effort to cast in concrete the current extremely harmful, content-free approach which has not worked and as E.D. Hirsch states cannot work. It is just another of a long line of efforts to increasingly reward the adults associated with education at the expense of serving the kids well. This comes at taxpayer expense and starved out alternative priorities.
I think a couple of comments on the new standards from knowledgeable and involved people in the process would help to clarify the reality here. Jim Milgram, math professor at Stanford comments on the standards related to math at http://concernedabouteducation.posterous.com/review-of-common-core-math-standards
Professor Milgram states in his final remarks, “Overall, only the very best of current state standards, those of California, Massachusetts, Indiana and Minnesota are as strong or stronger than these standards. Most states would be far better off adopting the Core Math Standards than keeping their current standards. However, California and the other states with top standards would be almost certainly better off keeping their current standards. …[M]any of my objections were not addressed … before the final version was publically released.”
Another reviewer of the proposed standards, Bert Fristedt, a mathematician at the University of Minnesota, has critiqued the math portion of the CCSSI proposed standards. He is troubled by their diffuseness. He says the standards include way too many particular items and often scramble them in illogical ways. Seventh graders, for example, are asked to examine cubed numbers but aren’t taught integer exponents until high school. The standards also contain much vague language about having young students “understand” mathematical concepts before they have any practical grasp of them. Learning math is like learning to ride a bicycle. You have to be able to do it before you can theorize it. Fristedt sees problems with the progression from grade to grade in these standards and takes that as an indication that they are not “well-thought-out.”
Sandra Stotsky was appointed to the validation committee that reviewed the Common Core State Standards, a new set of K-12 standards produced by the National Governors Association's Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI).
As she examined the standards for English and Language Arts, Stotsky found that they were “culture-free and content-empty.” One of Stotsky’s strongest criticisms is that standards such as these don’t progress in difficulty from year to year. She was outspoken and meticulous in her objections, and when the validation committee approved the standards in June, she declined to endorse them. That same month, her term of service on the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education expired - and Governor Deval Patrick did not reappoint her to her position (he also did not reappoint Thomas Fortmann, another critic of the new standards).
Susan Wolfson, Professor of English at Princeton in written testimony to the New Jersey Board of Education commented, “We cannot endorse the absence of content-rich literary standards in “college readiness” any more than we can endorse just a sporadic and infrequent inclusion in the grade-level standards. This absence in this public-comment draft reflects what seems to us to have been a nearly systematic exclusion of those with expertise in literary study in the development of the standards. No one with expertise in the study of literature as a subject in itself was appointed to the standards development committees, and those who attended the open forum last December, and then again in February, reported that they were given no way to argue a case that had seemed to have been pre-decided. [emphasis added] We are surprised and concerned that the media have failed to note the exclusion of literary study from what are deemed “college readiness” standards. Without graduated, substantive content, adequate preparation for college study in any subject would be seriously compromised.
Do you smell the political taint that underlies this new standards effort? You should have your nose checked if you don’t. In short, these standards do not address the problems that are causing our education performance to be so poor when compared to the best global competitors. They do further solidify the harmful stranglehold that the education establishment’s status-quo-at-all-costs adults who continue to sacrifice our kids’ futures use so effectively to gain material benefit for themselves.
Thus, while common core standards could seemingly, based on the history or the American Common School experience be beneficial, these new standards are beneficial in name only and if adopted will prevent new quality efforts from being pursued anytime soon. The “we just updated standards to the best possible” excuse will prevail, continuing to harm kids and their futures.
Paul Richardson 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Starve the Beast, Save the Kids.
I found a quote recently from an article in Bloomberg Business Week by Andy Grove. He was the founder of Intel and an engineer. He said, “. . . engineers are a peculiar breed. They are eager to solve whatever problems they encounter.” As a trained and experienced engineer I can tell you it is true. The whole rigorous program we go through in our training is based on providing the tools and importantly the mindset to objectively define and solve problems. We learn in no uncertain terms that you can’t solve a problem that you refuse to face objectively. If the truth is you made a mistake, even a whopper, the shortest road to fixing it is acknowledging your mistake, correcting it and moving on vowing to not make that mistake again. I mention that because I have been analyzing our education system and its poor performance for over 7 years now. I have come at it from the engineering perspective. That is, what is the truth of the problems and what solutions make sense? This intellectually honest approach is nowhere to be seen in education.
I am sure you have heard all of the hysteria about emergency legislation considered and passed to save our education system from cuts. You know the type, this $10 billion to save 17 teacher jobs and so forth. I believe it is time to look objectively at what we are getting for the torrent of money going to public schools. My answer is not nearly enough. We have proven over the last decades that increasing education funding does not improve performance at least as measured objectively. I say objectively because the vast majority of “good news” stories that come out of the education fiefdom are grossly slanted, reported out of important context or just plain untrue.
If you look at the performance that matters such as how our kids compare competitively with their most competent peers you will have to admit our performance is not improving at all but declining. And it is against the competition that our performance matters not as measured in a vacuum and touted by our educators as if we live in an insular society on a different planet where competition doesn’t matter. Thus, the tiny improvements in state or federal achievement test results that are cherished so much as a positive sign of improvement are really saying if you provide context, we are becoming less competitive globally each year. You see, our best competitors are improving at a faster rate than we are and that is an important fact.
The achievement gap performance is abysmal and inexcusable. Yet, when I attended a meeting where a superintendent of a large district was speaking to a minority coalition group of Black and Hispanic community leaders when an audience member who was a college admissions counselor asked why so many kids were coming to college unprepared to do college level work the response from the superintendent was lame in the extreme. He asked (as if it were a surprise) if the counselor could get a specific example or two so that the district could look at the detail history and try to troubleshoot the problem. Oh, how school administrators have learned to tap dance to distract our attention from the obvious problems. The remediation rate (percent of college students who have to take a year or more remedial classes to become fully admitted to their desired area of study) is high at about 30% in Colorado. It has not improved materially in years.
The question to ask is why has the greatly increased spending over the past decades not improved things for our kids. Short answer, “The education process being used is wrong.” It is the process developed by Dewey and his progressive friends that replaced the much more effective “American Common School” movement that Horace Mann and others developed in the nineteenth century. The progressives desired an education system that educated students minimally so that they would be good fits for work in regimented settings like automotive factories. And to progressive ideologues who believed that their expert control of our lives was necessary, the low education levels resulting made for a more easily swayed and credulous populace.
Thus, the constructivist methods of the progressives became the norm in education schools virtually universally starting in the 1930s. The progressives’ technique amounts to emphasizing experiential learning without a basis of knowledge to allow understanding of the lessons supposedly learned. A perfect example of the current system’s faulty approach is that every district in the land brags about teaching students to be critical thinkers. Yes, they teach a process but they provide no content knowledge of any rigor which is a necessary condition to being able to be a critical thinker. This penchant for saying they are preparing students to be good citizens and productive members of our society is all a lie. The proof is in fact that the progressive approach has resulted in dumbed down curricula with no content rigor.
The education school training spends the vast majority of its time on process with no real subject knowledge rigor at all. By the time newly minted and brainwashed in the progressive catechism teachers were turned loose on the school systems with only process in their toolkits and no subject knowledge, the progressive program could kick into high gear. When kids began graduating from high school in the mid to late sixties with full 12 year exposure to the progressive system, achievement plummeted. The SAT verbal scores are a good example and the data stream goes back far enough to see the “step function” down in performance among all classes of students. That is a point to remember. The education fiefdom members all blame the drop on more minority students in the mix. However, that doesn’t explain at all the universal drop in white verbal skills as well.
Our best performing competitor nations are using an education philosophy much closer to the common school approach and that is why they are beating us so handily. You see, they are far more interested in serving the kids with a quality education than in fighting a political power motivated philosophical battle. In other words they are tending to their knitting while our schools are consuming huge levels of valuable resources refusing to admit that the brainwashing they received in their worthless education school training is harmful to kids. The most damning indictment is that the progressive system harms the minority and economically challenged students the most.
While most educators are well meaning individuals they are also stubbornly committed to political correctness and not rocking the boat. This is the three monkeys story writ large; see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, especially if you are mired in evil that harms kids. You can’t identify problems and solve them in that environment. You notice I call the American education system, the Fiefdom. I term it delusional, defensive, insular and inbred. I could also add effective at continuing to harm kids. That is, they have developed remarkably effective techniques to maintain the status quo especially including the increase of money flow into the system. I have no problem with spending money on education, but I do want to get what we pay for. Sadly, the only people benefiting from the huge amount of money being thrown at the system are the adults who work there, the teachers, administrators, the ed school faculties, the ed insider researchers, the textbook publishers, the state and federal bureaucrats and the politicians who gain funding for their campaigns by pandering to ed power groups aiming to maintain the status quo.
Thus, continuing to feed the beast does not benefit the kids or our society. My thesis is that the only way to truly reform the system is to cut the money flow dramatically. Only in this way will educators get the message that productivity is vital and required. The result per dollar spent is the ultimate measure of their success. One huge tragedy is that billions and billions are spent on pseudo research to “learn how to improve our education performance.” What a travesty. We know how to fix the problem. Stop using the constructivist curricula and replace them with content-rich curricula. Start training teachers to understand the subject matter. Train education leaders to lead versus maintain. I am not saying it will be easy but let’s show some sanity and quit throwing money down esoteric rat holes and start working on the real problems.
I estimate that the amount of money being expended on the total education fiefdom could pretty easily be cut by 25% or more and that huge benefits would accrue to the kids. After all, we are supposedly doing this for the kids, aren’t we? Thus some major initial steps in my recommended program include-
• The poison being injected into the education system by the ed schools must stop now. Decertify every education school in the land except those who require content knowledge rigor BEFORE they grant one more teacher or graduate degree. A couple of positive examples I am familiar with are U. of Virginia and Hillsdale College. However, they are exceptions.
• Cut federal and state ed bureaucracy funding for staff in half immediately and maintain with no increases even for inflation for at least 10 years.
• Require each school district in the land to cut central administration salary and benefits budgets by ten percent a year until the achievement gap, measured objectively, is cut in half. Preserve school related overhead at current levels. Do not allow districts to transfer central office admin personnel to the schools to avoid cuts. Also do not allow cuts in school based admin to compensate for the required central office budget cuts. For any year where the gap is not reduced by at least 10% begin the 10% per year reduction in central office admin salaries again.
• Retrain education leaders with site-based training including coaching to transform the leadership from ineffective to real change leaders. That is, teach them what they should have learned in their education school masters and doctorates but did not.
• Replace professional development activities that currently focus exclusively on more harmful pedagogy theory based on the false foundation of the progressive mantra with subject knowledge courses.
• Require teachers to pass rigorous subject tests within two years to maintain certification. Repeat every two years.
All of this and more could be done for less money and much more benefit to the kids. The question we must ask is, “Do we continue abusing the kids because we are too timid to face the reality that the current system and many of its employees are not worth their funding levels?” That is tough medicine but can we in good conscience continue to allow our kids to be subjected to attenuated future prospects? I say no. The bottom line is that when the system is doing the wrong things and is harming kids, reducing their resource levels can only reduce the harm being done. Oh, I know there will be loud moaning and complaining at first as educators are forced to face reality. That will be painful for them but ultimately positive for the kids and our country. In the long run it will also free educators from the false doctrine they were taught in ed school and on the job allowing them to contribute to their full ability.
I am sure you have heard all of the hysteria about emergency legislation considered and passed to save our education system from cuts. You know the type, this $10 billion to save 17 teacher jobs and so forth. I believe it is time to look objectively at what we are getting for the torrent of money going to public schools. My answer is not nearly enough. We have proven over the last decades that increasing education funding does not improve performance at least as measured objectively. I say objectively because the vast majority of “good news” stories that come out of the education fiefdom are grossly slanted, reported out of important context or just plain untrue.
If you look at the performance that matters such as how our kids compare competitively with their most competent peers you will have to admit our performance is not improving at all but declining. And it is against the competition that our performance matters not as measured in a vacuum and touted by our educators as if we live in an insular society on a different planet where competition doesn’t matter. Thus, the tiny improvements in state or federal achievement test results that are cherished so much as a positive sign of improvement are really saying if you provide context, we are becoming less competitive globally each year. You see, our best competitors are improving at a faster rate than we are and that is an important fact.
The achievement gap performance is abysmal and inexcusable. Yet, when I attended a meeting where a superintendent of a large district was speaking to a minority coalition group of Black and Hispanic community leaders when an audience member who was a college admissions counselor asked why so many kids were coming to college unprepared to do college level work the response from the superintendent was lame in the extreme. He asked (as if it were a surprise) if the counselor could get a specific example or two so that the district could look at the detail history and try to troubleshoot the problem. Oh, how school administrators have learned to tap dance to distract our attention from the obvious problems. The remediation rate (percent of college students who have to take a year or more remedial classes to become fully admitted to their desired area of study) is high at about 30% in Colorado. It has not improved materially in years.
The question to ask is why has the greatly increased spending over the past decades not improved things for our kids. Short answer, “The education process being used is wrong.” It is the process developed by Dewey and his progressive friends that replaced the much more effective “American Common School” movement that Horace Mann and others developed in the nineteenth century. The progressives desired an education system that educated students minimally so that they would be good fits for work in regimented settings like automotive factories. And to progressive ideologues who believed that their expert control of our lives was necessary, the low education levels resulting made for a more easily swayed and credulous populace.
Thus, the constructivist methods of the progressives became the norm in education schools virtually universally starting in the 1930s. The progressives’ technique amounts to emphasizing experiential learning without a basis of knowledge to allow understanding of the lessons supposedly learned. A perfect example of the current system’s faulty approach is that every district in the land brags about teaching students to be critical thinkers. Yes, they teach a process but they provide no content knowledge of any rigor which is a necessary condition to being able to be a critical thinker. This penchant for saying they are preparing students to be good citizens and productive members of our society is all a lie. The proof is in fact that the progressive approach has resulted in dumbed down curricula with no content rigor.
The education school training spends the vast majority of its time on process with no real subject knowledge rigor at all. By the time newly minted and brainwashed in the progressive catechism teachers were turned loose on the school systems with only process in their toolkits and no subject knowledge, the progressive program could kick into high gear. When kids began graduating from high school in the mid to late sixties with full 12 year exposure to the progressive system, achievement plummeted. The SAT verbal scores are a good example and the data stream goes back far enough to see the “step function” down in performance among all classes of students. That is a point to remember. The education fiefdom members all blame the drop on more minority students in the mix. However, that doesn’t explain at all the universal drop in white verbal skills as well.
Our best performing competitor nations are using an education philosophy much closer to the common school approach and that is why they are beating us so handily. You see, they are far more interested in serving the kids with a quality education than in fighting a political power motivated philosophical battle. In other words they are tending to their knitting while our schools are consuming huge levels of valuable resources refusing to admit that the brainwashing they received in their worthless education school training is harmful to kids. The most damning indictment is that the progressive system harms the minority and economically challenged students the most.
While most educators are well meaning individuals they are also stubbornly committed to political correctness and not rocking the boat. This is the three monkeys story writ large; see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, especially if you are mired in evil that harms kids. You can’t identify problems and solve them in that environment. You notice I call the American education system, the Fiefdom. I term it delusional, defensive, insular and inbred. I could also add effective at continuing to harm kids. That is, they have developed remarkably effective techniques to maintain the status quo especially including the increase of money flow into the system. I have no problem with spending money on education, but I do want to get what we pay for. Sadly, the only people benefiting from the huge amount of money being thrown at the system are the adults who work there, the teachers, administrators, the ed school faculties, the ed insider researchers, the textbook publishers, the state and federal bureaucrats and the politicians who gain funding for their campaigns by pandering to ed power groups aiming to maintain the status quo.
Thus, continuing to feed the beast does not benefit the kids or our society. My thesis is that the only way to truly reform the system is to cut the money flow dramatically. Only in this way will educators get the message that productivity is vital and required. The result per dollar spent is the ultimate measure of their success. One huge tragedy is that billions and billions are spent on pseudo research to “learn how to improve our education performance.” What a travesty. We know how to fix the problem. Stop using the constructivist curricula and replace them with content-rich curricula. Start training teachers to understand the subject matter. Train education leaders to lead versus maintain. I am not saying it will be easy but let’s show some sanity and quit throwing money down esoteric rat holes and start working on the real problems.
I estimate that the amount of money being expended on the total education fiefdom could pretty easily be cut by 25% or more and that huge benefits would accrue to the kids. After all, we are supposedly doing this for the kids, aren’t we? Thus some major initial steps in my recommended program include-
• The poison being injected into the education system by the ed schools must stop now. Decertify every education school in the land except those who require content knowledge rigor BEFORE they grant one more teacher or graduate degree. A couple of positive examples I am familiar with are U. of Virginia and Hillsdale College. However, they are exceptions.
• Cut federal and state ed bureaucracy funding for staff in half immediately and maintain with no increases even for inflation for at least 10 years.
• Require each school district in the land to cut central administration salary and benefits budgets by ten percent a year until the achievement gap, measured objectively, is cut in half. Preserve school related overhead at current levels. Do not allow districts to transfer central office admin personnel to the schools to avoid cuts. Also do not allow cuts in school based admin to compensate for the required central office budget cuts. For any year where the gap is not reduced by at least 10% begin the 10% per year reduction in central office admin salaries again.
• Retrain education leaders with site-based training including coaching to transform the leadership from ineffective to real change leaders. That is, teach them what they should have learned in their education school masters and doctorates but did not.
• Replace professional development activities that currently focus exclusively on more harmful pedagogy theory based on the false foundation of the progressive mantra with subject knowledge courses.
• Require teachers to pass rigorous subject tests within two years to maintain certification. Repeat every two years.
All of this and more could be done for less money and much more benefit to the kids. The question we must ask is, “Do we continue abusing the kids because we are too timid to face the reality that the current system and many of its employees are not worth their funding levels?” That is tough medicine but can we in good conscience continue to allow our kids to be subjected to attenuated future prospects? I say no. The bottom line is that when the system is doing the wrong things and is harming kids, reducing their resource levels can only reduce the harm being done. Oh, I know there will be loud moaning and complaining at first as educators are forced to face reality. That will be painful for them but ultimately positive for the kids and our country. In the long run it will also free educators from the false doctrine they were taught in ed school and on the job allowing them to contribute to their full ability.
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