Translating NAEP to TIMSS % Proficient or better
Singapore 73
S. Korea 65
Hong Kong 64
Japan & Chinese Taipei 61
Belgium (Flemish) 51
Netherlands 41
Hungary, Slovak Rep., Slovenia, Canada,
Russia, Australia 39 to 35
Czech Rep., Malaysia, Bulgaria, Finland 32 to 29
United States 27
Data taken from Linking NAEP Achievement Levels to TIMSS, American Institutes for Research (2007)
NAEP is our National Assessment of Educational Progress, i.e. our national test. In general the NAEP standards are consistently higher than those of the individual states who chose to reduce their standards to make complying with the No Child Left Behind requirement that all students be proficient or better by 2014 easier. That is, the states took the low road. If you want your performance to look better than it is, choose a short ruler to measure it.
TIMSS is The International Math and Science Study. The chart above lists only the countries whose kids scored better than ours in math for 8th graders. I chose the 8th grade level because it is a pivot point. That is, at fourth grade we do a little better and at high school level we do worse.
Most American mainline schools’ approach to teaching math is to use constructivist or discovery methods as embodied in EveryDay Math, for example. This approach does not build the foundational math skills during the elementary years required for success in algebra and higher math. Thus, as our kids progress through the grades they do worse and worse which is reinforced by TIMSS and other testing. This approach is definitely not preparing our kids to compete in the rising global meritocracy for the well paying knowledge-based jobs. This approach does make it easier for the elementary teachers who do not have adequate math knowledge to teach the foundational math skills required to be successful.It casts them in a facilitator role instead of a teacher role.
Research such as that of Liping Ma which compared American and Chinese elementary math teachers found the American teachers although “more educated” than their Chinese counterparts did not have the math understanding needed. This is no surprise since education schools prioritize pedagogy to the virtual exclusion of content training in their programs.
Our educators approach to math is what I call the Platte River Syndrome. That is the curriculum is a mile wide and an inch deep. This diffuse approach wastes lots of time that could and should be spent on building a strong foundation of hierarchical skills which is how math works.
A quote from the Singapore Ministry of Education is instructive, from their Nurturing Every Child, booklet (2006), “Teach Less, Learn More--Syllabuses will be trimmed without diluting students’ preparedness for higher education. This will free up time for our students to focus on core knowledge and skills.” You see in the chart above the validity of the Singapore approach and the failure of our approach.
One last comment, E.D. Hirsch, the stimulus for the Massachusetts Miracle (legislature required the ditching of constructivist curricula and achievement soared), says that educators are so brainwashed in their technically wrong beliefs that they will only change if forced to from the outside. That is, parents need to demand change and expect their political representatives to force it to happen. This is an area where negotiation with educators only delays the lifeline the kids so desperately need. Oh, the final nail in the coffin is that the constructivist curricula hurt the gap kids (minority and economically disadvantaged) the most.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
What I want to be when I grow up.
I want to grow up to be a robot.
Educators and parents please train me to be compliant to the will of the experts who run our country. Please train me to be gullible so that I will believe anything they say even if untrue. Please train me to be ignorant of the lessons of history. Please train me to be unable to think, analyze and decide on my own. Please make sure that my literacy, math, science and history knowledge are low enough that I don’t question what leaders say. Please train me to be happy with less and less personal responsibility and freedom.
Please say you care about me even though you don’t. Please take care of my health until my usefulness diminishes to the point where further maintenance is in your expert opinion too expensive. Please feed me and protect me from the truth because I am not able to handle it. Please make sure my schools do not train me in the subject knowledge required to be able to understand what is going on. I don’t want to know, it gives me a headache. Please keep the bad news from me for as long as possible, I don’t want to hear it.
And most of all please take care of me always.
I want to grow up to be an American
Educators and parents please reinstate the education philosophy that culminated in the American Common School movement that made American education the envy of the world from the 1830s through the 1950s. Please eliminate the “how to” approach which has been a miserable failure and re-establish the rigorous content-rich curricula, taught by subject knowledgeable teachers approach, of the American Common Schools.
Please teach me through competitive practice that I can build on my failures to perform better over time. Help me gain the mental toughness and “can do” spirit needed to effectively meet the growing global competition for good, well paid jobs. Please expect me to fully appreciate America’s history objectively. Help me to appreciate the struggles and the profound luck we had as a people to be led at our founding by incredibly clear-thinking and committed leaders.
Please help me to embrace high standards of personal performance in all things. Help me to realize that there is no free lunch and if it is to be, it is up to me. Help me to appreciate personal responsibility and personal freedom as guaranteed in the U. S. Constitution.
Most of all teach me to continually question and analyze the pronouncements of our leaders to discern the underlying truth. Teach me enough that I can make my own assessments regarding the latest claim of those who want to take more control of our lives by creating a pseudo-crisis.
Adults please lead by example modeling the ability to set high standards for yourselves.
Teach me to be an American.
Educators and parents please train me to be compliant to the will of the experts who run our country. Please train me to be gullible so that I will believe anything they say even if untrue. Please train me to be ignorant of the lessons of history. Please train me to be unable to think, analyze and decide on my own. Please make sure that my literacy, math, science and history knowledge are low enough that I don’t question what leaders say. Please train me to be happy with less and less personal responsibility and freedom.
Please say you care about me even though you don’t. Please take care of my health until my usefulness diminishes to the point where further maintenance is in your expert opinion too expensive. Please feed me and protect me from the truth because I am not able to handle it. Please make sure my schools do not train me in the subject knowledge required to be able to understand what is going on. I don’t want to know, it gives me a headache. Please keep the bad news from me for as long as possible, I don’t want to hear it.
And most of all please take care of me always.
I want to grow up to be an American
Educators and parents please reinstate the education philosophy that culminated in the American Common School movement that made American education the envy of the world from the 1830s through the 1950s. Please eliminate the “how to” approach which has been a miserable failure and re-establish the rigorous content-rich curricula, taught by subject knowledgeable teachers approach, of the American Common Schools.
Please teach me through competitive practice that I can build on my failures to perform better over time. Help me gain the mental toughness and “can do” spirit needed to effectively meet the growing global competition for good, well paid jobs. Please expect me to fully appreciate America’s history objectively. Help me to appreciate the struggles and the profound luck we had as a people to be led at our founding by incredibly clear-thinking and committed leaders.
Please help me to embrace high standards of personal performance in all things. Help me to realize that there is no free lunch and if it is to be, it is up to me. Help me to appreciate personal responsibility and personal freedom as guaranteed in the U. S. Constitution.
Most of all teach me to continually question and analyze the pronouncements of our leaders to discern the underlying truth. Teach me enough that I can make my own assessments regarding the latest claim of those who want to take more control of our lives by creating a pseudo-crisis.
Adults please lead by example modeling the ability to set high standards for yourselves.
Teach me to be an American.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The News Isn’t Good, But Then in Education When is it Ever?
On May 4, the Colorado Dept. of Education announced the 3rd grade reading results for schools and districts around the state. The numbers scoring proficient or better dropped significantly for almost all districts. On the ten o’clock news the coverage included a third grader who was reading very well thank you, as if one kid reading well could offset the abysmal results. While there may be significant insight to be gained by parsing the data in great detail as a whole this report should finally wake us up to the fact that our education system is not doing the job acceptably.
That is hardly new. Robert Frost in his famous poem, The Road Not Taken, talks of taking a road less traveled that has made all the difference. In his case you assume a positive outcome. Our education system took a “road less traveled” at least in American education experience to that day back in the 1930s when the Progressives took control of all American schools of education. By the 1960s virtually all graduates of American high schools had been subjected to the progressive content free curricula during their whole school career. Beginning in the 1960s, SAT verbal scores plummeted and have been mired at their lower levels since then. In spite of educators’ excuses that this drop is caused by more minority and economically disadvantaged students taking the test, scores have gone down for all demographic groups.
The progressive detour from an education system that was the envy of the world has been a disaster. The work that Noah Webster and Horace Mann among others did to create the American Common School concept with rigorous curricula and high standards has been gutted and replaced by theories and curricula that simply have not worked and as E.D. Hirsch says cannot work because they are technically wrong at their foundation. I will leave it with you in the context of the Greek rioting to ponder the wisdom of the progressive approach which is designed to create a populace dependent on the state and prone to having their lives run by so called experts who know better. Greece’s current problems are a good example of what lies down the road if you create a nanny state where the people become dependent on the state for more and more and the incentives are to be anything but independent and self-sufficient. When the money runs out, and it always does, the immature citizens who haven’t learned to be independent start throwing tantrums like children.
Putting the New Results in Context
• Research has shown that if kids can’t read at grade level by 3rd grade the odds are they never will become competent readers.
• Colorado standards are at the low end of all states for rigor in both Reading and Math. Thus reading at grade level in Colorado is not the same as reading at grade level in Massachusetts.
• The gap between advantaged and disadvantaged demographic groups is large and staying that way. This has been the norm for decades in spite of throwing billions of dollars at the problem which have only gone to enrich education insiders, but haven’t helped the kids at all. Hirsch asserts correctly that the progressive content free curricula hurt the “gap kids” the most.
So Why Can’t We Seem to Turn Back to What Works in Education?
• Education schools are staffed by “true believers” in the progressive mantra and they aren’t going to change unless forced to. They teach their process only, virtually no subject knowledge philosophy to their students “like a catechism” as Hirsch describes it.
• Education is an extremely insular place. The “faithful” continue to reinforce the tragically wrong principles they were taught in education school to the exclusion of the truth. Outside input is rebuffed or worn down by well practiced delay tactics like creating committees, hiring consultants who are card carrying members of the education tribe, or even ignoring the input altogether.
• I was told by several superintendents when questioning the poor performance and the impact on kids that, “You don’t understand. Education is run for the benefit of the adults who work here, not the kids.” With that attitude, the educators have abdicated any semblance of professional responsibility or ethics to perform the function of educating kids well.
• Realize that the status quo crowd staff the state and federal education bureaucracies (they don’t want to admit their education school training is harming kids), the book publishers who find it easier to produce content free, watered down texts, the education “press” and the education researchers who access huge amounts of government and foundation money to polish the rotten apples.
• Hirsch concludes and he is right that educators will not reinstate what really works for kids unless they are forced to by outside forces.
• The constructivist curricula like Whole Language (and its renamed progeny to disguise the use of proven to be wrong methods) and EveryDay Math have been failures and will never work well. Big expensive programs like Marie Clay’s and also RTI are basically bandages on the curricula that can never work well enough. That is, a total waste of resources in an effort to try something new to deflect attention away from the core problem.
There are many other problems. Education leaders preen in the false glory of their advanced degrees even though Arthur Levine concluded in his Educating School Leaders (2005) based on a study of all degree granting education school programs that the education doctorate had no value for any public school administration job and that the schools were conferring masters on those who displayed anything but mastery and doctorates in name only. Teachers lack the subject knowledge depth that is required to teach the subjects effectively. The results being turned in make it obvious that Levine is right.
How Do We Begin to Deliver the Message That We Expect the Educators to Improve Their Performance?
Confrontation is the only way as uncomfortable as that may be. We must –
• Spread the word to neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends that the education propaganda is just that, an effort to maintain the cushy status quo for educators.
• Write and speak at school board meetings decrying the abysmal performance.
• We must question the salary levels of administrators especially superintendents who are not performing well enough to justify half their salaries.
• We must expect contracts of poor performers to be not renewed.
• We must let our state and federal elected representatives know that we expect better performance to benefit our kids and that false education theories that harm kids are not acceptable for even a minute more.
• We must have staying power. This is not a “speak at a school board meeting or write a letter to a congressman once affair.” We must adopt a Chinese Water Torture (made famous during the Korean War) approach by “dripping” the truth on educators constantly.
That is hardly new. Robert Frost in his famous poem, The Road Not Taken, talks of taking a road less traveled that has made all the difference. In his case you assume a positive outcome. Our education system took a “road less traveled” at least in American education experience to that day back in the 1930s when the Progressives took control of all American schools of education. By the 1960s virtually all graduates of American high schools had been subjected to the progressive content free curricula during their whole school career. Beginning in the 1960s, SAT verbal scores plummeted and have been mired at their lower levels since then. In spite of educators’ excuses that this drop is caused by more minority and economically disadvantaged students taking the test, scores have gone down for all demographic groups.
The progressive detour from an education system that was the envy of the world has been a disaster. The work that Noah Webster and Horace Mann among others did to create the American Common School concept with rigorous curricula and high standards has been gutted and replaced by theories and curricula that simply have not worked and as E.D. Hirsch says cannot work because they are technically wrong at their foundation. I will leave it with you in the context of the Greek rioting to ponder the wisdom of the progressive approach which is designed to create a populace dependent on the state and prone to having their lives run by so called experts who know better. Greece’s current problems are a good example of what lies down the road if you create a nanny state where the people become dependent on the state for more and more and the incentives are to be anything but independent and self-sufficient. When the money runs out, and it always does, the immature citizens who haven’t learned to be independent start throwing tantrums like children.
Putting the New Results in Context
• Research has shown that if kids can’t read at grade level by 3rd grade the odds are they never will become competent readers.
• Colorado standards are at the low end of all states for rigor in both Reading and Math. Thus reading at grade level in Colorado is not the same as reading at grade level in Massachusetts.
• The gap between advantaged and disadvantaged demographic groups is large and staying that way. This has been the norm for decades in spite of throwing billions of dollars at the problem which have only gone to enrich education insiders, but haven’t helped the kids at all. Hirsch asserts correctly that the progressive content free curricula hurt the “gap kids” the most.
So Why Can’t We Seem to Turn Back to What Works in Education?
• Education schools are staffed by “true believers” in the progressive mantra and they aren’t going to change unless forced to. They teach their process only, virtually no subject knowledge philosophy to their students “like a catechism” as Hirsch describes it.
• Education is an extremely insular place. The “faithful” continue to reinforce the tragically wrong principles they were taught in education school to the exclusion of the truth. Outside input is rebuffed or worn down by well practiced delay tactics like creating committees, hiring consultants who are card carrying members of the education tribe, or even ignoring the input altogether.
• I was told by several superintendents when questioning the poor performance and the impact on kids that, “You don’t understand. Education is run for the benefit of the adults who work here, not the kids.” With that attitude, the educators have abdicated any semblance of professional responsibility or ethics to perform the function of educating kids well.
• Realize that the status quo crowd staff the state and federal education bureaucracies (they don’t want to admit their education school training is harming kids), the book publishers who find it easier to produce content free, watered down texts, the education “press” and the education researchers who access huge amounts of government and foundation money to polish the rotten apples.
• Hirsch concludes and he is right that educators will not reinstate what really works for kids unless they are forced to by outside forces.
• The constructivist curricula like Whole Language (and its renamed progeny to disguise the use of proven to be wrong methods) and EveryDay Math have been failures and will never work well. Big expensive programs like Marie Clay’s and also RTI are basically bandages on the curricula that can never work well enough. That is, a total waste of resources in an effort to try something new to deflect attention away from the core problem.
There are many other problems. Education leaders preen in the false glory of their advanced degrees even though Arthur Levine concluded in his Educating School Leaders (2005) based on a study of all degree granting education school programs that the education doctorate had no value for any public school administration job and that the schools were conferring masters on those who displayed anything but mastery and doctorates in name only. Teachers lack the subject knowledge depth that is required to teach the subjects effectively. The results being turned in make it obvious that Levine is right.
How Do We Begin to Deliver the Message That We Expect the Educators to Improve Their Performance?
Confrontation is the only way as uncomfortable as that may be. We must –
• Spread the word to neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends that the education propaganda is just that, an effort to maintain the cushy status quo for educators.
• Write and speak at school board meetings decrying the abysmal performance.
• We must question the salary levels of administrators especially superintendents who are not performing well enough to justify half their salaries.
• We must expect contracts of poor performers to be not renewed.
• We must let our state and federal elected representatives know that we expect better performance to benefit our kids and that false education theories that harm kids are not acceptable for even a minute more.
• We must have staying power. This is not a “speak at a school board meeting or write a letter to a congressman once affair.” We must adopt a Chinese Water Torture (made famous during the Korean War) approach by “dripping” the truth on educators constantly.
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