The Education Onion

Do We Need the Department of Education?

2012-01-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

I am posting this article from the Hillsdale College Imprimis because it addresses a problem we need to face.

January 2012

CharlesMurray
American Enterprise Institute

CharlesMurray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Hereceived his B.A. in history at Harvard University and his Ph.D. in politicalscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has written fornumerous newspapers and journals, including the Washington Post,the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the WeeklyStandard, Commentary, and National Review. His booksinclude Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980, WhatIt Means to Be a Libertarian, and Real Education: Four SimpleTruths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality. His new book, ComingApart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, will be published at the endof January.

Thefollowing is adapted from a speech delivered in Atlanta, Georgia, on October28, 2011, at a conference on “Markets, Government, and the Common Good,”sponsored by Hillsdale College’s Center for the Study of Monetary Systems andFree Enterprise.

THE CASEFOR the Department of Education could rest on one or more of three legs: itsconstitutional appropriateness, the existence of serious problems in educationthat could be solved only at the federal level, and/or its track record sinceit came into being. Let us consider these in order.

(1) Isthe Department of Education constitutional?

At thetime the Constitution was written, education was not even considered a functionof local government, let alone the federal government. But the shakiness of theDepartment of Education’s constitutionality goes beyond that. Article 1,Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates the things over which Congress has thepower to legislate. Not only does the list not include education, there is noplausible rationale for squeezing education in under the commerce clause. I’msure the Supreme Court found a rationale, but it cannot have been plausible.

On amore philosophical level, the framers of America’s limited government had abroad allegiance to what Catholics call the principle of subsidiarity. In thesecular world, the principle of subsidiarity means that local government shoulddo only those things that individuals cannot do for themselves, stategovernment should do only those things that local governments cannot do, andthe federal government should do only those things that the individual statescannot do. Education is something that individuals acting alone andcooperatively can do, let alone something local or state governments can do.

I shouldbe explicit about my own animus in this regard. I don’t think the Department ofEducation is constitutionally legitimate, let alone appropriate. I would favorabolishing it even if, on a pragmatic level, it had improved Americaneducation. But I am in a small minority on that point, so let’s move on to thepragmatic questions.

(2) Arethere serious problems in education that can be solved only at the federallevel?

Thefirst major federal spending on education was triggered by the launch of thefirst space satellite, Sputnik, in the fall of 1957, which created a perceptionthat the United States had fallen behind the Soviet Union in science andtechnology. The legislation was specifically designed to encourage morestudents to go into math and science, and its motivation is indicated by itstitle: The National Defense Education Act of 1958. But what really ensnared thefederal government in education in the 1960s had its origins elsewhere—in civilrights. The Supreme Court declared segregation of the schools unconstitutionalin 1954, but—notwithstanding a few highly publicized episodes such as theintegration of Central High School in Little Rock and James Meredith’sadmission to the University of Mississippi—the pace of change in the nextdecade was glacial.

Was itnecessary for the federal government to act? There is a strong argument for“yes,” especially in the case of K-12 education. Southern resistance todesegregation proved to be both stubborn and effective in the years following Brownv. Board of Education. Segregation of theschools had been declared unconstitutional, and constitutional rights werebeing violated on a massive scale. But the question at hand is whether we needa Department of Education now, and we have seen a typical evolution of policy.What could have been justified as a one-time, forceful effort to end violationsof constitutional rights, lasting until the constitutional wrongs had beenrighted, was transmuted into a permanent government establishment.Subsequently, this establishment became more and more deeply involved inAmerican education for purposes that have nothing to do with constitutionalrights, but instead with a broader goal of improving education.

Thereason this came about is also intimately related to the civil rights movement.Over the same years that school segregation became a national issue, thedisparities between black and white educational attainment and test scores cameto public attention. When the push for President Johnson’s Great Societyprograms began in the mid-1960s, it was inevitable that the federal governmentwould attempt to reduce black-white disparities, and it did so in 1965 with thepassage of two landmark bills—the Elementary and Secondary Education Act andthe Higher Education Act. The Department of Education didn’t come into beinguntil 1980, but large-scale involvement of the federal government in educationdates from 1965.

(3) Sowhat is the federal government’s track record in education?

The mostobvious way to look at the track record is the long-term trend data of theNational Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Consider, for instance, theresults for the math test for students in fourth, eighth and twelfth gradesfrom 1978 through 2004. The good news is that the scores for fourth gradersshowed significant improvement in both reading and math—although those gainsdiminished slightly as the children got older. The bad news is that thebaseline year of 1978 represents the nadir of the test score decline from themid-1960s through the 1970s. Probably we are today about where we were in mathachievement in the 1960s. For reading, the story is even bleaker. The smallgains among fourth graders diminish by eighth grade and vanish by the twelfthgrade. And once again, the baseline tests in the 1970s represent a nadir.

From1942 through the 1990s, the state of Iowa administered a consistent andcomprehensive test to all of its public school students in grade school, middleschool, and high school—making it, to my knowledge, the only state in the unionto have good longitudinal data that go back that far. The Iowa Test of BasicSkills offers not a sample, but an entire state population of students. Whatcan we learn from a single state? Not much, if we are mainly interested in theeducation of minorities—Iowa from 1942 through 1970 was 97 percent white, andeven in the 2010 census was 91 percent white. But, paradoxically, that racialhomogeneity is also an advantage, because it sidesteps all the complicationsassociated with changing ethnic populations.

Sinceretention through high school has changed greatly over the last 70 years, Iwill consider here only the data for ninth graders. What the data show is thatwhen the federal government decided to get involved on a large scale in K-12education in 1965, Iowa’s education had been improving substantially since thefirst test was administered in 1942. There is reason to think that the samething had been happening throughout the country. As I documented in my book, RealEducation, collateral data from othersources are not as detailed, nor do they go back to the 1940s, but they tell aconsistent story. American education had been improving since World War II.Then, when the federal government began to get involved, it got worse.

I willnot try to make the case that federal involvement caused the downturn. Theeffort that went into programs associated with the Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act of 1965 in the early years was not enough to have changedAmerican education, and the more likely causes for the downturn are the spiritof the 1960s—do your own thing—and the rise of progressive education todominance over American public education. But this much can certainly be said:The overall data on the performance of American K-12 students give no reason tothink that federal involvement, which took the form of the Department ofEducation after 1979, has been an engine of improvement.

Whatabout the education of the disadvantaged, especially minorities? After all,this was arguably the main reason that the federal government began to getinvolved in education—to reduce the achievement gap separating poor childrenand rich children, and especially the gap separating poor black children andthe rest of the country.

The mostfamous part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was Title I,initially authorizing more than a billion dollars annually (equivalent to morethan $7 billion today) to upgrade the schools attended by children fromlow-income families. The program has continued to grow ever since, disposing ofabout $19 billion in 2010 (No Child Left Behind has also been part of Title I).

Supportersof Title I confidently expected to see progress, and so formal evaluation ofTitle I was built into the legislation from the beginning. Over the years, theevaluations became progressively more ambitious and more methodologicallysophisticated. But while the evaluations have improved, the story they tell hasnot changed. Despite being conducted by people who wished the program well, noevaluation of Title I from the 1970s onward has found credible evidence of asignificant positive impact on student achievement. If one steps back from theformal evaluations and looks at the NAEP test score gap between high-povertyschools (the ones that qualify for Title I support) and low-poverty schools,the implications are worse. A study by the Department of Education published in2001 revealed that the gap grew rather than diminished from 1986—the earliestyear such comparisons have been made—through 1999.

Thatbrings us to No Child Left Behind. Have you noticed that no one talks about NoChild Left Behind any more? The explanation is that its one-time advocates areno longer willing to defend it. The nearly-flat NAEP trendlines since 2002 makethat much-ballyhooed legislative mandate—a mandate to bring all children toproficiency in math and reading by 2014—too embarrassing to mention.

Insummary: the long, intrusive, expensive role of the federal government in K-12education does not have any credible evidence for a positive effect on Americaneducation.

* * *

I havechosen to focus on K-12 because everyone agrees that K-12 education leaves muchto be desired in this country and that it is reasonable to hold thegovernment’s feet to the fire when there is no evidence that K-12 education hasimproved. When we turn to post-secondary education, there is much less agreementon first principles.

Thebachelor of arts degree as it has evolved over the last half-century has becomethe work of the devil. It is now a substantively meaningless piece ofpaper—genuinely meaningless, if you don’t know where the degree was obtainedand what courses were taken. It is expensive, too, as documented by the CollegeBoard: Public four-year colleges average about $7,000 per year in tuition, notincluding transportation, housing, and food. Tuition at the average privatefour-year college is more than $27,000 per year. And yet the B.A. has becomethe minimum requirement for getting a job interview for millions of jobs, acost-free way for employers to screen for a certain amount of IQ andperseverance. Employers seldom even bother to check grades or courses, beingable to tell enough about a graduate just by knowing the institution that he orshe got into as an 18-year-old.

So whathappens when a paper credential is essential for securing a job interview, butthat credential can be obtained by taking the easiest courses and doing theminimum amount of work? The result is hundreds of thousands of college studentswho go to college not to get an education, but to get a piece of paper. Whenthe dean of one East Coast college is asked how many students are in hisinstitution, he likes to answer, “Oh, maybe six or seven.” The situation at hiscollege is not unusual. The degradation of American college education is not amatter of a few parents horrified at stories of silly courses, trivial studyrequirements, and campus binge drinking. It has been documented in detail,affects a large proportion of the students in colleges, and is a disgrace.

TheDepartment of Education, with decades of student loans and scholarships foruniversity education, has not just been complicit in this evolution of the B.A.It has been its enabler. The size of these programs is immense. In 2010, thefederal government issued new loans totaling $125 billion. It handed out morethan eight million Pell Grants totaling more than $32 billion dollars. Absentthis level of intervention, the last three decades would have seen a muchhealthier evolution of post-secondary education that focused on concrete jobcredentials and courses of studies not constricted by the traditional model ofthe four-year residential college. The absence of this artificial subsidy wouldalso have let market forces hold down costs. Defenders of the Department ofEducation can unquestionably make the case that its policies have increased thenumber of people going to four-year residential colleges. But I view that aspart of the Department of Education’s indictment, not its defense.

* * *

Whatother case might be made for federal involvement in education? Itscontributions to good educational practice? Think of the good things that havehappened to education in the last 30 years—the growth of homeschooling and theinvention and spread of charter schools. The Department of Education hadnothing to do with either development. Both happened because of the initiativestaken by parents who were disgusted with standard public education and tookmatters into their own hands. To watch the process by which charter schools arecreated, against the resistance of school boards and administrators, is towatch the best of American traditions in operation. Government has had nothingto do with it, except as a drag on what citizens are trying to do for theirchildren.

Think ofthe best books on educational practice, such as Howard Gardner’s manyinnovative writings and E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Curriculum, developedafter his landmark book, Cultural Literacy,was published in 1987. None of this came out of the Department of Education.The Department of Education spends about $200 million a year on researchintended to improve educational practice. No evidence exists that theseexpenditures have done any significant good.

As faras I can determine, the Department of Education has no track record of positiveaccomplishment—nothing in the national numbers on educational achievement,nothing in the improvement of educational outcomes for the disadvantaged,nothing in the advancement of educational practice. It just spends a lot ofmoney. This brings us to the practical question: If the Department of Educationdisappeared from next year’s budget, would anyone notice? The only reason thatanyone would notice is the money. The nation’s public schools have developed adependence on the federal infusion of funds. As a practical matter, actuallydoing away with the Department of Education would involve creating block grantsso that school district budgets throughout the nation wouldn’t crater.

Sadly,even that isn’t practical. The education lobby will prevent any serious inroadson the Department of Education for the foreseeable future. But the answer tothe question posed in the title of this talk—“Do we need the Department ofEducation?”—is to me unambiguous: No.

Copyright© 2012 Hillsdale College. The opinions expressed in Imprimis arenot necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. Permission to reprint in wholeor in part is hereby granted, provided the following credit line is used:“Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of HillsdaleCollege.” SUBSCRIPTION FREE UPON REQUEST. ISSN 0277-8432. Imprimis trademarkregistered in U.S. Patent and Trade Office #1563325.

Too Big to Fail, To Little to Save

2012-01-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

CNBC reported this morning that Kodak had been given noticethat it wasn’t in compliance with the stock price rules of the New York StockExchange. Kodak is currently selling forless than $1 per share. This iscontinuing evidence of a long slide for Kodak as digital technology hasreplaced its film-centric technology. Yes, Kodak has participated in digital products but was ill prepared byits focus on film technology to switch horses effectively. Basically, entities have great difficultydealing with change. The only thing that“helps” them do it is competition. Thus,a former strong company that was part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average yearsago is trundling slowly toward oblivion already achieving insignificant statusin today’s economy. Should we be sad? No, the meritocratic system that isCapitalism weeds out the uncompetitive to make room for the competitive. Consumers benefit because they have a bettertechnology at their disposal at a much cheaper price point. More jobs are created in the newtechnology.

To reference the title of this piece, Too Big to Fail, Too Little to Save, Kodak has withered away to apoint where it is too little to save and so the government did not intervene tokeep an unproductive entity alive. Ifthey had done so as they have in other areas recently they would have added tothe cost but not the benefit to society as a whole. Letting uncompetitive entities fail andperhaps rise from the ashes recast for success is a natural and positivedevelopment. Sure, there is short termpain involved but it is far, far less than the total pain and cost to societywhen government steps in and creates a “walking dead” situation that wanderszombie-like forever, as a net drag on our economy when we can ill afford it.

The biggest failed enterprise being propped up by the governmentis our education system. It is less competitiveby far than Kodak yet is still consuming huge resources. It does not educate our children well enoughto compete in the global marketplace for high paying jobs. While there is some domestic competition foreducation; private and charter schools and even home schooling, the educationestablishment has been very successful in limiting school choice for themajority of the children nationally. Thus, with no competition, our century old “Model T” education systemcontinues to be “improved” but the underlying chassis is still the sameuncompetitive Model T. Also, in truth,what domestic competition exists is basically using the same failed educationphilosophies as used in the mainline schools. There are exceptions but far too few. When compared to the more modern and perfected education processes ofthe countries beating us so badly on international achievement testing oursystem should have been killed and replaced decades ago.

Treating our education system as too big to fail is damagingour society as a whole. It does reducethe short term pain for education fiefdom members and suppliers but can’t bejustified because it harms our kids and nation far more than the reduced painto our coddled educators is worth. Let educatorscompete by accessing government money only tied to real performanceimprovement. This must be results basednot activity based. Educators have showngreat mastery of “looking like they are doing positive things” while continuingthe same old harmful processes.

The education emperor has no clothes. Someone who is as delusional as that deservesto fail and be replaced. But we shouldgive them a chance to change but it must be on a short leash, i.e. tied tospecific and immediate improvement. Itis commonly said by educators that change is hard and takes a long time. That is not at all true. If your feet are in the fire you move, youdon’t let them roast.

A good example of what is possible is what happened afterPearl Harbor. A highly bureaucratizedmilitary suddenly threw the “book” out the window making greater progress inmonths than had been made in decades before that. It became a truly merit-based systemovernight. There was no tolerance forthe old ways of patronage and who someone knew. When survival is at stake positive action happens naturally. We need to threaten the survival of thecurrent failed education system if we expect positive change.

Teachers Overpaid

2011-11-04T12:52:00.001-07:00

Reference - “Study: Teachers Make Too MuchMoney” from Education Week.

In the article Francesca Duffy reports on aWashington meeting this week where Biggs and Richwine (researchers at theAmerican Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation ) reported on theirfindings that on average teachers make 52% more than workers with equivalentskills make in the private sector considering pay, benefits and job security. They totally demolished Arne Duncan,Education Secretary’s assertion that teachers are “desperately underpaid.” I am really surprised that the researchersmade it out of town without suffering harm.

The researchers reckon that the overpaymentnationwide amounts to $120 Billion a year. This puts it in the same ballpark as the savings the “super committee”is tasked to find in the federal spending over ten years. Yes, it is hard to take away something thatpeople are used to getting but in this case it is both unfair andunaffordable. This is why a focus of thediscussion was to promote the idea that states facing budget shortfalls shouldconsider teacher compensation as a viable area for spending cuts.

While this could be a fruitful area and could startaddressing the unfairness to society of the current situation, we know from thestates (Wisconsin et al) where even small changes in what teachers pay forhealthcare or retirement plan contributions are attempted that it will requirea lot guts on the part of state lawmakers with majority public support to makeit happen.

Richwinecontended that the standard regression method, which compares teachers toworkers with equivalent education and finds that teachers are underpaid, isflawed because it doesn't consider "unobservable ability." Peoplegoing into teaching have lower SAT and GRE scores than people who pursue otherfields, he said. Thus, in the case of teachers, "years of education couldbe an overestimate of cognitive skills." In addition, the education majoritself is not as rigorous as other fields of study. Thus, this adds to the recognition of educationoutsiders over decades that an education degree is of extremely low valuecompared to other degree paths. It isessentially a “seat time” certificate. Fordecades those who fail in other college majors switch to education and become “A”students easily and those who can’t get admitted to more rigorous studies startout in education from day one.

Thisdoesn’t mean that all educators are uneducated but the majority certainlyare. They set the tone for the wholeendeavor making any improvement virtually impossible as has been proven overdecades. An example of critiques of theeducation schools and their graduates is Gary Lyons article in Texas Magazine,Sept. 1979. Lyonsreported that half of the teacher applicants to the Houston Independent SchoolDistrict scored lower in math and a third of them lower in English than theaverage high school junior and he blamed the state’s sixty-three accreditedteacher-training institutions for turning out “teachers who cannot read as wellas the average sixteen-year old, write notes free of barbarisms to parents, orhandle arithmetic well enough to keep track of the field-trip money.” He accused the teacher colleges of coddlingignorance and, “backed by hometown legislators,” of turning out “hordes ofcertified ignoramuses whose incompetence in turn becomes evidence that theteacher colleges and the educators need yet more money and more power.”

Arthur Levine, then president of Columbia TeachersCollege (when he wrote his reports) in his three part critique of educationschools starting with Educating School Leaders in 2005 reinforced Lyons’criticisms of 26 years earlier. Hepointed out the low SAT and GRE scores but also that administrators as a grouphad lower SAT and GRE scores than the teachers they were “leading.” He also bemoaned the lack of rigor as beingrelated to universities, even those with good reputations, using educationschools as a low quality diploma mill with lowering standards and admissionrequirements to support the levels of income needed to fund more important careermajors at the universities.

Back to the new research: They found that when teachers and otherworkers are compared by cognitive ability, Richwine added, "the wagepenalty has essentially disappeared." Also, their research showed that when teachers left teaching to takeprivate sector jobs their pay declined by 3%. Of course, the party line of the teachers unions is that teachers areconstantly tempted by higher pay in the private sector, which is perhaps truefor some teachers but not for the average teacher.

Itshould be no surprise that the biggest component of the overpaid reality lieswith the extremely generous benefits that teachers receive which are notavailable in the private sector. Fullyfunded retirement plans with defined benefit amounts unattainable withouttaxpayer subsidies because the market return assumptions are unrealistic aretypically fully funded by the public. Also, healthcare costs are extremely low and the retirement healthcarebenefits are also very expensive to the public but virtually free for theteachers.

Ibelieve that this “free ride” on the taxpayer’s dime is unsustainable andunproductive. It contributes to a viewof things within education circles that is totally unrealistic. It results in false sense of entitlementrelated to believing the conventional wisdoms of educators. That is, “we are doing a great job and areworking incredibly hard.” NormanAugustine in his “Is America Falling Off the Flat Earth?” points out that ifAmerican educators adopted a goal to be “average” in the global educationpanacea they would need to improve a lot. The reality is that our education system is performing abysmally and theamount we spend on it is not helping at all. The payback on investment is atrocious. Worse though is that millions of kids are given “amputated” futures yearafter year because educators live in a dream world with no sense of reality orresponsibility while their enablers the education schools and too manypoliticians find benefit in continuing the scam.

Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

The death of Steve Jobs is on everyone’s mind thisweek. The accolades for his leadershipand creative genius at Apple are everywhere in the media. The accolades are appropriate because of theresults he turned in over his career. Ithink it is very worthwhile to look at the “whole person” who was so successfuland learn from it.

Steve’s reputation was that he was a very smart and drivenperson. That was characterized by hisextremely high expectations for himself and the organization he led coupledwith a passion for excellence. From whatyou can piece together from comments now but especially over the years whenpeople were discussing a living and not a dead man paint a picture of adifficult person to have as a boss. More than one person who worked with him hassaid he did not suffer fools at all. Healso did not suffer in silence when confronted with what he saw as work thatdid not meet his standard. His feedbackin such circumstances was swift and biting. He created a work environment where political correctness had noplace. Perhaps above all he understoodthe technology and what it could and couldn’t do at the current time or theshort term future. This objective andrealistic but stretching view of what was possible led Apple to success aftersuccess.

So let’s compare the Job’s approach to management with thatemployed by our education “leaders.”

· Results - our education system is turning inresults as abysmal as Job’s results were positive.
· Expectations – educators do not have highexpectations of themselves or of their students.
· Objectivity – educators continue to useeducation approaches which are technically wrong in spite of the results theyaren’t able to achieve. This is comparedto competitor nations who use technically sound approaches and teach their kidsmuch more effectively as is shown by the international testing. The approach in our education system is totry to do the wrong thing better when they should stop doing the wrong thingsand start doing the right things.
· Work environment – in education politicalcorrectness and group think run amok. This creates a workplace where constructive feedback (that is, you arenot getting the right results, shape up or ship out) simply does notoccur. Kids and our increasinglyuncompetitive society globally continue to pay the price.
· Mental Toughness – Job’s created an environmentof mental toughness where robust dialog was encouraged as a way to perfect thequality of the work teams. The educationenvironment is one of people walking on eggshells because conflict is notallowed and thus creates a bunch of wimps.
· Passion – in education passion is not allowedbecause it might lead to conflicts. Conflictis required if you want to really perform well. It results in much better decisions. Oh, people “say” they are passionate about things but it is all acharade. If passion for doing theeducation mission in an excellent way were ever allowed to break through theeducations fiefdom’s fortress walls it would have a remarkably positive impact.

Therefore, we must conclude that there are good reasons whySteve Jobs and Apple were successful and equally valid reasons why oureducation system is a miserable failure compared to the money spent and thequality of the kids who have far more potential than they are given creditfor.

Courageous Education Leaders = Oxymoron

2011-09-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

The history of American mainstream education for nearly the last five decades has been characterized by lots of changes but no significant improvement in our performance versus the best global competition. In fact they are improving steadily at a pace that even if we improve will leave us further behind year after year. The changes we have pursued have been;
• Greatly increased costs
o Admin increases have been huge in both numbers of people and the pay they receive.
o Advanced ‘education school’ graduate degrees have become ubiquitous. This is because districts have policies in place that give people who get the advanced degree an automatic pay increase. For example; Arthur Levine (former president of Columbia Teachers College) wrote in his 2005 Educating School Leaders that the education doctorate “had no value for any public school administration job.”
o The ancillary “trappings” that used to be very rare are now “necessary” so that schools are more and more expensive to build and maintain. The husk is beautiful but the core is rotten.
o Massive amounts of money are spent on “doing the wrong things better” which is much more expensive and only preserves the unacceptable status quo of poor performance. Terms such as best practice, special education, response to intervention, etc. all fit the “do the wrong thing better” approach.

• States generally set low proficiency standards and the national level NAEP testing which has a more rigorous standard than the states also is set below the global best competition by 2-3 grades and sometimes more.

• The best performing global competitors use a rigorous, direct instruction process taught by teachers who have robust subject knowledge. Our education philosophy is to use the discovery/constructivist approach championed by Dewey et al about a century ago. Our performance cannot improve significantly unless we discard the dumbed-down constructivist approach and replace it with the direct instruction process. This will require ‘retreading’ teachers in both subject knowledge which is currently weak but also in pedagogy which is currently tailored to the constructivist process that E.D. Hirsch says “hasn’t worked and can’t work” because it is technically flawed.

• The political climate has increasingly moved toward more state and federal control and less local control over the education process. This added bureaucracy only serves to increase costs and cast the current technically flawed process in concrete so that needed change is extremely difficult.

• Education entities have essentially transformed themselves into propaganda operations whose main objective is to ‘con’ the public into believing that they are doing as well as can be expected but more money to spend would always help the kids.

With all of that it is easy to see why educators take the comfortable and easy road of ignoring (masking) their performance in the core mission to educate children to their potential. However, just suppose for the thought of it that some brave district leadership team decided to work on the real issues impeding education performance. It isn’t likely but just suppose it did happen. What process might they use to travel the road to self-respect and satisfaction in tackling a difficult task and succeeding?

A good first step would be to put out a press release and parent, patron, and staff letter to inform everyone of the truth of the district’s poor performance and also that they were committed to fixing the problems as soon as possible. This could be considered analogous to Cortez’ burning of ships to prevent his men from feeling that retreat to Cuba was an option. Their only option was to go forward or die. That brave district would inform everyone that the ways of operating would be very different than they had been in the past.

The days of milling around trying to avoid making a decision that might cause painful but productive change would be past. The focus would be on implementation of “technically correct” education processes. There is absolutely no need to discuss, experiment or go slow, what needs to be done is well known. The other countries whose kids get much better educations than ours do have proven what works, we only need to implement their good practice.

A specific outline of actions to take immediately no matter what part of the school year you are in;
• Immediately start rigorous subject matter training for teachers. Start with elementary teachers who as a group have the most to learn. Concentrate on math and reading first. This training cannot come from education school faculty. They don’t have the knowledge required as is shown by the poor subject knowledge of education school graduates.

• Immediately discontinue all constructivist curricula. Replace all texts currently in use with more rigorous material. For example, the Singapore math texts are cheap and much better than the commonly used EveryDay Math which does not provide the foundation required for success in middle and high school math studies.

• Immediately train district leaders to be competent change leaders. Education school training and the leadership role models all work to create maintainers not “change masters” as Rosabeth Kanter called them in her book The Change Masters.

• Eliminate political correctness and Group Think as they stand in the way of robust dialogue, a primary requirement for performance organizations.

• Value honesty in identifying problems. Do not allow a “kill the messenger” approach. You must face the bald-faced truth of your performance no matter how uncomfortable if you hope to make real progress.

• Report often to stakeholders about progress being made.

• Stop paying more for advanced degrees. If the advanced degree results in better performance then pay more for that performance, if not, do not pay more. This was recommended by Arthur Levine in Educating School Leaders.

• Use a short-cycle, data driven, prioritized management process.

Is there just one district out there that has the integrity and honesty to face and fix the problems so that all kids can actually have the opportunity to learn to their potential?

The Dirty Little Secret

2011-08-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

Our education system has a dirty little secret that it keeps well hidden. The secret is that our system was designed to not educate our children rigorously. You may think I am full of “it.” However, consider the following facts:

1. Our kids compare unfavorably to their best foreign peers on the international standardized tests. Why? Is it because our kids are less bright and unable to learn at a high level? Not at all, it is because we use the technically wrong constructivist/discovery methods in our schools that not one of the competitor nations whose kids are scoring better than ours use. One would think that IF our educators cared about their mission they would notice that fact and move to correct that problem. Don’t hold your breath.

2. Our education system is basically a fraudulent scheme to extract ever larger amounts of money from the public to enrich educators and their “suppliers.” You see, once a lie starts being told it is very difficult for those telling it to admit it when their livelihood is based on the lies.

3. If we changed to the system of direct instruction by teachers who have a highly competent understanding of the subject(s) they are teaching we could solve this problem and serve our kids and country much better. A much higher percentage of our kids could actually compete successfully for the better paying jobs in the rising global meritocracy.

4. Sadly, the large majority of our teacher cadre does not have the robust understanding of subject matter that is required by the systems our competitor nations use and we used to use before the progressives replaced it with their dumbed-down version currently in use. This is most critical at the elementary levels where the foundation for learning at the middle school and high school level should be provided but is not. This is confirmed by the fact that the longer our kids are exposed to our system the worse they do as a group compared to their foreign peers.

5. Education schools do not provide acceptable levels of either pedagogy or subject knowledge in their curricula. Their bachelor and graduate degrees only confirm that the person has spent money and “seat time” in the diploma mill, not that they learned anything pertinent to the rigorous teaching of our kids. This problem is ubiquitous and the exceptions among education schools are very, very few. The bottom line is that if we wanted to change to a system that works (and we must, immediately) the challenge would be to retrain teachers willing and able to grasp the required knowledge and bring in people with “honest degrees” in real subjects to replace those teachers who cannot or chose not to meet the more rigorous standard required.

6. Textbooks are selected that “look good” with color glossy format and are incredibly expensive. However, they are very much dumbed-down from where they need to be if our kids are to actually learn anything worthwhile.

7. Politicians from the school board level all the way through state legislators to national legislators are loath to call for real reform because many political campaigns are “nudged” toward the candidate committed to continuing the educators place at the government trough. This happens through campaign contributions but perhaps more importantly by educators walking the precincts going door to door to convince the uninformed public that the kids will suffer if the candidate they don’t favor is elected. Of course they never admit that the kids are being harmed currently and will continue to be if the candidate they support is elected.

8. All of the costly reforms are ineffective in actually improving things for the kids. They can be accurately described as attempts to “do the wrong thing better” and spend a lot more money in the process. The educators get more money to spend on their salaries/benefits and the enrichment of their friends who support their efforts from vendors to ed schools and politicians.

9. Educators are addicted to “research” and “studies” because they carry with them large grants from government entities or foundations. This has been a huge source of the enrichment of the education fiefdom. It is also tragic because much of the research is of very low quality or slanted to make the desired point. Realistically, we already know what must be done very accurately. The educators use further research as a delaying tactic asserting that we don’t know what needs to be done. This very big lie harms our kids and wastes huge sums of valuable resources in the process. It preserves the status quo.

There is an old saying that the exception proves the rule. There are two exceptions to the constructivist/discovery approach in our schools. They are music instruction and sports coaches. You might ask why those areas use a direct instruction and drill process. Why are they allowed to do it right while the rest of the teachers use the consistently harmful approach?

I believe it is simply because both music and sports result in a data driven, short cycle, closed loop assessment of both activities. That is, when the music teachers schedule multiple programs or concerts a year for parents and the public they don’t want to depend on Professor Harold Hill’s “Think System” to avoid embarrassment. Similarly, sports coaches don’t want to consistently lose games to opponents, which is disliked by parents and the public. So they actually teach kids the skills they need to perform acceptably. Not every music teacher is Bach and not every coach is Lombardi but they still know their subjects far better than other teachers know theirs.

In academic subjects achievement tests are given once a year and the results usually come out very close to the start of the new school year when parents especially are very busy getting ready for the new school year. Educators might say that report cards are given quarterly but with the tendency of teachers and administrators to avoid angry parents, the report card grades have inflated away from reality for decades now.

Thus, educators are careful to provide respectable performance in areas like music and sports where the results of their efforts are immediate or “short cycle” but they are very good at distracting attention from their performance in preparing our kids for the globally competitive situation they will face when they leave school.

State report cards for schools only compare a school or district’s performance to others in the same state. States set their own definitions of proficiency and design their own tests. That alone is an incentive to make them easier than they should be. While national data exist it is difficult to access and the international data is slow to be reported at best and not very easy to access unless you are highly motivated to do so.

Again, the dirty little secret is that our schools are working as designed to enrich educators and harm kids. We know how to fix it, so why aren’t we demanding that it happen?

Koreans Shudder at No School on Saturday

2011-07-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

The title of the article in Bloomburg Business Week’s July 11 – July 17, 2001 issue shines a spotlight on the education ethic in the East Asian countries versus those prevalent in America. First, understand that the Koreans currently send their kids to two half day Saturday sessions a month and the government is proposing to do away with those sessions. Why? It seems they feel that more family time and play time for the children will result in more consumption which they want to promote.

As the title indicates Koreans, especially mothers per the article, don’t support the change. And the children they interviewed for the article don’t either. One mother said she was spending $1700 per month on tutoring classes. Another mother spends $2800 per month on math classes for her son. The conclusion of the article after interviewing a cross section of parents seemed to be that if the public schools weren’t open on Saturday they would sign the kids up for more private tutoring classes to take their place. One example was Charlie Lee an eleven year old who takes 15 hours of cram classes a week in English and math.

The East Asian countries dominate the top five places in the OECD assessments of reading, math and science. American students are ranked 30th of 34 OECD countries in math, 23rd in science, and 17th in reading. This, in spite of American spending on education being at the very top of all nations except for two small country exceptions.

Korean attitudes are sharpened by seeing what happened in Japan where they cut Saturday classes in 2002 only to reinstate them in 2009 after seeing their results in international testing steadily decline. From 2000 to 2006 Japan students went from first in math to tenth, 2nd to 6th in science and 8th to 15th in reading comprehension.

The mother who was spending $2800 per month on tutoring for her 13 year old son said, “I will make sure he gets whatever he needs.” Apparently the long honored Confucian reverence for education is being reinforced by the competition parents see from other nations who also see education as the best way to prepare their children for the increasingly stern global meritocracy.

This article was a reminder of how delusional we have been on education here. Our educators and politicians continue to work to maintain the status quo while touting all sorts of “polish the rotten apple” reforms they tell us will improve things but never do. How many decades do we need to continue harming kids before we listen to people like E.D. Hirsch who point out based on decades of study of our education system that, “the current system (different than that used by all of the world leaders doing better than we are) hasn’t worked and can’t work" (because it is based on technically wrong beliefs that are ubiquitous in our education cadre)? Too many cynically believe it is only the gap kids who are being harmed and “everyone knows they can’t learn anyway.” They can learn and the kids who do relatively well by comparison in the current system could learn far more if they were given the kind of rigorous experience with teachers who actually understand the subjects they are teaching.

History NAEP—On the Progressive Path

2011-07-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

The new results for the history section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are out. Proficiency rates of 12% for 12th grade, 17% for 8th grade, and 20% for 4th grade. If you are of the belief that our children must understand history well as a foundation to good citizenship, you are likely greatly distressed by this result which except for minor improvement at 8th grade level is statistically the same result as in the past.

A few years ago I read Michael Barone’s book Hard America, Soft America. I highly recommend it to you. One part of the book related to how some parents, especially the liberal upper middle class were so committed to providing a good education for their children but were unconcerned with the education being received by the masses. This puzzled me at the time as I thought that if they cared about education for their own they should care about quality education for all children.

Since then I have come to realize that the progressives are getting just the results they wanted when they planned the takeover of the education system starting in the early years of the twentieth century. John Dewey and his accomplices tirelessly pushed for elimination of the old American Common School approach as too rigorous and inappropriate for the industrial jobs that were transforming America from a rural agrarian, entrepreneurial society to an urban/suburban existence working for “the boss.”

The Progressives had a clear view of the future they wanted. They desired a country where expertise ruled, their expertise, because they knew better how we should live our lives. Thus, they wanted the general populace to be minimally educated so that they would be easier to sway to what their “betters” had determined was the correct path for society to take. Thus, their education approach was to dumb-down curricula and use slow and ineffective discovery methods to ensure that the masses didn’t learn enough to question their political leaders.

The progressives are inwardly smiling because the results reported by NAEP confirm that their “grand plan” is working very successfully. If you are surprised by my assertion it is because the education establishment “intellectual leaders” have been successful in packaging their travesty in a camouflage that looks very much like what society would deem appropriate for their education system. They have successfully brainwashed the teachers and administrators in their education school training to believe that they are doing the right things and as well as can be expected with the resources they are given and the quality of the kids they have to teach.

They are masters of propaganda. They repeat a mantra that sounds good at first and unless someone takes the time to peek behind the camouflage to view the reality it is assumed that the assertion of education doing as well as it can is true. Besides we are so busy doing important things of our own that we have to depend on the schools to do their job well. We need that time for golf, fantasy football, shopping at the mall for the latest electronic gadget or a new wardrobe, or working two jobs to make ends meet because our own “great progressive education” didn’t prepare us to compete for well paying jobs.

As I have pointed out in previous posts, the education establishment is a well-oiled machine whose purpose is to enrich its workers while maintaining the status quo, poor performing system that hasn’t worked for kids and can’t work. When I started on my education research mission I had assumed that the current system needed to be reformed, I was wrong; it must be replaced from the foundation up. Polishing this rotten apple only delays the day when our kids are educated to be able to compete with their best educated global peers.

A last word; remember that the system is doing exactly what the progressives who designed it wanted it to do. They want a credulous populace subject to their expertise who aren’t prepared by their weak education to question what is happening. That is not in line with our founding principles. Our founding principles may not be perfect but they are better than any other system so far tried and need to be preserved. To do that our education system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Independence Day Thoughts

2011-07-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton was interviewed on CNBC’s Squawk Box earlier in the week. Two areas of the discussion are worth mentioning; both important to our understanding of the reality of our education system. First, he stated that to get our economy going we needed to graduate a lot more scientists and engineers from American universities. His solution—bring in more foreign students and allow them to stay after graduation by granting more visas. The conclusion you have to draw is that he knows that our K-12 education system is incapable of providing more graduates prepared to successfully study science and engineering in our universities. Sadly, he is absolutely right. This seems a sad parallel to the Romans who declined steadily starting with the use of foreigners to staff their legions as their own citizens were too inured to the “good life” of ease and wealth at home.

More than that, however, I believe he knows that the larger progressive goals for education are inconsistent with providing the rigorous education required to increase the supply of sufficiently well-educated students to send to science and engineering programs. The progressive practice of using the K-12 school system to create a credulous populace, the majority of which are educated at best to a mediocre level and at worst to a minimum brainwashed state is inconsistent with rigor in education.

The second aspect of the interview was related to his understanding of the “Boil the frog” process. You know the story; if you put a frog in boiling water it will reflexively jump out but if you put a frog in room temp water and slowly increase the heat it will ultimately be cooked. In responding to a comment that the interviewer talks to lots of business leaders who express concern over the level of change from the health care bill and the Dodd-Frank regulatory bill being too confusing and massive to deal with Clinton’s response was that the bills should be implemented more slowly (frog example) so the business owners would have time to get used to it.

Unsaid but the obvious conclusion was that the goal was the same to end up with “cooked” businesses in the end. This was the second point pertaining to our education system. This approach squares well with that the progressives took to acquiring total control of our education system. Their approach was so radical and antithetical to the rigorous content-rich approach they wanted to replace that they knew it would have to be done over decades slowly so that the “frogs” didn’t notice the change from a system supporting the principles of our founding to the one they wanted that prepared most of us for a system of “expert control” and nanny state incentives to compliance with little personal freedom or responsibility. Their approach was wildly successful. Clinton was reminding his partners that they should remember that radical “step function” changes as recently passed by the “bit in their teeth” last congress would raise the ire of the populace to oppose them.

This is why the current education system cannot be reformed but must be replaced. And like the frog boiler-progressives we need to remember that it can’t be done overnight but that foundational changes need to be put in place immediately that will get us on the road to the future our nation deserves and for which our founders sacrificed so much to give to us.

Wake Up, Rip, Going Through The Motions—A Disastrous Sham

2011-05-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

The new report, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants—An Agenda for American Education Reform, is the latest indictment of American education practices. It is perhaps the most comprehensive look at the differences between our approach and that of our best foreign competitor nations. That we have a problem should be no surprise. The surprise is that we have been so loathe to face the truth of the ridiculously poorly designed education system whose foundation was laid over a hundred years ago. That effort by progressive forces replaced the “envy of the world” American Common School of Mann, Webster and others with a dumbed-down, going through the motions affair designed to prepare students to work in industrial factories as essentially human robots on assembly lines. As the global economy has changed other nations have worked hard to make their education systems meet the challenge of preparing students to have the tools to compete in a knowledge value world. We haven’t.

We have been worse than Rip Van Winkle in our slumber while the realities of our poor education performance go ignored. In 1957 the Russian Sputnik launch triggered a desire to add more rigor to our schools. Gary Lyon’s article in Texas Monthly magazine, Sept. 1979 “Why Teachers Can’t Teach” decried Ed school training as a farce and a fraud. In the 1983 A Nation at Risk report we were clearly told that our education system was affected by a rising tide of mediocrity and that if a foreign nation had imposed our education system on us we would consider it an act of war. Listing the reports and initiatives since A Nation at Risk would be a long task. The point is that we have had plenty of warning but have approached the needed reform by applying bandaid after bandaid to a zombie that has to have radical surgery if it is to be truly “fixed.”

My guess is that the parties whose vested interest (read huge amounts of money and power) will be threatened by the required change to reform our education system to one that is truly worthy of us is doomed to fail. Of course, that is betting on an extension of the current trend and that is an easy bet. Inflection points are caused by a big shift in ancillary forces from outside the system and they do not exist now because Rip has not awakened yet. By the time he awakes it will likely be too late and our children and grandchildren will have to live through much tougher times caused by our increasing lack of competitiveness in the global economy.

Listing some of the biggest anchors preventing the needed reforms –

• Education schools—compared to the best competition our training of teachers (and administrators) is weak to the point of ridicule. The low admission standards result in entrants to our schools of education scoring in the lower third of all SAT test takers. The course offerings of the schools of education are a total sham. Lyons described the courses as, “the intellectual equivalent of puffed wheat: one kernel of knowledge inflated by means of hot air, divided into pieces and puffed again.” The new report points out that the competitor nations require absolute subject mastery and pedagogy that is far more rigorous than the waste of time approach we take to pedagogy training. The admission requirements for our Ed school grad programs are similarly low. Thus our education schools are “diploma mills” skimming huge amounts of money from their farcical educator training programs. If you think that the universities that have schools of education will give up that low overhead, gravy train without a fight, well good luck.

• Current educators—these folk, to support the needed change would need to be retrained with rigor in both subject matter and pedagogy. That is, the current cadre of education “professionals” is totally inadequate to what we desperately need. During the study that resulted in “Standing on the Shoulder . . .” an American representative suggested adding a question about what percent of teachers were teaching subjects they weren’t trained in. The representatives from other countries thought he was kidding and then were aghast that it would even be considered to allow a teacher to “teach” a subject they didn’t know and know very well. Yet in America the Taylor management philosophy supports the philosophy that teachers (line workers) are interchangeable without being concerned about such trivial matters as subject knowledge. The joke is on us. The other countries have it right and we have it wrong.

• Poor management philosophy and structure—our schools are based on management principles of Frederick Taylor, Gantt and others who were involved in designing the systems used to manage production line factories in the early twentieth century. This management style has been long ago replaced by more humanistic and participatory models in many organizations outside of education although it is more prevalent than it should be even now. This top down, repressive style is NOT the way to manage professionals. Hence as in industry a perceived need for unions to protect against the long outdated management philosophy adds even more anti-change reality into the system. It also gives rise to pay for time in service instead of results achieved (merit) and emphasis on work rules that prevent effective performance of the mission. If the “step pay” plan weren’t in place, starting pay for new teachers who were of the training, competence and intellect required could be implemented.

• Unions—these have acquired huge levels of power and if the choice is to give up their power or continue the status quo which ensures their power stays in place, it is easy to predict their stance.

• Legislators—the unions wield great power in supporting the election of “compliant” politicians to office. They support candidates who will support their status quo agenda. This is another tough impediment to positive change.

• An army of researchers, education vendors, government bureaucracies—these people also see threat of less power or remuneration or both if the needed reform were to happen.

It is and has been clear for decades what needs to be done. But who will step up to the plate and get it done. It will require lots of guts, determination, and passion from those who understand the consequences for our progeny and country if we don’t force it to happen. One thing that must be crystal clear, change will not occur from within. Our educators are working to protect their self-interest at the expense of our children and our country. It is time to wake up and face the truth.

The Standing on the Shoulders. . . report is available at
http://www.ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Standing-on-the-Shoulders-of-Giants-An-American-Agenda-for-Education-Reform.pdf

S O S D D

2011-05-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

I read yesterday a commentary in Education Week trying to motivate school boards to balance their resource allocations to be fair to the “Gap” children. He bemoaned the fact that all of these years after the Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision the gap in learning of our disadvantaged children has not improved. And he is right but as always in education it is an excuse to remind us that it is an external problem (school board in this case) to the sacrosanct and perfect education system they want us to believe exists. So the problem is defined by education insiders as school boards not doing the right thing, the people and legislators not providing the proper level of funding, parents not sending the kids to school already knowing how to read, write, do math and perfectly behaved. This is not an exhaustive list as the education establishment is very adept at deflecting the blame for their poor performance to any mildly plausible target.

Is anyone else bothered that our education problems rotate among the current year’s “cause célèbre?” The gap problem is certainly on the rotation and gets “undivided attention” (talk and more money thrown around to no effect) for a period of time periodically. You may remember that I have written before about the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report of November 2005. In the report they do a fine job of defining the problem and admitting that the problem was only worse than when Robert Kennedy said a “third of a Century” ago that the problem was a stain on our national honor. However, the proposed solutions to the problem amounted to redoubling the effort to do the things that have failed so miserably in the past, better this time. UGH!! We could be excused for asking, “When will they ever learn?”

In reality the education fiefdom (defensive, delusional, insular, inbred and uneducated), doesn’t ever learn anything new. That might cause them to realize that the status quo is unacceptable, which it certainly is. If you remember my original four attributes of the education Fiefdom you will notice I added uneducated this time. Oh, there is an oversupply of worthless degrees from bachelors to masters to doctorates. Rita Kramer in her book, Ed School Follies asserts our educators are uneducated. She means by that they only study process in education schools and therefore do not have any subject knowledge worth mentioning. She says wisely that anyone who doesn’t know and love the subject they are teaching is not going to be effective.

Is this a problem? Yes, it is central to the choice of content free (discovery, constructivist) curricula because the knowledge to teach kids subject knowledge is missing. We are the only nation that uses this uncompetitive approach. All the nations whose kids are learning so much more than ours, use a content rich approach and have teachers who know the subject so they can teach effectively. Tragically, America with the Common School movement of Horace Mann, Noah Webster and others used the same method that our competitors use today. We listened to the Siren Songs of John Dewey, Fitzpatrick (Columbia Teachers College “million dollar” professor) who denigrated the great system we had at the time to install their progressive system designed to prepare people to work as “tell us what to do” workers in “big box” entities like industrial factories. The idea was to allow students to “explore and discover” the subject knowledge on their own. Of course this process is much slower because reinventing the wheel is slow and unpredictable. Thus, we discarded a system that worked and replaced it with the one that hasn’t worked and can’t work. This is why spending one more day or dollar and doing the wrong thing better which is the current approach is idiocy to the max. So why don’t we change? Good question and there is a good answer.

The Fiefdom has had time to develop a very effective strategy to prevent any real change from happening. They have time to do this because they are not spending time learning to understand subjects or improve anything. They are playing defense and we need to remember that. The central tenet of their approach is to use their pseudo professionalism to convince those interested in making productive change that the education expert process must be followed when considering any change. Thus, they demand that all changes being considered are studied by a committee of educators and community members. The administrators carefully select members of the committee to prevent any meaningful representation from truly motivated change champions. They may allow a token or two but make sure they are a distinct minority. This committee usually takes more than a year to reach its recommendations. If they recommend a change, the educators demand research by education experts to validate the recommendations. Of course, this is a rigged game because the “experts” are all part of the ”status quo at all costs” conspiracy. This process takes years typically and allows perhaps the biggest problem in making productive change in education to rear its ugly head. That is turnover in administration (especially the superintendent), school board members, or even key advocates of change who may move to a different job or become discouraged. This turnover provides an excuse to “restart” the process with new membership. Thus nothing positive ever happens.

This process is very effective at preserving the status quo and very, very effective at harming generation after generation of students. This is especially true for the gap students. However, we must remember that all of our students are being shortchanged by our mainline schools. While we always hear of all the exceptional kids who are stars in terms of scholarships, SAT and ACT scores, etc., they are the exception and in most cases I have seen they have a large component of parent provided support in the form of parent teaching, tutors, attendance of charter or private schools, or home school episodes to address problem areas. The overall performance of our kids versus their best foreign competition is mediocre (literacy) to poor (science and math). Perhaps most interesting is that the change process is based on the same premises of the “wandering in the wilderness” learning process employed by our schools. It is like taking a trek in the wilderness without a guide or a map. You can wander a long time. If you have a guide who knows the territory (or a teacher who knows the subject) you can get where you want to go much more quickly and safely. The educators depend on the discovery process to slow any change effort to ineffectiveness.

Facts you need to know to counteract the false doctrine of the education Fiefdom
• We don’t need to figure out what works or spend time on committees, hiring education expert consultants or long winded harangues at board meetings. It is well known what needs to be done. We must demand that the changes be implemented immediately.
• Education research is of poor quality. It is often slanted to reach the desired conclusion or poorly done from a statistical rigor point of view. Also, the researchers are careful to avoid telling comparisons between the status quo activities and those that are much better at teaching kids.
• The current education system was designed to create that population of worker bees good at taking direction in the industrial big box settings. It was also designed to create an easily convinced, credulous populace subject to “expert” top-down control.
• You cannot work with educators to bring about improvement. You must TELL them what they must do if they want to continue working in education. No other approach has worked or will work. If you aren’t prepared to go to war to get better education for our kids then you need to accept the poor performance and/or take responsibility for teaching your kids yourself.
• The current system is not preparing our kids to compete for high paying knowledge work jobs of the future. How many burger flippers do we need?
• Politicians (local school board, state legislators, national legislators) are all overly prone to cater to the education power groups because they are more effective than the heterogeneous public who only become unified when something big motivates them. Perhaps the most powerful of these power groups is the teachers union which can give large campaign contributions to sway targeted elections and can marshal their members to walk the areas to convince voters who to vote for their candidate with very slanted messages designed to protect their selfish agenda.
• The current content free approach is harmful to all kids but is far more harmful to the gap kids. They typically don‘t have the support system that their peers do to somewhat attenuate the impact of the poor current approach.

I have some questions for you. Is educating our kids to be competitive in the global economy worthwhile or will the tooth fairy make sure everything works out ok for them? Do you really think that anything will change under the current system unless the public revolts and wrests control from the education experts who aren’t? If you are objective you realize that we are on a long trek toward the future destroying cliff. Is the Thelma and Louise approach a good choice because that is certainly where we are headed. It is tragic that we spend the most per student of all the countries in the world with the exception of a couple of small countries and yet our performance is poor. You must know in your gut that something is drastically wrong with this picture.

Patton said that fixed fortifications were a monument to the stupidity of man. The current Fiefdom defenses are nothing if not fixed defenses. Sadly, we have no Patton type leaders to bypass the education fixed fortifications and rescue the kids, especially the gap kids from the poor performance of our schools. RFK was right, this is a stain on our national honor.

For those who haven’t already realized it the SOSDD, stands for Same Old “Stuff” Different Day which acknowledges that the education performance has been mired in a huge unproductive rut. It doesn’t matter what day it is, nothing ever changes.

Key Markers to Organizational Health

2011-04-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

Just as an explorer needs markers to find their way, so do organizations. If you have studied the Lewis and Clark expedition you will know that Clark was able to chart their course extremely accurately considering the instruments he had to work with. I want to share some markers with respect to organizations and how you can “translate” them into a better understanding of what they indicate about the organization.

We can’t hire you because you are overqualified—this statement has become ubiquitous in many organizations and industry groups. So what does this really mean? Possibilities include;
• We know that we are a “status quo” organization and you would become quickly bored or frustrated by the lack of organizational and personal growth potential.
• People want to be part of a winning team and this team is not one.
• An organization that espouses this “you are overqualified” statement is in a slow (or fast) decline in performance and competitiveness.
• If you are a high powered applicant, be thankful when they tell you that you are overqualified. That allows you to conclude that their leadership is weak and you wouldn’t want to work there anyway.

If only we could eliminate the unfair competition or lack of support from . . . –this tells you that they are more interested in confessing that their poor performance is someone else’s fault than in facing the reality of their own performance problems. You can only use that argument with a straight face after you are sure you have perfected your own performance to its fullest and have no room to improve without removing the impediment you want to complain about.

We’ve been in business for decades and see no need to change our process now—this is a sure indication that this organization is doomed. There is only one constant in the world and that is change. You either face it taking it as an opportunity or you are victimized by it.

We are the best so now we can relax—oops! - This reminds me of a story about Mack Trucks back in the first half of the twentieth century. They had designed a product line that was the current state of the art and considerably ahead of that of any competitor. They were so confident that they shut down their design function because they thought no one would ever be able to do better than they had done. They were wrong and squandered their lead causing much pain as they tried to restart development, something they should have kept all along.

We have a nice work environment because we do not allow arguments or disagreements—oh, my goodness, this is political correctness run amok. Bossidy and Charan in their best selling management book Execution, the discipline of getting things done discuss the need for “robust dialog” if you aspire to creating a “performance” organization. What they are saying is that you must allow and encourage people to disagree vigorously so that the “truth” needed for good decisions, is exposed. Organizations that suppress the truth through political correctness and its brother Group Think are doomed to poor performance because their “be nice” ethic suppresses the lifeblood (truth) they need to succeed.

As a successful manager of high performing teams I can say that the first one; we can’t hire you because you are overqualified is the most ridiculous to me. When I had an opening I looked for the best qualified person I could find, even someone who could compete with me and perhaps beat me out. You need strong people to perform well and hiring the best gives you the opportunity to grow the organization quickly to the point where even the “overqualified” need to grow with it. A good definition of the duty of a leader is, “A leader is responsible to provide a work climate in which everyone has a chance to grow and mature as individuals, as members of a group by satisfying their own needs, while working for the success of the organization.”

Too, the truth suppression of political correctness and Group Think guarantee an organization will not be able to perform well. Kill them both; RIP. Is the goal to be nice or to perform the mission at an excellent level? You can’t have both all of the time. You can be nice much of the time but there are times when you can’t if you want to perform. I remember stories of Jimmy David the defensive back for the Detroit Lions championship teams of the 1950s. His teammates told of hating him in practice because he was so hardnosed in his tackling. But they also said they loved him in the games when he made great plays regularly. If you don’t practice with passion you can’t perform with passion.

Keep these markers in mind when assessing an organization to work for, invest in or buy a product or service from.

Paul Richardson

Execution—The Discipline of Getting Things Done

2011-04-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

Larry Bossidy and Raum Charan wrote a best selling management book a few years ago with the above title. It was recommended to me by a superintendent friend of mine. I read it and found most of it to be very standard management fare. That is, the standard disciplines of Plan, Organize, Lead (Motivate) and Control. The need to employ feedback based on objective data relating the results obtained to the results desired.

I was impressed however by one section of the book realizing that it applied really well to the greatest impediment to improving our education performance. This was the assertion that if you wanted to create a “performance organization” you needed to create an environment that valued and indeed expected what the authors called “robust dialogue.” In education there is no robust dialogue worth mentioning. Political correctness and Group Think work exceedingly well to suppress the truth and also the synergy that truly robust dialogue could facilitate. Due to this “soft” environment opportunities to do better are regularly missed. This sort of environment is one where people wear their “feelings on their sleeves” and develop no mental toughness that an environment valuing intellectual honesty (being able to look objectively at our own shortcomings and resolve to do better) and robust dialogue.

If you honestly think about it you know that people often know the truth but have learned to suppress it and “be nice.” This creates far more stress than a good argument in the name of better understanding of different attitudes about problems. Synergy by definition requires constructive interaction in a group setting. This is especially true in continuous quality improvement (CQI) activities. The robust dialog that is required to make CQI really work is vital to the process. Since there is no robust dialogue in education worth noting, CQI cannot work. Yet, huge amounts of money are spent on “going through the motions” CQI programs so that school organizations can claim they are using CQI to improve their performance. Another area impacted by the be-nice ethic is the lack of constructive criticism in performance reviews. You may say, “What’s the use, with tenure it makes no difference.” But people will react to scrupulously objective feedback especially if it relates to activities that support the organization’s mission.

While examples of truth suppression are ubiquitous in education one of the worst examples is the case of the school board member who was told on visiting a high school in a large district that 150 9th graders were reading between the 1st and 6th grade levels. That amounted to about a third of the 9th grade class in that school. He expressed his concern about it at the next board meeting. There was no response from any of the administrators or other board members. The board president deftly moved on to the next agenda item. There was a response however, the next day the “assistant superintendent of instruction” sent an email to the entire staff and board with The Blueberry Story attached. This is a “story” whose moral is basically that improvement is required but until society and parents send better students to school the educators can’t do anything. The other action taken was to tell the principal who told the board member the truth that their contract would not be renewed (hence they were fired). So the message to the entire organization was that poor performance was OK but telling the truth was a hanging offense.

Oh, when I discussed the book with the superintendent who recommended it I highlighted the robust dialogue and intellectual honesty section. The superintendent said that there was nothing in the book on that topic. I had to fax copies of those pages as proof to make the point. This experience proved to me once again that educators have such a strong filter preventing any information that conflicts with their education school and on the job training that new beneficial insights and knowledge are not allowed into their consciousness. Thus, until education leaders are retrained by outsiders who are strong enough to break through that filter the massive improvement so desperately needed cannot happen.

What Would George Do?

2011-03-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

We have a huge and shameful problem in education. The achievement gap between “advantaged” students and “disadvantaged” students is unacceptable. Closing this gap has been allocated first place among education goals for decades. Yet, despite billions being thrown at the problem it has only gotten worse.

As an example the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report of 11/2005 provides some important information on both the problem and the continuing misguided approaches to solving the problem. Since there is amazing consistency in education approaches and attitudes across the nation this is valid everywhere to a first order approximation.

"That a nation of unparalleled wealth, matchless military strength, undreamed of progress in science and medicine and home to history’s greatest democracy can tolerate this failure is shocking. Yes, individual schools sometimes defy the odds, but whole systems almost never do. Why? What are the reasons for this failure? It has to do with both will and skill and the reasons illuminate the fact that minority and poor youth are often seen as not worthy of our finest efforts. This needs to be said. The conditions of educational desolation that this Commission decries are to be largely found on streets that the movers and shakers of our society rarely walk; and in schools where their children cannot be found. However, perhaps the greater shame is that such conditions are also found in the schools that serve our society’s privileged children. Pouring billions of dollars into a search for solutions has eased the conscience of the fortunate but has not succeeded in saving those children who continue to be victimized by our abject failures.

Not surprisingly, we have found a fairly benign phrase to describe this catastrophe: “the achievement gap.” It is more comfortable than another phrase: 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.'”

The commission goes on to name its strategy for finally fixing the problem.

Data & Assessment
Closing the gap begins by understanding data and assessment. Colorado must develop a comprehensive, centralized, user-friendly and easily accessible data and assessment system that identifies gaps and deficiencies at the student, school and district level. This data and assessment system should gather available data and centralize it in a consistent and understandable format that can be applied with best practices to address gaps and deficiencies by informing instruction by classroom teachers. Data should be accessible to parents and the community to further understanding of achievement gaps. Data from the higher education system should be linked with K-12 to promote partnerships between the two systems as well as informing public policy makers, parents, teachers and the community at large about the efficacy of strategies that have been implemented to close the gap.
High Expectations
The achievement gap cannot be addressed without a commitment to high expectations. From the business community, students, parents, teachers, administrators and board members at the local level to the Department of Education, State Board of Education, General Assembly and Governor’s Office at the state level, must develop high expectations of success for all students and accept no excuses. The foundation of high expectations is by establishing and maintaining academic rigor in all grade levels from kindergarten through higher education and across school district boundaries. Cultural sensitivity and the impacts of cultural biases on expectations must also be addressed.
Higher Education
Higher Education is an essential participant in eliminating the gap. We must develop and infuse a strong connection between higher education and K-12 by emphasizing shared responsibilities, success indicators, rigorous and connected curriculum and a systemic, proactive support systems that encourages and enables all students to access and succeed in college. This would consist of establishing a rigorous and aligned P-16 curriculum that is the default for all students that begins with the destination in mind, preparing students for life and continuing education. P-16 must provide continuous support that enables all students (especially under-represented groups) to access and succeed in college by providing early counseling, “can-do” values and clear financial options. We must ensure that the P-16 system is seamless and includes elementary and middle schools as part of the solution. The committee recommends that access and affordability to higher education by under-represented groups be ensured.
Administrator/Teacher Qualifications and Professional-Development
The classroom teacher and the school administrator are the front line in ending the gap. We must develop administrator and teacher cultural competencies and sensitivity so that they can effectively embrace high expectations for all students. We must embed the same cultural competencies in local and state leadership. The state should require that administrator and teacher preparation programs are data-driven. As a state we should increase the number of minority teachers and administrators. Teachers should be involved in the choice of professional development opportunities. We must establish incentives that would place the most capable administrators and teachers to work in the most challenged and impacted schools.
Parent & Community Involvement
Schools alone cannot close the achievement gap without the involvement of parents and the broader community. We must build connections with parents, guardians, families, business and non-traditional leaders that will require more culturally sensitive behavior. We must make certain that we understand the strengths as well as the weaknesses of individual students and understand the circumstances that may affect their ability to learn. We must also effectively articulate why parents, guardians, families, business and non-traditional leaders are so important to creating an environment of high expectations.
Best Practices
Embracing and implementing strategies based upon research-based best practices at the classroom; school, district and state levels are the only means of effectively addressing the gap. We must collect, share and fund strategies that have demonstrated success in addressing the gap. This will involve not only the school districts, Colorado Department of Education and the State Board of Education, but must include the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Association of School Executives, Colorado Association of School Boards, the General Assembly and the Governor’s Office. The P-16 systems must reward best practices by linking them to funding and incentives.
Leadership
Leadership by superintendents at a district level, principals and teachers at the school level and other staff and administrators is critical to the effort to establish and maintain high expectations. Administrators and instructors have to both identify the problems and have good relationships with other faculty to implement solutions. Education specialists point to the importance of principal leadership that is passionate and competent in fulfilling the district mission and reaching achievement goals. Teachers also have opportunities to demonstrate leadership in the classroom on a daily basis. Achievement gap reduction efforts by both the Cherry Creek and Fountain/Fort Carson school districts included leadership success. Fountain/Fort Carson closed gaps in test scores, graduation rates and attendance rates by raising expectations for administrators. This effort entailed “principal academies” that include training, assessment and monitoring of principals. The district also emphasized an instructional leadership role of principals, in addition to their management role. Cherry Creek’s North Area achievement program required the addition of an executive director to ensure success.

How to summarize the above prescription. It is doomed from the beginning because it does not recognize that the current content-free approach does not work, especially for the “gap” kids. What does work for “ALL” kids is the content-rich approach used by our international competitors. We used that approach in the American Common School days but that was before Dewey and his henchmen took over education and began the damaging “dumbing down” process. THUS, THIS “DOING THE WRONG THING BETTER” APPROACH IS NOT GOING TO WORK BUT WILL CONTINUE TO ENRICH THE HUGE ARMY SUPPORTING THE STATUS QUO.

Since there is such a leadership vacuum in education, at least with the intestinal fortitude to call a spade a spade and force the system to face its reality, I wondered what George would do? That is, George Patton. Patton was famous for getting results. He was not famous for political correctness or being nice in the face of a challenge. I looked up some of his quotes to give a feel for what he might do to address this problem that our weak educators have been unable or unwilling to fix.

“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.” This is particularly fitting to the education situation. The whole education fiefdom is very homogeneous in its core beliefs and approaches. This is reinforced by a strong wall and moat that keeps out corrupting outsider ideas and information. Hence, the kids continue to get bottom priority and the adults snooze in status quo, won’t work mode.

“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't.” If our leaders both political and across all areas in and out of education really cared about our kids, especially the very abysmally served poor and minority (Gap) kids they would not continue using the “be nice” approach that allows the status quo to be perpetuated.

“Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” I would call this integrity, that is, a commitment to doing the right thing not the expedient or easy thing. There is very little integrity in education circles. This is coped with by fiefdom citizens with a delusional approach that embraces the “we confess it is their fault” attitude. It couldn’t be our fault, it must be the fault of the parents, the society, the voters who don’t approve our every request for more money to improve things.

“No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.” William Oncken in his Performance Standards training would make the point, “Control—‘Only he who is where it is happening can control what is happening while it is happening.’ This is called “During-the-Fact” control and without it everything is OUT OF CONTROL.” The point is that sitting in your office does not work; you have to be out on the front lines to lead an organization to success.

“Say what you mean and mean what you say.” This problem is legion in education. Every year the administration gets their goals approved by the school board. Every year they fail to fulfill the goal achievement especially if it is any other than preserving the status quo. What is the consequence of failing to meet the goals they signed up for a year earlier? Nothing, in fact the board often hands out bonuses for good performance. This does not reinforce the need to perform, it reinforces sloth.

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” This is particularly appropriate to the education fiefdom. Top down management is ubiquitous. Just do as you are told, initiative will be punished. This starts with the legislators who always specify process very tightly and the autocratic cascade continues down to all levels. Legislators should specify desired results with rewards for meeting them and penalties for not meeting them. But instead we continue along with the “one size fits all” prescriptions that ignore any uniqueness across school districts.

“Many soldiers are led to faulty ideas of war by knowing too much about too little.” Here is another massive problem in education. The vast majority of educators are trained by our education schools. This training inculcates the process catechism that was installed by Dewey et al in the early twentieth century. Subject knowledge is not taught with any rigor at all. Thus, our educators know too much about too little. E.D. Hirsch describes the problem in The Knowledge Deficit. “[P]rinciples that constitute a kind of theology that is drilled into prospective teachers like a catechism.

Conclusion

Our kids would be much better off if a “Patton” type approach would be used in education than they are with the “take care of the adults who work here, who cares about the kids” approach currently in use.

Yes, most educators I have talked to are well meaning but they are also ineffective in serving their mission. They need our help to face reality. They are doing an unacceptable job and we must not tolerate it because it harms kids.

Team USA

2011-02-21T06:53:00.000-08:00

The Most Important Race—We’re Losing

Imagine that many of the world’s developed and emerging nations agreed to compete in a yearlong auto race. The race will cover all sorts of terrain and climates in widely separated global venues. Our team would be selected by political leaders in the nation’s capital from people nominated by every state. Imagine that Team USA would be the first team to settle on an all purpose vehicle for the race.

All of the competitors but Team USA chose all purpose and reliable late-model SUVs for their vehicle based on the varying course conditions where normal over-the-road cars could not be as successful. Team USA chose a modified version of the Ford Model T. While their choice was scorned by their competition, Team USA said that they were the real experts and they would win the race easily.

They decided on the Model T based on its reputation for being easy to work on and repair. They added a bunch of features which they deemed necessary for the race. These included an air-conditioned cockpit, a complete set of the latest instruments to measure every aspect of vehicle performance, a state of the art GPS system plus additional crew members to monitor the gauges and computer readouts. Team USA was very positive about having the best vehicle in the race and couldn’t wait for the competition to begin.

The race is to cover 25,000 miles over one year. Only the first 5 teams would be awarded prizes. At the end of the first week the leading teams were Finland, Singapore, China, India and Russia. Team USA was far back because their 50,000 pound modified Model T experienced 100 tire blowouts and the top speed on level ground was 10 miles an hour due to the immense weight dragging on the relatively tiny Ford engine.

Day after day Team USA fell further and further behind. They took to announcing progress against lower and lower targets to make their failing performance look better than it was. This was successful in fooling most of the people. The race ended when the first five teams had finished. Team USA was about 200 days behind the leaders based on their average speed to date.

The Point

The race story is an analog to the performance of American K-12 education versus our global competition. The modified Model T was chosen because it is a hundred year old design just as the progressive philosophy of our education system is a century old. While there have been lots of added changes in curricula; program names, advanced education degrees, best practices, response to intervention, etc. they all are consistent with the constructivist, discovery beliefs of the progressive ideology. As in the race story, the performance of the constructivist/discovery methods is such that the education of students is much slower and never reaches the robust levels of the competition that are using higher performance methods and curricula (faster, better performing cars).
Also, as in the race story, educators set lower and lower standards to make their performance look much better than it really is (short yardstick). Our schools are simply not close to being competitive with those of our most capable competitors. Their children, not ours, are being prepared to seize the best job opportunities of the future. This has massive import to our future standard of living and our very survival as a nation.

How long will we grant huge amounts of money to the failed education process? The waste in the current system is akin to the thousands of pounds of modifications the race team made to the basic model. Attaching fancy gadgets to a failed underlying “vehicle” or education philosophy is a fool's approach. Yet it is we who are fools to allow it to continue when it is wasting huge amounts of money AND harming our kids. It shouldn’t be hard to demand changes once we face reality. That is difficult because we feel foolish for not realizing the truth sooner. But the truth must be faced if our kids are to be saved from hobbled futures. Results don’t lie. The educators have proven they can’t improve no matter how much money we give them. They can’t be trusted with something so important as the futures of our kids. Clemenceau famously said, “War is too important to be left to the generals.” Similarly, “Education is too important to be left to politicians and professional educators.”

Sirens' Song; There be danger here Will Robinson

2011-02-14T04:59:00.000-08:00

You probably remember the Sirens of Greek mythology. Homer’s Odyssey is one of the more famous versions of the tale, but there were many others. The basic kernel of the story was that the creatures (Homer said 2, but other sources vary from 2 to 5) would sing their song to lure mariners to shipwreck on the rocky shore of their island. Odysseus in Homer’s version knows the legend and has himself lashed to the mast tightly and tells his crew to plug their ears with beeswax and not to free his bonds no matter how much he demands or pleads for them to do so. As they travel within range of the songs Odysseus demands and pleads for them to release him from his bonds and is not at peace until they pass far enough away to be out of earshot of the Sirens’ songs. Because the myths said that the Sirens would die if anyone escaped their trap, the Sirens were no more.

In education the Sirens’ part is played by the schools of education. There are a very few exceptions but their graduates do not make a dent in the message carried in the Sirens’ songs of “process is all that matters, learning is natural it doesn’t need to be taught, just make the kids feel good about themselves and that is enough.” This romantic view of learning is de rigueur in our society because the vast majority of educators have been trained in education schools which were designed in the 1930s to teach the Progressive principles of education. This anti-content approach results in teachers (especially elementary level) who don’t understand the subject matter well at all. This is in direct contrast to the philosophy of nations where their children are getting a much better education than ours as their achievement results prove year after year and decade after decade.

So let’s consider a couple of examples:

• Music education—this field has escaped the “they will learn it on their own naturally” approach. Why? Because you can’t teach students to play a school band concert in front of the parents each year without them understanding the notes, how to play them and so forth. And the teachers have to know music reasonably well or their students would give an embarrassing performance that would surely leave the school and its music program subject to severe criticism. The romantic approach is akin to that of Professor Hill in The Music Man. Oh, it worked for him because it made a nice story but his “think” system doesn’t work in the real world no matter how strong the wishes that it would or should.

• Sports—this is another area where physical education teachers and coaches know the skills required in the sports and how to teach them to the kids. That dreaded “drill and kill” so criticized in “normal, mainstream” subjects, you know the most important stuff, works and is used widely by sports coaches. Why are they granted a “waiver” from the Progressive party line? Dewey likened the education system that really works as fascist because it was structured to really teach subject knowledge. You could ask yourself why the Progressives didn’t want kids to learn to their potential. Perhaps because if they were well educated they would see through the Progressives’ desire to have government experts make the important decisions for us.

In sports as in music the obvious proof of whether the students learned the skills and knowledge required to really perform is in the games with their competitors and the public music performances. The question for us then is how much longer will we see our students shipwrecked on the future-reducing rocks because their educators couldn’t resist the Siren Song of the technically wrong and “abysmal failure to work” education school training.

Could You Pass?

2011-01-26T09:53:00.000-08:00

Following is the British Columbia high school exit exam: literary section. There is an equally rigorous section for history. This information is taken from the Common Core report, Why We’re Behind, What Top Nations Teach Their Students That We Don’t (2009).
A real example helps to illuminate the difference between our educational approach and that of the competitor nations whose students consistently score better, much better, than ours on international tests. This provides more information on the topic started in A Sick Patient and Human Nature.
Please take a look at the exam and ponder the question, “Can we continue to ignore our dumbed down approach in K-12 education?”

British Columbia High School Exit Exam

Literary Selections

1. In Beowulf, which Anglo-Saxon value is represented by Herot?
A. power
B. heroism
C. boasting
D. community

2. In “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales, how is the Parson described?
A. “a very festive fellow”
B. “a fat and personable priest”
C. “rich in holy thought and work”
D. “an easy man in penance-giving”

3. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), why does the speaker state that his mistress “treads on the ground”?
A. She is a sensible woman.
B. She is beautiful and attainable.
C. He is praising her as a real woman.
D. He is disappointed by her plainness.

4. Which quotation contains personification?
A. “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am”
B. “No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move”
C. “Nor what the potent Victor in his rage / Can else inflict”
D. “and wanton fields / To wayward Winter reckoning yields”

5. In “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” on what does “dull sublunary" love depend?
A. spiritual union
B. physical presence
C. common attitudes
D. shared experience

6. In “On His Blindness,” which metaphor does Milton use to represent his literary powers?
A. a talent
B. a yoke
C. a kingly state
D. the dark world

7. In The Rape of the Lock, when Pope writes “So ladies in romance assist their knight, / Present the spear, and arm him for the fight,” what has just happened?
A. Belinda has just pulled out a “deadly bodkin.”
B. Chloe and Sir Plume have just confronted each other.
C. Clarissa has just offered a “two-edged weapon” to the Baron.
D. The Baron’s queen of spades defeats Belinda’s king of clubs.

8. Which characteristic of “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” can be seen as Romantic?
A. It celebrates the supernatural.
B. It is written in iambic pentameter.
C. It emphasizes reason over emotion.
D. It deals with the lives of common people.

9. “The guests are met, the feast is set”
Which literary technique is used in the above quotation?
A. aside
B. caesura
C. apostrophe
D. cacophony

10. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” how do the sailors feel when the albatross first appears?
A. joyful
B. fearful
C. enraged
D. indifferent

11. According to the speaker in “Apostrophe to the Ocean,” with what attitude does the ocean
treat humanity?
A. anger
B. respect
C. disdain
D. generosity

12. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”), what does the speaker reveal about herself?
A. her desire to be loved
B. her love for her beloved
C. her love for her dying father
D. her need to be with her beloved

13. “And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star” In “Ulysses,” to whom does “this gray spirit” refer?
A. Achilles
B. Ulysses
C. Tennyson
D. Telemachus

14. What does Arnold lament in “Dover Beach”?
A. the loss of religious faith
B. the loss of romantic love
C. the loss of military strength
D. the loss of respect for nature

15. In “The Hollow Men,” how does the speaker suggest that the world will end?
A. violently
B. gloriously
C. ominously
D. anticlimactically

16. In “Disembarking at Quebec,” which article suggests the speaker’s alienation from her surroundings?
A. her pink shawl
B. her fine bonnet
C. her coral brooch
D. her red stockings

Recognition of Authors and Titles

INSTRUCTIONS: Select the author of the quotation or the title of the selection from which the quotation is taken.

17. “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings”
A. Wyatt
B. Donne
C. Chaucer
D. Shakespeare

18. “And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken —The ice was all between”
A. “Ulysses”
B. “The Hollow Men”
C. “Disembarking at Quebec”
D. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

19. “Dim, through the misty green panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”
A. “Dover Beach”
B. “Ode to the West Wind”
C. “Dulce et Decorum Est”
D. “Apostrophe to the Ocean”

20. “So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!”
A. Keats
B. Shelley
C. Browning
D. Wordsworth

21. “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men”
A. Pope
B. Donne
C. Milton
D. Raleigh

22. “The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant”
A. “The Hollow Men”
B. “The Darkling Thrush”
C. “The Second Coming”
D. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”

23. “He wore a fustian tunic stained and dark
With smudges where his armor had left mark”
A. Beowulf
B. The Rape of the Lock
C. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
D. “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales

PART C: SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA

1 written-response question

Value: 20% Suggested Time: 25 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS: Choose one of the three passages on pages 14 to 17 in the Examination Booklet.

With specific reference to the drama, respond to one of the following statements in at least 200 words in paragraph form. Write your answer in ink in the Response Booklet. Place a checkmark in Instruction 4 on the front cover of the Response Booklet.

Hamlet (See passage on page 14.)

2. Show the significance of this exchange between Hamlet and Gertrude.
Refer both to this passage and to elsewhere in the play.

OR

The Tempest (See passage on page 15.)

3. With reference both to this passage and to elsewhere in the play, show that this passage contributes to theme.

OR

King Lear (See passage on page 17.)

4. Discuss the parallels between the father–child relationship found both in these passages and elsewhere in the play.

2. Hamlet (1600 –1601)
Hamlet: Now, Mother, what’s the matter?
Queen: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Hamlet: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen: Why, how now, Hamlet?
Hamlet: What’s the matter now?
Queen: Have you forgot me?
Hamlet: No, by the rood,1 not so!
You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
And, would it were not so, you are my mother.
Queen: Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.
Hamlet: Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass2
Where you may see the inmost part of you!
1 rood: cross
2 glass: mirror

OR

3. The Tempest (1611)
Gonzalo: I have inly wept,
Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,
And on this couple drop a blessèd crown!
For it is you that have chalked forth the way
Which brought us hither.
Alonso: I say amen, Gonzalo.
Gonzalo: Was Milan thrust from Milan that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars. In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand her brother found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own.
Alonso: [To Ferdinand and Miranda] Give me your hands.
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
That doth not wish you joy.
Gonzalo: Be it so! Amen!

OR

4. King Lear (1603)
In her response to Lear’s question as to how much she loves him,
Cordelia answers truthfully.
Lear: But goes thy heart with this?
Cordelia: Ay, my good lord.
Lear: So young, and so untender?
Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true.
Lear: Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower!
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter.

AND

4. King Lear (1603)
Gloucester has just read a letter forged by Edmund.
Gloucester: You know the character to be your brother’s?
Edmund: If the matter were good, my lord, I durst
swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would
fain think it were not.
Gloucester: It is his.
Edmund: It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is
not in the contents.
Gloucester: Has he never before sounded you in this
business?
Edmund: Never, my lord. But I have heard him
oft maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age,
and fathers declined, the father should be as ward
to the son, and the son manage his revenue.
Gloucester: O villain, villain! His very opinion in the
letter. Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested,
brutish villain; worse than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek
him. I’ll apprehend him. Abominable villain!
Where is he?

1 written-response question

Value: 30% Suggested Time: 40 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS: Choose one of the following topics. Write a multi-paragraph essay (at least three paragraphs) of approximately 400 words. Develop a concise, focused answer to show your knowledge and understanding of the topic. Include specific references to the works you discuss. You may not need all the space provided for your answer. You must refer to at least one work from the Specified Readings List (see page 20 in the Examination Booklet). The only translated works you may use are those from Anglo-Saxon and Medieval English. Write your answer in ink in the Response Booklet. Place a checkmark 􀀁in Instruction 4 on the front cover of the Response Booklet.

Topic 5 The presence or absence of loyalty is often a theme in literature.
Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.

OR

Topic 6 A journey of some kind is important to many works of literature.
Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.

OR

Topic 7 The meaning of a literary work may be enhanced by its reference to another work of art or literature. Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.

Note: On the following page is the reading list from which students must select one work to reference.

Specified Readings List

Anglo-Saxon and Medieval
• from Beowulf
• Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Canterbury Tales, “The Prologue”
• “Bonny Barbara Allan”
• from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Renaissance and 17th Century
• Sir Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso List to Hunt”
• Christopher Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
• Sir Walter Raleigh, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”
• William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 29 (“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”)
Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)
Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”)
Hamlet, King Lear or The Tempest
• John Donne,
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”;
“Death, Be Not Proud”
• Robert Herrick, “To the Virgins”
• John Milton, “On His Blindness”; from Paradise Lost
• from The Diary of Samuel Pepys

18th Century and Romantic
• Lady Mary Chudleigh, “To the Ladies”
• Alexander Pope, from The Rape of the Lock
• Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
• Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”
• William Blake, “The Tiger”; “The Lamb”
• Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
• William Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up”; “The World Is
Too Much with Us”
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
• George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Apostrophe to the Ocean”
• Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”
• John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”; “When I Have Fears That I May
Cease to Be”

Victorian and 20th Century
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43
(“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”)
• Robert Browning,
“My Last Duchess”
• Emily Brontë, “Song”
• Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”
• Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”
• Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
• Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est ”
• William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”
• T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
• Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”
• Stevie Smith, “Pretty”
• Margaret Atwood, “Disembarking at Quebec”

A Sick Patient and Human Nature

2011-01-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

How many of us react with positive energy to face problems with an obvious solution if it requires changes of long standing habits of our foundational lifestyle. Too few, whether it is to lose weight or quit smoking because the doctor tells us we are risking a significant reduction in our lifespan as examples.

Perhaps this is why it is so difficult to bring about positive changes in how we educate our kids. We have known for many decades that we are on the wrong course. When Russia launched Sputnik there was a knee-jerk raising of standards but in only a few years we went back to the old “easy does it, higher standards are hard work” attitudes. Then in the mid-sixties we became concerned with plummeting SAT scores which took a step-function down at that time and have not recovered after decades of throwing money and words at the problem. Robert Kennedy said over a third of a century ago that the achievement gap was a stain our nation’s honor. The 1983 “A Nation at Risk” report decried the rising tide of mediocrity in our education system. There is a whole industry in place to highlight the problems of our education system. Lots of people even read their reports but positive action to break the disastrously bad habits of a system built on a faulty foundation of false underlying beliefs is not taken. The attitude seems to be, “who cares about the future, changing our beliefs is just too hard. The kids can change it if they want to when they take over.”

Have all of these warnings resulted in the patient taking the actions required to change our education system for the better? NO!! Big, expensive and misdirected efforts have wasted decades to no benefit for our kids or our competitiveness as a nation. Because of that our economic competitive situation has been weakened to the point where it will take a herculean effort to restore the margin of safety we have thrown away in our high activity, no benefit response to the challenges of the last five-plus decades.

For this report I will use two reports found on the Common Core website. The first is Why We’re Behind, What Top Nations Teach Their Students That We Don’t, the second is, Still at Risk, What Students Don’t Know, Even Now. First some direct quotes to provide background.

Why We’re Behind—Nations; Finland, Hong Kong, S. Korea, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, Switzerland

• Each of the nations that consistently outranks the United States on the PISA exam provides their students with a comprehensive, content-rich education in the liberal arts and sciences.
• We must join our desire to compete with other nations with a willingness to learn from them.
• While American students are spending endless hours preparing to take tests of their basic reading and math skills, their peers in high-performing nations are reading poetry and novels, conducting experiments in chemistry and physics, making music, and studying important historical issues. We are the only leading industrialized nation that considers the mastery of basic skills to be the goal of K-12 education. [emphasis added]
• We at Common Core believe that national standards will not improve education unless they acknowledge that content matters.
• . . .[T]he amount of time actually devoted to reading instruction in U.S. elementary schools is more than four times that devoted to science and social studies.
• Our students lagged behind their peers in top-scoring Finland by roughly two full grade levels in both [math and science].
• These very diverse nations ensure that their students receive a deep education in a broad range of subjects. Why is this important? Because America is on the opposite track. [emphasis added]
• High-performing countries have very specific content standards in a wide range of liberal arts subjects.
• . . . [T]he countries reviewed here also appear to share a belief that requiring students to master basic literacy and math skill is not sufficient for defining a well-rounded curriculum.
• The most recent comprehensive review of state standards from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (2006) finds that states “still produce vague platitudes instead of clear expectations. Knowledge is still subordinated to skills.” [emphasis added]

Still at Risk

This report offers a good definition of the primary mission of public schools. “The first mission of public schooling in a democratic nation is to equip every young person for the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship.” How are we doing on that mission? Not well!

The basis for this report is a 1200 person survey of randomly selected 17-year olds. The questions concentrated on history and literature knowledge of the respondents. Their assessment was:

It is easy to make light of such ignorance. In reality, however, a deep lack of knowledge is neither humorous nor trivial. What we know helps to determine how successful we are likely to be in life, and how many career paths we can choose from. It also affects our contribution as democratic citizens. Unfortunately, too many young Americans do not possess the kind of basic knowledge they need. When asked fundamental questions about U.S. history and culture, they score a D and exhibit stunning knowledge gaps:

• Nearly a quarter of those surveyed could not identify Adolf Hitler; 10 percent think he was a munitions manufacturer
• Fewer than half can place the Civil War in the correct half-century
• Only 45 percent can identify Oedipus
• A third do not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of speech and religion
• 44 percent think that The Scarlet Letter was either about a witch trial or a piece of correspondence

Our education system is like a computer programmed with “how to” skills. The problem is that no one thinks it is important to upload the data (background knowledge) to process with that computer. Also, far too much time is wasted by the “discovery/constructivist” methods for writing each student’s interface software. This method results in agonizingly slow, simplistic, start-from-scratch approaches to each new problem while our competitors provide robust background information across a wide spectrum of subjects to provide important foundational context to any intellectual study. Thus, our graduates don’t have the background knowledge or the higher level thinking processes they need to be effective in the world against their foreign peers.

Our educators faced with high-stakes tests that concentrate most on reading and math have carved out ever larger parts of the total school day to have time for teaching to the test. They use ineffective “how to” approaches that are void of content knowledge. This creates students who at best can only regurgitate the examples they have studied in their classes.

Missing is the breadth and depth of knowledge (and practice in reading and literacy and grammar) that traditionally was provided by studying an increasingly challenging group of great writings by some of the best authors of our cultural background. Missing too, is the in-depth study of history which also provides the chance to practice literacy and thinking skills.

The same things are true of math and the related study of science. So much time is spent teaching to the test that the foundational facts and optimized over centuries computational algorithms are not taught with any rigor. The party line is that you don’t need to know how to compute anymore because we have calculators. That is as wrong-headed as it can be because, for example, those algorithms like long division provide the tool needed to divide polynomials in algebra. With the current dumbed down approach in elementary schools, students “hit the wall” in middle and high school math studies and most do not attain a competent basis of algebra and higher math limiting their future college and career choices.

We focus on methods of teaching reading and math that are much slower than the methods of our competitor nations (at least the ones teaching their kids much more than we teach ours) which are based on a direct instruction technique taught by subject-competent teachers who build the foundation over the grades. Our slower process is ironic considering that our competitor nations tend to have significantly more days in their school years as well.

Therefore, no amount of money can fix this problem until we are willing to throw out the current content-free approach and replace it with a content-rich curriculum. That is why in spite of wasting billions of dollars trying to improve our education performance it doesn’t happen because the foundational approaches we take are contrary to every other country that is successful in beating us.

Sadly, the method our competitors are using is exactly that used by our American Common School movement starting in the 19th century and replaced slowly by the progressive methods starting at the turn of the Twentieth century, first in the education schools and then in full implementation across the land by the mid 1960s. By then students graduating from high school had been taught by the acolytes of the new system for their whole school career.

The question is, “Can we break this unhealthy education habit which harms our kids and our nation, or do we react like most do when the doctor tells them to lose weight or quit smoking, etc to be able to live a higher quality and longer life?”

What Have We Lost? How Do We Get It Back?

2010-12-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

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.

Education FUQs

2010-11-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

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.

Progressive Education Wrong from the Beginning Three

2010-11-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

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.

Progressive Education Wrong from the Beginning Two

2010-11-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

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

Progressive Education Wrong From the Beginning

2010-11-01T03:58:00.000-07:00

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

Why

2010-10-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Rising Above the Gathering Storm - Revisited

2010-09-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

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.

Congratulations Status Quo-ers

2010-09-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

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.

How do you get the pigs to move? Move the feed trough.

2010-09-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Race to Nowhere

2010-08-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

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.

Local Control—Blessing or Curse

2010-08-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

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.

The True Sad Story

2010-08-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

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.

Attempting to Lock-in the Dumbing Down Approach Common Core National Standards Push to Codify the Content-Free Approach

2010-08-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

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

Starve the Beast, Save the Kids.

2010-07-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Dumbing Down America—Do We Care?

2010-07-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

I first learned about ACTA, American Council of Trustees and Alumni when I heard Anne Neal, president of the organization speak. Anne is a very articulate person with an obvious passion for improving our higher education status. The approach ACTA takes is to first provide objective data on the status of our most important colleges and universities. They work with college trustees, alumni and the media to advocate improvements, that is, corrections to the problems that turn up in their research.

While any of you who have read any of my K-12 education writings, either on my blog, The Education Onion or on Scribd.com know that I have focused on the K-12 area. ACTA’s findings mesh well with what I have found. It seems that the colleges including the most elite, have been acting to dumb down the education that college graduates receive. That is especially true in the traditional sense.

That is exactly what has happened in K-12 as well. In K-12 the dumbing down process started with the replacing of the American Common School approaches pioneered by Horace Mann and others with the Progressive approaches of John Dewey et al. The basic change was from the content rich (knowledge based) approach of the Common Schools to the content poor (process based) approach of the Progressives.

There are several problems with the Progressive approach. In a nutshell, it works much more poorly than the content rich approach it replaced. This is proven by the results of our best competitor nations who use the content rich approach to teach their kids much more successfully than we teach ours. As might be expected, this virtual monopoly of the Progressive method in K-12 schools (some charter schools are exceptions but a majority are not) has caused the input to our colleges and universities to be of reduced quality. A direct result is the trend to dumb down the curricula in college because making up for the lost time in K-12 just would require too much work from the faculty. Also, the colleges have an overhead problem. The administrative portion of their budgets has grown to epic proportions causing the schools to be much more interested in the level of student enrollment (tuition money rolling in to school coffers) than in providing a quality education.

When you are out of control you can do the right thing; cut budgets and bring the overhead in line with the ethic of providing a quality education. Or, you can say to hell with quality and lower standards allowing enrollment to grow to support the overhead. Is there widespread integrity among the faculties of our colleges today? It doesn’t appear so. That is why the trend to dumb down curricula requirements is virtually unstoppable without public outrage to stem the tide.

How bad is it? Here is some data from the ACTA 2009 report, What Will They Learn, A Report on General Education Requirements at 100 of the Nation’s Leading Colleges and Universities. This 55 page report is available on the goacta.org website in the publications area.

ACTA considers that a core college curriculum is challenging, content-rich, and coherent—and it is something that is not necessarily gained in simply amassing 120 credit hours over eight semesters. The ACTA method is to evaluate the general education requirements of each school in the study in seven areas; Composition, Literature, Foreign Language, U.S. Government or History, Economics, Mathematics and Natural or Physical Science. They describe what each requirement means in terms of rigor. Their scoring of the 100 institutions studied involves how many of the core requirements are present in each school. Those with 6 or 7 rate an A grade, 4 or 5 a B, 3 a C, 2 a D, 0 or 1 an F.

ACTA looked at the top 20 National Universities and the top 20 Liberal Arts Colleges as reported in the 2009 US News and World Report America’s Best College Rankings. They also studied the major public universities from all 50 states. Out of the 100 studied, 25 received a grade of F, 17 got D’s and 20 got C’s. Only 33 of the 100 received a B and only 5 achieved an A.
Based on the study ACTA concluded colleges are not delivering on their promises. Of the top 20 national universities, not one earned an A, 4 earned a B, 5 a C, 2 a D and fully 9 earned an F. For the top 20 liberal arts colleges the record is especially depressing. One received an A, 3 received Bs, 2 Cs, 1 D, and 13 received Fs. Of the 60 state Flagships, 4 earned As, 26 earned Bs, 13 earned Cs, 14 received Ds and 3 received Fs.

It is interesting to note that when it comes to education bang for the buck, it is hard to beat the state flagship schools. I won’t argue that the “good old boy” connections you develop in one of the other schools are not of value. However, the primary mission of the schools is to provide a quality education and that should be the priority. Resting on the laurels of your past glory should not.

ACTA is currently arguing against the University of Arkansas which received an A rating but is planning to implement the dumb down approach. ACTA’s argument is that the current high quality requirements should be kept in place. You can read about this fight on their website and access detail on the weak courses that will fill the requirements for graduation at many of the schools studied by accessing the full report on the ACTA website.

This trend is cutting the heart out of our civilization. If you care you need to support the ACTA effort and also the needed reform of our K-12 schools.

To My Grandchildren

2010-06-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Logan, Blake, Tori, Scot, Addison and Sam,

I want you to know when you are facing the problems of runaway government spending, hyper-inflation, a dollar not worth the paper it is printed on, and record high unemployment that I am sorry. I tried to get people motivated to fix our education system so that you could be well prepared for the rising global meritocracy I saw coming. However, I was ineffective in rallying support for you and your peers. The educators and all of their support entities were just too strong in their resolve to prevent any change in the education process that might force them to really teach you what you needed to know to compete and have a decent life.

The teachers unions were particularly effective in “buying” votes of politicians by spending heavily on their campaigns for office. With their national presence they were able to throw large sums of money into specific political races where they saw a threat to the continuation of their “we are overworked and underpaid” scam on the American public. And the Administrators were more than happy to let the unions do the heavy lifting to protect all educators’ place at the government trough.

I am sorry that I was unable to discredit the false propaganda from the educartel that gave the impression that our K-12 education system was performing well. I tried to point out the abysmal failure of our education system and the fallacy of educator beliefs taught to them like a theology, catechism style. I tried to educate people on the huge gap between what your competitors in other countries were learning and what American kids were being taught. However, the educators insistence that civility be observed at all times effectively suppressed the truth of their poor performance in preparing you for the stiff competition represented by your international peers who consistently were getting better educations.

I tried to rally your parents to get more involved but it was easier for them to be too busy, involved in work and play to take the time to help sound the alarm. I learned too late that talking rationally to the educators was doomed to failure. They had practiced for decades ways to delay any needed change. They just didn’t care about you and other kids especially if any harder work or better performance or more subject knowledge were required of them. They talked a good line but that was as far as it went. Tragically that was enough to convince most of the public that while that other city or state’s schools might be in trouble, their local ones were doing fine.

The educators were especially effective in their ability to sidetrack any board of education scrutiny by keeping their meeting agenda so full of administrivia that they were too busy to look at the truth of performance and do anything to correct it.

I realized too late that it would take marshalling enough political power to force educators to change because they were not motivated by your need for better schooling if any pain were required on their parts. Please learn from my experience as you work so hard to pull yourself and the country out of the hole your parents and grandparents allowed to be created.

You’re Not Nice

2010-06-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is a comment I often hear after I post a blog on education that is critical of our education performance and especially if critical of educators. Thus, I would like to explore the reasons with you.

First, we need to face some realities:

• American education performance has been mired in unacceptable territory for many decades.

• Educators have defined the problems as being the fault of everyone but themselves. Mirrors are outlawed in education venues. Pogo cartoons are also not allowed.

• The achievement gap is not changing for the better. The Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report of 11/05 concluded that over the last third of a century the gap had gotten “demonstrably worse” in spite of spending billions to find solutions. Robert Kennedy called the gap a stain on our national honor but that hasn’t motivated educators to take the known steps required to fix it. They won’t allow themselves to admit they are wrong in their beliefs about what works in education.

• American students are not being prepared for the global competition for knowledge based jobs.

• The remediation rate for those who go to 2 or 4 year colleges is very high and not being reduced.

• Education schools overemphasize pedagogy to the virtual exclusion of subject knowledge. And the pedagogy they teach is technically wrong in important ways.

• 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 . . . E.D. Hirsch, The Knowledge Deficit

The list could be a lot longer but I hope you get the point. The problems in education are not being addressed effectively and kids and their futures are being irreparably harmed. Thus, if we assume that we must play by the educators’ rules the status quo will continue ad infinitum:

• Civility and harmony at all times—that is, suppress the truth because it might lead to stressful situations.

• Swear fealty to educators as the education experts and agree that no education outsider has any grounds to identify problems or offer constructive criticism.

• Parrot the educator line that they are underpaid and overworked. Which considering their performance is totally false.

• Agree to leave all education decisions to the educators because they are the experts.

• Agree to the status quo preserving process educators use to maintain control and ensure no change occurs that might require them to perform better or renounce their false educational beliefs.

After 7 years working on understanding the education situation, interviewing numerous educators over 6 states and associated people like school board members, state education department denizens and members of the public, I realized that being civil and trying to reason with people in the education establishment was futile. They have simply decided that their vested interest is more important than serving the kids’ needs at the level they deserve.

Therefore, the question comes down to a simple one. Are you on the side of the poorly performing education bureaucracy or are you on the side of the kids and their future. That is an easy decision for me and hopefully for you. E.D. Hirsch has been working on this problem for decades longer than I have. He has concluded that educators will not change on their own. They will have to be forced by public and political pressure. I write the things I do on education in an attempt to inform the public on the reality in education. I am attempting to get people to go beyond the pseudo “good news” propaganda that is ubiquitously offered by the education establishment. Being nice when kids are being continually harmed has a very low priority for me.

The above applies to the mainline schools. There are charter schools (not all by any means) that perform much better than the mainline schools. This is especially true if they have strong leadership and a balanced philosophy where subject knowledge is valued. However, these schools affect a tiny minority of students. We must reform the mainline schools to make a difference for millions of kids.

Do Our Schools Prepare Kids for Factory Work or Knowledge Work?

2010-06-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

While there is much posturing and TALK about preparing kids for knowledge jobs (21st Century Skills, etc.), there has been virtually no change in the substance of what is taught and how it is taught since the system was designed a century ago to prepare the masses for production line work in factories. Change is required, not talk if our kids are to be prepared to compete in a very different world than existed in the early twentieth century. Experts like Diane Ravitch have pointed out that the 21st Century Skills movement is an excuse to bring back failed old ideas with new and improved labels. This is not progress. It is criminal fraud and it hurts our kids.

During my education research over the last 7 years I have run into one comment more than any other from teachers about subjects they are tasked to teach. It could be paraphrased as, “I didn’t do well in math. I don’t like math, but I have to try to teach it to my kids.” Let me ask you, do you think the kids will learn well from someone who has a poor understanding of math and such a strong distaste for it?

Why worry about it, you might say. We must concern ourselves because math skill and knowledge are becoming increasingly more important now with the intensified trend toward knowledge work and the high level of global competition to get those good, well-paying jobs. Why is math important? Because--

• Math is the language we use to understand and model the world we live in. Rigorous math is used in most fields of endeavor. We all know that it is vital for scientists, engineers and applied mathematicians. However, math is used in research in many fields as they attempt to better understand their area of interest. It is used in medicine, psychology, education, and businesses of all types.

• Studying and working with math is good exercise for our reasoning powers. It is the best area of study to teach problem formulation and definition. In the real world problems are not presented as in dumbed down math texts where the data in the problem is the only data you need to solve it. In the real world there is an abundance of data that is meaningless to solving most problems. The key is to formulate the problem so that the important data is captured giving understanding to the causes and solutions for the problem at hand.

• Math is fun. Math is beautiful in its elegant structure.

Now the question to ask is do we keep preparing K-12 students for “do as you are told, factory work” as the whole process was designed to do or do we change to a system that facilitates and encourages all students to learn to their full potential. Factory work is continuing to decline as a career opportunity in today’s age of outsourcing and automation. To change for the better we will need to break some stereotypes. The first one and most hateful of all is. “Girls aren’t good at math and if they are there is something wrong with them.” This belief held by too many teachers, parents and others is a harmful self-fulfilling prophecy that dooms too many girls to poor performance in math. Perhaps its mirror image for boys is that they can’t do as well as girls in literacy areas. Both boys and girls have the ability to excel in both areas, especially with the low expectation curricula being used in our K-12 mainline schools.

For girls in elementary classes where most teachers are women, seeing their teachers distaste for math that always shows through, no matter how positive they try to be creates poor role models. “Gee, if Miss MacGuilicudy can’t do math, how could I ever do it?” As in any psychologically corrupt environment, students who violate the expected norms are subtly punished to get them into line with the expectation.

To change will require teaching teachers to learn to love math instead of fear it. The education schools can’t do this as they are populated with pseudo math staff who also fear and dislike math. The exception is when the government gives them a multimillion dollar grant to “invent” a math curriculum that will work to conceal the teachers’ lack of math skill. Even though they don’t understand math well at all they come up with a discovery curriculum that transforms the teacher into a facilitator of group discussions as kids “discover” how to solve problems. The problems “solved” are trivial. They have to be because the kids can’t solve them with the discovery method unless they are. This curriculum has spread across the nation like wildfire because educators want to be freed from the responsibility to really teach math as a hierarchy that builds on foundations learned in the previous year. The whole premise is like preparing to cross a great wilderness with a guide or without one. Wandering in the wilderness is not what we should be after in education. We need guides (teachers) who know the way through the wilderness. You only need to look at the discovery process and how it might apply to say, The Calculus, to realize the approach is ridiculous. While Newton developed The Calculus at age 19 to help him analyze physical phenomena, I defy you to assert that the discovery method would be an efficient way to train future scientists, engineers and mathematicians in The Calculus. You see that is the real problem. The constructivist/discovery methods take much longer than direct instruction to teach the material. That is why kids early in their K-12 careers do better than they do in the middle and high school grades. In the discovery process it is too easy for students to “discover the wrong principle” which undermines the foundation they need in the future.

The result? Kids who are exposed to this fraud reach middle and high school totally unprepared for algebra and beyond. Then the middle and high school teachers have to try to make up years of lost time and teach the new material too. No wonder the math performance of high school students is so poor. Oh, there are exceptions who do get it because their parents taught them or provided tutors to fill the void. Most students however, don’t have that advantage and end up turned off and incompetent in math. This limits their future possibilities greatly and since it affects so many students it affects the whole nation’s competitiveness.

The first thing you must realize is that the vast majority of educators do not understand subject matter. You pick the subject and they haven’t been exposed to it in more than a highly diffuse and superficial way. Yet, they have no problem posturing as experts to enable them to ignore the truth that is offered by those who do understand subject matter. Rita Kramer described the problem well in her bestselling book, Ed School Follies. “The people who become ‘educators’ and who run our school systems usually have degrees in education, psychology, social sciences, public administration; they are not people who have studied, know, and love literature, history, science, or philosophy. Our ‘educators’ are not educated. They do not love learning. Naturally enough, they think of the past as dead because it has never been alive to them. And they will not bring it alive for their pupils.”

In math this has led to “holding the fort” against all appeals for objective review of the harm being done by the ridiculous approach to teaching math. The same argument can apply to literacy and other curriculum areas. The way the educators have been able to turn away the constructive criticism is to employ “outside” experts to approve their approach. Thus, they hire outside, education school educated consultants to review their program and offer ideas on making it better.

Of course, the public who hears of what sounds a reasonable approach do not understand that the “outside experts” come from the same weak, diffuse and superficial training as the school officials who hire them for the review. Do not be fooled, if a person has a doctorate or masters in education they are not educated. Arthur Levine in his research into education schools concluded that they “confer masters on those who display anything but mastery and doctorates in name only.” While some educators have learned subjects in other studies or on their own, most have not. In general, while well meaning, these people have nothing of value to add to improving our kids’ education and it is time that the public became aware of it. We must demand positive action to face the reality of the poor educator performance and poor understanding of what works that is hurting our kids.

NAEP vs. TIMSS, 8th grade Math

2010-05-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

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.

What I want to be when I grow up.

2010-05-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

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.

The News Isn’t Good, But Then in Education When is it Ever?

2010-05-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

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.

The Woodcutter

2010-04-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

Joe was a hardworking woodcutter. His father had taught him his trade. He knew the importance of keeping his tools, axe and crosscut saw sharp so that his productivity would be high. Joe would go to periodic workshops with other woodcutters to keep his knowledge of axe and crosscut saw up to date. His prices had gone up steadily over the years. He claimed it was only to keep up with the inflation rate but in fact his prices had gone up at more than twice the rate of inflation. So, his was a record of steady and dramatic decline in productivity.

While Joe worked as hard as ever he found his prices couldn’t compete with woodcutters who were employing better methods to cause improved productivity. Thus, with time his business began to decline as only those customers that he had locked in to long term contracts would buy his wood. As those multi-year contracts expired he knew his business would decline even more.

Joe formed a trade group of other woodcutters using axe and crosscut saw to lobby politicians and support those politicians for election who agreed to work to fix the price of wood products so that they didn’t have to compete. Because they were so frustrated, they even engaged in the occasional act of intimidation to make their point. They launched an advertising campaign extolling the virtue of their product and how their methods didn’t pollute the earth with chainsaw exhaust. They were careful to compare their productivity to others who used the same unproductive methods they favored. In this way they put the best face on their low performance. Their advertising theme was, “Would Paul Bunyan stoop to using a chainsaw?” They had some success over time but as more and more states enacted laws permitting free choice in the buying of wood products, the economic prospects for Joe and his fellow trade group members declined steadily.

Now to Education

Is education different than Joe and his axe and crosscut saw friends? Not at all. The educator ranks are working as hard as Joe and his fellow woodcutters to preserve unproductive processes. They fear anything that doesn’t conform to the scientifically incorrect content they learned in education school which is continually reinforced by professional development classes and faulty research.

The situation in education is worse than Joe’s though. Joe’s actions are impacting his own long term viability as a woodcutter. The educators’ actions are harming their own credibility and long term prospects but they also are harming generations of kids who are ill prepared to compete in the increasingly competitive global environment. The experienced educators are making the bet that they can outlast criticism long enough to retire before they have to change, prioritizing their own comfort over the welfare of the kids. Thus, there is a strong “preserve the status quo at all costs” ethic at work in our school districts.

E.D. Hirsch whom I consider to be the person with the most complete understanding of our education problems stated in his appearance at the Manhattan Institute last fall (available on booktv.org by searching on E.D. Hirsch and selecting view video):

• Educators will never change on their own. They will have to be forced by outside forces [the public].
• Our education performance is characterized by low student achievement, ethnic inequality of results, low levels of civic commitment by graduates.
• Since the progressives gained control of the education schools and deployed graduates trained (brainwashed) in their technically incorrect methods, Sat verbal scores have declined from a level of about 543 in the late 60s to a steady level of about 505 from 1980 to now. He points out the excuses of the educators that this change is due to an increase in minorities taking the test. Hirsch asserts that this increase cannot explain the decline in white middle class student scores. He relates research by Harvard researcher, Christopher Jencks which showed that Iowa with 98% white, middle class students saw a large decrease in SAT verbal scores as well. The researcher concluded it was due to curricula less oriented to content, i.e. watered down and weak vocabulary. Hirsch looked at the College Board stats and found a constant pool of about 1 million test takers each year where those scoring over 600 on the verbal SAT had declined 56% and the students scoring over 650 had declined by 73% since the progressive content-free approach had been implemented.
• Achievement gaps have not closed for many decades and Hirsch states they cannot decrease until a content-rich curriculum replaces the current content-free, watered down approach. He points out that the current curricula and methods harm the minority kids the most.
• Hirsch decries the “monolithic intellectual monopoly of faulty ideas” as the biggest problem in education. Trying to convince educators of the need to change is impossible. They simply have been too well brainwashed in the faulty ideas to change from within. Change can only happen if they are forced to abandon their technically incorrect ideas.
• Richard Hofstadter, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Anti-intellectualism in American Life, called for more content and less process in the education of our kids. He concluded the fragmented courses and watered down texts had to go if our education performance was to be improved.

What must the public do to end the harm our education system is doing to our kids?

• Educate yourselves to understand the reality of our poor education performance. For example, in Colorado where achievement standards are low, the comparison to other districts and schools based on the Colorado testing only tells you how a school or district compares to other weak performing districts or schools. Also, national standards are weak compared to our global competitors.
• Realize that the 5 decade progressive-approach detour into the education wilderness has been a disaster for our kids and nation. See my previous blog about the Borg Education system to refresh your memory on the aims of the progressive education initiative. They are basically trying to produce a credulous (gullible) populace that will be ready to believe in “expert” leadership and “made up” crises used to motivate more expert control.
• Realize that productivity is a null word in education where costs per student have soared at about twice the rate of inflation for many decades while results have stayed mired in “unacceptable” territory.
• Realize that educators are not the experts in what works in educating kids. They are the “anti-experts.”
• Realize that education degrees and certifications only provide evidence that the person has learned the “party line,” not that they should be valued as educators.
• Expect elected representatives at all levels to put service to kids as the top priority, not protecting the jobs, pay or benefits of educators. This will be difficult because ed power groups support malleable candidates who will vote the way they want them to if they make large contributions to campaigns. That is, if educators are performing poorly and they are in results where it counts, they must show greatly improved performance to justify hanging on to their positions.
• Realize that improvement can’t be made without hardnosed and sustained battle with the education power groups. These include the education schools, the federal and state education bureaucracies, the teachers unions, the administrator state and national groups, the school board associations, in other words everyone involved in the current mainline education system. The public must take responsibility to force the needed changes. Only the public has enough clout to overcome the entrenched and harmful treatment of our kids.
• Inoculate yourself against the constant drumbeat that more money is needed to “fix” things in education and that any cut will harm the kids. This couldn’t be further from the truth. More money only continues to feed the unacceptable status quo. It doesn’t go toward helping kids at all. In fact, if a freeze of school based administration and a reduction of 10% a year in central administration salary budgets were put in place until results improved by, say 50%, the message would finally be received by the educators. We must stop feeding this monster that destroys and attenuates kids’ future prospects.

While I support charter schools and vouchers, they simply don’t have the leverage to fix the problem for enough kids. A lot of charters are started by mainline educators who want to put the em Fah sis on a different sil Ah bul. Many charters aren’t putting in content-rich curricula which are needed to fix our education problem. Some charters are doing a great job and more power to them but they alone cannot be the answer. They impact too few kids.

Thus, if you care about our kids or the future of our nation, it is urgent that you become involved. Expecting educators to do their job and begin to serve the kids at the required level is a fool’s errand without “our help” which demands they get on with it NOW.

Ruts and Ladders

2010-04-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

Quality Control, the Vital Missing Ingredient in Education

As mentioned in the last blog post, Public Action Required, educators have demonstrated the ability over and over to ignore legal requirements thus avoiding facing up to the needed change in their performance to benefit our kids. The example given in that post of how they manage to continue using Whole Language methods in spite of the NCLB requirement that if you want federal education money you must use SBRR programs is hardly unique. They do this by asserting that Whole Language methods do comply with SBRR (even though they definitely do not) and so continue to harm our kids. How do they get away with it? They get away with it because our education system is running “open loop.” That is, there is no quality control process to close the loop. Oh, the federal and state departments of education do many audits but they are ineffective, “going through the motions” affairs done by people who have been trained in the same false doctrine as all educators. They also have been taught that conflict is bad and that suppressing the truth is ok if it creates a sense of harmony. In this sort of arrangement, there is no concern for how the kids are being served only for maintaining harmony at all cost. This can’t be argued because the results betray the truth to anyone willing to look.

This is not to say that school districts are not competent at managing their spending to be in line with their budgets. They generally are. However, the problem is that the resources are not spent wisely. That is, the inertia in the system favors the “we’ve always done it this way” status quo, instead of prioritizing the areas that would really bring about the massive improvement that is needed and possible. Oh, there is lots of spending on “new sounding” initiatives, but the underlying foundational things that need changing are not addressed. It is creating a façade of activity, but productivity measures results per unit input and the results never really change while the input costs have risen dramatically for decades. Thus, productivity of the education fiefdom has declined precipitously over that time. This entrenched “rut habit” harms kids greatly because while all, even the educators, know that improvement is called for, no one is acquiring ladders to climb out of the rut allowing better performance.

Unlike other government funded activities in which the quality function takes the form of an inspector general, education has no such entity. Part of the problem is that control over education is spread out between federal, state and local political venues. In reality this gives the school districts, education schools, curriculum providers, and so-called education researchers and curriculum developers ample room to continue avoiding accountability.

Any quality function must have independence so that they can be objective about the performance of the organization which they are tasked to evaluate. Thus, the reporting relationship at both a district and state level would require a direct reporting relationship to the appropriate board of education. Only in this way could the truth of performance be reported without fear of reprisal. In actual practice this reporting relationship would foster a cooperative effort with administrators over time to be able to “keep the board out of most issues.” This would allow much faster resolution of performance problems which are currently swept under the rug or ignored.

What would be the benefits of a properly conceived quality function in K-12 education?

• Improved accountability--this would stimulate much better performance over time. Problems are only given priority if they are highlighted within the organization. That does not happen in any productive way in education. Oh, achievement test results are there but there is no objective analysis of the causes of poor performance and their priority for solution. A quality function would facilitate for the first time in education the identification, prioritization and solving of biggest drags on performance first. There is no real discipline in education so that problems are not faced and solved. There is no penalty for poor work. There is no accountability.
• Non-compliance to legal requirements would be spotted early and corrected. This would prevent the problems as were discussed in the previous blog post where Whole Language was allowed to continue harming kids in spite of the legal requirement for SBRR reading programs. In the current state of education there is no closed loop to correct such violations or ideally prevent them from happening in the first place.
• Much better staff morale and satisfaction. No one wants to perform badly but in the current top-down management style, change is prevented even though it is desperately needed. Staff members are not allowed to participate in any meaningful way in problem identification and solutions. People have higher self-esteem and job satisfaction when they know they are doing a really good job. Today’s educator self-esteem is based on trying to believe that poor performance is really good performance. You can’t fool people and you certainly can’t lie to yourself without it negatively affecting your real self-esteem.
• It would stimulate improved leadership performance. This is because leaders would have to lead real change to solve the problems caught by the quality function. The days of ignoring problems and sweeping them under the carpet would be gone forever. Shining the light of reality on the situation would make upgrading leadership skill and knowledge unavoidable.
• Best of all, there would finally be an advocate for the kids with real power to stimulate urgency in pursuing improved performance.

Of course, now in a time of tight education budgets, the excuse will be, “We can’t afford to implement a new quality control function. I can guarantee you that a QC function well done would pay for itself many times over. Philip Crosby in his book Quality is Free points out that a quality function more than pays for itself by eliminating waste and the cost of doing things wrong. It would force districts to face the fact that they are wasting huge amounts of resources on counterproductive efforts. The people are working hard doing the wrong things. This is especially true of Central Office administration functions. When a new function is added it has a life of its own even after it is obvious that it is not providing any benefit. District leaders would rather continue doing a wrong, counterproductive and worthless function than eliminate it and the positions that go with it. That might cause stress and unpleasantness, something that the weak and overpaid leaders in education do not think they should have to deal with even though kids are being harmed.

And yet, by judiciously using hiring freezes and expecting staff to be flexible in doing a job that needs doing as opposed to one that is not worth doing, the situation could be corrected relatively quickly through attrition. If people chose to not be flexible then they would have the opportunity to seek employment elsewhere. Our kids are not served by continuing to pay a price in money and time for activities of no value.

Public Action Required

2010-04-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

Whole Language High Jinks, How to Tell When Scientifically-based Reading Instruction Isn’t, Louisa Moats, (2007) The Thomas Fordham Institute.

“Science builds consensus among people in a way that few other disciplines can, if only because the nature of its proofs makes dissent so difficult. The path to consensus via science is rarely straight; it can take years to achieve and the battles can be bloody. But eventually, the accumulation of evidence is hard, even impossible, to ignore.” But ignore it is what is happening everyday in our school systems to the detriment of our kids, especially the “Gap children” who are most harmed by the unscientific methods favored by the “education experts” who aren’t.

“For more than three decades, advocates of “whole-language” instruction have argued—to the delight of many teachers and public school administrators—that learning to read is a “natural” process for children. Create reading centers in classrooms; put good, fun books in children’s hands and allow them to explore; then encourage them to “read,” even if they can’t make heads or tails of the words on the page. Eventually, they’ll get it. So say the believers [brainwashed by ed school training].”

“But students aren’t “getting it.” By almost any measure, U.S. reading scores have been too low for too long. Consider the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Since 1992, its results for reading by fourth and eighth graders have been almost uniformly bleak. Among fourth graders, just 31 percent of students in 2005 rated proficient or better. That’s just two points higher than in 1992. The exact same scores were recorded by eighth graders over the same time span.”

“For at least a decade and a half, in other words, despite standards-based reform, despite No Child Left Behind (NCLB), America has failed to significantly improve the percentage of its children who can read at levels that will enable them to compete in higher education and in the global economy.”

“This comes as no surprise to scientists who have spent decades studying how children learn to read. They’ve established that most students will learn to read adequately (though not necessarily well) regardless of the instructional methods they’re subjected to in school. But they’ve also found that fully 40 percent of children are less fortunate. For them, explicit instruction (including phonics) is necessary if they are to ever become capable readers.”

In 1967, Jeanne S. Chall published Learning to Read: The Great Debate which laid out the arguments against Whole Language. This, instead of settling the debate stimulated an intense dispute that consumed much of the 1980s and 1990s. This caused the formation of the National Reading Panel, charged with deciding once and for all which approach works. Its findings were not favorable for Whole Language adherents. The panel identified 5 elements children needed to master to become good readers: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. These came to be known as “scientifically-based reading research” (SBRR) programs. NCLB in 2001 required that schools receiving federal dollars had to use SBRR materials.

You might think that would finally solve the problem. Wrong!! What happened is an indictment of the ethical integrity of our education fiefdom as a whole. If SBRR is the requirement, then Presto, just rename the old Whole Language programs as SBRR and go on as before, continuing to harm children and their futures. Thus, since 2001 Whole Language is even more prevalent than before the NCLB requirement. That is, pseudo-SBRR programs have received federal money to expand their impact. It seems that the only thing you need to do is advertise you are meeting the requirements to get by. It reminds me of the three monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.

You might ask how supposedly “expert educators” could be fooled? Because they want to be is it in a nutshell. They have been trained [incorrectly] in their ed schools and subsequent professional development to believe in the romantic ideas [reading is a natural process; that is, teachers don’t need to do any work to help kids learn] pushed by the Progressives who control the ed schools so ubiquitously. They also would need to learn new things with real substance to be able to use the SBRR systems. One of the contradictions within education is that while they will tell you we must all be lifelong learners they don’t lead by example. That is, they just study the same failed processes over and over throughout their careers never allowing new and more valid knowledge to gain a foothold.

What must the public do to facilitate the use of reading curricula that work? First, we need to realize that it is a “forever project.” That is, the educators have shown over and over through the decades that the key to being able to prevent change is to; delay, delay, delay, finally agree to change, tell everyone the problem is solved, rename all of the old stuff labeling it as “new and improved” and go on with no tangible change into the future. You might say this is a cynical attitude but it isn’t. It is very much fact-based on what has happened over and over.

The analogy is one where you are fighting a tough and strong opponent who is out to harm your children. You are motivated and finally get the opponent down on the ground with your foot on his neck. But you must realize that the only way to protect your children is to keep your foot on his neck forever because if you don’t the harm will start up again the minute you turn your back. Saying to ourselves that it shouldn’t be our job is delusional. The ed power groups have too much power. It can only be overcome if the majority of the public works together to stop the harm being done decade after decade to our kids. If the “system” could fix it, it would have already been done. The results show that we must be involved, like it or not.

Arm yourselves with the knowledge and then let elected representatives, the educators in your schools and other members of the public know that you require much better treatment for our children.

Serve the Kids—The Opportunity for Improved Education Performance

2010-03-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

The Problems with Colorado Education

Achievement is abysmal when compared to national and especially, international standards.

1. The Proficiency Illusion (2007), Colorado NCLB cut scores are on average the lowest for both reading and math among the 26 states studied. They give examples comparing cut score defining questions using Colorado as the trivial end of the scale with Massachusetts at the high end.

2. Assessing the Role of K-12 Academic Standards in States: Workshop Summary, Nat’l Academies Press (2007). Uses the Nat’l Assessment of Educational Progress testing to compare all states. Again Colorado is in the lowest group of states.

3. The SARs (School Accountability Reports) published by the Colorado Department of Education are “graded on the curve” affairs within Colorado. Thus, they do not highlight the big gap in what our kids are being provided and what the best global competition is receiving.

4. The Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report (2005), “Over a third of a century ago, Robert Kennedy called the achievement gap between minority and disadvantaged kids a stain on our national honor. In the meantime we have spent billions on finding a solution but the problem is demonstrably worse now than when RFK made his observation. “

5. The rates of improvement among Colorado schools are glacial at best which means since our competitor nations are continually improving faster that our kids are falling further and further behind.

How could this happen with all of the resources we throw at education? What do objective experts have to say?

1. E.D. Hirsch Jr. U of Virginia emeritus professor, decades long education researcher, author of excellent books on our education status and problems, stimulus for the “Massachusetts Miracle.”

The Knowledge Deficit (2006), He calls the current situation a “perfect storm” of Bad Educational Ideas. “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.”

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.

Principles that constitute a kind of theology are drilled into prospective teachers like a catechism. The only way to improve scores in reading comprehension and to narrow the reading gap between groups is to systematically provide children with the wide-ranging, specific background knowledge they need to comprehend what they read.”

Massachusetts got rid of the harmful and never effective “how-to” based approach (the Hirsch stimulated Massachusetts Miracle) replacing it with a content rich approach and saw their achievement scores soar. Of course, in Massachusetts the educators didn’t lead the charge, it was required by the legislature whose leadership mustered the courage to oppose the unions and other education power groups.

Conclusion: the curricula favored by the education schools and that our educators are taught to believe in don’t work. They don’t stand scientific scrutiny. Thus, until the educators are forced to use curricula that work no major improvement can take place. All of the effort and expense of trying to “improve” the scientifically proven to not work current methods and curricula are a waste of valuable resources and kids’ futures.

2. Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, member of National Academies. Is America Falling off the Flat Earth?
It seems that the longer our children are exposed to our K-12 education system, the worse they do. If we wish to be average by global standards, we will need to improve a great deal. Can anyone imagine a football coach at any American high school greeting his players on the first day of fall practice by saying, “This year let’s get out there and try to be average for the Gipper!”?

It can, of course, be argued that comparing averages and medians tells only part of the story, as indeed is often the case. But in this instance, further parsing of the data generally reveals that the United States has a disproportionately small share of the highest performers and a disproportionately large share of the lowest performers. Although this is widely overlooked, it is not simply the poorer-performing students who are falling through the gaping cracks of our educational system but also the highest performers who—much to the nation’s detriment—are frequently being forced to learn in an environment approaching the lowest common denominator.

The problem of low expectations has not been confined to California. Alabama, for example, reported that in 2005, 83% of its fourth-graders ranked as “proficient” on its state test of academic achievement. But in the most widely accepted national test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 22% of Alabama’s fourth-graders scored at or above the proficient level. In truth, neither of the measures matters much. What counts today is how the children of Alabama rank with the children of Singapore, Moscow, Hong Kong, Delhi, Beijing, and Berlin. There is little consolation in being first among losers.

3. David Klein’s A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century

The Progressive Education Catechism: Klein relates how the progressives (John Dewey, et al) took control of the education schools in the 1930s. Their view was and is 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 the 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.

Notice the “slow pace” comment. It is as if we are using a 1903 Oldsmobile in the global education race when our best global opponents are using modern and reliable, up-to-date autos. Until we change to what works, not what we were taught works and doesn’t, our kids will continue to be harmed.

Thus, the constructivist, how-to approaches are slower than the content rich approaches. Because of that they simply can’t get the job done compared to our global competitors who use the methods that stand scientific scrutiny and work much better. Also, comprehension is very dependent on background knowledge. The progressive approach does not provide knowledge [content rigor] and hence understanding of what is being taught.

The Progressive’s approach is particularly harmful to “gap” students.

Let’s look at a local example. I use District 11, not because it is the worst case but because it is the largest local district and representative of the situation. While reading achievement is unsatisfactory, math is really, really unsatisfactory. Looking at the progression of data across the grades you see that the split between 3rd grade proficient or better versus below proficient (73, 27) becomes in 10th grade (32, 68).

Initial conclusions from the data

The math teaching process in D11 is performing at an unacceptable level. It transforms the mostly proficient 3rd graders into mostly unproficient 10th graders over time. A good process would start well and end better.

The results shows that students are advancing each year in math skill much less than the very weak Colorado standards increase.
Every large district in Colorado has charts that have the same shape. They just shift up and down with the “demographic luck of the draw” for their student population.

Why does it matter? The American Institutes for Research (2007) reported on a study they had done comparing the NAEP to TIMSS (The International Math and Science Study). The results showed that the US 8th grade math students scored 27% proficient or better while Singapore math students scored 73% proficient or better. 17 nations scored better than the US, including Hungary, Slovak Rep. Slovenia, Canada, Russia, Malaysia, etc. China and India who have strong math teaching records weren’t in the testing but would have scored ahead of us almost certainly.

D11 Grade 10 CSAP Disaggregated Math, Prof or Better

Looking at the last 5 years of disaggregated data for tenth grade students shows no improvement in reducing the gap between white students and either black or Hispanic students. The NCLB requirement is that all students will score proficient or better by 2014. That would take a miracle with today’s starting point. The district is mired in “polishing the rotten apple” of their current math teaching process when it can never provide the required results. When pressured they hire expensive “outside” education consultants to assess their math process and curriculum. This is guaranteed to reinforce the current underpinnings that are so tragically inadequate because the outside consultants have the same brainwashed views that the district personnel do. This is a waste of time and money if you want to help the kids do better. Of course, the motivation is to preserve the status quo not to help the kids or to perform better.

As in any process the quality of the “final product” is the real measure of success or failure. That is, how perfect is the finished TV or car? In education, “What is the diploma worth?” “Don’t worry, the math feature doesn’t work too well but they can read, sort of.” In math education we measure results in the third through tenth grades and each grade level result must be considered in the context of how it contributes or detracts from the final result (10th grade in this case).

What is the approach of the top competition globally? 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.” Their approach is the antithesis of the American “mile wide, inch deep” time wasting approach.

Why aren’t we doing better at teaching math?

Math teachers, especially at the elementary level have far too little math subject knowledge. Also, educators do not understand the hierarchical nature of the study of math. The goal in elementary math must be providing the foundation for higher level study, NOT being able to solve arithmetic problems with a calculator or simplistic, non-universal algorithms, even though that is what is tested at the elementary level.

What can the research tell us? Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, Liping Ma (2002). Background: She compared Chinese elementary teachers to American elementary teachers.
Chinese teachers have 2 to 3 years of “Normal School” training after a 9th grade education. American teachers have 16 to 18 years of formal education. Chinese students typically outperform U.S. students on international comparisons of mathematics competency in spite of the extra education level of U.S. teachers.

An Example Problem Ma Used in Her Research: Divide 1 ¾ by ½.
What She Found—100% of the Chinese teachers computed the correct answer. Barely 40% of the American teachers computed the correct answer. In the assessment of approaching the problem in more than one way, no American teachers did that while about 35% of Chinese teachers did. In the question of providing at least one correct story (relevant context for students) about 90% of the Chinese teachers were successful while only 2% of the American teachers were able to do it. Ma’s conclusions:

“Even expert teachers, experienced teachers who were [inappropriately] mathematically confident, and teachers who actively participated in current mathematics teaching reform did not seem to have a thorough knowledge of the mathematics taught in elementary school.” Teachers’ subject knowledge correlated very well with their students’ achievement. The number of math courses taken in college did not.

What must be done to fix our education system to really serve the needs of the kids?

1. Elect political representatives at all levels who can prioritize the kids’ welfare over their allegiance to the ed power groups who contribute most to their campaigns. This is vital because the education insiders are all much more interested in protecting their cushy existence than in serving the kids. Their actions and results are irrefutable evidence of this. I was told in my research by several superintendents when I pressed them on how the kids could be so poorly served, “Paul, you don’t understand. Education is run to benefit the adults who work here, not the kids.” They won’t change unless forced to. It is that simple. The Massachusetts legislature was able to overcome the power group influence and install content rich standards. Why can’t Colorado legislators?

2. Help spread the word far and wide about the truth of our educational performance. The educators have been very successful in using propaganda methods to hide the truth.

3. Realize that while well meaning for the most part, educators don’t understand the reality of their false beliefs and the harm they are doing. We can’t educate them by civil discussions. I have tried for years and years. They just ignore the truth because they fall back to their brainwashed faith in the false gods taught them in their ed schools and reinforced strongly in their daily work. Education is definitely an “all the puffer bellies all in a row” environment. Thus, it is up to the public to confront the harmful beliefs and methods of our education system. This is the only way that positive change can happen. We must have stronger staying power than the education fiefdom members (delusional, defensive, insular, and inbred).

4. Demand the current constructivist curricula be eliminated from all of our schools. These include Whole Language and its renamed progeny along with math curricula like EveryDay Math that do not provide the foundation required for even algebra, let alone more advanced math studies so important in today’s global competitive environment.

5. Demand that rigorous subject knowledge tests be required for teacher certification. Also, require periodic rigorous subject knowledge testing for maintaining teacher certification regardless of tenure.

The list could go on but addressing these problems would provide a real boost to kids’ education prospects. I hope you will sign up for duty in the “Force Better Education for Our Kids” army. The kids’ need powerful advocacy to overcome the entrenched status quo bias of the self-satisfied education fiefdom.

Taking on an entrenched and wrong set of beliefs.

2010-03-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

You are probably at least a bit familiar with the conflict between Galileo and the Roman Church over the earth-centered (geocentric) view then believed and Galileo’s sun-centered (heliocentric) theory based on his scientific observations. This story is one of an entrenched power structure that defends its beliefs in spite of scientific proof of their inadequacy. In fact, it is the story of trying to destroy those who held opposing views.

The first attack on Galileo came when clerics denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. Although he was cleared of any offence at that time, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture." Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. [This could be termed a “live to fight another day” approach] When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Also, the publication of any of his writings past or future was forbidden. Although he tried to remain loyal to the Catholic Church, his adherence to scientific experimental results, and their objective interpretation, led to a rejection of assertions contrary to observation, in matters of science.

You might well think that you are glad you live in a world where such things can no longer occur. You would be wrong. Oh, certainly things are not so openly biased but going against an entrenched and fixed in their beliefs monolith is not easier or safer today than it was in Galileo’s time. Instead of Inquisitions new methods are now employed to prevent the truth from being recognized and acted upon.

• The first set of techniques is to go on their way reinforcing their false beliefs while actively ignoring the truth as presented by “outsiders.”

• The second technique is to create a façade of expertise. This false (in the face of the evidence) posturing as the experts is very effective especially if they are careful to not react defensively which might give the outsiders’ arguments credibility.

• To reinforce their expert reputations they give themselves false trappings; including certificates of expertise (diplomas) and continuing education in the false doctrine from other “departments” of the monolith.

• Any problems with performance related to using the false but mainline approaches are blamed on other factors and people that the insiders do not control. This, “We confess it is their fault” approach is incredibly effective to the majority of the credulous populace.

• They are also adept at using their leverage on politicians to preserve their power to prevent concerns over their false beliefs.

Yes, I am building an analogue to our education system. The similarities are robust.

Acting on Reality in Times of Tight Education Budgets, An Opportunity and a Responsibility

Tight budgets are a perfect opportunity to assess the validity of underlying assumptions within our education system. The board deliberations of a large local district are instructive as to the logical traps that tend to prevent facing reality and taking appropriate actions. To date in their deliberations the board has followed the guidance of the “status quo at all costs” administration recommendations. One example will make the point. Two well meaning and kid advocate board members voted against cutting literacy and math programs for K-8. That is akin to voting to preserve the dosage of intellectual arsenic to those kids. You see, they made the assumption that the programs were worthwhile and having a positive impact. But foundationally both the literacy and math curricula are based on scientifically unsound beliefs. While our competitor nations and even the best states (ex. Massachusetts) have embraced curricula that work and pass scientific scrutiny. They feel no need at all to worship false education beliefs especially when it would harm their kids. Thus the answer is not preserving the added time and effort to inflict the harmful curricula on the kids. The answer is to install curricula that actually work and make sure they are well taught.

This tight budget period is a perfect opportunity to put on your netting and “kick the hornet’s nest” to excise the false educational beliefs from our education organizations. Administrators who cannot admit the error of their ways are perfect candidates for not having their contracts renewed. Don’t feel sorry for them. The choice is eliminating their false beliefs or ignoring the harm they are doing year after year to the kids. That is an easy decision to make. That would reduce the negative drag on performance more than any of the current alternatives that are based on a false foundation of wrong beliefs.

This is an opportunity that must be taken. It will mean taking positions on performance and substance of the education process that are different, but much more effective, than those held by the governmental education bureaucracies, the education schools, the administrators, etc. That is, there is no rule against having higher standards than the very weak standards at the state and national level. There is also no rule against using curricula that are scientifically sound and work. If we care about the kids let our actions show it. Words and platitudes are not enough.

Comments on PWR (Post Secondary and Workforce Readiness)

2010-02-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

Following is my response to the CDE request for feedback on their PWR initiative.
Some of this is repetitive of previous posts but including that info gives you the full content sent to the CDE.

After reading minutes and looking at PowerPoint presentations on the CDE website regarding new standards, assessment and how that relates to success in post secondary and career, I find that nothing ever really changes.

When you look at the responses to the public surveys sponsored by CDE you find that Business people respond very little while educators make up the vast majority of respondents. Is that because the non-education insider public is satisfied to allow the “education experts” to handle the important education decisions regarding how our kids are prepared for life after their K-12 school experience? My answer is that they don’t respond to the surveys, etc. because experience has proven to them that it is a waste of their time. That is, the educators go through the motions asking for public input but don’t really want to hear it and for sure don’t value it enough to really take it to heart.

The education establishment has a vested self-interest in maintaining control of education decisions. They want to protect the cushy status quo and avoid any real change. In every cycle of this “pseudo reform” process you see lots of effort expended but it is for the most part a waste of valuable resources and hence results in the stunting of our kids’ future prospects. This prioritization of the comfort of the adults in education at the expense of the kids is all too firmly entrenched. In my education research I spoke to many superintendents in 6 states. I heard more than once when I questioned them about how the kids were being so poorly served that, “you don’t understand, education is run to benefit the adults who work here, not the kids.”

What I would do differently?

• Examine the underlying assumptions that are not working—educators find it easy to assume that the underlying assumptions they have are valid and only refining how they implement them is needed. As the unchanging (in any major way that is required) results show the current approaches aren’t working. Our kids can’t compete with the best performers in the world let alone even the best in America. Colorado has chosen to take the low (and easy) road in standards and achievement test levels with NCLB definitions of proficient that are at the very low end of the states in that regard. This is an indication of the state education leaderships’ low opinion of the competence of Colorado educators. Setting low expectations begets low results.

• Stop wasteful deeper and deeper focus on minutiae—this has caused a total lack of perspective. This is the story of blind men and the elephant. They each conclude because they are feeling a different appendage of the elephant that it is something completely different than it really is. Stop looking through the microscopes (which might be appropriate if you knew what the whole beast looked like) and zoom out to a full perspective including how our best competitor nations do things. Go for foundational skills well understood-- Singapore doesn’t do more. They do less – less, that is, of the time-wasters that clutter the American “mile wide, inch deep” math curriculum. A world-class curriculum like Singapore’s focuses on math skills that prepare children for algebra and beyond. It builds mastery of those skills step by step, and incorporates these skills into more and more complex problems. 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” More topics poorly covered does not help except as something for educators to brag that they are teaching (they aren’t at least at more depth than spouting the title).

• Heed the advice of E.D. Hirsch who calls the current situation a “perfect storm” of Bad Educational Ideas. “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. 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. Principles that constitute a kind of theology are drilled into prospective teachers like a catechism. The only way to improve scores in reading comprehension and to narrow the reading gap between groups is to systematically provide children with the wide-ranging, specific background knowledge they need to comprehend what they read.” Massachusetts got rid of the harmful and never effective “how-to” based approach (the Hirsch stimulated Massachusetts Miracle) and replaced it with a content rich approach and saw their achievement scores soar. Of course, in Massachusetts the educators didn’t lead the charge, it was required by the legislature.

• From David Klein’s A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century For example, William Heard Kilpatrick, professor at Columbia Teachers College (early twentieth century), reflecting mainstream views of progressive education, 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 the 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.

Thus, while our educators TALK about the need for critical thinking skills, they don’t provide the knowledge base required to provide context to any attempt at critical thinking.

In conclusion, until our education establishment faces the truth of what works as opposed to the false beliefs they were taught in education school by education faculty more interested in “if it isn’t true, it ought to be” approaches, the kids will continue to be poorly served. They will become less and less prepared to compete in the increasingly meritocratic, flat world.

A final quote from Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin and an engineering degree holder from his Is America Falling Off of the Flat Earth?

"It seems that the longer our children are exposed to our K-12 education system, the worse they do. If we wish to be average by global standards, we will need to improve a great deal. Can anyone imagine a football coach at any American high school greeting his players on the first day of fall practice by saying, 'This year let’s get out there and try to be average for the Gipper!'?

It can, of course, be argued that comparing averages and medians tells only part of the story, as indeed is often the case. But in this instance, further parsing of the data generally reveals that the United States has a disproportionately small share of the highest performers and a disproportionately large share of the lowest performers. Although this is widely overlooked, it is not simply the poorer-performing students who are falling through the gaping cracks of our educational system but also the highest performers who—much to the nation’s detriment—are frequently being forced to learn in an environment approaching the lowest common denominator.

The problem of low expectations has not been confined to California. Alabama, for example, reported that in 2005, 83% of its fourth-graders ranked as “proficient” on its state test of academic achievement. But in the most widely accepted national test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 22% of Alabama’s fourth-graders scored at or above the proficient level. In truth, neither of the measures matters much. What counts today is how the children of Alabama rank with the children of Singapore, Moscow, Hong Kong, Delhi, Beijing, and Berlin. There is little consolation in being first among losers."

Thus, the whole PWR endeavor coupled to new standards and new assessments is only an exercise in going along in the same rut and avoiding the obvious truth of our education failures.

Why Do We Have a Borg Education System

2010-02-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

Most of you are familiar with the Borg from Star Trek. Their goal is to assimilate everyone into the Collective or destroy them. They are all directed by a central hive. In many ways our education system is modeled on the same principles. To understand what has happened to education in America you need to look at some history.

The French Revolution, the first fascist revolution, was characterized by an effort based on Rousseau’s assertion that they should turn politics into a religion and that the people needed to be led by experts who told them what to do based on the experts view of the common good. Rousseau’s concept was that “the people” is sublime whereas “the person” is weak or at any rate, expendable. Rousseau said that individuals who live in accordance with the general will are virtuous. If an individual could not be forced to conform, they would be eliminated.

The philosophies of Jean Jacques Rousseau are foundational to many of the beliefs of the progressive movement in America that started in the early twentieth century. John Dewey used Rousseau’s philosophies in forming his progressive education initiatives. Rousseau wanted to take children away from parents and raise them in state-owned boarding schools. Note today that the liberal government believes it is vital to get children into government controlled pre-school. This is a stark contrast to Finland (a top performer on international achievement tests where kids start school at age 7). Dewey embraced the idea of getting children into school as early as possible before they could learn “harmful,” individualistic views from their parents.

The Progressive’s goal with education was and is to “socialize” the children (brainwash them) to be credulous “followers” of the liberal elite experts who would “guide the society to the collectivist good.” There’s is definitely not an “all men created equal with individual liberty and responsibility” approach.

For example, William Heard Kilpatrick, professor at Columbia Teachers College (early twentieth century), reflecting mainstream views of progressive education, 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 the 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. 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. Thus, while our educators TALK about the need for critical thinking skills, they don’t provide the knowledge base required to provide context to any attempt at critical thinking.

The Progressives are nothing if not tenacious. They have remained true to these principles to this day and by the mid-1950s they had attained effective total control of education school training of our educators. This has allowed the replacement of content-based curricula with content-free, how-to, skills-based curricula that are of the slow paced, student centered, discovery learning type. The education schools have brainwashed their graduates so successfully that even though the how-to curricula do not stand scientific scrutiny, they will not acknowledge it. E.D. Hirsh in his book “The Knowledge Deficit” calls scientific inadequacy a minor inconvenience to educators today. The ed schools have, also because their training essentially does not include any rigorous training in the subjects to be taught, made it very difficult to go back to the content rich curricula that worked well, because to do so would require “retreading” the current teacher force with subject knowledge. Our best global competitors all emphasize subject knowledge and their kids are scoring much better than ours on international achievement testing. We are at or near the top of the list in the amount spent per child for education but that is only enriching educators. It doesn’t result in better outcomes for our children.

The main question at hand is can we break out of this lack of competitiveness driven death spiral to lower and lower standards of living by “retooling” our education system to provide competitive skills to our children? Or will we keep ignoring the problem until we are past the point of no salvage and eventually have to start over from a much lower base of economic activity? Yes, it is that serious.

Ignore the Slowing Flywheel at Your Peril

2010-01-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

Reported in a Financial Newsletter, January 28, 2010

“Less often discussed is China’s rapidly growing middle class. Estimates are that as many as 25% of Chinese -- more people than the entire U.S. population -- fall into this category now, with a doubling possible within the next decade. While most dramatic in China, it is also under way in India, Brazil and elsewhere…

In only 10 years, China has gone from being the world’s 20th largest oil consumer to No. 2, behind the United States, as a result of its accelerating shift from the bicycle to the car.

Quotes from The World is Flat by Tom Friedman

It is this triple convergence—of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes and habits for horizontal collaboration—that I believe is the most important force shaping global economics and politics in the early twenty-first century. Giving so many people access to all these tools of collaboration, along with the ability through search engines and the Web to access billions of pages of raw information, ensures that the scale of the global community that is soon going to be able to participate in all sorts of discovery and innovation is something the world had simply never seen before.

Said Barrett [Intel CEO], “You don’t bring three billion people into the world economy overnight without huge consequences, especially from three societies [like India, China, and Russia] with rich educational heritages.”

…once the world has been flattened and new forms of collaboration made available to more and more people, the winners will be those who learn the habits, processes, and skills most quickly—and there is simply nothing that guarantees it will be Americans or Western Europeans permanently leading the way.

[W]e Americans, individually and collectively, have not been doing all these things that we should be doing and [ignoring] what will happen down the road if we don’t change course.

The assumption that because America’s economy has dominated the world for more than a century, it will and must always be that way is as dangerous an illusion today as the illusion that America would always dominate in science and technology was back in 1950. But this is not going to be easy. Getting our society up to speed for a flat world is going to be extremely pain[ful]. We are going to have to start doing a lot of things differently.

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.

I would simply add: The crisis is already here. It is just playing out in slow motion. The flattening world is moving ahead apace, and barring war or some catastrophic terrorist event, nothing is going to stop it. But what can happen is a decline in our standard of living, if more Americans are not empowered and educated to participate in a world where all the knowledge centers are being connected. “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

...the first thing they need to do is engage in some brutally honest introspection. With China and the other nine flatteners coming on strong, no country today can afford to be anything less than brutally honest with itself.

The Point

America is becoming less and less competitive. There are many reasons but as Friedman in “The World is Flat” concludes, our poorly performing education system is the biggest problem we face. He makes the point well that our standard of living is in danger of a permanent reduction if we don’t start embracing the truth and begin immediately to change the way we educate our kids.

This shouldn’t be a surprise as the warnings have been coming for many decades now.

Just to revisit a few along the way.

• Over a third of a century ago, Robert Kennedy called the achievement gap between minority and disadvantaged kids a stain on our national honor. In the meantime we have spent billions on finding a solution but the problem is demonstrably worse now than when RFK made his observation.

• In 1983, the A Nation at Risk report bemoaned a rising tide of mediocrity and said that if a foreign power had imposed our education system on us we would consider it an act of war.

• In the 2007 report Tough Choices or Tough Times they point out, “While our international counterparts are increasingly getting more education, their young people are getting a better education as well. And “American students and young adults place anywhere from the middle to the bottom of the pack in all three continuing comparative studies of achievement in mathematics, science, and general literacy in the advanced industrial nations.”

Thus, the flywheel that represents our economy is inexorably slowing. This has masked the problem because the changes have been slow and difficult to become concerned about in any one year but cumulatively they have already taken us from the largest creditor nation (they owe us money) to the largest debtor nation (we owe them money) in the space of only about 4 decades. We have maintained our lifestyle basically by borrowing as individuals and as a nation.

Can we continue to count on increased borrowing to make up for our lack of competitiveness? For a while it seems, but we are closer to the ultimate breakdown than to the past healthy state of our economy. Remember though if we fixed education tomorrow, that it would take 13 years to begin to see the result of students through the whole system. China has already been openly questioning our increasing deficits and ability to pay back the bond holders of whom China is one of the largest. When they and other fast growing economies reach the tipping point where they don’t need us to buy their stuff because their own populations are far larger and growing in wealth while we are shrinking, they will stop buying our government debt which will make interest rates go up dramatically. This will make the cost of financing the huge debt we have incurred unaffordable and drastic reductions in lifestyle are very likely. As Freidman and many others point out, we must face the crisis and take action. It won’t be easy and it will be harder than if we had heeded the earlier warnings over the decades but it must be done if we hope to hand our kids and grandkids a better or equal future to ours.

I have mentioned before that our public education system is a fiefdom. That is, it is characterized as defensive, delusional, insular and inbred. But most of all it is anti-change. The system has been perfected over the last 5 to 6 decades to resist change of any kind. All of the education power groups work in cooperation to maintain the status quo. In the meantime our kids are more and more often facing the fate mentioned by Friedman,

“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.”

People tend to dislike change especially if it requires them to learn and do new things as a common practice in their jobs. However, we can’t ignore the problem. We must be able to start to improve our performance versus the competition or our country will fail to be a great place to live in time.

Thus, it is time for the public to become very impatient and demand positive change. Those politicians who stand in the way need to be voted out. We must search out and face the too often hidden or ignored truth of our education failures. If we do, it will be natural to be motivated to express dissatisfaction with the status quo and demand that the kids and the country be served at a much higher level by our educators.

It is past time to wake up and take action. Only the public can force the necessary reforms.

Educators Irrational Fears are Harming Kids

2010-01-22T07:57:00.000-08:00

I just completed a decades long look at the history of one of our largest school districts locally by accessing an online archive of the local paper’s articles about the district. Very interesting but sad too. The current “urgent goals” have been brought up over and over in the past but no real change in performance has occurred, at least not the “step function” improvement needed if our kids are to be served as they deserve. The clear message from the history lesson is that educators who are not expert at the foundational aspects of teaching our kids well are very expert in maintaining the status quo. E.D. Hirsch, Rita Kramer and many others have pointed out the catechism style brainwashing in education theories by the education schools that don’t stand scientific scrutiny.

Slow response and delay tactics are at the core of this change prevention strategy. If a problem gets enough attention to begin to gain some traction with outside stakeholders [board, parents, business interests, etc] the response is to acknowledge the problem to lull the complainer into a false belief something will be done to fix the problem. If the complainer maintains pressure long enough the educators appoint committees including educators and community members [carefully selected to be prone to agree with the ed party line] to study the situation. This puts a big delay into the educator response which is exactly what they are counting on. Very few complainers have the staying power to maintain pressure for long enough to get past this phase. If they do maintain pressure, the next tactic is to hire outside consultants to do an audit. These outside consultants are only outside the district but are full members of the brainwashed educator cadre. They can be counted on to bless the current operating mode as the best practice available even though they do usually mention some “throw away” things that the district should do to make things better. These bandaids never address the underlying cause, so the real problem is never solved. The board may be invoked by the complainer but since the history shows a very consistent record of the board being rubber stamp robots for the administration, esp. the superintendent, they can’t be relied on to force productive change.

The question we have to ask is “why are educators so afraid of change?” Are they afraid that they don’t have the ability to learn to do things differently? Are they afraid of the unknown? Do they care about the kids or is their own comfort a higher priority? Is their real self-esteem so low that they can’t process any input that points to poor performance on their parts? Or is the brainwashing they received from their ed school training and reinforced by all of their in service and professional activities just too hard to overcome voluntarily? I believe they do care about the kids but do not connect the dots or even question their own beliefs as the reason the kids are being harmed.

Confrontation is the only thing that can break through brainwashed mentalities. Here too, the education environment has built in defensive mechanisms. The ubiquitous use of political correctness and GroupThink prevent the sort of intellectual honesty and robust dialog required to be able to face and fix real problems. Thus, anyone pointing out the truth of the poor performance in education is by definition, “not nice” and out of line. This prevents many from complaining even though kids are being harmed badly on an ongoing basis. This also prevents the board members from expressing concerns with enough force to get through the defenses. Now, if the board members were living up to their responsibilities they would be forceful and demand real fixes to real problems. But the history I read did not indicate any examples of a majority of board members having the moxie to do the right things. Oh, there is a record of firing superintendents a few times when pressure built high enough. However, the replacements were always selected from the pool of brainwashed educators so no change was forthcoming in the future either. Thus, the status quo continues. The kids become less and less competitive in the global marketplace. The country’s economy becomes less competitive as well with the attendant unemployment problems, too much debt, etc.

Finally, the educators would say that hurting the feelings of educators is never justified. I say hurting their feelings is well justified if it is required to cause service to kids to be raised to an adequate level. That is, kids futures trump educator feelings every time.

Veering off into the ditch and liking it fine

2009-12-22T18:11:00.000-08:00

First, I recommend you go to www.booktv.org and search on E.D. Hirsch. That will bring you to the December 13, 2009 broadcast of his presentation speaking about his new book, The Making of Americans.

Hirsch’s thesis is a good one: That American education went off the rails almost 6 decades ago when the graduates of the education schools anti-curriculum (child-centered) movement began to teach. They had been brainwashed that skills would suffice and save the kids from being forced to memorize facts and drill to increase real knowledge. The big plus for the ed schools was that subject knowledge courses taught by them could be “watered down, everyone gets an A” affairs. The results of this detour to ridiculousness began “biting” into our education performance in a negative way in the late 60s as the victims of the new scientifically unsound approach began graduating from high school. These graduates had the full “benefit” of being subject to the depredations for their entire school career. Hirsch showed a slide of SAT verbal scores going back to the late sixties. Scores plummeted and have stayed at the lower level. He used the Sat because it has more history than the NAEP. However, he did show a NAEP slide back to its inception to show that the “achievement gap” has been constant or getting worse over that whole time.
Hirsch makes the point, a good one, that language skills are the “skill of skills and key to success in citizenship, learning, and earning. He cites research that says if you take language proficiency into account, the earnings gap between minorities and the poor disappears.

That emphasizes one key point. The gap kids are the ones harmed the most by the anti-curriculum approach. Hirsch points out that the common excuses the education school types (and hence everyone else in the education fiefdom; delusional, defensive, insular, inbred) are all bogus and intended to deflect attention away from the real culprits; content free curricula. He relates research he did that shows that the scores of white, middle class kids plummeted along with the rest. He used Iowa as an example where 98% are white middle class and yet the scores have gone down there as well. When core curricula are installed, the performance gaps between rich and poor students narrow. The bottom line is that the current educational methods yield the results favored by `progressive' and `liberal' educators, while their methods drive everyone down, particularly the poor. Hirsch says, “It is hard to conceive of a greater social evil.”

Other comments he makes in the video also ring true.
• On the Governor’s effort to establish a national curriculum standard: “a politically craven and content free approach.”
• Our schools need to teach the founding principles of the Enlightenment and the blessings of liberty, not an intellectual tyranny.
• The last 50+ years have been characterized by; technically wrong ideas, fragmented courses, watered down texts.
• Critical thinking skills are powerfully knowledge dependent, meaning that the current goal of teaching critical thinking skills in a content free environment is a waste of time.
• The “how to” approach has always failed and always must fail.

How did we get into this mess? We delegated the education of our kids to educators without building in a closed loop, quality control function. We assumed “wrongly” that the education experts with the great sounding education bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees were competent to do the job. No matter how much they argue, their results prove the fact that they don’t know much about the realities of what works in education. We have ignored the multitudinous research that concludes that the education schools are little more than diploma mills extracting largess from a failed education process. Is it the educators fault for getting away with huge salaries based on worthless degrees and the poor performance? Is it the educators’ fault that the achievement gap has gone unimproved for decades in spite of the billions thrown at the problem? Or is it our fault for being too unengaged to demand that the whole craven process be fixed or ditched. In its current form our education system is essentially a very expensive baby-sitting/childcare operation.

What do I mean by fixed? Lots of things are required, but as a start, require content rich curricula as Hirsch recommends, stop paying for advanced ed degrees, install merit pay for educators (pay for true performance, not seat time in an ed school weak program or getting a year older), make teachers pass subject competency tests before being awarded certification. Require subject competency tests be passed every other year for current teachers to maintain certification. Decouple all certifications for teachers and leaders from ed school training. Only this will incentivize the ed schools to abandon their wrong-headed ideas that don’t stand scientific muster.

If you have learned about the trench warfare of World War I, you know that millions of men “lived” in trenches in all sorts of foul conditions. They got diseases like “trench foot” that could cause such severe infection that the limb would have to be amputated. Yet, the troops would much rather stay in the foul trenches than face the machine guns, mines and barbed wire of the battlefield. For them the “norm” of the trench while a terrible place to be was in their minds superior and much less scary than the world outside the trench.

While you would be hard pressed to equate the current situation for the adults who work in education to trench warfare, it wouldn’t be too hard to relate the analogy to the kids (victims) who see their future prospects greatly damaged by the current system. They don’t have amputated limbs but amputated future prospects. There exists a universal reluctance among the adults working in education to face the reality of the harm they are doing to the kids with the anti-curriculum approach. While our education schools do a very poor job of educating teachers and administrators they are world-class at brainwashing their graduates to believe in harmful, unscientific clap-trap. When I have confronted ed school professors with the scientific evidence of their failure they say, “Well, if it isn’t true, it ought to be.” Some say, “That’s my job you’re talking about.” Neither response is ethical when kids are continuing to be harmed by their intransigence.

While most effort to reform the system has been aimed at convincing the educators to face the scientific truth and replace the current approach with one that works, it has been ineffective. It is easy to see why the current rut is comfortable to educators. Change is not something most people volunteer for. And in a world where the adults in education prioritize their own comfort ahead of the futures of the kids no change will be occurring from within. It can only happen if forced from outside the education fiefdom.

Am I saying that educators have nothing to fear if a knowledge curriculum is implemented. No I am not. You see, that would cause the educators’ lack of rigorous subject knowledge to be exposed to the light of day. This problem is especially large in the elementary grades. This would mean redirecting all teacher “professional” development away from more methods classes toward subject knowledge classes. Since the school districts have time and money for the professional development in their budgets it wouldn’t be a fiscal problem for them. The problem would be finding knowledgeable people to teach the subject knowledge courses. The education schools don’t have such people so they would have to be found elsewhere.

The only example of real reform taking place in America has been in Massachusetts (termed the Massachusetts Miracle). It was caused by political leadership willing to disappoint ed power groups who contributed to their campaigns. They imposed the change to content rich curricula on the educators. The kids in Massachusetts have benefited greatly. It should be obvious that working with educators in our school districts to improve things for the kids is a fool’s errand. They haven’t changed on their own and they “ain’t” about to start now.

I Admit It. I Was Wrong

2009-12-12T23:44:00.000-08:00

I have been convinced for years that the use of the constructivist math curricula (often called NSF First Generation because the NSF sent many millions for their development to ed school professors and researchers) were the biggest problem in low math achievement results among American students. Recent events now cause me to demote the poor curricula problem, while still needing urgent attention, to second place. What has displaced curriculum as the most important problem to solve if we desire to stop spinning our wheels and really improve math achievement among American students?

First, let me describe some interactions with a large local school district over the math achievement problem. Studying the district’s achievement results for grades 3 through 10 on the state achievement tests, shows the scope of the problem. At third grade the majority of students score proficient or better. At tenth grade the majority of students score below proficient. This indicates that on average students progress less than a year in achievement for every year spent in school. In fact the 10th grade proficient or better percentage for 2009 testing for this district was in the low thirty percent range. This correlates well with the high college (both 2-year and 4-year) remediation rates which are in ranges from just under 22% to 52% across the district’s large high schools. The data show clearly that the students from this district are not being adequately prepared in math for the increasingly global competition for well-paying “knowledge jobs.”

Another concerned person and I met twice with the district’s central office staff in charge of curricula and math specialists tasked to support the math teaching process for elementary and middle/high schools. We reached an impasse when we stated that the curricula being used (Everyday Math being the prime example) were the cause of the problem and the central office folk said the curricula had no effect. We were amazed. Since then I have met a couple of more times with central office staff and have been pushing the idea that the math subject knowledge of teachers (especially elementary level) needed to be improved through additional training for the teachers.
Soon after that the “math team” made a presentation to the board of education for the district. One slide they showed compared annual growth rates in achievement among the 30-plus elementary schools in the district versus 6 different curricula being used. Their study concluded that there was no statistically significant difference which supported the assertion of the people in our first meeting telling us that the curriculum made no difference in achievement. Thus, it became time to face that something besides curriculum was masking the deficiency of curricula which is so apparent to those who understand math and what foundational skills must be learned in elementary grades to prepare students for success in middle and high school.

After more research, I have concluded that the poor level of math knowledge among teachers is far and away the biggest contributor to poor math achievement of their students. In retrospect this should have been no surprise to me. I had read Rita Kramer’s “Ed School Follies” which emphasized the fact that education schools focus on process (pedagogy) training to the effective exclusion of teaching subject knowledge with even minimal rigor. David Klein’s “A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century” which also makes the point that education schools are infected with the progressive attitudes emphasizing process, socializing students to be “good (pliable) citizens” and de-emphasizing content. E.D. Hirsch Jr. in his “The Knowledge Deficit” again points out that the ed schools de-emphasize knowledge (content) in favor of constructivist (ex. Whole Language & Everyday Math) approaches which have proven to be scientifically ineffective, a fact he labels as of little importance among ed school faculties who won’t change even in the face of contrary research findings.

While I had read some summary representations of Liping Ma’s research on the subject knowledge of elementary math teachers, I did not read her book describing her research, “Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics,” until recently. She created a comparison study of teachers from China and from the U.S. The Chinese teachers had much less formal education than their American counterparts. The Chinese system for elementary teachers is to take those with a ninth grade education and give them 2 to 3 years of “normal school” training beyond ninth grade to qualify to become teachers. The U.S. participants in her study had from 4 to 6 years beyond their high school graduation.

Yet, in spite of that, U.S. students consistently score significantly lower on international math achievement comparisons. Ma used Deborah Ball’s TELT model (Teacher Education and Learning to Teach Study) to assess the math knowledge of each teacher in the study. She found;

• “Even expert [U.S.] teachers, experienced teachers who were mathematically confident, and teachers who actively participated in current mathematics teaching reform did not seem to have a thorough knowledge of the mathematics taught in elementary school.”

• Teachers’ subject knowledge correlated very well with their student’s achievement.

• Number of math courses taken in college did not.

What are we to conclude from this review of the research and the international achievement testing results?

• Seat time in education school classes does not result in adequate subject knowledge for the teachers.

• If we desire to improve math achievement, we must provide subject knowledge training for the existing cadre of teachers. This will need to take the place of the ubiquitous teaching of more pedagogy processes which are already overdone in education schools. Only by teaching subject knowledge can balance be brought to the teachers’ skill sets.

• Starting with elementary teachers is where the most leverage exists. This is because if children don’t get a rigorous foundation in elementary grades they are too far behind to catch up in the middle and high school class work.

“Cultures that are open and willing to change have a huge advantage in the world,” said Jerry Rao, the MphasiS CEO who heads the Indian high-tech trade association. “You have to have a strong culture, but also the openness to adapt and adopt from others. The cultural exclusivists have a real disadvantage. Exclusivity is a dangerous thing. Openness is critical because you start tending to respect people for their talent and abilities. You are dealing with people on the basis of talent—not race or ethnicity—and that changes, subtly over time your whole view of human beings, if you are in this talent-based and performance-based world rather than the background-based world.” From The World is Flat by Tom Friedman.

You may ask what does the quote above have to do with our education problems? Our education fiefdom is the most exclusive of exclusive cultures. It is a world in which “background is king.” That is, people are paid more for degrees, getting a year older and classes, not their performance level. A multitude of researchers have found in study after study that the education school degrees from undergraduate to doctoral level are essentially worthless for the task at hand. The above quote makes the point that the world is becoming more and more a meritocracy where we will be valued for the quality of our output not our backgrounds; degrees, good-old-boy connections, pedigrees, etc.

Our educators’ refusal to change from a background supreme culture to a results supreme culture will continue harming out kids until the public becomes more knowledgeable and motivated to require that it change. For now, it looks as if when that time of realization comes we will likely be in a lower and lower standard of living “death spiral” which will be very difficult to overcome because the root cause was ignored for decades. Reality can be a scary thing but facing it is foundational to transforming performance in a positive way.

Polishing a Rotten Apple

2009-11-24T00:20:00.000-08:00

Did you ever think about how the “reforms” in bureaucratic organizations (education, governmental regulatory agencies, etc.) always start with the assumption that the status quo has value as a starting point? That is, the approach is to try to “polish a rotten apple.”

It is easy to understand why this is so. The bureaucrats are deathly afraid that if any needed changes were looked at objectively, their own jobs and “cast in concrete” habits would be in jeopardy. This is why, for example, the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report of 11/05 states that while billions of dollars have been spent attempting to close the gap that the current situation is worse than when Robert Kennedy, a third of a century ago, called the gap a stain on our national honor. The efforts always start and end in the same place, the status quo, wasting huge amounts of money and limiting our kids’ futures because they are not educated to their full potential.

Here is a look at current assumptions common in education that I believe are roadblocks in the way of serving our kids as they deserve to be served.

1. Big school districts with a strong central office, top down structure are more efficient and more effective. The centralized structures have been done away with in large organizations outside of government funded bureaucratic operations because they found that competition forced them to admit that a decentralized structure performed much better. The fact that the same is true of education settings when it has been tried is discussed in William Ouchi’s new book, “The Secret of TSL.”

2. Education school training is required to be able to teach or lead effectively in education. The education schools are basically “diploma mills” milking the public trough for all the money they can garner. The preparedness of their graduates when compared to the requirements to do an effective job is weak at best. The education schools’ graduate programs have no rigor and are in what Arthur Levine called “A Race to the Bottom” reducing admission and graduation requirements while shortening program length in an effort to attract more and more people interested in the paper not the education that would allow them to do an effective job.

3. The research in education is rigorous and can be relied upon to make important decisions on curriculum and methods, etc. In fact, the research in education is generally of poor quality because it is slanted to favor products or services of the researchers or poorly done from a statistical rigor point of view. See the What Works Clearinghouse at the US Dept of Ed website.

4. The education oversight bureaucracies at the Federal and State levels are doing a good job of setting standards, achievement testing regimens, certification requirements, etc. Because the denizens of these bureaucracies have been trained in the education schools’ graduate programs they don’t have the knowledge or objectivity to break the cycle of low standards and support for education processes that don’t stand scientific scrutiny as pointed out by E.D. Hirsch in The Knowledge Deficit. Would you think it strange that someone with an education doctorate that Levine found in his research to be of no value in any public school administration job, would fail to criticize the very degrees that many of them have? Right.

5. Educators are expert in the subjects they teach. This is one of the biggest problems that goes unaddressed. Oh, there have been efforts like the highly qualified requirements in the NCLB law but they have failed to make a difference. This is because the “remedial” classes required are populated with educators so that they are taught down to that level of competence. This is just another example of going through the motions to satisfy a legal requirement but not the intent. Thus, the intent of the law is short-circuited. Rita Kramer describes the problem well in Ed School Follies, “The people who become ‘educators’ and who run our school systems usually have degrees in education, psychology, social sciences, public administration; they are not people who have studied, know, and love literature, history, science, or philosophy. Our ‘educators’ are not educated. They do not love learning. Naturally enough, they think of the past as dead because it has never been alive to them. And they will not bring it alive for their pupils.”

So, what is to be done? It seems we have two choices. First, we can give up and cut the money spent on “improving education” to zero (which would require dramatic cuts in admin staffs in school districts) by admitting that it hasn’t happened and won’t happen under the current modus operandi. Or, we can dismantle the assumptions listed above and cause a “reset to first principles” to determine what is the right way to proceed. As part of this we would need to set very high expectations to prevent the re-establishment of the same processes with different names. Inevitably lots of toes would have to be stepped on and some of the worst actors sacrificed as an object lesson for the rest that reform was not a talking exercise but a walking exercise with real and positive results required. You might blanch at the thought of sacrificing some of the educators to make the point. I have absolutely no problem with that as millions of kids are continually sacrificed at the “status quo; let’s make it cushy for the adult educators” alter. It is time to start behaving as though the kids have some priority in our education system.

Management Thoughts for Educators

2009-11-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

Needed—a data driven, closed loop, short cycle management process to effect positive change in the organization.

Data—Attitude Change Required
• The data approach of educators is conditioned through decades to always look for a way to put the best face on bad performance
• The data approach of managers who face the need to improve continually is to put the worst face on the data to identify the biggest problems and fix them quickly.

Large Organizations Don’t Function Well With Centralized Management Structures
• Top-down, one-size-fits-all precludes addressing any unique problems or opportunities for improvement
• Communication is very difficult because of the multitudinous paths created by the top heavy structure (can of worms)
• Change is extremely difficult because of the structured decision making process that involve specialists, committees, months of study, the board of education, etc. The war will be over and we will have lost because we couldn’t address the problems effectively in real time.
• “Customers” (parents especially) lose patience with the lack of real progress and vote with their feet leaving the district with their kids.
• The centralized structure provides “cover” for weak managers who don’t have the training and experience required for a more streamlined, participative structure that would be much higher performing.

Several Big Urban Districts Are Decentralizing Their Management Structures to Give Autonomy to the School Principals—Big Performance Gains Have Resulted

Five Pillars of School Empowerment (from The Secret of TSL by Wm. Ouchi)
o Real Choices for Families (we have this in Colorado)
o Empowering schools with the Four Freedoms
o Effective principals (trained and coached in leadership academies, 15 month cycle but on the job)
o A system of accountability
o Weighted Student Formula budgeting

The Four Freedoms of School Empowerment—Control of:
o Budget
o Staffing Pattern
o Curriculum
o Schedule

Action Steps required to get to “there from here”

Retool leaders with leadership academy approach—all leaders including superintendent and board (especially performance standards and management theories)

Assess current leaders
o Knowledge and skills in basic management areas including psychology of motivation, behavior prediction & modification, theories of management, esp. relating to change management, communication, performance standards
o Evaluate current principals’ ability to “jump” to the new more rigorous principal model. That is, from the current “follower of central office edicts” to “independent manager of a school” with control over budget, staffing, curriculum, schedule.

Begin planning for transition
o Ex. Pilot group of schools (elementary, middle and high)?

Evaluate current central office admin staff for fit to the new structure. Plug-in to new jobs consistent with the new structure as openings occur (only if a good fit).

Wind down no longer needed central office functions to free up budget and transform to new central office support model. That is, recognize the bad habits that do not contribute to the core mission of educating the children well.

This outline is brief but provides a road map for those willing to face the reality of our current mired in place education performance.

Pros at Being First in Line at the Public Trough

2009-11-06T07:33:00.000-08:00

Like sharks getting the scent of new education standards blood, the suppliers of services to the education “industry” are volunteering to “help” the schools spend their taxpayer money on their own products and offerings. A recent article in Education Week "Conflict of Interest Arises as Concern in Standards Push," explores the problem.

Kathleen A. Hinchman, the president of the Oak Creek, Wis.-based professional association and the author of a letter pointing out the concern of standards writers acting in their own self interest, said the National Governors Association and the Council of the Chief State School Officers, the two organizations in charge of the common-standards endeavor, should provide a public document that identifies ties that the writers have to companies or organizations that might benefit financially from products aligned with the standards.

“Ms. Hinchman, a literacy professor at Syracuse University, in New York, said her organization wants to ensure that the creation and use of common standards is not plagued with the kinds of conflict-of-interest problems that arose with the federal Reading First program, which was funded with $1 billion per year at its peak.

At least one federal official made a significant financial profit from a reading program that he wrote and promoted while he was an adviser to states about the federal program, according to a 2007 Senate report. Another Reading First contractor and researcher received a large boost in income during the program’s tenure when she was also advising states on which assessments and texts to select to meet its requirements, that same report said. ("Senate Report Cites ‘Reading First’ Conflicts," May 16, 2007.)

Some of those who made money off the venture were affiliated with universities rather than businesses and wrote curriculum materials, developed tests, or consulted.
In the common-standards effort, Ms. Hinchman said a writer might favor one standard over another because it could more easily be turned into an instructional material or an assessment tool that he or she, or those they are connected with, could profit by.

‘It makes a lot of sense to indicate the relationships between people who are designing education policy and their various roles in government and business,’ said Patricia H. Hinchey, an associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University.

With the connections spelled out, she explained, someone could say, ‘You supported X rather than Y, and oddly, X lends itself to a business agenda. Why is that?’ Ms. Hinchey is also a research fellow with the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado."

Concern is also expressed that Apple’s Karen Cator, who chaired the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Board, will become head of the U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Education Technology. A question being asked is will Cator use her new office to promote P21’s discredited ideas? I’d say you could bet on it. You can also bet that Apple will be the recommended choice for education applications.

Sunshine is the ultimate antiseptic. Insiders are already pushing back hard against more disclosure of potential conflicts of interest which confirms the problem as well as anything could. Let the sunshine in.

Blinded by Optimism

2009-10-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, is a cogent argument about problems that could be solved if faced directly are being instead suppressed and ignored. This is not to say that positive thinking is bad, it isn’t. However, when the popular culture has the pendulum hard-wired to the positive side, real problems that are harming people get ignored. Ehrenreich says that this preoccupation with positivity has resulted in a “mass delusion” and a “tyranny and ideology” that have resulted in disastrous decisions in our culture.

I contend that there is no place in our society where this disease is more entrenched and more harmful than in our schools. Attend any school board meeting and you will see the structured offering of “plusses” that are being recognized. That is as is should be but where is the discussion of what to do about the abysmal performance of the schools in closing the achievement gap, improving overall test scores, of failed curriculum choices that are ignored rather than faced? They are never discussed.

One of the local large and “top performing” districts even has a board policy that board members cannot criticize the school district in any way. In fact a member of that board was removed from the board for violating that policy. Thus, the message goes forth, “The preservation of the school bureaucracy is more important than serving the mission to educate the kids well.” While I am not aware of other districts with this type of policy, they all act as if there is one anyway.

So who is there to support the message that the kids are not being served at an acceptable level? It certainly won’t come from within the education fiefdom. While the information is readily available for those who are willing to dig for it, it is certainly not something that you will find in the media reports. The media play a complicit role in making sure they only report favorable things about the schools. Thus, it is up to each of us to put in the time and effort to bring the message to everyone we can by writing to our legislators, speaking at school board meetings and any other way we can to demand that reality of school performance is faced and fixed.