The Final Report of the Colorado Closing the Gap Commission issued in November of 2005 is a 42 page report that identifies the achievement gap problem in general terms and recommends a list of changes that they believe will solve the shameful gap problem. First some quotes from the report defining the problem:
There is a lion in the streets. It threatens every citizen. It endangers the future of our society in a world that grows ever smaller as technology and trade bind us closer together in a competitive global economy.
This threat is the deplorable level of educational attainment that currently is the fate of the great majority of our poorest and most vulnerable children, a population disproportionately black and Hispanic.
More than one third of a century after he decried this situation as a “stain on our national honor” the educational conditions Robert Kennedy described are demonstrably worse.
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.
To some ears, the words of the Commission may seem unduly harsh. However it is our collective feeling that nothing less than language such as this will suffice to summon that true sense of urgency so long overdue.
Following the assertions in the Forward are a list of elements that the commission believes will fix the problem; Data and Assessment, High Expectations, Higher Education, Administrator/Teacher Qualifications and Professional-Development, Parent and Community Involvement, and Best Practices. We could criticize the details in their list because much of it is tangential to the problem. If it were otherwise we would have seen some dramatic improvement. Thus, I conclude that the commission was another expensive waste of time and another exercise to convince the public that we are serious about the problem. Results are the test and they say loudly that we only talk about reducing the gap and avoid the pain and changes required to really fix the problem. The approach is like a magician waving his hand to take attention away from what he is doing with his other hand.
Why haven’t the billions spent as mentioned in the forward resulted in improvement? Because it follows the time honored and tragically wrong approach America takes to educating our kids. We have created a bureaucratic monster that is a top-down, one size fits all, directive approach. It has far more in common with the Soviet-style central planning approach to managing their economy than it does to a culture where desired results are specified and people are expected to meet them but given freedom to adjust methods to their own local challenges. The current approach is making it very difficult to turn in improvements in performance. When you couple that with the almost total lack of change leader competence in the education arena you have a mired in place disaster.
The education fiefdom (delusional, defensive, insular and inbred) is very adept at ignoring input from outside the walls of the fiefdom, especially if it is true. Arthur Levine in his Educating School Leaders (2005) points out that the education school leadership programs are poor. His report is over a hundred pages long in 8.5 by 11 format. Some of the conclusions are that the ed school leadership programs “confer masters on those who display anything but mastery and doctorates in name only. They engage superintendents and principals in studies irrelevant to their jobs.” He said we have an urgent need to “retool” our education leaders. I have talked to many ed leaders over the last 5 years while researching a book. Levine is right. I didn’t find one superintendent in the six states I sampled (including state supes of the year) that I would consider competent.
Leadership competence is the gating item in the quest for gap reduction or any other substantial education performance improvement. It is the missing ingredient in the cake. How to fix it. For sure you don’t give the job to the education schools. They have not done a good job in the past and certainly don’t have the skills and experience to do better anytime soon. The answer, “Horrors,” is to bring in outside trainers with change leadership skill and have them train and coach leadership teams in districts on site. I say horrors because in the fiefdom, outsiders have no credibility or value in their Group Think view.
Of course, it is very likely that this prescription to help the gap kids will be ignored too because it says that elements of the current education setup are not doing their job and need rehabilitation or replacement. And apparently the protection of educators (in the global sense including ed schools, dept of education and district personnel) who don’t know how to do the job is much more important than really solving the horrendously unfair and unacceptable damage to our kids. However, the last quote from the report forward above tells the likely direction. “To some ears, the words of the Commission may seem unduly harsh. However it is our collective feeling that nothing less than language such as this will suffice to summon that true sense of urgency so long overdue.” Translated it means, “Roll up your sleeves and do more of the things that have failed so miserably in the past. But you can’t blame us, we tried.” And we apparently need to apologize for being harsh when talking about a problem that has such “harsh” consequences for the gap kids. Apologizing for saying the truth is a disease that is prevalent in education where the skill of suppressing the truth is well honed.
So what should we do if we really cared about fixing the gap problem as opposed to talking about it? The solution that makes the most sense is to set up a State Leadership Academy to do the needed retooling of education leaders. This must be led and staffed at first by outsiders who have real-world experience in “performance organizations.” They must have a real passion for the mission. As Peter Drucker the famous management consultant said, “Whenever anything important happens it is because of a monomaniac with a mission.” This would be a herculean task but one that is well worth the effort because the kids will finally benefit. It would show results quickly and it would be very inexpensive compared to the other attempts that have failed in the past.
Copyright © Paul Richardson 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Was anyone ever coddled to excellence?
Thomas Friedman in his famous book The World is Flat expresses over and over concern about our ability to ignore the very real and massive changes that are occurring in the global competitive arena. He points out that we are in a “quiet crisis” but a crisis nonetheless. The thesis of his book is that we face a confluence of three gaps that if not corrected will lead inevitably to a declining standard of living for Americans. The three are a manpower gap (shortage) of scientists and engineers to sustain the primary cause of our past economic success, an ambition gap because the competitors are willing to work harder and smarter than we are (we’ve grown self-satisfied and a bit lazy) and the third is the education gap. The biggest of the three and also having great impact on the other two is the education gap. One quote from the book that seems to best describe the crux of the problem follows.
“The sense of entitlement, the sense that because we once dominated global commerce and geopolitics . . . 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 describe what he is talking about as a “kill them with kindness” approach that is all too common in schools. That is, the expectations are far too low of students and educators. Is there any excuse for American kids to score at or near the bottom in math and science when compared to their international peers? I refuse to believe the kids can’t meet the competition if given the right educational opportunities. What does that foretell about our ability to graduate enough scientists and engineers to replace the ones who are quickly reaching retirement age? If our kids are coddled in school does that contribute to the ambition gap?
Friedman tells of a finalist in Intel’s annual science competition, Andre Munteanu, whose parents had moved from Romania to the United States five years earlier. Munteanu started American school in the seventh grade, which he found a breeze compared to his Romanian school. “The math and science classes [covered the same subject matter] I was taking in Romania…when I was in the fourth grade,” he said. This is not an unusual occurrence. About three years ago I saw an interview on the local evening news with an exchange student from Hong Kong. When asked what surprised her most about her experience at Palmer HS, she said it was the math which was the same material she had learned three years earlier in Hong Kong.
How can we assume that we can continue with our low education standards and prepare our kids for the global competition they face for decent paying jobs? You know the answer. We must reset expectations for our education performance much higher. Will that cause consternation, “poor me” victimology, increased educator defensiveness, etc.? Of course, but is that pain small or large compared to a steady decline in American living standards because not enough of our kids could compete? Educators must realize that if living standards decline because we are uncompetitive they will be impacted as well. We are all in the same boat and need to get busy rowing in the right direction.
Now, a word about Colorado’s position with respect to the rigor of our education standards. On page 26 of Assessing the Role of K-12 Academic Standards in States: Workshop Summary available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12207.html are two charts. The first shows the 3rd grade reading cut scores (the level defining proficiency) for 27 states, including Colorado, California, etc. The second chart shows cut scores for 8th grade math in 23 states including Colorado, South Carolina, etc. In the reading chart Colorado is at the bottom with a cut score under 10 while California is highest with a cut score over 60. Now educators will tell you that the research says that if kids don’t read well by third grade it endangers their future ability to perform in the rest of their schooling if they even finish it. In the math chart Colorado has a cut score of 20 (third lowest) while South Carolina has a cut score of 75. This snaps into context the challenge (successfully ignored by our education establishment to date) that we face in Colorado.
Having observed how educators operate, their first reaction if confronted would be to appoint a blue ribbon panel to study the situation for years and then come up with a plan to slightly increase standards. That would be a waste of time. A good start would be to simply “lift” the standards from the state with the highest in each subject. That would be much quicker to do and would be a good start. Some will say we would be overreacting because we might set the standards too high. They will be concerned that schools that were defined as doing great compared to the low standards would be defined as doing poorly compared to the higher standards. It would really be no change only recognition of the true performance which is being masked by Colorado’s ridiculously low standards. When you realize the gap that exists between the state and national standards and the further gap that exists between our national standards and those of our leading competitor nations you will see that the initial step-up in standards would only get us part way to where we need to be. Believe me, more money is not the answer. We have lavished huge sums on the education sector for decades with no positive effect on performance compared to our international competition. More money only gives the anti-change forces in education tacit reinforcement and a license to continue their failed methods in the future. The choice is clear: short term pain for long-term gain or no pain short- term followed by excruciating long-term pain. I think it is an easy choice to make.
Copyright © Paul Richardson 2008
“The sense of entitlement, the sense that because we once dominated global commerce and geopolitics . . . 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 describe what he is talking about as a “kill them with kindness” approach that is all too common in schools. That is, the expectations are far too low of students and educators. Is there any excuse for American kids to score at or near the bottom in math and science when compared to their international peers? I refuse to believe the kids can’t meet the competition if given the right educational opportunities. What does that foretell about our ability to graduate enough scientists and engineers to replace the ones who are quickly reaching retirement age? If our kids are coddled in school does that contribute to the ambition gap?
Friedman tells of a finalist in Intel’s annual science competition, Andre Munteanu, whose parents had moved from Romania to the United States five years earlier. Munteanu started American school in the seventh grade, which he found a breeze compared to his Romanian school. “The math and science classes [covered the same subject matter] I was taking in Romania…when I was in the fourth grade,” he said. This is not an unusual occurrence. About three years ago I saw an interview on the local evening news with an exchange student from Hong Kong. When asked what surprised her most about her experience at Palmer HS, she said it was the math which was the same material she had learned three years earlier in Hong Kong.
How can we assume that we can continue with our low education standards and prepare our kids for the global competition they face for decent paying jobs? You know the answer. We must reset expectations for our education performance much higher. Will that cause consternation, “poor me” victimology, increased educator defensiveness, etc.? Of course, but is that pain small or large compared to a steady decline in American living standards because not enough of our kids could compete? Educators must realize that if living standards decline because we are uncompetitive they will be impacted as well. We are all in the same boat and need to get busy rowing in the right direction.
Now, a word about Colorado’s position with respect to the rigor of our education standards. On page 26 of Assessing the Role of K-12 Academic Standards in States: Workshop Summary available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12207.html are two charts. The first shows the 3rd grade reading cut scores (the level defining proficiency) for 27 states, including Colorado, California, etc. The second chart shows cut scores for 8th grade math in 23 states including Colorado, South Carolina, etc. In the reading chart Colorado is at the bottom with a cut score under 10 while California is highest with a cut score over 60. Now educators will tell you that the research says that if kids don’t read well by third grade it endangers their future ability to perform in the rest of their schooling if they even finish it. In the math chart Colorado has a cut score of 20 (third lowest) while South Carolina has a cut score of 75. This snaps into context the challenge (successfully ignored by our education establishment to date) that we face in Colorado.
Having observed how educators operate, their first reaction if confronted would be to appoint a blue ribbon panel to study the situation for years and then come up with a plan to slightly increase standards. That would be a waste of time. A good start would be to simply “lift” the standards from the state with the highest in each subject. That would be much quicker to do and would be a good start. Some will say we would be overreacting because we might set the standards too high. They will be concerned that schools that were defined as doing great compared to the low standards would be defined as doing poorly compared to the higher standards. It would really be no change only recognition of the true performance which is being masked by Colorado’s ridiculously low standards. When you realize the gap that exists between the state and national standards and the further gap that exists between our national standards and those of our leading competitor nations you will see that the initial step-up in standards would only get us part way to where we need to be. Believe me, more money is not the answer. We have lavished huge sums on the education sector for decades with no positive effect on performance compared to our international competition. More money only gives the anti-change forces in education tacit reinforcement and a license to continue their failed methods in the future. The choice is clear: short term pain for long-term gain or no pain short- term followed by excruciating long-term pain. I think it is an easy choice to make.
Copyright © Paul Richardson 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
It isn’t the money, it’s the kids’ futures
I am going to make an argument that agreeing to increase education funding is an action against our kids getting the education they need and deserve. You may think I must be wrong but let me explain. For at least the last 25 years education spending has increased at a pace about twice the rate of inflation. It must have resulted in greatly improved education performance, right. Not really. If you look at the statements from the A Nation at Risk report of 1983 and the 2007 Tough Choices or Tough Times report you will have to admit that things have only gotten slowly worse. Our kids score near the bottom in international math and science testing and close to the middle in literacy. Since, the competition globally from billions of people released from the bonds of closed society socialism and have embraced capitalism with a vengeance, our kids must have a better educational foundation, NOW. With the increasing prevalence of knowledge work in the future, they need a stronger foundation than our kids have ever had to have in the past if a decent paying job is the goal.
Now if money were the answer we would already have achieved a world class level of performance. But money isn’t the answer. In fact, there is too much money sloshing around in the education system. That excess has led to much waste and lack of attention to what is important. It has facilitated all sorts of expensive and time wasting initiatives that are tangential to what needs to be done. Thus, we have too much fat and too little muscle. We need to withhold further increases in funding to send a message that it is time for educators to face facts, prioritize efforts toward their mission and stop the “joyriding” they have been doing. The money is a small issue compared to our kids futures. Time to say, no more money until we see positive action on eliminating waste and addressing the needs of the kids. Lest you think the Colorado is doing better than most states you would be wrong as we are in the bottom half there.
Now if money were the answer we would already have achieved a world class level of performance. But money isn’t the answer. In fact, there is too much money sloshing around in the education system. That excess has led to much waste and lack of attention to what is important. It has facilitated all sorts of expensive and time wasting initiatives that are tangential to what needs to be done. Thus, we have too much fat and too little muscle. We need to withhold further increases in funding to send a message that it is time for educators to face facts, prioritize efforts toward their mission and stop the “joyriding” they have been doing. The money is a small issue compared to our kids futures. Time to say, no more money until we see positive action on eliminating waste and addressing the needs of the kids. Lest you think the Colorado is doing better than most states you would be wrong as we are in the bottom half there.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Baggage
During the great westward migration of the nineteenth century thousands of Americans left the East and Midwest to settle the West. A very common problem was that they overloaded their wagons with all sorts of “baggage” that they “knew they couldn’t do without.” A story that is told over and over in accounts from the time is that the trail became littered with all of the items that had been considered necessary but were threatening their very survival if they continued carrying them. They had dragged all of that baggage in back-breaking labor until they realized they were faced with a life-or-death decision. Some refused to face the reality of their misguided decision and perished leaving all of that “valuable stuff” along the trail anyway. To them the inability to face reality made the status quo of their current possessions more important than their future. Because they wanted it all they lost it all. This inability to face short term pain for long term gain is even more common today.
Educators don’t realize it but they face the same “life-or-death” decision. The life that is at risk is their future lifestyle and the future of the American way of life. Their failure to educate all kids to their potential is resulting in America being less and less competitive in the world marketplace. Unless urgent action is taken now it will be too late. Continuing delay will put America into an unrecoverable hole of much lower standards of living. Educators need to realize they can’t separate themselves from the rest of America. Continuing to support the current mediocrity will take down the country and the educators along with it.
For educators the baggage that is threatening our nation’s very survival is an amalgam of false beliefs and false pride. Like the pioneers they are on the trail with a heavy load of fantasy beliefs that prevent them from making progress toward the goals they “say” they are trying to achieve. The goal that seems to get mentioned most frequently is the elimination of the achievement GAP between demographically challenged kids and the rest. The “baggage” preventing achievement of this goal includes:
• A belief that is virtually universal within the education fiefdom that “those kids” can’t really learn to a high standard. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that prevents them from learning to the high levels educators “say” they want. While I can guarantee that all educators will deny this for their own school(s), if you press them on achievement performance the first excuse you will hear is the demographic one. This excuse is reinforced by things like The Blueberry Story, Vollmer (2006) which is supported by the unions and tacitly supported by most administrators and school boards who like excuses as well as anyone.
• They use biased, mediocre, scientifically unsound curricula and teaching methods that enrich the education schools that “research” and teach them, the publishers, the consultants who help implement them, etc. The true dark side of these efforts is that they harm the students’ ability to learn at a time when it is vital that our students learn to a higher level if the nation is to compete effectively in the new global paradigm. Refer to Hirsch (2006) comments in The Reality Primer section to understand the problem more fully.
• A common belief, especially among K-5 educators, is that competition is a terrible thing and kids need to be protected from that at all cost. We can’t protect our country and citizens from competition. Competing well is what made us great. The inability of kids to compete because they have been taught they don’t need to is a huge problem!
• Educators also believe that when things get tough the thing to do is to ask your political allies to “protect” you from that nasty foreign (or domestic) competition. That is a waste of time, only making things worse. The global economy is far too integrated for that. Past attempts (ex. Smoot-Hawley tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression in the 1930s) have failed, doing far more harm than good.
• Educators believe they are well educated but they have been the willing victims of education school inadequacy. See Hirsch, Kramer and Levine quotes in the Reality Primer section. This is especially a problem in the area of subject knowledge, from reading to math to science to social studies. Most educators know this subconsciously and that is what leads to their excessive fear of change because significant effort will be required to address this shortfall.
• Educators have a belief that change is anathema and to be avoided at all cost. That is a totally delusional attitude. The only constant in the world is change. This “rut robot” mentality is extremely counterproductive.
Many more points could be made but you see the picture. It is time to face the truth and get rid of the pseudo-intellectual baggage being carried by the vast majority of educators.
Excerpt from Advice for Educators When Performance Improvement is Vital, Paul Richardson, © 2008
Educators don’t realize it but they face the same “life-or-death” decision. The life that is at risk is their future lifestyle and the future of the American way of life. Their failure to educate all kids to their potential is resulting in America being less and less competitive in the world marketplace. Unless urgent action is taken now it will be too late. Continuing delay will put America into an unrecoverable hole of much lower standards of living. Educators need to realize they can’t separate themselves from the rest of America. Continuing to support the current mediocrity will take down the country and the educators along with it.
For educators the baggage that is threatening our nation’s very survival is an amalgam of false beliefs and false pride. Like the pioneers they are on the trail with a heavy load of fantasy beliefs that prevent them from making progress toward the goals they “say” they are trying to achieve. The goal that seems to get mentioned most frequently is the elimination of the achievement GAP between demographically challenged kids and the rest. The “baggage” preventing achievement of this goal includes:
• A belief that is virtually universal within the education fiefdom that “those kids” can’t really learn to a high standard. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that prevents them from learning to the high levels educators “say” they want. While I can guarantee that all educators will deny this for their own school(s), if you press them on achievement performance the first excuse you will hear is the demographic one. This excuse is reinforced by things like The Blueberry Story, Vollmer (2006) which is supported by the unions and tacitly supported by most administrators and school boards who like excuses as well as anyone.
• They use biased, mediocre, scientifically unsound curricula and teaching methods that enrich the education schools that “research” and teach them, the publishers, the consultants who help implement them, etc. The true dark side of these efforts is that they harm the students’ ability to learn at a time when it is vital that our students learn to a higher level if the nation is to compete effectively in the new global paradigm. Refer to Hirsch (2006) comments in The Reality Primer section to understand the problem more fully.
• A common belief, especially among K-5 educators, is that competition is a terrible thing and kids need to be protected from that at all cost. We can’t protect our country and citizens from competition. Competing well is what made us great. The inability of kids to compete because they have been taught they don’t need to is a huge problem!
• Educators also believe that when things get tough the thing to do is to ask your political allies to “protect” you from that nasty foreign (or domestic) competition. That is a waste of time, only making things worse. The global economy is far too integrated for that. Past attempts (ex. Smoot-Hawley tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression in the 1930s) have failed, doing far more harm than good.
• Educators believe they are well educated but they have been the willing victims of education school inadequacy. See Hirsch, Kramer and Levine quotes in the Reality Primer section. This is especially a problem in the area of subject knowledge, from reading to math to science to social studies. Most educators know this subconsciously and that is what leads to their excessive fear of change because significant effort will be required to address this shortfall.
• Educators have a belief that change is anathema and to be avoided at all cost. That is a totally delusional attitude. The only constant in the world is change. This “rut robot” mentality is extremely counterproductive.
Many more points could be made but you see the picture. It is time to face the truth and get rid of the pseudo-intellectual baggage being carried by the vast majority of educators.
Excerpt from Advice for Educators When Performance Improvement is Vital, Paul Richardson, © 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
A Thousand Miles per Gallon and Zero to Sixty in 1 Second
Let’s say you run a huge racing organization that employs millions of people and owns hundreds of thousands of vehicles. A new vehicle getting 1000 mpg and able to accelerate from 0 to 60 in one second has been available for some time. It is available for a price that is a fraction of what you are paying now. It is far safer than the current model you are racing and handles superbly. It is far better in every way. Why haven’t you begun to replace your current fleet? This is especially true since many of your huge foreign competitors changed to the new model years ago and have been consistently beating you in races since then.
Your reluctance to replace your current Model T Fords with the new model is based on an infrastructure you have in place that would have to be totally retooled if you were to change to the new model. The drivers would have to be retrained and qualified in the new cars on the track. The mechanics would have to be retrained or likely replaced because the new vehicles are massively different than the old ones you have. While you can keep the old ones running with baling wire and binder twine, the new ones are computer-controlled and while far more reliable, require a much more skilled work force to maintain.
You are forced to consider seriously the painful change to the new vehicles because your market share is dwindling as fans gravitate toward the winners instead of your comparatively poorer performance. You realize that your employee unions will fight you on any change because they are comfortable at their current pay and benefit levels compared to what they could earn with their out-dated skills in the global market. Your management team is also narrow and limited in their approach and would find it difficult to compete outside of your organization as well. Yet, you have had to adjust your staffing levels downward in recognition of your dwindling market share. Your attempts to raise ticket prices to compensate have met with strong resistance.
The story above is a good analogy to the current situation for our vast American public school system. While our competitor nations are providing their children with increasingly higher quality education opportunities American education is entrenched in a rut of epic proportions. Many of the philosophies of our education system have their roots in the progressive movement a century ago. At that time the progressives who took control of the education schools and hence education decisions put in place an education philosophy much more interested in “socializing” students to make them pliable to state control than in teaching them subject matter. These foundational values are still powerful in education circles today.
The race analogy applies to the current emergence of stiff global competition in the race our kids are entering as they attempt to find productive and decent paying jobs. In today’s increasing emphasis on knowledge skills we can’t afford to continue our weak performance in teaching our kids literacy, math, science, history, etc. compared to their foreign peers. We have been losing the race for decades. If you compare the 1983 A Nation at Risk report to the 2007 Tough Choices or Tough Times report you have to admit that our competitive situation has not improved and has instead gotten steadily worse in the 25 years since A Nation at Risk came out. We are sending our kids unarmed into the global competition which doesn’t bode well for our future.
You might ask how we can ignore such a huge problem. The answer is in the installed base of education insiders who have been trained to believe that the old, ineffective things they learned in education school are the best (the Model T Ford analogy). Also, the laws governing the public education system are basically a straight jacket that specifies the process so tightly that it is a difficult (not impossible, but difficult) task to try to perform competitively in spite of the system. Since the education school leadership programs have not trained their graduates to be change leaders, only maintainers, the system is mired in a status quo rut. While we have increased spending on education far faster than inflation the performance is slowly getting worse versus our foreign competitors. A big part of that is they are improving quickly while we are mired in place.
What do we need to do to become competitive in the global race?
• First, we have to face facts. Continuing to try to improve performance by appointing multi-year task groups to study and recommend solutions that amount to small “tweaks” to the system will not work any better in the future than it has in the past. Foundational changes are required in how things are done in education if our kids are to be prepared for the competition they are facing. We need to stop wasting time. It is easy to figure out what must be done. It is apparently hard for education leaders to face that and move in the right direction.
• Second, we have to realize and force educators to realize that much of the “process mantra” that has been drilled into them in their education school experiences does not stand up to scientific scrutiny and must be eliminated.
• Third, we need to “retool” the current leadership cadre to become effective change leaders. Change is the only constant in our world and having a leadership group in place that do not have the competency to lead change is a formula for continuing failure.
• Fourth, we need the legislatures and bureaucrats to specify desired results not process. The current system of specifying process very tightly increases costs due to the tracking and audit requirements while allowing very little room for creativity or tailoring to local unique conditions.
• Fifth, we need teachers who know the subject matter well. Since education schools focus the vast majority of their curricula on process (pedagogy) they graduate students who have been exposed to very little subject knowledge.
• Sixth, we need to greatly increase our achievement standards to a world-class level so that our kids will have the opportunity to learn enough to compete with their foreign peers.
The record of the past decades shows that this will take a really strong demand on the part of the public to get done. The politicians mostly support the status quo because it is far easier than taking on the education power groups and actually serving the needs of our kids. Besides, politicians get huge campaign contributions from education power groups who like the status quo. As a union president once said, “If the kids could vote in union elections and pay dues, I would advocate for them but they can’t and I advocate for the members who can.” In other words the ed power groups are much more concerned about maintaining their place at the public trough than they are about the mission of educating the kids.
Your reluctance to replace your current Model T Fords with the new model is based on an infrastructure you have in place that would have to be totally retooled if you were to change to the new model. The drivers would have to be retrained and qualified in the new cars on the track. The mechanics would have to be retrained or likely replaced because the new vehicles are massively different than the old ones you have. While you can keep the old ones running with baling wire and binder twine, the new ones are computer-controlled and while far more reliable, require a much more skilled work force to maintain.
You are forced to consider seriously the painful change to the new vehicles because your market share is dwindling as fans gravitate toward the winners instead of your comparatively poorer performance. You realize that your employee unions will fight you on any change because they are comfortable at their current pay and benefit levels compared to what they could earn with their out-dated skills in the global market. Your management team is also narrow and limited in their approach and would find it difficult to compete outside of your organization as well. Yet, you have had to adjust your staffing levels downward in recognition of your dwindling market share. Your attempts to raise ticket prices to compensate have met with strong resistance.
The story above is a good analogy to the current situation for our vast American public school system. While our competitor nations are providing their children with increasingly higher quality education opportunities American education is entrenched in a rut of epic proportions. Many of the philosophies of our education system have their roots in the progressive movement a century ago. At that time the progressives who took control of the education schools and hence education decisions put in place an education philosophy much more interested in “socializing” students to make them pliable to state control than in teaching them subject matter. These foundational values are still powerful in education circles today.
The race analogy applies to the current emergence of stiff global competition in the race our kids are entering as they attempt to find productive and decent paying jobs. In today’s increasing emphasis on knowledge skills we can’t afford to continue our weak performance in teaching our kids literacy, math, science, history, etc. compared to their foreign peers. We have been losing the race for decades. If you compare the 1983 A Nation at Risk report to the 2007 Tough Choices or Tough Times report you have to admit that our competitive situation has not improved and has instead gotten steadily worse in the 25 years since A Nation at Risk came out. We are sending our kids unarmed into the global competition which doesn’t bode well for our future.
You might ask how we can ignore such a huge problem. The answer is in the installed base of education insiders who have been trained to believe that the old, ineffective things they learned in education school are the best (the Model T Ford analogy). Also, the laws governing the public education system are basically a straight jacket that specifies the process so tightly that it is a difficult (not impossible, but difficult) task to try to perform competitively in spite of the system. Since the education school leadership programs have not trained their graduates to be change leaders, only maintainers, the system is mired in a status quo rut. While we have increased spending on education far faster than inflation the performance is slowly getting worse versus our foreign competitors. A big part of that is they are improving quickly while we are mired in place.
What do we need to do to become competitive in the global race?
• First, we have to face facts. Continuing to try to improve performance by appointing multi-year task groups to study and recommend solutions that amount to small “tweaks” to the system will not work any better in the future than it has in the past. Foundational changes are required in how things are done in education if our kids are to be prepared for the competition they are facing. We need to stop wasting time. It is easy to figure out what must be done. It is apparently hard for education leaders to face that and move in the right direction.
• Second, we have to realize and force educators to realize that much of the “process mantra” that has been drilled into them in their education school experiences does not stand up to scientific scrutiny and must be eliminated.
• Third, we need to “retool” the current leadership cadre to become effective change leaders. Change is the only constant in our world and having a leadership group in place that do not have the competency to lead change is a formula for continuing failure.
• Fourth, we need the legislatures and bureaucrats to specify desired results not process. The current system of specifying process very tightly increases costs due to the tracking and audit requirements while allowing very little room for creativity or tailoring to local unique conditions.
• Fifth, we need teachers who know the subject matter well. Since education schools focus the vast majority of their curricula on process (pedagogy) they graduate students who have been exposed to very little subject knowledge.
• Sixth, we need to greatly increase our achievement standards to a world-class level so that our kids will have the opportunity to learn enough to compete with their foreign peers.
The record of the past decades shows that this will take a really strong demand on the part of the public to get done. The politicians mostly support the status quo because it is far easier than taking on the education power groups and actually serving the needs of our kids. Besides, politicians get huge campaign contributions from education power groups who like the status quo. As a union president once said, “If the kids could vote in union elections and pay dues, I would advocate for them but they can’t and I advocate for the members who can.” In other words the ed power groups are much more concerned about maintaining their place at the public trough than they are about the mission of educating the kids.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A Ship of Fools
I want to address what I see as a disastrous movement in math education. I believe we must understand the damage being done because too many states and school districts have moved toward “constructivist” or “discovery” math curricula especially in elementary grades. Do the new curricula work? YES and NO. Yes, they do work for a subset of the total math problem set. They work to allow students to do basic arithmetic with the aid of four-function calculators. However, they don’t work in providing the foundational skills required if the students will ever face the need to study algebra or higher math. Thus, my indictment of the “constructivist math” programs is that they waste time on an alternative method to solve the easy problems when they should be studying the optimized over centuries algorithms and skills that work for the easy problems but also work for the more difficult problems as well. This makes “double work” for students who want/need to take algebra and higher math because they have to learn the old algorithms anyway. This makes algebra much more difficult for students who have been exposed to constructivist math curricula.
You may ask, “Why did the educators decide to go this way, they are the experts, after all.” First, they are not generally expert in subject knowledge. Fallacies have begun to show in the methods area as well but that is a topic for another time. While there are certainly educators who have a good understanding of the math they are teaching, the vast majority do not. This is not only true of math but most subject areas because the education schools focus the majority of their curriculum on “methods” classes. It is not hard to understand why educators who don’t understand the subject but are under achievement testing pressure would like a curriculum that makes the “teacher” into a “facilitator” helping the kids “discover” the subject matter. That is so much easier in their eyes than having to take the remedial classes they would need to increase their subject knowledge to the required level. So, who’s to blame if the scores come in lower than the standards? Must be the kids who are teaching themselves, it couldn’t be the teachers.
So who are the fools on the ship? The educators? Well, because they are acting in their self-interest, fools may not be the best description. The students? They are doing as they are expected to do, so we can’t blame them. How about US? Do the parents, legislators, dept of education, school boards, the general public, etc. have a role to play here? Yes, we do. Is our performance any better than the educators? Not really. We are accessories to the crime that is being committed against our kids. We are far too gullible. When we have a health problem and go to a doctor, we often ask for a second or third opinion. If we have a serious problem like cancer, we will likely do self-study on the internet, in the library and other sources. Do we tolerate half-truths and propaganda about the healthcare system’s performance on the problem?
But if the subject is our children’s future wellbeing we don’t seem to be concerned at all. When our schools turn in poor results do we get involved? It has been easier for us to participate in the delusion that the education system is well run and effective so that we can avoid the work of digging for the truth and demanding better performance of our schools. When our kids shy away from higher level math because they didn’t receive the appropriate foundation in their early schooling do we investigate the reasons the system didn’t prepare them properly? Do we demand the truth of school performance in the context of how are the kids being prepared to cope in the more and more competitive global economy? The truth is there to be seen and it is scary. Our kids score near the bottom in math and science and near the middle in literacy in the three major international achievement tests that compare us to our competitor nations. Is that OK when high paying jobs are leaving the country because companies have to go where the educated workforce is?
Do we bat an eye when the educators take the low and easy road to make it easy for themselves? Do we complain about the huge amounts of money being spent to implement harmful curricula like Everyday Math, when the schools are always asking for more money, more money, more money? Perhaps we should say no more money until you can prove you are not spending a lot of it irresponsibly.
It’s time to get off of the fool’s ship and start demanding much better performance from our educators. We must start by getting to the truth in spite of the propaganda and misinformation being put out by the education entities. If we don’t our kids and the nation will have a very difficult time competing against nations where education is far more rigorous and effective in providing the skills kids need to compete in the new global meritocracy.
Ammunition
- If an educator says the new constructivist math programs have been research based and are approved, tell them that much of the research in education is slanted to support the vested interest of the sponsor of the “research.” Also, much of the rest of education research is poorly done from a statistical rigor point of view which makes the conclusions highly suspect. Mention the What Works Clearinghouse on the US Dept of Education website which details their findings on ed research.
- Ask an educator, esp. math teacher to compare the old standard algorithm taught to most of the adults when they attended school to the new “magic seven” or partial quotients algorithm taught in Everyday Math, one of the most popular constructivist curricula. Everyday Math is widely used in this area and districts are working hard to spread it across all elementary schools. Next ask them to explain why the old algorithm works for dividing polynomials in algebra and the magic seven algorithm does not. Then ask them if they expect that none of their students will ever want or need to take algebra in middle or high school. If they truly understand even relatively elementary math they should be able to do this. Don’t be surprised if they babble without a clue.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Selfish pursuits are good unless it is a government program
Adam Smith in his famous Wealth of Nations asserts that rational self-interest and competition operating in a social framework depending on adherence to moral obligations, can lead to economic prosperity and well-being. If that is true, why is the education system performing so poorly? Educators certainly work at promoting their own self-interest. Ah . . . It must have to do with the lack of competition and adherence to moral obligations. Let’s think about those two things.
First, while there is some competition present, our education system is basically a government-run effort with responsibility spread between Federal, State and Local governments. This bureaucratic approach has led to an education system for the vast majority of American children that is unresponsive to their needs. The school choice movement is about allowing competition to occur. In spite of the bureaucratic straight jacket that goes with government funding many charter schools have been started and many are competing very effectively with their “mainline” counterparts. This has led to a groundswell of complaints and whining from those working in the mainline schools. They view it as taking resources away from “their” work and a threat to their place at the government trough.
So, what enlightenment can be gained by considering Smith’s other point about adhering to moral obligations. Do the public schools have a moral obligation to provide high quality educational experiences to all American children? You notice I didn’t say “adequate,” I said high quality. While the definition of what constitutes high quality is open for discussion it is obvious that it is not a continuation of the current status quo.
In the book I am writing I propose what I call The Ethical Basis of Professionalism in Education. I used the Hippocratic Oath as a basis which I modified for education. It does provide the basis for a good self-examination by educators to encourage a more balanced approach to their advocacy for themselves on a personal basis in the context of the moral obligations that Smith espouses.
The Ethical Basis of Professionalism in Education
The Hippocratic Oath spelled out the first responsibility of a professional in clear terms. This 2500 year-old code of conduct for Greek doctors has stood the test of time. The most famous element in the Hippocratic Oath is Primum non nocere—“Above all, not knowingly to do harm.”
Professionals, whether doctor, lawyer, teacher, or engineer cannot guarantee to do good for a client. But they are constrained by professional ethics to TRY. They also can promise that they will not knowingly do harm. If this is not true the client can have no trust for the professional. The professional has to have autonomy in that the client cannot control, direct, or supervise the professional. The professional’s knowledge and judgement have to be entrusted with the decisions. However, because of this, the professional is expected to act in the public interest. So a professional is private in that they must not be subject to political or ideological control, but they are public in the sense that the welfare of their client sets limits on their words and deeds. Thus, primum non nocere, “above all, not knowingly to do harm” is the basis of all professional ethics, an ethic of public responsibility.
When this rule of ethics is not followed it causes grievous social harm. It tends to misdirect and prevent understanding. When ignored widely in a profession it can make the public lose all respect for that group.
Following are more of the professional expectations written by Hippocrates, with small changes to translate them for educators.
I will use methods of instruction which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my students, each on an individual basis considering that student’s needs.
Fairness requires impartiality, objectivity and intellectual honesty. It involves keeping my own feelings, prejudices and desires in check so that I may properly balance conflicting interests.
Educators and those in training shall always place the best interest of students above their own direct or indirect interests.
I will keep to the highest expectations of myself in the practice of my profession.
I will discipline myself to always work for positive results in my classroom and the district as a whole. I will avoid participation in negative and unproductive pursuits.
I will discipline myself to hold those things which should be confidential, confidential. I will not participate in harmful rumors and criticism of people behind their backs.
I will continually seek the truth of my performance so that I can work to perfect that performance.
Copyright © 2007, PWR
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