The current issue of Phi Delta Kappan contains their annual national poll on education issues. Several items struck me as worth noting.
Do you think high-achieving high school students should be recruited to become teachers? (76%, yes)
Well, of course. Who wouldn’t want some of our smartest students to go into the teaching profession? But I think it’s worth noting that ‘high-achieving’ isn’t clearly defined. I suppose by that we mean good grades and/or high test scores, which measure a rather narrow spectrum of intelligence and potential. But we can’t overlook two important attributes that may not show up in test scores: the desire to be a teacher, and the ability to connect with other people. I know a lot of smart people who wouldn’t be particularly good teachers.
Is the ability to teach more a function of natural ability, or college training? (70%, natural ability)
The public may be right about this, but they shouldn’t be. I expect that in the experience of most people, the handful of really good teachers were ‘naturals’. But that doesn’t mean that good teaching can’t be taught and developed – which is what happens in good schools. In fact, we had better figure out how to do this because there aren’t enough ‘naturals’ to go around.
Should education policies require teachers to follow a prescribed curriculum … or give teachers flexibility to teach in ways they think best?
Nearly 75% of the public believes that it’s important to give teachers flexibility. Someone should tell the politicians and policy-makers who appear to be heading in the opposite direction.
By a 52 to 44% margin, the public sides with teachers’ unions over governors who have actively opposed them - even though 47% see unions as hurting the quality of public education. I suspect the public sees this as an issue of fairness and views these governors as bullies.
How important do you think these factors should be in determining a teacher’s salary? Strongly agree: academic degree, 38%; experience, 38%; student test scores, 29%; principal evaluation, 38%.
Again, I think the public has it about right. But I would feel better about rewarding experience if I had more confidence that every teacher had sufficient opportunities for collaboration and meaningful professional development. I would feel better about principal evaluations if all principals were required to demonstrate their ability to recognize and evaluate good teaching, and I would feel a lot better about test scores if those tests actually measured something useful.
91% of the public believes it is very (61%) or somewhat important that we provide internet access to all students in school. 95% believe it is very (70%) or somewhat important that all students have access to computer technology. 74% believe that schools should invest more in computer technology.
Wow.
Another area in which I agree with the public’s perception: schools are not doing a very good job of teaching financial management skills.
51% of respondents give their local school an A or B. If they have a child in school, that number goes to 79% - yet only 17% give those grades to schools overall.
What’s interesting is that the public understands the reason for this discrepancy: people tend to know a lot more about their immediate community and local schools. It probably also says something about the preponderance of negative press and political rhetoric that education, in general, receives.
I’m going to report this finding without comment: 69% give teachers in their local school an A or B (up from 50% in 1984), but only 36% give local parents an A or B.
Finally, a finding that I’ve talked about a lot lately: only 34% (and going down) of respondents favor allowing parents to choose a private school at public expense. How is this issue still alive in Harrisburg?
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Friday, September 16, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Vouchers revisited
About a month ago I wrote about the theory of charter schools, and how they haven’t lived up to the promise of becoming "laboratories for reform". I come back to this because several recent commentators have noted a shift in the political/philosophical argument used in support of vouchers - no doubt in response to all the research that has shown charter schools to be no more effective, and often less effective, than traditional public schools.
The emerging argument is one of “choice”, that is, parents have the right to make educational choices for their children, regardless of whether or not those choices result in a better education.
That’s an intriguing argument, but I’m not inclined to debate it. While the deference we give to parental decision-making is not as universal as it once was, for better or worse, our society continues to give a great deal of latitude to parents in how they raise their children.
In that light, I’m even willing to consider (shocker alert) a modest, limited voucher program. The point at which I draw the line, however – and where the line should be drawn - is the point at which charter and private schools begin to siphon resources from traditional public schools, which have, and which will continue to have, the responsibility for educating the vast majority of our children.
Of course, that proposal wouldn’t please anybody, and it’s not what has been suggested in Pennsylvania or elsewhere. None of the ‘take-the-money-with-you’ plans make any allowance for the substantial fixed costs in education (primarily in facilities), and none of these proposals hold the charter and private schools that stand to receive this windfall to the same academic or administrative standards.
For many voucher supporters, this has become a crusade, an attack on the idea of public support for universal education – which has been our country’s single greatest engine for economic success and a democratic society. As Dana Goldstein writes in Slate, “The standards-and-accountability movement has been superseded by a view of education in which public schools are not engines for economic growth but potential corrupters of the nation's youth.”
We appear to be fixin’ to re-argue the 19th-century debate on the public’s responsibility towards education for all - and there’s a lot of money (and money to be made) on the pro-voucher side of the debate. But the good news is that “public money for private schools” remains unpopular by substantial margins.
The emerging argument is one of “choice”, that is, parents have the right to make educational choices for their children, regardless of whether or not those choices result in a better education.
That’s an intriguing argument, but I’m not inclined to debate it. While the deference we give to parental decision-making is not as universal as it once was, for better or worse, our society continues to give a great deal of latitude to parents in how they raise their children.
In that light, I’m even willing to consider (shocker alert) a modest, limited voucher program. The point at which I draw the line, however – and where the line should be drawn - is the point at which charter and private schools begin to siphon resources from traditional public schools, which have, and which will continue to have, the responsibility for educating the vast majority of our children.
Of course, that proposal wouldn’t please anybody, and it’s not what has been suggested in Pennsylvania or elsewhere. None of the ‘take-the-money-with-you’ plans make any allowance for the substantial fixed costs in education (primarily in facilities), and none of these proposals hold the charter and private schools that stand to receive this windfall to the same academic or administrative standards.
For many voucher supporters, this has become a crusade, an attack on the idea of public support for universal education – which has been our country’s single greatest engine for economic success and a democratic society. As Dana Goldstein writes in Slate, “The standards-and-accountability movement has been superseded by a view of education in which public schools are not engines for economic growth but potential corrupters of the nation's youth.”
We appear to be fixin’ to re-argue the 19th-century debate on the public’s responsibility towards education for all - and there’s a lot of money (and money to be made) on the pro-voucher side of the debate. But the good news is that “public money for private schools” remains unpopular by substantial margins.
Friday, September 2, 2011
To continue the math conversation
Dear Readers: last week I shared with a few friends on Facebook and elsewhere an interesting commentary in the Times, How to Fix Our Math Education
In response, Marilyn, a good friend and retired high school Math teacher of 38 years, writes today’s thoughtful guest blog.
To continue the math conversation:
I always sat with a very unpopular viewpoint among my math educator colleagues. The current curriculum was instituted pre-Sputnik to create a generation of engineers. This curriculum needs to be available to some, but 99% of our students do NOT pursue engineering, and yet we subject 100% of our population to a curriculum which does not suit many of them. Yes, it can be a valuable set of mental exercises, but this can be accomplished through other disciplines in more relevant settings. Furthermore, I think it's criminal that this curriculum is a gatekeeper which, over decades, has prevented some really great minds from higher education.
Sol Garfunkle, who wrote the article you posted, has a video series (which I used at Delta) on Discrete Mathematics - a series of disconnected topics related to management and information sciences (such as graph theory, cryptography, bin packing, etc.). There are many unsolved problems in the field, because, I feel, young learners are not introduced to these topics. I had the great fortune to study with the top mathematicians in the field through three summer NSF grants in the 90's.
The NSF has been trying to push for Discrete Math even as early as an elementary school curriculum. It taps both sides of the brain, is very hands-on, and the issues are extremely relevant. I piloted the 1st Discrete Math course in the U.S. for 9th and 10th grades at Delta, using the galleys from the then, unpublished text. I in-serviced the HS math dept., which led to the introduction of a D.M. course as a senior alternative to calculus. It seemed to energize some of the HS staff. As a student in the 60's, I never saw D.M. until I was a junior in college as a math major, and it was presented in a traditional, theoretical way. I was blown away by what I learned from the NFS crowd.
At Delta, though I taught the traditional curriculum., I created several other "alternative" courses, such as D.M., Personal Finance (checking accounts, investments, leases, car insurance, mortgages, how to do taxes, etc.,) Symbolic Logic, Statistics, Problem Solving (introducing the heuristics of Polya, using games, puzzles, traditional conundrums.) Our kids could meet the HS math credit requirements through a variety of means. But then came PSSA's.
Over time enrollment dropped so low for some of these courses that we had to drop them from the curriculum - students did not sign up for them because the topics are not tested in the PSSA's. So much for autonomy to use good practices.
So as Sol says in his article - keep the engineering curriculum for those interested and suited, but give the rest of the kids accessible, interesting, relevant math content.
My 2 cents, Marilyn
In response, Marilyn, a good friend and retired high school Math teacher of 38 years, writes today’s thoughtful guest blog.
To continue the math conversation:
I always sat with a very unpopular viewpoint among my math educator colleagues. The current curriculum was instituted pre-Sputnik to create a generation of engineers. This curriculum needs to be available to some, but 99% of our students do NOT pursue engineering, and yet we subject 100% of our population to a curriculum which does not suit many of them. Yes, it can be a valuable set of mental exercises, but this can be accomplished through other disciplines in more relevant settings. Furthermore, I think it's criminal that this curriculum is a gatekeeper which, over decades, has prevented some really great minds from higher education.
Sol Garfunkle, who wrote the article you posted, has a video series (which I used at Delta) on Discrete Mathematics - a series of disconnected topics related to management and information sciences (such as graph theory, cryptography, bin packing, etc.). There are many unsolved problems in the field, because, I feel, young learners are not introduced to these topics. I had the great fortune to study with the top mathematicians in the field through three summer NSF grants in the 90's.
The NSF has been trying to push for Discrete Math even as early as an elementary school curriculum. It taps both sides of the brain, is very hands-on, and the issues are extremely relevant. I piloted the 1st Discrete Math course in the U.S. for 9th and 10th grades at Delta, using the galleys from the then, unpublished text. I in-serviced the HS math dept., which led to the introduction of a D.M. course as a senior alternative to calculus. It seemed to energize some of the HS staff. As a student in the 60's, I never saw D.M. until I was a junior in college as a math major, and it was presented in a traditional, theoretical way. I was blown away by what I learned from the NFS crowd.
At Delta, though I taught the traditional curriculum., I created several other "alternative" courses, such as D.M., Personal Finance (checking accounts, investments, leases, car insurance, mortgages, how to do taxes, etc.,) Symbolic Logic, Statistics, Problem Solving (introducing the heuristics of Polya, using games, puzzles, traditional conundrums.) Our kids could meet the HS math credit requirements through a variety of means. But then came PSSA's.
Over time enrollment dropped so low for some of these courses that we had to drop them from the curriculum - students did not sign up for them because the topics are not tested in the PSSA's. So much for autonomy to use good practices.
So as Sol says in his article - keep the engineering curriculum for those interested and suited, but give the rest of the kids accessible, interesting, relevant math content.
My 2 cents, Marilyn
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