Reading this article in Education Week, New Rules Push Down Grad Rates, leaves me with very little confidence in our educational system.  It seems to me that students are simply pawns in a vast system that doesn't even understand how to motivate them to fulfill their dreams.  In fact, I would surmise that our educational system has little understanding of what those dreams are that need fulfillment.  We should be asking the question: "why aren't 100% of students in public schools graduating from high school?"  Instead of focusing the blame on them we should look in the mirror and ask: "why would anyone want to graduate from high school?"  Isn't it our (educators' and schools') problem and not the students?  Why are we failing nearly 25-40% of our students?

I realize I am being overly dramatic. There are many schools and many students who do graduate, know why they are graduating and enjoy their high school experience.  However, there are many more who do not.

The federal government is requiring states to change the way they account for students.  The result is that have been reporting graduation rates that are somewhat inflated.  Up until now, states reported graduation rates according to their own formulas.  There was little standardization.  Now the federal government is requiring each state to use the same formula, "a four-year cohort rate."  The new number has to be used in the Adequate Yearly Progress report the schools file under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). 

Robert Balfanz, co-director of Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins, said:

This is the first year we have true grad-rate accountability. (Ed Week, vol 31, no 27, page 1)

Isn't that wonderful.  All this time the numbers states have been reporting have little reliability, especially when you try to compare one state to another.  Great!

Even with the four-year cohort rate, the states' rates are still not comparable in ways that are consistent.  In 2005, the National Governors Association adopted the NGA Graduation Counts Compact.  The four key elements of the document were that states would agree:

 

• To use a common, four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate formula;
• To build state data collection and reporting capacity;
• To develop additional student outcome indicators; and
• To report annually on state progress toward meeting these commitments.

 

Do all states use these four elements to track students and report on their status as graduates of their high schools?  The answer seems to be no.  States still look for loopholes and strategies to "fix" the numbers.  This came to light when states asked for waivers to NCLB.  These waivers allow states to change how graduation rates are used for accountability purposes.  So we might standardize the reporting formula, but allow states flexibility with regard to how they weight graduation rates in their accountability formula.  Sounds like our tax code, lots of loopholes.

Judi Miller, the assistant director for title programs and services at the Kansas Department of Education, was quoted as saying,

There are some nuances in the parameters that each state set, so really you can't say they're exactly the same in each state."  (Ed Week, vol 31, no 27, page 12)

So can we really be sure how many students graduate from high school?  I don't think so.

What states who use the four-year cohort calculation are finding is that their graduation rates have decreased substantially.  For example,

• Oregon went from 2008 figures of 85% graduation rate to 66% under the new federal formula
• Alabama went from 2008 figures of 87% graduation rate to 65% under the new federal formula
• Florida went from 2008 figures of 79% graduation rate to 76% under the new federal formula

So we inflated our graduation rates from years past.  Isn't that wonderful.  In a previous post from the Center for Teaching, Graduation Rates: Horror Story, the real data is probably worse than we thought.  Regardless of the formula or the numbers, it is unbelievable that we can sit around and debate these issues when 34% of students in Oregon are not graduating from high school OR we lose track of them in the system.

Paige Kowalski, the director of state policy initiatives for the Data Quality Campaign, is quoted as saying:

While graduation rates are going down, dropout rates are going down too.  Dropout factories' are going away because it turns out kids weren't dropping out--we just lost track of them. (Ed Week, vol 31, no 27, page 12)

What's worse, that kids actually aren't dropping out or that we lose track of them?  If you ask me, the real problem is that we are losing track of our "kids."  These are real people (not kids..kids is a dismissive expression) at a critical part of their lives.  We shouldn't be losing track of them.  In fact, we should know EVERY student in our schools and not track them as though they were a dot on a GPS device.  We should know them as human beings, with goals and aspirations.  We should be asking ourselves how can school help EVERY student realize his or her dreams?

Using all these numbers as accountability for AYP and NCLB is merely a distraction from the real problem.  We do not know EVERY student well.  That is the tragedy and that is the fault of adults in schools not students.

Is this what is has come down to...

Ms. Tucci from the Alliance for Excellent Education is quoted as saying,

Schools could see a strong mathematical boost in accountability scores by pushing students out. (Ed Week, vol 31, no 27, page 12)

Wow!  So all of this is about making the numbers work, making states look good with regard to graduation rates, and attempting to fulfill the goals of No Child Left Behind.  Do we really believe in that statement, "no child left behind."  We are leaving plenty of children behind.  There is the real tragedy.

 

 

 

 

The recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Vancouver, BC had the theme, Flattening World: Building a Global Knowledge Society.  In the March 30 edition of Science, Edward Lempinen wrote a summary, In a Flattening World: Innovation Must Be Global, of the keynote address and other talks by prominent participants.

What struck me in reading his piece was the consensus among scientists around the world for the need to build global partnerships to solve some of the worlds most challenging problems.  Here are only a few examples of challenges we face:

• With 9 billion people by 2050, we must find ways to double the world's food supply by 2050, but with major crop yields down nearly 10% globally we will have to be creative with our efforts.
• We need to develop crops that thrive in a hotter world on land that we now consider unfarmable, using water we now consider unsuitable for agriculture.
• We need to find a way to curtail the uncontrollable overfishing that plagues our planet or we will be without an ecosystem to support nearly 15% of the planet that relies on fish for protein in their diet.
• We need to find a way to curtail the uncontrollable release of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere that is having a net effect of warming the plane

All of these challenges and others will only be solved if we develop collaborative partnerships around the globe in which everyone treats EARTH as our common home. These four challenges, and others, do not observe continental boundaries.  If we abuse our atmosphere, our oceans, our lakes and rivers we will all suffer the consequences.

Experts gathered at the 178th Annual AAAS Meeting said that global research collaborations will be critically important for solving these complex and urgent problems. (p. 1593)

The types of collaborations that scientists were supporting were:

• marine reserves governed across political and international boundaries
• surveillance at key ports to prevent "superbugs" from moving across international boundaries.
• developing breakthroughs in artificial meat production that could satisfy the world's growing appetitte for beef and pork

I would add that we need to investigate international collaborations that shitf diets to more sustainable vegetarian or vegan diets.  We expend significant plant resources to feed the animals we eat.  Could we build a more sustainable food supply for 9 billion people by 2050 if we supported plant-based diets?

The scientists discussed how these global partnerships will need to leverage the creative or innovative talents of people around the world.  The efforts of a single country will not be sufficient to address these complex global challenges.

What I would like to try and change is not so much the way people understand the facts, Judson said, but the way they look a the world and ask questions about it.  (author and biologist, Olivia Judson)

Shouldn't this be our goal, to change the mindset for how we look at the world?  This is our shared home.  A place with vast resources, but limited in their ability to meet the needs of an ever expanding population.  Through global partnerships that emphasize collaboration, we can build a more sustainable existence that will allow us to support 9 billion people in 2050.

This work of building global partnerships must begin when our children are being educated during their formative years.  Our educational system needs to refocus its efforts on nurturing our students' creative talents and energies.   In addition, we must educate them to be good stewards of our resources and good partners with their peers from other countries.  Our future depends upon us being success in these efforts. 

This article in, Growing Gaps Bring Focus on Poverty's Role in Schooling, alerts us to research that says without changing the poverty issues in the US, we cannot hope to make an impact on closing the achievement gap that plagues us.

 

The fractious debate over how much schools can counteract poverty's impact on children is far from settled, but a recently published collection of research strongly suggests that until policymakers and educators confront deepening economic and social disparities, poor children will increasingly miss out on finding a path to upward social mobility.

 

This quote from the article shows how wide the achievement gap has grown.

 

The achievement gap between poor children and rich children has grown significantly over the past three decades and is now nearly twice as large as the black-white gap, according to Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist.

 

We know that wealthy people spend enormous resources developing their childrens' skill sets outside their schooling.  They spend monies on enrichment classes and experiences, vacations, and other resources that position their children to be ready to learn.

 

As the income gap has grown, so too has the disparity in how much money and time affluent parents invest in the development of their young childrencompared with such efforts by low-income parents. For example, between birth and age 6, children from high-income families now spend an average of 1,300 more hours in "novel" places outside their homes, schools, and day-care centers than children from poor families, a trend documented by Meredith Phillips, an associate professor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

 

The Russell Sage Foundation and Spencer Foundation published the report, Whither Opportunity: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances, that the artilce references.  The findings from their research show that

 

in multiple ways, how widening gaps in economic and social resources between rich and poor children over the past few decades have eroded public schools' ability to overcome those disadvantages.

 

Pedro Noguera has also written extensively about the negative impact of poverty on students ability to manage their work in school.  (click here for blog post on Noguera's work) While not all students are impacted in adverse ways, the research is very clear that students who grow up in poverty have tremendous obstacles to overcome.  They struggle competing with their wealthier schoolmates who have all the advantages wealth provides.

The study referenced below from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice found that there were six out-of-school factors common among the poor that are obstacles to successfully achieving the health and learning opportunities of children.

1. low birth-weight and non-genetic prenatal influences on children;
2. inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often a result of inadequate or no medical insurance;
3. food insecurity;
4. environmental pollutants;
5. family relations and family stress;
6. neighborhood characteristics.

All six of these are profoundly impacted by the poverty in which many hildren grow up.  Unless we change the inequity of wealth in this country and help families escape from the chains of poverty, we cannot hope to close the achievement gap between rich and poor children.  The statistics are discouraging.

• Poverty for a family of four is an annual incomre of $22,000 (people with million dollar salary make this much money in 10 days)
• In 2010, 16.4 million children live in poverty in the United States.  
• the 16.4 million represents about 1 out of 3 children in school.

Schools do not have the power to change the economic reality that these 16.4 million children face everyday.  They can affect some change, but it will be limited for the vast majority of children who grow up in poverty.  Out political and educational leaders must face the reality that NCLB, Race-to-the-Top or any school reform movement will have a huge impact unless we address issues of poverty and all the factors associated with it.

 

Resources:

Poverty and School Performance

Poverty and Education: The Challenge of Improving Schools

The Impact of Poverty Upon Schools

A broader and bolder approach uses education to break the cycle of poverty, an excellent article by Pedro Noguera in PDK (abstract)

Saving Black and Latino Boys, an article by Pedro Noguera in Education Week

Saving Black and Latino Boys: What schools can do to make a difference, Pedro Noguera, abstract from a PDK magazine article.

Impact of poverty on the educational outcomes of children, a study of the challenges in Canada, abstract.

Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success, Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice published a 2009 study.

Are we measuring up, blog post by the CFT on education statistics in US

School Reform: A complex issues in the face of poverty, blog post by the CFT.

 

 

 

 

 

In the December issue of Scientific American, we were presented with 10 World Changing Ideas that will transform how we live.  While these innovations or "simple ideas" are not being widely used, they are being developed and will impact our lives in the near future.

Here is the list:

• Medicine, The Forever Health Monitor, an app and device for a smartphone.
• Computing: A chip that thinks like a brain, a neural computer.
• Money: The Wallet in your Skin, buying lunch in school will involve no cards or cash.
• Computing: Computers that don't Freeze Up, the self-aware computer.
• Money: Currency without Borders, the world's first digital currency.
• Materials: Microbe Miners, bacteria that will clean up our messes.
• Agriculture: Crops that don't need Replanting, year-round crops.
• Energy: Liquid fuel for Electric Cars, the future of flow batteries.
• Medicine: Nano-size Germ Killers, little surgical knives that kill bacteria.
• Technology: A machine that predicts the future.

While you can't go on Amazon.com to buy any of these today, the opportunity is just around the corner. 

 

 

After watching Pavan Sukhdev's (click here) TED Talk, I couldn't help but think that we have to do more to integrate these concepts into curriculum in K-12 schools.  While the economics he explains require higher-order thinking, the biology, earth science and environmental science that underpins the economics can be taught at every level of school.

Mr. Sukhdev is a fellow at Yale University, leading the TEEB@YALE graduate seminar and chairing the Global Agenda Council on Biodiversity and Ecosystems for the World Economic Forum. Check out the work of the TEEB Project.  If you are interested in sustainability and conservation, his ideas are compelling. 

He makes the case for assigning a value to our natural resources in ways that societies haven't thought of before.  For example:

• What is the economic value of the rain that falls (or doesn't fall) over Texas in the summer?
• What is the economic value of the bees that pollinate all the crops and foliage that we depend upon?
• What is the economic value of Ohio river that serves as a lifeline for millions of people over thousands of miles?

In his talk, Mr. Sukhdev suggests that we take for granted the earthly resources that we have come to rely on.  We lack awareness of our actions as we extract all the goodness from our planet without giving back or paying for the resources.  He wants us to ask the question, what is the real value of the timber we harvest?  The real value involves making some fairly complex calculations of what it would take to restore the lands to their original form.  He talks about:

The economic invisibility of nature?

Mr. Sukhdev tells the story of the Amazon rainforest.  As the train winds flow over the rainforest they gather lots of precipitation that become the rain for agricultural fields in other countries at great distances.  But do the countries that receive the rain "pay" for the resource they rely on to grow crops?  The answer is no!

Therefore, Sukhdev asks the question:

What is the economic value of nature to our species?

What is the value of biodiversity to our planet (click here)?  The answer is simple, it means everything to the sustenance of planet Earth.  The viability of an ecosystem is dependent upon the biodiversity that comprises the system and helps maintain the system's equilibrium.  Do we understand the economic value of our planet's biodiversity?  Mr. Sukhdev suggests that we have little idea what value these resources are; however, our future depends upon us figuring it out.  We need to understand the value, especially as it relates to environmental sustainability and conservation.

In his talk, he gives many interesting examples.  From his calculations, insect pollination of fruits represents roughly 190 billion dollars worth of capital or about 8% of total agricultural output.  Here is a quote from Global Research in 2008:

Commercial beehives pollinate over a third of [North}America’s crops and that web of nourishment encompasses everything from fruits like peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries and more, to nuts like California almonds, 90 percent of which are helped along by the honeybees. Without this pollination, you could kiss those crops goodbye, to say nothing of the honey bees produce or the flowers they also fertilize.

In this article, they suggest that the death of bee populations is coming about because of our use of genetically modified organisms.

At genetic level, Sukhdev explains that 60% of medicines we discover start out as molecules that come from rainforests.  Here is a quote concerning environmental issues from www.about.com:

Tropical rainforests, which account for only seven percent of the world’s total land mass, harbor as much as half of all known varieties of plants. Experts say that just a four-square-mile area of rainforest may contain as many as 1,500 different types of flowering plants and 750 species of trees, all which have evolved specialized survival mechanisms over the millennia that mankind is just starting to learn how to appropriate for its own purposes.

The article points out that about 120 medicines that are used worldwide to treat human disease, especially cancer, come from planets in rainforests.  What is the true cost of harvesting these plants to make the medicines?  Sukhdev points out that people from the countries where these plants are harvested are generally poor and that the more advanced countries producing and using the medicines don't pay the "true cost" of using the natural resources they harvest.

The gradual depletion of ocean fisheries is a huge challenge for our planet.  Over 1 billion people depend on fish for their animal protein; however, the rate at which we are losing fish populations around the globe is startling and a tremendous burden on our society.  An article in Science Magazine, Loss of Harvested Fish Species Disrupts Carbon Flow, illustrates how an ecosystem is adversely altered by over harvesting the fish population. The BBC ran a report (click here) on research being done that shows at current trends of harvesting ocean fish, we may deplete supplies by the middle of this century.  What will be the effect on the ocean's ecosystems, particularly coral reefs, if we recklessly over harvest fish?

We tend to think that resources flow to humanity for free.  But they are not free--free from consequences of overuse.  Also, many of these resources come from countries that are poor and yet we (rich countries) pay very little to them for using or harvesting these resources. 

Sukhdev points out that consuming global biomass at the rate we are using them is not sustainable.  He suggests that we must learn to:

see the difference between between public benefits and private profits

We need to:

recognize and place a value on natural capital.

In closing, he makes the case for why we need to address issues around coral reefs, which provide food and livelihood for over 500 million people.  High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affect the functioning of these reefs.  Scientific research says that 350 ppm of carbon dioxide is the upper limit for what the planet can manage and what is safe for the survival of coral reefs.  However, the Kyoto Protocol has selected targets of around 450 ppm as a level the planet can tolerate.  So Sukhdev comments that we have made an ethical choice to not have coral reefs based on how high we have set the limits.  Countries like the US, India and China are not meeting their responsibility to adopt worldwide levels that would assure the future survivability of our planet's coral reefs.  Since 1/5 of the world's fish populations live and depend upon the rich food sources around coral reefs, we might be risking human lives with this decision.

We have a responsibility to learn how to better manage our natural resources and managing them effectively will require global cooperation.  Do we have the will to manage these resources responsibly?  It may be that Mother Nature doesn't have the capability to recover from all the challenges we throw at her.  But as Sukhdev points out, we don't have a chance is we fail to place the true value of the resources to our planet.

 

An article appeared in an online newsletter that may signal some changes in educational technology in the future.  EdSurge, "a community resource for those engaged in the emerging eco-system of education technology (mission from website)," publishes an online newsletter that ran the following article, What Three Big EdTech Investments Say About the Future of Education.

The article focuses on three investments in technology companies that have recently been made and signal a shifting direction from the venture capitalist world.  The authors write:

This past week saw venture and private investors grabbing a pen to write checks to support three significant edtech trends: the move toward supporting Common Core standards, the use of "adaptive" learning technologies, and an increase in social media in education.

Common Core Standards

Along with the emergence of the Common Core on the education scene, there will be billiions of federal and private dollars invested in implementing the Common Core standards across every state but the five who have not adopted the national standards (TX, NE, MN, AK, VA).  In addition, an equally large investment will be made in high-stakes assessments aligned to the Common Core.  As companies position themselves to develop, market, and sell technologies used to implement Common Core initiatives educational institutions will be need to proceed slowly, thoughtfully and carefully.  Where there are billions of dollars being invested there are individuals and companies that will try to sell something that will not meet the needs of schools, teachers, and students.  In education, we have to be careful that we are not led down the primrose path by the slick marketing strategies that will try to sell things we don't need.

Adaptive Learning Environments

Adaptive learning environments make use of computers, interactive teaching devices, and software that collect large amounts of information from users, builiding a vast database that allows the computer to "adapt" to the learning needs of individual users.  Adaptive learning environments have great potential to assist teachers in helping students learn, especially in areas where teachers want to differentiate instruction for diverse learners.  The authors of the article write:

"Intelligent adaptive learning means that there are a million individualized pathways" along which a student might progress, says Woolley-Wilson. "We have a class of technology that’s going beyond just measuring what a student knows to assessing the strategies they are using to solve problems," she says.

They reference a large venture capitalist investment in a company, Dreambox, that creates adaptive learning environments for mathematics classrooms.  In the article, the authors describe the program this way:

The Dreambox program captures every mouse click a student makes and can adjust for 60 different parameters of student behavior: how quickly he or she answers questions, how many "hints" they use to get an answer, and so on. The program amasses data based on thousands of students’ answers and then identifies hot-spot problem areas.

Chris Dede, Professor of Education at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, has been researching the use of virtual and augmented reality learning environments for a number of years.  EcoMUVE is a byproduct of his research in the area of virtual or augmented reality.  EcoMUVE teaches students about ecosystems using an "immersive virtual environment."

Along with adaptive learning, immersive virtual learning environments may transform the classroom of the future.  However, the research is definitive in pointing the way.  High-quality learning environments need high-quality teachers that are passionate about their work.  The challenge will be for schools to train their faculty to use these emerging technologies to meet students' needs.  Again, investing wisely.

Social Media in Education

With 800 million users, if Facebook were a country is would be the world's 4th largest.  Nearly 400 million of those users login to Facebook every day and have on average 130 friends.  That represents astounding growth over the past 7 years since its founding. 

While Facebook is one of the most popular social media sites, many schools block access to Facebook by teachers and students.  However, the article references major investments by venture capitalists in other social media sites that are education-friendly, specifcially the company Edmondo. 

Edmodo is a fast-growing social networking tool that enables teachers to communicate with each other and with their students in a safe environment. Some 4.5 million teachers and students now have Edmodo accounts, up from 500,000 in September 2010.

Social networking platforms can be a valuable educational tool.  A recent article in Education Week entitled, Social Networking Goes to School, lays out many of the advantages to the use of social networking platforms in classrooms. Here is a quote from the article by the principal, Eric Sheninger, at New Milford High School in New Jersey:

I used to be the administrator that blocked every social-media site, and now I’m the biggest champion,” Sheninger says.  I’m just someone who is passionate about engaging students and growing professionally, and I’m using these free tools to do it.

So what we learn from EdSurge is that venture capitalists see technology in these three areas at the next frontier.  They are investing heavily into the design and development of tools that will be pushed out to schools, school leaders, and teachers.  I think it is our responsibility to be well educated and smart investors in technology to support teaching and learning.  It doesn't mean we should invest in every fad that comes our way.  Investing in some technology is probably a waste of resources.  If a high-quality teacher can do the work, then we should invest in teachers not technology.  Let's only invest in areas that leverage teachers to do their work more efficiently, creatively, and effectively, Thereby meeting the needs of their students through developing engaging curricula and interesting learning spaces.

 

 

 

 

 

Eschool News published a report recently about an effort led by the National Academy of Sciences to improve science instruction in elementary and secondary schools.  The article, States Transforming Science Class, outlines the work that will involve 20 states collaborating to rewrite their science standards with a "greater emphasis on analytical and conceptual thinking." (p. 1) 

The new science standards will:

• encourage students to examine concepts that cross the boundaries of physics, biology, and chemistry;
• infuse more engineering into the curricular standards;
• ask students to apply their understanding of the concepts rather than merely memorizing  information;
• asked to write more frequently;
• asked to learn to think more analytically;
• require teachers to cover less material in their courses but require students to think more deeply about what they learn.

Georgia is one of the 20 states involved in the effort that is being led by Achieve, a nonprofit organization.  The effort is called the Next Generation Science Standards.  I think this effort will go a long way towards restoring some credibility to the study of science in our schools, especially public schools that have cut back on time allocated to teaching science with the advent of No Child Left Behind.  In NCLB, most schools spend considerable time on languate arts and math, at the expense of art, science, social studies and foreign languages, because the scores students receive on high-stakes tests that determine Annual Yearly Progress do include scores on science and social studies.  As the article points out,

Science is tested, but the results don't count toward rating of schools.

So some schools just don't put the time and energy into teaching science well.  We teach what we value or we value what we teach.

The National Research Council offered a new framework for teaching science, both content and skills.  Their framework is designed to promote the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), and encourage teachers to teach the material in more depth and abandon the practice of teaching science a "mile wide and an inch deep."

Here are the three areas that the framework is organized around:

• Scientific and Engineering Practices
• Crosscutting Concepts That Have Common Application Across Fields
• Important Topics in Physical, Life, and Earth and Space Sciences, as well as the application of science

If the goal is to help students appreciate the value of science in their lives and better prepare them for the scientific world in which they live, these basic principles seem to be designed thougthfully.  The other task we will need to do is to coordinate:

• Next Generation Science Standards
• NSTA's Science Standards
• AAAS Project 2061

It will not make sense to have three different organizations promoting three different sets of standards. I hope the thought leaders will use educators to sort through the three efforts and identify the similarities and differences.  It appears that NSTA is promoting the work of the Next Generation of Science Standards (click here for more details).

 

 

The following photos were taken at Drew Charter School's Science Night.  The agenda for the night included:

• 5th-8th grade science fair projects
• Making Butter in Grade 2
• Making Musical Instruments from different materials in Grade 1

 

Many parents and friends came to see their students' accomplishments in science as they prepare for the upcoming Science Fair.  While others came to have fun with different science activities.

 

NBC Nightly News ran a story tonight called, Top of the Class, about a report by Rehema Ellis called, Shanghai kids show intenses spirit for learning.  The program's focus was to look at school systems in Shanghai that are implementing successful programs with students.  Shanghai students score #1 on international tests.  What, if anything, can the U.S. learn from Shanghai schools about how to educate young people?

In a report by Rehema Ellis called, Shanghai kids show intenses spirit for learning, she writes,

But beyond a commitment to work hard, what I found in China is that Shanghai's academic success is rooted in a national culture that embraces education as a real asset.

What does our national culture embrace?  Do we embrace education and honor teachers in such a way that our educational community garners great respect? 

In watching the program and reading Ms. Ellis' report, these are some of the highlights:

• Shanghai students working very hard
• She witnessed that students "love learning."
• Students' success is a direct consequence of a whole cutlure that values education
• Students have nine-hour school days
• There are breaks for workouts and short periods of stress-relieving exercises.
• The education system is geared towards college entrance exams
• Teachers instruct students how to master tests.
  Teachers are among the highest paid professionals in China.
• Some statiistics: 25% of rural Chinese go to college but 80% of Shanghai students go to college, while 70% of US students go to college.
• Shanghai students dream of being so much more and that school is their path to achieving their dreams.
• They have yet to produce a Steven Jobs, Steven Spielberg, or some other highly creative individual of prominence.

After reading her report, I am not sure the highly regimented and test-driven school culture of a Shanghai student is what should be emulated.  While we don't have the same success with performance on national or international tests as they do, we already have a test-driven culture and that doesn't seem to be producing admirable results in the United States.  Just look at our scores on the recent NAEP tests, our Nation's Report Card assessment.

As reported in the Huffington Post, in 2010 only 20 percent of fourth graders tested proficient; 17 percent of eighth graders and 12 percent of high school seniors made the mark on the test in civics.  Our students are not graduating with a proficient understanding of US history.

National Center for Educational Statistics published the 2010 results in detail.  In math, there appear to be some positive changes since 1990, but the changes over the past 5 years of NCLB are at best stagnant.  In reading, the scores have been essentially flat for the past 8 years. In the 2009 NAEP test in science, 34% percent of fourth-graders, 30 % of eighth-graders, and 21% of twelfth-graders performed at or above the Proficient level.  Not very strong for a country that prides itself on being the "best."  We have a long way to go.

From Ms. Ellis' report, I did learn that in Shanghai the national culture embraces education and teachers are extremely well respected.  This pattern is similiar in Finland, which is also a high-performing country.  So if we learn anything from this report it is that in the United States we simply do not value education in the same way.  It is compulsory, but it is not high-quality because we don't place high enough value on the experience to generate the type of enthusiasm that Ms. Ellis witnessed in Shanghai schools. 

In the United States, we need to build greater enthusiasm in our communities for schools and more respect for our teachers.  Of course, our schools and our teachers must earn the respect and encourage enthusiasm from parents and students.  Engaging learning environments with high-quality, experienced teachers who are well compensated is part of the answer.  Those are lessons we can learn from Shanghai and Finland.  However, we need to nurture the creative talents and energies of our students and that will not happen in test-driven school cultures.  In that sense, we need to forge our own path towards excellence and not look abroad for answers regarding how to teach creatively.  We have schools in the United States that do that well.  Let's tell those stories on NBC's Nightly News.

 

 

 

 

 

Two days after my last post entitled, Grading, Assessment, Student Achievement, I received my copy of ASCD's Educational Leadership for November 2011.  The title is, Effective Grading Practices.  What a fabulous document to show up on my desk, especially since the lead article was from Susan Brookhart.  Reflections on Susan Brookhart's new book, Grading and Learning: Practices that Support Student Achievement, was the focus of my last post.

In her introductory article, she lays out a process by which a school or district might go about addressing the question, "should we change how we grade and assess students?"  The point she hammers home in the article is this:

The first task in grading reform is to reach consensus on purpose and foundational issues. (p. 13)

As she points out, we have to have discussions about the messages we want our grades to convey and who we want to receive the messages.

Are grades about what students earn or are they about what students learn?

Strikes me she has hit the nail on the head.

In addition, she cautions schools to not get sidetracked on issues such as;

• what kind of grades, letter or number?
• what will we do with late assignments?
• should we give zeros or not?
• should we do away with a D-grade?
• how should we report behavior?

In the end, these are important questions to resolve but not in the beginning.  First and foremost, what is the purpose of grades, what message do we want them to communicate, and who is our audience?  In asking these questions, schools may be challenging their faculty to confront their deep-seated beliefs about grades.  When I think back on my own grading experiences, grades were something "the teacher did to me."  They were what I "earned" for my work and behavior.  They were not necessarily representative of what I learned. 

I received a B+ in 11th grade chemistry at Pio Nono High School in Milwaukee, WI.  Not a bad grade I suppose, but it certainly did not reflect my knowledge and understanding of chemistry.  I got good grades in biochemistry, quantitative analysis, and other courses in college.  However, I did not really understand chemistry until I had to teach it to 10th graders at Trinity School in New York City.  Teaching it to others and researching how to teach it well helped me learn the concepts more deeply. 

There is a Japanese proverb;

To learn is to teach

Couldn't it also be to teach is to learn?

The rest of the magazine is filled with great articles about grading practices.  One of the expert voices on grading over the past five or so years has been Thomas Guskey, the author of the book, Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning.  He writes an article in this edition of Educational Leadership entitled, Five Obstacles to Grading Reform.  The five obstacles to reform are:

1. Grades should provide the basis for differentiating students.
2. Grade distributions should resemble a normal bell-shaped curve.
3. Grades should be based on students' standing among classmates.
4. Poor grades prompt students to try harder.
5. Students should receive one grade for each subject or course.

When I reflect on my own grading practices as a science teacher for 20+ years, my grading practices followed all five statements that Guskey sees as obstacles.  Should I be surprised if most of my students were turned off to biology and chemistry, especially those who did not get A-letter grades.

I don't mean for this post to be a review of all the excellent artilces in this edition, but I do want to point out that if you are interested in this topic, start with Educational Leadership's November 2011 edition, Effective Grading Practices.

Here are some other articles in the magazine:

• Redos and Retakes Done Right, by Rick Womeli
• The Case Against Grades, by Alfie Kohn
• Grades That Show What Students Know, by Robert Marzano and Tammy Heflebower
• No Penalities for Practice, by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Ian Pumpian

There are other gems in the magazine as well.