Posts from — June 2007

Here’s more about the State of Washington’s proposal to standardize the curriculum at all schools throughout the state.

Standardized lesson plans irk some Washington educators
As Seattle considers standardizing its curriculum in every classroom, teachers in one Washington district log in to see what pages and subjects they must teach each day. Opponents of across-the-board standardization say it hinders a teacher’s ability to respond to the needs of a particular class, but Bellevue Superintendent Mike Riley says inconsistent curriculum is “at the heart of what’s wrong with education in America.” The Seattle Times (6/24)

The Superintendent is arguing that inconsistent curriculum is “at the heart of what’s wrong with education in America.”

I disagree 100%. What’s wrong with education in America is NOT inconsistent curriculum!

What’s wrong with education in America today is the way the majority of people in America think about education.

The concept of mandatory education – or public education – originated to develop factory workers for the emerging ‘industrial economy’ in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. The system of education we have today is nearly the same as the one conceived and implemented more than 100 years ago.

The desire to standardize education – the curriculum, the teaching, the timing, and the tests – flies in the face of what we have learned about how humans learn. AND, it flies in the face of the fact that the external world – the environment in which the learner lives and the learning should take place – has changed dramatically in the last 100 years!

Standardizing in the way the Superintendent is proposing is a natural and understandable outcome of the way of thinking that dominates our education system. The system has an underlying operating principle of compliance and control. Standardizing the way it is being proposed is a way to control the 100s and 1000s of people involved in the system in the State of Washington. The thinking behind this idea also presumes that learning can be stuffed into people at a particular time, in a particular way – and all the same time and same way – for every 8 year old or every 12 year old in the entire State.

So here we have a well meaning man, in charge of the entire public education system for the State of Washington, mandating a policy that more well meaning people will implement. All these well meaning people, with the best of intentions, will actually be doing harm and creating further problems. The solutions to the problems they create will be looked at through the same lens – that of control and compliance – so those solutions will NOT solve the problem either but continue to make things worse.

The solution is to change the way we think about education and learning.

To contrast what is happening in the State of Washington, here is something happening in the State of New Hampshire:

New Hampshire to develop personalized high school
New Hampshire’s Department of Education wants to develop high schools in which learning is tailored to students’ interests and teachers become mentors instead of lecturers. “If we do this right, why would any kid drop out of high school?” asked Fred Bramante, a state Board of Education member. Education Week (article free to SmartBrief subscribers)/Associated Press (6/26)

This is an example of changing the way we think about education.

Many educators I’ve worked with have ideas on how to transform or improve the educational experience. One of the ‘reasons’ that is often sited for NOT implementing these ideas is the ‘need’ for educational research to authenticate the validity of these ideas. Many people say the education system must be ‘evidence based’ to be sure they are doing the right thing.

Here’s an article about someone that has been doing educational research for 20+ years and has lost his idealism and energy for research being an enabler for change.

Education Research Could Improve Schools, But Probably Won’t
By Ronald A. Wolk
In my idealistic days 25 years ago, I believed that education research would lead us to the promised land of successful schools and high student achievement.

The article gives lots of reasons why research isn’t being used and won’t be as helpful as it could be. The guy goes on to say that we actually need to do the things we think about doing because if we don’t try something how will we ever have the research we need? That speaks to the need for ongoing experimentation as a way to learn.

One of the best strategies there is to keep up with the rate of change is to have many ongoing experiments going in parallel. The learning from these experiments would be iterated into other experiments and this cycle should continue – probably forever. This would make education – and the education system – a system that demonstrates learning and is a learning system (which it currently is not).

In my work with educators I’ve found significant resistance to the idea of doing experiments in education and learning. I have some compassion and understanding for that resistance as I know we are talking about experiments that involve human beings. That said, experimenting is one of the key ways that humans learn.

So how do we reconcile the need to experiment with the need for ‘evidence-based’ research?

Report sees online schools as models for reform
Think tank: Virtual schools are labs of innovation in teaching and learning that can be applied more broadly in K-12 education
By Robert L. Jacobson, Senior Editor
Virtual schooling is driving the very transformation in public education that advocates of school reform long have sought, says a new report. The report urges educators and policy makers to look to virtual schooling as a model for reform strategies that can be applied more broadly to education in general.

This article implies that online and virtual schools are providing an environment to try things that heretofore have not been tried in a physical setting. That’s interesting – and could be very useful. But that is just one place where experiments can and need to happen. They also need to happen in physical settings.

My suggestion is to start learning now and learn as fast as possible. That means we have to do experiments. So let the learning begin!

Here’s another article about NY paying students for doing well on tests and not missing school:

Schools Plan to Pay Cash for Marks
By JENNIFER MEDINA • Published: June 19, 2007
New York City students could earn as much as $500 a year for doing well on standardized tests and showing up for class in a new program to begin this fall, city officials announced yesterday. And the Harvard economist who created the program is joining the inner circle of Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, according to an official briefed on the hiring.

Here’s another example of paying young people to motivate them…

NY is thinking about paying young people to do well on standardized tests.

New York may pay students for high test scores
A Harvard economist has captured the interest of New York City’s mayor with a plan to give students $5 to $50 for high standardized test scores as a way to change behavior and reduce poverty, although a similar plan was dismissed as laughable by some education officials a few years ago. The New York Times (6/9), New York Daily News (6/9)

And here’s the other side of the story – 1000s of young people cheating on high stakes tests in Texas.

Analysis shows TAKS cheating rampant
State says it’s addressed the problem, but News uncovers more than 50,000 cases
05:29 PM CDT on Sunday, June 3, 2007 • By JOSHUA BENTON and HOLLY K. HACKER / The Dallas Morning News jbenton@dallasnews.com; hhacker@dallasnews.com
First of three parts

Tens of thousands of students cheat on the TAKS test every year, including thousands on the high-stakes graduation test, according to an in-depth data analysis by The Dallas Morning News.

This is two sides of the same coin. Unless WE (the infamous we) start thinking differently about this it is only going to get worse.

So, it seems the Seattle School District disagrees with me and feels there is only ONE answer for education in their district (well, math education at least). Their answer is to have all elementary school children throughout the entire district get the same math lesson, at the same time, using the same text books.

Schools streamline how math is taught
Same textbooks, same lessons, at the same time
By JESSICA BLANCHARD P-I REPORTER

When Seattle elementary-schoolers open their math textbooks this fall, they’ll all be on the same page — literally.

In an attempt to boost stagnant test scores, elementary teachers will start using the same math textbooks and materials and covering lessons at the same time as their colleagues at other Seattle elementary schools, the School Board decided Wednesday.

I am often amazed that good, well-meaning people, (and supposedly people that know educational theory and how people learn) can somehow ignore the idea that people are all different and come up with something that they are sure will work – for everyone! Is it really possible that something can be good for every single person? Maybe. But what about the idea that we all learn differently and at different times? Maybe I just have it all wrong and we should force every single person in the United States of America to do the exact same thing at the exact same time?