In recent years a mounting stack of research has shown that a good teacher is the single most important variable in boosting student achievement in every subject. A good teacher trumps such factors as socioeconomic status, class size, curriculum design and parents' educational levels. Stanford University's Eric Hanushek showed that students of highly effective teachers make about three times the academic gains of those with less talented teachers, regardless of the students' demographics. That is exactly the trouble with math and science education: there are too few teachers like Bellucci. The teacher dropout rate is high, and the education system rewards the teachers it has for the wrong reasons.David Berliner, on the other hand, provides research which proves that a good teacher is the greatest in-school factor, but no matter how good the teacher is, out of school factors still account for a greater impact on a child's achievement.
The relative decline of American education at the elementary- and high-school levels has long been a national embarrassment as well as a threat to the nation's future. Once upon a time, American students tested better than any other students in the world. Now, ranked against European schoolchildren, America does about as well as Lithuania, behind at least 10 other nations.Diane Ravitch tells us, however,
the US was never first on international tests. When the first test was given in 1964 (a test of math), our students came in 11th out of 12.It seems that Wengert's phrase once upon a time is indicative of a fairly tale, after all.
For much of this time—roughly the last half century—professional educators believed that if they could only find the right pedagogy, the right method of instruction, all would be well. They tried New Math, open classrooms, Whole Language—but nothing seemed to achieve significant or lasting improvements.Jim Horn at Schools Matter, responded...
Sadly, the group of educational antiquarians who have been in charge of national ed policy for the past 30 years continue to ignore the failure of their own failed and repeatedly failed test and punish policies that have turned American schools toward penal pedagogy as a solution to low test scores that are getting worse as poverty gets worse. The canaries in this deepening and empty mineshaft of the reform schoolers are, of course, the children, the poorest and the most vulnerable.Newsweek went on...
It is difficult to dislodge the educational establishment. In New Orleans, a hurricane was required: Since Katrina, New Orleans has made more educational progress than any other city, largely because the public-school system was wiped out. Using nonunion charter schools, New Orleans has been able to measure teacher performance in ways that the teachers' unions have long and bitterly resisted.The method used to "measure teacher performance" is undoubtedly using student test scores and/or VAM to evaluate teachers. We have discussed frequently how student test scores are an invalid measure of teacher effectiveness. Fair, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting had this to say...
Many of these ideas are the subject of intense debate–research on charter schools has generally not shown substantial improvement over conventional public schooling, for example. Experts and advocates disagree with the notion that New Orleans is a success story. But Newsweek presents little debate–sticking with the right-leaning narrative version of "school reform" that is primarily about bashing teachers.[Interestingly enough, the Scientific American article discussed teacher education, and said,
Whereas TNTP—like Teach for America—gets criticized by advocates of teacher colleges for their condensed training schedule, alternative programs that recruit people with deep content knowledge are an essential piece of the STEM solution, Daly says. "If you don't offer alternative certification, will anyone volunteer to do this?" he asks. "I would argue that the answer is no—no one will take on midcareer financial hardship when they have a mortgage and a family to go back to school to become a teacher. The number interested in doing that is zero."The author also emphasized the high turnover rate with beginning teachers. I am especially taken by the phrase, "no one will take on midcareer financial hardship." Going back to school to learn to be an educator isn't worth the money when "anyone" can do it.]
Scientific American thinks that high science standards are the reason some states do better than others on science tests (Can the US get an ‘A’ in Science? August 2012). There is no evidence this is so. The two top states, in science, as mentioned by Scientific American, are Massachusetts and Minnesota. They also rank near the bottom of the country in percentage of children living in poverty.
Study after study has shown that children who come from high-poverty families do poorly on standardized tests, and the factors related to poverty, insufficient food quality and quantity, lack of health care, and lack of access to books, have been shown to be strongly related to student achievement.
American children from middle class families who attend well-funded schools score at the top of the world on standardized tests, including math and science. Our mediocre overall scores are because of our unacceptably high level of poverty: 23% of our children live in poverty, which ranks us 34th out of 35 economically advanced countries.
The problem is poverty, not lack of high standards.
Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California
Notes and sources:
Massachusetts has only 14% child poverty, Minnesota, 15%.
Child poverty in the US, individual states: National Kids Count Program: http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=43
Children from high poverty families:
Berliner, D.C. (2006). Our impoverished view of educational reform. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 949–995.
Berliner, D. 2009. Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential;
Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13.
— Stephen Krashen
What Can We Do About the Common Core?
by Stephen Krashen
Here is the big question:
We are forced to teach under the standards. What should we do? We have the responsibility to do our best for our current students, and this takes all our time. Also, many teachers are afraid they will be fired if they ignore the standards in class, and if they speak out against the standards movement.
My response:
There are two ways we can try to help students survive under the common core, and I am in favor of doing both of them: IMPROVE the curriculum and the tests (e.g. adaptations for ELLs) and SUBVERT them (e.g. do things in secret that may not be allowed such as promoting free reading and when teaching English Learners use the first language in ways that make the curriculum more comprehensible).
Yes, we certainly owe it to our students to do this. But there are limits to how much we can really improve the common core. Also, if our subversions work, the common core gets the credit, which makes things worse for the future.
The solution: Continue to try to improve and subvert the common core, but at the same time HELP US END IT.
I am very aware that working teachers have very little time and are under tremendous pressure. This is why most of the activism is carried out by retired educators and tenured professors.
The biggest problem we have in ending the common core is that few people know the facts about it: what it is, and the massive evidence against it. Let me suggest a path that requires very little time, no money, and no risk.
1) INFORM YOURSELF. Here is a quick and easy way: Get on Susan Ohanian’s mailing list: www.susanohanian.org. The Ohanian website is the center of gravity of the resistance. In less than five minutes a day you will rapidly see and understand everything. Susan collects and comments on articles in the media (eg the "outrage of the day," "research that counts," "letters to the editor," and "notable quotes").
My view is that Susan Ohanian, along with Diane Ravitch, have presented massive evidence that the common core is a gigantic rip-off, designed only to take money from the needy and give it to the greedy. And highly respected Professor David Berliner has presented the research that is more than enough to destroy the common core.
If you have energy for more, I suggest following Valerie Strauss’ blog in the Washington Post (The answer sheet: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet) and Diane Ravitch's blog: http://www.dianeravitch.net.
If you do all this, in a week or so you will be much better informed that anybody on Arne Duncan's staff.
2) SHARE THE INFORMATION. If you see something interesting, post it on listservs, facebook, twitter, or just tell your friends. The internet is our underground.
Also: Make comments on newspaper articles on the newspaper website. Right now, nearly all the comments posted are anti-teacher. I do my best, comment all the time, but I don’t think more than 20 people do this nation-wide.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO USE YOUR REAL NAME WHEN YOU POST ON WEBSITES OR TWITTER!!.
Steps (1) and (2) are enough to stop the common core if enough of us do it. Right now, maybe 20-30 people in the entire country are doing it.
FIVE MINUTES A DAY.
For those with the time and energy to do more (other retired people, like me): contribute to the discussion yourself. Letters to the editor, twitter, facebook, etc.
— Stephen Krashen
August 04, 2012
Traditionally, public education has been a tough market for private firms to break into -- fraught with politics, tangled in bureaucracy and fragmented into tens of thousands of individual schools and school districts from coast to coast."Fragmented into thousands of individual schools and districts?" We used to call that "local control." Before NCLB, states and local school boards determined what their local schools were doing. Local school boards ran the schools and answered to the parents and taxpayers of the local communities for the success or failure of their policies.
"Education is behind healthcare and other sectors that have utilized outsourcing to become more efficient," private equity investor Larry Shagrin said in the keynote address to the New York conference.Yes, we all know how efficient and cost effective America's health care system is compared to elsewhere in the world. [sarcasm intended -- See The U.S. Health System in Perspective: A Comparison of Twelve Industrialized Nations. Even Mitt Romney noticed that we spend an excessive amount on health care. See Socialized medicine gets rave review from Mitt Romney]
They're pouring private equity and venture capital into scores of companies that aim to profit by taking over broad swaths of public education.The important phrase in that sentence is "aim to profit." That's what they're after. Unlike local school boards, who have families and livelihoods rooted in their communities, the private enterprise folks are after the bottom line -- profit.
The goal: an education revolution in which public schools outsource to private vendors such critical tasks as teaching math, educating disabled students, even writing report cards, said Michael Moe, the founder of GSV.They are achieving their goal by buying legislators of both parties. Diane Ravitch is quoted...
Vendors looking for a toehold in public schools often donate generously to local politicians and spend big on marketing, so even companies with dismal academic results can rack up contracts and rake in tax dollars, Ravitch said.We can cut costs by getting by with fewer teachers. Personnel has always been the highest cost item for school systems, so when you're looking to cut costs do it by cutting teachers. That method has already saved millions of dollars for states and school systems who get rid of older teachers. Without collective bargaining due process rights disappear leaving the door open to get rid of teachers who are at the top of the pay scales. Experience and advanced degrees don't matter. Hire cheaper teachers. But don't stop there...
"They're taking education, which ought to be in a different sphere where we're constantly concerned about raising quality, and they're applying a business metric: How do we cut costs?" Ravitch said.
Education entrepreneur John Katzman urged investors to look for companies developing software that can replace teachers for segments of the school day, driving down labor costs.Teaching becomes, not only short term employment, but a part time job as well.
At the more than 5,500 charter schools nationwide, private management companies -- some of them for-profit -- are in full control of running public schools with public dollars.The answer to that question is simple. As a nation we're more interested in profit than in the well being of our children.
"I look around the world and I don't see any country doing this but us," Ravitch said. "Why is that?"
