Charter Schools Closing The Gap?

The video seen in this blog is from the Florida Charter School Consortium, and it makes a great case for charter schools. Of course, being a teacher in a charter school, I can attest that a charter school has its advantages and disadvantages. The claim that charter schools have been raising the scores of hispanic students may be true, however there is no evidence on the fldoe.org website or on the consortium website that substantiates this claim. It's a nice promo for charter schools.

The Knowledge Deficit (Part 1)

Recently, I've been reading "The Knowledge Deficit" by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., and in his book he makes a compelling argument about the problem with reading education. I'm only halfway through the book, but his justifications seem solid and at worst, make common sense. In essence, Hirsch attempts to debunk the "natural" approach to reading education, which is prevalent in today's schools. The "natural" approach to reading education is the idea that the capability to read occurs through natural development. Instead, Hirsch argues for a knowledge-based approach to reading, "to become a good comprehender, a child needs a great deal of knowledge (8)." With his arguments, Hirsch makes several interesting points:

* The merger of the meanings of term "reading." "The word reading has two senses, often confusingly lumped together. The first means the process of turning printed marks into sounds into words. But the second sense means the very different process of understanding those words (8)."

* The constant debate between naturalism (education should be natural and engaging) and formalism (all purpose, how-to-knowledge). The conflict between these two principles will constantly generate the need for continual reform and are an enemy of the reading goals of the beloved NCLB. "Advances in reading will depend on students gaining a great deal of information, this conflict of ideas [naturalism v. formalism] is the root cause of the impasse between NCLB and the schools, and the only way to improve scores in reading and to narrow the reading gap between groups is to systematically provide children with the wide-ranging, specific background knowledge they need to comprehend what they read (21)."

* To make his point throughout the text, Hirsch constantly refers to the "Matthew Effect" an allusion to a verse in the Gospel of Matthew that states that those who already have shall gain more and those who do not have, more shall be taken away. "Those who already have good language understanding will gain still more language proficiency, while those who lack initial understanding will fall further and further behind (25)."

* Hirsch argues that reading is like listening and our schools have been teaching these skills independent of each other. "Because we have though of reading and writing as separate from listening and talking, we have tended to spend large amounts of time--to much time--on the simple cat-in-the hat kinds of written material that young children are able to read and understand for themselves. We have failed to focus effectively on the knowledge of both language and the world that children can gain in those years only through speaking and listening, not through reading (27)."

* There should be an emphasis in early education on nonwritten oral activities such as adult aloud reading and other audible activities. Hirsch makes the point that written word (i.e. radio and television) are very similar to spoken word, because of the conventions that are similar in both, the ability to address an unknown unseen audience. These skills are necessary to develop reading in the early grades not just a focus on decoding words (see reading argument).

There are also some very interesting research points that Hirsch brings to light to reinforce his arguments:

* "We observe from low national reading scores that decoding fluency in grade four, when are children's scores are moderately high by international standards, does not automatically develop into comprehension fluency in grade twelve, when are student's scores are low (35)."

* One study Hirsch mentions, looked at the difference between students who had high decoding skills but low domain specific knowledge (baseball) and those who had low decoding skills, but high domain specific knowledge. "As predicted, the reading comprehension of the low-skills, baseball-knowing group proved superior to the reading comprehension of the high-skills, baseball-ignorant group for that particular text (37)."

So far this text is excellent and I look forward to reading the last half of the book and sharing my thoughts with you.

Arrrgh....Can We Trust Teachers?

So it happens again. Two more teachers caught having sex with students, and now the national media wonders...can we trust teachers? Well, from the bottom of my heart, thanks ladies for making our profession a joke again. This again goes to show you how little respect teachers receive and simply [cliche alert! cliche alert!] how a rotten apple seems to spoil the bunch. Like in any profession, educators have deviants who cross the line or perform unethically. However, I truly do resent reporters asking, can we trust teachers? OF COURSE YOU CAN TRUST TEACHERS! When a quack doctor is found performing surgeries from his trunk, does the media look intently into the camera and ask, can we trust doctors? No! The number of quack doctors has to rival those of teachers who cross the line, yet we find no respect for the teaching profession, and this has to change. Gone are the days when teaching was a respectable profession, now we find just about anybody entering the field.

The shortage of educators (I did not say quality educators, just educators) has caused departments of education everywhere to relax credentialing standards and by doing this we've dumbed down the pool of possible teachers. My best friend is a medical doctor and he is constantly taking examinations to keep up with his field and the entrance exams even after he received his doctorate were extremely difficult. In Florida at least, all one has to do is have a bachelor's (in any field) and pass one exam in order to receive a temporary certificate. In order to receive your permanent professional certificate one must take a general knowledge exam (basic arithmetic and simple grammar), a professional knowledge exam (simple education questions) and within five years they must take a two courses in education. That is it. While I'm not comparing the rigors of a medical career with those of an education career, it should be more difficult to become a teacher than simply having a bachelor's and taking a test. Yet, because of the shortage of teachers, we find these rather simplistic standards allow just about anyone in, hence the loss of respect for the profession.

Teachers, if you're looking at a minor with a lustful eye, first, get some help, second get our of our profession so maybe we can start bringing some respect back to teaching.

Whole Child Education?

A few days ago the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) released a report entitled "The Learning Compact Redefined: A Call To Action." This report, like the millions of other reports released by education think-tanks and commissions "commissioned" to study education, laid out a set of recommendations that apparently will fix the problems of education. While many reports are absolutely mind-numbing, this report seems to be on the right track. There are some very good observations that the group called "The Commission on The Whole Child" discussed. [ok, so can we stop calling these things commissions? can someone please pick up a thesarus, still available are: committee, authority, agency, official, board, administration, etc...]

Unfortunately, there are a few problems in their suggestions. I am of the belief that in education in order to make changes you need one part optimism and one part reality. Without both any efforts to make changes will either be too idealistic and not practical enough or vise versa. The Whole Child Committee [see how well that works] has plenty of the optimism needed, speaking in nice sweeping inspirational language "we challenge those responsible for learning and teaching to reshape education so young people learn not only that 2+2 = 4 but also 'who they are' and why each person is a 'marvel. (6)'" It almost seems like they hired former Hallmark card writers to write the introduction. However, the reality of the situation is where they fall short. First of all, the problems of education cannot be resolved in 36 pages. I know Tom Paine inspired a revolution with 46 pages, but the United States education problem is slightly more complicated than that little spat we had with King George a few years ago. Second of all, the problem with many of these reports is that they look at the dilemmas of education from the top down, much like a mechanic popping the hood of a car and attempting to fix it by simply replacing a belt or adding oil. Many of the suggestions are wonderful and I agree with virtually all of them, but we have to look at the problems of education from the bottom up. How do we fix education at the bottom of the ladder? Sweeping language and talk of looking at the child as a marvel is absolutely useless in inner city America. It's nice, but useless. I'm not going to get into the social problems with education here, but in order for ANY changes to happen of the sort that the ASCD writes about, someone has to get their hands dirty and look under the car, priorities must shift, and perspectives must change, and we all know how slow the dreaded 'c' word comes about in education.

To the writers of the Whole Child Report, I applaud you for making an effort to move into the right direction and get away from this accountability stuff, it's very positive, but let's try and take it to the next level and take those thoughts and make them universally practical. I would love to tell you that I know how, but I have no idea.

For reference, the report can be found here: http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/Whole%20Child/WCC%20Learning%20Compact.pdf

MDCPS: The Dysfunctional Family

Carl Hiaasen has made millions telling stories of the stupidities that are found in Miami-Dade County, either through the people that live here or the politicians that make dumb mistakes here. While all of his stories are fictional, they are couched in reality. I think when I retire; I'd like to join Mr. Hiaasen in telling stories about the "oddities" of our county. Here's one of them:

The Miami Herald reported recently that the Miami-Dade County Public School Board is engaged in a very intense legal battle. Not with others who wish to intrude on the rights of the school board or of the superintendent, not even with one of its own employees. Instead, our school board is spending over $100,000 in legal fees fighting with itself. It seems that Marta Perez, a school board member, is mad because she suggested that four items be added to the December 2006 meeting agenda and Rudy Crew, our omnipotent superintendent refused. (New York sending Rudy Crew was their cruel little joke intended at getting back at Miami for stealing Pat Riley, score settled.) This simple refusal outraged Ms. Perez and if you mix a little anger with a little spite and throw a few lawyers into the mix...voila! You have a lawsuit and 100K down the drain.

But in all of this there is a hero! No, not a school board member who talked some sense into Ms. Perez or the Supreme Commander of the School Board, the Honorable, Humble, Great and Gracious Doctor Rudolph Crew (that what he makes us call him, there's a little courtesy and salute that goes with it, ala President Scroob in Spaceballs, but I don't have time to go into details), no, no... in fact the rest of the school board members became co-defendants and hired their own lawyers...at the district's expense (what?!? you mean pay for it themselves, the horror!). Judge Ronald Friedman, the one person in this who fiasco saw the complete ridiculousness of this and called the lawsuit 'absurd' and limited lawyers to fifteen minutes to make their case and was flabbergasted when he saw that MORE lawyers were coming on board (at no less than $250 and at a max of $450 and hour, guess who hired the expensive attorney...one guess...that's right, the unstoppable force that is Crew). Judge Friedman, you're my hero, but unfortunately, there's always a court of appeals, and there goes more of the district's money. Never mind that Miami Carol City High School is falling apart OR THAT WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY TEACHERS!!!! We'll just spend a couple hundred thousand on fighting with ourselves because we didn't add an item to the agenda. Way to keep the interest of the students in mind, I congratulate you.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Teachers, next time you department chair doesn't want to add an item to the next meeting, sue their pants off!

Why This Blog?

As a student and practicioner of education, there are several things that drive me absolutely crazy. And while I may be late in jumping on the "blog bandwagon" I've decied to start this blog simply because I feel that in the United States we can do so much more with our education system. The complete decentralization of our system has led to chaotic and unmanageable education system and sadly, any efforts to correct our system have been led by politicians and not educators.

As an example, Florida recently passed legislation to award teachers a bonus between five and ten percent, according to the AP:

"The new program would continue to rely heavily on student testing -- at least 60 percent -- in determining which teachers and in-school administrators would qualify for bonuses. Assessments by principals, or superintendents in the case of administrators, would account for the remaining 40 percent."

Sixty freakin' percent based on standardized student testing! Can someone tell me why a social studies, music, art, physical education, or dance teacher would even care about this program? Thanks for the concession of forty percent, the leftovers for the non-math, english, and science teachers. In addition, does anyone account for the stress that it places on the administrators to say to their Social Studies teacher, "yes Sally, you're good enough, I have no real objective rubric to measure you by, but I think you deserve this money" and no to someone else? How do you distinguish a good educator from a bad one with one or two observations?

Teachers have given in to politicians and handed them over our profession and they have no idea what they are doing! That's why I've decided to start this blog. Not because I want to gripe about the faults of education, but because our educators need to take back their profession.