Live Long and Prosper...

PRESCHOOL, EXCUSES, AND IRONY

Excuses won't help children get head start

Indiana Representative David Ober has knocked the irony meter off its shelf. It seems he's against state supported preschool, claiming that we don't have anything "long term to show it's working." His objection is that we don't have enough data to show that universal preschool has a good "return on investment."

On the other hand, what does he say about the data on voucher plans? What does he say about the data on charters? The research into vouchers and charters suggest that neither provides a better education, and sometimes worse, than real public schools.

Ober's response?

Silence, followed by votes to increase the privatization of Indiana's schools.

When it comes to early learning opportunities, Indiana children hear little more than excuses. The latest – “where’s the data to show it works?” – is the weakest yet.

After years of fighting efforts to establish preschool programs other states have long embraced, the General Assembly approved a small pilot program in 2014, serving just 2,300 children statewide. Now it’s become the latest stalling tactic for legislators looking to block its expansion.

“Right now we just don’t have the data. We have at most one year – we have nothing long term to show it’s working,” Rep. David Ober, R-Albion, told The Journal Gazette’s Niki Kelly. “My reticence from the beginning is ‘Does it work?’ and ‘Is there a return on investment?’ Some argue yes and some no.”

Ober voted against the preschool pilot program, which carries strict income limits. A family of four can earn no more than $30,290 to qualify for a pre-K grant. By contrast, a four-member household with income of as much as $83,000 a year can qualify for a K-12 school voucher.

The Noble County Republican supported a vast expansion in the voucher program in 2013, even though no data exist to suggest it offers any return on investment. Lawmakers have never authorized a study of the five-year-old private-school choice program.

Preschool Education and Its Lasting Effects: Research and Policy Implications

Here is an interesting research report for Ober to read. It explains the lasting effect of well designed, well staffed preschool programs.

• Policy makers should not depart from preschool education models that have proven highly effective. These models typically have reasonably small class sizes and well-educated teachers with adequate pay.

• Teachers in preschool programs should receive intensive supervision and coaching, and they should be involved in a continuous improvement process for teaching and learning.

• Preschool programs should regularly assess children’s learning and development to monitor how well they are accomplishing their goals.

• Preschool programs, in order to produce positive effects on children’s behavior and later reductions in crime and delinquency, should be designed to develop the whole child, including social and emotional development and self-regulation.

• Because an earlier start and longer duration does appear to produce better results, policies expanding access to children under 4 should prioritize disadvantaged children who are likely to benefit most. More broadly, preschool education policy should be developed in the context of comprehensive public policies and programs to effectively support child development from birth to age 5 and beyond.

And in case that's not enough, Rep. Ober, please see the following...

• Investing in Our Future: The Evidence Base on Preschool Education

• Proven Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions

• DEBUNKING THE MYTHS: BENEFITS OF PRESCHOOL

• Benefits of Early Childhood Education

• Why All Kids Should Go To Preschool

PRIVATIZATION

Shouts of 'Shame!' as Michigan panel implements controversial DPS plan

The people who were shouting "local control" (along with Republican Presidential candidate Trump) are the same people who are taking control of public education away from local municipalities and school boards.

The problem with Detroit's public schools goes from bad to worse...

LANSING -- Michigan's Emergency Loan Board on Monday approved measures to implement a $617-million financial rescue and restructuring plan for Detroit’s public schools, over the vocal objections of elected school board members and others who attended the meeting in Lansing.

The board approved borrowing to retire or refinance debt, plus the transfer of assets from the old Detroit Public Schools to a new Detroit Public Schools Community District.

There were shouts of "Shame!," "Jim Crow" and "Black lives matter" as the three board members left an auditorium at the Michigan Library and Historical Center through a back exit.

Critics say the plan treats Detroit public school students as second-class citizens because they would be the only Michigan public school students who could be taught by uncertified teachers. They also say much of the debt addressed by the plan was rung up while Detroit schools were under state control.

Attacking the Public in Public Education

The reasons our state constitution includes funding for "common schools" is because public education benefits everyone. The founders knew that. "Reformers" apparently don't.

Local public schools should be supported, not closed. Public funds should go to improving public schools for everyone, not sent to privately run charters or transferred to vouchers for parochial schools. Parents should not have to go shopping for schools like they shop for shoes.

The whole argument that choice-voucher systems should put all decision-making in the hands of parents makes a foundational assumption that education is not a public good, maintained by the public in the public space in order to deliver benefits to the public. Instead, it re-imagines education as a consumer good, created by a vendor and then handed off to the student while money changes hands. Where education might once have been viewed like air or water or other shared public resources, we're now encouraged to see it like a pizza or a toaster.

We can now start to see some of the side-effects of this view. When a public school is closed these days, it's not necessarily seen as a blow to the community, like the loss of a park or the pollution of a water supply. Instead, it's treated like a store closing, as if we just lost the Taco Bell on the corner, or the local K-Mart was closed up. It's a business decision made by someone who doesn't answer to the community, really pretty much out of our hands, right?

READING

Bringing Back Some Teacher Control to Reading Instruction

Children are all different. One size doesn't fit all.

Let teachers exercise their professional judgement.

Let teachers teach.

As teachers, we know our students better than anyone else. Yet in some schools, teachers are given curriculum and told to follow it with fidelity—meaning, do exactly what the teacher guide says and never veer. To compound this issue, principals and district personnel visit these teachers, observe their teaching, and criticize or punish them when the lesson hasn’t been followed verbatim.

EXPERIENCE COUNTS

Yes, Long Experience Makes Better Teachers

Michelle Rhee made her mark by claiming that unions allowed old teachers to keep teaching even if they were "bad." It turns out, however, that experience matters. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why schools in states with strong unions have higher achievement than schools in states with weak or no unions...and by the way...unions don't want bad teachers in classrooms any more than anyone else.

Nearly fifteen years of federal policy that essentially demands that teachers raise test scores or else face serious consequences, has, however, undermined the morale and reputation of teachers. Our society has been encouraged to blame teachers alone for failing to “produce” test score gains in the poorest communities, despite that we know that test scores are affected by families’ economic circumstances and that state governments with inequitable finance systems fail to support the teachers and students in the school districts whose needs are greatest.

...Here are the report’s four central findings:

1. “Teaching experience is positively associated with student achievement gains throughout a teacher’s career. The gains from experience are highest in teachers’ initial years, but continue for teachers in the second and often third decades of their careers.”
2. “As teachers gain experience, their students are also more likely to do better on other measures of success beyond test scores, such as school attendance.”
3. “Teachers make greater gains in their effectiveness when they teach in a supportive and collegial working environment, or accumulate experience in the same grade level, subject, or district.”
4. “More experienced teachers confer benefits to their colleagues and to the school as a whole, as well as to their own students.”

TEST AND PUNISH

Arizona Fails its Children!

Arizona...just one of many states (including Indiana) which punishes children for not learning.

Once again, parents are left to wonder why their children didn’t pass the test.

• Did they have unaddressed reading difficulties–and/or dyslexia?

• Did they have undiagnosed learning disabilities?

• Were they pushed to read too early?

• Were they taught incorrectly?

• Was the test poorly devised?

• Were the standards inappropriate?

Whatever kind of learning problems exist, there are a variety of strategies and arrangements to assist students without making them feel like failures.

There is a large body of anti-retention research. But some states don’t seem to understand such research exists. Nor do they care for the feelings of their students, and when those students drop out years later, they will wonder why. Children who fail kindergarten through 3rd grade have a 75% chance of dropping out of school by tenth grade (Roderick, 1994).

POLITICS

How Gov. Mike Pence worked to undermine the will of Indiana’s voters

Pence is an opportunist. First he was for preschool. Then he was against it. Now he's for it again. It's all in his politics and whether or not he believes it will help him get votes.

What a hypocrite.

He also angered Ritz over his changing views on early-childhood-education funding. In 2013, he supported a move by Ritz to apply for federal funds for early-childhood education through President Obama’s Race to the Top competition. Indiana didn’t win but moved to apply again in 2014, with a better chance of success because the criteria had changed. Some $80 million was at stake. Pence suddenly changed his mind and refused to enter the competition, supposedly because of federal requirements that came with the money. Ritz said there weren’t any of significance.

In 2014, however, he did push for — and won — millions in state funding for a pilot prekindergarten program in the state. Then, last month, he decided federal money might not be so bad after all. He wrote a letter to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, saying that he was interested in federal early-education grants under the new K-12 education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act. He said the pilot had worked well and that the state was now ready to use federal funds to expand it.

EQUITY

Chris Christie Punches Poor School Children in the Face

In the last session of the Indiana General Assembly the state's legislators decided to provide more money to wealthy districts and less money to poor districts. Now, New Jersey's Chris Christie has done the same. It's what Republican "reformist" policy makers do.

Rick Riordan wrote in his young adult novel The Red Pyramid, "Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need." That, in a nutshell, is the difference between equality and equity. With equality every school gets the same. With equity every school gets what it needs. As long as our policy makers are unable, or unwilling, to deal with the massive level of child poverty in the country, our schools, and all our public services for children, need to focus on equity.

It is, of course, clear that impoverished urban areas need more money to provide a decent education to children hobbled by the impact of poverty, poor nutrition, poor health care, high crime rates and unemployment. Recognition of this is what made New Jersey a national leader in providing extra resources to urban schools through the Abbott decisions of three decades ago. Christie says that the urban schools are getting the extra money, but are under-performing. He should know since for the last six years many of those districts have been under his control and he has failed at every turn to make improvements...

Christie's one-size-fits-all plan for taxation does not meet our most basic understandings of fairness and justice.

TRAIN WRECK

Going Off the Rails

Corporate education "reform" is a train wreck failure. "Failing" schools closed throughout the country have been replaced with other schools that, based on "reformers'" favorite metric, test scores, were "failures."

No matter how hard you work, malnourished and traumatized children will not score as high on standardized tests as children of the wealthy. No matter how well trained the teacher is, children who lack medical and dental care will not learn as well. No matter how much you threaten, teachers alone cannot overcome all the deleterious effects of poverty, segregation, and racism.

How long will we keep feeding fuel to a train wreck?

At what point after a locomotive crashes should the engineer and fireman stop shoveling coal?

I would think the first priorities in the above scenario would be to clean up the wreckage, investigate the cause of the crash, and then work to correct the reasons why the train went off the tracks in the first place.

That’s if you believe train wrecks are generally something to be avoided.

Therefore, adding more fuel to the flame by continuing to shovel coal into a broken train engine would be rather idiotic, right?

FAILURE

The Failure of Failure

Alfie Kohn reminds us that progressive education works better than canned programs and "teacher–proof" scripts.

A few years ago, two researchers in Singapore published a study that compared the effect of traditional and progressive instruction in middle-school math. The traditional approach consisted of having students listen to lectures and individually solve practice problems with clearly defined right answers. The progressive approach was defined by collaboration, discovery, and open-ended questions.

If you’re surprised to learn that the latter turned out to be much more effective — producing “deeper conceptual understanding without compromising performance [on conventional measures of achievement]” across “a spectrum of. . .ability levels” — well, chances are you haven’t been following the research in this area. It’s long been clear that direct instruction and other traditional practices aren’t very effective in general and are particularly counterproductive with younger children.

VIRTUAL CHARTERS: GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD

A Call to Action to Improve the Quality of Full-Time Virtual Charter Public Schools

Virtual (online) charter schools are so bad even charter school advocacy groups admit it.

This report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers reinforces the fact that virtual charter schools are failures. Their solution? Have the public pay to continue the failed experiment through continued funding of such schools. Let the profit continue while the privatizers try to fix things.

The well-documented, disturbingly low performance by too many full-time virtual charter public schools should serve as a call to action to state leaders and authorizers across the country.

It is time for state leaders to make the tough policy changes necessary to ensure that this model works more effectively than it currently does for the students it serves.

It is also time for authorizers to close chronically low-performing virtual charter schools.

Our organizations plan to work actively with state leaders and authorizers as they embark on these efforts.

ADHD

When ADHD Collides With Grit: What to Do?

I grew up with untreated "minimal brain dysfunction" (the name for ADHD in the 50s and 60s)...and struggled as a student. I kept hearing "you're just lazy," "you need to try harder," and "you give up too easily." Year after year (decade after decade) of the same negative messages has a tendency to damage one's confidence (to say the least). It's still something I struggle with daily half a century later!

Demanding "grit" in students with ADHD is contraindicated. The one size fits all mentality (aka 'learn or be punished') damages our most vulnerable students and denies them of their right to an appropriate education.

...is today’s grit more punitive than helpful? Is it just an excuse to browbeat students into accomplishing unproven school agendas, or to insist that they put up with the lousy conditions adults fail to fix?

Think about the loss of recess. Is that supposed to teach grit?

In special education the goal for students with ADHD, or other differences, has always been about helping students find what they do best.

THE WAR AGAINST PUBLIC EDUCATION

Why the right hates American history

In light of Oklahoma’s recent attack on AP History, it would be easy to argue that today’s Republicans don’t recognize the value of a good education. However, the reality is that they do, and that the spreading attack on public education is far more sinister.

When the Patriot Act was signed, Bush and his ilk claimed the power to violate citizens’ private lives because, they said, there is no “right to privacy” in the United States. In that, they – perhaps purposefully – overlooked the history of America and the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776. And they missed a basic understanding of the evolution of language in the United States.

Of course, they weren’t the first to have made these mistakes. And, the Conservatives waging today’s war on education hope that they won’t be the last.

COMMUNITY SCHOOLS

A Community Is More of a Community When It Has a School

Public schools provide an anchor for communities. They provide stability for children...something lacking when "failing" schools – i.e. schools in poor communities – are closed and replaced by charters which don't do any better.

Local schools are important for both urban and rural communities. "Churn" and disruption might be good for business, but it doesn't help children.

...while a community school reflects and preserves the strengths of its community, it also reflects the problems and weaknesses as well. But I also know, and have seen with my own eyes, that a community is more of a community when it has a school, a place where all members of that community come together to care for and nurture one of their most precious resources—their children. In a democratic society, that has to count for something.

RTI FAILS

Response to Intervention Falls Short

I was talking to a former colleague last week – a special education teacher – about Response to Intervention (RtI) and how it isn't working. We agreed that it seemed to be a way of keeping children from getting the special educational services they deserved – saving the school system money.

Many schools and school systems adopted RtI plans because money needed to fully support special education services was inadequate – public schools are still waiting for promised federal support. There are just too many kids who need help, and not enough special education teachers – as well as not enough money to pay special education teachers – to go around.

If we, as a nation, actually cared about our children (as opposed to "my children") we would make sure that extra help was provided when needed. Instead we dump the impossible task of fulfilling every classroom need on overworked and under–supported classroom teachers...and then blame them when it doesn't work.

A US Department of Education study evaluated RtI and found that there was little research basis for using it as a method of helping students. In fact, the report reports that RtI was worse than ineffective. It actually made things worse for some students.

...this study examined over 20,000 students in 13 states and found that first grade students who received RTI actually performed worse than a similar peer group that did not. Instead of catching up to grade level, the students receiving RTI lost the equivalent of one-tenth of a school year. To quote one of the study’s authors: “[T]his turns out to be what RTI looks like when it plays out in daily life.”

iamcompucomp has posted this video on YouTube.

News about new video evaluation system of teachers. . . so teachers can be held accountable for delivery of results.

School Reform Foundation and Charter Teachers for the Future of America have a plan for teacher evaluation. Every reform cliche is turned on its head here, starting with "the strong correlation between student low performance and teachers having desks."

Some other highlights...

"We need an inquisition to make schools strong again."

..."with video replay and stop motion we can analyze every last twitch or spasm in transforming student outcomes."

"You're not hiding something are you?"

iamcompucomp says...

This stuff is for real. The Gates Foundation has invested $335 million in video evaluation of teachers: "The goal is to study what is taking place on a scientific level; to note what is working and what is not working... While we all wait for Superman to come along for our children and for the economy, we are fortunate to have those with the means reach out and do something about our failing schools http://groundupct.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/gates-foundation-invest-335-million-in-teacher-evaluation/."

I read the following passage a few days ago.

"What kind of professional wants to spend every working hour doing what research says is best for children and best practices only to be second guessed and overridden, asked to do things that aren't developmentally appropriate? (Can anyone say play in Kindergarten anymore?)" -- Natalie Holland

We (the American public) are going to get what we pay for. When teaching becomes (continues to become) simply reading the script and instruction on how to fill in bubbles, then we're going to get teachers who are adept at reading scripts and showing kids how to fill in bubbles.

Right now, in Florida, the attack on Public Education has reached a new level. Teachers will be judged by their students' scores on a test - experience doesn't count for anything. The politicians are pushing it through...and when it fails to close the achievement gap between rich and poor, as it surely will, teachers will, again, be the ones to blame.

It doesn't seem to matter what research into best practices says...

After 30 years of teaching I have watched a lot of teachers teach. I've seen good teachers and bad...exciting teachers and dull...quiet teachers and loud...dedicated teachers and indifferent.

But one thing that is true about every single person into whose classroom I've stepped...each teacher I've observed has brought something unique to his or her students...something of themselves which no one else could possibly bring.

And it's not just the uniqueness of his or her personality, though that's important...it's also the uniqueness of each teacher's teaching style. For example:

I've never seen anyone with the creativity of Mr. X. He created magic with his children as they explored the world through fascinated eyes. He used words designed to excite his students and they responded with excited vocabulary of their own.

There are very few teachers who have the quiet manner and kind demeanor of Mrs. Y. She has tamed the wildest child, eased hurts, calmed angers, and reached through frustrations to help each child achieve her highest potential. Her words were soothing, gentle, and encouraging. In her class children responded to nurturing by helping each other. They learned to use her calming words with their friends.

Mrs. Z. had more enthusiasm than anyone I've ever seen. She carried her primary students through singing, dancing, clapping, laughing, and running to the enjoyment of literacy and the thrill of learning. Her words captivated her students...and the children absorbed her excitement as she taught them to express themselves with feeling.

Every teacher brings their own gifts to their students. Each of us has something to offer our students as we talk and work with them day after day. Scripted teaching, saying what is written on a page that someone else has written because they claim it's the only way to get children to learn, takes away that uniqueness, even if only for a short time. It deadens the energy in the classroom and reduces the teacher to an emotionless robot.

Plato and Socrates were dynamic teachers not solely because of what they taught, but because of how they taught. How teachers teach exposes children to the myriad of personalities which people our world. How teachers teach has the potential to reach the most unteachable student and the most unwilling learner. Scripted instruction does none of that. It smothers a teacher's personality in someone else's words.

If we all approached teaching the same way, used the same techniques and the same words, we would lose the essence of why we use people to teach instead of computers. Isaac Asimov's short story "The Fun They Had" describes a society in which children learn from a computer called a teacher. Everyone learns the same thing in the same way. The point of the story is that there is something important in the natural interaction between adult and child. Scripted teaching removes that and demeans the humanity of teachers and learners.