Yesterday the National Research Council released a report supporting the need to develop what it calls “deeper learning,” drawing on cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, and interpersonal skills. All of this sounds swell, excellent, worthy of doing and endorsing. I’m for it. Yes, yes, yes.

But I could not help but be reminded of something I wrote a few years ago. It was in response to a great hullaballoo about 21st century skills. The hullaballoo grew so insistent and so loud that I did my contrarian thing and decided that what we are really missing in our society is what I thought of as 19th century skills.

I don’t know how different they are from 21 century skills, but they are worth talking about, and I would say, defending.

Everytime I dial a business on the telephone and get one of those endless loops, I find myself missing an earlier era when you could call and actually talk to a human being. When I get extra frustrated with the loop, I start shouting, “Human being, human being.” But that’s not the magic word, so they send me back to the beginning of the loop.

But why stop in middle of the 20th century.

Why not a Partnership for 19th century skills? Here is what I wrote for the Core Knowledge blog in 2009:

The Partnership for 19th Century Skills

A reader writes:

I just finished watching Mitt Romney’s speech to the NAACP. I would say that more time was spent talking about education, and he used charter schools as the solution to the problem. It was essentially a “why charters are great” speech.  I wish his people would read this post by you. If charters are so successful with these policies, why not grant traditional public schools the same privileges? Oh, it’s not about these policies. It is about busting the union and getting rid of the older ($$$) teachers.

I reviewed Romney’s education plan in the New York Review of Books. It’s a blueprint for privatizing education at every level. Romney buys the phony narrative that our schools are failing and don’t need any new money. He says we spend enough already. But he plans to ask for new money for charters, vouchers, and online schools. In his views, they don’t have enough money.

Research is clear that there is very little difference in the comparative performance of charters and public schools when they educate the same kinds of children. However, charters get better results when they spend more money and keep out those troublesome kids who don’t read English, who have special needs, and who are behavior problems. Vouchers make no difference, although Romney doesn’t know that. And online charters get abysmal results.

So, if it is results you are after, Romney’s plans will be a disaster.

I posted a very important commentary this morning by researcher Ed Fuller of Penn State University about the Center for American Progress’ “study” claiming that American schools are “too easy.” Fuller is an expert at statistical analysis and he pulled the study apart to show that the best students said it was “too easy” and that the conclusions of the report were unfounded.

Fuller sent me the following postscript and I thought it was too important to bury as a P.S. in the original post. What he writes is symptomatic of education commentary in general. Everyone is an “expert” when it comes to education because they were once in school. Everyone who has made a lot of money in real estate or insurance or technology or selling shlock feels they have the right to “reform” the schools attended by Other People’s Children. Every think tank desk-jockey knows how teachers ought to teach, even if they have never taught or taught for a year. In no other field where expertise matters are the practitioners bombarded and undermined by the mandates of know-it-alls without relevant knowledge and experience.

That’s the context in which to read what Ed Fuller wrote to me this morning:

Two additional points need to be made that are not related to the report per se.

First, it seems to me that education research is one of the few fields where people with no training in either education or education research feel comfortable conducting “research” and can have their views blindly accepted by politicians, pundits, and the public. Thankfully, no one would invite me to run a bank, be a journalist, edit a newspaper, or make economic policy. It would be a disaster. Yet, evidently anyone can enter the world of education research and conduct shoddy work and have the findings widely accepted.

Second, the media needs to slow down and spend some time investigating the quality of the research and researcher regardless of whether the research originates from a think tank, university, or individual researcher. The education writers in Texas with whom I am familiar are generally a great example of journalists that spend some time doing some background work to get the story right. The Education Writers Association has recognized the problem of media reporting bad research has adopted a number of strategies and policies to help journalists improve upon this situation. EWA should be commended for recognizing and acting on this problem. Unfortunately, EWA cannot reach all journalists. Ultimately, this is why the peer-review process is so important–it helps weed out bad research such as the CAP study.

It’s not too late to register for a full-day conference where you can learn how to get rich investing in education. You can still register to find out how big equity investors are making profits in education and plan to make even more.

Of course, you must come up with $1,395 if you want to be there. Or you can shell out only $495 to get the audio.

You can rub shoulders or elbows or knees with middle-size names on Wall Street. Real live hedge fund managers, the guys who think that charter schools will save the schools from lazy tenured teachers who get paid just to have years of experience and degrees.

The location is secret, for obvious reasons. Wouldn’t want the rabble to walk around with signs protesting the privatization of education or complaining about vulture capitalists or other hurtful things.

But it will definitely happen in New York City on July 26. Somewhere.

And it is your opportunity to cash in on the big money stream attached to education. Billions of dollars now going to public entities, just waiting to be tapped by entrepreneurs with big ideas. The opportunities are endless.

May I say, speaking just personally, that this is the one thing in education that makes me maddest. I can’t remember a time in our history until recently when there were K-12 for-profit schools and for-profit “universities.”

I received this comment from one of the active members of SOS. I am glad she mentioned that Jonathan Kozol will be speaking at the SOS event, which takes place from August 3-5 in D.C.. Jon was riveting last year. And the great thing about hearing Jon is that he will make clear who is really leading “the civil rights movement of our time.”

Thank you, Diane, for taking the time to tell your readers about the Save Our Schools People’s Convention.

I will be attending the Save Our Schools People’s Convention in Washington, DC again this year.  One of the highlights last year was listening to you speak.  You will be sorely missed this year AND we can hardly wait to read your new book!

I also look forward to hearing Jonathan Kozol speak. I believe the issue of civil rights is at  the very core of education reform and Jonathan’s work will lead us to create a 21st century model that puts civil rights in the driver’s seat.  While corporate reformers tout their ideas as a means of achieving civil rights, the policies they have mandated have effectively segregated America’s schools to a point worse than the 1950’s.  This “savage” impact is what drives many of us who are battling corporate reform.

As a kindergarten teacher, I look forward to being part of the work that needs to be done in early childhood education with Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Deborah Meier.  The expectations of the corporate reformers curriculum is completely out of touch with child development.  These experts are champions for the whole child and their contributions to our conference will be key in the early childhood education platforms we will be creating.

Since last year’s conference, not a day goes by that I do not have contact with the many wonderful people across the country with whom I made connections with at the Save Our Schools March last year.

In fact, these connections have often put information I needed to inform others right at my fingertips, as I have resources now through people like yourself, Anthony Cody, Mike Klonsky, Dave Greene, Steve Krashen, Nancy Flanagan, Teacher Ken Bernstein, and Deborah Meier within minutes if I need them.  And I have needed all of these connections this year, believe me!

By making these connections at last year’s Save Our Schools Conference, these resources have helped me educate other stakeholders and provide evidence in my state that has made a huge difference in my ability to argue against corporate reforms.

More than anything, when I have been weary from this uphill battle, these connections have instantly stepped in to encourage me.  I have struggled, as many teachers have in deciding whether to continue working in this profession due to the oppressive nature of education reform on the children I work with daily.

These individuals  I met at Save Our Schools have taken the time out of their busy lives to make a phone call or send an encouraging word via email, Twitter, or Facebook that has lifted my spirits and help me lead others in this fight for equality.  I have all of you who came to Save Our Schools to thank for this support, for it would be very difficult to maintain this level of service without that encouragement.

For me, the speakers and workshops will be exciting.  The work on platforms will hopefully unify our vision to begin the work of taking back public education from the corporate reformers.  Many who dismiss us critique us for being “naysayers”.

Personally, I think we need both:  As you do on your blog, we need to be critical of education reform, working to show the public what does not work and why.

We also need to show the public, through compare and contrast: what works and what does not.

To do that, we need to come together to create our vision of what DOES work.  Once we come together as stakeholders to create that vision, that example, our real work can begin. Using example vs non-example will be the key to the public understanding what is at the heart of our mission.  After all, what do we do best?  Teach.

As educators, parents, and students —-  all stakeholders and the real OWNERS of this public good called PUBLIC schools have been shut out of the policy making, shut out of the curriculum [the standards] and shut out of the pedagogy [the art and science], as corporations have taken over our public schools.

Save Our Schools People’s Education Convention hopes to give the people a voice in creating a vision, to define what the real purpose for education is in America, and what a 21st century education would look like to support all stakeholders.

This is a great goal.  Whether we accomplish this entire goal at the convention remains to be seen.  What will be accomplished will be a start towards creating that vision.  I am excited to see the results.

I know those of us attending are ALL invited to be participants on Twitter’s LIVE #SOSchat on Tuesday, August 7th  at 9 pm EDT to report back to the public about our Save Our Schools People’s Education Convention.  I hope you can join us that night, Diane to hear about the event and discuss what we accomplished as a group.

Whether we accomplish the great goal of creating a vision and the first steps of how to achieve our vision remains to be seen, but I know one thing:

The national connections we make at the Save Our Schools convention will carry us through another year and years to come to continue the work that needs to be done to “Save Our Schools”; for the people who attend are able to communicate, build relationships that are lasting, inform each other of the effective ways those working to end corporate reform, encourage one another when the uphill battle is challenging, work together on brainstorming new strategies, and create actions that serve the people of America.

For me, this is the most important and most positive impact the convention will have.  We need ALL stakeholders at this convention.  I hope your readers will join us.

Last year I participated in the first Save Our Schools March in D.C.

It was a wonderful event.

This year, there will be another Save Our Schools March in D.C.

Some of the same speakers will return: my wonderful colleague Deborah Meier and the great teacher-educator Nancy Carlsson-Paige will speak, along with many others. I won’t be there because I am working hard on a new book and minimizing travel (and writing this blog, which is very time-consuming but keeps my spark plugs running).

The event is August 3-5. There is a group rate at the Marriott-Wardman Hotel.

If you live near D.C., or if you can get there, I urge you to attend. Join with others who care about the future of our schools and our children.

You can get more information here: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/

The story below appeared this morning in the NY Post. It refers to a judge’s decision not to overturn the ruling of an independent arbitrator who stopped the Mayor from firing half the staff at 24 “turnaround” schools. The Mayor has had one very simple strategy to “help” schools and “save” students: He closes them. This time, to qualify for federal funds, he decided to “turn around” the schools by firing half the staff (no negative evaluations, just bad luck).  The union and the city went into binding arbitration and the Mayor lost. You can see from the article below that the city honestly believes it is giving schools “the help they so desperately need” by firing half the staff. This is called “reform” in the era of NCLB-Race to the Top. Burn the village down to save it. Or, in this case, burn down only half the village.

Bloomberg getting
a fresh ‘ed’ache

Yesterday a report appeared by the Center for American Progress asserting that “schools are too easy.” It was widely reported in the national media. See here, here, here, here, and here.  For some reason, the media love stories that say either that our kids don’t know anything or they aren’t working hard enough. We have to turn up the pressure, raise standards, make the tests harder, test them more often. And then, when the schools devote every day to testing and test preparation, and when the arts and physical education have been eliminated to make more time for test prep, we don’t understand why kids don’t like school!

Ed Fuller, a superb researcher at Penn State University, was curious about the validity of these findings. He decided to review the Center for American Progress study. He decided that it did not provide evidence to support its conclusions. In a follow-up comment, Ed summarizes his critique thus: Essentially, if one wants to make policy conclusions based on simple frequencies, the take away from the data would be that we need to make math classwork easier because students reporting math work is easy have much greater math scores than students who report math work is difficult. While there may be evidence we need to increase the quality of our curriculum, the evidence just is not in this report or in the NAEP survey data.

Here is his analysis:

Yesterday, the Center for American Progress released a report entitled, “Do School Challenge Our Students?” The essential take-away, in the words of the authors, is that, “Many students are not being challenged in school.” Based on the authors’ analysis of student survey questions from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP (http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/), additional findings include:

1. “Many schools are not challenging students and large percentages of students report that their school work is “too easy.”
2. “Many students are not engaged in rigorous learning activities.”
3. “Students don’t have access to key science and technology learning opportunities”
4. “Too many students don’t understand their teacher’s questions and report that they are not learning during class.”
5. “Students from disadvantaged background are less likely to have access to more rigorous learning opportunities.”

Let me address a few of the many, many problems with this report.

First, the authors missed multiple opportunities to analyze the data and chose to rely on simple cross-tabulations and frequency counts. Anyone who has taken a Research 101 course can tell you, one of the first important rules is to not make conclusions based on frequency counts. More on the missed opportunities later in this post.

Second, the authors’ conclusion that students are not being challenged in school is based on the results from one question posed to students that asked, “How often do you feel the math work in your math class is too easy?” At the 4^th grade level, the authors bemoan the fact that 37% of students thought the math work was “often” or “always or almost always” too easy. At the 8^th grade level, the comparable percentage was 29%. The authors continue by arguing that this unchallenging work results in far too few students—40% at 4^th grade and 35% at 8^th grade–meeting the NAEP proficiency standard.

This is problematic because (a) the NAEP proficiency standards are an arbitrary score with little or no correlation with any student outcomes (Gerald Bracey and many others have mentioned the flaw in using NAEP proficiency scores to argue low student performance); and, (b) the authors fail to point out that 46% of the 4^th grade students reported that math class work was too easy “almost always or always” achieved proficiency as compared to only 33% meeting proficiency who responded that math work was “never or hardly ever too easy.” According to the logic used by the authors, we would increase the percentage of students meeting proficiency by making math work easier.

Third, the authors report that only 65% of middle-school students reported that they were “always or almost always” learning in their math class. Conveniently, the authors fail to mention that an additional 24% of students that they were “often” learning in math class. In other words, 89% of middle school students said they were “often” or “always or almost always” learning in math class. Sounds pretty good to me.

Fourth, the authors claim that data showing poor and minority students are more likely to report difficulty in understanding teachers’ questions than their more affluent and White peers is evidence that poor and minority students need greater access to more rigorous learning opportunities. While I would strongly agree that poor and minority students need greater opportunity to learn, this data says nothing about more rigorous curriculum.  Certainly a more plausible explanation is that less qualified teachers are placed in schools with high proportions of poor and minority students and that poor students often have more trouble understanding teachers for a variety of factors wholly unrelated to the rigor of the curriculum (for example, see David Berliner’s work on the effects of poverty on students’ vocabulary). In fact, none of the data speaks to a more rigorous curriculum other than course enrollment—data that the authors completely ignored.—and that data shows only small differences in the percentage of students saying coursework is too easy across different classes. Essentially the same percentage of students said coursework was too easy in both Algebra I and basic math.

Fifth, the authors could have examined the correlations and scatter-plots between different variables and even employed simple regression analyses using state-level means. Without such steps—as mentioned before—incorrect conclusions can be drawn. Even with such steps, the data preclude any definitive answers from being reached. But let’s take a look at what such analyses would tell us:

–the greater the percentage of students reporting that math class was interesting and engaging, the greater the percentage of students reporting that math work was easy;

— the greater the percentage of students reporting that math work was easy, the greater the percentage students reported that they were learning in class.

Further, all of these factors were positively associated with test scores for both poor students and their more affluent peers. So, one plausible theory would be that students in math classes that are made interesting perceive such classes as easier and lead to students perceiving increased learning and having greater actual scores. However, note that the results of a regression analysis reverses the sign for all these factors after the percentage of poor kids is included, meaning these variables are negatively associated with state-level scores)).

Of course, this was at the state level rather than the student level. The NAEP data doesn’t allow for cross-tabulations at the student-level for these variables which is what the authors would need access to in order make some conclusions based on actual evidence. In fact, in another section of the report, the authors state, “The data should not, however, be treated as causal research, and the responses from students could be skewed by other factors.” But that does not stop them from making some sweeping conclusions and pushing policies to meet needs that are not well understood.

Ultimately, this report appears to have been a bundle of conclusions in search of some supporting data. After performing some serious data contortions and giant leaps of association, the authors made their point. Should anyone listen? Only when we have concrete evidence from some solid research.

Ed Fuller is an Associate Professor in the Educational Theory and Policy Department in the College of Education at Penn State University.

P.S. Ed pointed out to me that the lead author of the study is a journalist, not an expert in statistical analysis.