Archives for category: Childhood, Pre-K, K
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Teachers: Common Core in Kindergarten Class

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2013 //
80

These comments were posted by a kindergarten teacher in response to a post about the Common Core English language arts standards:

I teach kindergarden. The five-year olds have an incredibly tight schedule to keep in our county: an hour of math, hour of science, 2 hours of language arts, half hour of social studies. We kindergarten teachers have had to sneak in rest time and social centers (such as puppets, blocks, housekeeping, playdough) which are so critical to their development.

My class has 13 out of 16 ELL students (Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Arabic & a dialect from India are all represented). Ten of them are free or reduced lunch (aka low socio economics). Two of them never went to preschool at all, and two are on the spectrum, one severely so. All of them have to read by the end of the year. All of them have been required to participate in two close reading activities which required writing sentences.

Both of my formal observations were done during the first 60 days of school. I was criticized because my students don’t do “turn & talk” correctly (they didn’t respond to their peer by telling them why they either agree with or disagree with them). I was evaluated as “lacking in pedagogy” because I asked them to give me facts from a kindergarten level book on stars and they repeatedly tried to tell me what they knew/thought. I was told I require action in pedagogy because the book I used to sing and act out verbs also included several words (such as jump, paint, swing, march, & slide) that were also nouns and because my students could not do charades without my assistance (which I gladly gave but caused that part of the lesson to go on too long). Apparently, my pedagogy went mysteriously missing over the summer, as I’ve never been criticized for that in any of my previous 20 years of teaching experience.

They have been forced to sit through the two close readings that go on for three days each and require them to write notes and then sentences to explain what they learned. My poor babies turned in papers with sentences made of fragments from our fact chart we had made, but they hung their heads because they couldn’t read the sentences they’d managed to write. I hugged them, told them they were great, and gave them chocolate. Then I reported that only 4 of my students passed….another poor reflection on my teaching.

If this is happening in kindergarten, I can only imagine what is happening in later grades. My school is set in a high socio-economic neighborhood and has been an A school for 12 years now; I shudder to think how this affects the less fortunate schools!

 

This comment came from another kindergarten teacher, responding to the post about the treatment of students with special needs:

I am a kindergarten teacher, stressed to the nth degree from having to push 5 year olds in ways that make my blood boil from the wrongness of it. It is immoral to ask 5 year olds to write facts from a story they are listening to and to write sentences when they are only learning to read & write!!

For trying to show that this is too difficult for my students during observations, I have been given far lower scores that I’ve ever received in 20 years of teaching.

Then there is the matter of my own sweet son. He is 12 years old, has ADHD and feels like a failure. His teachers tell me that his thinking in math and science amaze them; that he comes up with solutions and ideas that they have never thought of….yet he is failing because he forgets to hand in homework or write his name on papers, which is clearly the executive functioning skills which he lacks. They tell me he is immature and needs to repeat the grade, yet stay in gifted because he is so obviously bright….how can these coincide? He is already stressed because his failing grades and bullying on the bus, but now they want to retain him????

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core

Wisconsin Researchers: Poverty Influences Brain Development in Children

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2013 //
61

A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison concludes that poverty has an important negative effect on brain development among young children.

“Poverty may have direct implications for important, early steps in the development of the brain, saddling children of low-income families with slower rates of growth in two key brain structures, according to researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“By age 4, children in families living with incomes under 200 percent of the federal poverty line have less gray matter — brain tissue critical for processing of information and execution of actions — than kids growing up in families with higher incomes….The differences among children of the poor became apparent through analysis of hundreds of brain scans from children beginning soon after birth and repeated every few months until 4 years of age. Children in poor families lagged behind in the development of the parietal and frontal regions of the brain — deficits that help explain behavioral, learning and attention problems more common among disadvantaged children.”

The study found no differences at birth between children from homes with different income levels:

“The maturation gap of children in poor families is more startling for the lack of difference at birth among the children studied.

“One of the things that is important here is that the infants’ brains look very similar at birth,” says [Seth] Pollak, whose work is funded by the National Institutes of Health. “You start seeing the separation in brain growth between the children living in poverty and the more affluent children increase over time, which really implicates the postnatal environment.”

“The study used brain scans provided by the NIH’s MRI Study of Normal Brain Development, data that excludes children whose brain development may have been altered by a number of factors: mothers who smoke or drank during pregnancy, birth complications, head injuries, family psychiatric history and other issues. As a result, the findings may underestimate the actual deficit developed by a more representative sample of children from poor families.

“The study found no meaningful difference in gray matter between children of middle-income families and those from relatively wealthy ones.”

Studies like this make me wonder whether the billions and billions poured into phony “reforms” like VAM and privatization are a massive distraction (some might say hoax), diverting our attention to the #1 problem in our society: generational poverty.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Poverty

John Thompson: How Mayor de Blasio Can Fix Some of Bloomberg’s Failures

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2013 //
6

Historian-teacher John Thompson analyzes a recent review of the Bloomberg administration’s education initiatives and explains how the private education funders wasted $2 billion.

The great mistake of the Bloomberg administration was its unalloyed faith in accountability, the threats of punishment and sanctions.

As the budget expanded, the number of reading specialists for the early grades plummeted–“from 1,158 in 2002 to 637 in 2013.”

By contrast, “de Blasio respects experts who estimate that ’75 percent of the city’s four year olds — that is, about 73,000 children — would attend full-day pre-kindergarten if it were available and readily accessible.’ Wouldn’t it be nice if Bloomberg had invested billions of dollars filling that real-world need and not his personal need to sort and punish?”

Thompson is very hopeful that de Blasio sees a better path for school improvement–through support, early childhood education, and coordinated social services–not A-F grades for schools.

He writes:

“Now, New York City has a mayor who respects social science and understands the need to strengthen the social and institutional infrastructure of poor communities. Now, NYC “can counter the social isolation common in these poor neighborhoods and temper the impact of poverty and low social capital on educational failure and lifelong poverty.” Soon, researchers may not need to be so circumspect in choosing their words about the need for:

A targeted, neighborhood-centered approach to poverty would weave together school improvement with coordinated human services, youth development, high-quality early education and child care, homelessness prevention, family supports and crisis interventions.”

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Childhood, Pre-K, K, New York City

No, the District of Columbia Is Not a National Model

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2013 //
22

Despite its recent gains on the 2013 NAEP, the District of Columbia is not a national model.

It remains the lowest performing urban district in the nation.

Its policy of test-and-punish-and-fire have produced a startlingly high attrition rate among teachers.

Churn is not good for schools or for children or for building a culture of collaboration.

Few of the principals hired by Rhee remain in the system.

The real story in D.C.: Thanks to Mayor Vincent Gray, D.C. started universal pre-K, and it is showing benefits in the early grades. A writer in the Washington Post called Gray’s work “a staggering achievement.”

As for the rest of the story, read this article that I wrote for Talking Points Memo.

It is hard to imagine that anyone would want to copy a system built on striking fear into the hearts of teachers and principals.

No successful corporation–large or small– operates in that manner. The best of our nation’s business companies boast of how they carefully select new hires, support them, and pamper them with perks to make them happy in their work.

Success in schooling grows from collaboration, love of learning, experienced teachers and principals, equitable and adequate funding, and leadership that holds itself accountable for its decisions.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle

Greg Anrig: Why Universal Pre-K Makes Sense

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2013 //
10

Greg Anrig of the Century Foundation here refutes the criticisms of universal pre-K, particularly those published by Grover Whitehurst of Brookings, who was George W. Bush’s research director.

If you were reading this blog in 2012, you may recall that Whitehurst fired me as an unpaid senior fellow at Brookings–a position I had held for 15 years, on grounds that I was “inactive.” At the time, my book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,” was the #1 social policy book on amazon.com.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K

Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Randi Weingarten: Stop Testing Little Children!

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2013 //
39

Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Randi Weingarten have co-authored a terrific article about why little children should not be subjected to standardized testing.

They write:

Young kids learn actively, through hands-on experiences in the real world. They develop skills over time through a process of building ideas. But this process is not always linear and is not quantifiable; expecting young children to know specific facts or skills at specified ages is not compatible with how they learn. It emphasizes right and wrong answers instead of the developmental progressions that typify their learning. 

Young children need opportunities to engage in active, age-appropriate, play-based learning. They need to figure out how things work, explore, question and have fun.

Such experiences have been shown to have significant educational and social benefits for children. And studies show that early childhood education provides a high rate of return for society’s investment.

They explain that standardized testing is counter-productive for young children.

This should be read by policymakers, especially in Washington, D.C., and state legislatures.

Parents don’t need to read it, because they already know that standardized testing is inappropriate to “measure” their child’s readiness for college-and-careers, or for anything else.

Early childhood educators know it too. They have issued statement after statement decrying the insistence by policymakers that little children who barely know how to hold a pencil should pick a bubble.

It is time to stop labeling children as “successes” or “failures” based on what the testing industry determines is right for their age.

One day, we will see similar articles about standardized testing for students in grades 3-12.

Standardized tests have their uses for older children, but only as an audit function, not as a measure of the knowledge and skills of individual children.

Students should be tested primarily by their teachers, who know what they were taught. The teachers can get instant feedback and use the information from their tests to help students who need help, and to recognize where their teaching didn’t click.

Isn’t it amazing that we became a great nation without standardized testing?

The nation’s mad love affair with standardized testing reaches the height of absurdity when children in the early grades and in pre-kindergarten are subjected to the tests.

Carlsson-Paige and Weingarten are right: Stop now. Let the children learn and play and develop as healthy, happy human beings.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Standardized Testing

John King Opposes K/2 Testing

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2013 //
63

Amid massive parent protests against Common Core testing in grades 3-8, NY Commissioner John King announced the state’s opposition to K-2 testing, which was never mandated.

He said, “”We support the drive to prohibit standardized testing of pre K through 2nd grade students.”

That’s a step forward. Now let’s hope that he takes the next logical step and eliminates the dysfunctional educator evaluation program and throws out the state’s disastrous Common Core tests for grades 3-8. Any testing program that declares 70% of the children of the state to be failures is on its face absurd. If educators are declared “ineffective” when their students fail, then Commissioner King must be held accountable for this massive failure.

But let’s be glad for the end of the indefensible K-2 bubble tests.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, New York, Testing

“Reform” is Destroying Humane Values, Creating a Hatred for School

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2013 //
50

Raymond Gerson of Austin Community College sent this article, which expresses a growing recognition across the nation that federal and state education policies are ruining children’s lives and crushing the love of learning.

Gerson writes:

Scarcity of Humane Values in Educational Policies

By Raymond Gerson

Frequent high stakes testing, hours of test prep drills, large classes and reduction or elimination of art, music and P.E. are taking their toll on both students and teachers. School counselors have reported an increase in A.D.H.D., anxiety, depression and other psychological problems among students. Parents have reported that as early as elementary school their children are starting to hate school and are turning off. Many students are bored and stressed out from the constant pressure to perform on high stakes bubble tests.

Children begin school with a natural curiosity and intrinsic motivation to learn. Learning should be an enjoyable process which stimulates student imagination, creativity, ability to think for oneself and the ability to solve problems that have more than one right answer. This type of learning experience will prepare students to become well-informed and productive members of society and to work in good careers in the future. Many current educational environments are breaking the spirits of students and teachers and are turning off intrinsic motivation to learn and teach.

Many wealthy and powerful individuals (and organizations) with little or no teaching experience are influencing educational policies which are destructive. They are in favor of frequent high stakes testing, large classes, closing public schools and reducing courses in the arts except when it comes to their own children. Their children usually attend private schools with small classes, health support services, plenty of courses in the arts and little or no frequent high stakes standardized tests with hours of test prep drills. This is hypocritical and inhumane.

Children need to be emotionally healthy to live successful and fulfilling lives as adults. Development of their emotional and social intelligence are important if they are to grow into fully functioning adults with humane values. Values such as kindness, caring for others, love, integrity and compassion make us good human beings. Students will learn these values from the example of adults and by the way adults treat them. The way many students are being treated is lowering their sense of self-worth, diminishing their creativity, blocking their potential and teaching them to be less compassionate and empathetic.

Teachers should be allowed to teach and create their own lesson plans based on the curriculum that they are teaching. They need time to teach students to think for themselves instead of spending hours doing test prep. They also need time to collaborate with other teachers.

There are schools which are excellent models of education such as the one in Finland. Instead of modeling our education system after successful ones, the U.S. is following in the footsteps of educational systems like the one in Chile which is a “free market” disaster.

The changes that are needed for a great education system will not come from the top down until there is enough action and pressure from the bottom up. Students, parents, teachers and school administrators will need to protest in large numbers before the PTB will make necessary changes. An example of this occurred recently in Texas. Mothers who were angry about all of the high stakes testing convinced the state politicians to take action. They voted to reduce the amount of yearly standardized tests from fifteen to five.

Let’s reawaken a love of learning in our students, treat them with humane values and give our teachers opportunities to teach students to think for themselves.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Education Industry, Education Reform, Testing

Child Psychotherapist: How Common Core Is Ruining Childhood

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2013 //
20

Katie Hurley, who is a psychotherapist who works with children and adolescents, writes at Huffington Post that Common Core is having a harmful effect on students.

Her first discovery was seeing what happened to her own daughter:

“My daughter has four tests this week. Week after week she has at least four tests, one of them a high-pressure timed math factor test. If she gets more than one answer wrong, she repeats the same test the following week (which, by the way, is a great way to start an unhealthy competition among classmates). Some weeks, if they happen to finish a unit in social studies, science, or math, they also have a unit test. So now we’re up to five.

“What’s the big deal? She’s 6-years-old. This is first grade we’re talking about. For the first couple of weeks of school, it actually wasn’t a big deal. She’s never taken a test before, so there was no fear of incorrect answers or failure. As the daughter of a musician and a psychotherapist, she’s actually one of the lucky ones. There is no pressure to perform, academically or otherwise, in this house. We believe in creativity, low stress, and happiness.”

The stress is evident among teachers:

“So far the Common Core appears to be putting fear into teachers — they very people who care about, teach, and protect our children. I happen to know a lot of teachers. These are people who stay up entirely too late each night planning fun and engaging lessons for the following day. These are people who call me to seek help for those hard-to-reach students. These are people who hide first grade students in cabinets and sing them songs to keep them calm while a shooter wreaks havoc on their campus.

“Forget about all of that. Today teachers are being forced to follow a script. They teach to tests and fear job loss if they don’t see the expected results.

“The result of this test giving, job loss fearing style of teaching is written all over the faces of the little kids caught in the transition. The people behind the Common Core might think that they are ensuring college/career readiness, but what they are really ensuring is a generation of anxious robotic children who can memorize answers but don’t know how to think.”

She then gives five reasons why Common Core is ruining childhood. Read the article to see what they are.

Correct link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katie-hurley/5-reasons-the-common-core-is-ruining-childhood-_b_4153698.html

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core

Third Grader Prepares for the Global Economy

By dianeravitch
October 26, 2013 //
176

A mother sent this comment:

“Here is a problem my third-grader brought home (I had to read it 3 times, and it took ME forever to work this–forget an 8 year old):

“Easton has been raising vegetables in his garden all summer. He plans to sell some of his vegetables at a local farmer’s market.

“He has selected 24 radishes, 30 onions, 16 heads of lettuce and 25 tomatoes to sell. He wants to display the radishes together, the onions together, the lettuce together, and the tomatoes together, and to place them in sets with equal rows for each kind of vegetable.

“He plans to put each kind of vegetable in at least 2 rows. Show ALL the different ways that he can display equal rows for each kind of the vegetables at the market. Write an equation for each way you find.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core
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