Archives for category: Curriculum
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Math Professor: Why Our Freshmen Need Remediation

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2017 //
224

One of our regular readers, who is a member of a college mathematics faculty, sent this following comment about the state of math education today:

“I teach at a small four year college in NY. We administer a mathematics placement test to all incoming freshmen. The test we use was created in house and covers basic skills from algebra, trigonometry, and pre calculus. Questions are asked in a straightforward manner (unlike the current NYS common core based regents exams).

“Any student may take a statistics class (taught outside the mathematics department), regardless of placement score. However, we use the results of the placement test, high school coursework and individual discussions with the students to place students appropriately in the remedial algebra, college algebra, pre calculus, calculus sequence.

That said, fully 25% of our incoming freshmen place into remedial algebra–some should probably be placed lower than
remedial algebra, but we do not offer such a course. These students truly need the remedial work.

“The reasons why these students place low are varied. Some have not taken math courses for two years and have become rusty. Some students never really learned the material (the percentage of points required to pass the NYS regents exams is quite low and the tests are so poorly designed that scores are meaningless).

“I am continually bombarded by emails from companies who want to sell textbooks that combine remedial coursework with college credit coursework. Perhaps in some non STEM fields this approach works, but you cannot teach calculus to students who haven’t learned how to add fractions or who don’t understand basic laws of exponents.

“I do not blame their teachers. I blame a state system that shoves a scientific calculator in the hands of every fourth grader–before they’ve learned their multiplication tables, before they’ve learned how to add fractions, and before they’ve gained any practical sense of how numbers work, because apparently solving convoluted word problems is more important than understanding how numbers work. (Some never learn these basic skills–I have students in my classes who need a calculator to multiply 2 times 3).

“This same state system requires every student in algebra to have access to a graphing calculator with equally disastrous results. Calculator overuse is only a small part of the problem. The insistence that all students follow what used to be considered a college prep track and the subsequent rewriting of standards into a bizarre jumble of topics in which necessary skills and techniques are deemphasized in favor of solving pseudo “real world” applications are certainly major contributors.

“The regents exams have become a weird mishmash of questions with teachers left trying to guess all the permutations of how a question about a concept could be asked. I am afraid I have wandered off topic a bit. Anyway, many students truly do need remedial work that cannot be accomplished as part of another course. We do our best to get them through it and get them where they need to be mathematically. We are not 100% successful. Some simply do not have the ability, some do not make the effort, and saddest of all, some are just too far behind.”

Any comments from math teachers?

Categories Curriculum, Education Reform, Higher Education, New York

Georg Lind: Our Stupid Standardized Tests

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2017 //
13

Georg Lind is a retired psychologist.

“As a psychologist I recommend to abandon all tests based on Classical and Modern “test theories.” But I am not sure whether my colleagues at APA and AERA will agree with me. They make a living on applying traditional tests. Even those who critically examine test usage do not question their validity and their use in principle. They have not only vested interests but have not heard of possible alternatives to which they could switch. Critical scholars like Alan Schoenfeld, professor of math didactics and former president of APA, warn us of the use of psychometric methods but all they suggest is a moratorium of tests. I think we can do better.

“I am a retired German professor of psychology, having specialized in experimental and psychometric methods, besides my involvement in the study of moral-democratic competence and its application in education. Already during my study at university I developed some suspicion against Classical Test Theory and its modern variations (IRT, Rasch-scaling), on which nearly all tests are based. The better I understood these “theories” the more I discovered that they have nothing to do with scientific psychology. Prevailing test theories are a modern form of Vodooism with sacred rituals which are to make the people believe that our sorting and evaluating of people is something rational, scientific. It is not.

“Prevailing test theories fail an important standard of sound science: they cannot be falsified by data, they are immune against reality. If a test yields some anomalies, its items are replaced until the data fit the statistical dogma of reliability – regardless of the damage this “item analysis” does to the overall validity of the test. Because test makers have no real understanding of what they measure they cannot answer the basis question of validity: Does the test really measure what we intent to measure? Instead they invent all kinds of “validities” in order to save their assumptions.

“No wonder that these tests have all failed. They have little, if any, “prognostic validity”. Even much criticized teacher grading is a better predictor of college success. Moreover, no support can be found for the allegation that their use would improve teaching and learning. I have analyzed many studies of the effects of the high-stakes-testing which began with the Head Start program in 1965, the year when I was exchange student in the US. I could not find any support for this allegation. Some small, short-term increases of test scores occurred but they could be fully explained by growing test-wiseness and cheating. Therefore, tests have to be replaced by new versions at an ever faster rate.

“Then it was the first time I had to take a test as a school student. In Germany we had no multiple choice tests in school until PISA started. I was surprised how easy it was to get an A. To answer a 90-minute test, it took me just ten minutes. I did not know many of the answers, I just made guesses. Only much later I understood why my school-mates worked harder but got lower test scores. It was BECAUSE they worked harder. For me tests were just fun like cross-word puzzles. I was not obliged to get credits. For them tests were high-stakes. They scared the hell out of them and confused them. Peter Sacks has shown how test anxiety, students’ background and test scores are connected. Tests cannot compensate for student poverty, bad teacher-education and poor curriculum. On the contrary, they even seem to deepen these disadvantages.

“But, if tests are based on well-elaborated teaching goals and on sound psychology, and if they are used anonymously, they can be a great help for improving curriculum and teaching methods. If tests are not used for evaluating people (which I believe is a human rights issue), but for evaluating teaching method and content, and for improving teacher education programs, they can be a real blessing. I have shown how a valid test can help to multiply the effect size of methods for teaching moral competence. Just google for the experimentally designed Moral Competence Test. Its construction principle, Experimental Questionnaire, can be easily adapted for other fields of teaching.”

Categories Curriculum, Education Reform, Standardized Testing

Trainwreck: This Math Curriculum is a Giant Fail!

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2017 //
49

A parent in Mountain View, California, describes the disaster of the district’s digital math curriculum.

He writes:

“I live in Silicon Valley, which operates on the assumption that there’s no problem that technology can’t solve. It suffuses our culture here, and sometimes we pay the price for this technocratic utopianism. Case in point: Right now, I’m sending my kid to a public school in Mountain View, CA–the home of Google–where the administrators have upended the entire sixth grade math program. Last August, they abolished the traditional math program–you know, where students get to sit in a classroom and learn from a trained and qualified math teacher. And instead the administrators asked students to learn math mainly from a computer program called Teach to One. Run by a venture called New Classrooms, Teach to One promises to let each student engage in “personalized learning,” where a computer program gauges each student’s knowledge of math, then continually customizes the math education that students receive. It all sounds like a great concept. Bill Gates has supposedly called it the “Future of Math Education.” But the rub is this: Teach to One doesn’t seem ready for the present. And our kids are paying the price.

“A new article featured in our local paper, The Mountain View Voice, outlines well the problems that students and parents have experienced with the Teach to One program. I would encourage any parent or educator interested in the pitfalls of these “innovative” math programs to give the article a good look.

“If you read the article, here’s what you will learn. The Mountain View school district apparently budgeted $521,000 to implement and operate this new-fangled math program in two local schools (Graham and Crittenden Middle Schools). Had they adequately beta tested the program beforehand, the school district might have discovered that Teach to One teaches math–we have observed–in a disjointed, non-linear and often erratic fashion that leaves many students baffled and disenchanted with math. The program contains errors in the math it teaches. Parents end up having to teach kids math at home and make up for the program’s deficiencies. And all the while, the math teachers get essentially relegated to “managing the [Teach to One] program rather than to providing direct instruction” themselves.

“By October, many parents started to register individual complaints with the school district. By December, 180 parents signed a letter meticulously outlining the many problems they found with the Teach to One program. (You can read that letter here.) When the school later conducted a survey on Teach to One (review it here), 61% of the parents “said they do not believe the program matches the needs of their children,” and test scores show that this crop of sixth graders has mastered math concepts less well than last year’s. (Note: there was a big decrease in the number of kids who say they love math, and conversely a 413% increase in the number of kids who say they hate math.) Given the mediocre evaluation, the parents have asked for one simple thing–the option to let their kids learn math in a traditional setting for the remainder of the year, until it can be demonstrated that Teach to One can deliver better results. (Teach to One would ideally continue as a smaller pilot, where the kinks would get worked out.) So far the school district, headed by Ayindé Rudolph, has continued to champion the Teach to One program in finely-spun bureaucratic letters that effectively disregard parental concerns and actual data points. But the schools have now agreed to let students spend 5o% of their time learning math with Teach to One, and the other 50% learning math from a qualified teacher. Why the impractical half measure? I can only speculate.”

Read the article got links and stuff I did not post.

The district dropped the program, half-a-million dollars wasted.

Categories California, Curriculum, Parents

Eduardo Andere: A Report on the New Finnish Curriculum

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2016 //
10

Eduardo Andere is a Mexican researcher who has studied educational systems around the world. He wrote a book about teaching in Finland.

He is in Finland now, and he reports here about the new Finnish curriculum.

He responds to claims that subjects are de-emphasized, a concern we (I) knew nothing about. Until now.

He writes:

“Instruction subjects do NOT disappear in the new FINNISH peruskoulu curriculum. What happens is that the new curriculum for compulsory school education (effective as of 2016 for grades 1 to 6, and as of 2017 for grades 7 to 9) reinforces “multidisciplinary learning modules” where “integrative instruction” is promoted during all school years. Good to excellent teachers have known for a long time that multidisciplinary teaching and learning helps to connect subjects to real life experiences, “phenomena” or “themes” as the Finnish curriculum calls them.

“Teachers then use projects based on themes or class teaching plans that promote not only the knowledge of curriculum subjects but also transversal competences, i.e., those abilities that students need to develop in order to solve new problems and propose innovative solutions. Cross-fertilization from different subjects can help indeed. But teachers need to know their subjects in depth, and nobody is proposing their elimination (for the list of subjects in the new Finnish curriculum please look HERE). It is more about pedagogy than getting rid of subjects.

“In my opinion the new curriculum stresses three basic ideas: 1) invite teachers to combine subjects simultaneously or sequentially with the help of themes or phenomena; 2) cooperation, communication and coordination among teachers; 3) connection between theory, teaching and learning and real life examples meaningful to students’ own reality and context. For example, a theme for a class or school year or school project may be “water” or “pollution.” Both themes include aspects studied by different subjects: chemistry, biology, natural resources, physics, mathematics, law, social sciences, etc. Another theme may be “Art in the twentieth century”, and the subjects could be: art, history, social sciences, humanities, civilization. Another one, with a lot of meaning in Suomi is “Finland 100” as the Finnish will celebrate 100 years of independence in 2017.

Categories Curriculum, International

E.D. Hirsch Jr. Is Disappointed with Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
November 16, 2016 //
21

E.D. Hirsch, Jr. was the originator the Core Knowledge program and the author of the best-selling book, Cultural Literacy. He championed a knowledge-rich curriculum, believing that access to shared knowledge was necessary for all children. His book was very controversial when it appeared, because many academics and educators thought it was wrong to make up a list of words and phrases that “everyone should know.” But Hirsch persisted and continues to persist.

Using the proceeds from his book, he established the Core Knowledge Foundation and he issued lists of words and phrases for every grade. (I served on the board of the Core Knowledge Foundation in the 1990s.) When the Common Core standards were released in 2009, he lauded them, thinking that they embodied the essence of his philosophy.

Now, however, he has second thoughts. He sees the Common Core as the same contentless methodology that he always opposed.

For nearly three decades, E.D. Hirsch Jr. has been beating the drum on a simple idea, though one that’s proved a hard sell: To become good readers and communicators, U.S. students need a shared curriculum that teaches them about science, history, math, geography, literature, and the arts.

In other words, more than skills and strategies, students need knowledge.

His philosophy first came to the general public’s attention in 1987 when, as head of the English department at the University of Virginia, he wrote Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. The book included an appendix listing about 5,000 names, dates, places, and ideas—everything from the adrenal gland to zeitgeist—that students should learn in school.

The list made the book a best-seller—and it also made Hirsch persona non grata in plenty of liberal education circles. He was labeled Eurocentric and an elitist, and many wrote off his ideas entirely.

But Hirsch, an avowed liberal who champions the idea that having students learn the same things will lead to equal opportunities for all, hasn’t backed down. And now, at age 88, he’s at it again with a new book about the need for a knowledge-based curriculum. The book’s publication comes as Hirsch is seeing his theories rebound and creep their way into more schools, teacher trainings, and instructional materials—largely, many say, thanks to the Common Core State Standards.

But in Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children From Failed Educational Theories, Hirsch excoriates the education policies of the day, including—interestingly—the use of the common core.

The reading standards’ focus on all-purpose comprehension skills rather than content, while it may be politically necessary, is “a deep misfortune,” he said.

“It’s a pointless approach,” he concludes.

Categories Curriculum, Education Reform

Trump Tells the American Legion He Will Require Schools to Teach Patriotism

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2016 //
34

Donald Trump spoke recently to the American Legion and promised that he would restore the teaching of patriotism in American schools. No one can say anymore that he never mentions public schools.

A Trump administration, he said, would consult with the military veterans’ group to promote “pride and patriotism” in schools – “teaching respect” for the US flag and pledge of allegiance.

“That flag deserves respect, and I will work with American Legion to help to strengthen respect for our flag,” said Trump. “You see what’s happening. It’s very, very sad. And, by the way, we want young Americans to recite the pledge of allegiance.

“One country, under one constitution, saluting one American flag … always saluting,” he added. “In a Trump administration, I plan to work directly with the American Legion to uphold our common values and to help ensure they are taught to America’s children. We want our kids to learn the incredible achievements of America’s history, its institutions and its heroes.”

The call to “advance the cause of Americanism – not globalism” came as Trump reiterated the anti-immigration message at the heart of his campaign, which delighted core supporters and dismayed his few remaining Latino allies, who had expected a tack towards moderation.

You can be sure that Trump doesn’t know that the federal government is prohibited by law from interfering with or influencing what is taught in public schools. Since Arne Duncan ignored that part of the law by promoting Common Core, Trump must assume he can ignore it too.

Categories Curriculum, Trump

Just Published! A Revised Edition of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2016 //
17

I am very pleased to let you know about the publication of a newly revised edition of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

Perhaps you read it when it was first released in 2010. It was big news at the time, because I broke ranks with the conservative think tanks and policymakers who had once been my allies. I spoke out against the misuse of testing and the dangers of privatization. This was unexpected from someone who had been an Assistant Secretary of Education in the administration of President George H. W. Bush, who served as part of three conservative think tanks, and who had written many articles about the “crisis” in American education.

I thought I had made a clean break with the Bush-Obama agenda. But in time I realized that I had not completely escaped the old, failed way of thinking (like a state, tinkering with people’s lives from afar). The book continued my longstanding support for a national curriculum and predicted that it would be smooth sailing now that the culture wars were over. I was wrong again!

In this new revision of the book, I have removed any endorsement for a national curriculum or national standards or national tests, and I explain why. The controversy over the Common Core standards taught me that the U.S. will never have a national curriculum, and furthermore, should never have one.

I also explain why a national curriculum and national examinations will not reduce the achievement gap among different racial and ethnic groups and will not reduce poverty. The advocacy for them–from the same people who support privatization–continues to be an excuse for avoiding the issue of poverty. And I rewrote the chapter on “A Nation at Risk,” showing how it dodged the most important issues in our society, which were economic and social, not educational.

Yes, there is a “crisis” in education, but it is not a crisis of test scores or failing schools. The crisis is caused by policymakers, federal officials, foundations, and business leaders who are imposing failed ideas on the schools. These impositions are hurting students, teachers, principals, communities, and public education itself. They have failed and failed, again and again, but those who support the Bush-Obama agenda of competition, choice, testing, and accountability refuse to re-examine their assumptions. Their inability to recognize their own failure has created disruption (which they admire), turmoil, and massive demoralization among educators.

I hope you will consider reading the book. I think that D&L continues to speak with passion to the terrible and real crisis in American education, a crisis caused by non-educators who want to turn our schools into job-training units, who want to emphasize standardized testing to the detriment of students, educators, and public schools, and who foolishly think that privatization will improve education.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Standardized Testing

Will Fitzhugh: Why Students Should Read a Work of History in High School

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2015 //
14

Will Fitzhugh is the tireless publisher and editor of The Concord Review. He taught history in a public high school for many years, then stepped away from teaching to found The Concord Review. TCR publishes student work in history, original research papers that are well-written and reflect deep study. It has subscribers all over the world and submissions from students from many countries. It is a fine publication that recognizes the value of excellent historical studies in high school. But Fitzhugh has struggled throughout the life of TCR to keep it alive. He has applied to and been rejected by every foundation and government agency that he could think of. The journal gets plaudits from all who see it, but Will Fitzhugh has exhausted his savings keeping it alive. He is a man with a mission. Please consider subscribing to TCR and make sure that your history students are aware that they can submit essays for possible publication. If you happen to have a foundation, please consider subsidizing this wonderful publication so it will survive. TCR “is the only quarterly journal in the world to publish the academic research papers of secondary students.” It should be in every high school.

 

 

Will Fitzhugh wrote in the December 2015 issue of TCR:

 

 

When teachers say they have to spend so much time preparing for math and reading tests that they cannot give any attention to history, I always want to suggest that if they give their students history to read, they will not only get practice in reading, they will learn some history, too.

 

When some argue that only in literature can one find good stories of human fears, troubles, relationships, hopes, competition, and accomplishments, I have to believe that reading history was not a big part of their education.

 

I was a literature major in college, and only came to read history seriously afterwards. No one emphasized the benefits of history when I was in school. And I realize that the appreciation of history is a bit cumulative. That is, when a student first reads history she doesn’t know who these people are or what they are doing or why that might be important to know.

 

Teachers have to assume some responsibility for expressing their assurance that history is not only interesting but also essential—that is, if they are aware of that themselves. Things go slow in learning any new language. Students can’t love French poetry or Chinese philosophy right away. They have to work to learn the language basics first.

 

That goes for history as well. But after reading history for a few years, people and events come to be more familiar, and the chronology turns out to be no more difficult and perhaps even more interesting than irregular verbs.

 

People rightly defend the stories in literature. But history is nothing but stories, too, with the difference that they are true stories, about actual people, who faced and coped with real problems of very great difficulty, with varying degrees of wisdom and success.

 

These are the people and the stories who form the basis of the civilization the students have inherited, and neglecting them does indeed rob students of an important part of their birthright.

 

I believe high school students in particular, with whom I am most familiar, having taught in high school for ten years, should read at least one complete history book a year. After all, many of these students are reading Shakespeare plays, studying calculus, and perhaps Chinese and chemistry, so a good history book should be easy, and perhaps a bit of a break for them as well. And not only would they learn some history in the process, but they would experience some exemplary nonfiction writing at the same time. All our students deserve such opportunities. And most are now denied them.

Categories Curriculum

Why Literature Matters

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2015 //
16

In response to an earlier post about the decline in teaching fiction since 2011, and to the limits on fiction set in the Common Core standards (not more than 30% of instructional time in high school), a reader named Laura responded in a comment. Why limit fiction? Why does it matter? I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Laura writes:

“The study of literature (i.e. fictional texts) is essential to the development of critical thinking. When a student engages with a piece of literature, the student must step into the shoes of someone else and evaluate the decisions made and the actions taken by that character. When we teach literature, we teach students to hypothesize by making predictions, and we teach students how to synthesize different pieces of information in a way that makes sense. With literature, students learn how to understand and how to make analogies, thereby developing their ability to compare and contrast ideas as well as to evaluate those comparisons and contrasts.  

“Literature provides the opportunity for students to understand human relationships as well as historical events in a way that is more personal and more accessible. I know a student is hooked when the student says, “This character is just like X in my life.” When a student can identify with a character and with a story, then a reader is created, and that reader will go on to read anything else they encounter in the world. Therefore, literature allows students not only to develop their vocabulary and their reading comprehension skills but to develop a consciousness as a member of a larger community of people. It allows students to access different perspectives, and especially on controversial issues, this can sometimes be the only point of access that a student might have.  

“Gates, Walton, Broad, Zuckerberg, et al are not interested in critical thinkers who might question their decisions. They want human drones who have enough tech skills to produce but not enough critical thinking skills to challenge the way things are.  

“Anyone who views literature as an option is misguided. Literature is absolutely and fundamentally essential to an educated populace and to democracy.”

Categories Curriculum, Education Reform

Tom Loveless: Teaching Fiction Has Declined Since 2011, Likely Because of Common Core

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2015 //
103

Tom Loveless, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has studied NAEP results for years. In this post, he discusses whether the recent flatlining of NAEP was caused by the adoption of the Common Core standards. He says it is too soon to know. We will have to see what happens in 2017 and 2019, maybe even 2021.

 

But what he does observe is a marked decline in teaching fiction, as compared to informational text. The decline has occurred since 2011, as implementation of Common Core intensified across the nation. The shrinkage of time for teaching fiction was equally large in both fourth and eighth grades. It seems reasonable to conclude that the Common Core standards are causing a decline in teaching fiction.

 

The Common Core standards recommend that teachers spend 50% of reading time on fiction and 50% on informational text in grades K-8. In high school, the standards propose a division of 30% fiction-70% informational text. When English teachers and members of the public complained about the downgrading of fiction, the CCSS promoters insisted that they referred to the entire curriculum, not just to English. But fiction is not typically taught in science, math, or social studies classes (and when it is taught in social studies classes, it has a good purpose).

 

Where did these proportions come from? They are drawn directly from NAEP’s guidelines to assessment developers about the source of test questions. The NAEP guidelines were never intended as instructions for teachers about how much time to devote to any genre of reading.

 

No nation in the world, to my knowledge, directs teachers about the proportion of time to devote to fiction or non-fiction. This is a bizarre recommendation.

 

I write informational text, so I am all for it. But I think it should be the teachers’ choice about whether to emphasize literature or nonfiction. I believe that learning to read and learning to interpret text can be accomplished in any genre. A student could study all informational text or all literature and be a good or great or poor reader. The genre doesn’t matter as much as other factors, like the student’s level of interest, the age appropriateness of the text, and how it is taught.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Common Core, Curriculum, Teachers and Teaching
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