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Help NPE Continue the Fight for Our Students, Our Teachers, Our Public Schools: We Won’t Back Down

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2017 //
5

Please take the time to read this letter from Carol Burris, the CEO of the Network for Public Education and the NPE Action Fund.

Carol describes NPE’s plans to continue the struggle for our public schools.

We know what the DeVos agenda is, and we know she will tout the failed remedies of corporate reform.

Make no mistake: corporate reform is the status quo! It has had the unrelenting support of the U.S. Department of Education since 2001. It has the support of a long list of billionaires and foundations. Federal policy from NCLB TO Race to the Top to ESSA is the status quo. It is policy built on the assumption that schools will get better if the state threatens teachers and principals with punishments and rewards. Many schools have been stigmatized and closed based on false assumptions. Many educators have unfairly been terminated based on flawed evaluation methods.

We want to create a strong and powerful grassroots network of defenders of public education. We want to help you connect with allies in your state, your district, your hometown.

We now have more than 300,000 members, ready to join in our crusade. Be strong and join with us. (“Somewhere beyond the barricades, is there a world you’d like to see?” Les Miserables). Is there a different, better kind of school you’d like to see? We can dream it. We can do it. But first we must survive the next four years.

Diane

Categories Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Real Education, Resistance

Pasi Sahlberg on the Beauty of Small Data

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2016 //
24

Pasi Sahlberg is the great Finnish educator whose book Finnish Lessons gave us a vision of a nation that succeeds without high-stakes testing, without standardized testing, and without charter schools or vouchers. He wrote of highly educated teachers who have wide scope and autonomy in their classrooms and who collaborate with their colleagues to do what is best for their children. He wrote of a national school system that values the arts, physical activity, and play. And, lo and behold, the OECD calls it the best school system in the world!

 

So entranced was I but what I read about Finland that I visited there a few years ago and had Pasi as my guide. The schools and classes were everything he claimed and more.

 

Pasi, like many other education experts, is aghast at the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) that has swept the world. The agency that has spread GERM far and wide is international testing, the great horse race that only a few can win. Since most are losers, the frenzy for more testing becomes even stronger.

 

Pasi suggests a different approach. Instead of Big Data, produced by mass standardized testing, why not search for small data? 

 

Here is Pasi’s thumbnail sketch of the contrast between Big Data and small data:

 

Big data is a commonly used term in daily discourse that often comes with a label that big data will transform the way we think, work, and live. For many of us, this is an optimistic promise, while for others it creates anxiety and concern regarding control and privacy. In general terms, big data means data of very large size to the extent that its manipulation and management present significant practical challenges.
The main difference between big and small data in education is, of course, the size of data and how these data are collected and used. Big data in education always requires dedicated devices for collecting massive amounts of noisy data, such as specific hardware and software to capture students’ facial expressions, movements in class, eye movements while on task, body postures, classroom talk, and interaction with others. Small data relies primarily on observations and recordings made by human beings. In education, these include students’ self-assessments, teachers’ participatory notes on learning process, external school surveys, and observations made of teaching and learning situations.

 

To watch and listen to Pasi, introduced by Howard Gardner, here is the lecture he gave at Wellesley College in October. 

Categories Data, Education Reform, International, Real Education, Teachers and Teaching

Frank Breslin: Stop to Think About What Education Should Be

By dianeravitch
November 30, 2016 //
28

Frank Breslin has been writing a series of essays for the Huffington Post about “Teaching the Greeks.” He taught the classic s and German before he retired.

He is one of those rare educators who doesn’t think about rubrics, data, or test scores.

He thinks about education, in its deepest sense. The drawing out of meaning from words and experiences of others.

In this essay, he explains how to teach Greek literature.

Here is a snippet of his lesson:

Greek is clear, brief, cerebral, and to the point — almost chilling in its austerity. It sees the beauty of common things and contents itself with the majesty of their unadorned simplicity. It has no use for ornament, exaggeration, or poetic license, and uses adjectives, imagery, and metaphors sparingly. It is like reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus in that its appeal is solely to the mind and does not condescend to emotionalize issues. In translating Greek into English, one should strive to be literal, for literality is the essence of the aesthetic experience in reading Greek.

Greek places great demands on its readers, who must work out for themselves implications which are often unstated. This compressed style may prove difficult for those new to the subject, since the author may be writing for the few. The unfortunate result is that some readers may become exhausted by the sustained level of concentration, lose the thread of the argument, and stop reading.

This is a common temptation, but if one persists, one begins to make headway. If one has had three years of high-school Latin, many of the problems of learning Greek have already been solved, since their grammatical structure is roughly the same. For those interested, Crosby/Schaeffer’s An Introduction to Greek is a solid beginner’s text, after which one might try a student edition of Xenophon’s Anabasis, and then Plato’s Apology.

Hebrew, on the other hand, appeals to the emotions by the stylistic devices of repetition, cadence, and a profusion of imagery, all of which cast a mood of enchantment over the reader. One need not work out the implications oneself as with Greek since the repetition of the same idea in different words and varied imagery will suggest additional perspectives, which might not have occurred to one reading Greek in English translation.

The problem with Hebrew, however, is that some may find it insufficiently analytical to examine its subject critically and be left with only an emotional response. Some prefer the Greek style of writing, and others the Hebrew. Each tries to affect its readers in different ways, and both are effective.

Are people convinced more by reason or emotion? Can a syllogism make converts? Why do some prefer rational arguments, while others favor emotional ones? What is each group seeking? Is it ethical to move people emotionally, or is this the only way of moving the heart? Can art transform someone’s life and convictions? If you feel that it can, make a case that art should never be censored. Then argue the converse.

Should artists and writers be political? Should they serve the interests of the haves or have-nots, or should they be apolitical? If writers use their art to defend or attack the status quo, is that more honest than not speaking out and tacitly endorsing the way things are? Are the poor automatically in the right and the powerful in the wrong? In some countries, writers are the national conscience. What are they in America?

“Orator fit, poeta nascitur.” (“An orator is trained; a poet is born.“) Is this true, or an attempt to romanticize poets? What are the dangers of being a writer? Why do some writers fear success? What are some ways that an artist can “sell out”? What are some subtle ways for a government to control or silence a writer? What is the best kind of education for young writers and artists? Are writers the voice of the people, or of themselves alone?

Chapter 5

1. What is the meaning of the phrase “Nolo episcopari“?

“I don’t want to be made a bishop.” Is this solemn profession a foolproof way of weeding out unworthy candidates for high ecclesiastical office? What qualities of mind, heart, and spirit should such a candidate have? Should he or she be chosen by church authorities or the people? What are the pros and cons of each method? “I care not whether a man is good or evil; all that I care is whether he is a wise man or a fool. Go! Put off holiness, and put on intellect.” Good advice by William Blake for choosing a bishop? What are good reasons for wanting power? Are these reasons rationalizations? What are some bad reasons? How can one prevent bad people from coming to power?

2. According to Pindar, who alone is fit to rule and why?

Pindar, an aristocrat and lyric poet (518 – 438 BCE), felt that only aristocrats had the training and vision to rule. They were the blue bloods, with the necessary discipline, wisdom, and judgment, tempered by hard-headed practicality that came of running city-states for generations. They alone knew what was best for their people. Does history contradict this self-serving view? Does this brief description sound like propaganda for the aristocratic class?

3. Why did Pindar celebrate the past?

The past was a Golden Age, and the present was but a pale reflection of its bygone splendor. To celebrate this vision of past greatness Pindar went from court to court singing of those former times when noble lords set radiant examples for their obedient subjects, who looked to them for inspiration and guidance. Wherever he went, he urged his grand hosts to cultivate these pristine ideals and to pass on this legacy to insure stability and sound rule. Only by clinging to the past could they give their people hope and a sense that all was still right with the world. The magnificent odes he composed for these court visits were designed to remind his audience never to lose sight of their sacred calling.

What would prevent aristocrats from discarding these noble sentiments and exploiting their people? What recourse would his subjects have if they discovered that they were being ruled by a tyrant who was seeking to destroy them? How would you explain those who continued to give him allegiance?

You should google his earlier chapters. He is an educator.

Categories Real Education

World Economic Forum Names Finland’s Public Schools the Best in the World

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2016 //
58

The World Economic Forum is based in Davos, Switzerland. Ten years ago, I had the pleasure of attending. The forum was filled with heads of state and potentates, politicians, business magnates, even Brad and Angelina and Bono. WEF ranks states according to progress on whatever measures it chooses. It just decided that the schools of Finland are the best in the world.

This just-released World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017 names Finland’s primary schools, health and national institutions as #1 globally (p. 46):

https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2016-2017-1/

What’s their education secret? According to Fulbright Scholar and part-time Finland resident, university lecturer and public school dad William Doyle, it’s not just Finland’s culture, or its size and demographics, which are similar to some two thirds of American states. Says Doyle, “Finland has the most professionalized, the most evidence-based, and the most child-centered primary school system in the world.” Those three foundations, says Doyle, can inspire and be adapted by any school system in the world. He adds, “Until the United States decides to respect and train its teachers like Finland does (a highly selective masters degree program specializing in research and classroom practice, with two years of in-class training and maximum autonomy once they graduate), we have little hope of improving our schools.”

Please note that Finland has no charters, no vouchers, no Teach for Finland, and very low levels of child poverty. Grades K-9 are free of standardized testing. Children have recess after every class. Academic studies do not begin until age 7. Before then, play is the curriculum.

Finnish scholar Pasi Sahlberg often says that Finland got its best ideas by borrowing from the United States.

Pasi Sahlberg will speak at Wellesley College on October 13 at 7 pm in Alumnae Hall. His topic: “The Inconvenient Truth about American Education.” Pasi taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a guest scholar for the past two years. He is the author of the award-winning “Finnish Lessons.” The lecture is second in a series I endowed called the Diane Silvers Ravitch 1960 Lecture. Pasi will be introduced by Howard Gardner. Come one, come all.

If you are not in the area, the event will be videotaped and later made available.

Categories Arts Education, International, Joy, Real Education

Georg Lind: Standardized Testing is Bad for Education and Bad for Democracy

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2016 //
16

Georg Lind is an educational researcher and professor of psychology in a German university who has studied the moral implications of standardized testing. His bio is at the end of this post. He sent me the following short essay on the negative consequences of standardized testing:

Leviathan: The Anti-Democratic Effect of High-Stakes Tests.

We ought to think about high stakes tests in wider contexts than we usually do, namely in the context of human functioning and in the context of human rights and democracy:

(a) All tests which are based on classical test theory (CTT) and its off-springs (e.g., item-response-theory, Rasch-scaling) are essentially statistical artifacts. Their hidden psychology is at odds with our knowledge of psychological processes underlying human behavior. These tests are built on a false postulate which says: each and every human response to a test is determined only by one disposition, namely the competence or personality under consideration, except for some degree of random measurement error which can be easily minimized by repeating measurements.

This core postulate is totally wrong: A single response is usually determined but by several dispositions at the same time, not just by one. Hence a single response is ambiguous and does not allow to make any inference on a particular disposition. If data falsify this believe they are misclassified as “unreliability.” Besides, repeated measurement is virtually not possible with human subjects. Repeated questions have to be varied, and the more varied tasks are used to reduce “unreliability,” the less valid a test becomes.

Better methodologies exist, especially for the measurement and improvement of curricula and teaching methods (see my reading suggestion below). We can single out the disposition(s) determining a person’s responses only with experimentally designed tests that let us observe pattern of responses to carefully arranged pattern of tasks. Of course, such tests require much expertise and money, probably more than the private test industry is able to provide.

(b) High-stakes testing violates human rights and undermines democracy. The frequent evaluation – year by year, month by month, day by day, and sometimes even hour by hour – of students violates their basic rights and, indirectly, also of the rights of their teachers and parents. This inhumane practice has nothing to do with well reasoned and well designed assessments required before taking over a responsible position in our society. There should be more such assessments. Why don’t we examine future parents whether they are prepared well enough to raise children? This would spare us a lot of juvenile delinquency and broken up families. Or assess future politicians’ ability to run a town, a state, or a country? You can imagine what this would spare us.

Frequent high-stakes testing is also a threat to democracy. It restricts students’ thinking and reflection. It leaves too little opportunity for the development of moral competence. It produces “subjects” not citizens of a democracy. As many decades of research into the development of moral competence shows, simply through the extreme proportion of time absorbed by the preparation for evaluations and other activities required by authorities, students are prevented from developing the ability to solve problems and conflicts through thinking and discussion instead of through violence, deceit and power. They will later, as adults, depend, as Thomas Hobbes has pointed out, on a “strong state” and on dictators to keep violence, deception and power within bounds. Morally competent citizens don’t need a “Leviathan.”

Reading suggestion: “How to Teach Morality. Promoting Deliberation and Discussion. Reducing Violence and Deceit” by Georg Lind (Logos publisher, Berlin, 2016)

—————

Contact:
Dr. Georg Lind
Schottenstr. 65
78462 Konstanz, Germany
Georg.Lind@uni-konstanz.de
http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/

Vita:
Prof. emeritus of the University of Konstanz, Department of Psychology
Doctorates in social sciences and in philosophy; master degree in psychology.
Long-time educational researcher and test developer.
Main area of research and teaching: Moral-democratic competence development and education.
Visiting professor at the University of Illinois/Chicago, Monterrey/Mexico, and Berlin/Germany.
Guest lectures and workshop-seminars in several countries, e.g., Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Switzerland.
Married and three children (two adopted in Chicago)
Born in 1947.

Categories Accountability, Real Education, Standardized Testing

You Are Invited: Pasi Sahlberg Will Speak at Wellesley College on October 13

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2016 //
5

Not long ago, I established a fund at my alma mater, Wellesley College, to encourage the study of public education in the United States. The fund gives support to students for research and internships; many of them are preparing to teach. The most important public activity of the fund is to present an annual public lecture about public education. I gave the first lecture. The second annual Diane Silvers Ravitch 1960 Lecture will be given by the distinguished Finnish scholar Pasi Sahlberg.

If you live anywhere near Wellesley, which is near Boston, I hope you will attend.

The lecture will be October 13, 2016, at 7 pm at Alumnae Hall.

Pasi is a brilliant thinker and speaker. He spent the last two years teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has a broad and deep understanding of American education and international education.

I will be there, and I hope you will too.

Categories Corporate Reform, International, Privatization, Ravitch, Diane, Real Education

Zephyr Teachout: What the First Day of School Should Be Like

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2016 //
8

Zephyr Teachout is a law professor who ran against Cuomo in the Democratic primary and gained a third of the vote without any TV advertising or money. Now she is running for Congress in the 19th District of New York, where she grew up.

She took time from her campaign to describe what school ought to look like. It is a description that will be familiar to those of us who were in school long before the testing era began. Those who know only the last 15-20 years may find her article surprising.

She writes:

We are in the middle of a national fight about public education. Some people — backed by big billionaire hedge funders who would rather do away with the public part of public education — are trying to push Common Core high stakes testing down the throats of kids. But they have run into powerful resistance by parents, leading the national opt-out movement, who understand that children aren’t widgets, and teachers are good people who care deeply about their kids.

On this first week of school, let’s talk about what public education should look like, and what we, as a society, should aim for.

Schools need the resources and staff to keep them clean, comfortable, and safe. There should be nurses to meet health needs, counselors and social workers to make sure that children are making healthy choices. In a strong school system, teachers establish connections with the home, and ensure that anti-social behavior like bullying is addressed, while children struggling with such behaviors are supported to change.

I remember when I got in trouble in second grade, acting up in music class, I was disciplined; but I wasn’t rejected from the school and didn’t feel shut out: my teachers made sure I knew what was acceptable and unacceptable, but also treated me like I had potential and things to learn and contributed, instead of as a pariah.

Every child is different. It is essential to have a challenging and enriched curriculum, that respects the diversity of learners in the class. Students who struggle should get the support they need in the classroom and outside of it — my first job out of college was as a special education teacher’s aide in small rural public school, and I saw what a difference a supportive school system made.

Every school is different, too — look at Monticello, Tri-Valley, and Liberty, three school systems within 30 minutes of each other but each with different populations, with children bringing different gifts and different challenges. The one-size-fits-all model of the high stakes testing just doesn’t respect the differences within rural areas, let alone within the entire country. Local leadership in schools not only strengthens schools, but strengthens community.

Every school deserves well-prepared teachers who are evaluated and supported by well-trained school leaders and expert peers — not arbitrary high stakes tests. Teachers have some of the most rewarding jobs in the world, but the most difficult, because all the world — and the challenges in it — comes to the classroom. Teachers should have ample time to collaborate, learn, and grow.

It is painful to see great teachers, bringing enthusiasm and commitment to children, having to spend their time teaching to the test — and to Common Core testing standards that are disconnected from the curriculum. High Stakes testing narrows the curriculum, encourages teaching to the test, does not work, and pushes great teachers out of teaching when we need great teachers more than ever. Standardized low-stakes testing, given to a random sample of kids, can provide the feedback we need to know how our schools are doing.

It is all so commonsensical. Why are our “policymakers” wedded to so many bad ideas?

It would be wonderful to have someone in Congress who understands what schooling should be and who recognizes the failure of the punitive test-driven policies of the past 15 years.

Categories Education Reform, Real Education

A College Professor Offers Advice to the NCLB-Only Generation: How to Think Like Shakespeare

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2016 //
21

Scott Newstok, an English professor at Rhodes College in Tennessee, wrote this beautiful essay, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. It is addressed to the Class of 2020, whose entire academic lives were shaped under the disastrous influence of No Child Left Behind. The relentless testing regime, he says, has stunted their imaginations, so it now becomes the job of their professors to revive what was for so long discouraged by federal law.

He writes:

In response to the well-intentioned yet myopic focus on literacy and numeracy, your course offerings in art, drama, music, history, world languages, and the sciences were all too often set aside “to create more time for reading and math instruction.” Even worse, one of the unintended consequences of high-stakes testing is that it narrowed not only what you were taught but how you were taught. The joy of reading was too often reduced to extracting content without context, the joy of mathematics to arbitrary exercises, without the love of pattern-making that generates conjecture in the first place.

You’ve been cheated of your birthright: a complete education. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. (at your age of 18), a “complete education” gives “not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”

But now your education is in your own hands. And my advice is: Don’t let yourself be cheated anymore, and do not cheat yourself. Take advantage of the autonomy and opportunities that college permits by approaching it in the spirit of the 16th century. You’ll become capable of a level of precision, inventiveness, and empathy worthy to be called Shakespearean.

Building a bridge to the 16th century must seem like a perverse prescription for today’s ills. I’m the first to admit that English Renaissance pedagogy was rigid and rightly mocked for its domineering pedants. Few of you would be eager to wake up before 6 a.m. to say mandatory prayers, or to be lashed for tardiness, much less translate Latin for hours on end every day of the week. Could there be a system more antithetical to our own contemporary ideals of student-centered, present-focused, and career-oriented education?

How, then, do we teach and learn what really matters, the four C’s: critical thinking; clear communication; collaboration; creativity, and curiosity?

Here is an excerpt from an essay that you should read and savor:

Antonio Gramsci described education in this way: “One has to inculcate certain habits of diligence, precision, poise (even physical poise), ability to concentrate on specific subjects, which cannot be acquired without the mechanical repetition of disciplined and methodical acts.” You take it for granted that Olympic athletes and professional musicians must practice relentlessly to perfect their craft. Why should you expect the craft of thought to require anything less disciplined? Fierce attention to clear and precise writing is the essential tool for you to foster independent judgment. That is rhetoric.

Renaissance rhetoric achieved precision through a practice that might surprise you: imitation. Like “rhetoric,” “imitation” sounds pejorative today: a fake, a knockoff, a mere copy. But Renaissance thinkers — aptly, looking back to the Roman Seneca, who himself looked back to the Greeks — compared the process of imitation to a bee’s gathering nectar from many flowers and then transforming it into honey. As Michel de Montaigne put it:

“The bees steal from this flower and that, but afterward turn their pilferings into honey, which is their own. … So the pupil will transform and fuse together the passages that he borrows from others, to make of them something entirely his own; that is to say, his own judgment. His education, his labor, and his study have no other aim but to form this.”

The honey metaphor corrects our naïve notion that being creative entails making something from nothing. Instead, you become a creator by wrestling with the legacy of your authoritative predecessors, standing on the shoulders of giants. In the words of the saxophone genius John Coltrane: “You’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.” Listen to Coltrane fuse experimental jazz, South Asian melodic modes, and the Elizabethan ballad “Greensleeves,” and you’ll hear how engaging with the past generates rather than limits.

The most fascinating concept that Shakespeare’s period revived from classical rhetoric was inventio, which gives us both the word “invention” and the word “inventory.” Cartoon images of inventors usually involve a light bulb flashing above the head of a solitary genius. But nothing can come of nothing. And when rhetoricians spoke of inventio, they meant the first step in constructing an argument: an inventory of your mind’s treasury of knowledge — your database of reading, which you can accumulate only through slow, deliberate study.

People on today’s left and right are misguided on this point, making them strange bedfellows. Progressive educators have long been hostile to what they scorn as a “banking concept” of education, in which teachers deposit knowledge in passive students. Neoliberal reformers — the ones who have been assessing you for the past dozen years — act as if cognitive “skills” can somehow be taught in the abstract, independent of content. And some politicians seem eager to get rid of teachers altogether and just have you watch a video. You, having been born when Google was founded, probably take it for granted that you can always look something up online.

But knowledge matters. Cumulatively, it provides the scaffolding for your further inquiry. In the most extreme example, if you knew no words in a language, having a dictionary wouldn’t help you in the least, since every definition would simply list more words you didn’t know. Likewise, without an inventory of knowledge, it’s frustratingly difficult for you to accumulate, much less create, more knowledge. As the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante said, “There is no work … that is not the fruit of tradition.”

There is more, as well as links. Well worth your time to read!

Categories Real Education

A New Vision of Education: A Resolution Passed by the Patchogue-Medford School Board in New York

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2016 //
17

The Patchogue-Medford school board on Long Island, New York, passed a wonderful resolution incorporating a new vision of what education should be. The superintendent of the district is Dr. Michael Hynes, who has frequently written about the need to change the direction of education away from test-and-punish and towards a positive future for children and our society. Dr. Hynes is on the honor roll of this blog for his leadership. Now, I gladly place the school board of the Patchogue-Medford School District on the honor roll.

WHEREAS, Learning standards must serve as a guide to what all children should develop toward and be based on developmental norms rather than systematic back-mapping of any given college and career readiness benchmark; and that such standards should be created by New York State classroom educators and content area specialists experienced in the grade level for which they are creating standards, with feedback from parents, community members, and where appropriate, students; and that such standards must specify at what level of difficulty a student is expected to demonstrate proficiency on state tests; and that such standards should be based on peer reviewed and evidence based research for each grade level, including lexile benchmarks; and that such standards should serve as a guide to what skills to what skills and concepts are taught at each grade level; and that such standards must be broad enough to allow local teachers, as professionals, to determine methodology, content, and instructional practices and assessments that will best suit the needs of the communities and students they serve; and that such standards must include fine and gross motor skills, including handwriting; and that such standards must broadly address play skills, a well researched and critical aspect of learning for students, to ensure that schools allocate instructional time for self-selected and guided play, particularly in the early grades; and that such standards in all grades must address cultural competencies;

AND
WHEREAS, School districts must be given adequate funding to create or purchase culturally relevant curriculum that meets the needs of the communities and students they serve; and that all schools must have dedicated funding for curriculum-based field trips and project-based, experiential learning; and that music, art, physical education, and technology should be integrated into the curriculum for all students in grades K-12; and that all schools must offer at least one consistent foreign language in grades K-12; and that any state-wide digital learning platforms must be evidence based, piloted, and studied for both efficacy and safety before being implemented; and that all high schools must offer advanced mathematics and science courses as well as advanced electives in all disciplines; and that all schools’ curricula should offer significant opportunities for students to exercise choice and direct aspects of their own learning;

AND
WHEREAS, Any federally mandated statewide assessments must be created by New York State classroom educators, including test question construction and reading passage selection; and that in a system that includes local assessment, classroom educators must have the primary role in constructing or selecting the assessments; and that tests must be criterion referenced rather than norm referenced and results must be given back within 4 weeks of administration; and that College and Career readiness benchmarks aligned with test proficiency must be aligned with strong indicators of post-high school success that have been vetted for racial, cultural, and socioeconomic bias; and that any federally mandated statewide assessments must be no longer than one day per subject with time limits established by a committee of classroom educators experienced in the grade level for which the assessment has been developed; and that time limits must be based on grade level expectations for time on task; and that the misuse of assessment data must stop; and that statewide exams must be decoupled from any high stakes including but not limited to teacher and principal evaluations, grounds for school takeover or closure, use as admittance criteria to selective schools, promotion, programs, and retention; and that on any statewide test, all test content, reading passages, and questions must align to the grade level benchmarks and lexile levels for the grade in which it is being administered; and that test scores and high stakes exit exams must not be the only pathway to graduation; and that students must have the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency in other ways such as portfolios and interviews; and that Regents exams must be scheduled in such a way so as to ensure that no student must take more than one Regent exam per day; and that assessments must be subject to full transparency, including the annual release of comprehensive technical reports that provide transparency on specific items; and that all parents and guardians must be notified of their right to refuse standardized tests for their child(ren), with notification must be provided in the parent or guardian’s native language;

AND
WHEREAS, New York State must fully and equitably fund our public schools; and that reasonable class size caps (for example, 18 students in K-3, 23-25 in other grades) must be used in aid and funding formulas as the basis for school aid determination; and that all schools must have at least one full time nurse, social worker, and security guard/safety officer, with all security guard/safety officers receiving crisis intervention and cultural competency training; and that all schools must have a well-resourced library and a full time librarian; and that all schools must have adequate counseling support provided by a psychologist, as determined by the overall number of students, the number of students with special needs, and the level of poverty a school is experiencing; and that all schools must have up to date technological infrastructure and resources, where state aid and funds for these resources should not be contingent upon schools increasing their capacity to administer computer-based assessments; and that in conjunction with parents, educators, school board members, and community members, the Board of Regents should develop a framework for what every public school in NYS must have in order to ensure equity and student success, where this framework should help drive the State’s accountability system as well as its funding; and that in Pre-K and in grades K-6, all students must have at least 60 minutes of recess per day in addition to the federally mandated 120 minutes of physical education per week; and that all students must be guaranteed at least 30 minutes for lunch, and this time may not be used for instructional purposes; and that all teachers, administrators, and paraprofessionals must receive training in cultural competency, crisis intervention, and restorative justice practices; and that mandatory common planning time should be provided for general education, special education and ENL teachers, and intervention specialists who share students; and that New York State must prioritize the recruitment and retention of teachers from diverse backgrounds that reflect the students they serve, are trained in a fully accredited education program, and have completed a full course of student teaching with a trained mentor; and that all school districts must offer a strong teacher mentoring program to help new teachers navigate their first few years of service; and that schools must provide access to medical and dental services as well as high quality nutrition for ALL students who need them; and that all families must have access to fully funded, high quality Pre-Kindergarten;

AND
WHEREAS, The role of the Individual Education Plan (IEP) must be restored and allowed to drive instruction for the individual student and should be guided by the needs, interests & development of each student; and that the needs of the student must inform IEP goals rather than alignment to learning standards that are currently in flux; and that all special education teachers must receive training in evidence-based methodologies for teaching math and reading to struggling learners; and that all co-taught models must have a full time special education teacher; and that students with disabilities must have access to pathways that lead to a diploma and provide access to vocational training that is aligned with student interest and strengths; and that special education teachers must have time set aside on a weekly or daily basis to engage in differentiated curriculum work, intervention planning, communication with parents, and fulfillment of IEP and special education mandates;

AND
WHEREAS, The following five principles should be incorporated in any law or policy regarding the protection of personal student data in grades preK-12, and after students reach age 18, all these rights, including those related to notification and consent, should devolve to them:

Transparency: Parents must be notified by their children’s school or district in advance of any disclosure of personal student information to any persons, companies or organizations outside of the school or district. Once notified, parents to must be able to opt out of the disclosure of their child’s personal data. All disclosures to third parties should also require publicly available contracts and privacy policies that specify what types of data are to be disclosed for what purposes, and provide a date certain when the data will be destroyed.

No commercial uses: Selling of personal student data and/or use for marketing purposes should be banned. No advertising should be allowed on instructional software or websites assigned to students by their schools, since ads are a distraction from learning and serve no legitimate educational purpose.

Security protections: At minimum, there must be encryption of personal data at motion and at rest, required training for all individuals with access to personal student data, audit logs, and security audits by an independent auditor. Passwords should be protected in the same manner as all other personal student information. There must be notification to parents of all breaches, and indemnification of the same. No “anonymized” or “de-identified” student information should be disclosed without verifiable safeguards to ensure data cannot be easily re-identified.

Parental/ student rights: No re-disclosures by vendors or any other third parties to additional individuals, sub-contractors, or organizations should be allowed without parental notification and consent (or students, if they are 18 or older). Parents must be allowed to see any data collected directly from their child by a school or a vendor given access through the school, delete the data if it is in error or is nonessential to the child’s transcript, and opt out of further collection, unless that data is part of their child’s educational records at school. Any data-mining for purpose of creating student profiles, even for educational purposes, must be done with full parental knowledge. Parental consent must be required for disclosure of personal data, especially for highly sensitive information such as their child’s disabilities, health and disciplinary information.

Enforcement: The law should specify fines if the school, district or third party violates the law, their contracts and/or privacy policies; with parents able to sue on behalf of their children’s rights as well.

THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of Education of the Patchogue-Medford School District, in agreement with the New York State Allies for Public Education, calls upon the Governor of New York State, the New York State Legislature, the New York State Commissioner of Education, and the New York State Board of Regents, to consider this outline as a new framework for public education in New York State, a framework that serves all students; an equitable public education system in which ALL students can succeed; a vision of public education that prioritizes child-centered and developmentally appropriate learning standards and assessments, research and evidence based practices and policies, equitable resources and opportunities, and an accountability system that supports rather than punishes; what all schools must have in order to foster creative, critically thinking, confident, well-rounded, independent, self-motivated, culturally competent, and well-prepared students who can work cooperatively and excel post-high school, whether they choose to attend college or pursue a vocation. Further, we call on all aspects of public education to be rooted in ethical practices and democratic decision making.

Categories Honor Roll, Real Education

Economic Policy Institute: Making “Whole Child Education” the Norm

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2016 //
27

The Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., has published a major paper that describes a new vision for American education.

Instead of focusing on goals like raising test scores, which narrows the curriculum and produces perverse results (like cheating, excessive test prep, and gaming the system), educators should be encouraged to emphasize the development of the whole child. This is not a new idea; its roots go back to the early twentieth century. But it is a research-based idea that promises to change the direction of education and to align teaching and learning with what is in the best interests of students and society.

The report was written by Elaine Weiss and Emma Garcia of EPI.

Here is the introduction.

Traits and skills such as critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, persistence, and self-control—which are often collectively called noncognitive skills, or social and emotional skills—are vitally important to children’s full development. They are linked to academic achievement, productivity and collegiality at work, positive health indicators, and civic participation, and are nurtured through life and school experiences. Developing these skills should thus be an explicit goal of public education. This can be achieved through research and policy initiatives involving better defining and measuring these skills; designing broader curricula to promote these skills; ensuring that teachers’ preparation and professional support are geared toward developing these skills in their students; revisiting school disciplinary policies, which are often at odds with the nurturing of these skills; and broadening assessment and accountability practices to make the development of the whole child central to education policy.

Introduction and key points

The importance of so-called noncognitive skills—which include abilities and traits such as critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, social skills, persistence, creativity, and self-control—manifests itself in multiple ways throughout our lives. For example, having greater focus as a student improves the acquisition of skills, and creativity is widely associated with artistic abilities. Persistence and communication skills are critical to success at work, and respect and tolerance contribute to strong social and civic relationships.

But support for noncognitive skills—also commonly referred to as social and emotional skills—extends far beyond this casual recognition of their impact. Empirical research finds clear connections between various noncognitive skills and positive life outcomes. Indeed, researchers have focused on assessing which skills matter and why, how they are measured, and how and when these skills are developed, including the mutually reinforcing development of noncognitive and cognitive abilities during students’ years in school.1

At the same time, there are clear challenges inherent in this work, including those associated with data availability (in terms of measurement, validity, and reliability), the difficulty of establishing causality, and the need to bridge gaps across various areas of research. This points to the need to exercise caution when designing education policies and practices that aim to nurture noncognitive skills. Nonetheless, given the crucial role that noncognitive skills play in supporting the development of cognitive skills—as well as the importance of noncognitive skills in their own right—this is an issue of great importance for policymakers.

Moreover, there is increased recognition, both domestically and internationally, that noncognitive skills are integral to a wider conceptualization of what it means to be an educated person. Indeed, UNESCO’s Incheon Declaration for Education 2030, which sets forth an international consensus on the new vision for education for the next 15 years, states, “Relevant learning outcomes must be well defined in cognitive and non-cognitive domains, and continually assessed as an integral part of the teaching and learning process. Quality education includes the development of those skills, values, attitudes and knowledge that enable citizens to lead healthy and fulfilled lives, make informed decisions and respond to local and global challenges.”2

This policy brief, which focuses on a set of skills that can and should be taught in schools, is based on a body of scholarly literature that tends to use the term “noncognitive skills” over others. James Heckman, a prominent, Nobel Prize–winning economist, has dubbed these skills “dark matter” in recognition of their varied nature and the challenge of accurately labeling them. Various fields and experts call them social and emotional skills, behavioral skills, inter- and intra-personal skills, and life skills, among other terms, but this brief does not aim to settle this issue. We therefore use noncognitive throughout in many places, as well as social and emotional skills and other terms.

This brief explains why it is so important that we incorporate these skills into the goals and components of public education, and lays out the steps necessary to make that happen.

This is a report that will gladden the hearts of most educators. It calls for a paradigm shift at a time when policymakers are realizing that the past fifteen years of testing, carrots and sticks, and other efforts to raise test scores, has produced negative consequences. It is time to take another look at our goals and our vision. This is indeed a worthy project.

Categories Childhood, Civil Rights, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Reform, Joy, Real Education, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
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