The Long (and Sometimes Expensive) Road to the SAT

The Long (and Sometimes Expensive) Road to the SAT - New York Times:

"MARK KROESE, of Medina, Wash., spent more than $2,000 on SAT test prep classes, books and tutoring for his son Daniel. Mr. Kroese said the tutor deconstructed the test format, taught Daniel logical strategies and pacing, and gave him confidence."

This article raises two important questions.

1. Do test preparation courses provide an unfair advantage for children of well-to-do parents leaving poor children behind?
2. What ethical questions arise as a result of test preparation?

Regarding the first question, the answer appears to be obvious. Those that can afford these expensive courses appear to have a clear advantage over those who can't. Is that advantage limited to being able to afford expensive courses? I think not. The advantage of the rich over the poor in school goes far deeper than that. Issues of school funding, the design of curriculum, standards and assessment all favor the middle and upper classes at the expense of the working and welfare classes in the United States. The advantage extends largely to white students leaving students of color struggling to achieve in school. John Dewey argued that the real worth of the advantaged is how they are willing to support public education for those less advantaged then they are. In Dewey's mind, all citizens are entitled to a fair shake at learning.

Ethical questions abound with regard to test preparation courses. The issue of advantage over disadvantage is one that separates the class structure in America. The question of unfair advantage is an ethical issue with which we have not yet come to grips. Additionally, the question as to whether test preparation is cheating can be raised. What about the competitive nature of college preparation? I could go on but I will stop here.

George Hillocks writes in The Testing Trap: How State Writing Assessments Control Learning (Language and Literacy Series (Teachers College Pr)) that tests tend not to align with standards and are inherently unfair. Nicholas Lemann's The Big Test : The Secret History of the American Meritocracy presents a vibrant historical view of the American obsession with testing while addressing issues of class division.

Zoundry

Technorati : assessment, cheating, class, culture, democracy, education, ethics, performance, policy, politics, poverty, race, testing
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NPR : Many Southern Baptists Bypassing Public Schools

NPR : Many Southern Baptists Bypassing Public Schools:

"A growing number of Southern Baptists are pulling their children out of public schools in favor of private, religious education. It's a controversial trend, with some Baptists arguing that the church should stay engaged with the public school system."

Fundamentally speaking ignoring knowledge for mythology is a bad idea. Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire pointed to the fact that the fundamentalist nature of the Christian church was a direct cause of the destruction of cultural and intellectual pursuits leading directly to what has been falsely labeled as the Dark Ages. The pre-Socratic Greeks understood the fact that when religion replaces human reason society is nearing collapse. Throughout the history of religion, when faced with a progressive discourse that is understood in some way to contradict a reliance on scriptural Truth, religion tends to be conservative rejecting the new for the old. In most cases this is not a bad stance to take. New ideas are often not appropriate solutions to problems and will, in time, fade away simply because they cannot be sustained. But, contrary to scriptural evidence, is is clear that the earth is not the center of the universe, that the earth is billions of years old, and that life on earth (and perhaps elsewhere in the universe) evolves through the process of natural selection. Each of these ideas were and/or are being denied by fundamentalists of all religious beliefs that rely on the Hebrew bible as authority as the fundamentalist groups choose a more conservative path. That path is dangerous and could, if Gibbon and the pre-Socratic Greeks are right, in the case of evolution and cosmology, lead to the decline of civilization as we know it today.

Zoundry

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life: One of the best descriptions of the nature and implications of Darwinian evolution ever written, it is firmly based in biological information and appropriately extrapolated to possible applications to engineering and cultural evolution. Dennett's analyses of the objections to evolutionary theory are unsurpassed. Extremely lucid, wonderfully written, and scientifically and philosophically impeccable. Highest Recommendation!

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design: Richard Dawkins is not a shy man. Edward Larson's research shows that most scientists today are not formally religious, but Dawkins is an in-your-face atheist in the witty British style: I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence. The title of this 1986 work, Dawkins's second book, refers to the Rev. William Paley's 1802 work, Natural Theology, which argued that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Dawkins: "All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way... it is the blind watchmaker."

Technorati : Darwin, culture, evolution, fundamentalism, history, philosophy, radical religion
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7 deadly books? Talk of ban hits burbs

7 deadly books? Talk of ban hits burbs

"A northwest suburban high school board member seeks to ban seven books from classroom use because she thinks the profanity, depiction of graphic sex, and drug and abortion references in the literature are inappropriate for teenagers.

"Leslie Pinney admits she only read passages of the controversial selections, including Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Toni Morrison's Beloved, which were on the American Library Association's 100 most challenged books list between 1990 and 2000."

I am particularly disturbed by the second paragraph of this story--the one in which the censor, Leslie Pinney, admitted to having only read parts of the books she wishes to ban. Censorship, book banning, what's next? Shall we return to the days when, in order to publish anything one had to have the blessing of the Church? Shall we burn the books of certain authors, of specific religions, orientations or points of view? What does Ms. Pinney think of parental intervention, of parental responsibility? What if I don't share Ms. Pinney's sense of moral outrage? Book banning is a slippery slope from which only dark consequences emerge.

7 deadly books? Talk of ban hits burbs:

Zoundry

Fahrenheit 451

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Illinois State Board of Education Votes to Cut Testing Contract

The New York Times reported, "The Illinois State Board of Education voted to cut the state's contract with Harcourt Assessment Inc., the testing company that handles most of the testing required under the No Child Left Behind law and encountered significant problems in delivering tests to Illinois this year. The board said it would seek another vendor to handle the processing, scoring and reporting of tests. But it approved the continued use of Harcourt, one of the biggest testing companies in the United States, for test development and psychometric services. Rick Blake, a Harcourt spokesman, issued a statement apologizing for the problems and saying the company was "gratified" that Illinois would continue to work with the company on test development."

Now talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!

What is wrong with this picture? The action of the Illinois State Board of Education is something like firing the manager of a baseball team because the team is failing to win but retaining his services as general manager because he has a big name. What is crucial to understand, it seems to me, is that a major effect of NCLB is to privilege the services of some and only some test publishers creating profitable business for them while leaving those who are dependent on them to perform at their mercy. Shame on Illinois, shame on Harcourt, shame on NCLB.

Illinois State Board of Education Votes to Cut Testing Contract - New York Times:

Zoundry

The Testing Trap: How State Writing Assessments Control Learning (Language and Literacy Series (Teachers College Pr))

The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy

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Education Sector: Analysis and Perspectives: Hot Air: How States Inflate Their Educational Progress Under NCLB

I could not say it better if I tried so here is the front end summary from Education Sector. You can download the whole PDF report from their web site. Just click on the link below.

"Critics on both the Left and the Right have charged that the No Child Left Behind Act tramples states' rights by imposing a federally mandated, one-size-fits-all accountability system on the nation's diverse states and schools.

"In truth, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) gives states wide discretion to define what students must learn, how that knowledge should be tested, and what test scores constitute ?proficiency??the key elements of any educational accountability system. States also set standards for high school graduation rates, teacher qualifications, school safety and many other aspects of school performance. As a result, states are largely free to define the terms of their own educational success.

"Unfortunately, many states have taken advantage of this autonomy to make their educational performance look much better than it really is. In March 2006, they submitted the latest in a series of annual reports to the U.S. Department of Education detailing their progress under NCLB. The reports covered topics ranging from student proficiency and school violence to school district performance and teacher credentials. For every measure, the pattern was the same: a significant number of states used their standard-setting flexibility to inflate the progress that their schools are making and thus minimize the number of schools facing scrutiny under the law.

"Some states claimed that 80 percent to 90 percent of their students were proficient in reading and math, even though external measures such as the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) put the number at 30 percent or below. One state alleged that over 95 percent of their students graduated from high school even as independent studies put the figure closer to 65 percent. Another state determined that 99 percent of its school districts were making adequate progress, while others found that 99 percent of their teachers were highly qualified. Forty-four states reported that zero percent of their schools were persistently dangerous."

Education Sector: Analysis and Perspectives: Hot Air: How States Inflate Their Educational Progress Under NCLB:

Zoundry

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NEA: Harvard Civil Rights Project Report: The Unraveling of NCLB

"The 60-page report -- "The Unraveling of No Child Left Behind: How Negotiated Changes Transform the Law" -- also:

• Points out the clear winners and losers;
• Finds that the Bush Administration has not addressed the underlying flaws in the law; and
• Concludes that a major overhaul of NCLB will be necessary -- not just tinkering at the edges in response to political pressure."

My question is should anyone be surprised by these findings. This administration has taken a dogmatic and, by definition, uncompromising position on most every action it has undertaken. The neo-cons and the religious right that have the greatest influence on the actions of the administration have no interest in the potential unintended consequences that arise from their zeal to implement their programs on the American public. NCLB is merely one of a whole number of failed projects heralded by this administration. In the final analysis they have placed public education in jeopardy while satisfying their need for the implementation of unexamined dogmatic principles.

NEA: Harvard Civil Rights Project Report: The Unraveling of NCLB:

Zoundry

NCLB Meets School Realities : Lessons From the Field

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Education appeal: GOP leaders argue: School funding case way too wide

How Ironic. In Arizona, one of the hotbeds of English only as the official language, Republican legislators seek ways to withhold funding from ELL (English language learning) classrooms. Perhaps they expect students to absorb English by osmosis. What a concept--demand that students speak, read, write and learn in English but don't fund the classes that will help them do so. But, then there is no accounting for bigotry or stupidity.

Education appeal: GOP leaders argue: School funding case way too wide | www.tucsoncitizen.com

Zoundry

Dividing Lines : The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton Studies in American Politics) Immigration is perhaps the most enduring and elemental leitmotif of America. This book is the most powerful study to date of the politics and policies it has inspired, from the founders' earliest efforts to shape American identity to today's revealing struggles over Third World immigration, noncitizen rights, and illegal aliens. Weaving a robust new theoretical approach into a sweeping history, Daniel Tichenor ties together previous studies' idiosyncratic explanations for particular, pivotal twists and turns of immigration policy. He tells the story of lively political battles between immigration defenders and doubters over time and of the transformative policy regimes they built.

Technorati : class, culture, education, policy, politics, poverty, power, teaching
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Who is to Blame--Perhaps we all Are!!!

"When African American Children cry out for help by failing academically or acting out, who is responsible for them falling through the cracks? If you ask teachers, the parents are to blame. If you ask the parents, teachers are to blame. If you ask administrators, the fault lies with the lack of parental involvement and quality teachers. If you ask the community, schools are to blame. The truth is that it is everyone?s job to effectively guide African American students through their formative years to adulthood. Now ask yourself, which groups should be held accountable?"

Well, this almost gets it right--but not quite. What is left out is the basic concept of cultural reproduction, the idea that cultural and economic groups tend to reproduce themselves. Willis asks a very important question in Learning to Labor, "Middle class kids get middle class jobs and working class kids get working class jobs--so why do working class kids put up with it?" Willis' argument focuses on issues of working class high school students preparing to enter the labor force and how they work to recreate or reproduce the cultural mores of their parents. In the end, Willis encourages schools to alter their pedagogical approach by moving toward a more engaging, student-centered curriculum. The idea that engaged students will find ways to privilege school as a cultural value and therefore be able to overcome other cultural influences is compelling. One of my own mantras (found at the footer of this blog) is the notion that engaged teaching and learning must be so much fun that students don't know what they are doing is good for them is one that, when taken seriously, can have a positive impact on all children.

What is missing in American schools today is the notion of engagement. What has taken its place is TESTING and STANDARDS. The problem is that all this concentration on assessment and standards has the effect of removing valuable days from instructional time and transferring those days to either testing or preparation for testing. What a crying shame! No Child Left Behind is having the effect of leaving all children behind. Ken Goodman has even pointed out that teachers have subverted valuable tools in order to 'help' their students prepare for tests. Goodman points to primary teachers that have created word walls of nonsense words because nonsense words appear on a number of early literacy snapshots thereby subverting the very good, research bound, idea of the word wall into something that fails to support a rich literate environment in the classroom and is unproven in terms of research studies. Others note that from 50 to 60 instructional days in intermediate and upper grades are now devoted to either preparing for testing or to testing. That means that in a typical 180 day school year nearly 1/3 of the time is spent on assessment, the remainder of the time is spent on new learning. There is something perverse about this imbalance.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006510/5/prweb384480.htm:

Zoundry

Learning to Labor: "The unique contribution of this book is that it shows, with glittering clarity, how the rebellion of poor and working class kids against school authority prepares them for working class jobs.No American interested in education or in labor can afford not to read and study this book carefully." -- Stanley Aranowitz

Technorati : NCLB, assessment, class, critical pedagogy, culture, curriculum, education, engagement, instruction, performance, politics, poverty, power, race, standards, teaching, testing

Academic Blacklist Gets an 'F' for Factual Errors

We live in extreme times. When diversity of thought and the free expression thereof is not tolerated by a free and democratic society we risk plunging into a new "dark ages" where thinking is regulated by those for whom certainty is absolute. The problem with certainty is that it is not open to rationality. Certainty demands blind obedience to what is known to be true rather than be burdened by having to examine one's beliefs. What is problematic is that mainstream booksellers like Barnes & Noble place books like David Horowitz's The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America on the shelves as if it presents a well-researched stab at some kind of "truth."

"We think of blacklists as something out of the 1950's McCarthy red-baiting era. But a new report by Free Exchange on Campus highlights how recent attacks on university professors for exercising their freedom of speech in the classroom are eerily similar to that decade of ruined reputations (and lives).

"In Facts Count, Free Exchange analyzes David Horowitz's The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, a diatribe published earlier this year by the extremist Regnery Publishing. Regnery is the same group that packages its most recent bit of bombast, The Politically Incorrect Guide [P.I.G.] to Women, Sex and Feminism, as feminist lies finally revealed, and was behind the pre-2004 election screed, Unfit for Command, which attacked John Kerry and his three Purple Heart awards."

AFL-CIO Weblog | Academic Blacklist Gets an ?F? for Factual Errors:

Zoundry

Animal Farm and 1984

Technorati : censorship, culture, democracy, free speech, politics

Setbacks for Exit Exams Taken by High School Seniors

"In two setbacks for high school exit exams, a judge in Oakland said Tuesday that he was inclined to ban such tests as a graduation requirement in California and a Massachusetts school board voted to issue diplomas to students who had failed such tests despite a state law prohibiting that.

"Judge Robert Freedman of Superior Court in Alameda County said in a preliminary ruling on Monday that the exams, standardized math and English tests that high school seniors have to pass to graduate, discriminated against impoverished students and students learning English."

Finally a breath of fresh air in the political morass that surrounds testing and standards in the United States. Judge Freedman, in recognizing the bias to culturally diverse students, returns to a position that is both fair and equitable regarding testing. It has long been known that high-stakes tests are biased in favor of white, middle class students. There are both cultural and class issues that negatively impact students of color or poverty too numerous and complex to address here but researchers have made it clear over the past half-century that these biases exist and, therefore, tests discriminate against these groups. Given the commitment to equity in the United States, it seems to me that it has taken far too long for anyone in a position to do anything about this imbalance to actually do something about it.

One of the arguments for high-stakes testing is that such testing raises standards in schools, thereby making schools a better value for the dollars spent on public education. There is no clear and compelling evidence that this is the case. There is clear and compelling evidence that testing serves as a great value to a handful of test publishers, to newly graduating psychometricians, and to the careers of political hacks that interfere with the processes of schooling by passing draconian legislation such as No Child Left Behind.

Three cheers for Judge Freedman.

Two Setbacks for Exit Exams Taken by High School Seniors - New York Times:

Zoundry

Fair Test: The National Center for Fair & Open Testing

Technorati : NCLB, assessment, class, culture, policy, politics, poverty, power, race, standards, testing

A Struggle to Handle 'No Child' Testing Mandates

"States are struggling to meet testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind law. The limited number of companies that provide testing services has made it hard to service the new demand generated by the federal law."

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Given the high-stakes nature of NCLB testing requirements it has been estimated by a number of researchers that over 50 instructional days (out of generally 180 school days) are devoted to testing or test preparation; nearly 30% of the school year devoted to unproductive instruction.

In Chicago, where I live, schools spend hours worrying about a written "extended response" on the ISAT test. Teachers spend hour upon hour instructing students how to write an "extended response." What they ought to be doing is teaching children how to think through writing--the "extended response" will then take care of itself.

So much is lost when political solutions to non-political problems get in the way of what professionals in a field know they should do but can't.

NPR : A Struggle to Handle 'No Child' Testing Mandates:

Zoundry

The Testing Trap: How State Writing Assessments Control Learning (Language and Literacy Series (Teachers College Pr))

Technorati : NCLB, assessment, education, policy, politics, power

What will you do to be heard?

Whenever someone asks, "What can I do?" My general response is to join the professional discourse. Teachers have an obligation to make their professional voices heard on all issues regarding their professional lives. Debra Craig is doing just that. She is angry about the thoughtless political approach to education that is imposed on American public schools by No Child Left Behind and she is going to do something about it. I say hooray for Debra. So the question remains, just what will you do to enter the debate? To make your voice heard?

"High school teacher, author, and education advocate Debra Craig will be traveling 3,000 miles to Hartford, Connecticut to give her two minutes worth on why NCLB is bad for public schools with it's obsession on raising test scores and not looking realistically at the cultural problem that exists in public schools."

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006510/5/prweb382350.htm:

Zoundry

Amazon.com

Technorati : NCLB, assessment, class, culture, policy, politics, power

I Grew Up Hating Reading--An Approach to Reluctant Readers

"I grew up hating to read," reports Max Elliot Anderson, author of books for boys. Reported here is the generalization the boys tend to be reluctant readers and Anderson crafts his books to reach this audience.

The point here is that boys (or anyone else for that matter) will be engaged as a reader if there is a reason to read. Traditional school approaches fail to account for engagement by teaching from texts that are at once boring and without relevance to the reader. If we are going to be effective teachers of reading then it is critical that the work we do is authentic in the sense that all assignments fit into a model represented by a three-legged stool; such a stool will not stand if any one of its legs is missing:

1. The assignment must have value to the student beyond the classroom.
2. The assignment must be challenging, be academically rigorous.
3. The assignment must have an audience beyond the teacher (although the teacher may be included in the audience).

When teachers plan authentically students will become engaged. But planning authentically means that one cannot force lessons down students' throats, rather students must be invited to participate in an experience that has value, is challenging, and is experienced for a real purpose. When lessons are planned with authenticity in mind students are engaged in school. When lessons are planned otherwise students are disengaged, resistant, and appear reluctant.

http://tinyurl.com/g7mch

Zoundry

"Reading Don't Fix No Chevys" : Literacy in the Lives of Young Men The problems of boys in schools, especially in reading and writing, have been the focus of statistical data, but rarely does research point out how literacy educators can combat those problems.

Technorati : authenticity, curriculum, education, learning, reading

Connecticut to hire statewide reading instructor

According to Boston.com, "The Department of Education may soon be adding a new administrator to address concerns about sliding test scores among fourth-graders in public schools." It seems the state legislature authorized a $150,000 per year salary to hire an administrator at the state board of education in order to reverse sliding test scores.

Do politicians consider the following possibilities as they seek to solve each and every perceived problem in education?

1. Based on elementary statistics, it is impossible to raise test scores on normed referenced tests. Since all scores reported represent variance from the mean, or central, score, and that score is the arithmetical average of all scores, if the curve skews in a negative direction the instrument must be re-normed in order for the results to fall within a normal and unskewed bell curve.
   

2. Might there be a testing effect that causes scores to appear to be falling? By over-testing students in high-stakes conditions the unintended consequence just might be that students simply stop trying, especially if they are in groups that, for whatever reason, tend to fall below the mean. The tests simply magnify apparent failure rather than provide a tool to motivate students to do better.

3. Might the money spent on an administrator to oversee the state reading coaches be better used to buy books for kids to read? I know this sounds like a radical solution to what many see as a serious problem, but perhaps it is worth a try.

What do you think?

Connecticut to hire statewide reading instructor - Boston.com:

Technorati : NCLB, assessment, class, culture, curriculum, education, instruction, policy, politics, power, race, stress, teaching, testing

Taking the SAT, Graduating Middle School: What NPR has to say on the Subject

What is up with Americans? Are we that driven by the testing machine that we have to subject 13 and 14 year old children to an examination that they are both unprepared academically and developmentally to take? It seems to me that what NPR reports is a symptom of a far larger social ill--that of equating education with test performance rather than with the ability to think one's way to rational and reasoned conclusions. Writing as an educator, I want to argue that promoting a blind loyalty to test scores devalues the time honored value of education. John Dewey argued that one can tell a great deal about a society by the way they choose to educate their youth. Placing competitive pressure on young adolescents just at an age when acceptance is far more important that being number ONE is unfortunate.

Education must be invitational in the sense that teachers must help students do or practice specific content area disciplines. History teachers must invite students to be historians, biology teachers must invite their students to practice biology and so on. By inviting students into the discipline or content area, teachers provide students with the tools to think like historians, scientists, or mathematicians. But being test dependent undermines this worthy goal. Being test dependent demands (as opposed to invites) students memorize facts in isolation. When one becomes a member of a discourse community (through invitation) one realizes that the foundational facts, events, structures, or formulas are quite important to a deeper understanding of the subject and, so, are willingly learned and retained as opposed to memorizing a few facts that will be tested only to forget 90% of the learning within 24 hours of the time recall is required.

Enough already. Let's figure out a way to allow kids to be kids, to engage them in schooling thus making school a place where students want to be rather than have to be.

Below is a brief statement about the NPR report.

These days, more than 100,000 students are taking the SAT while they're still in middle school. Some are under increasing pressure to get ready for college, no matter how early. And some want to qualify for prestigious academic summer programs such as the one at Johns Hopkins University.

Taking the SAT, Graduating Middle School:

Zoundry

The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy A significant look at the development and purpose of the SAT. A powerful read.

The Testing Trap: How State Writing Assessments Control Learning (Language and Literacy Series (Teachers College Pr)) An analysis of all that is wrong with state testing instruments and programs.

Technorati : assessment, class, culture, curriculum, education, performance, policy, politics, power, race, standards, stress, testing

Young Americans Geographically Illiterate, Survey Suggests

Young Americans Geographically Illiterate, Survey Suggests:

According to the National Geographic web site:

Young adults in the United States fail to understand the world and their place in it, according to a survey-based report on geographic literacy released today. Take Iraq, for example. Despite nearly constant news coverage since the war there began in 2003, 63 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 failed to correctly locate the country on a map of the Middle East. Seventy percent could not find Iran or Israel. Nine in ten couldn't find Afghanistan on a map of Asia. And 54 percent were unaware that Sudan is a country in Africa.

I am not surprised. I suspect that several factors help create this mismatch between geopolitical reality and the lack of information that US students seem to have. Below are some of my own speculations:

• Social studies and history especially are neglected in schools. This has traditionally been the case however since the advent of No Child Left Behind, where literacy and mathematics take a front seat, social studies and history along with the sciences have been placed in the trunk, barely to see the light of day. Some studies reveal that for all subjects outside of literacy and math, many schools spend less than one hour per week inclusively.
• Within the social studies, geography seems to draw the short straw. While it is nearly impossible to understand history, economics, political science and the like without a strong knowledge of geography and its effects on civilization, it is often taught as merely points on a map.
• Much has to do with the current geopolitical climate in the United States as well. Because of our status as the last superpower, there is a tendency to lean toward a hegemonic view of the world. There is no room for any other geopolitical dominion so long as the arrogance that accompanies the grand scheme for spreading democracy to the world is running full force.

I could go on and point to the messianic fervor of the religious right where, since we are near the end days according to this uncreative, and certainly not new, dogma, there is no need to know anything about the world because it soon won't be the world we know. I could point to the almost maniacal drive to standards based education with its accompanying focus on testing that actually minimizes learning, reducing it to a bunch-of-facts model of teaching and learning. We all know that what is memorized for testing purposes is forgotten within a few days. But I won't do that. Let it suffice to say that I am underwhelmed by the pointing fingers without offering creative solutions.

Here is mine--I believe, as teachers, we must invite students into the study of geography, not because it is going to appear on a test, or that one should know where one is going off to war, but because it is interesting and contributes to the critical decision making needed by citizens of a true democracy (or better, a republic). If students fail to find interest they will fail to learn. And fail to learn they do and not just in geography.

Zoundry

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Diamond provides a geopolitical analysis of the rise of civilization. Explaining what William McNeill called The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Here is some interesting geography!!!!

Technorati : NCLB, assessment, critical pedagogy, curriculum, education, geography, history, instruction, social studies, standards, teaching, testing

Teachers Seek New Ways to Champion Evolution

The problem with arguments from belief is that they are immune to facts. The fact that the religious right cannot conceive of a universe that might be created through random probabilities does not mean that intelligent design is correct. By arguing that Darwinism is merely an unproven theory and that, in support of fairness, it cannot be taught as fact but must be countered with another explanation such as intelligent design is nothing more than a bold insertion of one (of many) creation stories into the curriculum.

But teachers (generally thinking, rational people) are able to circumvent the attacks on Darwin and overcome religious objections to the whole mess we are in. Here is a tidbit from NPR.

The competition between evolution and intelligent design is not limited to the courtroom. Students who believe the theory of evolution conflicts with their faith are bringing the battle to the classroom. That's forcing teachers to find new ways to defend their belief in science.

NPR : Teachers Seek New Ways to Champion Evolution:

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design

Zoundry

Technorati : Darwin, education, evolution

Schools set mouse traps for copycats

Plagiarism is a significant problem not only at the college level, but in pre-secondary schools as well. According to the Boston Globe, some colleges are doing something about curtailing wanton copycatting by creating and implementing high-tech detection systems to catch the would be intellectual thief in the act.

I teach a research course to Masters level students in which I emphasize that plagiarism is unacceptable; that whenever you are in doubt, and even when you are not, cite. There is no such thing as over-citing in a student paper. But even that warning does not deter some students from claiming as their own someone else's work.

Just to speculate for a bit (I realize what follows is comprised of broad sweeping generalizations with no basis in actual researched fact) I think the problem stems from an overall societal issue in which laws are often observed in the breach, truth has taken a backseat to expediency and self-interest, and expiation of wrongdoing is a matter of a personal association with a godhead from whom forgiveness is requested -- and somehow granted.

I drive about 40 miles to work on a freeway system in which the speed limit is 55 MPH. If I am not traveling at 75 MPH I am blocking traffic. On the road I travel the law requires one to drive at 55 yet no one actually obeys that law (except during rush hour when there are too many cars on the road and speeds range from full stop to around 40 MPH). The speed limit is observed in the breach. I could list many more examples but, in the need to minimize space I'll stop at one.

As for truth, all we need to do is listen to the speeches of any politician and then observe their actions to see how well their actions match their rhetoric. The most glaring example I can think of is the lies told by President George W. Bush leading up to the war in Iraq, a war in which it seems he was determined to engage. While most lies do not result in the death of anyone, this one has killed thousands of young American men and women.

Of course the final example can be found mainly in Christian theology. Forgiveness is a matter of asking for forgiveness. It is a theology of irresponsibility, one that allows one to sin on Sunday and confess on Monday.

Given the ethical breaches in social norms in the United States, is it any wonder that students choose to cheat?

Read what the Boston Globe has to say about plagiarism.

"Some college students, though, whether lazy, overwhelmed, or cramped for time, are tempted to plagiarize. And in the digital age, with millions of pages of information available with just a few mouse clicks and Google searches, it's relatively simple to steal words, phrases, and ideas. To curb infractions, local colleges have ramped up anti-plagiarism efforts by coaching students on proper practices for citing their sources, better informing them about what plagiarism is, and implementing better detection systems to catch intellectual theft."

Schools set mouse traps for copycats - The Boston Globe:

Also, read what the Chronicle has to say about plagiarism

http://www.ncte.org/pubs/chron/highlights/122871.htm

Zoundry

Scandals and Scoundrels : Seven Cases That Shook the Academy

Convincingly demonstrates that scandals are part of the necessary process of rule making and reinvention rather than a symptom of the bankruptcy of the scientific enterprise. (From Amazon.com's description of Scandals and Scoundrels)

Technorati : cheating, culture, education

Education Sector Reports on NCLB

Taking the AP to task for simplistic reporting the Education Sector gets it right. When looking at NCLB score reporting it is critical to look at the N that is being reported for issues of reliability. But that only addresses the statistical ramifications of NCLB.

What is more important is to look seriously at the social ramifications of this bad law. Ken Goodman reports that teachers are building nonsense word walls in 1st and 2nd grade because Dibbles testing asks students to pronounce nonsense words as part of their testing. NCLB requires over-testing which, in turn, affords children a greater opportunity to fail. The law does not account for clear socio-economic differences in both performance and in school funding (perhaps the two are related somehow). It does not account for different learning styles. It confuses assessment with rigorous engagement in both teaching and learning. So the fact that states have chosen to use different group sizes to report scores as a loophole for not having to report all scores is not the real question. The real question is why are we doing all this testing in the first place.

Education Sector: The Education Sector

Zoundry

Technorati : NCLB, assessment, policy, politics, power, standards, testing
Del.icio.us : NCLB, assessment, policy, politics, power, standards, testing

Property Taxes and Public Education

Burlington Free Press.com | Opinion:

Longtime residents are being priced out of their homes, communities, and cultural heritage. Many can no longer afford to live here on the salaries they earn in Vermont -- or, if they are retired, on fixed incomes. In coming years, if these owners sell, we will lose untouched forest and pristine wildlife habitat to developers who would love to buy and sub-divide. Property taxes are a big reason the U.S. Census Bureau announced this month that Vermont leads the country with the highest state tax burden per resident.

What seems clear to me is the inequity of the property tax system to fund public education. Focusing on rising property taxes while failing to address the inequity of this form of funding public education totally misses the point.

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools

Kozol addresses the inequity issue brought on by using property taxes to fund the bulk of public education in America.

Technorati : education, policy, politics, power