Tag Archives: education reform

Rethinking Report Cards 1

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Grade-based report cards are a “regularity of schooling”. Regularities of schooling are those features of school life whose utility we rarely question, such as age-based grade levels, starting school in September and ending in June, and assigning students grades based upon the quality of their work (Sarason). Regularities of schooling result from teachers being far too busy to stop and reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of the daily practices they inherit from the veteran teachers they replace and way too busy to envision promising alternatives.

The question, “Why are we doing this, this way?” is rarely asked, nor the natural follow up, “Is there a better way?” The unspoken answer, “Because it’s always been done this way.”

Similar limits of time result in parallel regularities of consumerism, church life, health care, marriage, and, I suspect, every sector of life and the economy. On those rare occasions when we have spare time to thoughtfully evaluate the usefulness of our personal and work life activities, we tend to fill the quiet empty spaces with television, internet surfing, and related noise/activity.

We aren’t disciplined enough to stop, reflect, envision, and thoughtfully implement promising alternatives to the regularities of our personal and work lives.

Why have grade-based report cards stood the test of time with hardly any variation despite radical changes in the world in which we live? What purposes do grade-based report cards serve? If they were to be radically redesigned, how might teaching and learning be revitalized? What form will the pushback against updated alternative report cards likely take? I begin answering these questions tomorrow.


The Panacea for What Ails our Schools

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A five-day in a row “Back to School” series.

The panacea for what ails our schools. Depending upon who you read/talk to:

1) more rigorous course requirements (especially in math) coupled with high stakes standardized exams like in Japan;

2) firing incompetent teachers determined largely by students’ scores on standardized exams;

3) wireless laptops, smartboards, smartpens, and related personal technology;

4) small schools.

File these ideas under “one good idea quickly implemented will fix things”. In actuality, reinventing schooling will require decades of intelligent, caring, hard working people piecing together good ideas and adapting them to differing contexts.

But I’ll play along with the conventional way of thinking. The “big idea” that I believe has more potential than the four listed above to serve as a catalyst for medium and long-term positive change? Radically redesigned report cards. More on that tomorrow.

300th Post

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Quite a few don’t you think. Thanks for reading and sometimes commenting whether online or in person.

You’ve probably noticed I’ve been switching templates lately. The problem is the best designs have the smallest, least legible fonts. Within wordpress, to get a larger, more readable font, you have to sacrifice on the design front. I’d like to customize things, but need someone more tech savvy than me to volunteer to help. Yeah, yeah, I know, why specify “more tech savvy” when that’s most everyone.

As always, I’m open to suggestions.

As I think about the topics I’ve written about, I’m struck by how wide-ranging my interests are. I’m sure blog consultants would say too wide-ranging. I could TRY to narrow my focus, but that would mean posting less often. Right now at least, I’m more inclined to accept the limitations of my decidedly generalist orientation.

Speaking of consulting, I would like to do more going forward and would appreciate any leads you might have. Primarily lectures and/or workshops on: 1) reinventing high school teaching and learning; 2) the high school to college transition; 3A) internationalizing curriculum; and 3B) teaching about globalization. In April, I enjoyed helping a university faculty at an Iowa college (on 3A&B) and I am looking forward to speaking at a college in Illinois next spring (3A).

I’m looking forward to being on sabbatical during the 2011-2012 academic year, although I may need to tweak that in light of other departmental colleagues on the same timeframe. I intend on using my sabbatical, whenever it occurs, to prep for and seek out more consulting opportunities.

Weekend Notes

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U.S. OPEN

• I was off Friday and spent some of the day prepping for 17’s Graduation Open House and some fantasizing about being at Pebble Beach. As great as the visuals were, listening to Chris Berman do the U.S. Open is excruciating. I’m sure he’d be a fun guy to play poker or watch football with, but he obviously did not grow up playing golf. I can take “We’re all just Dustin’ in the Wind Johnson” but I can’t take the “He shot a 9” and “That’s the second snowman there of the day!” and the “back, back, back” urging of a short putt. No one shoots anything on an individual hole. One MAKES a nine. And pros occasionally make eights, not snowmen. This is a MAJOR, not the Bristol Municipal Club Championship. Listening to Dick Vitale is soothing by comparison.

• Also on Friday, very interesting ruling involving Paul Casey’s chip on 14. Brutal uphill chip with zero margin of error. Casey hits it a tad chubby and in frustration hits/repairs the divot a few times. In the ensuing ten-fifteen seconds, the ball backs all the way off the green, eventually to almost the exact spot. Viewers alert the rules officials that Casey has improved his lie. Penalty? Rules officials huddle with Casey after the round, review the particulars of the two shots, and ask him whether he hit/repaired the divot in order to improve his lie in case the ball returned to the exact same spot. Based upon his body language they didn’t think so, and so they weren’t surprised when Casey confirmed that. There really was no way Casey could have known the ball would return to exact same spot. The rule is it’s a penalty if there’s intent is to improve one’s lie. I hereby declare that before wives rip husbands and daughters ban fathers from speaking in public that they adjust for intent.

WORLD CUP

• After reading the comments about my “it’s poor form to complain about officiating” post, I’ve changed my mind. Merty’s comment in particular reminded me of the NBA/FBI/Tim Donaghy fiasco. I’m sure there’s far more $ coursing through World Cup matches than NBA games. Maybe the Malian ref who blew the call at the end of US/Slovenia is cut from Donaghy cloth. So here’s my revised axiom. Whenever athletes are amateurs, it’s poor form to complain about officiating. The corollary is “The younger the athletes, the poorer the form.”

SCHOOLING

• I understand it’s sociocultural/historical roots, but I’m still amazed at how prevalent individualism is in our schools especially when future success will inevitably hinge on interpersonal intelligence. The OHS awards assembly and graduation (where the same award winners were feted a second time) reminded me of that. Why is it that teamwork and groups are only emphasized in extracurricular activities? Our success in solving pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges hinge mostly on team/group work. Sarason’s concept of the “regularities of schooling” comes to mind. A “regularity of schooling” is some feature of teaching and learning that we no longer question, it’s just accepted as the natural order. For example, we always assign grades to each individual student and we only award individual student achievement. This also calls to mind Sarason’s “ocean storm” metaphor in the Predictable Failure of Education Reform. Lots of wind, waves, tumult on the surface during an ocean storm, but no change in water chemistry, temperature, etc, on the ocean floor. The ocean floor is the teacher-student relationship. How would teaching and learning change if we tempered our individualism and focused at least some of our assessment efforts on small group academic achievement?

• During his grad speech, the OHS principal honored the top ten students. A slide of the students flashed above. He said, “good job girls” with no sense of irony or urgency. I’m in the middle of a related article in the most recent Atlantic magazine titled “The End of Men”. Highly recommended.

• Byrnes Postulate (be sure to credit me). The more meaningful the curricular objective and related classroom activity, the more difficult to assess the associated student learning. Granted seems obvious, but I suggest that postulate informs more of what’s wrong with the “standards movement” than is first apparent.

WORLD POLITICS

• Heard an interview with the author of this book. He persuasively argued that no single nation can singlehandedly solve the immigration challenge. Made perfect sense, but it doesn’t seem as if anyone is acknowledging that. In fact, it’s true of most global issues today, but there are at least two serious impediments to thinking more globally and acting more in concert with other people in other nations to address pressing global issues like global poverty, environmental crises, and terrorism/war. First, the U.N. has a lot of negative baggage associated with it and there are wonderful NGOs, but few truly global alternatives. And secondly, no country/region (in the case of the EU) really wants to be take the lead in compromising their relative sovereignty.

FITNESS MALISE

• It’s 12:56p Sunday, we’re on the cusp of the summer equinox, and I’m sitting at my desk in half a cycling kit, staring at a cold, wet, dark gray landscape with 57 miles on the odometer for the week. Pathetic. I started down the street at 9:50a only to turn around when it started to rain. Mother Nature is testing all cyclists’ mental health this June. Look for some to start snapping. I was supposed to be Lance’s domestique on Mount Saint Helens today and then opted for a 10a club ride. Now I’ve performed the rare “double wuss”. My problem is I have nothing I HAVE to train for, not a single event on the calendar. I don’t even think I’ll do our local Oly triathlon in September. I’m 280th on the RAMROD waiting list. This is a desperate cry for help. Someone tell me what event should I do next and why? To add insult to injury, 14 informed me that if I had stayed in bed, her sister and her would have made me a “Dad’s Day” breakfast.

The Class

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Finally got around to watching this French film about a culturally diverse Parisian junior high school. Here’s a solid, albeit incomplete review. I can’t think of a film that better captures the organic nature of classrooms. Sometimes we lose touch with what should be obvious, teachers are seriously outnumbered, and because of that, their power is tenuous. Teachers, let disrespectful comments slip at your own peril.

If you lack patience, and prefer mindless entertainment, skip it. It’s a walk, not a jog, run, or sprint. On the other hand, “The Class” was a nice reminder that it’s important to slow down sometimes.

No Guarantee

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The start of a  lecture I’m giving to faculty and students at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa in a few weeks. Get your tickets before it sells out.

The Makings of a 21st Century Education

Consider the first and last sentences from a January Wall Street Journal article titled “Even-In-A-Recovery-Some-Jobs-Won’t-Return”. “Even when the U.S. labor market finally starts adding more workers than it loses, many of the unemployed will find that the types of jobs they once had simply don’t exist anymore. Harvard’s Mr. Katz warns that past experience suggests. . . conjecture is likely fruitless. ‘One thing we’ve learned is that when we attempt to forecast jobs 10 or 15 years out, we don’t even get the categories right,’ he says.”

Let that sink in.  The Harvard expert admits, “we don’t even get the categories right”. So what are college students to do? And what are faculty to do? How should faculty design curriculum, teach courses, and advise students in a “we don’t even get the future job categories right” world?

The Private School Myth

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Consider this excerpt from a Jonathan Mahler NYT article about Tiger’s return to golf:

On six separate occasions, he (Jay Williamson, 43) has finished the season without a strong-enough record to keep his eligibility for the PGA Tour and been forced to earn it back at the tour’s grueling 108-hole qualifying tournament, known as Q-School. Williamson has never won a PGA Tour event. Nevertheless, thanks to golf’s soaring purses during the Woods era, he has managed to earn more than $5.5 million during his 15-year career. “I certainly don’t live like a king,” he said, “but I do have three kids in private school, and that’s probably a direct result of Tiger.”

Williamson’s quote is symbolic of the American public’s belief that private schools are inherently superior to public ones. As an undergrad, I worked part-time for two years in a public elementary, taught for four years in public high schools in Los Angeles, one year at a private high school in Ethiopia, and attended both public and private universities. As a teacher educator, I visit schools all the time, mostly public ones. If I’m an expert about anything, it’s secondary education. My daughters have spent 30% of their schooling in privates and 70% in publics.

It’s easy to understand why people subscribe to the private school myth, we’re conditioned to believe “you get what you pay for”. But truth be told, that’s not always true and private schools are not inherently superior to public ones. There are good, bad, and mediocre public and private schools. Good publics are better than mediocre privates. Based on my experience, you’ll find a larger proportion of  truly outstanding teachers in publics. There are  lots of solid private school teachers too, but they have the wind at their back in the form of smaller classes and often required, built-in parent/family involvement.

In fifth grade (middle schools in Olympia, WA are 6th-8th grade), daughter one made her first independent decision of consequence when she decided she wanted to attend a local private independent school for the “academically talented”. Me, “But all your friends are going to Wash.” Her, “I’ll make new ones.”

There were a few minor and one major benefit of her private experience. Among the minor benefits, she was given more writing assignments than her public peers and received more detailed feedback on her compositions. The school also did a nice job using small group projects that engaged the students. The major benefit was her five or six closest female friends all cared equally as much about doing well in school. As a result, there was serious positive academic momentum. They spent a lot of time in the evening completing projects over the phone at the exact time a lot of middle school girls are dumbing themselves down in the hope of appearing more attractive.

The downside of her experience, and many private school students’ experiences, was the homogenous nature of the student body. Everyone was high achieving, most students were upper middle class and white or Asian-American. As adults we know that our success and happiness depend as much or more from our people smarts than our book smarts. When will my daughter and her friends learn to interact thoughtfully with young people different than themselves? Isn’t interpersonal intelligence part and parcel of being well educated?

This brings to mind a related myth, that public schools are inherently more diverse than private. While probably true in the aggregate, with tracking, or homogenous ability grouping, we end up with schools-within-schools. In other words, there are multiple Olympia High Schools, one that my daughter and her friends attend that consists largely of Advanced Placement courses and another for everyone else. Some public high schools have three or more schools-within-schools.

The public-private school water is far muddier than most people realize.

The Measure Teaching Effectiveness Consensus

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An underreported and potentially important sea change is underway in K-12 public schooling. It’s the somewhat natural culmination of a two decade-long emphasis on increased teacher accountability for student learning.

Rather than improving compensation and making entry into the profession more challenging, rather than empowering proven teacher leaders to improve schools, rather than increasing parent and family accountability for student learning, the highest ranking and most influential policy makers are in agreement that our ability to compete in the global economy depends upon better schooling, better schooling depends upon increased teacher accountability for student learning, increased teacher accountability requires measuring teaching effectiveness. There are parallel pushes to measure school leadership and teacher education program effectiveness.

Like the vast majority of K-12 teachers, I’m not opposed to the concept of teacher and administrator accountability, but it seems as if more time, energy, and resources have been put into planning the negative consequences of teaching and administrative ineffectiveness than into incentives for teaching and administrative excellence. The primary negative consequence of teaching and administrative ineffectiveness will be closing schools and reassigning (if the unions still hold any sway) or dismissing altogether (if they don’t) the administrators and faculty at the worst performing schools.

This “measure teaching effectiveness consensus” raises many questions that Arne’s Army seemingly has little patience for. Among them. . .

• How does one best measure teaching effectiveness?

• More specifically, if the Information Revolution is making knowledge transmission and recall less salient, how does one quantify increasingly important student skills and sensibilities like writing, problem solving, cross cultural understanding, teamwork, empathy, and resilience?

• How does one control for independent variables like differing degrees of outside of school support?

• Will an emphasis on individual teacher’s relative effectiveness contribute to even greater professional isolation to the detriment of student learning?

• What might the effects of steadily increasing accountability be on talented young people considering teaching as a career independent of improved compensation?

• Why, when top-down experts with little to no teaching experience are in the process of reshaping their profession based upon business model precepts, aren’t more teachers asking these types of questions?

What Work Will The Next Generation Do?

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First and last sentences from an article in today’s WSJ titled “Even-In-A-Recovery-Some-Jobs-Won’t-Return”.

Even when the U.S. labor market finally starts adding more workers than it loses, many of the unemployed will find that the types of jobs they once had simply don’t exist anymore.

. . . Harvard’s Mr. Katz warns that past experience suggests. . . conjecture is likely fruitless. “One thing we’ve learned is that when we attempt to forecast jobs 10 or 15 years out, we don’t even get the categories right,” he says.

In other words, the economy is so fluid, it’s illogical to plan on having any particular job.

So what are young people to do?

I have lots of thoughts on the subject, but I’m curious about what you think?