News & Commentary» school reform

No Magic Bullet

Helen — Sun, 30 May 2010 19:59:54 +0000

In No Magic Bullet for Education the Los Angeles Times takes a look at teacher evaluations, education reform, Race to the Top grants, standardized tests and more:

The “unschooling” movement of the 1970s featured open classrooms, in which children studied what they were most interested in, when they felt ready. That was followed by today’s back-to-basics, early-start model, in which students complete math worksheets in kindergarten and are supposed to take algebra by eighth grade at the latest. Under the “whole language” philosophy of the 1980s, children were expected to learn to read by having books read to them. By the late 1990s, reading lessons were dominated by phonics, with little time spent on the joys of what reading is all about — unlocking the world of stories and information.

Education Reform?

Helen — Thu, 13 May 2010 22:55:27 +0000

Sara McGrath, author of A Lifestyle of Learning, writes for the Seattle-area Unschooling Examiner; a recent post is titled “Seattle education reformer on the negative reality of schools”:

Last week, educational theorist and school reformer John Goodlad of the Institute for Educational Inquiry in Seattle featured in the first of three guest articles on The Washington Post education blog, The Answer Sheet. This second article, “Straight Talk About Schools,” began with this statement:

“Schools are not our major educators. Adding hours, days, and even weeks will not make them so.”

Current educational reform proposals call for longer school days.

Goodlad proposes that the role of government in education reform should not be to develop a mission for schools, but rather to fund regional centers that “provide comprehensive renewing inventories to assist local schools and communities in selecting from the richness of this planet what is important and compelling for the educational trajectory of the young.”

It’s an interesting post, exploring the negativity and the potential for change in our schools, and with links to Goodlad’s articles.

Around, and around they go…

mark — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:30:27 +0000

Education Week blogger Rick Hess writes about the latest round of education reform and where the players are in their thinking – now:

Why Diane and Duncan Are Making the Same Mistake.

Diane [Ravitch] is now making the same mistake, in reverse, that she and so many school choice and accountability enthusiasts made in the 1990s (and the same mistake that [Arne] Duncan makes today when he proclaims that charter schooling or merit pay “work”). Both Diane’s stance and Duncan’s reflect the misguided premise that chartering or accountability is a way to improve instruction–like a new curriculum, professional development model, or reading program–rather than an opportunity to create the conditions where sustained improvement in teaching and learning become possible.

A lack of choice can force educators to simultaneously serve families with very different demands and responses to discipline or calls for parental involvement, making it difficult to establish common norms. A lack of autonomy makes it difficult for principals to assemble a team of teachers who embrace shared expectations and instructional principles. The institutional and political turbulence endemic to school systems means that superintendents change jobs every few years, and district priorities and initiatives change along with them. Bureaucratic and contractual rules governing discipline, the school day, or professional development can trip up district leaders seeking to emulate effective school models.

Around and around they go. When will it be recognized that an institution can’t emulate the ‘family learning’ model?

Okay, I do make a jump in thinking there… Schools have been asked to fill the role of the family, more by default than design. Don’t read that looking for either an endorsement of public schools nor an attempt to spin out an ‘evil people at your local school…’ statement (most of the ‘evil spin’ language is projection – IMHO.)

It just appears to me that the nation has allowed itself to become as dependent on schools as, say, electricity or running water. A vast industry supports the institution of public schooling which feeds, and feeds off of this dependency. Schedules, careers, mortgages, futures are all based on schools being there. That dependency has locked most families into whatever new reform is rolled out to save the institution.

As schools keep needing to be ‘reformed,’ homeschooling just keeps working. Which takes me back to my question – when will it be recognized that an institution can’t emulate the family learning model?

Race to the Top

mark — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:06:23 +0000

In formal remarks at James C. Wright Middle School in Madison Wisconsin, President Obama outlined the federal government’s 4.3 billion dollar Race to the Top awards. His presentation defined “four challenges that our country has to meet for our children to outcompete workers around the world, for our economy to grow and to prosper, and for America to lead in the 21st century.”

These are defined on White House blog as:
• transforming our lowest-performing schools
• using timely information to improve the way we teach our children
• outstanding teachers and principals in our classrooms and our schools
• higher standards and better assessments that prepare our kids for life beyond a classroom

Excerpts from his remarks:

America’s national mission: improving our schools not in unrealistic ways, not in abstract ways, not in pie-in-the-sky ways — in concrete ways we are putting our resources behind the kinds of reforms that are going to make a difference.

~~
And I want to get into some details about this because I want you, as parents, as well as the educators, to understand what the data and the science and the studies and the research show actually make a big difference in terms of school improvement — because that’s what we are basing this stuff on. We didn’t just kind of make it up, didn’t just do it because it sounded good, this is what the research shows is really going to make a difference.

~~
The first measure is whether a state is committed to setting higher standards and better assessments that prepare our children to succeed in the 21st century. And I’m pleased to report that 48 states are now working to develop internationally competitive standards — internationally competitive standards because these young people are going to be growing up in an international environment where they’re competing not just against kids in Chicago or Los Angeles for jobs, but they’re competing against folks in Beijing and Bangalore.

~~
I also challenge states to align their assessments with high standards — because we should — we should not just raise the bar, we should prepare our kids to meet it. There’s no point in having really high standards but we’re not doing what it takes to meet those standards. And I want to be clear. This is not just about more tests, because I know that in the past people have been concerned about, you know, is this about standardized tests, or are we going to have our young people being taught to the test? That’s the last thing we want.

~~
And that’s why the fourth measure we’ll use in awarding Race to the Top grants is whether a state is focused on transforming not just its high-performing schools, not just the middle-of-the-pack schools, but the lowest-performing schools. (Applause.) We’ll look at whether they’re willing to remake a school from top to bottom with new leaders and a new way of teaching, replacing a school’s principal if it’s not working, and at least half its staff — (applause) — close a school for a time and then reopen it under new management, even shut down the school entirely and send its schools — send its students to a better school nearby.

These remarks are about public schools but that gives little comfort that homeschoolers will not get swept up in this reform. For homeschoolers, assessments and data collection are the broom and dustpan of this reform. Homeschoolers have seen many reforms and survived, but, not without study, understanding and effort.

Some reading:

The Common Core State Standards Initiative

Forty-Nine States and Territories Join Common Core Standards Initiative

Homeschooling in the Age of Obama

Common Core Standards In The News