Educating School Teachers

Via Edspresso, I just read this report on Educating School Teachers.

Frankly, it is too depressing to quote, but can be summed up as saying that our current system of educating teachers leaves a lot to be desired.

I have seriously been considering a second career in education after I retire from the Air Force in a few years, but reading this report certainly makes it a tough decision.

-- deleted paragraph --

While Teachers unions fight against merit pay, I myself would prefer it. Of course I have never been accused of being modest, and have a competitive nature that would love the challenge of proving myself in a way that would allow me to see concrete results for any effort or skill I put into a job. I wonder how many other potential teachers there are out there like me; intelligent, hardworking, and looking for a challenge, but staying away from a job that doesn't provide any concrete feedback or award for accomplishments.

Homework assignment stolen from Instructivist.

Carolina School for Inquiry - Takedown

Carolina School for Inquiry

Lets take a closer look at this new charter school, the Carolina School for Inquiry. First of all, here is a bit of history from this article in The State.

When a group of Columbia parents considered expanding a popular private preschool and kindergarten program, they lit on the idea of a charter school. At first, they considered a partnership between the nonprofit Harmony School and a newly formed charter school.

"We realized you can't have a private board interfere with a public board and vice versa," said Jeannie Eidson, a Harmony parent and Carolina School planning committee member.

Plus, parents don't want anything to endanger Harmony's stellar program, Mandrell said. So the parents began planning a charter school separate from Harmony but based on its beliefs.

So many mistakes begin with the best of intentions. Poor rich people… a misguided set of parents who loved their private “inquiry learning” preschool and kindergarten, decided to create their own charter school based on the principle. I am sure they were a bit upset to learn that as a charter school they had to open up enrollment to the surrounding poor minority community. Of course I have no doubt they convinced themselves that “inquiry” based learning will work for everyone, and not just their high SES kids.

Of course, the private Harmony School knew that it might not be a good idea. From another article in The State:

Eventually, though, it became clear that yielding control of the charter school to a parent and employee-run governing board, which is required by law, was a bit risky for the intimate Harmony community, said Deborah Holmes, school director. "We don't know what conflicts could possibly happen," she said.

Gee whiz, what possible conflict could happen when you try and use an unstructured curriculum with poor urban kids… perhaps anarchy?

But not to be deterred, the Carolina School for Inquiry pressed on and opened its doors this year.

Now let’s see what sort curriculum they use at this new school. You guys are lucky that I love you, but I had to read through this drivel to extract some key points.

Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Students become less prone to ask questions as they move through the grade levels. In traditional schools, students learn not to ask too many questions, instead to listen and repeat the expected answers.

Straight away we can see where this is heading, anyone want to bet that they eventually say something to the effect that facts are over rated because they can change, and its more important to know how to learn.

Memorizing facts and information is not the most important skill in today's world. Facts change, and information is readily available -- what's needed is an understanding of how to get and make sense of the mass of data.

Damn I am good, so basically inquiry learning is constructivism on steroids.

Unfortunately, the website doesn’t let us know what reading/ELA curriculum they are going to use, but we can make an educated guess based on their math curriculum, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space.

Among their many hair brained idea’s.

They choose from a variety of concrete materials and appropriate technology, including
calculators, as a natural part of their everyday mathematical work.

That’s it; forget the multiplication tables, because they can just use calculators.

They find more than one solution to many of the problems they work on

Someone explain to them that while there may be more than one “method” for solving a problem, there is only one correct “solution” to any given math problem (K-12 math that is), and that some methods are more effective than others.

They express their mathematical thinking through drawing, writing, and talking

Of course they do, because you know actually doing math in math class is sooooo overrated.

They move around the classroom as they explore the mathematics in their environment and talk with their peers

Wouldn’t want the kids to get bored sitting at their desks learning.

In Investigations, homework is a vehicle for connecting school mathematics with students’ everyday lives. Homework is an extension of classroom work. Students are asked to work on problems that extend and solidify their mathematical understanding. Sometimes homework offers review and practice of work done in class, sometimes preparation for upcoming activities, and sometimes numerical practice that revisits work from earlier units.

The real secret to Investigations… send home homework so that the parents can teach their kids what they should of learned at school. Great for high SES kids, but a disaster for low SES working parents.

I think Mathematically Correct best sum’s it up:

There is nothing to recommend about this program. The use of this program in our public schools is a strong argument for vouchers.

Unfortunately, since this school just opened, we won’t get any test results for at least a year, but somehow I have a feeling that it won’t be pretty. Unfortunately, charter schools like this will only serve to give successful charter schools a bad reputation. Perhaps the kindest thing I can say about this charter school is that its an option and not the only choice that parents have.

Stand and Deliver

Via Edspresso, I came across this article by Jesse Jesness on Jamie Escalante of Stand and Deliver fame.

While it’s a great article that tells the story of how administrators and bureaucrats effectively destroyed Jamie’s AP calculus program at Garfield H.S. in East Los Angels, I did detect one misconception.

In the article, Jesse writes the following:

Whether the administration will take it is another question. We are being primed for another round of "education reform." One-size-fits-all standardized tests are driving curricula, and top-down reforms are mandating lockstep procedures for classroom instructors. These steps might help make dismal teachers into mediocre ones, but what will they do to brilliant mavericks like Escalante?

insinuating that standardized tests limit the creativity of effective teachers, which is a common argument by the anti-NCLB crowd. Jesse misses one point… that he himself addressed earlier in the article.

Escalante’s students surprised the nation in 1982, when 18 of them passed the Advanced Placement calculus exam. The Educational Testing Service found the scores suspect and asked 14 of the passing students to take the test again. Twelve agreed to do so (the other two decided they didn’t need the credit for college), and all 12 did well enough to have their scores reinstated.

In the ensuing years, Escalante’s calculus program grew phenomenally. In 1983 both enrollment in his class and the number of students passing the A.P. calculus test more than doubled, with 33 taking the exam and 30 passing it. In 1987, 73 passed the test, and another 12 passed a more advanced version ("BC") usually given after the second year of calculus.

Emphasis mine. Notice the common theme? Jamie Escalante’s whole program was geared around teaching his kids to pass a standardized test. Testing does not and should not be deterrence to outstanding teachers; instead it should serve as a measurement stick for successful teachers to use to judge their performance.

Readability

Parentalcation's readability scores:

readability grades:
Kincaid: 7.4
ARI: 8.0
Coleman-Liau: 10.2
Flesch Index: 72.9
Fog Index: 10.5
Lix: 37.8 = school year 5
SMOG-Grading: 9.8

sentence info:
10872 characters
2464 words, average length 4.41 characters = 1.38 syllables
142 sentences, average length 17.4 words
40% (58) short sentences (at most 12 words)
16% (24) long sentences (at least 27 words)
21 paragraphs, average length 6.8 sentences
2% (4) questions
38% (55) passive sentences
longest sent 53 wds at sent 42; shortest sent 1 wds at sent 83

word usage:
verb types:
to be (78)
auxiliary (44)
types as % of total:
conjunctions 5(111)
pronouns 12(305)
prepositions 12(284)
nominalizations 2(55)

sentence beginnings:
pronoun (39)
interrogative pronoun (3)
article (8)
subordinating conjunction (5)
conjunction (2)
preposition (9)

Well its better than I thought. It appears I write at about a 10th grade level. According to the website, I should be aiming for an 8th grade level if I want to reach the general public.

Note: Sarcasm intended for last sentence. I always thought it was funny that we send kids through 12 -13 years of school with the intension of getting them all to read at the 8th grade level.

TAG: What a waste of time!

My son's Talented and Gifted program is a waste of time. My son's TAG teacher (the art major) called complaining that my son doesn't seem to be engaged in the class. Of course he doesn't, the program is a pull out model that only meets for 3 hours once a week. The teacher told me that my son doesn't seem to be up to speed on his Latin root words that he is learning and seems to be lost in class. I had to remind her that he has been diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, which means that he has problems processing information and instructions. I also reminded her that he was identified for the program because of his "math" skills and not because of his verbal skills (he is low average). I asked her what math she was teaching in the class... and she fed me some BS answer about decimal placement and fractions (obviously made up on the spot). Well duh... that’s what they are doing in his regular class. It doesn't take a genius to see that if they can't effectively teach concepts whether its math or latin if the kids are only being exposed to it once a week. I am so seriously considering pulling him out of the program. If he was struggling in reading or math he would get after school tutoring, direct instruction and all sorts of extra stuff, but because he is only "advanced" they put him in this class that pays lip service to education. Well let the other kids waste their time learning through "art" projects, I can and do teach him more by tutoring him for around 15 to 30 minutes a day once or twice a week. If I was rich or in an affluent district, he would be an accelerated math class every day... but no. My low rent school district ignores the needs of its strongest students because they are more worried about improving their "failing" students, which by the way are "failing" because of they don't use the most effective teaching methods.

Can you tell I'm a little pissed off?

Achievement First: Would it work in a rural area?

This morning I came across the Achievement First Charter School website. Not only does Achievement First appear to be highly successful, they have an excellent website that breaks down their philosophy, curriculum, expectations, and methods. One of the most interesting pages I came across was their "12 Lessons about School Reform". Here they are:

1. "These kids" CAN Learn
2. Leadership Matters - Mightily
3. Teachers Are More Important Than Curricula...
4. ...But Some Curricular Are Better Than Others
5. "Mere Mortals" Not "Superhumans"
6. An Unwavering Focus on Student Achievement
7. Interim Assessments and the Strategic Use of Data
8. One Hundred 1% Solutions
9. Serve ALL Urban Kids
10. Sweat the Small Stuff
11. Fidelity to a Clear, Consistent Model
12. Flywheel v. Doom Loop

I would love to see whether this model would work in the poor rural areas of South Carolina. Most charter school systems have targeted urban areas, since there is more money to be made there. It would be more difficult to attract the quality of teachers to rural areas, and their money per student is a lot less than urban districts, but if these charter school systems are truly out to prove that their methods work universally then the "corridor of shame" is the place to do it.

Career Choices

More and more, I have been considering going in to education after my retirement from the AF in 3 years.

After my retirement, my plan is to use my GI Bill to finish up my Bachelors degree at the University of South Carolina. For a year now, while I have been knocking out general education classes, I have been trying to decide what to get a degree in. Mechanical engineering would be the obvious choice since it’s closely related to what I do now, but I still haven't made up my mind. I have also debated getting a degree in Math, but I am also interested in Education.

I wouldn't mind being a teacher, but seriously, I don't know if I could take the pay cut. Lately, I have been considering aiming for a degree in education psychology or research. I read so much about education theory as it is, I figured I might as well get credit for it. Perhaps I could teach for a few years and then move into administration... reform from the inside. Of course, if I did go into education, I know I would have trouble keeping my opinions to myself during all the education classes.

More Advice for Teachers

mellowman, one of my commenter’s made a great suggestion/remark.

He said he liked class websites that allow parents and students to see and/or download homework assignments.

This is one of those great ideas that would require an extraordinary amount of discipline from the teacher. Updating a website can be a time consuming practice, but the benefits would be immense.

Perhaps teachers should create a blog for each class. With today’s web based tools, it would only take a few minutes to create a blogger post and upload it to a website. They could do a short post outlining the homework assignments and any class notes. If they had electronic copies of any worksheets it should be relatively simple to upload it as well.

Parental Struggles Update

Just clarification of my earlier post Parental Struggles. The school imposed punishment is for one day of in-school suspension.

The idea to attend school with my niece is our punishment in addition to the school punishment. I can think of nothing more embarressing than having your uncle sit in all your 10th grade classes with you and hang out with you at school. I expect I will get some funny stares and a few smart ass comments, but we can not accept behavior like this. Besides, I will get to see the quality of teaching that goes on at our local High School, and I might even learn something.

Need Advice/Help!

Teachers, experts, parents... we need some advice/help.

One of our 3rd graders is behind in her reading comprehension skills. She is already getting after school tutoring that utilyzes computer based instruction, but we would like to know what else we can do to help at home. One idea that we had was to have her read out loud to us for her daily 15 minutes of reading and her reading worksheets, but we are unsure if this is the most effective method. Truthfully, we have limited time to spend hours of one on one instruction (6 kids, including an infant) and we can not afford private tutoring. We are looking for things that we can do to help her get more out of her current assignments and extra things we could do that take up no more than 20 to 30 minutes.

Parental Struggles

Niece busted for smoking at school. One day in-school suspension. In addition, I am going to take a day off work and sit in every class with her one day next week. Nothing worse than having a parent attend school with you. We also e-mailed every teacher of hers and let them know to report any misbehaviour, missed assignments, or unusual behavior.

I am disappointed.

Advice for Teachers

"Parental involvement" it's one of those complaints that I run across frequently in the edublogosphere, but perhaps what we really need is more "teacher involvement".

A rough calculation shows that I have dealt with over 25 different teachers in my kids educational careers, and in that time I have seen a wide variety in the quality of teachers, the personality of teachers, and the style of teaching. I have seen strict disciplinarians, teachers that all students love, mother figures, burn outs, etc..., but I have made some observations about somethings that most good teachers have in common.

1. Organization. At the beginning of each school year we make an effort to drop in unannounced on our kids teachers, and one of the first things we notice is how organized their desk is. I know this might seem trivial, but we have noticed a direct correlation between the effectiveness of a teacher and their organizations skills. Teachers with messy desks are usually the same teachers that lose assignments, have trouble finding information if we ask for it, and are less likely to respond to notes from us.

2. Availability. Somehow, the good teachers always find time to talk to us when we drop in to see them. There is nothing more frustrating than playing note tag with a teacher when we are trying to get information or clarify something with the teacher. I recently had a teacher tell me to stop by after school to get some information, but when I did they were in the middle of a "conference". Don't tell me to stop by unless you know you are going to be free to talk with me... I work for a living.

3. Honesty. We know our kids aren't perfect and when we talk to/conference with a teacher we want to know exactly what our child needs to work on, the more specific the better. We don't want to know that our kid is "acting out", we want to know exactly what they did under what circumstance so that we can address it specifically with the child. If our child is struggling with something, don't tell us that they need help with "math" tell us that they don't know their "6x times tables".

4. Email. Everyone else in the world uses it, but for some reason teachers don't use it to help with communicating with parents. Instead of sending a note to school with a 1st grader, it would be so much easier if we could send a email and know the teacher was going to read it in a timely manner. In addition, instead of sending all those copied notes, send us an email, I know not every parent uses email, but a large majority do.

5. Pre-plan homework. We love teachers that give us all the homework for the week on the Mondays. That way we can have the kids work ahead if we know that they have a soccer game on Wednesday.

So teachers, if you work on your "teacher involvement" we parents will have an easier time working on "parental involvement".

First Microsoft Now Google!

Education is booming business. Google is entering the education world. They have created Google for Educators which is intended to be a clearing house for how educators can use Google tools to enhance education. Like Microsoft, they have their own lesson plans, but unlike Microsoft their lesson plans appear to actually teach kids.

Google Earth is the coolest thing since sliced bread and I have to admit I have spent hours on it exploring the globe. Google has partnered up with Discovery Education to provide some fairly interesting lesson plans that utilize Google Earth.

And no, I am not against technology despite my tirades against the School of the Future. Technology, used correctly, is a great tool to enhance content knowledge. Using Google Earth to help teach geography and history is a stroke of genius.

Microsoft can take a lesson, but instead they waste time with lemonade.

South Carolina Education Roundup

Here's what’s happening in South Carolina Education News:

The push for school vouchers continue to make the news.

Controversy over a recent decision by the State Board of Education to give the same status to "dual-credit" classes as to AP/IB classes for qualifying for state scholarships. Parents who go to affluent schools that provide these classes are against this decision. They make the point that AP/IB classes are tougher than "dual credit" classes. Unfortunately, not all students have access to AP/IP classes, so the scholarships help kids from affluent schools disproportionately.

Lexington 1 school district implements language immersion program. I think this is a great idea, and conveniently we were planning on moving to this school district in two years when I retire from the Air Force. It will be too late for most of my kids, but my baby daughter will be able to take advantage of it.

Reading and Braces

This morning I got to speak to my first grader's teacher. I asked her if they used phonics at all to teach reading. She told me that "they" don't like them (the teachers) to use any one method of teaching, but she tries to use a little phonics during the lesson. I also asked if they used any reading programs, and she said no.

In other parenting news... my 3rd grade son is getting braces today. Just in case anyone wants to feel sorry for me, do you know how much money I am going to spend getting five kids braces. Four of them will probably overlap having braces. I am going to buy the orthodontists' vacation house for him.

Another Report from the First Grade Trenches

D-Ed Reckoning: Report from the First Grade Trenches

Seriously if you don't read KDeRosa's blog on a daily basis, you are missing the best commentary in edublogging on the net. Enough kissing ass.

Since I also have a first grader, I thought I would compare my child's school experience with KDeRosa's.

Math

In math, for example, they've only taken home about three homework assignments. One assignment asked them to draw pictures of things having numbers, like a clock or calendar. Another asked them to find a picture that told a math story--there are three dogs and two cats in this picture, how many are there all together.

In math, I think our school does a little bit better. We get about 3-4 math worksheets a week. It started out pretty basic the first two weeks, but quickly improved. Last week, all of her worksheets were on addition and subtraction. She seems to have quite a good grasp of the subject, so I have no complaints yet.

Reading/ELA:

I hesitate to call what's going on reading since there is so little actual reading going on. The kids were given a DIBELS test and broken up into reading groups. Whether they were broken up by ability, I do not know. Teaching consists mostly of letting kids pick out books they like and letting them "read" them independently. If the kids can't read yet, they can look at the pictures. That's nice.

Our child is assigned 10 spelling words a week to learn. The words correspond with the words in her weekly reading story. She really stuggles with her reading, and seems to have no concept of phonics. Her teacher appears to be teaching her how to sight read. Unfortunately this means that she struggles with new words.

Overall:

We aren't very happy with her teacher overall. I have been to the school several times and the teacher gives the impression of being unorganized and very inexperienced. Reading homework has been especially difficult, and often ends up with us getting very frustrated. While I am satisfied with her progress in math, I suspect its mostly due to innate aptitude instead of sound math instruction.

We do supplement her instruction at home, but we are nowhere as organized as KDeRosa nor are we able to spend the amount of individual time that he does.

Booo Yaaaaahhhhh

Girlfriend talks to district. Principal gets call. Dr. Counselor gets call, fixes problem, and apologizes.

Now wouldn't it of been much easier for him to hook us up at the beginning instead of having to get "talked to".

Also, niece is allowed back on cheerleading team. One rebel teenager turned into all american girl. We rock!

Peace

Bait and Switch

In my last post I said this: "I had to raise hell to get her enrolled in honors and college prep classes."

It appears I wrote to soon. When we got the hardcopy of my niece's schedule yesterday after school, she was NOT put in honors classes, despite Dr. Counselor looking me in the face and telling me that she would be.

My niece had some bad thing happen to her as a child that are still with her today. She is on daily med's to help her. The first semester of her freshman year she got into some "trouble". She was sent to us for her 2nd semester of school. Because we knew she was smart, we got her into honors classes despite her having terrible grades at her last HS. This is the results:

1st Semester Grades (She was absent most of the semester)
Math 69%
English 73%
NOTE: they actually gave us the highest "F" possible out of pity

2nd Semester Grades
Honors Algebra II 96% with a 98% score on the end of year exam -- year average 86%
Honors English 95% with a 100% score on end of year exam -- year average 87%
Honors Biology 82% with a 81% score on end of year exam -- year average 83%
NOTE: She wasn't in Biology in her first semester so her score on the exam reflects her literally only having 1/2 the course and having to teach herself the first half of the class!

With scores like this, we think that it is perfectly reasonable for us to expect her to have honors classes this year. It wasn't her or our fault that she had to attend another school for the first semester. She actually only got to attend 3 weeks of class at the school before she was allowed to sit out. (Long story, the situation was caused by lax parenting and a pyschologist that is ready to make any diagnosis that a parents asks for)

This is a school that serves a majority of disadvantaged students. Our niece, with the right parenting, can be a true success story at their school, but only if they help us help her.

Note: Not that it matters, but our Niece is Hispanic, so having her do well will also help them show that they are making gains on the "achievement gap"

Right now, my girlfriend is at the district office ready to raise hell with the district superintendent if that’s what it takes. I hope this gets fixed, because they have no idea the amount of fury that she can rain down on someone if they mess with our kids.

I have tried to avoid naming schools and people on this blog, but I have never been so tempted to identify the perpetrators.

Arggggg - Block Scheduling

I just got back from registering my niece at the local high school... what a frustrating experience. The school counselor was so condescending. I had to raise hell to get her enrolled in honors and college prep classes.

I also discovered that South Carolina uses some sort of block system. They have four periods a day. A class can either be a quarter class or a semester class. One semester class is equivalent to what I would consider one year of a normal class. For instance my high school math geometry class was a year long, but my niece's class is only one semester. Here is the conversation that followed:

Rory: So she could conceivably take two math classes in one year and do two years of math in one?

Dr. Counselor: Well actually no. Students are only allowed to take one core class of math or English a year.

Rory: Is it done like that in all of South Carolina?

Dr. Counselor: Yes, it makes it easier for students to transfer between classes.

Rory: Doesn't that affect how the students do in their classes, since many kids will have to wait anywhere from 6-months to a year between classes?

Dr. Counselor: Well maybe, but I have never looked into it.

Rory: Well I have seen the test scores, and that probably explains why South Carolina does so poorly on the SAT.

Seriously, it just seems idiotic. If someone has 1st semester algebra I in 9th grade that finishes in January, they might not get to do Algebra II until the 2nd semester of 10th grade… a full year between courses that obviously build upon the previous classes foundations.

When I went to High School, we had six classes a day. Math and languages were a whole year long. English classes were only a semester long, but you had to take at least one English class each semester… i.e. a composition class one semester and a literature class the next semester.

The other thing I learned is that the High School doesn’t do AP or IB classes at all. They actually have the local community college come in and teach a college course, in which they earn High School credit and college credit from the college.

I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand it does make sense, since I know there is a problem with some AP or IB instructors not being qualified to teach. Of course they will never make Newsweek’s list of top High Schools in the Country since the rankings are entirely based on AP and IP results (let me know if I am wrong on this).

Another thing… I have to pay for my niece to take the PSAT as a sophomore even though it’s a requirement to get into the South Carolina’s Governors School for Science and Mathematics. I also had to pay a bunch of school fee’s… isn’t public education meant to be free?

Update: A little googling led me to this great site on the problems with Block Scheduling by Jeff Lindsay. To sum it up... block scheduling sucks for the following reasons:

1. Limited attention spans of teenagers
2. Time between consecutive classes creates needs for remediation
3. Its a bummer for athletes and music classes
4. Difficulty when school is missed
5. Problems transferring.
6. Math, science and Foreign languages are better taught in small regular doses instead of intensive long sessions.

Looks like I found my next crusade!