Vindicated!

My 6th grader said the following today after doing her homework: "You know why social studies is boring? You learn the same thing every year."

This is why I believe that elementary schools should concentrate on the basics and ease up on the social studies and science, except as part of reading. Kids at that age just dont grasp the concepts and certainly don't remember the stuff. I am not saying don't expose them to it, but make it part of the reading or math lessons and don't concentrate on it as much. When they get to Middle school hopefully they will be more proficient at reading and math, and will more likely to truly "get" and appreciate the sciences.

A Professor Sums up the Testing Controversy

Steven Dutch, a professor at the University of Wisconsin has a great post up on the Top Ten No Sympathy Lines for students who complain about their grades is class. One of them summed up my opinion on standardized testing and its opponents.

I Know The Material - I Just Don't Do Well on Exams

Leprechauns, unicorns, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, hobbits, orcs - and students who know the material but don't do well on exams. Mythical creatures.
I've met students who claim to know the material but not do well on exams, but when you press them, it turns out they don't know the material after all. If you can't answer questions about the material or apply the knowledge in an unfamiliar context, you don't know it. You might have vague impressions of specific ideas, but if you can't describe them in detail and relate them to other ideas, you don't know the material.
In addition to content, every type of exam used in college requires specific, vital intellectual skills. Essay exams require you to organize material and present it in your own words. Short-answer exams require you to frame precise, concise answers to questions. Multiple choice exams require you to define criteria for weeding out false alternatives and selecting one best answer. All of these are useful skills in themselves. If you can't do well on some specific type of test - learn the appropriate skill.

emphasis mine

I have never understood the argument against standardized testing. I am in the USAF and we have multiple choices tests as part of our promotion system. I have had several people who work for me who tell me that they "don't do well on tests" to explain their low scores. Inevitably when I dig deeper, I discover that the real problem its not testing that they do poorly on, its studying... as in not doing it. If our students don't do well on tests, its not because tests are faulty, its because the teaching was inadequate. I also have no sympathy for those who say they get too nervous before tests due to the pressure. What are they going to do when their boss gives them a deadline at work... freeze up and not do it. If someone is that bothered by the pressure, then they aren't going to much use in the workforce anyway. In the military we practice practice practice until our jobs become almost second nature. Its the same with elementary education. Our students need to practice, study and yes memorize the basics so that when they move on to high school and college the basic reading and math is second nature. That way they can concentrate on the more comprehensive tying together of facts part of education. How else to measure how well our students have accomplished this, then to test them.

Hat tip Joanne Jacobs

Carnival of Education "The Village People" Edition.

What ever side or opinion you hold about education, schools, or anything related, the weekly Carnival of Education is always a must read. I am especially happy to say that even I got a mention (ok, I submitted my own post). I was especially happy to see several new blogs from parents, but whomever you are, be sure to check out The "Village People" Education Carnival Get on the Bus Observations on schools, kids, teachers, teaching and education by Scott Elliott, Dayton Daily News.

Young man... la, la, la la, la, la...

grrr.... I got that song stuck in my head now.

Y M C A...

Meeting the teacher.

I just got back from a meeting with my 3rd grade daughters teacher. A couple of weeks ago she had contacted us to develop an “academic plan” because our daughter had scored below proficient on the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests (PACT). Overall the meeting went relatively smoothly, but we did throw the teacher some curveballs.

First, the teacher was rather surprised when we informed her that we thought that daughter was getting a little too much homework. For example last night our daughter had to put her 15 spelling words in ABC order three times (30 minutes), do a reading worksheet, (30 minutes), a math worksheet (20 minutes), study her 1, 2, 3, and 5 multiplication facts (20 minutes), and read for 15 minutes and fill out her reading log (20 minutes). On top of this, I had to take her to soccer practice (1.5 hours), feed her (30 minutes), shower (30 minutes)… you get the idea. I got the impression that the teacher wasn’t receptive to our complaint, but she did say she would consider splitting up the ABC order and the writing the words three times into separate nights. We have noticed that combining these two exercises intimidates our kids and causes them to get a little whiney. The teacher did say that the homework should only take them 45 minutes a night, not including the studying and reading… she obviously doesn’t have kids of her own. I am considering video taping our daughter after school so the teacher would have more realistic expectations. It was also mentioned that many kids turn in wrong and incomplete homework that it’s obvious the parents haven’t checked it. Maybe our high expectations contribute to the problem. When it comes down to it, if her teacher assigns it, then our daughter will do it and do it right.

The other issue that the teacher and we both agreed on was how the district handles after school tutoring. She was required to have an academic plan because she didn’t meet standards, but she didn’t score low enough to qualify for the tutoring program. Talk about stupid. Maybe next time we should tell her to do worse on the tests…

Now on to the crux of the problem, her reading comprehension. She is bright and doing well in every other subject, but reading is a struggle for her. My guess is that a large part of her problem is recognizing new and/or long words. For some reason she gets really frustrated when we ask her to sound out the words. I have discovered that she will often read a passage and say that she understood it, but when I ask her to read it out loud, she will not know several key words. I know there are some good teachers out there… any suggestions?

Feeling for her...

Here is a story of a disruptive student and an unsupportive administration that would serve to frustrate anybody. Maybe Dennis at From the Trenches of Public Ed. has a point when he says that teachers need to have the power to get rid of "disruptive" students. It might not be politically correct to say, but some students are beyond saving. The only other possible solution that I could come up with is to pass a law stating that the parent of any disruptive or chronically truant student would have to attend class with their child for face jail. I know this would cause loss of income for many parents, but it would definately add some bite and motivation for apathetic parents.

For a related post on motivation/dicipline in the class room see elementaryhistoryteacher's post entitled What is it going to take? in which she lays out seven basic needs that students have.

School Ownership

So this morning I am perusing The 82nd Carnival of Education, and I came across Margret's post on Where Are the Students in the National Standards Debate? over at her blog Poor, Starving, College Student . She notes that

"Here's a point. Many analyst have pointed out that the public doesn't seem to act as if they have ownership over their schools. They act more like "Oh, that's the school .""

She then goes on to ask

"How does one develop ownership? Now you want to make a policy that again, the public isn't going to feel ownership over. [national standards] Aren't we right back where we started? Why can't we solve problems that are staring us in the face?"

This question is one that is very dear to my heart. I am a bit of an education nerd, I consider myself fairly educated about policy, and I am fairly involved in my kids schooling, yet I don't feel like I have any ownership in any of the three schools that I send my children to. As I have said before, I tried the PTA route, but gave that up. I have seriously considered running for the local school board, but since I am in the military and therefore lack long term ties to the community, making any run at the board is a long shot. This just begs the question, is running for the school board the only way to have influence over my children's education? Having an influence on education was actually the whole reason I started this blog. Unfortunately I have come to realize that the easiest way to influence control over your children's education is by school choice. Whether by charter schools, vouchers, or simple moving districts, there is no other easy way to control your child's education. The public school system has become such a bureaucracy, that any attempts to influence it even a little is virtually impossible. Of course it appears to me that unless you live in a truly failing urban school district, charters or vouchers aren't available on large scale yet. For us who live in mediocre school systems, we have no options.

Education and Sex

Education and sex... Darren over at Right on the Left Coast posts Strip Club Raises Money for Las Vegas School District. As I posted in his comments section, why can't my kid's schools have fund raisers like this. I have to sell lousy candy bars instead.

tags: education sex

6 Common Sense Solutions for Schools

Ok, I am off work today, but up early with the baby. So to continue my blogging spree, I thought I would propose my recommended solutions for improving the education system.

1. Extend the school day. Parents get off work at 5 pm, kids get off at 2:30.... It doesn't take a genius to see the problems here. Sure all those dodgy after school programs would take a financial hit, but maybe then our schools could include a real physical education program and stop fobbing the teaching job off on us parents with all that inane homework.

2. Concentrate on the basics in elementary school. What do you think is more important in today's average workplace... knowing who the 3rd President of the United States is or being able to read and comprehend company policy or an operator’s manual?

3. Adopt modern technology such as PowerSchool. I am always shocked about how unorganized schools are when I visit the teachers and administrators. Imagine, I could see my children's grades in real time and the school could eliminate several tons of paper. Good for me and the environment.

4. One word... Direct Instruction... Ok that's two words, but I would of known that if my school had used D.I. when I was in grade school.

5. School Uniforms. Eliminate the visible difference between the haves and the have-nots and reduce my annual kids clothing budget. Besides, kids look so damn cute in them.

6. Stop the damn school fund raisers. No one wants to buy cheap items at exorbitant prices. If I want a candy bar, I will go to the corner store and buy one. If you need more money, raise my taxes or better yet become more efficient. Don't even start me on what I could do, if you gave me 30 kids and $300,000 a year.

7. Single sex education. Boys and girls are different! I figured it out when my son picked up my daughters Barbie doll and turned it into a machine gun. Integrate them in elective classes, but keep them separated for the important stuff.

Notes: Yes I know I could find most of this at a good catholic school, but I have five kids and work on a government salary. You do the math.

Disclaimer: These opinions are the authors and do not reflect those of the mother of his kids. She strongly disagrees with the single sex education thing.

Update #1: Yes I know the title says 6 solutions and I posted 7... see item #4. And I am too damn stubborn to change it now.

Update #2: There is a good chance that if you post a decent logical rebuttal to any one of my proposed solutions that I will ignore it even if you are right. Educrats ignore valid evidence based studies every day, why should I be any different.

More Homework

Joanne Jacobs comments on the same homework article that I posted about the other day. While I normally agree with Joanne's views on education, on this subject I have to disagree. She mentions the highly successful KIPP Academies as an example of successful schools that assign lots of homework, but it is unrealistic to expect that level of commitment from the public education system at large. There does have to be a balance between family time, play, and education. I still believe that the best solution is to implement more effective teaching methods in the 8 hours that the school systems have with our children already.

My Motives...

I suppose it’s time for me to explain a little bit more about myself, and why as a non-educator I am so interested in education. I am a MSgt in the USAF and spent most of my career living in Europe (The Netherlands, England, German, Italy, and Belgium). Two of kids started out in Department of Defense schools, which were all in all excellent. Because of the tight knit overseas military community, the parents and the teachers had a great working relationship. I was literally floored when I was reassigned to the United States and saw the state of the school system, especially here in South Carolina. Because by nature I am inquisitive, I began to research the subject of education. The more I dug, the more shocked I became. I always knew intuitively that somehow my kids were being shortchanged, but it wasn’t until I began exploring the edublogosphere that I realized just how truly screwed up things were. Sure I am confident that my kids will succeed despite the system, but I think that not only my kids but the children of our nation deserve better. I truly believe that education is the solution to 90% of what ails this country. Why is it my German friend's 9 year olds spoke passable English and was learning basic algebra while my 5th grader was figuring out how to find out what 7 x 9 is on her fingers? Children are capable of learning, but it requires effort, time, and proven methods.

To much homework...

I'm not the only person that thinks our kids have to much homework. Claudia Wallis has a great article entitled The Myth About Homework.

LAUSD eliminates achievement gap... really!

A while back there was some minor debate in the edublogosphere about Charles Murray's opinion piece on the gaming of the achievement gap. Well the LAUSD has finally managed to eliminate the achievement gap. How you ask? By officially redefining it as the "proficiency gap". The proficiency gap is defined as

"100% minus the percent of a subgroup scoring Proficient or above (Proficiency+) on official performance assessments (i.e., California Standards Tests). For example, if 55 percent of students in a subgroup scores Proficient or above on the California Standards Test - English Language Arts, then the English Language Arts Proficiency Gap for that subgroup would be 45 percent;"

This is of course is awesome, because if lets say you manage to get one group scoring 100% proficient on the exam and another group scores 100% advanced on the exam, you still dont have a gap!

Talented and Gifted... what a waste!

How can our schools be expected to teach the average child when they can't even teach the gifted students. My son is in the talented and gifted (TAG) program this year. It's a pull out program that involves pulling him out of his normal class one afternoon a week. Today I went to the school district office to speak to the administrator about the curriculum that they would be using. I was quite disappointed to learn that there would be no accelerated learning, instead they would by using constructivism to learn the same material as everyone else, but more in depth. My son was placed in the program because of his math skills, so I was hoping that they would be able to challenge him by teaching him at a faster pace. He has long since learned the multiplication tables, but instead of moving right along to division, he will have to wait another two months while every one else masters 7 x 6 = 42. Once again we will have to suck it up at home to challenge our children, but with the hour of homework, soccer practice, the baby, our homework, dinner, its getting more and more difficult to find the time.

PTA's

Steve Barr over as Eduwonk asks about people's experiences with PTA's. I have attended several PTA meetings at my kids schools, but found them to be a waste of time quite frankly. The PTA's tend to be dominated by military parents (we have a large Air Force Base in town) while the local parents are more apathetic. They tend to be nothing more than a booster club, trying to raise money or put on some sort of event. I am sure if I stood up and tried to start a debate over the achievement gap, direct instruction vs. constructivism, or single sex education, I would be treated as a pariah. Now the school board, thats where the real power is...

From the Trenches of Public Ed.

I have been having a discussion with Dennis from From the Trenches of Public Ed. He made a statement that I thought I would clear up. In one of his comments to my last post he says "You seem to be very unhappy with some of the teachers at your kids' school." Its not that we are happy with our teachers, we actually get along with and work well with all our teachers, but then again we are active involved parents. Having said that there are some issues or problems that we have come across. One of our 3rd grade teachers gives way to much homework, especially compared to our other 3rd graders class. An hour and a half of homework a night is way to much for a 8 year old, especially since it seems to be busy work and somewhat redundant.

The scariest thing we have seen, was in our 1st grade teachers class. I had stopped by the classroom to just say hi, and we saw three boys sleeping (when I say sleeping, I mean laying across chairs and snoring) while the rest of the class was having reading time. When I asked the teacher about it a few days later, she said that it happens quite often with those students and that she had contacted their parents. She also said that if she doesn't let them sleep they tend to be disruptive. Personally, while I have to question the system that allows this, frankly if having those boys sleep allows my child to get a better education then I'm not going to complain.

All and all, I tend to be pragmatic. While I disagree with some aspects of the system, I realize that I am not going to be able to change it. If it takes a few extra hours a week of my time to ensure my kids get the basics they need, then I am more than willing to give it.

Public School Teachers

Dennis from From the Trenches of Public Ed. has come up with a solution to solve the American education system. He wants to kick out the "apathetic" from the nations classrooms. Of course we all know course we know which sort of students he means when he says that. No wonder there is an achievement gap with teachers like this. Pathetic.

Note: Read his reply to KDeRosa in the comments for the details.

FOXNews.com - Study Shows Teacher's Gender Affects Students' Performance - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

Once again it takes a scientific study scientific study to show what 90% of parents could of told you. Give me a choice and I would choose a male teacher for my son and a female teacher for my daughters. Im sure this is going to set off a round of debates and denials between the "experts". Note Marcia Greenberger from the National Womens Law Center says "The data, as he presents them, are far from convincing". Don't you wonder if any amount of data would convince her... I doubt it. Is it about education or politics?

New Math vs. Old Math

My oldest daughter struggled in 5th grade math. Her biggest problem... her multiplications skills. When I was a child, the multiplication tables were drilled into me... commited to memory. Her 3rd grade teacher taught the multiplication facts by teaching children to skip count, to use some finger trick with the 9's, and all kinds of other tricks, everything except to just memorize them. Unfortunately, learning long division and factoring requires that you know the tables by heart. Luckily were able to take advantage of NCLB provisions and get her extra tutoring in math where her multiplication tables were redrilled into her. We take part of the blame for not realizing how the schools were shortchanging her, but we learned our lesson. Both of our 3rd graders already know their multiplication facts through to the 12's because we took an hour each day during 2nd grade to drill them into their heads. Now in 3rd grade they are both well ahead of their peers, but it took time and effort on my and their moms part. My recommendation... don't trust your kids teachers to teach the basics.

Sample size and more than meets the eye...

Erin Dillon over at the The Quick and the Ed points out how Walt Whitman High School, an otherwise strong school, had an atrocious pass rate for African Americans in Algebra on the Maryland High School Assessment exam. Only 33% of Walt Whitman's Walt Whitman's African Americans passed in 2006, down from 38.5% in 2005 and 55.6% in 2004. Of course what Erin fails to mention, is that there are only 15 African American students at Walt Whitman High School. In fact, since 2002 exactly 5 African Americans have passed the Algebra test. The only difference is that the number of African Americans taking the test has varied from 9 to 17. If we look at data from 2003, it now appears as if Walt Whitman has increased its African American pass rate from by 4%. How did I find out this information... hours and hours of exhaustive research... no... I just hit the detail button on the chart that Erin linked to. Now I'm not expert at statistics, but it seems to me that this is a tiny sample size to make an informed judgment on. I am a firm believer in making education decisions based on numbers and research, but even a layman like me can see that you need a large enough sample of students to make these decisions. Perhaps Walt Whitman is neglecting its African American students but then again, perhaps Walt Whitman is just a victim of a statistical blip.

Married couples going Childless at Newsweek

Talk about the "me" generation. Let them enjoy their vacations now. We will see who is laughing in 40 years when they are realize while sitting in a nursing home that they are lonely, will leave no mark in the world and be remembered by no one. Better yet, lets have true social security reform... since the retired of tomorrow will be supported by the children of today, lets base social security on how many children you have.