Education is Your Business

Should states manage testing?

States manage their K-12 testing systems. They determine what passing is, what questions get asked, everything. And there are some serious problems with the set-up, as Steve Peha points out in a comment on the EduWonk blog:

Letting governors and state legislators set educational standards in their own states is a bit like letting the fox guard the hen house. Much research has shown how state politicians have chipped away at rigor over the years, and Mr. Jindal’s latest attempt is no exception.

A few years ago, I worked extensively in Arizona, one of the “tough” states requiring that kids pass reading, writing, and math tests to qualify for high school graduation. The year before the law was to go into effect, they dropped the requirements for a passing score more than ten percent. Then, the following year, they created a formula whereby kids who didn’t pass tests could still graduate through a combination of attendance, grades, and test prep classes. As a result, only six kids failed to make the grade that year, demonstrating clearly that it is indeed possible to leave no child behind if we can only figure out the correct mathematical formula that lowers the bar far enough.

State testing must be conducted by independent organizations with no political or financial stake in the outcome. What’s more, we already have good models of this practice in the NAEP, SAT, and ACT tests. Whether one likes these tests or not, it is hard to dispute the fact that they are all regarded as more reliable than state tests.

I’m not a big fan of testing. But if we’re going to do it, let’s do it right. Too much hangs in the balance when our tests are subject to manipulation by shortsighted politicians who care more about their approval ratings than they do about the fate of children in their states. It takes courage to reform education. And few of our political leaders seem to have it.

To read the original post and other comments, go here.

How President-Elect Obama can start fixing education

Steve and I offer suggestions to help President-Elect Obama begin the arduous task of turning our schools back into institutions that actually help students achieve in this week's Carrboro Citizen:

Eight great ideas for the Obama administration

Education and the election

Education and the Election

Two must-see events on edweek.org

Live Debate: Education and the Next President

Exclusive webcast, Tuesday, October 21, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Eastern time

Live from Teachers College, Columbia University: "Education and the Next President," a debate between Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Democratic nominee Barack Obama, and Lisa Graham Keegan, education adviser to Republican nominee John McCain.

 

Register now to watch the live debate.

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Analyzing the Election: What’s at Stake for Schools?

Available online Wednesday, Oct. 22, 12 p.m. Eastern time

Education Week’s David J. Hoff moderates a post-debate discussion with leading education analysts.

Watch this exclusive video here.

A video archive of the debate will be posted here on Oct. 22 by 12 p.m. Eastern time.

  You can also follow the debate at twitter.com/edweek2008elect.
  Chime in by including #tcdebate in your tweets.

The webcast is brought to you with support from the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

The (non-)Politics of Education

Our latest column for the Carrboro Citizen, published 21 August 2008:

As we head back to school this fall, we’re also heading into one of the most important presidential elections in history.

The candidates are already running ads and the issues seem clear: the war in Iraq, the economy, healthcare, the price of gas, etc. But not education. As important as everyone seems to think education is, it barely rates a blip on a pollster’s radar. Why?

Think about the life-changing value of a good education. Where would most of us be without the educational opportunities we’ve had? Obviously, many of this year’s crop of issues are more urgent — but that doesn’t explain why education is never a top priority in a national election (or, for that matter, in state gubernatorial elections either).

For starters, neither candidate has a well-defined position on education. And even if they did, it’s unlikely those positions would differ much. The biggest educational issue is No Child Left Behind, and it has been enthusiastically supported by both Democrats and Republicans. Neither McCain nor Obama is likely to call for dismantling it entirely; and even if they did, that still might not get the people’s attention.

This is either because we can’t see that NCLB has made any significant difference in how well we educate our children or that no one has proposed a different solution. Even after seven years, the jury is still out on whether the most ambitious education reform in American history has accomplished much in the way of reform.

If we look at how our politicians treat education, and how the voters feel about it, we might conclude that people don’t think educational change is possible. Public school is free, everybody goes — and no matter what legislation passes or doesn’t pass, school remains pretty much the same. Our inability to change education leads to passivity among the general public about whether it can be changed at all. And things that can’t be changed don’t make good issues at election time.

But education can be changed. If the right policies were in place, we could begin to make progress. If candidates talked about a single national testing system that used challenging tests like the NAEP or SAT, we could make some change. If candidates talked about overhauling teacher training on a national level, we could make some change. If candidates endorsed universal pre-school and all-day kindergarten, we could make some change.

But no one is talking about these issues now and we suspect they won’t come up in any significant way in the near future.

When it comes to education, we are focused on the wrong things. Or, rather, we’re only focused on one thing – NCLB – that probably won’t make a difference no matter which way it goes during reauthorization next year. If we want to be as serious about education as we are about healthcare and the price of gas, we need to concentrate on big issues that cut cleanly across the electorate. Senator, are you in favor of universal pre-school? Yes or no? And if so, how would you propose to pay for it? It’s got to be that simple or education will never get off the ground as an election-year issue.

If we’re going to make real progress in education, we have to get real with our political leaders about the kind of progress we want. Right now, we’re giving them a free pass. That’s no way to run an election. If holding our kids accountable for test scores is such a good idea, why can’t we hold our political leaders accountable for policies that really make a difference?

Steve Peha and Margot Carmichael Lester own Teaching That Makes Sense Inc., an education reform, advocacy and consulting company based in Carrboro.

'The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching

Published: August 20, 2008 in Knowledge@Wharton

In their book, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, authors Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg point out that today's education system is seriously flawed -- it focuses on teaching rather than learning. "Why should children -- or adults -- be asked to do something computers and related equipment can do much better than they can?" the authors ask in the following excerpt from the book. "Why doesn't education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?"

You don't have to read the book to get the gist. Take a gander at this great article from the book here.

Key Take-Aways:

• Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant.
• In most schools, memorization is mistaken for learning. Most of what is remembered is remembered only for a short time, but then is quickly forgotten. (How many remember how to take a square root or ever have a need to?)
• In the educational process, students should be offered a wide variety of ways to learn, among which they could choose or with which they could experiment.

Teaching First: How to really help kids learn to read

Here's our latest column, reprinted from the Carrboro Citizen:

Teaching first

Jul 31, 2008  

by Steve Peha & Margot Carmichael Lester

Something big happened in the world of reading recently: A major study found that kids who participated in the multi-billion-dollar Reading First program faired no better at reading than kids who didn’t participate. To most people, whether they’ve been directly involved in Reading First or not, this comes as quite a shock.

Reading First is a big deal. It concentrates more money and more research-based practice in a single curriculum area than any other educational program in our nation’s history. But it doesn’t appear to have generated much in the way of positive results.

Quit Blaming the Kids

The big news in the paper this week is the alarming number of area schools that aren't meeting federal expectations. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, more than half of Triangle schools didn't have enough students passing state exams this past school year. As a result, the Federal government will intercede as part of No Child Left Behind. (For more on NCLB, see this article we wrote for the Carrboro Citizen.)

That's not good. It shows that even here in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, the cradle of public higher education in our nation, public grade school education isn't making the grade.

But what's worse than 35 schools in our area facing federal intervention is the continuing refrain I hear all the time: that it's the special groups -- like non-English speakers or low-income kids -- who are to blame for all this. You see, when things go wrong in schools, it's much easier to blame the victims -- the students -- than the adults who are actually in charge at every level from the classroom to the administrative offices to the state board of education right up to the U.S. Department of Education.

Dropping the Ball on Drop-Out Prevention

By now, you’ve probably read in your local paper about the abysmal graduation rates in some of our nation’s largest city school systems. The report, generated by America’s Promise, found that some cities graduate less than 50 percent of their seniors.

Phoenix, for instance, graduates only 58.3 percent of its high schoolers. And, amazingly enough, that puts it in the top 20! Yes, 30 of the countries largest cities graduate LESS than that!

This means we’re creating a huge population of high school drop-outs, whose employment prospects are minimal, and whose chances at leading the good old American “good life” are dramatically diminished. What will become of this lost generation?

Newsweek: No Candidate Gets An A on Education

 Newsweek has been asking presidential candidates to share their thoughts on some of the weightiest issues facing the nation. This week, the issue was education. The grades: B's for Clinton, Obama and McCain. A D for Huckabee. You can read the full story here.

More NC Kids Drop Out -- Again

 

Today the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction announced that the state's drop-out rate had risen -- again. More than 3,550 students dropped out of North Carolina public schools during the last academic year. That's the largest number this century.

Drop-outs are a perennial problem here -- and in most other states. While the problem's pervasive, no one seems to be willing to look at what's really prompting at least some kids to leave school early.

TTMS has decided to take a stand. Here's a distillation of our drop-out reduction plan. It might not keep every kid in school, but it sure as heck will make a dent.