More Government Lies On Math Education

The New York Times reports that yet another government report has been produced advocating the thrashing of the math curriculum in elementary and middle schools - the Bush administration never tires of trying to control government beyond their elected years.

It seems that in education especially, Bush and his cronies are attempting to create legislation that will pervert and hamper public education for years to come.

The Times piece called Report Urges Changes in Teaching Math by Tamar Lewin describes the study.

The report, adopted unanimously by the panel on Thursday and presented to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, said that prekindergarten-to-eighth-grade math curriculums should be streamlined and put focused attention on skills like the handling of whole numbers and fractions and certain aspects of geometry and measurement.

It offers specific goals for students in different grades. For example, it said that by the end of the third grade, students should be proficient in adding and subtracting whole numbers. Two years later, they should be proficient in multiplying and dividing them. By the end of the sixth grade, the report said, students should have mastered the multiplication and division of fractions and decimals.

This report is not change and that's why I call it thrashing. The report decides that the existing education regime has failed and recommends yet more of it. More broad based testing, more grade specific goals.

Nowhere is the individual child mentioned. Nor is any recommendation for grooming the individual as a whole spiritual being deserving honor and respect. No, this report is more pig-piling of thinly disguised NCLB remedy. And therefore the report is toxic.

Later in the article a starling assertion is made without follow-up.

“There is no basis in research for favoring teacher-based or student-centered instruction,” Dr. Larry R. Faulkner, the chairman of the panel, said at a briefing on Wednesday. “People may retain their strongly held philosophical inclinations, but the research does not show that either is better than the other.”

The report found that “to prepare students for algebra, the curriculum must simultaneously develop conceptual understanding, computational fluency and problem-solving skills.” Further, it said: “Debates regarding the relative importance of these aspects of mathematical knowledge are misguided. These capabilities are mutually supportive.”

Let's examine the assertion by comparing the world's best math test scores with the U.S. test scores and compare the methodology.

A recent Wall St Journal article entitled What makes Finnish Kids So Smart by Ellen Gamerman is worthy of attention. Here's why.

Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they're way ahead in math, science and reading -- on track to keeping Finns among the world's most productive workers.
Finland's students are the brightest in the world, according to an international test. Teachers say extra playtime is one reason for the students' success. WSJ's Ellen Gamerman reports.

The Finns won attention with their performances in triennial tests sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group funded by 30 countries that monitors social and economic trends. In the most recent test, which focused on science, Finland's students placed first in science and near the top in math and reading, according to results released late last year. An unofficial tally of Finland's combined scores puts it in first place overall, says Andreas Schleicher, who directs the OECD's test, known as the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The U.S. placed in the middle of the pack in math and science; its reading scores were tossed because of a glitch. About 400,000 students around the world answered multiple-choice questions and essays on the test that measured critical thinking and the application of knowledge. A typical subject: Discuss the artistic value of graffiti.

The academic prowess of Finland's students has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years to learn the country's secret, including an official from the U.S. Department of Education. What they find is simple but not easy: well-trained teachers and responsible children. Early on, kids do a lot without adults hovering. And teachers create lessons to fit their students. "We don't have oil or other riches. Knowledge is the thing Finnish people have," says Hannele Frantsi, a school principal.

If we are to believe in test results then this evidence wholly contradicts what Bush's hand-picked Dr. Larry R. Faulkner asserts. There is plenty of evidence that paying attention to the needs of the child instead of the needs of corporate lobbyists in Washington is productive.

Furthermore the article states;

Finnish high-school senior Elina Lamponen saw the differences firsthand. She spent a year at Colon High School in Colon, Mich., where strict rules didn't translate into tougher lessons or dedicated students, Ms. Lamponen says. She would ask students whether they did their homework. They would reply: " 'Nah. So what'd you do last night?'" she recalls. History tests were often multiple choice. The rare essay question, she says, allowed very little space in which to write. In-class projects were largely "glue this to the poster for an hour," she says. Her Finnish high school forced Ms. Lamponen, a spiky-haired 19-year-old, to repeat the year when she returned.

Maybe the reason Dr. Faulkner's committee makes the kinds of assertions they do is that the Department of Education spends an inordinate amount of time and money visiting the schools of totalitarian countries instead of paying attention to the kinds of pedagogy that actually work internationally.

The casual observer might note that the Finns were one of many democratic nations represented ahead of the United States in this testing. It appears raising intelligent children is not a monopoly in countries we outsource our prosperity to.

Citizens need to reject the Bush education initiatives in wholesale fashion. They are the diseased recommendations of a diseased Washington culture allowed to govern without accountability, sanity, or restraint. They cannot be voted out of office soon enough. Nor can their absurd ideas be flushed fast enough.

The Wall St Journal video:

Holiday Dinner parties and teachers

Over the holidays, my wife and I had a wonderful dinner with some long-time professional teachers. After dinner , the out-of-district teachers discussed the culture of perpetual testing.

• "In our district, the scores are extremely high and yet we are greeted with ever greater expectations the next go round. We are handed reams of literature on improving [teaching for] test scores."
  

A teacher in a religious institution commented that they are not obligated to administer these tests.

• "Well, the high scoring towns manage property values based on the scores. I mean the developers would have a fit if the scores were not adequate to justify the cost of the housing."
  

• "I love working with the kids but after decades of teaching my expertise is wholly ignored and the only thing administrators care about are these test scores. I know these kids and I can't effectively help them. Heaven forbid we should have ONE free class to just do something creative!"
  

• "The people making money on this are the testing industry who sell all the specialized cirriculum materials for test preparation."
  

So I asked why they don't express these opinions to the administrators. They answer, "Look, in the old days I'd say something. Today, they're likely to punish you by changing your assignment next year to something undesirable. It isn't worth it."

In some cases I've slightly paraphrased these conversations from memory but I hope the internalized outrage of a few teachers offers a voice and an insight into what our schools have become for professional teachers. Finally,

• "I moved from another state to come here and teach and I have to say that the thing I'm so proud of about Connecticut is that we have an Attorney General [Blumenthal] with the guts to file a lawsuit against NCLB (No Child Left Behind)."
  

These opinions are important because professionals who are trying to improve schools are calling for more pro-active teacher involvement in the dialogue. For example, this article discusses the topic precisely.

Bring teachers to the table

By S. Paul Reville | January 3, 2006

As the volume of schools identified as ''in need of improvement" ratchets upward under the idealistic assumptions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the urgency for the state to act intensifies. It is morally and educationally unsound for authorities publicly to label poor performance without a plan and the capacity to intervene.

Intervention planning is challenging work. There is little evidence of dramatically successful ''turnaround" strategies anywhere in the country. Policy makers in virtually every state are grappling with the question of what to do with their failing schools. Research evidence is limited. State takeovers have not been successful, except on financial matters. Most state departments of education, as is the case in Massachusetts, have limited capacity, personnel, and expertise to address the complex issues of school performance.

Naturally, the policy discussion migrates away from state bureaucracies. In Massachusetts, conversations on interventions and poor performance have focused on management prerogatives, turnaround partners, and chartering or privatizing failed schools. These strategies, like many others, have little or no research evidence to support their effectiveness.

Conspicuously absent in the debate on intervention has been the role and voices of teachers and teacher unions, arguably the front line troops in any ''turnaround" strategy. There seems to be a belief in some policy circles that school improvement can be accomplished in spite of teachers rather than with them.

Some of the assumptions embedded in the prominent strategies, management prerogatives, turnaround partners, chartering, and privatization imply that teachers are the problem rather than part of the solution, that the source of expertise on fixing school problems is external rather than internal or that current leadership is highly competent. Although each of these assumptions is sometimes true, none is always or typically correct.

Teachers and, certainly, unions don't have all the answers either. They are also sometimes the source of problems, but it is folly to shape school intervention and turnaround plans without extensively consulting teachers on policies and practices.

A common flaw of educational policies is that they take a ''one size fits all" approach to solving problems or meeting challenges. Not all failing schools fail for the same reasons. Therefore, not all successful school interventions will look alike. Our intervention policies will need to take into account the substantial variation in context: communities, leadership, curriculum and teaching, resources, students, demographics, mobility and a host of other factors. Our intervention policies will need to be strong but flexible and responsive to local circumstances. Above all, we will need policies and practices that those charged with implementing see as worthwhile and likely to succeed.

However, it's not just some policy makers' neglect or management bias that keeps unions from the intervention policy table. Union leaders are sometimes ambivalent about participating in solving the problems of the accountability system for fear of being seen as collaborators with a system of assessment and accountability which some of their members still actively reject. However, enlightened leaders across the country increasingly see that, however flawed, the system of accountability is here to stay and teachers have a vital role to play in improving that system. These leaders know that unions need to be at the table.

In addition to including teachers in policy formulation, we would do well to craft state intervention policies that increase the capacity of the state Department of Education to provide real assistance and tools, like formative assessment data, leadership training, extra time, and professional development, to our most challenged schools and districts. We should also view our policy efforts as experimental. We don't have much evidence to support any of the most prominently mentioned strategies, but this doesn't absolve the state of the obligation to get involved in helping educators improve teaching and learning in the Commonwealth's most challenged schools.

S. Paul Reville is president of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Although the State being discussed is Massachusetts, the content is relevant. But how can this nation ever hope to have such discussions with teachers when NCLB, for all intents and purposes, encourages little more than a draconian, adversarial conversation?

NCLB is a failed social engineering experiment that needs to be suspended sooner than later.