SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Praise for a Teachers’ Union

American Educator, the magazine of the American Federation of Teachers, is always good value, but in its latest edition the AFT has outdone itself. The feature article by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. on the importance of a core curriculum is fascinating and eye-opening. “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” by Dan Willingham explains that virtually everyone can become good at math, and then shows how. “Want to Improve Children’s Writing” by Steve Graham outlines how teaching handwriting will actually improve students’ ability to focus and organize ideas in their written work. As well, there are excellent articles on teacher training and recognition schemes. Lastly, don’t miss the Notebook link.

Crazy Like a Fox

Every once in a while, we review one of the books in our lending library. Crazy Like a Fox: One principal's triumph in the inner city tells the story of the highly-unorthodox Lumbee Indian Ben Chavis who transformed California's American Indian Public Charter School from a failing, run-down disaster into one of the highest-performing public middle schools in the United States. With his rigorous no-nonsense approach, the author debunks the myth that poor, minority, inner-city students have little chance at academic excellence. Focusing on back-to-basics ideals - academics, attendance, and hard work - he has created a structured school that delivers astounding results. An American Indian who comes from humble sharecropping roots, Dr. Chavis rejects victimization and excuse-making. 

Before Dr. Chavis took over, the American Indian Public Charter School had "the goal of promoting American Indian culture while improving the academic performance of American Indians in Oakland who, as a whole, were doing terribly in school". The excerpt (p. 9) concerns Dr. Chavis' view of this approach.

"What was going on at American Indian Public Charter School was a bunch of urban, wannabe Indian nonsense. The staff were pseudo-Indians, and they were screwing up kids. They had this fantasy of 'We're gonna sit around and we're gonna play the drum and we're gonna pass the sage.' To me, there wasn't one real Indian staff member in that place. They were born in the city, had major identity problems, and didn't know much about Indians. I grew up in a small Indian community, so I don't need to go around wearing my identity on my shirt. I don't need no feathers. I don't need no beads hanging in my car. I have Indian relatives, and that is enough for me and my family when it comes to knowing who we are.

"One of the principals (there were several) who worked at American Indian Public Charter School, Chief Bad Example, often worked as an emcee at powwows. Chief Bad Example would run off to the powwows and miss school. What kind of model is set for students when the principal skips work to play Indian? The so-called American Indian image of the school was based on lies and fantasy: fake Indian names and fantasy Indian culture in the form of therapy circles."

Reading Right From the Beginning

Judging by my experience as a reading tutor, here in Ontario it is usually better if students have had no previous instruction. As with so many things, it is very important to start reading instruction off on the right foot, as it is at the very beginning that several vital habits need to be established. The popular Balanced Literacy approach that dominates Canadian publicly-funded schools unfortunately asks beginning readers to read material they are not yet capable of decoding. As a result, these students are encouraged to look at words as a whole, guess at unknown words, skim reading passages, and continually interrupt their reading to look for clues in the illustrations. Bad habits are formed - for example, confusion between the letter 'd' and the letter 'b' - that prove very difficult, sometimes impossible, to break later on. 

The good habits that make advanced reading possible include processing every letter in every word, reading for exact meaning, and never guessing at unknown words. Students with these habits develop into mature readers for whom reading is as effortless and comfortable as breathing. The importance of a suitable start to reading instruction has been proven by a seven-year study by two Scottish professors that compared teaching methods in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. They found that giving four-year-old children systematic phonics instruction meant that they were on average three and a half years ahead of their chronological age by the time they were 11. Boys outperformed girls, and the children who made the greatest improvement came from disadvantaged homes. Virtually all students became proficient readers. Arguably even more impressive results have been achieved in nearby West Dunbartsonshire where illiteracy has been nearly eradicated among students.

I believe that the best time to start reading instruction is when children are very young, perhaps as young as three years old. If phonics is presented to young children in a playful (but systematic) way, preschoolers seem able to absorb concepts almost organically, learning to read almost as easily and naturally as they learned to talk. One possible approach is outlined in Teach Your Child to Read in Just 10 Minutes a Day by Sidney Ledson.

The Life-Saving Comma

It's harder than it looks to communicate with other people. How does one move a thought from one's own brain to another's brain? Since the human species unfortunately has been denied telepathic abilities, we have been forced to develop other means of communication. The two main ways are speech and writing.

Speech is good for communicating with people in the same room, since it can be reinforced by gestures, body language, and other non-verbal cues. As well, a speaker can monitor his listeners' comprehension and agreement, adding more complete explanations and argumentation as needed. However, speech becomes less effective as the audience becomes more distant and, in many cases, it is simply not possible as a means of communication.

Enter written communication. This method can be used to communicate with far-away audiences, but it lacks the ability to augment the written words and respond to audience feedback in real time. As a result, it is very important for authors to carefully craft their writing to make sure it conveys their intended meaning to the readers. One of the tools that writers have developed to assist in this task is the humble comma. By indicating where the author would have paused had he been speaking, it partially overcomes one of the drawbacks of written communication. 

It is common for modern educators to downplay the importance of commas, along with the other punctuation tools, but they do so at their peril. Or, more accurately, at the peril of their students.

How to Cut Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face

A good example of how to cut off your nose to spite your face:

A number of Massachusetts school districts chose to opt out of the bid for federal Race to the Top money because the unions representing their teachers did not support having teachers' jobs linked to student test scores. The districts that did not support the state's bid are ineligible to receive funding the state may win during a time when many are short on funds for new teachers, professional development and other programs, and some officials are lamenting the loss of potential assistance.

Power to The Parents

California Governor Schwarzenegger has signed a bill that gives parents the power to do something about low-performing schools.  The new law means that if at least half the parents agree through petition, a school can be declared inadequate.  Among other powers, parents can call for the school to be closed or turned into a charter school.  They can also petition the principal to fire up to half of the staff.

"Many parents and legislators -- as well as the Governor himself -- call California Senate Bill 4 an important restoration of parental control.

"For too many years, too many children were trapped in low-performing schools and couldn't do anything about it," Schwarzenegger said the day he signed the bill. "As a matter of fact, the exit doors might as well have been chained. Now, because of SB 4, parents have the right to free their children from those under-performing schools -- and that without the principal's permission."

Wow what a concept!  Parents actually getting to decide their children's fate instead of the other way around.

As you can imagine, the California Teachers Association is not happy:  "Union leaders, on their Web site, say the law will 'create chaos in school districts and drain resources from local classrooms and punish lower-performing schools without providing needed assistance.'"

Running to Stay in Place

There has been a lot of discussion about our “Taking the Joy Out of Reading” posting, and the burning issue here seems to be how well Canadians can read. The definitive study of this question is the OECD/Statistics Canada 2005 International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Study (IALLS).

The IALLS  tested more than 23,000 Canadians. It found that “the average literacy score for Canadians had not changed significantly during the nine-year period since the last major survey was conducted in 1994….In general, young people perform better than older Canadians. However, after their parents’ education was taken into account, the survey seemed to show an apparent decline in literacy scores among young people aged 16 to 25 between 1994 and 2003.“ The IALLS separated Canad’a population into four levels. The lowest level, Level 1, which included 15% of Canadians, was defined as “persons with very poor skills, where the individual, for example, may be unable to determine the correct amount of medicine to give a child from information printed on the package”. The second-lowest level, Level 2, which included 27% of Canadians, was defined as “people (who) can only deal with material that is simple, clearly laid out, and in which the tasks involved are not too complex. It denotes a weak level of skill, but more hidden than Level 1. It identifies people who can read but test poorly. They may have developed coping skills to manage everyday literacy demands, but their low level of proficiency makes it difficult for them to face novel demands, such as learning new job skills”. Taken together, the two levels include 42% of Canadians, a figure that is essentially unchanged from 1994, and these citizens are considered illiterate by Statistics Canada. StatsCan makes the point that the adults in the lowest two levels have only a 50% chance of finding a job even after 52 weeks of unemployment.

Because the level of literacy needed to cope with the demands of the 21st century rises ever higher, just standing still means falling behind. As the Red Queen said to Alice, “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place”.

PS

A comment to the More or Less posting indicated that the per-pupil expenditure is the relevant statistic and that in this sphere Finland spends more than other countries. Per-pupil expenditure is also available in Education at a Glance, Indicator B1. The data are analyzed in several ways, but no matter how you slice it, Finland is far from the biggest per-pupil spender. As an example, here are the rankings for cumulative per-student expenditure for all services over the theoretical duration of primary and secondary studies (expressed in US$). 

Luxembourg ($209.060); Switzerland ($141,013); Norway ($134,303); Iceland ($124,601); United States ($123,361); Denmark ($119,621); Austria ($118,930); Italy ($106,351); United Kingdom ($103,352); Ireland ($100,352); Sweden ($97,116); Slovenia ($96,239); Australia ($96,079); Belgium ($94,039); OECD Average ($93,775); Canada ($93,288); France ($92, 439); Japan ($91,716); Germany ($88,729); Netherlands ($86,603); Spain ($83,552); Finland ($82,868); Korea ($73,950); Portugal ($72,017); New Zealand ($71,614); Israel ($64,683); Hungary ($50,215); Estonia ($48,194); Poland ($46,557); Slovak Republic ($39,413); Russian Federation ($26,394); Mexico ($26,019); Chile ($25,072); Brazil ($16,844)

In education at least, it appears that you don’t necessarily get what you pay for.

More or Less - It Doesn’t Seem to Matter

There have been a number of comments on our blog about Finland, with one frequent commenter claiming that the OECD attributes Finland’s #1 status on the PISA test to the fact that it spends more than any other country on its education system. However, the 2009 edition of the OECD’s Education at a Glance (click on Indicator B4: What is the total public spending on education?) shows no such thing. 

When public spending on primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education is expressed as a percentage of total public expenditure, the OECD and its partner countries rank as follows: Mexico (15.1%); New Zealand (12.7%); Slovak Republic (12.5%); Iceland (12.4%); Brazil (12.3%); Chile (12.2%); Korea (11.3%); Ireland (11%); Estonia (10.6%); Australia (10.3%); United States (10%); Norway (9.8%); Denmark (9.4%); Israel (9.1%); Slovenia (9%); OECD Average (9%); Luxembourg (8.8%); Switzerland (8.7%); United Kingdom (8.7%); Poland (8.6%); Belgium (8.2%); Sweden (8.1%); Portugal (8%); Finland (7.9%); Netherlands (7.8%); Canada (7.7%); Spain (7.2%); Austria (7.2%); France (7.1%); Japan (7%); Italy (6.9%); Russian Federation (6.8%); Hungary (6.5%); Czech Republic (6.5%); Germany (6.3%)

When public spending on primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education is expressed as a percentage of GDP, the OECD and its partner countries rank as follows: Iceland (5.2%); Denmark (4.8%); Israel (4.7%); New Zealand (4.7%); Sweden (4.4%); Slovenia (4%); Poland (4%); Belgium (4%); United Kingdom (4%); Finland (3.9%); Poland (3.8%); France (3.8%); Brazil (3.7%); Switzerland (3.7%); Ireland (3.7%); United States (3.7%); Portugal (3.7%); Austria (3.6%); Netherlands (3.6%); OECD Average 3.5%); Estonia (3.5%); Australia (3.4%); Hungary (3.4%); Italy (3.4%); Korea (3.4%); Korea (3.4%); Luxembourg (3.4%); Canada (3.3%); Mexico (3.3%); Czech Republic (2.8%); Germany (2.8%); Spain (2.8%); Japan (2.6%); Chile (2.5%); Slovak Republic (2.4%); Russian Federation (2%); Turkey (1.9%)

Based on the OECD’s statistics, there appears to be no correlation between spending and performance on international tests.

Abstinence is Even Safer Sex

When my son was in grade 7 or 8, his teacher brought in the apparatus for shooting up and proceeded to demonstrate to the class the correct way to inject heroin. After the lesson, my son asked the teacher why he had taught this lesson. In my opinion, it was a valid question.

Modern safe-sex classes raise some of the same issues, in that they make the assumption that students will be sexually active and therefore might as well do it safely.  A new study from the University of Pennsylvania has found that 12-year-olds who attended abstinence-only classes were less likely to have had sex over the next two years.