SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

A Coherent Approach to Education

The Core Knowledge Foundation, aware that disadvantaged children's biggest disadvantage is their impoverished vocabularies and general knowledge, has developed an excellent sequence of specific knowledge for grades K-8. This sequence is currently being followed in more than 1000 schools - to wonderful effect. Yesterday, the foundation made its Core Knowledge Sequence available on-line free of charge. 

And, à propos of yesterday's posting, this is an excellent curriculum - even though it costs nothing.

Don’t Buy It!

A commenter to "Indications of Discontent" asserted that "money equals quality" - in other words, you get what you pay for. But this is not the case at all. There are many reasons for disconnects between price and quality, even in a free market economy.

• It can be a question of timing. As an example, the person beside you in the plane may well have paid much less than you for his seat, depending on when he bought it. 
• It can be a question of commercialism versus art. As an example, a classic book like War and Peace can be purchased for the same price as a Harlequin romance novel. In fact, the Dover reprints of classic works of literature sell for under $5.00!
• It can be a question of mis-functioning markets. As an example, Hyundai vehicles are beating GM and Chrysler cars in terms of quality ratings, but they cost considerably less.
• It can be a question of competition. As an example, The Hurt Locker won the best movie Oscar at the Academy Awards, despite costing only about $11 million - versus its main competitor, Avatar, which cost more than $200. And of course you can go to the cinema and see either movie for the same price.

Anyone who thinks that a high price tag guarantees high quality is a retailer's dream customer. 

College Math Project—Some Interesting Results

Besides the headline-inducing conclusion that women over 40 are better at math, the College Math Project reported on something far more revealing: 

"Many of the students who are identified by CMP as being "at risk" have inadequate understanding of concepts they were first taught in elementary school - key concepts such as fractions, ratio and proportion, and percentages, among others. CMP is encouraging students and parents, and elementary and secondary teachers to recognize the importance of these topics and to revisit them as necessary throughout a student's education to ensure that they are mastered before students reach the postsecondary level."

Surprised?  Not really.  SQE has been saying the same for years.  Teachers and parents can try our Stairway to Math, a series of practice worksheets to help students master those basic skills.

Making an Informed Choice

Canadian parents who are lucky enough to be able to choose among public schools should be aware that several Canadian think tanks publish information on the performance of individual schools in most provinces. 

The Fraser Institute has just published its Report Card on Ontario Schools 2010. It also publishes report cards for Alberta, BC, Quebec, and Washington State.

The C. D. Howe Institute publishes information on schools in BC, Ontario, and Alberta. 

The Montreal Economic Institute publishes information on high schools in Quebec.

The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies publishes a report card on schools in Atlantic Canada.

Information is also available concerning individual teachers and professors in several countries.

A Cui Bono?

The teachers' unions frequently justify their demands for things like smaller class sizes, more special education teachers and teacher's aides, more professional and personal days, and higher salaries on the grounds that these things are good for the students. Of course - no doubt coincidentally - all of these things are good for the unions, in that they grow the unions' membership, revenues, and clout. 

If we want to find out whether the teachers' unions really have the students' best interests at heart, we need to identify an initiative that would be good for the kids but bad for the unions - and then establish whether the unions support it. And we don't need to go far to find a litmus test - namely, teacher-directed learning.

Teacher-directed learning, including systematic phonics and sequential math instruction, has overwhelmingly support in the research. As Time Magazine stated with reference to systematic phonics, "the evidence is so strong that if the subject under discussion were, say, mumps, there would be no discussion". The consensus among mainstream researchers is that teacher-directed learning is beneficial to all students, but especially to disadvantaged students and boys.

Sadly, the use of teacher-directed learning is not supported by the teachers' unions. It does not appear, for example, among the 15 most important issues identified by the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. Interestingly, the widespread adoption of teacher-directed learning would reduce the unions' basis for arguing in favour of things like smaller class sizes and more special education teachers - since students would be learning just fine without them. 

In some ways, the teachers' unions may be actually taking student failure to the bank.

Check the backpacks!

I always get a kick out of Mike Antonucci's Intercepts Blog, billed as a listening post monitoring public education and teachers' unions. It never fails to elicit a chuckle.  This one is from his latest:

Local unions have organized teachers to hand out fliers to parents about education cuts. Parents, I assume, will not be handing out fliers to teachers about public employee pension funds.

Make sure you check your backpacks, kids.

Indications of Discontent

It's pretty tricky to get a handle on the level of parental dissatisfaction with schools, since polls yield confusing and conflicting data - depending on things like what questions are asked and how they're worded. Here, for example, is a recent Harris/Decima poll which suggests that almost half of Canadians consider the country's public education systems inadequate.

This pretty much confirms our perception here at School for Thought, where we are perennially amazed by the continuing popularity of our free remedial reading and remedial math programs and my free book How to Get the Right Education for Your Child. Even though we are known to only a very small fraction of interested parents and teachers, our resources continue to fly off the shelf. Clearly, there is a huge hunger out there for information and materials that can bail out the untold numbers of children who struggle in school. If you are a parent or teacher who is in this situation, you can access information about additional good teaching materials at our schoolproofing site. If you have very young children, we strongly encourage you to consider using some of the resources listed there for preschool children. 

There are lots of other free Internet resources responding to the same demand. Here's a website that lists some of them.

Being Thankful for Small Mercies

Wondering how likely current proposals to expand free early education are to yield positive results, Elizabeth U. Cascio took advantage of an unusual historical phenomenon to study the long-term effects of universal kindergarten programs. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, many American states began to offer kindergarten for the first time, leading to dramatic increases in kindergarten enrollment over a very short period. Dr, Cascio decided to look into whether the cohorts who had access to kindergarten did better than the cohorts who had not. She examined some key outcomes for both groups, including high school dropout rates; earnings; public assistance receipt; completion of some post-secondary education; employment; and incarceration. 

It turns out that the kindergarten cohort did exactly the same as the non-kindergarten cohort - except for two small effects (white children were 2.5% less likely to drop out and 22% less likely to be incarcerated). There were no positive effects whatsoever for black students. 

In the researcher's words, "Though there are clear limits to the generalizability of these findings, they do provide some tentative lessons for policymakers. On one hand, the higher rates of preschool participation among children today suggest that any positive long-term effects of extending universal public schooling to four-year-olds may be even smaller than those estimated here for kindergarten. On the other hand, the universal preschool programs being proposed today have a more academic orientation than kindergarten has had, and may therefore have larger impacts on long-term well-being..."

However, in contrast to the Americans' approach to academically-oriented preschool programs, the full-day kindergarten programs currently being envisaged in Ontario do NOT have a more academic orientation - meaning that there is no counter-balancing hopeful element for Ontario children. It seems highly likely that full-day kindergarten will have little or no effect on student outcomes.

At least we can take some comfort from the fact that universal kindergarten didn't actually worsen outcomes. 

Full of Sound and Fury, Certifying Nothing

Although most people assume that certified teachers get better results than uncertified teachers, the accumulating evidence suggests that, on average, uncertified teachers get as good as or better results than their certified colleagues. Anyone who has done his or her time at a faculty of education will probably not be surprised by this fact. Paraphrasing Bismarck, preparing teachers is like making sausages: it is better not to watch them being made. 

In 2003, the Ontario College of Teachers asked its members to rank the sources of their teaching skills. Pre-service training at a faculty of education was ranked ninth, after such things as common sense and input from family members. It gets worse. The requirement of a year of busy work at a faculty of education serves to deter many talented and hard-working individuals from entering the teaching profession. Furthermore, teacher training is not only unlikely to confer much pedagogical skill on its victims, but also it frequently fills their heads with foolish fads. 

As George Will writes, "If you were ill and could miraculously be treated either by Hippocrates or by a young graduate of the Johns Hopkins medical schools, with his modern technologies and techniques, you would choose the latter. But if you could choose to have your child taught either by Socrates or by a freshly-minted holder of a degree in education, full of the latest pedagogic theories and techniques? Socrates, please."

Premature Sex Education

There are now 939 private schools in Ontario (more every time we check). The Ontario Government's new health education curriculum promises to encourage the creation of even more private schools, as parents run screaming from the province's publicly-funded schools. The mandatory new curriculum will have eight-year-olds exploring their sexual orientation and gender identity, while 11-year-olds will be taught the virtues of masturbation and 12-year-olds will be encouraged to keep condoms handy at all times. 

We're wondering if this is one of the Ontario government's cost-cutting measures as it struggles to come to grips with its projected $25 billion deficit. After all, every time it loses a student, the province saves more than $10,000. What other explanation could there be?