SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

A possible breakthrough in teaching reading

There’s an interesting column in the New York Daily News about a three-year experiment comparing primary students at 20 demographically-matched schools. At 10 of the schools, the students are being taught to read using the Core Knowledge Language Arts Program (systematic phonics and emphasis on word and world knowledge), while at the other 10 schools, the students are receiving the dominant “Balanced Literacy” approach. After the first year, the kindergarten students in the Core Knowledge group had achieved reading gains five times greater than the students in the Balanced Literacy group, while after the second year they continued to outstrip the control group with gains twice as great. The third-year results will be announced this fall, and they are likely to show that the Core Knowledge students have pulled even further ahead of the control group.

It will be interesting to see if the city opts to extend the experiment, especially in light of the fact that it costs only an additional $30,000 per school each year - small price to pay if it leads to a breakthrough in teaching literacy.

We’re not in Kansas anymore…

For those of us who went to school a while ago, the rising incidence and seriousness of bullying in schools is hard to believe. It certainly wasn’t like this when we were in school!

However, our investigation into why parents choose private schools found that one of the main reasons parents flee public schools is because they are worried about their children’s safety. Most of these parents further reported that they had found a safe haven in a private school. Clearly, it is possible for schools to address the bullying phenomenon effectively.

This report shows how seriously bullying is being taken in the US, and the widely-divergent numbers of reported bullyings reinforce the fact that schools can (and should) deal effectively with bullying.

Spelling out the consequences

Illinois has decided to drop the writing portion of its state test as a budget-cutting measure (and, apparently, to please the state's student body).

So you can avoid full-day kindergarten or embrace it - your choice

"The Education Reporter" in Ingersoll beavers away behind the scenes, providing in-depth, detailed information about various aspects of Ontario information. As an example, here's a post he has just done on the location of schools that offer full-day kindergarten. And as a bonus, you can learn how to use Google Fusion Tables and Google Refine!

Sunday at the Movies (No Cheater Left Behind)

This short video deals with recent revelations that some teachers and principals have systematically cheated on testing in response to the No Child Left Behind legislation. The implication is that systematic cheating is to be expected whenever governments implement high-stakes testing (and so maybe the government should back off). However, another possible response would be to tighten up test security....

Supply and Demand

I’ve blogged on the teacher glut before: the fact that Ontario is graduating thousands more prospective teachers every year than teaching positions exist to employ them. The situation has got so out of whack that the minister has just placed a hard-cap of just over 9,000 on students entering Ontario faculties of education this September. 

Perhaps this is an appropriate response, although the ceiling is still well above the expected number of teaching positions opening up next year, but I can think of another way to skin this cat. Ask yourself why so many young people are vying to get in to a faculty of education. Could it be that the rewards of teaching - hours, salaries, tenure, benefits, job conditions, etc. - are so attractive that thousands of prospective teachers are willing to play Job Market Russian Rouletter?

If this hypothesis is correct, then one approach to decreasing the number of prospective teachers would be to make the job less appealing by lowering salaries and benefits and tightening up job conditions. ☺

The devil is in the class size details, especially the additional costs

Everybody likes smaller classes. Teachers’ unions like them because smaller classes require more teachers. Teachers like them, because they mean less work and more time with individual students. Parents like them because they think their kids will learn more. Politicians like them because promising smaller classes gets them votes. But because a class size reduction of even one student is very expensive, it is important to ask how much we would have to spend in order to achieve significant increases in student learning and other positive outcomes.

This very thorough scholarly paper examines worldwide research on class reductions, concluding “Class-size reduction has been shown to work for some students in some grades in some states and countries, but its impact has been found to be mixed or not discernable in other settings and circumstances that seem similar.”

On balance, the evidence suggests that only very large reductions, in the order of 7-10 students per class, will lead to significant long-term positive effects. Since a one-student decrease in the pupil-teacher ratio in the US has been estimated to cost approximately $12 billion every year in teacher salaries alone (no estimate is given of the cost of the additional classroom space requirements), a reduction of 7 or more students would be ruinously expensive.

There are other measures that governments can implement to increase student learning, and most of them are considerably less costly than class size reductions. Some examples would include school choice, promotion of research-based teaching methods and materials, elimination of the requirement for teachers to attend a faculty of education, and decentralized decision-making. 

As the paper concludes, “The costs and benefits of class-size mandates need to be carefully weighed against all of the alternatives when difficult budget and program decisions must be made.”

Who Knew II?:  Decoding Instruction Improves Reading and Spelling Skills

What is stating the obvious to probably all of us, is still not the priority for today's schools - so say the researchers of the latest overview of studies on effective instruction.

In Using Encoding Instruction to Improve the Reading and Spelling Performances of Elementary Students At Risk for Literacy Difficulties: A Best-Evidence Synthesis Southern Methodist University professors, Beverly Weiser and Patricia Mathes, found "that systematic instruction in helping students to convert speech into print promotes not just spelling, but also reading competence. What is more, the benefits appear to persist over time."

When will the faculties of education and ministries of education both get it?

BC teachers are asking for trouble

British Columbia is Canada's version of La La Land, and this Globe and Mail column outlines some typical antics, in this case concerning the teachers' union. Perhaps because the province has only one teachers' union (as opposed to Ontario which has four, engendering healthy competition among them and and marked lack of solidarity on occasion), the hubris of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) knows no bounds.

The BCTF has been so successful in negotiating bountiful contracts in the past that they're starting to run out of things to ask for. So this time round their shopping list includes "a 26-week, fully-paid leave of absence per year for direct or indirect compassionate care 'to any person'' 10 days paid bereavement leave upon the death of any friend or relative (up from the five days teachers currently get); five paid days per year for professional activities (they currently get no allowance); two sick days a month that can be saved up". And, of course, more money.

The BCTF's demands are all the more ludicrous in light of the scandal we mentioned a couple of days ago involving the continued presence of convicted sex offenders and drug traffickers in the classroom. 

This sort of nonsense gives teachers a bad name and turns the public against them. To those who would argue that the union is behind everything, I ask - why did 90% of BC teachers approve a strike if their demands are not met? Why will they refuse to attend staff meetings, do any paperwork, or run any extracurricular activities, starting in September? 

The write stuff

Here's a site with lots of free resources for improving English vocabulary, grammar and composition skills - and not just for English-as-a-Second-Language students. Some of the material is for sale but there are so many hints and examples on the site that it should be possible to use index cards to make your own materials.