SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Eliminating Reading Failure in BC

Chilliwack, BC trustee Heather Maahs has taken some flack from the local union and reported here for this presentation to her board about her trip to the UK (paid for by herself) to observe an effective reading program.

SQE has written quite a bit on the Clackmannanshire (more here) and West Dunbartonshire experiences (and more here).  Toe by Toe is based on the results of the landmark Johnson and Watson longitudinal study (read it here) that changed the way beginning reading is taught in the UK—for the better.

It is based on direct instruction of systematic, explicit phonics, termed synthetic phonics in the UK.  What got Heather into hot water with the BCTF was that she suggested teachers wouldn’t necessarily be needed to teach the program.  Speaking on behalf of the thousands of parents who have signed up to use our own similar Stairway to Reading, we concur with Trustee Maahs. 

We just wish that more education ministries, faculties of education, and school boards would pay closer attention to the research and start developing and using effective instructional programs.

Just the Facts

What do you make of this newly-appointed university professor whose main goal is to turn his students into activists and revolutionaries? (Of course, these students' activism have to be directed in directions of which the professor approves, such as environmentalism, ethnic studies, and communism. We're guessing that students who demonstrated against, say, abortion on demand or higher taxes would flunk his course.)

It's one thing for university professors to promote such obviously-biased ideology, since one can argue that university students are aware what they're getting into and can stick-handle around the issue if they wish. However, elementary and secondary students have no such luxury, since they're pretty much stuck with their teachers. In addition, being younger, they are more impressionable. 

It seems to us that the elementary and secondary grades should be declared an ideology-free zone.

A Matter of Chemistry

Here's a link to two pages of the 1966 Ontario Grade 12 Chemistry curriculum. Excluding the title page, table of contents, and a one-page preamble, there are only 18 pages of curriculum content. This is a very short, clear, and specific outline of the year-long (non-semestered) course that teachers were expected to cover. Those who disparage old curricula on the grounds that they emphasize rote learning and regurgitation might be surprised to read the following in the preamble.

"It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the aim of the course is to create an understanding of the subject, rather than to provide information to be memorized. The course provides an introduction to the experimental study of chemistry, to the simple theoretical concepts of structure, bonding, reactions, and solutions, and to the language of the subject. To achieve understanding, the student must learn to think and to experiment for himself. To communicate his ideas to others he must become familiar with the language of the subject and be able to illustrate theory by the use of facts."

The scientists among us might be interested to compare the 1966 Ontario grade 12 curriculum with its counterpart, the recently-revised 2008 grade 11 science curriculum. This link leads to a page whence one can access both the 2000 and 2008 versions of the grade 11 curriculum. We would be interested in your feedback.

Tough Love?

Central Falls is a small rust-belt Rhode Island town with lots of boarded-up windows and abandoned buildings. The median income in the town is approximately $22,000. About half the high school students are failing their classes and last fall only 7% of grade 11 students tested proficient in math. But when the school board superintendent asked the teachers (whose salaries average around $75,000) to teach an extra 25 minutes a day and help with tutoring, the union refused. To its dismay, the school board trustees have responded by firing every single teacher at the school. 

In the photo at the top of this article, one of the teachers is holding a sign that says in part "We care about our students."

Words fail us.

Give Choice a Chance!

Recently added to our lending library is The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How testing and choice are undermining education, by Diane Ravitch. This book is interesting because the author is a prominent education reformer who is repudiating policies which she once supported - in particular accountability measures and school choice. The vast majority of the book is devoted to the problems with the way accountability measures have played out in the United States, and it would be very hard to argue with her conclusion that they are not working well and may even be harmful. Point to Ravitch.

We'll give another point to Ravitch for her proposal to improve schools by means of a national curriculum. This section seems like kind of of an afterthought: it's a bit sketchy and poorly-argued, but we'll concede that a national curriculum, if well done, would probably increase student learning.

However, the chapter in which Ravitch nixes school choice is not very convincing at all. Evaluating the results of existing school choice programs is very tricky, because there are so many different combinations and permutations and because it's hard to get a handle on student progress in the first place. The fact that there has not yet been the spectacular improvement anticipated by school choice proponents does not mean that the time has come to write off the potential of school choice. As a result of the opposition of the powerful education lobbies, to date only very limited school choice programs have been tried. In every case, market forces are significantly inhibited in some way. For example, in Cleveland, Florida, DC, and Milwaukee, the school vouchers are limited to a few low-income families. There are still a lot of strings on charter schools, and most receive less money than competing conventional public schools. In Chile and New Zealand, the government micro-manages the participating schools and severely restricts the eligibility of schools to participate.

It would be premature to write off the potential of school choice to improve academic achievement since none of the current implementations has given it a fair chance. When true school choice was tried in the past, for example in classical Greece and the medieval Islamic empire, it got consistently excellent results. In fact, competitive educational markets have always done a better job of serving the public than state-run educational systems. The crippled school choice systems currently in effect are that way because they were the best education reformers dared to hope for in the face of fierce opposition from status-quo educators. Their thinking was that once a limited school choice program had been established, it would be possible to gradually broaden its scope. But this is not happening in most cases, and in some jurisdictions the movement is towards more limitations on school choice. 

Half measures will not do. Since the educational establishment will fight as hard against a modest school choice program as they will against a full-blown school choice program, education reformers must hold out for a real experiment in market-driven schooling. The basic principle is that the reform is inadequate, perhaps even counter-productive, if it leaves the educational establishment in positions of power from which they can stifle competition and use regulatory micro-management to extend government control to private schools.

Teachers Are Not Sheep

The comments on "If the Student Hasn't Learned, the Teacher Hasn't Taught" have evolved into a discussion on teachers' unions. To some, it is almost incomprehensible that rank-and-file teachers cling so strongly to their unions. After all, in most jurisdictions teachers are forced to join the union if they want to teach in a public school, and they have no option but to pay the approximately $1000 union dues annually. Furthermore, the unions turn around and spend some of these forced dues on left-wing political activities, such as working to defeat conservative political candidates - even though many teachers do not support left-wing causes. Lastly, the teachers' unions frequently indulge in outrageous antics and extreme positions that harm the reputation of the profession and turn public opinion against teachers.

Some commenters believe that teachers are being skilfully manipulated by their unions into meekly toeing the party line. And there may be some truth in this theory. Certainly, there is a constant barrage of propaganda from the unions about evil conservative politicians, teacher bashing, threats to teachers on every side, and so forth. But there at least two other - much more compelling - reasons for teachers to support their unions.

In the first place, the unions are extremely effective at negotiating their members' contracts. In Ontario, at least, unionized teachers earn considerably more than private school teachers, while being asked to devote less teaching time and receiving much richer benefits and pensions. 

In the second place, most unionized teachers are employed by a large school board - in many cases the only possible source of employment in their geographical area. In economics, this state of affairs is referred to as a monopsony - a market situation where the entire demand for a product or service consists of only one buyer. As such, a monopsonist can often dictate terms to its suppliers in the same way that a monopolist can dictate terms to its buyers. Most teachers correctly perceive that they would be at the mercy of their employer without the protection of a strong union.

If individual principals were free to hire teachers and set salaries, teachers' loyalty to their unions would probably be greatly reduced.

And the Rest is Silence

As a helpful contribution to the discussion on teacher bashing raging in the comments to "If the Student Hasn't Learned, the Teacher Hasn't Taught", we thought we'd publish a list of ways that people can avoid being called teacher bashers when they criticize either the performance of individual teachers or some aspect of the profession as a whole. Here is the complete list.

Children Learn When Their Teachers Are Ready

Further to yesterday's posting, there is a second education myth that helps teachers sleep at night, and that is the myth of developmental readiness - the belief that children will learn when they're ready. Even though this is demonstrably untrue, the myth of developmental readiness is deeply-rooted and informs much educational practice. Because of it, many teachers simply accept their students' poor performance and, mindful of the children's self-esteem and the parents' peace of mind, fail to honestly report how far behind the kids actually are. As a result, the students' problems snowball and they fall hopelessly behind. Here are a three quick and easy assessment that allow parents to get a handle on their children's real grade level.

Reading (the Part 2 passages correspond to grade level)

Spelling

Math

If the Student Hasn’t Learned, the Teacher Hasn’t Taught!

Dear Aunt Malkin,
Yesterday I had a lively discussion with a retired teacher who is now involved in an adult literacy program. This teacher placed the blame for the huge number of functionally-illiterate adult Canadians squarely on learning disabilities, diagnosed or not. What do you think of this theory? Lynn, Toronto

Dear Lynn,
In a nutshell, I think the concept of learning disabilities is a way for school staff to absolve themselves of blame for their students' failure to learn to read. A belief in learning disabilities makes it possible for teachers to sleep at night, since the alternative - that they didn't teach the students well enough - is too upsetting.
Of course some students find it harder to learn to read, just as some students find it harder to learn carpentry or chess. Yet, given good teaching, patience, and hard work, almost everyone can achive an adequate or better level of performance in almost any field - from reading to ballet to physics to drawing. Our newsletter archives contain a number of articles on so-called learning disabilities (scroll down). 

 Regards, Aunt Malkin

Picking Winners

This article in The Atlantic Wire tackles the question of what school boards should be looking for in new hires. At present, most teachers are paid more for extra educational qualifications and additional years of teaching experience, even though these attributes have little or no relationship to teaching effectiveness. (For a meta-analysis of studies with this finding, click here and scroll down to pages 10-12.) The Atlantic Wire article is on the long side, all of it interesting and thought-provoking, but the real meat of it is on the third page where it is revealed that the teacher candidates who are most likely to become effective teachers have the following attributes.

NO

• Additional degrees
• More than three years of teaching experience
• Additional qualifications

YES

• A track record of perseverance
• Satisfaction with their lives
• High grades
• Leadership achievement