If you thought for a moment that public schools are not engrained in the psyche and culture of the nation, take a look at the fight in Sacramento, California, over proposed closings of a few schools. From the Sacramento Bee.
Even when schools fail, they can form the heart of a community.
2 Comments | 
Education, Education reform, Education spending | Tagged: California, Closing Schools, Education, Education spending, Failing Schools, Sacramento | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
NYC Educator spells out the difficulties. It’s not the teachers’ fault when the major systems needed to run a school don’t work — like the lights, heat, phones, furniture, plumbing, etc.
But these guys who tell us the teachers need to be fired — do you think they ever feel the pain?
When was the last time one of these school superintendents had to run a copy machine, let alone repair it before it would run, or bring their own paper to have something to make copies on?
We’re coming up on National Poetry Month; I’d like to find who was the author of this poem:
MY JOB
It’s not my job to run the train, the whistle I can’t blow.
It’s not for me to say how far the train’s allowed to go.
I’m not allowed to blow off steam, nor even clang the bell.
But let the damn thing jump the tracks, and see who catches hell!
Leave a Comment » | Business Ethics, Education quality, Education reform | Tagged: Education quality, Education reform | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
On Darwin’s birthday, two Texas legislators wrote about the stakes in the tussle between creationists on the one side, and educators, scientists and economic development on the other, in the Houston Chronicle.
Somebody gets it! Will Gov. Rick Perry and SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy get the message? McLeroy was reappointed as chairman a week ago — but the appointment must be approved by the State Senate. Is a fight possible?
State Board of Education must be held accountable
By STATE SEN. RODNEY ELLIS and STATE REP. PATRICK M. ROSE
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle[Can a newspaper copyright the words of public servants doing their jobs?]
Feb. 12, 2009, 12:14AM
As scientists and educators across Texas and the nation mark the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin with calls for a renewed commitment to science education, the State Board of Education continues to engage in narrow theological debate about the validity of evolution. If Texas schoolchildren are to succeed in the 21st Century economy, the SBOE must focus less on internal philosophical differences and more on improving science instruction.
Last month, the board once again got bogged down in a bitter dispute over this issue. Members tentatively approved new science curriculum standards that protect teaching of evolution in one area, while creationists succeeded in watering it down elsewhere. Sadly, it was just the latest battle in the “culture war” being fought by a board that decides what more than 4.7 million Texas children learn in their public schools.
Families should be the primary educators on matters of faith, not our public schools. Regardless of board members’ personal beliefs on creationism and evolution, science classrooms are not the place for resolving such disagreements about faith. Those classrooms should focus on science.
Despite one’s personal stance on evolution, its teaching is critical to the study of all the biological sciences.
Scientists from our state’s universities have expressed this to the board, and have warned that watering down science education would undermine biotechnology, medical and other industries that are crucial to our state’s future.
Last session, the Legislature committed to investing $3 billion over the next 10 years in making Texas the global leader in cancer research and finding cures. This historic investment is certain to bring economic and academic opportunities to our state.
Sadly, even as our state takes one step forward, the SBOE moves us two steps back by continuing to support a diminished standard for science education. Texas’ credibility and its investment in research and technology are placed at risk by these ongoing, unproductive debates.
This is a critical issue and a critical time. Study after study has demonstrated that states which do well in science education have the brightest long-term economic future. According to Gov. Rick Perry’s Select Commission on Higher Education and Global Competitiveness, despite improved scores in math and reading, Texas’ students continue to lag alarmingly behind other states in science proficiency.
The National Assessment of Education Progress revealed that only 23 percent of Texas 8th graders achieved proficiency in science, compared with 41 percent of students in the top-performing states — the states with which we compete for jobs.
Yet the board continues to undermine high-quality science instruction, allowing our students to slip further behind.
To ensure that the SBOE works as it should, we have filed legislation to place the board under periodic review by the Sunset Advisory Commission and hold them accountable for their performance, just as we do the Texas Education Agency and other state agencies.
The decisions of the SBOE not only impact millions of young lives on a daily basis, but impact the economic progress of our state as well.
For these reasons and many others, the public has a right to full disclosure and oversight.
The board has escaped such scrutiny for far too long. The disregard for educators, instructional experts and scientists can’t continue. It’s time to take a closer look at the operations and policies of the State Board of Education.
Our state, and especially our kids, deserve better.
Ellis represents the Houston area and parts of Fort Bend County; Rose represents Blanco, Caldwell and Hays counties.
Thank you, Houston Chronicle.
Resources:
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Education, Education reform, Evolution, Government, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state, State school boards, Texas, Texas Lege, Textbook Selection, Textbooks | Tagged: Competitiveness, Creationism, Education, Intelligent Design, Science, Texas, Texas Lege | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
If you saw the notice on the original study, you knew this one was coming.
A team of researchers checked two things in college freshman: First, how much science they knew, sort of a trivia catalog; and second, how well they could use their reasoning powers.
The study showed Chinese students way ahead of U.S. students on simple knowledge of science facts. But the study showed little difference in powers of reasoning of the two groups.
Wait, don’t jump to conclusions. That’s what the creationists did. Check out Ed Yong’s post and analysis of the study, at Not Exactly Rocket Science (with ensuing good discussion).
If knowing a lot of science doesn’t improve logic, why bother to learn science? the creationists asked. Especially, why not teach creationism in biology, since teaching evolution seems to them rather authoritarian.
Could you make this stuff up?
Here’s the EurekAlert summary, and here’s a clip from the description:
The research appears in the January 30, 2009 issue of the journal Science.
Lei Bao, associate professor of physics at Ohio State University and lead author of the study, said that the finding defies conventional wisdom, which holds that teaching science facts will improve students’ reasoning ability.
“Our study shows that, contrary to what many people would expect, even when students are rigorously taught the facts, they don’t necessarily develop the reasoning skills they need to succeed,” Bao said. “Because students need both knowledge and reasoning, we need to explore teaching methods that target both.”
Bao directs Ohio State’s Physics Education Research Group, which is developing new strategies for teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. For this study, he and his colleagues across the United States and in China decided to compare students from both countries, because the educational systems are so different.
In the United States, only one-third of students take a year-long physics course before they graduate from high school. The rest only study physics within general science courses. Curricula vary widely from school to school, and students can choose among elective courses.
In China, however, every student in every school follows exactly the same curriculum, which includes five years of continuous physics classes from grades 8 through 12. All students must perform well on a national exam if they hope to enter college, and the exam contains advanced physics problems.
“Each system has its strengths and weaknesses,” Bao said. “In China, schools emphasize a very extensive learning of STEM content knowledge, while in the United States, science courses are more flexible, with simpler content but with a high emphasis on scientific methods. We need to think of a new strategy, perhaps one that blends the best of both worlds.”
The students who participated in the study were all incoming freshmen who had just enrolled in a calculus-based introductory physics course. They took three multiple-choice tests: two which tested knowledge of physics concepts, and one which tested scientific reasoning.
Did you see anything there that suggested that NOT learning science facts is a good idea?
Tom Gilson at Thinking Christian used the study as a springboard to rail at evolution in biology curricula, and at the National Center for Science Education, calling the study (somewhat tongue in cheek, I think) “terribly dangerous.” No, that doesn’t make sense, but it gets stranger as he explains in comments that he’s not advocating creationism or intelligent design, either.
But nothing in the study suggests any serious problem with the teaching of evolution theory. Where did Tom get that idea?
Bao explained that STEM students need to excel at scientific reasoning in order to handle open-ended real-world tasks in their future careers in science and engineering.
Ohio State graduate student and study co-author Jing Han echoed that sentiment. “To do my own research, I need to be able to plan what I’m going to investigate and how to do it. I can’t just ask my professor or look up the answer in a book,” she said.
“These skills are especially important today, when we are determined to build a society with a sustainable edge in science and technology in a fast-evolving global environment,” Bao said.
He quickly added that reasoning is a good skill for everyone to possess — not just scientists and engineers.
“The general public also needs good reasoning skills in order to correctly interpret scientific findings and think rationally,” he said.
Telic Thoughts seized on it , too.
It’s a springboard to a new creationist meme, and here’s how it will come out of the mouths of creationists, speaking to school boards and writing letters to editorial pages: “Learning a lot of science doesn’t improve critical thinking skills, so let’s teach something other than evolution.”
That’s not what the study says.
First, the study says Chinese students know more science than U.S. students. This is worrisome for the U.S. While the study shows that entering freshmen are no better at critical thinking than U.S. students, the fact remains that more Chinese students graduate with science degrees. Then a lot of them come to the U.S. to get advanced degrees. Even the radical right wing National Center for Policy Analysis worries about the number of Chinese engineers and scientists U.S. colleges and universities graduate. We’re behind in this race for brains and skills.
Second, researchers showed that freshman science students need to improve their reasoning skills, in both China and the U.S. Look hard at any creationist claim — they won’t argue for more education to improve reasoning. We need to note what this finding is not: It’s not an indictment of science education. It’s not a call to stop or slow down science education. It defies “conventional wisdom,” but it’s not an endorsement of knocking down science education as a result.
Third, the study only identifies what might be a problem. High school graduates in their first year of studying science in Chinese and American universities are not very sophisticated in their science reasoning. Is this a problem? Is this a skill that should be learned in high school? Or, is it a skill that is better taught after the freshman year, at college? This study was a snapshot, not a longitudinal study. It did not purport to show when or how to best instruct on the reasoning processes necessary for a successful career in science.
In particular, this is not an indictment of biology education in the U.S., nor especially an indictment of education in evolution theory. It’s possible to suggest that Chinese students know more evolution than U.S. students. That’s a far sight from saying education in evolution theory doesn’t work.
Resources:
Updates:
14 Comments | Education, Education assessment, Education reform, History, Research, Science | Tagged: College-ready, Education, Lei Bao, Ohio State University, Reasoning, Research, Science, science education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
NYC Educator tells the story: Teachers, denied parking permits, park on the street — legally.
School day starts. City crews show up, post brand new “no parking signs.”
Cops show up. Cops ticket teachers’ cars.
$150 to park for the day.
Do you love education? Do you support teachers? Write to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Tell him to investigate, and to establish justice:
You may contact me directly by writing, calling, faxing or e-mailing:
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
PHONE 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC)FAX (212) 788-2460
E-MAIL:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.htmlI hope you will visit NYC.gov regularly as we continue to update the site with information about new happenings throughout New York City.
Sincerely,
Good teachers leave education every day. When I talk to them about it, these little insults boil up, and boil over. The small insults add up. These are the things that, left uncorrected, hammer away at the foundations of education. Does New York respect teachers, and want good schools? Let New York show it.
4 Comments | Education, Education reform, Government, War on Education | Tagged: Education, Education reform, Motivation, New York City, Teachers, Teaching, War on Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) hearings on proposals for new science standards kick off today — and will probably run long into the night.
You can probably still sneak comments in. You can listen to the hearings in streaming audio, live. You can read the live blog reports from Texas Citizens for Science (TCS) President Steve Schafersman.
Texas science teacher Joe Lapp (a member of TCS) will give the board some good advice — will they listen?
Lapp will say:
My name is Joe Lapp, but I go by Spider Joe. I teach children about spiders, about the biology and physics of a spider’s world. My mission is to stoke passion for science in children and to empower children to think like scientists. I like to think that I’m launching these children into productive future careers as scientists, and indirectly, through them, contributing to solving some of mankind’s most serious challenges.
I’m watching what is going on here in the State Board of Education. You’re vying over what to teach about science and about evolution in particular. Some of you say, “teach the weaknesses with evolution.” Some of you say, “the ‘weaknesses’ are phony, don’t teach them.” You argue over whether science includes the supernatural or is restricted to just natural phenomena.
I ask you, how many of you grew up to be scientists? How many of you make a living teaching science to children? In a world full of people who dedicate their lives to science or science education, how many of you on the board are one of these specialized experts?
I’m suggesting that you recognize that you yourselves don’t have the answers.
We all come to the table with preferences and biases, but we’re talking about our children’s education and their future lives. When a scientist approaches a question, she may have a preferred answer, one that might win her the Nobel prize. When Pons and Fleischmann performed their cold fusion experiment, they wanted to see more energy output than input. Their bias blinded them to the truth, and rather than winning the Nobel Prize they became laughing stocks. If a scientist wants to know the truth, she must design an experiment that might show her desired outcome wrong; she must delegate her answer to the outcome of an experiment that ignores her biases.
The State Board of Education has a choice. One option is to play politics with our children’s future and vote your bias, regardless of the truth. The other option is to delegate your answer to the outcome of an experiment that ignores your biases, so that the answer better reflects the truth.
Fortunately for you, you have already performed the experiment. You delegated answers to your questions about science and evolution to experts in science and science education. They answered in the form of your September TEKS drafts. I urge you not to suffer the embarrassing fate of Pons and Fleischmann and to accept your experimental results. I suspect that politics introduced biases into the November drafts. Don’t fudge your results.
Please show your respect for children and science by making this a scientific decision and not a political one. Launch children into science by example. Envision children growing up to create new biofuels, cure cancers, eliminate AIDS, end malnutrition, reverse global warming, and save our wondrous natural resources for future generations.
Science is our children’s future.
Resources:
1 Comment | Biology, Business, Creationism, Education, Education reform, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Politics, Public education, Science, Separation of church and state, State school boards, Texas | Tagged: Biology, Business, Education, Education reform, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science, Science Standards, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Headlines across New York this morning shout about improved test scores, especially in reading and math, almost across the board. Scores are up in the “troubled” schools of New York City (and in the less-mentioned untroubled schools), scores are up in Buffalo. The news is so universally good that some are worried about statistical goofs, or cheating.
And while most economists with the possible exception of Milton Friedman would think it’s not news, some people point out that scores are up in poorer districts that got more money for educational programs.
At a news conference in Albany, the state education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, called the results “encouraging and exciting,” saying they were evidence that the state’s emphasis on giving more money to poorer school districts and focusing on high standards was successful. “The schools have delivered,” he said. (New York Times)
The War on Education continues unabated, however. The headline in the New York Daily News: “State math and reading exam scores released; critics question improvements.”
A beleaguered parent commented at the Daily News site:
our children are forced to do homework over weekends, Christmas vacation, winter break, spring break, etc. to prepare for these tests – their scores are up because they’ve worked hard all year!
If we’re wise, we’ll applaud the students and teachers, and we’ll wait for a lot more analysis. NYC Educator? JD2718? Is this good news for teachers in New York? Good news from teachers?
Update, June 26: NYC Educator takes note, “Test Scores Explode Statewide.” JD2718, “Integrated Algebra Conversion Chart, Later Today.” Also:
Other notes and resources:
2 Comments | Economics, Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, Politics, Public education, Teaching, Testing | Tagged: Education, Education reform, Mathematics, Politics, reading, Teachers, tests | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Why not?
In comments to the immediately previous post, Zhoen says segregation by gender is no panacea for education. But, she wonders at OneWord: Why not storefront schools?
For many years, I have thought the never-will-be-done answer was to have storefront schools. One room schoolhouses, two teachers and a local adult volunteer, no more than a dozen students, all online classes – a national, self paced, curricula. Touring experts and scholars for special lectures and demonstrations. Kid has a problem with a particular teacher, move ’em to the next neighborhood over. Walking distances from their homes, field trips common (easier to arrange with small groups), flexible schedules (let the teens sleep in). A circle of homeschools in rural areas instead of warehouses to haul whole populations into.
Why not? The idea strikes me as similar to Japanese juku, private schools for kids in public schools, where kids get remedial attention or advanced instruction, depending on what they need. I copy the Library of Congress’ description of juku after the fold.
What do you think? Is there an example of storefront schools we can cite either way, for or against the idea?
Comment away.
5 Comments | Classroom management, Classroom size, Education, Education reform, Homeschooling, Japan, School discipline | Tagged: Education, Education reform, Homeschooling, Japan, Juku, Schools, Storefront Schools | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Even public school districts toy with the idea of separating genders in the primary and secondary grades. Some people argue that there is experimental evidence to support the plan, plus there are the arguments about physical differences between the genders, which suggest different educational strategies for girls than for boys.
The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to implement programs that are supported by research. Is there solid research to support separating the genders?
Apart from the hoaxes, such as the much ballyhooed “Crokus” in boys brains, the evidence for separating the genders based on physical differences may be a lot slimmer than advocates claim.
For example, do boys really hear differently from girls? Are the physical differences so great? Consider the opening paragraph for a lengthy article on the issue by Elizabeth Weil, in The New York Times Magazine last March:
On an unseasonably cold day last November in Foley, Ala., Colby Royster and Michael Peterson, two students in William Bender’s fourth-grade public-school class, informed me that the class corn snake could eat a rat faster than the class boa constrictor. Bender teaches 26 fourth graders, all boys. Down the hall and around the corner, Michelle Gay teaches 26 fourth-grade girls. The boys like being on their own, they say, because girls don’t appreciate their jokes and think boys are too messy, and are also scared of snakes. The walls of the boys’ classroom are painted blue, the light bulbs emit a cool white light and the thermostat is set to 69 degrees. In the girls’ room, by contrast, the walls are yellow, the light bulbs emit a warm yellow light and the temperature is kept six degrees warmer, as per the instructions of Leonard Sax, a family physician turned author and advocate who this May will quit his medical practice to devote himself full time to promoting single-sex public education.
Mark Liberman, who writes at Language Log, deals with these issues dispassionately, and scientifically. He started a policy of publishing on the blog questions that he gets from journalists on the issues. Here’s his first published answer, for example, and as you can see, it’s a bit of an information-loaded doozy:
1. I’ve read a few posts on Language Log, but please tell me more about what you think about Dr. Sax’s arguments about sex-based differences in the brain?
In his books, Leonard Sax is a political activist using science to make a case, not a scientist evaluating a hypothesis.
Science is sometimes on his side, sometimes neutral or equivocal, and sometimes against him. He picks the results that fit his agenda, ignoring those that don’t; and all too often, he misunderstands, exaggerates or misrepresents the results that he presents.
There’s detailed support for these assertions in some Language Log posts from 2006:
“David Brooks, cognitive neuroscientist” (6/12/2006)
“Are men emotional children?” (6/24/2005)
“Of rats and (wo)men” (8/19/2006)
“Leonard Sax on hearing” (8/22/2006)
“More on rats and men and women” (8/22/2006)
“The emerging science of gendered yelling” (9/5/2006)
“Girls and boys and classroom noise” (9/9/2006)This doesn’t mean that his conclusions are false, but it does mean that his appeals to science are not trustworthy.
More nuance than some policy groups might be able to deal with, but enough information to direct a genuinely interested person to some good sources.
You’ll also want to read “Retinal Sex and Sexual Rhetoric,” and “Liberman on Sax on Liberman on Sax on Hearing.”
In our weekly staff meetings with then Assisstant Secretary of Education for Research Chester W. Finn, at the old Office for Educational Research and Information, Finn often opened the meetings by turning to the Director of Research and asking whether, in the past week, we had learned how people learn. When satisfied that this key breakthrough had not been achieved in the previous week, which would change much of what we did, Finn would say something like, “Now that we know we don’t know what we’re doing, let’s go through the agenda.”
Keeping an appropriate sense of humor about the issue, Finn still provided sharp reminders that the science behind learning, for all of the volumes available, is very tenuous and thin.
When science is so thin, the policy side of the discipline can be waved around by a good presentation coupled with plausible sciency-sounding material. “Plausible” does not equal “good,” and often it doesn’t even equal “accurate.”
Liberman’s critiques are detailed, and they point out questions that the average school board member or principal is probably ill-equipped to realize, let alone ask from an “expert” or consultant selling a program to the district.
Before we teach critical thinking to the kids, we need a lot more critical thinking from administrators. Liberman tries to light the path to that critical thinking.
What do you think? Does gender-separate education work better? Are there such great differences in the learning abilities and methods of boys and girls that we ought to separate them?
What about other shibboleths we hear? Classroom size? Testing? Delivery of material? Difficulty of material? Where is there good research for reforming our schools, for the better?
3 Comments | Brain development, Brain learning, Classroom management, Classroom size, Education, Education assessment, Education reform, No Child Left Behind Act, Research | Tagged: Boys and Girls, Brain development, Brain learning, Education, Education reform, Gender Differences, No Child Left Behind, Research, Schools | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Considering recent history and the Texas State Board of Education, how can any reasonable voter or parent read this, except as a declaration of war on science? According to the blogs at the Dallas Morning News:
State Board of Education chairman David Bradley of Beaumont told GOP delegates [at the Texas State Republican Convention] that the board was about to take up the science curriculum for public schools. He forecasted a fight over evolution vs. creationism.
Bradley said there are some on the board (he’s among them) that believe God created Man.
“There are others who think their ancestors were apes. That’s okay. But I’m going to vote the right way,” Bradley said.
Is there anything there that suggests Bradley wants good science in Texas textbooks and Texas classrooms?
Remember the Excellence in Education Commission Report in 1983? The Commission warned that the nation was facing “a rising tide of mediocrity” in schools, in such things as lax science standards.
“Our nation is at risk. The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. History is not kind to idlers.”
25 years later, Commissar Don McLeroy is leading the tide of mediocrity, doing crippling things to our education system that the likes of Nikita Khruschev and Mao Ze Dong could only dream about.
2 Comments | Creationism, Education quality, Education reform, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Political conventions, Politics, Religion, Science, State school boards, Texas, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Education reform, Politics, Religion, Science, Texas, War on Education, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
What if we gave students a paycheck just to attend school? Some people are serious about it. Some authorities are actually doing it. High-level, if theoretical, discussion at the Becker-Posner Blog.
(That’s Nobel-winning economist Gary Becker, and law professor and federal Judge Richard Posner.)
7 Comments | Economics, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Politics, Public education | Tagged: Economics, Education, Education reform, Pay for School, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Educators don’t know beans about motivation I think. I still see courses offered on “how to motivate” students to do X, or Y, or Z — or how to motivate faculty members to motivate students to do X. This view of motivation is all wrong, the industrial psychologists and experience say. A student must motivate herself. A teacher can remove barriers to motivation, or help a student find motivation. But motivation cannot be external to the person acting.
Frederick Herzberg wrote a classic article for The Harvard Business Review several years back: “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” Herzberg would get a group of managers together and ask them, “If I have six week-old puppy, and I want it to move, how do I get it to move?” Inevitably, one of the wizened managers of people would say, “Kick him in the ass!” Is that motivation? Herzberg would ask? Managers would nod yes.
Then, Herzberg would ask what about dealing with the pup six months later. To get the older pup to move, he’d offer a doggie yum, and the dog would come. “Is that motivation?” Herzberg would ask. Again, the managers would agree that it was motivation. (At AMR’s Committing to Leadership sessions, we tried this exercise several hundred times, with roughly the same results. PETA has changed sensitivities a bit, and managers are fearful of saying they want to kick puppies, but they say it in different words.)
Herzberg called this “Kick In The Ass” theory, or KITA, to avoid profanity and shorten the phrase.
Herzberg would then chastise the managers. Neither case was motivation. One was violence, a mugging; the other was a bribe. In neither case did the dog want to move, in neither case was the dog motivated. In both cases, it was the manager who was motivated to make the dog move.
Herzberg verified his theories with research involving several thousands of employees over a couple of decades. His pamphlet for HBR sold over a million copies.
Education is wholly ignorant of Herzberg’s work, so far as I can tell. How do I know?
See this, at TexasEd Spectator:
Death threat as a motivation technique
May 23rd, 2008
Education | MySanAntonio.comThe sad part about this is that I bet if a mere, ordinary teacher were to have made some similar statement, he or she would be treated more like the student rather than the principle.
Now imagine if some student at the school had said something along the same lines in a writing assignment. We would be hearing about zero tolerance all over the place. The student would be out of the regular classroom so fast it would make your head spin.
No charges will be brought against New Braunfels Middle School Principal John Burks for allegedly threatening to kill a group of science teachers if their students’ standardized test scores failed to improve, although all four teachers at the meeting told police investigators Burks made the statement.
Kick in the ass, knife in the back, knife in the heart — that ain’t motivation.
As God is my witness, you can’t make this stuff up. I’m not sure who deserves more disgust, the principal who made the threat and probably didn’t know anything else to do, or the teachers who didn’t see it as a joke, or treat it that way to save the principal’s dignity — or a system where such things are regarded as normal.
2 Comments | Business, Business Ethics, Education, Education reform, Ethics, Organizational leadership, psychology | Tagged: Business, Education, Ethics, How to, Motivation, psychology, Work | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Utah rejected education vouchers last November, so the release from the Census bureau at the first of April probably got overlooked as not exactly important — I saw no major story on it in any medium.
Maybe it was the April 1 release date.
Whatever the reason for the lack of recognition, the figures are out from the Census Bureau, and Utah’s at the bottom end of spending per student lists, in the U.S. I wrote earlier that Utah gets a whale of a bargain, since teachers work miracles with the money they have. But miracles can only go so far. Utah’s educational performance has been sliding for 20 years. Investment will be required to stop the slide.
Utah’s per pupil spending is closer to a third that of New York’s.
Of course, spending levels do not guarantee results. New York and New Jersey lead the pack, but the District of Columbia comes in third place. Very few people I know would swap an education in Idaho, Utah or Arizona, the bottom three in per pupil spending, for an education in D.C.
Public Schools Spent $9,138 Per Student in 2006
School districts in the United States spent an average of $9,138 per student in fiscal year 2006, an increase of $437 from 2005, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today.
Public Education Finances: 2006 offers a comprehensive look at the revenues and expenditures of public school districts at the national and state levels. The report includes detailed tables that allow for the calculation of per pupil expenditures. Highlights from these tables include spending on instruction, support services, construction, salaries and benefits of the more than 15,000 school districts. Public school districts include elementary and secondary school systems.
All the census statistics are on-line, for free. Policy makers can mine these data for insights — will they? You may download the data in spreadsheet or comma-delimited data form.
The rest of the press release is pure policy talking points:
- Public school systems received $521.1 billion in funding from federal, state and local sources in 2006, a 6.7 percent increase over 2005. Total expenditures reached $526.6 billion, a 6 percent increase. (See Table 1.)
- State governments contributed the greatest share of funding to public school systems (47 percent), followed by local sources (44 percent) and the federal government (9 percent). (See Table 5.)
- School district spending per pupil was highest in New York ($14,884), followed by New Jersey ($14,630) and the District of Columbia ($13,446). States where school districts spent the lowest amount per pupil were Utah ($5,437), Idaho ($6,440) and Arizona ($6,472). (See Tables 8 and 11.)
- Of the total expenditures for elementary and secondary education, current spending made up $451 billion (85.7 percent) and capital outlay $59 billion (11.2 percent). (See Table 1.)
- From current spending, school districts allotted $271.8 billion to elementary and secondary instruction. Of that amount, $184.4 billion (68 percent) went to salaries and $58.5 billion went to employee benefits (22 percent). Another $156 billion went to support services. (See Table 6.)
- Of the $156 billion spent on support services, 28 percent went to operations and maintenance, and 5 percent went to general administration. Of the states that used 10 percent or more of their support services on general administration expenditures, North Dakota topped the list at 14 percent. General administration includes the activities of the boards of education and the offices of the superintendent. (See Table 7.)
- Of the $59 billion in capital outlay, $45 billion (77 percent) was spent on construction, $5 billion (8 percent) was spent on land and existing structures, and $8.7 billion (15 percent) went to equipment. (See Table 9.)
- State government contributions per student averaged $5,018 nationally. Hawaii had the largest revenue from state sources per pupil ($13,301). South Dakota had the least state revenue per student ($2,922). (See Table 11.)
- The percentage of state government financing for public education was highest in Hawaii (89.9 percent) and lowest in Nebraska (31.4 percent). (See Table 5.)
- The average contribution per pupil from local sources was $4,779, with the highest amount from the District of Columbia ($16,195), which comprises a single urban district (and therefore does not receive state financing). The state with the smallest contribution from local sources was Hawaii ($265). (See Table 11).
- The percentage of local revenue for school districts was highest in Illinois (59.1 percent) and lowest in Hawaii (1.8 percent). (See Table 5.)
- On average, the federal government contributed $974 per student enrolled in public school systems. Federal contributions ranged from $2,181 per student in Alaska to $627 in Nevada (See Table 11).
- The percentage of public school system revenues from the federal government was highest in Mississippi (20.1 percent) and lowest in New Jersey (4.3 percent). (See Table 5.)
- Spending on transportation represented 12.4 percent of support services. New York and West Virginia spent the largest percent from support services on transportation (21 percent). Hawaii (5.4 percent) and California (7.2 percent) spent the least. (See Table 7.)
- Total school district debt increased by 8.5 percent from the prior year to $322.7 billion in fiscal year 2006. (See Table 10.)
Send an apple to your old teacher:
21 Comments | Classroom size, Economics, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, Government, Politics, Public education, Teacher Pay, Teaching, War on Education | Tagged: Education, Education spending, Government, Politics, School Finance | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
President Bush’s $1 billion a year initiative to teach reading to low-income children has not helped improve their reading comprehension, according to a Department of Education report released on Thursday.
Created under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, the Reading First program provides assistance to states and districts in using research-based reading programs and instructional materials for students in kindergarten through third grade and in introducing related professional development and assessments. The program’s purpose is to ensure that increased proportions of students read at or above grade level, have mastery of the essential components of early reading, and that all students can read at or above grade level by the end of grade 3. The law requires that an independent, rigorous evaluation of the program be conducted to determine if the program influences teaching practices, mastery of early reading components, and student reading comprehension. This interim report presents the impacts of Reading First on classroom reading instruction and student reading comprehension during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years.
The evaluation found that Reading First did have positive, statistically significant impacts on the total class time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program. The study also found that, on average across the 18 study sites, Reading First did not have statistically significant impacts on student reading comprehension test scores in grades 1-3. A final report on the impacts from 2004-2007 (three school years with Reading First funding) and on the relationships between changes in instructional practice and student reading comprehension is expected in late 2008.
1 Comment | Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Learning, No Child Left Behind Act, Politics, Public education, reading, Research, Teaching | Tagged: Bush failures, Education, Education reform, literacy, NCLB, Research | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Who was the genius who wrote this? It’s an internet e-mail masterpiece, and it comes without attribution. Do you know who wrote it? Please tell us in comments.
And if you don’t understand it, you’re not a teacher. Pass it to a teacher to explain to you what’s really going on; tip of the old scrub brush to Pam at Grassroots Science; she pointed to this piece in Shibby’s Alaska Journal:
No Child Left Behind – Football Version
The football version of what is going on in education right now. (If you’re not an educator, this may not make a lot of sense to you. But send it to your friends who are in education. They will love it!) For all the educators – In or out of the system.
1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two years they have not won the championship their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.
2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!
3. Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like football.
4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th game. This will create a New Age of Sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind.
3 Comments | Education, Education reform, No Child Left Behind Act, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Education, Humor, NCLB, Rampant stupidity | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
