April 15, 2008
Nosing around the blogs of the Dallas Morning News can turn up some interesting stuff.
Do you know a good elementary school math or science teacher in Dallas ISD? They ought to apply for this program, as noted by DMN reporter Kent Fischer:
ExxonMobil sponsors a week-long summer training program for math and science teachers. The deadline to apply is many months away, but you can find out the info by clicking the jump.
The program has a good hook: They encourage students to “nominate” their teachers, to encourage good teachers to apply.
The Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy recently launched www.sendmyteacher.com that allows students to nominate their teacher to be one of the 100 teachers who will be selected to attend next year’s Academy in Jersey City, NJ. Students can send their teachers an electronic note or print out a certificate to encourage them to apply for the program. Teachers are also able to self nominate for consideration.
Students? Know a good math or science teacher? For readers outside of Dallas, of course, any 3rd- to 5th-grade teacher in any school is eligible.
The Academy was started by pro golfer Phil Mickelson and his wife, Amy. They worked with ExxonMobil to create a special learning environment for teachers.
They are joined by math and science experts from the National Science Teachers Association and Math Solutions who teach the teachers at the Academy. They come up with fun ways to learn math and science while playing with balloons, rocket cars and marbles. Anything is possible in math and science!
Applications are due in October 2008 for the 2009 program.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | 
Education, professional development, Science, Teaching | Tagged: Education, Mathematics, Professional Training, Science, Teachers | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
April 14, 2008
We haven’t persuaded the candidates to discuss science policy, though it directly affects health care policy, the war in Iraq, climate change, and housing. That scrappy little newspaper in York, Pennsylvania got Barack Obama to go on the record against teaching intelligent design, though.
Obama gave about five minutes to a reporter from the York Daily Record, the paper that led the nation in reporting on the Kitzmiller case. They scooped again:
Q: York County was recently in the news for a lawsuit involving the teaching of intelligent design. What’s your attitude regarding the teaching of evolution in public schools?
A: “I’m a Christian, and I believe in parents being able to provide children with religious instruction without interference from the state.
But I also believe our schools are there to teach worldly knowledge and science. I believe in evolution, and I believe there’s a difference between science and faith. That doesn’t make faith any less important than science.
It just means they’re two different things. And I think it’s a mistake to try to cloud the teaching of science with theories that frankly don’t hold up to scientific inquiry.”
Has either Clinton or McCain gone on the record on the issue yet?
Tip of the old scrub brush to the blogs of the Dallas Morning News.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
7 Comments | Creationism, Education, Politics, Public education, Science, Teaching | Tagged: 2008 Presidential Race, Creationism, Education, Intelligent Design, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 14, 2008
A remarkable device, in sad, remarkable circumstances.
The photos below show a typewriter that produces Japanese characters, an invention of no small achievement.
The photos also show American citizens, arrested for being Japanese, in the Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming, during World War II. They’re getting the machine in operation to produce a camp newspaper.
The official caption:
Members of the staff and volunteer helpers reassemble a privately owned Japanese typewriter to be used for the Japanese language edition of the Heart Mountain Sentinel, Center newspaper. The paper is wrapped around the rubber cylinder, the typist pushes the roller riding platen over the bed of type. After picking the next character, a lever is operated which picks up the type, presses it against the paper and replaces it in its niche. Complicated in appearance and operation, due to the shorthand characteristics of Japanese writing, the advance of thought is nearly equal in speed to a standard English typewriter. — Photographer: Parker, Tom — Heart Mountain, Wyoming. 1/13/43
Official caption:
This complicated looking gadget is a standard Japanese typewriter, the private property of a resident of Japanese ancestry at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. The machine, loaned to the center newspaper for its Japanese section which is printed for for the purpose of informing those residents unable to read English, is here being assembled by Sentinel staff members. The paper is wound on the round drum, which operates on rollers over the type bed, spotted over the required character, an arm picks the metal slug from the bed, presses it against the paper and returns it to its niche. Due to the shorthand character of Japanese printing, the typewriter is nearly equal in speed in conveying thoughts as a standard English typewriter. — Photographer: Parker, Tom — Heart Mountain, Wyoming. 1/13/43
These photos are available from several sites. The best quality is probably from UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library’s contribution to the California Digital Library. Office Museum.com also carries the photos, with attribution to the Department of Interior, War Relocation Authority, National Archives, Still Picture Branch, NWDNS-210-G-E691 and E728.
From the Office Museum:
The first typewriter with Chinese characters was produced about 1911-14. Nippon Typewriter Co. began producing typewriters with Chinese and Japanese characters in 1917. “The Nippon has a flat bed of 3,000 Japanese characters. This is considered a shorthand version since the Japanese language contains in excess of 30,000 characters.” (Thomas A. Russo, Office Collectibles: 100 Years of Business Technology, Schiffer, 2000, p. 161.) A successor company, Nippon Remington Rand Kaisha, was producing similar machines in the 1970s.
To use the typewriter, paper is wrapped around the cylindrical rubber platen, which moves on rollers over the bed of type. The operator uses a level to control an arm that picks up a piece of metal type from the bed, presses it against the paper, and returns it to its niche. While the machine is complicated, because of the shorthand character of Japanese writing, the Japanese language typewriter is nearly equal to an English language typewriter in speed for recording thoughts.
Other posts on typewriters, here. Other posts on Japanese internment, here.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
3 Comments | Education, History, Technology | Tagged: Japanese Internment, Typewriters, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 4, 2008
Interesting view: A homeschooler argues that homeschooling parents can do a disservice to the faith of their children by misteaching creationism instead of evolution. At The Upside Down World.
Those who are teaching their children using creationist curriculum are in particular danger of setting their children up for this fall. To see why, I’d like to offer a challenge. Take your child’s creationist materials and look at whatever footnotes and references are provided. Now take an evening and look up the names of the authors cited. Odds are excellent that virtually all of the authors are creationist scientists. Now, take the names of any mainstream scientists who are quoted or whose work is referenced and attempt to track down their work. Specifically, see if you can find the particular quotes used in your child’s materials. Google books can be a great way of doing this. Now, read through whatever you can find with an eye towards evaluating the accuracy of the quotes provided (ie are words changed, relevant sections replaced by “. . .”). Also try and honestly evaluate if the author of your child’s materials has accurately conveyed the substance of what the author is saying.
If you drink, you may want to keep some strong drink nearby to sustain yourself during this process, because I promise you, you will not be happy with what you find. Unfortunately, the only way creationist materials are able to create the appearance of validity is by only referring to the work of “creation scientists” (who don’t do research, BTW. Their work is limited to analyzing the work of others to look for potential holes which might be able to be seen as supporting a creationist perspective. This is not science.). When creationist materials do refer to the work of mainstream scientists, conducting actual research, they almost uniformly misquote and misrepresent them. If you do not believe me, then take a weekend or two and do the research yourself. The internet is a wonderful tool.
In a later report, it comes out that the biggest problem a Christian mother has raising science-literate kids is opposition from creationists who claim that knowledge is somehow evil. They just can’t keep their agendas hidden — and there is some ripe stuff in the comments.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Creationism, Education, Homeschooling | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Homeschooling | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 27, 2008
Lent’s over, Easter’s done — time to carnival once again.
Very good stuff in several different carnivals on history and other subjects we like to peruse and ponder while soaking in Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.
The passings of those who saw history, commemorated at the 12th Carnival of Military History, at Thoughts on Military History:
Next we have a series of posts commemorating the deaths of veterans who have recently passed away. First, at UKNIWM we have a post about the passing away of the last Scottish veteran of the Spanish Civil War. Second, again at UKNIWM, we have a post on the death of the last French veteran of the First World War. Finally, we have a post at Rantings of a Civil War Historian about the anniversary of the death of Sir Henry Shrapnel, the inventor of the shrapnel artillery shell. [Link on Shrapnel not working]
There’s a whole lesson plan in that paragraph, all of it important and fascinating, and none of it important in your state’s history standards, probably.
A Hot Cup of Joe, appropriately, hosts the Four Stone Hearth #37, the carnival of archaeology — in a strangely futuristic Pulp Science Fiction fashion. Go see the thing just for the pulp sci-fi images, if you must — but as usual there are great gems there. This week our youngest son expressed some exasperation at the short shrift given Angkor Wat in high school texts, which led to a discussion about cultures and histories generally not part of the U.S. canon. Four Stone Hearth features a post at Wanna Be An Anthropologist that digs through Angkor Wat in some depth. I love timely posts.
These things lead off into all sorts of rabbit trails. Wanna Be An Anthropologist also has this post on “Mogollon Snowbirds,” a wry title twist on a very good, deep post on archaeology and anthropology study in the Mogollon Rim area of Arizona. No bit conclusion, but sources you can use, and a great look at what real scientists really do.
We’re all back from spring break in our household, but still appreciative of the Teachers Gone Wild edition of the Carnival of Education (#165), at Bellringers.
One feature on the Education Carnival midway was this post, “Luddite Lite,” at Teacher in a Strange Land. It’s sharp little spur under my seat, about actually using technology to promote learning for the students, rather than as a crutch for the teacher. But in that blog’s archives, right next door to that post, is this evocative post from a 30-year, in-the-trenches veteran teacher, to my old boss at Education, Checker Finn — a response to one of his posts (which we’ve commented on before). What makes education work? Are you delivering it? Check out both posts.
Oops. Gotta scoot. Lesson plans to tweak.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
3 Comments | Anthropology, Archaeology, Education, Education blogs, History, History blogs, Science, War, World War I | Tagged: Archaeology, Education, Education Policy, History, Technology, War, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 21, 2008
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.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
3 Comments | Education, Education reform, No Child Left Behind Act, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Education, Humor, NCLB, Rampant stupidity | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 20, 2008
With evidence mounting that the politically-motivated rewrite of English standards in Texas schools would harm the education of Spanish-speaking students, the Chairman of the Texas Education Agency told state legislators, English language experts and educators that he will not allow time to analyze the proposed changes to see if they are appropriate, let alone time for changes to the standards.
In short, McLeroy told Texas Hispanics to “drop dead.”
Board chairman Don McLeroy insisted that major changes to the proposed updates are no longer possible. Advocates say the standards need opinions from experts who have researched Hispanic children and understand their learning styles.
“There is no way that ignoring such a sizable chunk of this population from consideration of education policy will do anything but harm the opportunity of a generation,” Herrero said.
McLeroy said there had been plenty of time for experts to weigh in earlier on new curriculum standards. He said he was shocked by accusations that he and others board members are trying to shortchange Hispanic students.
“There’s no malice at all, none, zip, nada. There’s just no time to get another expert in,” McLeroy said. “None of us would do anything to hurt any group of children or any (individual) child. What we want is for them to be successful in the English language because it’s so important.”
In the latest of a string of politically charged bulldozings, McLeroy is pushing standards substituted at the last minute for standards Texas educators had worked on for three years. McLeroy hired a political consulting group to rewrite the standards and substituted the rewrite in a meeting earlier this year (you’ll see my bias when you read the story in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram). Educators, parents, legislators and community leaders criticized the action for disregarding the educational needs of Texas students.
“It’s just ignorance on their part,” said Mary Helen Berlanga, a 26-year board member from Corpus Christi.
The board is set to take a preliminary vote March 27 on the new English language arts and readings standards, which will influence new textbooks for the 2009-10 school year.
A four-member board subcommittee signaled its intent Wednesday to stick with that schedule after state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, pleaded to let Latino experts review the standards first.
McLeroy is flexing never-tried-before political muscles in a series of changes at TEA. Last year he led the SBOE to arbitrarily reject a math book by a major publisher, daring legal action, hoping he could finally win a case establishing that the board can reject books on political grounds. Biology books are due for a review in the near future, and science and biology standards will be rewritten before that process.
Moving against Hispanic students on the English standards, if successful, would tend to demonstrate that Texas educato needs to dance to the red book writings of Chairman McLeroy. While 47% of Texas public school students are Hispanic, Hispanic voters have generally packed less clout.
McLeroy appears to be counting on Obama and Clinton Democrats to demonstrate apathy again near the general election. If election numbers from the March primary hold up, McLeroy will remain chairman of the SBOE, but the legislature will be likely to shift against many of the actions he’s pushed since assuming the chair, and may turn antagonistically Democratic.
The stakes are higher for Texas students.
Critics of the process asked the subcommittee to allow an expert in Hispanic culture and language to assess the proposed new standards before a preliminary vote next week by the full education board.
The four-member subcommittee that worked on the curriculum did not include anyone of Hispanic descent, or anyone from South or West Texas, and critics said the committee did not seek advice from anyone with expertise in Hispanic language or culture.
Statewide, 47 percent of the more than 4.6 million public school students are Hispanic. Eighty-nine percent of El Paso County’s 173,000 students are Hispanic.
According to the Texas Education Agency, about 16 percent of students statewide and about 28 percent of students in El Paso County in 2006 had limited English proficiency.
Resources:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Books, Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Evolution, Literature, Politics, Public education, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, War on Education | Tagged: Education, English, McLeroy, Politics, SBOE, State testing, TEKS, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 15, 2008
Freedom of Conscience Day?
James Madison’s birth day is March 16, Sunday. He was born in 1751, in Conway, King George County, Virginia.
Father of the Constitution, fourth President of the U.S., Great Collaborator, and life-long champion for religious freedom and freedom of speech, press and thought: How should we mark his birthday?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
9 Comments | 1787, Bill of Rights, Education, First Amendment, Free press, Free speech, Freedom - Political, Freedom of Information, Freedom of the Press, History, James Madison, Politics, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Founder, History, James Madison, Politics, Religion | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 13, 2008
Spring break, lots of work to do (no beaches for me). Have I neglected noting the carnivals? There are a lot of good posts gathered in some of them.
Liberals
Tangled Up in Blue Guy hosts the 60th Carnival of the Liberals. Pay particular attention to Digital Cuttlefish’s little spur-of-the-moment poem on Sally Kern, an Oklahoma state representative who was caught red-eared, on tape, in a bigoted rant. Poetry doesn’t get the respect it deserves; this guy shows real wit in his rhyming.
Prehistory, archaeology
Four Stone Hearth #36 cooks along and warms our brains over at Afarensis. I think every history teacher and every geography teacher should visit this carnival from time to time, to find some of the best new stuff for the early chapters of every history course, the prehistoric human section that is never as good in the class textbook as it is in the journals or in these blogs. Who among us hasn’t had someone ask for the “final, definitive reason” the Neandertals went extinct? Instead of just answering “we don’t know,” you can refer a student to the “mad Neandertal” hypothesis, and ask them to report back on it from A Very Remote Period Indeed). Science, and history, are not settled on these issues — how better to let students see that than to experience some of the discussion? Psychology teachers probably should note this post from Not Exactly Rocket Science, on PET scans of human and chimpanzee brains while the subject is communicating. That’s just two posts in the carnival.
Education
Learn Me Good hosts the 162nd Carnival of Education, the March Mathness Edition. Take a look at Dave on Ed’s post about how school administrators are quick to jump on calling for change to match whatever is the latest fad in education, but slow to provide teachers with the training required to make the changes work. What fad is he talking about? Well, all of them — but you remember the talk a couple of weeks ago about the Finns getting education right? Mom is Teaching has some comments about the Finns beating Americans.
Psychology and neuroscience
I’m watching psychology more closely these days, especially with older son Kenny now working on a neuroscience degree, so I’ve been paying more attention to Encephalon, the carnival on psychology and neurosciences — Encephalon 40 finds a home at Mind Hacks. Hitting almost all my buttons, there is a pointer to a post discussing what is the real history of psychology at Advances in the History of Psychology — what counts as history? Great discussion. Encephalon 41 is due on March 17, at Pure Pedantry.
History
History Carnival 62 has been up for a couple of weeks at Spinning Clio. I just got there a couple of days ago — and you need to go see it, too. The History Guru has a series of podcasts on western civilization, the Western Intellectual History Lecture Series. Can you use this in your classes? Figure out how to use it in your classes. If you’re not making iPod recommendations for your students, you’re missing the boat and so are they. Go check it out at least. Such activities threaten to drag teaching into the last decade of the 20th century. There’s hope we can drag teaching into the 21st century sometime before 2090. The President of France proposes that each 10 year-old child in France memorize the history of one child deported from France during the Holocaust. Good idea or not? See the discussion here (yes, it’s in French; this is the internet, put on your grande fille culottes or pantalons adulte and deal with it). [Why is it that high school history texts never explain the origin of the name of the political movement in Paris, the sans-culottes? How could any kid fail to remember a movement known as “no-pants?” Do the book authors not know that kids would be interested?]
The History Carnival is particularly rich for high school teachers, I think; see these posts:
Over at Progressive Historian, contributor “midtowng” believes that the S&L Crisis is repeating today and compares it to the S&L crisis of the 1980’s .
Jon Swift exclaims Castro Resigns! Sanctions Work!
“It has now been forty years since May ’68, and yet we still haven’t gotten over it.” Greg Afinogenov looks at why.
Economics
Is the American Economics Blog Carnival the economics carnival I’ve been searching for? Struck in Traffic hosts the March 1 edition. Hmmmm. Not sure.
Okay, enough of the Midways. Where is the Fletcher’s State Fair Corny Dog Shack? (Controversy there, too!)
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
8 Comments | 1968, Economics, Education, History, History audio sources, Podcasting, psychology, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Weblogs, World history | Tagged: blog carnivals, Education, History, Politics, psychology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 11, 2008
Thoughtful post from a homeschooler, Geek Dad. Check out the responses. The heated exchanges reveal a lot.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
6 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Homeschooling, Science | Tagged: Creationism, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Homeschooling, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 7, 2008
This is why football players remember the games better than they remember the practices.
Is this really news? It was a jarring reminder to me. Ed at Not Exactly Rocket Science (just before his blog was swallowed up by the many-tentacled Seed Magazine empire) noted a study that shows testing improves performance more than study.
But a new study reveals that the tests themselves do more good for our ability to learn that the many hours before them spent relentlessly poring over notes and textbook. The act of repeatedly retrieving and using learned information drives memories into long-term storage, while repetitive revision produced almost no benefits.
More quizzes instead of warm-up studies? More tests? Longer tests? What do you think? Certainly this questions the wisdom of high-stakes, end of education testing; it also calls into question the practice of evaluating teachers solely on the basis of test scores. Much grist for the discussion mill.
Here’s the citation to the study: Karpicke, J.D., Roediger, H.L. (2008). The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning. Science, 319(5865), 966-968. DOI: 10.1126/science.1152408
Karpicke is at Purdue; Roediger is at Washington University in St. Louis.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
11 Comments | Best practices, Education, Education assessment, Education quality, History, Learning, Learning styles, Pedagogy, Research, Science, Testing | Tagged: Education quality, Learning, Science, Teaching, Testing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 5, 2008
Attention focused on one usually-obscure race for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education helped Republican Pat Hardy turn back a malicious challenge. Hardy won her primary against secretive Barney Maddox, a urologist who spent a lot of money on specifically-targeted mailings, but who also refused to speak with reporters or anyone else asking questions.
Showing just how odd and treacherous is the situation in Texas, Hardy got assists from science bloggers across the nation, though her position on science is far from what science advocates would like. Hardy’s genial “don’t gut the textbooks” stand was preferred to Maddox’s mad-dog, teach-creationism-in-science position.
Maddox refused to comment on the election, of course.
Hardy’s district includes parts of Ft. Worth and surrounding counties. According to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram:
State Board of Education
Social conservatives failed in their attempt to take control of the State Board of Education on Tuesday when incumbent Pat Hardy of Fort Worth retained her seat against a challenge from Cleburne’s Barney Maddox.
Hardy, a career educator, has been a moderate voice on the board. The 15-member body still shows a close ideological split, but Hardy has helped keep it on a straight path.
The board’s powers come from its ability to influence the public school curriculum and the selection of textbooks. District 11covers about three-fourths of Tarrant County, plus all of Ellis, Johnson and Parker counties. There is no Democratic nominee for this seat in the November election.
Maddox’s entry in the race had set the stage for debate over the scientific theory of evolution, which he has described as “fairy tales.” Hardy took a better course: Teach kids about all theories, she said, from creation to evolution, and give them enough information to make up their own minds about what to believe.
Spoken like a teacher — and a person who should hold a seat on the State Board of Education
Tip of the old scrub brush to reader Ediacaran. Thanks, Bret.
Update: News specific to this race from the Fort Worth paper.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | Creationism, Education, Elections, Evolution, Politics, Science, State school boards, Texas | Tagged: 2008 campaign, Creationism, Education, Elections, Evolution, Science, Texas State School Board | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 3, 2008
With all the irony, implicit and explicit, I will be proctoring a test Wednesday.
You, however, would be well advised to tune into this discussion described below:
This Week’s Live Chat
Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik
When: Wednesday, March 5, 2 p.m., Eastern time
Submit questions in advance.
Please join us for this online chat to get an insider’s view of school-reform movements over the past five decades.
In a new book titled Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik, Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, provides a close-up history of postwar education reform and his own role in it. Mr. Finn, assistant secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, and an aide to politicians as different as Richard Nixon and Daniel Moynihan, recounts how his own experiences have shaped his changing and often contentious views of educational improvement efforts, from school choice to standards-based education to the professionalization of teaching.
For background, please read:
“Lessons Learned: A Self-Styled ‘Troublemaker’ Shares Wisdom Gleaned From 57 Years in Education,” Education Week, February 27, 2008.
[Here’s a version that doesn’t require a subscription.]
About the guest:
• Chester E. Finn Jr. is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, senior fellow at Stanford‘s Hoover Institution, and senior editor of Education Next. He is the author of We Must Take Charge: Our Schools and Our Future and many other books.
Submit questions in advance.
No special equipment other than Internet access is needed to participate in this text-based chat. A transcript will be posted shortly after the completion of the chat.
Finn is one of those guys whose views you may not always like, with whom you may not always agree, but to whom you must listen, because you will always learn something from him.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Education reform, Public education, Testing | Tagged: Education, Education reform, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 3, 2008
Anyone in quality control would recognize the name; more people in business will recognize the principles.
Joseph Juran, who made “Six Sigma” a symbol of high quality control and pointed the way to statistical analysis of problems that factory floor workers could understand and use, is dead at 103.
He created the Pareto principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, which states that 80 percent of consequences stem from 20 percent of causes. Today managers use the Pareto principle, named for an Italian economist, to help them separate what Mr. Juran called the “vital few” resources from the “useful many.”
“Everybody who’s in business now adopts the philosophy of quality management,” David Juran said. “He came along at just the right time. Most of the reference books that have been written about this field are either books that he wrote or imitations.”
Among his best-known works were the “Quality Control Handbook” in 1951, the first mathematically rooted textbook on product quality, now entering its sixth edition, and “Managerial Breakthrough” in 1964, which described a step-by-step improvement process that inspired the Six Sigma and lean manufacturing philosophies.
Perhaps a mark of how far out of favor serious quality control has fallen, the New York Times article makes no mention of other quality control pioneers who worked with Juran, such as W. Edwards Deming, nor does it note the amazingly long list of companies who used the principles to achieve greatness, some of which were later skewered by other economic problems.
And I’ll wager that not one school principal in 1,000 knows who Juran was or how his methods might improve education.
More:
Dr. Joseph Juran on the cover of Industry Week, April 4, 1994
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
3 Comments | Business, Economics, Education, Education quality, History, Quality | Tagged: Business, Economics, Education, History, Joseph M. Juran, Quality control, w edwards deming | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
February 18, 2008
We owe a great debt to newspapers, especially those shunned by bloggers as MSM (“mainstream media”). This article in the Austin American-Statesman is a key exhibit.
While the minions and poobahs at the Texas Education Agency work to frustrate the teaching of evolution in science classes, real Texas scientists practicing real Texas science dig away at the Gault Site, an archaeological dig that recently has yielded 1.5 million artifacts from ancient Texans, Clovis Man, living 13,500 years ago.
So far nothing indicates any of these ancient people were Baptist or creationist. Surprisingly, perhaps, they didn’t play football, either.
Pamela LeBlanc, a digger at the site wrote the article in first person.
The pasture, named for the Gault family who once farmed the land, made its debut into professional archaeology in 1929 when J.E. Pearce, founder of the UT archaeology department, excavated here. Over the years, visitors could pay a fee to dig at the farm, hauling off what they found and leaving behind shallow craters.
Today, it’s considered the most prolific site of its kind. Gault has generated more than half of the excavated artifacts from the Clovis people, long considered the first human culture in America. Until recently, most archaeologists believed the Clovis came from Asia across the Bering Strait land bridge at the end of the last ice age about 13,500 years ago, walked down the ice-free corridor of Western Canada and slowly spread across the Americas.
Collins and others believe people arrived in the Americas much earlier, probably by boat along the North Atlantic and North Pacific shores. And they believe this site will help prove it. “What we’re trying to do here is expand on our knowledge of the peopling of the Americas,” Collins says.
Even better, you can volunteer to help out at the site, to dig for prehistoric information.
To volunteer at the Gault site, contact Cinda Timperley at ctimperley@austin.rr.com. Membership in the Gault School of Archaeological Research is not required to volunteer, but members have priority. Membership is $10 for students; $45 for adults; and $65 for families. The school also needs non-monetary donations of everything from equipment to electrical work. For more information, call 471-5982.
Not only does the Austin paper print news that sticks in the craw of Don McLeroy, they give details on how you can participate in making such news.
Newspapers. Gotta love ’em.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Remote Central.
Also see Pamela LeBlanc’s earlier story about Lucy in Houson.
Texas A&M undergraduate diggers at Gault site, earlier; Texas Archaeological Society photo.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | Anthropology, Archaeology, Education, Evolution, Prehistory, TEKS, Texas history | Tagged: Archaeology, Clovis Man, Education, Evolution, Media, Newspapers, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
ExxonMobil sponsors a week-long summer training program for math and science teachers. The deadline to apply is many months away, but you can find out the info by clicking the jump.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
