Ordered the cake yet? Millard Fillmore’s 207th birthday coming up

January 5, 2007

Just a reminder that Millard Fillmore’s 207th birthday anniversary is Sunday, January 7, 2007.

How do you plan to celebrate?

Image from NY State Library

Did he really say that? “May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.” (attributed to Fillmore)

Update, January 6, 2007: Elektratig tried to source the quote, but cannot — posts that the line does not sound like Fillmore. At the end of the day, January 5, neither the New York State Library nor the good people at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society could confirm the quote. We may have to add this line to the list of Bathtub debunkings; but there are many sources yet to check.

Image: State Library of New York

13 Comments | Good Quotes, History, Millard Fillmore, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

$100 laptop idea rolls on

January 5, 2007

One of its architects, Seymour Papert, lies in a Boston hospital (but out of intensive care) recovering from a head injury suffered in a collision with a motorbike in Hanoi in early December, but the idea of equipping tens of millions of students around the world with inexpensive, wireless-ready laptop computers continues to roll towards implementation.

The Christian Science Monitor carries an editorial more full of hope than opinion, on January 5, 2007, about the computer project. The laptops have been dubbed “XO.”

For billions of parents who earn only a few dollars a day, paying for a child’s education – books, etc. – often gets neglected. Many simple solutions that break that cycle of poverty have been tried and have failed. Now another one is on the horizon: a “$100 laptop.”

While noting past errors in sending technology to the third world, the Monitor cites some numbers from implementation that are quite dramatic, if accurate: Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Classroom technology, Education, On-line education, On-line learning, Public education, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom, XO laptops | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Sad sign of schools in trouble: No recess

January 2, 2007

Here’s one indicator that testing has gone way too far and is damaging children rather than improving their education: A bill in the Texas House of Representatives requires school districts to consider recess.

Like Dave Barry, we can’t make this stuff up. Rep. Mike Villareal, who represents part of Bexar County in District 123 (near San Antonio) has a bill in the hopper, H. B. 366, which requires districts to have advisory groups to stress the value of recess. (Text of the bill is below the fold.)

Would schools be so crazy as to cancel recess? Yes, that’s been our experience. Cancelling recess gives an elementary school an extra 30 minutes of class time every day. So, to impress administrators somewhere, some schools cancel recess. Despite studies showing that recess boosts learning and test scores, schools are cancelling recess.

Nuts. (Quick, what battle is that from?)

Read the rest of this entry »

15 Comments | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Education, Education reform, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

NCLB renewal faces tough sledding

December 28, 2006

The No Child Left Behind Act is scheduled for renewal by 2008, but observers are saying it will not come so soon because of the national elections. The Act will face significant phalanx of people and organizations demanding changes, too.

Media General’s Gil Klein produced a general piece of reporting on the politics and issues for NCLB renewal, which started appearing in U.S. newspapers on December 22.

It has shaken every teacher in every classroom, and when the No Child Left Behind law comes up for renewal next year, it faces a political battle that could last until after the 2008 election.

“We did a survey of Washington insiders and it is almost unanimous that it won’t happen until 2009, regardless of what all the politicians are saying,” said Michael Petrilli, an education analyst with the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, who worked in the Education Department when the law passed.

[There is a lot of good reporting out of Washington by regional news agencies and smaller services, like Media General, Knight-Ridder (used to be a bigger player than today), and other groups. Bloggers would do well to bring some of these reports to the attention of the world, instead of relying on the New YorkTimes, Washington Post, and major broadcast outlets. This is a case of a smaller agency simply providing a solid story ahead of the curve.] Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Education reform, Education spending, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education, Teaching, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Revolutionary call for education reform”

December 18, 2006

Reaction to the report of the Skills Commission is most interesting.  Is it just because it’s the end of the year, and politicians think few people are watching?  Reaction is completely on the positive side. One bellwether:  U.S. News and World Report, usually the more conservative of the three big news magazines, calls it a “revolutionary call for education reform” in the headline of a mostly positive piece.

Potential for controversy remains, though.  That article highlights what is probably the most vociferous complaint about the report so far.

The revolutionary calls from a decidedly establishment group. Funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce includes two former education secretaries, two former labor secretaries, and education officials from Massachusetts, New York City, and California. Nevertheless, opposition surfaced as soon as the report was issued.The American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and the National School Boards Association rushed out statements lambasting key ideas–like, for instance, the way the report “basically blows up the governance structure,” explains Antonia Cortese, AFT’s executive vice president.

Leave a Comment » | Curricula, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Perhaps trivial, but history education is dead in England

December 17, 2006

History education is dead in England. British kids don’t know enough history, so the makers of the board game, Trivial Pursuit, have modified the history questions, dumbing them down to meet the lowered expectations of failed history teaching.

The Sunday Telegraph’s on-line edition has the story.

Where once there were puzzles to stretch most players’ general knowledge across a range of subjects, now they appear to have come straight out of the pages of Heat or Hello! magazines.

Questions such as, “Who heckled Madonna at an awards ceremony for miming in her concerts?” and “What is Prince Charles’s nickname for Camilla?” are no longer confined to the entertainment category, but now count as history. (The answers are “Elton John” and “Gladys” respectively.)

Questions that tested the knowledge of players in science and history, especially, have been downgraded.

The Sunday Telegraph analysis of a random 100 question cards from the latest box of Trivial Pursuit revealed that one in 10 of the science and nature category were celebrity or popular culture-based, compared to one in a whole box of question cards from 1992.

In the history category, 62 questions in the latest version of the board game related to events in the past 10 years, compared to only 30 questions in the earlier edition.

In times gone by, in the U.S. people would work to gain the sort of knowledge that would allow them to answer the tougher questions in the old “College Bowl” quiz program. Now we lower the bar, and make the questions more trivial.

Would that explain why the U.S. and Britain both have such difficulty applying the lessons of Vietnam, or Korea, or even Gulf War I?  People simply don’t know the lessons.  And so it is that our education systems condemn us to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam, Korea, and Gulf War I.

 

 

 

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Current History, Education, Education reform, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quick road to better teachers: Raise the pay

December 9, 2006

It’s just good economics to think that raising the pay of teachers will improve the overall ability of the teaching corps, knowing that higher pay attracts higher-qualified workers in other situations.

Now comes a study from Australia making the same point. Two researchers at the Australian National University’s Center for Economic Policy Research looked at changes in the quality of education over time, and concluded one change for the worse was pay for teachers and a resulting decline in quality of teachers. Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan write:

For an individual with the potential to earn a wage at the 90th percentile of the distribution, a non-teaching occupation looked much more attractive in the 2000s than it did in the 1980s. We believe that both the fall in average teacher pay, and the rise in pay differentials in non-teaching occupations are responsible for the decline in the academic aptitude of new teachers over the past two decades.

Is that a surprise? U.S. Education Sec. Bill Bennett used to tout his “$50,000 solution” to improve schools — get a good principal. That action generally would improve the support for teachers and improve things across the school. Today, the amounts are higher, and the need is greater after more than three decades of economic starvation of public schools.

Raising teacher pay is a good market solution to improve the achievement of students.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Andrew Leigh’s blog.

8 Comments | Economics, Education reform, Education spending, Public education, Teacher Pay, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Education reform still high priority in California

December 1, 2006

The California Majority Report cites a bipartison poll that shows California voters regard education issues as very important. By large majorities, voters say dropouts and overall education quality are key problems, and voters support more spending to work on the problems.

The poll, by Democratic pollster Evans/McDonough and Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, finds that California voters “are looking for comprehensive changes to the public education system and they support a reform approach combining more funding with tighter financial accountability, including more accessible information.”

Among the poll’s findings:
• By a 60-37 percent margin, voters agree that “additional state funding would lead to better educated students in California”;
• 85 percent believe there are too many students in California leaving school without enough education to make it in today’s economy;
• Nearly 80 percent want either a “complete dismantling and redesign of our public education system” (27%) or “comprehensive reforms that make significant changes to the system” (52%); and
• 84 percent believe “every public school should have the materials and teachers needed to implement standards-based education even if it means increasing education funding”.

1 Comment | Education reform, Education spending, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Trouble in California teacher training system

November 25, 2006

Scandal in education?  Perhaps not so directly — certainly my education-issue alarm bells didn’t go off when I first heard of the controversy about pay and spending in the California State University system (see San Francisco Chronicle story here).

Matthew Davidson, a philosopher at Cal State San Bernardino, makes exactly that claim, however, in a letter to Brian Leiter.  CSU trains about half the teachers in California.  If that system is broken, it will indeed have national ripples.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education blogs, Ethics, Public education, Teacher Pay | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Funding still the key to education reform

November 19, 2006

Everyone is for it, no one wants to pay for it. Education reform still hits the wall when we ask “who pays?”

The Seattle Times said funding is the key to reform, in an editorial November 19:

THE education panel Washington Learns proposes a bold approach to injecting every level of education with rigor and accountability.

The elephant in the room, however, is education funding. Sidestepping this massive beast threatens the very underpinning of reform efforts. Gov. Christine Gregoire promised a new way of looking at education and investing in it. The smart, holistic proposals from her committee give us the former. Now, where’s the latter?

This is a critical question that won’t wait. The piecemeal approach to education spending — funding a program here, a program there — hasn’t served schools well and would crack under the weighty intentions of Washington Learns.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Kozol was at the University of Alaska in Anchorage a week earlier, and he pulled no punches:

“They say a good teacher can do OK with 40 kids, but they (those teachers) could work wonders with 18 kids,” he said.

Kozol said that today students are viewed with price tags on their heads and that equality in education is not a current reality.

“In the eyes of God, I’m sure all children are equal – but not in the eyes of America,” he said.

Now, there is an interesting indicator to measure whether God is in the schools: Money.

Both articles, in full, below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Classroom size, Education, Education reform, Education spending, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Champion of free markets, Milton Friedman

November 17, 2006

94-year old free market champion Milton Friedman died yesterday. Many great accountings for his career will be written, I’m sure — here is the New York Times notice.

Milton Friedman in 1964, NY Times photo

Milton Friedman in 1964 – New York Times photo

At the end of the 20th century, it certainly appeared that Friedman was more right than Keynes, and almost diametrically opposed to Marx. There are questions about whether free markets will be able to pull the former Soviet Union out of its economic woes, however, and we have run into a lot of questions about how to establish the free markets that guarantee political freedom in nations in Africa, Asia and South America.

Friedman was the greatest exponent of school vouchers in America, a view that I found had intellectual appeal but which, to me, fails to win any respect in actual practice, especially when the voucher programs hammer away at the foundations of public education (such as the public schools Friedman attended) by systematically choking off funding for public education.

I for one will miss his voice in these debates. It was a well-educated, gentle voice, tempered by reason and a lot of common sense. Free market economists grow almost abundant these days. There will never be another Friedman.

Update: Nice tributes and serious criticism. A friend uses an exercise in class requiring students to write obituaries for famous economists — Friedman’s death offers ample opportunities to collect real obits to use for examples. See some of the comments, such as:

Nothing about Friedman is up yet at The Becker-Posner Blog.  If they do anything at all on Friedman, it will be worth the read.

7 Comments | Adam Smith, Current History, Economics, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Education issues in the election

November 7, 2006

According to the Washington Post, education was on the ballot in a number of states on November 7. Here is a rundown of the issues, to be updated as we learn results. Latest update: November 12. See below the fold.

Below the fold, states with their education initiatives are listed in alphabetical order. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education spending, Public education, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Pre-election Carnival of Education

November 5, 2006

Just in time for the November 2006 local, state and national elections, we get the Carnival of Education #91, over at Median Sib.

One indication that this is not a normal election year is this fact: Education is not the chief issue in any state, nor in most local races. With the release of the Fordham Foundation study last week that showed education reform is foundering and floundering, with the great difficulty in Texas in getting court-ordered education reform through the legislature, with record college tuition costs, etc., etc., etc., education still is not the top concern of most Americans.

I wonder: Were education the top issue, would Republicans be in better shape, or worse shape?

Textbooks are in the news — with a solid legal and ethical question about whether accepting equipment to deliver material to students amounts to bribery, as California alleges (in a post at California LiveWire). It’s an incredibly salient question. The U.S. Department of Education used to leverage its limited budget for automation by requiring groups that provided computer services for which the department contracted to provide the department with computers to monitor the products. When I discovered the practice I thought it a very innovative way to get compliance with the law; unless the California officials were using the equipment for their own gain, I wonder how any state official can justify removing from the classroom machines that are used to deliver quality education. Where is the Gubernator when he’s needed?

Next week’s Carnival of Education will hit the day after the elections; will it reflect changes wrought on Tuesday night, if any? The 92nd Carnival of Education will be hosted by NYC Educator. Submissions are due Tuesday night — of course, you’re excused if you’re out at the election party, celebrating. (Notice how cleverly that applies regardless your politics — or mine.)

Leave a Comment » | Current History, Education, Education reform, Politics, Public education, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

NOW they tell us: Education reform not working

November 2, 2006

Yesterday I wondered about the effect of next Tuesday’s elections on education and education reform.

Last night I discovered the Fordham Foundation published a new study showing that “half of states miss the bus on education reform.”

Say what? One week before the election?

Fordham Foundation’s President Chester E. Finn, Jr., was a high-ranking official in a Republican administration, true, but that was after working closely with Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan for years. I doubt the study was published with any intent to affect the election at all.

It’s well worth the reading, though.

A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation finds that just eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math or science.

The study also finds that most states making significant achievement gains-including California, Delaware, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas-are national leaders in education reform, indicating that solid standards, tough accountability, and greater school choice can yield better classroom results.

“Many state officials have claimed credit for gains in student achievement,” said Chester E. Finn, Jr., the Foundation’s president. “But this study casts doubt on many such claims. In reality, no state has made the kind of progress that’s required to close America’s vexing achievement gaps and help all children prepare for life in the 21st Century. Nor are most states making the bold reforms most likely to change this reality. Real leaders will study these data, then focus on what needs doing, not what’s been done.”

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children? appraises each state according to thirty indicators across three major categories: student achievement for low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students; achievement trends for these same groups over the last 10-15 years; and the state’s track record in implementing bold education reforms. (Click here for more information on the indicators and methodology http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/TFR06Methodology.pdf.) A table listing states’ performance in all three categories is at http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/page.cfm?id=388#TFR06fullstategrades.

And, one week before this year’s election, it is not too early at all to start thinking about the next elections, and how to use the results of this report.

3 Comments | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Education, Education reform, Leadership, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education, School vouchers, Testing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

New push for history education in Ho Chi Minh City

October 28, 2006

Many of us still remember it as Saigon.

In holding on to history, people need to start somewhere. To cure ignorance of Vietnamese history, Ho Chi Minh City officials are posting banners honoring women in Vietnam history, according to that story at Viet Q.

History poster in Ho Chi Minh City

Citizens view a poster relating the role of women in Vietnam history.

Would posting history in the street work in Dallas? In Houston? In Chicago, New York, Los Angeles or Boise?

Last summer, on the way to Scout summer camp, Troop 355 from Duncanville, Texas, stopped for a night in Memphis, Tennessee. After dinner (at Hard Rock Cafe, where we discovered the waitress had an Eagle Scout boyfriend and the waiter was an ex-Scout who still loves backpacking), I noticed there on Beale Street a chunk of history required for Texas students, in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): Across the street from Hard Rock Cafe was the historical marker for the site of Ida Tarbell’s newspaper reporting days. No, I couldn’t interest a single kid in walking across the street to read the marker, though Ida Tarbell tends to show up on tests with some regularity.

I wonder where the Ho Chi Minh City officials got the idea?

Hard Rock Cafe, Memphis

(The Ida Tarbell historic marker is just out of this picture, to the right)

1 Comment | Current History, History, Pedagogy, Public education, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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