StickWithANose

I was recently reminded of the hypocrisy of the “traditional values” crowd the other day as my progress through a narrow street was halted by a fellow in a large truck covered in bumper stickers proclaiming his belief in “traditional marriage” who was stopping to drop off a prostitute after services had been rendered. In a Foucaultian sense, conservative types do not “repress” sexual discourses but, instead, talk about the subject constantly. Perhaps this is because the subject is never far from their minds… NYT

According to the Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract, states that went Republican in November accounted for eight of the 10 states with the highest divorce rates in 2006.

Conservatives touted abstinence-only education, which was a flop, when real sex education was needed, most desperately in red states. According to 2006 data from the Guttmacher Institute, those red states accounted for eight of the 10 states with the highest teenage birthrates.

And, a study titled “Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?” that was conducted by Benjamin Edelman, an assistant professor of business at Harvard Business School and published earlier this year in the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that subscriptions to online pornography sites were “more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality” and in states where “more people agree that ‘I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage.’ ”

Ol’ Carl Jung sure knew what he was talking about, no? More seriously, a better explanation for the teen pregnancy and high divorce rates may have more to do with poverty measures than being a reflection of simple hypocrisy. Looking at the graph accompanying the article, it is clear that the states that lead each of the three categories have high poverty rates.

If anything, the political events that have unfolded over the past year should bring any rational person who roots for their favorite team in the “two party political game” to the point of questioning the utility of it all. It is true that elections have consequences, but it is equally true that there are only minimal differences between the jackass and the elephant. The education policies and reforms that I blog about provide ample evidence for this thesis. The roots of the policy reforms now advocated by Arne Duncan are much the same as those hawked by Rod Paige. However, this is not the only point of convergence. It is becoming increasingly clear that many of former President Bush’s most criminal policies are now the modis operandi of the Obama administration. From the WP:

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation…

During U.S. military commission hearings on his case, a judge found that Afghan interrogators threatened to kill Jawad and his family if he did not confess to playing a role in the attack. Jawad then admitted to participating in the attack, wrote the judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley…

In November, Henley found that the first set of statements were elicited through “physical intimidation and threats of death” and that Jawad’s fears “had not dissipated by the second confession.” He ruled that prosecutors could not use either of the confessions during military commission proceedings.

Despite Henley’s ruling, Hafetz said the Justice Department wants to use those very confessions to justify Jawad’s detention in the detainee’s lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle.

Despite the poorly referenced ruminations of a newly minted media pundit, the utter poverty of the idea that schools with high teacher turnover can be successful should be obvious even to the casual observer. Thanks to the rise of Arne Duncan as the Secretary of Education, Chicago public schools are under the microscope, and the results should be crystal clear.

This report reveals that about 100 Chicago schools suffer from chronically high rates of teacher turnover, losing a quarter or more of their teaching staff every year, and many of these schools serve predominantly low-income African American children. In the typical Chicago elementary school, 51 percent of the teachers working in 2002 had left four years later, while the typical high school had seen 54 percent leave by 2006…

While some teacher mobility is normal and expected, high turnover rates can produce a range of organizational problems at schools, such as discontinuity in professional development, shortages in key subjects, and loss of teacher leadership. Previous research also indicates that schools with high turnover are more likely to have inexperienced, ineffective teachers.

Judy Rabin at Schools Matter points us toward a concept that is almost totally absent in the “hold teachers accountable” sloganeering emitting from the Dept. of Ed.: Creating good working conditions and respecting teachers attracts and keeps talented people in the teaching profession. Shocker… I know. That this is such a foreign concept in current debates over education policy is, indeed, telling.

It’s hard to discern the validity of the “research” being referenced in this article, but the approach to literacy education it details points toward some pretty sound pedagogy. Using a thematic approach allows for a flexibility in curriculum development that helps to keep students engaged and interested in learning, and [despite the stupidity of the reading wars] the best approach to literacy education is a balanced methodology that teaches students phonic skills and sight vocabulary.

From the Tennessean:

More preschoolers from low-income families have the reading skills they need to enter kindergarten because of a local literacy program, research released Friday shows.

The United Way of Metropolitan Nashville, which funds Read to Succeed, announced that 99.4 percent of students in the program were prepared to begin kindergarten this fall. In 2004, when the program was in its infancy, 33 percent of preschoolers tested as ready.

Local leaders say the results are significant because reading readiness in kindergarten can affect how children perform as they get older and determine whether they graduate. More than 1,400 children ages 3 to 5 were enrolled in the program this year, said Tony Heard, chairman of the United Way board…

Read to Succeed uses themes to teach sounds and words. For instance, if the theme is “snow,” children hear stories about winter weather and learn related vocabulary words.Organizers attribute its success to teacher training and literacy coordinators who monitor lessons for quality, said Phil Orr, senior vice president of United Way’s community and investor relations.

What is of particular interest is how out of sync this program seems to be with current education discourse. In today’s schools of “drill and kill”, scripted nightmares like KIPP are all the rage. Putting in the necessary resources [human and structural] and utilizing solid pedagogical methods fosters student learning, period. The problem is that Americans, to quote Buiter, “believe in Santa Claus.” We want well-functioning public services, but we don’t want to pay for it.

In 1992, Ohio became the first state to adopt publicly funded private education and currently holds the dubious distinction of having the largest number of charter schools in operation. Therefore, it is notable that Ohio’s Gov. Ted Strickland is now leading the charge to reign in the madness of turning over public education to private entities with little to no oversight. Strickland is currently locked in a battle with the Republican controlled state Senate over a series of proposals offered by the governor that are notable for demonstrating an unprecendented level of sophistication and common sense. Lancaster Eagle Gazaette:

Strickland’s “evidence-based” funding model, which would replace the current system for determining how much state aid local school systems receive. Strickland’s plan would use educational research to determine what a school needs to be successful, determine the cost and fund it.

Lengthening the school year. Democrats want to add 16 days to the academic calendar, phasing them in over time.

High school testing. The Democrats want to eliminate the mandatory Ohio Graduation Test, instead requiring students to take a college-entrance exam such as the ACT, take end-of-course exams, do a community service project, and do a senior exit project.

Democrats want the state to adopt new academic content standards, including so-called “21st century skills” that include critical thinking, problem solving, media literacy and entrepreneurship, for instance. Republicans removed most of those measures and instead want the state school board and others to study the issues further.

Charter schools. Strickland and the House Democrats want to fund charter schools separately from traditional districts, and impose new accountability measures on them. Republicans have largely resisted. Some Republicans want to delay talks on these far-reaching measures until after the immediate financial crisis is settled.

I must admit that I was stunned as I read through these proposals for not only their sophistication but for the degree to which they are “reality-based”. Let us hope that the state that helped to lead us into this mess can lead us out of it.

Texas has long been at the forefront of implementing tough accountability measures for students and schools, and the results have been disastrous. However, as with all things related to school reform in the US, empirical realities have done nothing to slow the march toward the thorough corporatization of public schooling. This past week Gov. Rick Perry achieved a victory in “raising standards for high school graduation” beyond the already draconian, test-based ’standards’ currently in place.

I’ve recently covered the problematics of standards and assessments, but an important aspect of the accoutability dynamic that I’ve yet to address is the disproportiante impact these policies have on low-income students. Looking at data from Texas, Helig and Darling-Hammond note that beginning in 10th grade students in Texas take the TAAS assessment as a requirement for high school graduation, and the result has been a perverse set of incentives and gaming strategies that keep the lowest performing students [usually low income students of color] from ever taking the tests.

A major strategy for avoiding the TAAS tests at the high school level was 9th grade retention. At its peak, more than 30% of 9th grade students were retained for 1 or more years. Of those who were retained, only 12% ever took the TAAS, and only 8% passed it. A majority of retained students left school as dropouts or disappearances.

While think-tank tools continually crow about the “success” of standards-based reforms in Texas, the statistical gains emerging from Texas are hollow victories at best; farce at worst. [For more reading: 1 2] The dirty little secret of tough accountability standards for students is that the poorest amongst us are being shuffled out of schools, and the result is the perpetuation of a multi-generational underclass and the largest prison population in the world. Only in the United States could this be viewed as success.

As many a good Tennessean has said before me: Gone To Texas!

The Stick Institute will return on the 29th! Happy Summer Solstice!

Democrats in Tennessee’s House of Representatives caved on a bill allowing for an expansion in the number of charter schools in the state. Since the party has pretty much adopted Republican education policies at the national level, this isn’t exactly surprising. What is perhaps the most troubling about the whole affair is that it isn’t the lack of evidence supporting the use of charter schools that held up the bill from relatively easy passage. It was Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown)’s statement on the House floor stating that “public schools are the last vestige of slavery” that almost killed it. Really. [h/t to R. Neal]

Makes me proud to be a Tennessean…

For more readings on charters: [1][2] Enjoy!

From Herbert Kohl: Schools Matter

Summer 2009

From Herbert Kohl

Dear Arne Duncan,

In a recent interview with NEA Today you said of my book *36 Children,* “I read [it] in high school … [and] … wrote about his book in one of my college essays, and I talked about the tremendous hope that I feel [and] the challenges that teachers in tough communities face. The book had a big impact on me.”

When I wrote *36 Children* in 1965 it was commonly believed that African American students, with a few exceptions, simply could not function on a high academic level. The book was motivated by my desire to provide a counter-example, one I had created in my classroom, to this cynical and racist view, and to let the students’ creativity and intelligence speak for itself. It was also intended to show how important it was to provide interesting and complex curriculum that integrated the arts and sciences, and utilized the students’ own culture and experiences to inspire learning. I discovered then, in my early teaching career, that learning is best driven by ideas, challenges, experiences, and activities that engage students. My experience over the past 45 years has confirmed this.

We have come far from that time in the ’60s. Now the mantra is high expectations and high standards. Yet, with all that zeal to produce measurable learning outcomes we have lost sight of the essential motivations to learn that moved my students. Recently I asked a number of elementary school students what they were learning about and the reactions were consistently, “We are learning how to do good on the tests.” They did not say they were learning to read.

It is hard for me to understand how educators can claim that they are creating high standards when the substance and content o f learning is reduced to the mechanical task of getting a correct answer on a manufactured test. In the panic over teaching students to perform well on reading tests, educators seem to have lost sight of the fact that reading is a tool, an instrument that is used for pleasure and for the acquisition of knowledge and information about the way the world works. The mastery of complex reading skills develops as students grapple with ideas, learn to understand plot and character, and develop and articulate opinions on literature. They also develop through learning history, science, and technology.

Reading is not a series of isolated skills acquired in a sanitized rote-learning environment utilizing “teacher-proof” materials. It develops through interaction with a knowledgeable, active teacher—through dialogue, and critical analysis. It also develops through imaginative writing and research.

It is no wonder that the struggle to coerce all students into mastering high-stakes testing is hardest at the upper grades. The impoverishment of learning taking place in the early grades naturally leads to boredom and alienation from school-based learning. This disengagement is often stigmatized as “attention deficit disorder.” The very capacities that No Child Left Behind is trying to achieve are undermined by th e way in which the law is implemented.

This impoverishment of learning is reinforced by cutting programs in the arts. The free play of the imagination, which is so crucial for problem-solving and even for entrepreneurship, is discouraged in a basics curriculum lacking in substantial artistic and human content.

Add to this the elimination of physical education in order to clear more time to torture students with mechanical drilling and shallow questioning and it is no wonder that many American students are lethargic when it comes to ideas and actions. I’m sure that NCLB has, in many cases, a direct hand in the development of childhood obesity.

It is possible to maintain high standards for all children, to help students learn how to speak thoughtfully, think through problems, and create imaginative representations of the world as it is and as it could be, without forcing them through a regime of high-stakes testing. Attention has to be paid to the richness of the curriculum itself and time has to be allocated to thoughtful exploration and experimentation. It is easy to ignore content when the sole focus is on test scores.

Your administration has the opportunity, when NCLB comes up for reauthorization, to set the tone, aspirations, and philosophical and moral grounds for reform that develops the intelligence, creativity, and social and personal sensitivity of students. I still hold to the hope you mentioned you took away from *36 Children* but I sometimes despair about how we are wasting the current opportunity to create truly effective schools where students welcome the wonderful learning that we as adults should feel privileged to provide them.

I would welcome any opportunity to discuss these and other educational issues with you.

Sincerely, Herbert Kohl
— Herb Kohl
*Open Letter*
2009-06-16