A Chinese-American author and Yale law professor, Amy Chua has written a thought provoking article about parenting in this week's Wall Street Journal. This article has received a huge number of hits as the word has spread that maybe, just maybe, American parents have something important to learn from the Chinese about rearing children to be responsible students and successful adults. I strongly recommend this article to all education leaders and to all parents of school age children.
My impression upon reflecting on the article was that we in the U.S. have lost our way about the essential components of parenting in a competitive world and maybe we should take a few lessons from a people who have a very old and successful culture. I am not talking about Communism which is a relatively new phenomenon, but about the art of raising healthy well motivated kids which philosophers would say is the most important job of our lives. I am convinced that some American parents have no clue about how to prepare children for a successful life because they themselves have had little training in proper work ethics and the value of education. In fact it seems that rearing children is the one important job in life for which we have no instruction manual, no degree, and no operator's license. I believe it is an absolute shame what often passes for parenting in this country.
I just completed a great interview with Illinois educational psychologist, Johnathan Plucker who had spent quite a bit of time visiting and studying the educational system in Shanghai China. When I asked him about the parent's attitudes and values relative to education, he pretty much expressed the same ideas as Amy Chua in her Wall Street Journal article. Plucker told me that he does not see much difference in the quality of teachers in the U.S. Compared to Shanghai. He said the big differences are in the supportive attitudes of parents, in the actual length of the school year and the length of the school day and the extra time spent on studying outside the classroom. All of these efforts are much greater in Shanghai than they are in the U.S. According to Dr. Plucker.
Also while poverty is a major problem affecting student achievement in this country, it can be overcome by more positive attitudes toward education in the home and in the community. I refer readers to our blog post of Dec 29 which includes an account of education performance of the Vietnamese immigrants who settled in Baton Rouge after the end of the Vietnam war.
A careful reading of Amy Chua's Wall Street Journal article should be the first in a series of lessons about parenting that should be recommended to all parents of school age children.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Virtual Schools Should be Considered
Virtual schools and computer assisted distance learning are here and growing and should be considered for adoption by local public Louisiana school systems. BESE has now approved the first virtual charter school that will be allowed to draw students and per pupil funding starting in the 2011-2012 school year from any Louisiana public school system. With recent advances in computer technology and assets such as video conferencing and other interactive applications this education option is sure to attract some students away from traditional schools. But these developments may not necessarily be bad news for our public school systems. The question is are public school leaders willing to utilize this new technology and the service companies that are offering virtual educational programs to enhance local public education?
It should be more efficient to provide public schooling using virtual schools. Virtual schools do not require student busing, there is no need for classrooms along with janitorial services and utilities and no need to provide food services.
BESE has set the per pupil funding for the first virtual charter schools at 90% of the state and local per pupil funding. Those parents who enroll their child in a virtual school are only too happy to forgo traditional classroom services in exchange for a free public education for their child in their own home. There is every reason to believe that with recent advances in technology, such schools can provide all state required content in a manner that is appropriate for many students. The delivery of education through this system can only improve in the coming years.
Follow-up report on Connections Academy
The type 2 charter school recently approved by BESE is a non-profit, however the Connections Academy company which will provide all services to the charter is a “for profit" company. (See our post dated 12/16/2010 ). My major concern here is that students receive good services for the public money spent and that the profit motive not take precedence over the welfare of children. I emailed several questions to the LA Dept. of Ed. to explore what I believe to be important factors in delivering quality education. According to Erin Bendily, State Dept. administrator for charter schools, the application for Connections Academy indicates that they plan an approximate pupil-teacher ratio of 50:1 for elementary students and 35:1 for middle and high school students. Charter schools are exempted from state maximum pupil-teacher ratios. Student contact time with certified teachers may vary greatly depending on need. The theory here is that non-traditional charter schools are exempted from state requirements such as pupil-teacher ratios with the understanding that such students will still get a good education as measured by the accountability program. On the question of students to be recruited, Ms Bendily responded that the Connections Academy is expected to enroll a similar proportion of at risk students as the parishes from which its students are drawn as required by state law.
An additional issue is the requirement that every student attracted to this state authorized charter takes with him/her 90% of all state and local per pupil funding. This is a major hit to the budget of any local school system from which the student is transferred. Also that 90% per pupil funding is much more than the $5779 charged by Connections Academy to its students that enroll in the private school version of the Connections Academy. A remaining question is why is the cost so much more for the publicly funded students at Connections?
While taking into account the above concerns, I suggest that local school leaders investigate to see if virtual schools may be utilized to strengthen their local system and to build critical public support. I believe that local school board authorized charters for virtual schools are greatly preferable to state authorized charters because the ultimate oversight of such schools remains with locally elected representatives. As we have seen, the rules approved by BESE for state approved charters (type 2 charters) and Recovery District schools make it very difficult for local school systems to reclaim these schools or their students. The key for local school leaders is to take the initiative to offer such schools in a way that enhances their public school system. A local school system may effectively use a virtual school to attract students who may now be in home schooling or enrolled in private or parochial schools. Every student attracted back or prevented from leaving the public schools ensures greater voter support for our public schools.
Virtual schools will certainly not be appropriate for all students. Chances are that only a relatively small but significant percentage of students will have the self discipline, the motivation and the parental support necessary to be successful in a virtual school. Virtual schools require a major time commitment on the part of the parent or home coach. I seriously doubt that students who are now struggling with high stakes testing and who are in danger of dropping out of the traditional school will be able to succeed any better in a virtual school. There will always be a need for a traditional classroom for the majority of our public school students. But some parents will want the virtual school option. Such parents may want better control over the peers their children associate with, and they may feel rightly or wrongly that the public school where their child has been assigned will not have the safe, positive environment they want for their child. Just consider the erosion of middle class enrollment, both white and minority (now called class flight) from our inner city schools. The virtual school could counteract this trend. This may finally be an opportunity for public school advocates to go on the offensive in strengthening our public schools.
I strongly urge all superintendents, school board members and other education leaders to do some research on the virtual school services available. Two of them can be found at http://www.k12.com/ and http://www.nationalconnectionsacademy.com/. I am in no way connected with these companies and am not endorsing their programs. I am simply suggesting that since they are two of the largest players providing various options to school boards for virtual education, they should be carefully investigated and considered.
It should be more efficient to provide public schooling using virtual schools. Virtual schools do not require student busing, there is no need for classrooms along with janitorial services and utilities and no need to provide food services.
BESE has set the per pupil funding for the first virtual charter schools at 90% of the state and local per pupil funding. Those parents who enroll their child in a virtual school are only too happy to forgo traditional classroom services in exchange for a free public education for their child in their own home. There is every reason to believe that with recent advances in technology, such schools can provide all state required content in a manner that is appropriate for many students. The delivery of education through this system can only improve in the coming years.
Follow-up report on Connections Academy
The type 2 charter school recently approved by BESE is a non-profit, however the Connections Academy company which will provide all services to the charter is a “for profit" company. (See our post dated 12/16/2010 ). My major concern here is that students receive good services for the public money spent and that the profit motive not take precedence over the welfare of children. I emailed several questions to the LA Dept. of Ed. to explore what I believe to be important factors in delivering quality education. According to Erin Bendily, State Dept. administrator for charter schools, the application for Connections Academy indicates that they plan an approximate pupil-teacher ratio of 50:1 for elementary students and 35:1 for middle and high school students. Charter schools are exempted from state maximum pupil-teacher ratios. Student contact time with certified teachers may vary greatly depending on need. The theory here is that non-traditional charter schools are exempted from state requirements such as pupil-teacher ratios with the understanding that such students will still get a good education as measured by the accountability program. On the question of students to be recruited, Ms Bendily responded that the Connections Academy is expected to enroll a similar proportion of at risk students as the parishes from which its students are drawn as required by state law.
An additional issue is the requirement that every student attracted to this state authorized charter takes with him/her 90% of all state and local per pupil funding. This is a major hit to the budget of any local school system from which the student is transferred. Also that 90% per pupil funding is much more than the $5779 charged by Connections Academy to its students that enroll in the private school version of the Connections Academy. A remaining question is why is the cost so much more for the publicly funded students at Connections?
While taking into account the above concerns, I suggest that local school leaders investigate to see if virtual schools may be utilized to strengthen their local system and to build critical public support. I believe that local school board authorized charters for virtual schools are greatly preferable to state authorized charters because the ultimate oversight of such schools remains with locally elected representatives. As we have seen, the rules approved by BESE for state approved charters (type 2 charters) and Recovery District schools make it very difficult for local school systems to reclaim these schools or their students. The key for local school leaders is to take the initiative to offer such schools in a way that enhances their public school system. A local school system may effectively use a virtual school to attract students who may now be in home schooling or enrolled in private or parochial schools. Every student attracted back or prevented from leaving the public schools ensures greater voter support for our public schools.
Virtual schools will certainly not be appropriate for all students. Chances are that only a relatively small but significant percentage of students will have the self discipline, the motivation and the parental support necessary to be successful in a virtual school. Virtual schools require a major time commitment on the part of the parent or home coach. I seriously doubt that students who are now struggling with high stakes testing and who are in danger of dropping out of the traditional school will be able to succeed any better in a virtual school. There will always be a need for a traditional classroom for the majority of our public school students. But some parents will want the virtual school option. Such parents may want better control over the peers their children associate with, and they may feel rightly or wrongly that the public school where their child has been assigned will not have the safe, positive environment they want for their child. Just consider the erosion of middle class enrollment, both white and minority (now called class flight) from our inner city schools. The virtual school could counteract this trend. This may finally be an opportunity for public school advocates to go on the offensive in strengthening our public schools.
I strongly urge all superintendents, school board members and other education leaders to do some research on the virtual school services available. Two of them can be found at http://www.k12.com/ and http://www.nationalconnectionsacademy.com/. I am in no way connected with these companies and am not endorsing their programs. I am simply suggesting that since they are two of the largest players providing various options to school boards for virtual education, they should be carefully investigated and considered.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
What International Student Assessments Really Tell Us.
The recent interview with Bill Gates and Randi Wiengarten in Newsweek seemed to assume that public schools in the U.S. are greatly inferior to other industrialized nations and that the main problem in our schools is under-performing teachers. It was also assumed in this interview that the curriculum in our schools is somehow weaker than that in other countries. The Newsweek story would lead us to believe that if we would just beef up and standardize the elementary/high school curriculum in all states and then find ways to retrain or replace teachers with better ones that all of our student performance problems would be solved. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here's why:
Various studies demonstrate that teacher quality is far from being the most important factor in student success. A much more important factor turns out to be the level of academic motivation of the student as influenced by his/her parents, his/her peers, and the community environment. Now there is a recent analysis of international rankings of our students that point to factors other than poor teacher quality and a weak curriculum as the major challenges.
A more intensive look at statistics from the recent PISA assessment comparing student achievement of 65 industrialized countries gives us a good indication of where the problem is. This analysis of the PISA assessment was done for the combined reading skills portion of the test by the National Center for Education statistics (NCES). NCES found that while the U.S. Students as a whole rank about 17th compared to students from the 65 other countries tested, there are big differences in the performance of different ethnic groups within the U.S.. For example, Shanghai China whose students are obviously all Asian, scored 1st among all nations. When you break out the Asian origin students in the sample of American students tested, NCES found that their average score ranked 2nd in the world, right behind Shanghai. That's pretty good. Also when you break out the Caucasian students in the U.S. sample, their results were 6th in the world. That's not tops but its still pretty good. Its ahead of all other predominately Caucasian nations except Finland. So apparently the quality of U.S. teachers and the school curriculum are working just fine for ethnic Asian and Caucasian students in this country.
In addition, it was found by analyzing the results on the PISA assessment for free and reduced lunch students in the U.S. that the level of poverty in a school has the strongest correlation with that school's average scores on overall Language arts achievement. For example, a school with a free or reduced price lunch student population (an accepted measure of poverty) of between 50 and 75% ranks 39th compared to average scores of other industrialized nations. In contrast, a school with less than 10% free or reduced price lunch students would rank second among all tested nations.
After reviewing this data, if we still believe that the quality of teachers is the main cause of student performance we would arrive at the ridiculous conclusion that our teachers are good at teaching Asian and Caucasian students but terrible at teaching high poverty minority students!
Consider a specific example of student performance observed within the East Baton Rouge school system. Following the end of the Vietnam war, a large number of Vietnamese refuges were admitted into this country. Some settled in the Baton Rouge area. They were known as the Boat people and were escaping repression by the Communist government. Most of these immigrants were impoverished and they spoke little English. The Vietnamese who settled in Baton Rouge sent their children to public schools. There was no second language program at that time in Baton Rouge for Vietnamese, so the children had to learn English from scratch. These immigrants though poor had a strong work ethic and tight knit family units which insisted on high academic achievement. Within a few years the Vietnamese children in the public school system were excelling in all subjects. When awards were given for the very top students in the school system among 60,000 students, a disproportionate number of Vietnamese students were recognized as winners in English, Math and Science. These students excelled using the same teachers and curriculum that was available to all other students.
The differences in the performance of different ethnic groups and poverty levels in the U.S. has been well known for some time. One of the major failures of the No Child Left Behind federal law was the failure to close the achievement gap between high poverty and more privileged students.
So why does the Newsweek article dwell almost completely on teacher quality and curriculum enhancement as the favored approachs to improving our schools? This is the second major story Newsweek has produced in the past few months which assumes that most of the problems of American education are caused by incompetent teachers. It is clear that Newsweek is pursuing an agenda on education that is not based on fact. What do we gain by making teachers the scapegoats for some of the deep seated problems in our society over which they have no control? Apparently some non-educators would rather pretend that the problems in American education have simple solutions. Unfortunately, both Bill Gates and AFT president Randi Weingarten seemed to buy into this bogus premise.
As I have pointed out in earlier posts on this blog, I believe you could switch the teachers from our highest performing schools with those in our lowest performing schools and you would notice little effect on the performance of the students in either school. The same is true of the expectation that introduction of a tougher curriculum would produce better achievement.
Some of our philanthropist reformers who have never once worked as teachers in high poverty schools have proposed that teachers of high poverty students simply have low expectations of these students. They suggest that if teachers would instead hold these students to higher expectations and higher standards, the students would perform up to the increased expectations. This assumption has no basis in fact. Instead many of our young teachers in high poverty schools have repeatedly had their hopes and expectations for their students crushed by continuing poor performance. Approximately 50% of new teachers leave the profession by the end of their 5th year teaching. The fact that many students fail to meet reasonable expectations of achievement and classroom behavior is a major reason for the high attrition rate of new teachers.
I believe that this obsession today's education reformers have with toughening the curriculum for all students and purging the teaching profession of thousands of imaginary bad teachers will divert attention, and funding from the real problems of public education in the U.S. Rather than spend millions on new punitive evaluation systems for teachers, we should be using that money to make sure that all students are in school every day ready to learn. Extra effort must be made to involve parents in the educational process. In addition we need to provide struggling students with more intensive learning activities focused on their specific needs. That may mean a longer school day and a longer school year with special concentration on Reading and Math skills. And finally, we in Louisiana especially need to change from a system that fails and pushes out students who do not meet our system of college prep standards for all. Instead we should provide education suitable to the needs and career aspirations of each student.
In Finland, one of the top performing countries in elementary/secondary education, students are not considered failures if they do not pass a college prep curriculum. The school system instead is flexible and provides a good education to all students whether college bound or bound for skilled and technical careers. Our present system in Louisiana stigmatizes and flunks out many non-college bound students while unnecessarily watering down classroom instruction in academic courses to accommodate non-academic students. Why not instead have a first rate college prep program in every school system with strong emphasis on modern STEM courses while at the same time provide a first rate Career Prep program in cooperation with our Community and Technical college systems?
The true experts in education who are working hard every day in our public schools must take it upon themselves to speak out against education reforms based on faulty assumptions. Otherwise the silence of educators will be seen as support for these misguided schemes. As we have learned in the years of No Child Left Behind, only educators will be blamed for the failure of poorly designed education reforms forced upon them by ill informed reformers and politicians.
Happy New Year!
Various studies demonstrate that teacher quality is far from being the most important factor in student success. A much more important factor turns out to be the level of academic motivation of the student as influenced by his/her parents, his/her peers, and the community environment. Now there is a recent analysis of international rankings of our students that point to factors other than poor teacher quality and a weak curriculum as the major challenges.
A more intensive look at statistics from the recent PISA assessment comparing student achievement of 65 industrialized countries gives us a good indication of where the problem is. This analysis of the PISA assessment was done for the combined reading skills portion of the test by the National Center for Education statistics (NCES). NCES found that while the U.S. Students as a whole rank about 17th compared to students from the 65 other countries tested, there are big differences in the performance of different ethnic groups within the U.S.. For example, Shanghai China whose students are obviously all Asian, scored 1st among all nations. When you break out the Asian origin students in the sample of American students tested, NCES found that their average score ranked 2nd in the world, right behind Shanghai. That's pretty good. Also when you break out the Caucasian students in the U.S. sample, their results were 6th in the world. That's not tops but its still pretty good. Its ahead of all other predominately Caucasian nations except Finland. So apparently the quality of U.S. teachers and the school curriculum are working just fine for ethnic Asian and Caucasian students in this country.
In addition, it was found by analyzing the results on the PISA assessment for free and reduced lunch students in the U.S. that the level of poverty in a school has the strongest correlation with that school's average scores on overall Language arts achievement. For example, a school with a free or reduced price lunch student population (an accepted measure of poverty) of between 50 and 75% ranks 39th compared to average scores of other industrialized nations. In contrast, a school with less than 10% free or reduced price lunch students would rank second among all tested nations.
After reviewing this data, if we still believe that the quality of teachers is the main cause of student performance we would arrive at the ridiculous conclusion that our teachers are good at teaching Asian and Caucasian students but terrible at teaching high poverty minority students!
Consider a specific example of student performance observed within the East Baton Rouge school system. Following the end of the Vietnam war, a large number of Vietnamese refuges were admitted into this country. Some settled in the Baton Rouge area. They were known as the Boat people and were escaping repression by the Communist government. Most of these immigrants were impoverished and they spoke little English. The Vietnamese who settled in Baton Rouge sent their children to public schools. There was no second language program at that time in Baton Rouge for Vietnamese, so the children had to learn English from scratch. These immigrants though poor had a strong work ethic and tight knit family units which insisted on high academic achievement. Within a few years the Vietnamese children in the public school system were excelling in all subjects. When awards were given for the very top students in the school system among 60,000 students, a disproportionate number of Vietnamese students were recognized as winners in English, Math and Science. These students excelled using the same teachers and curriculum that was available to all other students.
The differences in the performance of different ethnic groups and poverty levels in the U.S. has been well known for some time. One of the major failures of the No Child Left Behind federal law was the failure to close the achievement gap between high poverty and more privileged students.
So why does the Newsweek article dwell almost completely on teacher quality and curriculum enhancement as the favored approachs to improving our schools? This is the second major story Newsweek has produced in the past few months which assumes that most of the problems of American education are caused by incompetent teachers. It is clear that Newsweek is pursuing an agenda on education that is not based on fact. What do we gain by making teachers the scapegoats for some of the deep seated problems in our society over which they have no control? Apparently some non-educators would rather pretend that the problems in American education have simple solutions. Unfortunately, both Bill Gates and AFT president Randi Weingarten seemed to buy into this bogus premise.
As I have pointed out in earlier posts on this blog, I believe you could switch the teachers from our highest performing schools with those in our lowest performing schools and you would notice little effect on the performance of the students in either school. The same is true of the expectation that introduction of a tougher curriculum would produce better achievement.
Some of our philanthropist reformers who have never once worked as teachers in high poverty schools have proposed that teachers of high poverty students simply have low expectations of these students. They suggest that if teachers would instead hold these students to higher expectations and higher standards, the students would perform up to the increased expectations. This assumption has no basis in fact. Instead many of our young teachers in high poverty schools have repeatedly had their hopes and expectations for their students crushed by continuing poor performance. Approximately 50% of new teachers leave the profession by the end of their 5th year teaching. The fact that many students fail to meet reasonable expectations of achievement and classroom behavior is a major reason for the high attrition rate of new teachers.
I believe that this obsession today's education reformers have with toughening the curriculum for all students and purging the teaching profession of thousands of imaginary bad teachers will divert attention, and funding from the real problems of public education in the U.S. Rather than spend millions on new punitive evaluation systems for teachers, we should be using that money to make sure that all students are in school every day ready to learn. Extra effort must be made to involve parents in the educational process. In addition we need to provide struggling students with more intensive learning activities focused on their specific needs. That may mean a longer school day and a longer school year with special concentration on Reading and Math skills. And finally, we in Louisiana especially need to change from a system that fails and pushes out students who do not meet our system of college prep standards for all. Instead we should provide education suitable to the needs and career aspirations of each student.
In Finland, one of the top performing countries in elementary/secondary education, students are not considered failures if they do not pass a college prep curriculum. The school system instead is flexible and provides a good education to all students whether college bound or bound for skilled and technical careers. Our present system in Louisiana stigmatizes and flunks out many non-college bound students while unnecessarily watering down classroom instruction in academic courses to accommodate non-academic students. Why not instead have a first rate college prep program in every school system with strong emphasis on modern STEM courses while at the same time provide a first rate Career Prep program in cooperation with our Community and Technical college systems?
The true experts in education who are working hard every day in our public schools must take it upon themselves to speak out against education reforms based on faulty assumptions. Otherwise the silence of educators will be seen as support for these misguided schemes. As we have learned in the years of No Child Left Behind, only educators will be blamed for the failure of poorly designed education reforms forced upon them by ill informed reformers and politicians.
Happy New Year!
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