Okay, now that you've all officially checked into the blog, we can start a focused dialogue! Once you get into the schools, I will ask you to reflect on your experiences here each week. But, until then, we have a lot of reading and writing to do!
What's on my mind today is this editorial from the Sunday New York Times concerning the President's economic stimulus package and the allotment for public education. If you haven't been paying attention, the hot teacher topic of the moment is: How will those billions in federal money for education be spent? What kinds of initiatives and programs will actually improve the conditions for teaching and learning for so many teachers and students?
Richard Nisbett has one answer, which he wrote about in today's paper. I would like each of you to read this article and to post a response to it on the blog. Please--when you respond--carefully consider this author's argument and let us know your thoughts about that argument. You might even draw a parallel to something you've seen or experienced in a school.
7 comments:
I found myself agreeing with the author and his position on the topic. It seems that "make sure something works or is appropriate before you buy it" is something that everyone eventually learns in their life, and I believed that such a basic principle did not have to be discussed in terms of spending money on education, or anything of great importance for that matter. I was wrong however, and I was interested in seeing how much money is being blown on programs that do not work and require huge sums of money. Spending lots of money on education is something worth pushing for, as long as what is being spent is backed by evidence showing that these new programs have the potential to boost success for all students.
I did notice that as efficient as the KIPP program looks, I cannot help but be reminded of some sort of boot camp for children. Effective, maybe. But realistic for a nation? Not that I can see.
Kellen,
I appreciate knowing where you stand on this issue. And, I still wonder what your thoughts are (and others' thoughts!) about the idea that stands as a foundation to the programs mentioned in this article--the idea that, with confidence in self comes increased academic performance. Confidence in one's race, gender, sexual preference, age, socioeconomic status really does matter when it comes to learning stuff in school. When we talk about the lack of self-confidence in girls, for example, or the high suicide rate among gay youth, or incidents of hate speech toward Black students, we are talking about our students' ability to function as whole human beings in school and, in turn, to learn. Why does this issue matter to us, classroom teachers in public schools?
See if you can try to "bring the issue back home" by making it relevant to your own teaching and your own (someday) classroom. (Talking about "those guys" in Washington gets too abstract, I think...too distant.)
So, leave it to me to create myself twice on this blog... Anyways, Dr. Cook if you could some how delete the account that just says "Aimee" and keep the one that shows up as "Aimee1437" that would be awesome. But on to more important things...
I agreed with the author's position that we should make sure a program is successful or at least productive before more money is invested into it. When reading this article I found myself gravitating more to the idea that education is all in our heads. I like the statistics that the author discusses about teaching students with positive reinforcement and giving them a foundation to build their education on. When it was explained to the students how the brain works and that all students have the potential to be smart, students did better. I also believe that setting goals and knowing what matters to the students can help them make a connection with the material being taught, and in addition will help them to excel.
I had no previous knowledge about KIPP, but I think it is a well thought out project. It seems as though KIPP teaches students to become well rounded individuals and focuses on several facets of life other than the five core subjects traditionally taught in schools.
I also like the reference to Obama at the end of the article and connect it with the Christensen reading we had to do this weekend. Christensen talks about students who do not have many role models, if any, in their texts or in history books. Where are the African-American authors? Where are the women authors? Where are the Hispanic authors? The point is made clear in her writing that diverse students do not hear the voices of their cultures and histories. A lot of what is taught in school is written by White authors, many times they are male authors. This is just another way that society and schooling subconsciously tells adolescents who they should be. I think Obama is the voice of the authors that are not taught in the classrooms. He is someone that students can look up to. He is a success story. Students can look at him and have hope that they can do anything they want to as long as they are focused, dedicated, and work hard.
"The world will tell you who you are until you tell the world."
Just a note... I'd strongly recommend typing responses out in word or something before posting. I'm sure everyone else had the sense to figure that out on their own, but I just lost my response right as I was coming to my conclusion because my browser crashed when I was opening another tab to get some corroborating information. Hopefully I can remember everything I said...
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I found that Nisbett's article made an interesting fit with this weekend's reading. I didn't make the same connection Aimee did, although I totally agree with her as well; I was more interested in the relation of the first and last chapters of the weekend's reading.
Like Kellen, I would have expected that, before a program is put into place, it would be investigated for effectiveness. It is distressing to me to think that programs are not consistently evaluated; why waste money on something that doesn't work any better, and may even be WORSE, than programs that are already in place? However, Nisbett's mention of the marginal effect of the Head Start and Early Head Start programs, both of which were available in my home district long after I was too old for them, made me wonder about the programs of which I was a part growing up. Christensen cites the concerns of a former upper-level English student about untracking, and I have to admit, that's exactly how I would have reacted had I been in Chetan Patel's shoes. Each budget meeting, I worried about my precious programs of privilege and if I would be lumped in with the "regular ed" kids at the middle school level or the "college prep" kids at the high school level. Even then, I was aware of the tendency to "teach to the test" during years of state testing, and it wasn't something I experienced in my "accelerated" classes. I have to wonder if what I gained from those programs was really worth the money that must have been invested into them. The AP and EEP investments seem sound to me, as they allow students to earn college credit at the high school level. Those extra credits are nice to have toward elective courses, or as a little padding to keep from taking too many credits per semester to be able to stay in line with one's program of study. As Patel discovered the value of his untracked class, I wonder what I may have missed out on in my "accelerated" classes where all of us came from such similar backgrounds.
Of course, given this perspective, I agreed with much of what Nesbitt had to say about testing educational programs before their implementation, and I appreciated that he acknowledged that some of the programs he supported still required further investigation. Much of it seems to be rooted firmly in common sense. Students who are more self-confident perform better. It's the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. If a student is convinced that they will fail, then it is more likely that they will. Often this is due to lesser effort invested because they may think their situation hopeless. This sense of hopelessness is understandably magnified if the factors in their failure are elements of their lives that are not within their own control. If students believe that their race, gender, sexual orientation, level of wealth, handicap, native language, or anything else they are unable to change is responsible for their impending failure, the odds become seemingly insurmountable. This brought me back to the Christensen again, specifically chapter 4, "The Politics of Language." In her examination of the politics of language, Christensen discusses the issue of the SAT (and by extension, other exams administered through ETS, just like the Praxis) and how the very language of the test privileges students from an already priviledged background over those who have had to fight to get where they are scholastically. This lead me to question whether or not mere studies of the brain and more intensive/extensive school time is enough to bridge the gaps we have created within society.
The very idea of extending school also raised flags for me. Where Kellen thought of boot-camp, I was reminded of Japanese schools. While their scores are very high, on the whole, I seem to remember reading somewhere that their suicide rate among students is also very high. From a brief search, I was able to turn up an editorial in the Japan Times Online from 2007, just two years ago, citing a spike in school-related suicides based on information from Japan's National Police Agency. The larger picture is that what I'm calling a spike is only a 2.9% increase from 2005, but what's amazing (in a terrible way) to me is that the total number of suicides among students (886) "was the worst since 1978 when the NPA started compiling statistics" (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20070615a2.html) Educational rigor is not the only cause mentioned, but it is mentioned. I believe that further research on the suicide rate in Japan would be warranted if we were to go forward with this program to increase the amount of time our students are spending in school. If the correlation between the demands of school and these suicides is proven faulty, then we can rest easy as we go forward with this plan, but if such proof is not found, I wouldn't be able to support such measures with a clean conscience.
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This version is less long-winded than my original response, but I think it covers the same stuff. All in all, I guess that's a good thing. Also, is it possible to tell the blog to allow HTML scripting in responses? I'd wanted to just directly link the article to avoid the parenthetical citation, but I got an error when I went to post, and the error box didn't even tell me all of what was wrong because the text got cut off =(
How inspiring. I love this article and what it speaks to. I knew that minority and low income families have a lower rate of graduating and achieving a higher education, but I didn't realize the alarming statistics. I like Kellen's comment about testing something before you buy it. This is a great way to test out theories on improving education for all students without spending the money to begin a program that doesn't live up to it's expectations.
The article mentions Head Start, and I am not sure if anyone else has experience with this program, but I agree with what the article states. Head Start was something that came about because we as a society wanted to improve the child's readiness for school. As the article states though, this program has not changed childrens' ability in their social or their mental abilities. The worry I have is that programs such as Head Start exist and will be stagnant because our country has the innate ability to research and point out flaws in programs, laws, and dare I say state testing, but leave it at just that. Head Start as a program is a wonderful idea but it needs a major overhaul. If we are able to use some of this stimulus for these changes we could make a difference.
I, like Ashley, was so interested in the KIPP program that I went to their website (www.kipp.org) and watched the video, looked at the locations of the schools and really got to know what the program's ideals and objectives were. I think that this program is a great example of how we can take this model and broaden it to reach many more than the 16,000 students it cares for today.
This, I feel, is the direction we need to be heading in. The idea of personalizing each students education in regards to their race, class, etc. is where I think the stimulus needs to be focused on the most. These are just my thoughts though and it might take a long time for the country to come on board the Becky train, but I know that I am on it and all of my classes will cho-cho along with me.
I agree with Nisbett that “stimulus money should be spent only on programs that work well—and on creating new programs, which in turn should be properly tested for effectiveness,” but I have to question his idea of programs that work “well.” I too was interested in the KIPP program based on prior conversations with others in the education field. A friend of mine, who is working on his Ph.D. in school administration, recently criticized KIPP and other such programs funded by the “megarich” saying, “because of the enormous amounts of money that they funnel into reform efforts, they get to dictate reform with little accountability or input from the general public or from the communities which they claim to care about.” I looked into the KIPP program a little to see who was funding their effort and found that the Walton Family Foundation (Wal-mart), the co-founders of the Gap, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are major contributors. I understand that programs need funding and often the government does not have the money to spend on new ventures, but I have to question the motives/agenda of these foundations and their interest in education. I also have to wonder how much input local educators and the communities have when KIPP schools come into their neighborhoods. The cynic in me also has to note the corporate models of conformity the Gap and Wal-mart promote and wonder if that model will impose itself on the KIPP schools being funded by these companies.
Nisbett has seemingly decided that the KIPP program works well because standardized test scores in reading and math greatly improved at the schools, but I can’t come to the same conclusion based solely on test scores which tend to rely heavily on the regurgitation of information. I am also wary of a program that “reinforce(s) a culture of achievement and support through a range of formal and informal rewards and consequences for academic performance and behavior.” (http://www.kipp.org/01/fivepillars.cfm) I don’t think a system of rewards is the best model for teaching. Learning should be intrinsic, not extrinsic. I agree with Kellen that the KIPP program does sound a little like a boot camp although I see the idea behind it. Many urban schools try to have after school and summer programs to “keep kids off the street” and to curb “summer learning loss” and KIPP’s school year schedule seems like a productive way to do that. I do worry though about student and especially teacher burnout with so much time being spent in school.
I don’t mean to be so negative. I think it’s great that there are influential people in the business community who want to improve education. I also applaud the efforts the teachers and administrators of these programs. I just don’t think standardized tests are the best way to measure learning in KIPP schools or any schools for that matter. I hope the Obama administration puts funding towards different methods of assessment and new teacher support and retention programs.
Wow, I am quite impressed by the intellectual grappling that is happening here already. And we're only in Week Three! I like that Kate dug beneath the KIPP programs veneer to find the faces behind the dollars. Just like it's important to know that Rupert Murdoch produces much of the "news" you receive these days, it is also important for us, as teachers, to know who's footing the bill for various "reform" efforts. I also applaud Rebecca's point about Head Start--a great idea that is again picking up steam in Obama's White House. Head Start is a great example of how a social program might work for EQUITY (not equality)--giving kids what they need, when they need it, so that they can achieve the goals we set for them later on.
The part of this article that fascinated me is the part about self esteem improving academic success. If kids feel good about themselves, about their skin color, their future, and their place in the world, there's a good chance that they will also do well in school. There have been some recent studies since the Obama election that have shown that black students, simply by knowing that they have a black president (and thus knowing hope, pride, love, heritage) have performed better on standardized assessments. Clearly, there are important details to know about this research. But, the bottom (and interesting) line is that through pride-in-self comes performance.
Haven't you all had days as students where you felt dumb, ugly, half-prepared, or incompetent? I certainly have had those days--as a teacher and as a student--and I can remember how, on those kinds of days, nothing EVER goes well for me because something is clouding my vision of myself, something is preventing me from keeping my eyes on the prize, something is making me feel like a half wit, like an imposter. This, I believe, is a valuable lesson for us to always remember as teachers--the way our students feel totally impacts the way they approach learning and doing. So, how are you going to make your students feel?
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