Classes May Be Advanced in Name Only

“High School Classes May Be Advanced in Name Only” by Sam Dillon

New York Times, April 25, 2011

Topic: How “advanced” are advanced classes?

Summary: More and more students are taking advanced “rigorous-sounding” classes (the percentage has nearly tripled in the past two decades) but are the classes really any more advanced? The author says “no”. The classes have been mislabeled to sound more difficult for a number of reasons (parents want kids in more rigorous classes, tougher requirements for graduation, etc.) Even though so many more students are taking these classes, standardized test scores are not rising.

Intended audience: General Public

Key Points:

• Enrollment in advanced classes is rising.
• Test scores are not improving
• Classes are watered down (Advanced Bio is the same as Bio, Algebra II is really Algebra I)
• Easier to see with science and math courses, but the author suspects the same is happening in other subject areas.

Relevance: We have heard Doug mention in class that the AP Physics class he is observing is the same as the regular Physics class. This seemed strange to me, but here is an article backing that up. I am now beginning to wonder if the more “advanced” classes I took in high school really were more advanced. What sort of implications does this have for us as teachers? If the advanced classes are being watered down, are other classes being watered down as well?

School Standards That Encourage Deeper Thought

“A Trial Run for School Standards That Encourage Deeper Thought” by Fernanda Santos
New York Times, April 24, 2011

Topic: Pilot schools in New York try out the new Common Core Standards

Summary: The "Common Core Standards" are slated to replace state guidelines/standards in 2014. The standards have been adopted by 42 states (including Oregon), the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands. With the new standards, "book reports will ask students to analyze, not summarize. Presentations will be graded partly on how persuasively students express their ideas. History papers will require reading from multiple sources; the goal is to get students to see how beliefs and biases can influence the way different people describe the same event."

Intended audience: Teachers, parents

Key Points:

· New standards challenge students to think analyze

· Replacement of standards that have been implemented as a result of NCLB

Relevance: These look like good standards. You can look over the website for Core Common Standards here: http://www.corestandards.org/ . I find it interesting that Oregon has adopted these standards. The English class they were describing in the article sounded a lot like my Lit classes in high school. There will definitely be challenges, but it looks like the standards put more emphasize on critical thinking, understanding, and analyzing and less on the right answers and standardized testing.

In (very weak) defense of testing

"Half of Adults in Detroit are Functionally Illiterate" blog post by Matthew Yglesias

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2011/05/half-of-adults-in-detroit-are-functionally-illiterate/

posted May 5, 2011

accessed May 8, 2011

Summary: Yglesias cites a study by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund in suggesting that, if half of the adults in Detroit are "functionally illiterate," then it follows that districts should be "checking to see if the kids are learning anything..." He contends that "that means tests," and standardized tests for comparison purposes.

Intended Audience: everyone who reads his blog I guess, and because Ed Week reposted it, teachers as well?

Relevance: The tenuous connection the blogger tries to make between testing and objective assessment of skills should be an easy one for us to point out as flawed by this point. It is good to see what, if any, arguments there are on the "opposing" side; if they are all this shallow, then I can't see why the march to more standardized testing continues!

When I saw the Ed Week posting I was hoping for a bit more reasoned, evidence-based argument... oh well.

Dance, language teachers! DANCE!

"Curriculum Incorporating Gestures has Language Teachers on their Feet" by the AP

Education Week

published May 6, 2011

accessed May 7, 2011

Summary and Key Points: "Accelerative Integrated Methodology" (AIM) may become the next big thing in language education... or it may not! The technique of using one's body in order to "target the part of the brain that can assimilate and retain foreign language most easily" sounds a whole lot like TPR, or total physical response, which is (if I recall correctly) a technique that is widely recognized as valuable in at least the world languages, and perhaps other disciplines as well. Anyway, the focus on the most commonly-used words that AIM espouses is something any language teacher can get behind.

Intended Audience: language teachers and learners

Relevance: I covered this a bit in the summary above. I like the idea, but it sounds like complicated words for old ideas. Maybe as I find more information about it, and the "creators" of this particular curriculum move out from French and Spanish to cover other languages, I will be better able to see the enhanced utility of this particular technique. It's always valuable to gather new ideas, I suppose!

An Innovative Solution in Sendai

「通学バスで苦肉の車中授業…往復１４０キロ　宮城の高校」("A class in 140km: learning on the way to and from a replacement school")

Asahi Shimbun

published April 22, 2011

accessed May 7, 2011

Summary and Key Points: Some background first: because compulsory education in Japan ends with grade 9, the final grade of "middle school," many of the high schools are vocationally oriented. This article discusses a solution with which one group of three agricultural-studies high schools minutes from Sendai Airport (the airplane mark on the map below) is serving their students, who saw not only a flooded school, but the destruction of pigpens, chicken houses, and their agricultural machinery.

The school buses students 60km (about an hour and a half on the freeway) north to a school that wasn't as severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami. The teachers recognize the wasted time that that trip could become, so the trip up is now first period, and the trip back, sixth period. They take turns reading in an LA class, or watch an educational video; the teachers try to take it easy, to prevent motion sickness and the like.

Intended Audience: everyone

Relevance: This article is perhaps not directly relevant to anyone in the class, but I thought this form of "busing" was fascinating, and wanted to share it. It is inspiring to see the lengths teachers will go to to keep school going. It's debatable whether or not this is the best use of time and resources (it seems like there would be much to learn from rebuilding, or helping the community to recover, locally), but it's a fun story nonetheless.

Recall that Sendai Airport was one of the earlier and more frequently broadcast images immediately after the tsunami, a small airport with planes tossed around by the water as the airport staff looked on from their evacuation point on the roof of the building.

Oregon lawmakers: "More Oregon history ed!"

"As Oregon lawmakers consider adding more state history in schools, teachers raise concerns" by Kimberly Melton

The Oregonian

published May 6, 2011

accessed May 7, 2011

Summary/Key Points: Senator Joanne Verger has introduced a bill that would require middle school students to receive a full year of Oregon history education in addition to the current Oregon ed-lite that ECE students receive sporadically. Teachers are concerned that a new mandate would put undue pressure on increased textbook adoptions, additional coverage in an already crowded year, etc.

Intended Audience: everyone

Relevance: It is refreshing to see that there are policy makers who are recommending adding more courses, rather than simply stripping them away! Doubly so because this seems like such a practical, obvious thing to do-- how could more local history possibly not benefit students?! I can see it helping teachers, too, with the natural engagement that tends to come along with personal connections. It doesn't get much more personal than the place in which one lives.

"The Crisis in Higher Education"

"Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education" by William Deresiewicz

The Nation

May 4, 2011

accessed May 7, 2011

Summary/Key Points: I will let this succinct paragraph from this long-ish article speak for the whole thing, eloquently:

What we have in academia, in other words, is a microcosm of the American economy as a whole: a self-enriching aristocracy, a swelling and increasingly immiserated proletariat, and a shrinking middle class. The same devil’s bargain stabilizes the system: the middle, or at least the upper middle, the tenured professoriate, is allowed to retain its prerogatives—its comfortable compensation packages, its workplace autonomy and its job security—in return for acquiescing to the exploitation of the bottom by the top, and indirectly, the betrayal of the future of the entire enterprise.

Intended Audience: everyone

Relevance: We understandably concentrate on a lot of issues in K12 education. I am always shocked when I hear that higher ed, which seems to be so expensive and so pervasive in our culture that it couldn't possibly be doing poorly, is in fact doing poorly. The environment of the college or university and their administrative and hiring decisions, as compared with a public school district, may provide an interesting, more rapid-acting laboratory for educational reform that could trickle down to K12 later.

On a personal note, I have volunteer mentored with ASPIRE, Oregon's post-high-school counseling initiative, for a few years now, and am privileged to be coordinating the program at my current school. Articles like this always give me things to think about, things that will hopefully turn into good advice for my students, eventually.