How Does Cutting Benefits Help Recruit Teachers?

North Carolina educator Shalon Matthews had her salary frozen not long after she started teaching several years ago.  Last week, the North Carolina legislature passed new law that will cost teachers more to receive the same benefits.  Shalon is beginning to run out of reasons to stay in the profession.  “The pay isn’t great.  Benefits were a perk, and now that’s gone.”

She is not alone in her frustration.  And this blog post does not purport that there is anyone specific to blame.  When money and budgets dwindle, hard and unpopular decisions have to be made.  People suffer.

The point of this post is to reconcile the events in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and other states with the current Administration’s plans to make becoming and staying qualified as a teacher or principal more difficult and expensive. 

Becoming and staying a teacher continuously becomes less attractive.  Shalon adds, “Whenever there is a change, its never good.”  She has a point.  Never in her career has there been any news of a pay increase, benefits increase, or new policy that reduces the schools’ overwhelming responsibilities. 

In the mid 1990s, then governor George W. Bush issued changes that increased teacher pay significantly in Texas.  Other than that, all news had been bad news.

Laws continuously change to hold schools more accountable for student learning, well being, and safety.  Fair enough.  The laws also keep increasing the school’s culpability for what happens in a student’s home, how they get to school, how much they eat, what they are eating, the decisions that they make outside of class, what they are wearing, what NOT to say to them regarding what they are wearing, etc.

Teachers' jobs are often held over their heads because of these matters.


Again, its hard to find one person to blame.  But it is the reality of the situation.  Where do we get teachers who want to do all this…and keep doing it when the number of hoops they have to jump through increases while pay and benefits don’t?

Need another reason to question the attractiveness of teaching?  Read this article about abused teachers.

If you have a solution, please leave it here.  The world will be better for it.

What We Can Learn by Watching the Japanese

Unless they were living near Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1945, the people in southeast Japan have not seen a worse time.  The have faced a magnitude 9 earthquake, devastating tsunamis, and a perilous situation with a nuclear reactor.  Any one of those individually could mark a worst time in anyone's life.  They faced all three in the same day.  The troubles brought by the first two are still very real, as is the third.

So the people wait in line for hours to get the barest of bare essentials.  Water, food, fuel.  Some come up empty handed despite the wait. What is amazing about how the people of Japan have handled the crises thus far is what they have NOT been doing.

To date there are no reports of a single incident requiring law enforcement.  The people are not shoving each other to get a better position in line.  They are not looting stores.  They are not fighting.  They are not going on TV to pronounce that their current leader is the reason for the suffering.  They are not blaming the rest of the world for not coming to their aid fast enough.

Instead these people wait their turn.  They share what limited amounts of food and water that they have.  They hold each other's place in line.  They help their neighbors carry the heavy loads. 

There isn't enough space on this blog to justly qualify how incredible the Japanese people have been.  So why try? 

The Japanese people have absolutely been an incredible testament to what the best of humanity can be.

The Real Value of a Simon Cowell

In his mega-best seller The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman described the “American Idol Effect.”  It happens to people who are facing criticism for the first time and are shocked to hear that they aren’t perfect.  He pulls the comparison to wannabe American Idols when they faced Simon Cowell for the first time and were not ready for what they heard.  

Some huffed, some threw water, and some just melted down and yelled obscenities.  

Friedman was making the point that we are doing a disservice to American high school students when we leave them to incorrectly think that they are performing at a high level.  The longer we put off telling them the truth, the harsher their American Idol moment.  

Simon Cowell delivered American Idol moments like no one else could. He was blunt, succinct, and sometimes over-harsh.  But he told the contestants what they needed to hear.  He send extra sharp words to contestants that didn’t seem to hear normal critique, he used colorful analogies and metaphor for contestants that didn’t seem to “get it”, and sometimes he would say what a contestant needed to get a fire lit under their butt.  He was the best at it and sometimes hated for it.

What Simon did so well is not easy.   By nature people prefer to deliver good news and be liked.  Teachers, parents, friends included.  But everyone needs a Simon.  Whether it was the whiner who Simon told, “never beg” or the many who were informed that they’d be better suited for cabaret singing.  They all needed to hear it.  It is too bad that they had to wait until adulthood.

On the occasion that Simon laid out a compliment or offered a “well done”, everyone knew that it meant something.  It was earned and was a fail-proof sign that a performer was “getting it done.”  The same cannot be said for the multiple (over) affirmations students receive in their daily lives.  They come so often and for so many reasons, the students sometimes never grasp where reality is.

The exception to the rule is students who perform in front of others and allow themselves to be judged.  Kids who perform and compete in band, drama, choir, debate, public speaking, and sports are told daily where they need to improve.  They are also judged (sometimes unfairly) by spectators.  These kids get it.  They face it at an early age and they get the reality of where their performance is.  They also grow as people.

In the cycle of correction, adjustment, performance, and critique are lessons that so many American Idol wannabes don’t get.  And they show the ill effects in the first round, to the sadistic delight of television viewers everywhere.  

What says you?  Leave a comment and let’s get to the bottom of this.

Is STEM Education Getting Too Many Props?

In a recent Huffington Post article, Alfie Kohn takes exception with what he sees as an excessive and disproportionate amount of emphasis given to STEM subject areas.  Using the bet humor he could muster, Kohn tries to make sense of “why STEM subjects consistently attract so much money and attention.”

Among decision leaders and the general public, I suspect that STEM enjoys an immediate advantage simply because it tends to involve numbers. Our society is inclined to regard any topic as more compelling if it can be expressed in numerical terms. Notice how rarely we evaluate schools by their impact on students' interest in learning; we focus on precisely specified achievement effects. Issues that inherently seem qualitative in nature -- intrinsic motivation, say, or the meaning of life -- we consign to the ivory tower. And when questions that don't lend themselves to quantification aren't simply brushed aside, they're reduced to numbers anyway. Witness, for example, how English teachers have been told that they not only can, but must, use rubrics to quantify their responses to students' writings.

Ok then. Where Mr. Kohn gets his figures for Science and Math "over-funding" must a very different source than that used by...well...everyone else.  And if Mr. Kohn could produce a reliable system for measuring student interest, he'd make a killing. 

I will concede a few points, although the author never made them.  First, Science and Math performance is easily compared across countries because of the universal nature of the subject areas.  For Math and Science, we have TIMMS.  Finding a way to compare Language Arts proficiency between American students and students from Singapore is an exercise in futility. An international comparison in Social Studies is even more difficult.  Afterall, General Santa Anna is held as a military and intellectual hero in Mexico and some of the world has yet to see the Industrial Revolution.

The second concession is that a degree in a STEM field does not necessarily offer better career prospects.  No degree is a “guarantee” of anything.

But in response to Mr. Kohn, I must concur with one of the online reader comments:

“I have a degree in the art, but think we have neglected math and science too much…mostl­y because it's hard and we don't want to put too much pressure on the kids. Grrr.

Perhaps if we pushed math and science a little more, people could have calculated their mortgage payments and realized they couldn't afford what a conniving bank said they could.”

Its not that Science and Math deserve more funding and attention than the humanities, it’s that they (Science, especially) have been so under-emphasized in the past.  They have also been taught incorrectly way too often.  Elementary grade teachers are almost always "Reading People" by preference and education.  That is not inherently a bad thing, but we do need to see the situation for what it is.

The habit of eschewing “the harder” subjects is carried by students when they get to college.  The graduation rate of pre-meds and engineers is still severely dwarfed by Sociology majors.  Heck, all majors are dwarfed by Sociology.

Of those that do graduate form an American university with a high level STEM degree,  growing numbers are from other countries.  Why?  Because foreign students are coming to American colleges better prepared for the hard stuff. 

What say you?  Leave your comments here and let's get to the bottom of this.  

School Improvement Initiatives Seem to be More “Show” than “Go"

In the third 2000 Presidential debate, democratic candidate Al Gore proudly announced his intentions for the future, “I am for gun-free schools!”  He said so emphatically as if the idea was a breakthrough.

His opponent responded, “Did I miss something?  He says he’s for gun-free schools.  Who isn’t?”

Fast forward almost 11 years and we have a theme that has been around for years. In his State of the Union speech, President Obama made it clear that he was for high standards for schools and quality education for all students.

Well, who isn’t?

The president is not the only one with such lofty words of expectation.  It is a common rhetoric that’s been around for awhile.  The thing that seems to keep the “show” from a proper “go” is the how.  Here are some examples:

Show: The president has claimed that we are in this generation’s “Sputnik” moment, imploring schools to stress Math and Science.

The Go: Participation in science fairs is dwindling, and student performance in science is still low across the country, especially in minority populations.  There has been no change in the view of how science should be taught.  It’s more of the same, but with more tests.

Show: Many, including the president, are calling for an end to No Child Left Behind and wholesale change to the education systems nationwide.

The Go: Race to the Top (RTTT) has increased the emphasis in and frequency of testing.  More instruction time than ever is taken away for testing and the amount will grow over the next few years.  RTTT funds were dispersed very lopsidedly to the East coast and are being spent mostly on consultants and new hires at state agencies.  Very little if any money will see the classroom.

Show:  “We need high academic standards”.

The Go: Creation of Common Core Standards.  Consultants have made a good deal of money on it thus far.  There is more to be made in curriculum alignments and crosswalk documents.  Teachers were not part of the process and still no one knows how the new standards will affect them.  South Dakota has already decided to not use standards for Social Studies, even though the state have previously committed to adopt the standards. 

Show: “We will replace ineffective teachers and principals and replace them with good ones.”

The go: We may need more thought on how we are going to do that. Teachers and principals don’t grow on trees. 

The show: “We need to have students college-ready and get more kids into college."

The go:  College degrees are issued in record numbers, but they seem to mean less and less.  A new study shows that college students really don’t learn much in their years in college and that college may be a severe waste mistake for many kids.  This may be related to a former “go” in that kids are told that the ultimate path is through a four year university and that working with your hands is for “lower people.”  Unfortunately, it is the sciences that get looked over as a result.

Ok – enough doom and gloom.  There are answers out there and the answers are solid.  Charter schools, home schools, and independent schools have experimented for years on a micro level and have had success.  In some cases, wild success.  You can find some examples here, here, here, and here.  

Arne Duncan, nor anyone at a high national level seem to see the opportunities in learning from the worker bees.  Until they do, the money will keep pouring to their handpicked consultants for solutions that do not solve much.

Should We Prepare Every Student for College?

A group from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education examined the philosophy and effects of preparing every high school student for college.  The study was released yesterday.

The movement started with good intentions to raise the academic standards, expecting that student performance will follow.  For some students, it has been a good path.   But for many others, it has been damaging, according to the study.  Education Week paraphrased the report. 

By concentrating too much on classroom-based academics with four-year college as a goal, the nation’s education system has failed vast numbers of students, who instead need solid preparation for careers requiring less than a bachelor’s degree, Harvard scholars

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce Director Anthony P. Carnevale agrees, “Since 1983 and A Nation at Risk, we’ve been very single-minded about kids going to college. It’s good, but it’s too narrow.” 

The original movement was (at least partially) grounded in sound projections.   In 1973, 70% of all US jobs were held by people with only a high school education.  In 2007, it dropped to 40%.  The future promises to show further decrease.

There seems to be some consensus that some sort of training after high school is the target to reach, whether it is vocational/technical training, an associate’s degree path, or a four year university. 

“Every high school graduate should find viable ways of pursuing both a career and a meaningful post-secondary degree or credential,” the report says. “For too many of our youth, we have treated preparing for college versus preparing for a career as mutually exclusive options.”

How EffectiveTesting Enhances Learning

A recent study performed at Purdue University found that a group of 200 college students were better able to learn material for the long term if they were tested on it.  As the study was performed, it may make modern teaching paradigms seem silly.  It has certainly gotten the attention of many, including several publications.

The study had groups of students study a section of material in several different ways. Some re-read it, others drew concept maps and graphic organizers.  Others took “retrieval practice” tests.  After a week, each student was tested and the “testing” group knew more…a lot more.  50% more to be precise.

 “This type of test is not the type produced by testing companies” says National Education and Assessment Consultant Virginia Malone. “This is an immediate test over fairly small amounts of information.  Testing companies, NAEP, state tests and the like are focused on information on a wide variety of information.  I do think the short tests do indeed help students retain information.”

One of the more surprising results is how much more testing helped students learn material than did concept mapping.  Students that performed the concept maps reported a much higher confidence in their learning the material than did the testers.  This suggests that drawing concept maps creates an illusion of learning that is more imagined than real.  The opposite seemed true for the testers.

Dr. Rene Stofflett warns against reading too much into the study:

It is important to note the congruency between what is being measured and how it is being measured. It may at first seem shocking that concept mapping, which has been shown in decades of research to result in better conceptual learning, was outperformed by the recall methods. However, learning facts for recall is more in line with traditional testing than learning complex relationships, such as those developed in creating a concept map. In addition to looking at issues of information processing, researchers should also consider the nature of the instrument and its relationship to the nature of the knowledge being assessed.

If nothing else, the study creates a new avenue for debate in a debate-battered industry. One place that most will agree is on the value and power of well delivered formative assessment. Unfortunately, what is usually sold as “formative” is test prep.  The truth is most people do not know the difference between the two, even educators. Maybe the folks at Purdue have delivered enough incentive for the education world to get it straight.