Obsession with Education

Get the lead out

2012-01-14T18:18:00.000-06:00

The Wisconsin Read to Lead Task Force has released its recommendations for improving reading, wrapping up its series of meetings from April through September 2011. Its progress and aftermath have been ably covered by the Wisconsin Reading Coalition. (My livetweets from the final Task Force meeting are appended for vestigial posterity at the end of this post, along with links to my previous posts on the Read to Lead Task Force.)

The Task Force's report calls for "improving teacher preparation and professional development; screening, assessment and intervention; early childhood; accountability; and parental involvement." The first three items on this list are no-brainers; of course, it would be good to identify kids who need help earlier rather than later, and to make sure that the teachers that help them are qualified and well-prepared. Wishfully expressed recommendations for "accountability," however, are bound to hit the hard cold wall of reality, if the experiences of some prominent Race to the Top winners who are having trouble overcoming political obstacles to their promises to improve accountability are any indication. As for "parental involvement," I would have liked to have seen parental involvement begin with the Task Force itself, which could have enriched its work by inviting direct testimony from parents who have lived through missed diagnoses and ineffective interventions, or better yet by bringing a parent voice to the table as a constituent member of the Task Force. This was a missed opportunity to recognize parents as a crucial stakeholder in educational decisions and to learn from what their children experience on the frontlines of educational decisions that continue to be made without families at the table.

Even if all the Task Force recommendations are implemented, we still need to ask: "and then what?" Is it enough for teachers to be trained well and for children to be screened early if the way in which children will be taught reading is ineffective? In making "consensus" the paramount priority, the Task Force report turns a blind eye toward the consequences of the choices that have been made in Wisconsin on how reading is taught, notwithstanding vigorous attempts both within the Task Force and outside the Task Force to have the Task Force confront those problems. If it wasn't realistic to expect that incompatible viewpoints on the Task Force could be reconciled, an effort should nonetheless have been made to reach agreement on the criteria and methodology by which schools, districts, CESAs and the state should systematically and rigorously examine, evaluate and discontinue reading programs that are demonstrated not to work. By failing to do so, the Task Force's work has in effect ratified "Balanced Literacy" as the past, present and future of reading instruction in Wisconsin.

So let's take another look at where we are with reading in Wisconsin. The charts below compare the reading assessment results for 4th graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress at 2003 and 2011 by the percentages of economically disadvantaged students (i.e. those qualifying for the National Free and Reduced Lunch Program), disaggregated by ethnicity (White, Black and Hispanic here), who score below "Basic" under NAEP. Wisconsin is compared below to Massachusetts (as the best in the country in overall educational achievement), Florida (as the best in the country for raising the achievement of disadvantaged demographic groups), Minnesota (as the peer-next-door that Wisconsin may hope to measure up to, if not surpass), Texas (as the most entertaining recent example of the pitfalls of the compositional fallacy), and Mississippi (as a state all too frequently stereotyped as a backwards backwoods, which, as a one-quarter Mississippian—Friars Point, Coahoma County—I don't much cotton to, but as such may serve as an interesting benchmark for those who are inclined to regard it as the nadir of educational achievement). Examine the magnitude of students in Wisconsin who are failing to clear a very low bar; note which states have been able to reduce those numbers, and which are seeing those numbers increase:

If reading achievement in Wisconsin remains mediocre or deteriorates further, expect the perennial excuses of "poverty" and "parents" to bloom anew to explain away why things are so bad and why nothing can be done. But let's remember: "poverty" and "parents" didn't game NCLB requirements by setting "proficiency" on the Wisconsin standardized assessments below the "Basic" level of performance under NAEP (and so, even with some of the largest percentages of subperformance by disadvantaged demographic groups in the country, Wisconsin has the lowest percentage of schools that missed AYP for the 2010-11 school year). It's not "poverty" or "parents" who are refusing to participate in the National Council on Teacher Quality's research on the quality of the nation's education schools. And it's not "poverty" or "parents" who are fearfully incurious about what's not working with reading curriculum, pedagogy and intervention policies and practices in Wisconsin, why and how other states are doing so much better, and what needs to change to make improvement possible here.

You don't need a new plan for next year. You need a commitment.—Seth Godin, December 30, 2011.

Appendix:

Previous posts on the Read to Lead Task Force:

"Need to Read" (April 25, 2011 meeting)
"Reader Leaders" (May 31, 2011 meeting)
"Follow the Leader" (July 29, 2011 meeting)

Louis Moreau Gottschalk on education

2011-08-13T08:11:00.001-05:00

Those favored by fortune can educate themselves in all countries: and it is for that reason that the American thinkers did not dedicate their cares to the aristocratic element of society, but rather to the lowest ranks of the great mass of the people, whom they have struggled to enlighten; comprehending that education ought not to be a privilege, but something which belongs to all, as much as the air we breathe; and that every citizen has as imprescriptible a right to the light of the Spirit as he has to the light of the sun which illuminates him.

The popular system of education in the United States, in that austere elaboration, which, of a child, makes successively a man, and later a citizen, has, for its principal object, to prepare him for the use of liberty, — that cuirass of the strong, but which frequently, for the weak, is transformed into the shirt of Nessus.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk, 1868 (from Mary Alice Seymour, Life and Letters of Louis Moreau Gottschalk by Octavia Hensel, His Friend and Pupil, 1870).

Follow the leader

2011-08-02T08:21:00.000-05:00

Wisconsin's "Read to Lead" Task Force had its fourth meeting on July 29, 2011 at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation (a video of the meeting is available, thanks to coverage by WisconsinEye). The Wisconsin Reading Coalition has prepared a thorough and helpful synopsis of the meeting. And here are my brief notes on Twitter (beginning with a brain hiccup tweeting "August" instead of "July"):

The meeting showcased the remarkable progress of Florida students (especially those in low-achieving demographic groups) after reading reforms were instituted in 1999, in a presentation from guest speaker Patricia Levesque, executive director of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. Levesque credits much of that success to Florida's system of assigning "A through F" grades to schools and to its systematic and focused kindergarten-through-third-grade literacy program (including the requirement that students be able to read at grade level before being promoted to fourth grade). (For even more, see Levesque's presentation and extensive Q&A at the La Follette School of Public Affairs' "Building a New School Accountability System for Wisconsin" conference from the previous day, July 28, 2011, archived at Wisconsin Eye, and highly recommended.)

As Florida's success story becomes more prominent in the discussion of what's next for improving education in Wisconsin, there have been some who'd prefer to downplay the magnitude of that success, or to claim that Wisconsin is better-than/not-really-that-much-behind Florida—so where's the fire? Most often, average statewide scale scores on the NAEP reading assessments are cited in support of these conclusions, since the 2009 NAEP reading average scale score for Florida fourth graders was "only" 6 points higher than the average scale score for Wisconsin fourth graders, and the average scale score for Florida eighth graders was actually 2 points lower than the average scale score for Wisconsin eighth graders. However, there are significant differences in the demographic composition of Wisconsin and Florida's students:

(Source: National Center for Education Statistics)

Because of these differences, comparing students on a statewide basis, rather than by constituent subgroup to subgroup, can be misleading (this is "Simpson's paradox," elaborately defined here, and entertainingly illustrated here). Here's how it plays out in comparing Wisconsin and Florida (bearing in mind that a 10-point scale score difference is approximately equivalent to one grade level):

We're shown that dramatic progress is achievable when we look at Florida's gains from 1998 (the year before Florida's reading reforms began) to 2009 (data for 2003 is included in place of 1998 where numbers for 1998 weren't available):

I hope that an objective understanding of where our students stand and an appreciation that progress is possible for them can overcome the conventional wisdom of "we're doing just fine" and "those kids can't learn anyway." I also hope that the task force will begin in earnest to address the whale in the wading pool: the methods and content of reading instruction.

Chesterton on Dickens on education

2011-07-24T20:42:00.000-05:00

It is singular that Dickens, who was not only a radical and a social reformer, but one who would have been particularly concerned to maintain the principle of modern popular education, should nevertheless have seen so clearly this potential evil in the mere educationalism of our time -- the fact that merely educating the democracy may easily mean setting to work to despoil it of all the democratic virtues. It is better to be Lizzie Hexam and not know how to read and write than to be Charlie Hexam and not know how to appreciate Lizzie Hexam. It is not only necessary that the democracy should be taught; it is also necessary that the democracy should be taught democracy. Otherwise it will certainly fall a victim to that snobbishness and system of worldly standards which is the most natural and easy of all the forms of human corruption. This is one of the many dangers which Dickens saw before it existed. Dickens was really a prophet; far more of a prophet than Carlyle.

from G. K. Chesterton's 1911 essay on Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend.

Reader leaders

2011-06-24T21:06:00.002-05:00

Wisconsin's "Read to Lead" Task Force convened for its second meeting last month to address teacher training and reading interventions. Here's an excellent debrief (via School Information System) from Wisconsin Reading Coalition on the discussion. And here are my notes from the gallery:

This meaty agenda was well-suited for a substantive discussion informed by the expertise and depth of experience of the panel and the meeting's invited guests. (And allowing the meeting to run somewhat over its allotted time, and agreeing to continue the agenda topic of reading interventions onto the next meeting rather than giving it short shrift, were good on-the-spot calls.)

While it can't reasonably be expected that a problem as complex and (if judged by prior efforts) insoluble as statewide reading achievement can be covered comprehensively through going-round-the-table soundbites in a limited timeframe, I think the process could benefit from more systematic fact-finding (and fact-checking), so that discussions can be grounded in a common baseline of background knowledge, and relevant information isn't omitted in the wending flow of discussion. It would have been informative, for example, to note the endeavors of the National Council for Teacher Quality's new initiative to review the quality of the nation's education schools, and the decisions of the UW system and the Wisconsin Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (representing all public and private education schools in Wisconsin) not to participate in the NCTQ study; or to note the lack of compliance (as shown in a research study undertaken for a recent Marquette University dissertation) by a significant number of school districts with state statute 118.015, which requires each school district to employ a certified reading specialist to develop and coordinate a comprehensive K-12 reading curriculum; or to note that, although there is new momentum to promote RtI (Response to Intervention) on a statewide basis, Wisconsin remains one of only a handful of states that still uses the intelligence-achievement discrepancy model to identify specific learning disabilities, and that the full phase-in of RtI, to bring Wisconsin into alignment with federal rules, will not be completed until 2014.

I also hope that the panel won't be led into the temptation to portray consensus for the sake of appearance of consensus, or to paper over the many genuine areas of fundamental disagreement on the causes and effects of and cures for our problems with reading achievement.

At this writing, the third meeting of the Read to Lead Task Force will have taken place today in Onalaska. Although open to the public, the meeting was not broadcast by Wisconsin Eye, and it's a disappointment that other arrangements were not made to make the proceedings accessible to those unable to travel to the meeting site to observe the meeting in real space and real time. The complex task before the panel can only be helped by engaging as many stakeholders as possible to illuminate the scope and magnitude of the current state of reading instruction and achievement and to identify workable pathways to reverse the decline. In other words, we're all called upon to be leaders for our readers.

Updates (6/28/2011):

The 2011-2013 state budget, signed on June 26, 2011, includes a $1.2 million appropriation to implement the recommendations of the Read to Lead Task Force (section 9101(2)).
Wisconsin Reading Coalition has prepared an excellent summary (with commentary) of the June 24,2011 meeting in Onalaska.

Need to read

2011-05-21T10:32:00.003-05:00

The reading experts and government leaders on Wisconsin's "Read to Lead" task force are taking a close look at student reading achievement in Wisconsin schools. The meetings of the task force are open to the public; my "live tweeted" notes from the April 25, 2011 inaugural meeting are here:

A video archive of the first meeting can be viewed on WisconsinEye. The task force meets next on May 31, 2011, with teacher training and reading intervention on the agenda (via the Wisconsin Reading Coalition, whose founding member, Steve Dykstra, serves on the Read to Lead task force).

Although state and local reading scores are regularly reported as and when results are announced on the annual Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE) and the biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), what's often missing is the fuller context of how those scores compare with scores of other school districts and other states over time. Examine, for example, the percentages of Wisconsin 4th graders (disaggregated by selected demographic) that score "Below Basic" on the NAEP, compared with Massachusetts (currently "best of breed" among the states in student achievement on the NAEP) and Florida (which has made exemplary progress in improving achievement for low-income, Black and Hispanic students):

It's been telegraphed that Florida's reading reforms might serve as a model for recommendations to be considered by the task force, in particular ending automatic "social" promotion to the 4th grade for students who are not reading at grade level by the end of 3rd grade. (The recent Annie E. Casey Foundation study by Donald J. Hernandez linking poverty, low literacy by third grade, and failure to graduate, reinforces this concern.) The percentages of 3rd graders scoring below the WKCE "proficiency" level (bearing in mind that "Proficiency" on WKCE 4th grade reading maps to a level that is lower than "Basic" under NAEP [see page 17 at the link]), for the state's six urban school districts, disaggregated by selected demographic, are as follows:

The Read to Lead task force has done a creditable job of educating itself on the problem of reading achievement in our schools. I'd like to see that awareness spread to stakeholders and the public. While there seems to be a general, and somewhat uneasy, acknowledgment that things are not as they should be, all too often the discussion begins and ends with: 1. "It's just Milwaukee." and 2. "Poor/Black/Hispanic students can't learn." As we can see, the numbers show otherwise.

"We willl have to make an uncomfortable number of mistakes, and learn from them, rather than cover them up or deny they happened, even to ourselves. This is not the way we are used to getting things done." Tim Harford, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.

"As a profession, we are strongly discouraged from speaking out against the system. But I believe the greatest betrayal of our children is our silence." Katharine Birbalsingh, To Miss with Love.

Key student performance measures (Madison School District)

2010-10-10T23:16:00.007-05:00

The Student Achievement and Performance Monitoring Committee of the Madison school board met last Monday to review “key student performance measures” presented by district administration, centering primarily around reading and math scores from last fall’s WKCE (as published this past spring), reported for 4th graders and 8th graders, and compared to those for the preceding three years. The score data was presented and discussed on an “all-students” basis, but given the persistent achievement gaps in the district, taking a look at the data—disaggregated by the selected demographic subgroups compiled below—may help bring performance issues into sharper focus.

(Data source: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction WINSS.)

Measures for measures

2010-08-09T01:19:00.010-05:00

O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant. (Measure for Measure, II.ii.133)

So…as of this writing more than half the states have been persuaded to sign on to the Common Core Standards. (Those states in the running for federal Race to the Top Phase 2 awards were required to adopt the standards by August 2.) Although there are several non-finalists that have also signed on to the standards, it’s clear that the driving force for adoption was the U.S. Department of Education push, which in turn has revived concerns about the top-down, central-planning role of the feds in school reform. These qualms aren’t likely to have been allayed by the insistence that the Common Core standards be adopted even by states (Massachusetts, California) that already had established standards regarded as superior to the new Common Core.

Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep. (II.ii.117)

Is ED an 800-pound gorilla? Is this a problem? Your mileage may vary depending on your core beliefs about what, why and how big problems best get solved. The manner in which the Common Core standards have been imposed and the intended effect of national educational standards, whether or not seen as heavy-handed and intrusive, are of a piece with the governing philosophy evidenced in other recent reforms. Maybe there’s a measure of futility in attempting to resist the assumptions that propel these initiatives, but there’s value in taking this occasion to examine the question of who (across the spectrum from the hearth to the White House) should decide what should be fixed in education and how.

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror. (II.i.1)

One may wonder about the sincerity of ‘buy-in’ procured by quid pro quo. Signing onto the new standards was the easy part; those states will now be called upon to follow through with real work in ensuring that their curriculum tracks the standards, that the curriculum is taught effectively, and that there’s a way to demonstrate—via trustworthy assessments—that standards have been met. It’s little comfort that many of the self-same states that have redefined “proficiency” in ways that evoke the classic response of Inigo Montoya will now be, in consortium, engineering a new assessment system for the new standards.

When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended
That for the fault's love is the offender friended. (III.ii.266)

Shakespeare has the “bed trick” and the “head trick”; think of faux “proficiency” as the “ed trick.” Perhaps the best sign of good faith and intentions to tell the truth to students (and their parents and their community) about whether or not they are keeping pace educationally would be for states who have been hiding the ball on proficiency standards to follow the lead of New York and just ‘fess up. This won’t be encouraged by gloating, derision or “I told you so”s targeted at the one state that’s (however unhappily) gone public. For now, the silence of other states with similar issues is unsettling, and may not bode well for the integrity of how new nationwide assessments will be established and implemented.

Our doubts are traitors
And makes us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. (I.iv.85)

I’m not worried about the new standards resulting in classrooms across the country marching in fantastically coordinated, rigid lockstep through the narrow straits of the new Common Core. The relative vagueness of the standards and the unsettled nature of the curriculum that will be needed to embody the standards are far more likely to result in bureaucratic busywork from those states who already roll that way as their modus operandi, while the states that do a good job will find a way to continue to do so. Oddly enough, the common currency of national standards may provide an opportunity for educational settings outside conventional public schooling (e.g. homeschooling) to demonstrate that they meet these new officially sanctioned benchmarks, and I can also envision an opportunity for private sector development of disinterested assessments based on the new Common Core standards for parents who want to know where their students really stand.

(Thanks for the idea, and apologies for its execution, are due to this post by Steve Peha, and to The Bard.)

Old school

2010-06-28T23:32:00.003-05:00

I said, "Dad, I'm so excited about my studies at Brown. I think I'm going to major in philosophy." So my father slowly turned the car and put it off to the side of the road—he looked back at me and said: "Hey, when you finish your residency, you can study anything you want." He said: "Look, you are a Chinaman"—that's how he used to talk—"You're a Chinaman. And you are not going to make it in this world if you study philosophy. If you think this country owes you anything, you're crazy. You have to get a skill."

"On Leadership: Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim",* The Washington Post, via Ask A Korean!

It’s time to get practical about college. It’s only been for the past generation or two (if that) that going on to college has become the de rigueur step after high school for anyone and everyone so inclined. For some, it’s the ultimate badge of upward mobility (for my college—and me—the high number of first-generation college-goers on campus was a special point of pride). For many others, it’s a culturally expected rite of passage (those halcyon days! four years of me time). But now, as galloping college tuition inflation and nondischargeable student loan debt collide with uncertain prospects for jobs and the economy, it's sensible for students and their parents to question what their time and money is going toward and what they should expect to get from their investment.

The idea that college should be an option for everyone is a worthy one. It's been a way to correct the pervasive mismatch (in years not too long past) between those who had the access and the means to get a college degree and those who had the talent but were shut out through demographic happenstance. But with "universal" higher ed, the absence of a college degree closes the door to too many career paths, even those for which a college education is of dubious relevance. And now that colleges are increasingly having to step in to catch up students on what they missed in K-12, the college degree, not the high school diploma, may be becoming the new threshold of basic academic achievement. In my wildest dreams, I'd like to think that (since it looks like productivity gains through workforce reductions have been pretty much all wrung out) there's now an opportunity for new productivity gains to come from "talent scouts" who can suss out smarts, drive and potential, independent of higher ed pedigree...but unless and until that happens, the college credential, in all its overrated and exorbitant glory, is a necessity.

"Look upon me! I'll show you the life of the mind." (Barton Fink, 1991)

College (although not all colleges, nor all majors, nor all classrooms) is now just one place, and not the only place, for curious minds (though not all minds, not that there's anything wrong with that) to inquire and broaden their learning. Intellectual ferment isn't restricted to high-priced ivy-covered halls any more, now that open source and public domain resources are proliferating and fine minds (from inside and outside the academy) are actively engaging online. Choose a college that's your best buy for getting a credential at a price that won't indenture you to a job that you can't leave. In college, learn to be resourceful and pursue a skill that will provide practical sustenance while you learn what you love or love what you learn, all the days of your life.

(*Jim Yong Kim went to med school, got a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and co-founded Partners In Health. 아버지 knows best.)

New Wisconsin law on school safety plans, pupil records and school bullying

2010-05-17T23:36:00.003-05:00

Wednesday of the fourth week of September is now "Bullying Awareness Day" in Wisconsin, thanks to the new law on school safety plans, pupil records and school bullying (2009 Wisconsin Act 309) signed into law by Governor Jim Doyle last week. Some of the highlights:

Schools (public and private) must now hold unannounced "school safety incident" drills at least twice a year, which can be in addition to or in place of fire drills (required monthly) or tornado drills (required semiannually) already required by law.

Schools (public and private) must establish school safety plans:

"A school safety plan shall be created with the active participation of appropriate parties, as specified by the school board or governing body of the private school. The appropriate parties may include local law enforcement officers, fire fighters, school administrators, teachers, pupil services professionals, as defined in s. 118.257 (1) (c), and mental health professionals. A school safety plan shall include general guidelines specifying procedures for emergency prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery."

[Comment: Why aren't parents included as "appropriate parties"?]

State law on confidentiality of pupil records is modified to require information sharing between schools and law enforcement of pupil records for school safety and juvenile justice purposes, and to require that district attorneys notify schools when criminal charges are filed against students and of the ultimate disposition of the charges.

The state Department of Public Instruction must develop a model school bullying policy by March 1, 2010 [not sure how that works; the effective date of this law will be May 26, 2010], including:

1. A definition of bullying.

2. A prohibition on bullying.

3. A procedure for reporting bullying that allows reports to be made confidentially.

4. A prohibition against a pupil retaliating against another pupil for reporting an incident of bullying.

5. A procedure for investigating reports of bullying.The procedure shall identify the school district employee in each school who is responsible for conducting the investigation and require that the parent or guardian of each pupil involved in a bullying incident be notified.

6. A requirement that school district officials and employees report incidents of bullying and identify the persons to whom the reports must be made.

7. A list of disciplinary alternatives for pupils that engage in bullying or who retaliate against a pupil who reports an incident of bullying.

8. An identification of the school−related events at which the policy applies.

9. An identification of the property owned, leased, or used by the school district on which the policy applies.

10. An identification of the vehicles used for pupil transportation on which the policy applies.

Each school board must adopt an anti-bullying policy by August 15, 2010, and can do so by adopting the DPI's model anti-bullying policy. I would expect that many school districts already have codes of conduct or anti-harassment policies that overlap with the model policy's checklist. (Could a school board adopt a policy that doesn't include all the elements of the model policy? The statute's not clear.) I'll be interested to see how the DPI defines "bullying" in its model policy. At one end of the spectrum, it clearly should include incidents of physically actualized abuse and harassment (i.e. battery). At the other end of the spectrum, it may be tricky to include "cyberbullying" in the policy if the prohibited actions don't occur on school property, on school buses or at school-related events (items 8-10 above; these track state law restrictions that provide that school disciplinary action can be imposed on prohibited student conduct only if the conduct occurs on school grounds, on school transportation or at school-related events—except for bomb threats made off-site, and except where a student assaults a school employee or official, which is subject to discipline whether the assault occurs on school grounds or not).

The elements of the model policy that are of most interest to me are the requirement that parents of each student involved in a bullying incident be notified of the incident, and the requirement that school district officials and employees report all bullying incidents to a designated authority. It's not hard to imagine a child remaining silent to mom or dad about mental or physical abuse encountered at school out of embarrassment, shame, a victim's sense that the abuse is deserved, or that "that's just the way things are." Parents need to know what's going on, when it's going on, to ensure that the right steps are taken to protect their student's safety, and to be able to reinforce to their student their values on where to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. For school districts that do not currently have consistent practices for reporting or collecting school safety data, the requirement that all bullying incidents be reported should give schools valuable data for better school safety oversight, planning and prevention. That information, in turn (whether disclosed voluntarily or as part of public records), could be an important tool for improving the accountability of schools to students, parents and their communities for ensuring school safety.

Teacher appreciation

2010-05-07T05:34:00.002-05:00

What makes a teacher? I don't have any pixels to scatter on the whys and wherefores of that question that could possibly improve on anything anyone's said before. I do reflect often, though, on that quality of a teacher which might not be measurable but which can be recognized, the quality that says: I care about my students' learning. Aptitude, talent, skills, experience and even the "calling" to the profession only bear fruit in the relationship of teacher and student. When it's there, and when it's genuine, it's consecrated, the Buber Ich-Du. And when it's not, in the indifference of someone holding the mantle but just "phoning it in," it's jarring, a tragedy. All the more reason why I appreciate and give silent thanks, every day, for all those who have been true teachers to me and to my children.

Many years on, I remember my first schoolteacher, Miss Smith (conveniently pseudonymous—but that really was her name). I was in her kindergarten class in Grand Rapids for less than a year before my family's mid-year reassignment to California and another Air Force base, but the days in her classroom were formative, and some relics of those days are vivid still: 'teacher's helper' for the day getting to fetch the manila folders (should be vanilla folders, we thought) for teacher, teacher asking us to draw "a girl and her dog named Cookie" (some of us drew dogs, and some of us drew cookies), and me struggling to fold a piece of paper exactly in half ('Can't fold it right' : 'Yes, you can.'). Miss Smith was young and no-nonsense, but with a warm and gentle manner. I remember how Miss Smith smiled and kissed me on the forehead when my mother and I came to school for the last time to say goodbye.

For Miss Smith—and for all teachers whose aim is true—a song that just never gets old:

Flannery O'Connor on teaching fiction

2010-04-25T22:20:00.002-05:00

Ours is the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning, but that is a part of the problem with which I am not equipped to deal. The devil of Educationism that possesses us is the kind that can be cast out only by prayer and fasting.

Flannery O'Connor, "Fiction Is a Subject with a History—It Should Be Taught That Way," 1963.

You can (and should) read the whole thing here. Stumbled upon on the occasion of re-reading A Good Man Is Hard to Find for the May book group at our terrific neighborhood public library.

Virtual charter school admissions for students with disabilities in Wisconsin

2010-04-13T00:41:00.004-05:00

Families of students with IEPs who have applied for open enrollment to a Wisconsin virtual charter school for the 2010-11 school year will likely have received their notices of approval or denial by now. A previous post took a preliminary look at virtual school enrollments for students with IEPs, which are lower than the proportion of students with IEPs in the general school population. Since then, the following information has been obtained, via public records request, from the state Department of Public Instruction, regarding open enrollment applications for admission to virtual schools by students with IEPs last year (2009). (Most Wisconsin charter schools are included in the table below, but virtual schools with de minimis enrollment have not been included. Also, the information on denials below focuses on denials by virtual school districts for reasons of "special education space not available" or "special education program not available"; and denials made for other reasons by the virtual school district or denials made by the student's resident school district aren't included here.) Enrollment information listed below is from the DPI web site.

There seems to be strong interest by students with IEPs in virtual schools. (Note, however, that since up to three school districts can be selected in an open enrollment application, the actual number of students with IEPs who applied for virtual school admission is likely less than the 1,377 open enrollment applications by students with IEPs shown above.) Rejection rates and reasons for rejection also appear to vary from virtual school to virtual school. I'll note that one of the districts with a nominally high application approval rate has in the past issued approval for open enrollment into the district, but then assigned the virtual school applicant to a brick-and-mortar school, with the practical effect of denying the applicant's request to be enrolled in a virtual school (since there is no reason to expect that the applicant will enroll in a brick-and-mortar school long-distance), and the procedural effect of precluding the applicant's ability to appeal the brick-and-mortar "assignment" decision to the DPI (since an open enrollment denial can be appealed, but an assignment to a specific school cannot be appealed). It would be useful to know how widespread this practice is, but this information is not collected or tracked by the DPI.

When a virtual school's chartering district rejects the enrollment application of a student with an IEP, presumably it does so based on the IEP on hand that is forwarded by the student's resident school district, which is likely to have been developed for a brick-and-mortar setting and placement considerations specific to the student's resident school, and which may or may not be appropriately individualized for the virtual school setting and program to which the student has applied. No discussions are held with the student's parents or other members of the IEP team to determine appropriate placement or services prior to the approval or denial decision being rendered. A typical denial notice does not state or explain the criteria that the virtual school's chartering district applied to reach its determination that no special education program or space is "available" for the rejected applicant.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability in federally funded public schools. This means that criteria for admission to a virtual school chartered by a school district that receives federal funds cannot treat a student with a disability differently from a student without a disability, unless necessary to achieve the mission of the program in question. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that Wisconsin virtual schools provide equal opportunity in admitting students with disabilities? It's unlikely that the chartering school district (LEA) whose admissions practices treat students with disabilities differently, and unlawfully, will police itself. It's also unlikely that the state Department of Public Instruction (SEA) can be expected to exercise appropriate oversight and guidance, when it neither tracks nor monitors admission practices or data that would prompt concern of a systemic problem. Representatives in the state legislature who are proponents of virtual schools, and whose efforts to lift the 5,250-student cap on virtual charter schools appear to have stalled, don't appear to be responsive to the suggestion that such legislation also include protections to ensure equal access for students with disabilities. Let's see if the Department of Education's newly expressed interest in reinvigorating civil rights enforcement for students with disabilities might lead to the Office for Civil Rights taking a careful look at admissions policies, procedures and criteria for students with disabilities who may be encountering unlawful barriers in being denied admission to Wisconsin virtual schools.

Detroit

2010-03-28T23:44:00.001-05:00

I spent my 8th grade summer in Detroit. We stayed with my paternal grandmother. She was what some might call "a character," but I remember her as petite, fearsome, sui generis: lecturing my brothers on the dangers of jeans too tight, dishing out concrete globules of wholegrain oatmeal every morning for breakfast (she was a health food nut before it was hip), squirting skittering bugs on the walls with her special-recipe homemade (and ineffective) insecticide. It wasn't a summer filled with creature comforts—the heat was sweltering, and the grownups got the electric fan—and it wasn't a storybook American summer—no beach or pool or biking around with kids from the neighborhood—but I remember it with unique happiness. Every time we got in the car, it seemed that either Derek and the Dominoes or the Brothers Cornelius and Sister Rose would be playing on the AM radio. We spent hours making necklaces and chain mail vests from pop can tops. My favorite hangout was the main library, where I read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn for the first time and worked my way through the Erle Stanley Gardners and the Phyllis A. Whitneys. And my grandmother's house was close enough to Tiger Stadium that we'd walk over there for the occasional ballgame.

I haven't been back to Detroit since traveling there in the early '90s for my grandmother's memorial service at the funeral home next to Berry Gordy's Hitsville USA. Late that night, my father and my uncle unwound, let their hair down, and told stories that filled in some of the blanks about her life (and theirs). She migrated to Detroit from the Mississippi delta town of Friars Point. My father, the youngest of four, was born in Detroit three months after the 1929 crash. My grandfather left to find work in Pennsylvania coal country, and never returned. She got my father and uncle admitted to one of Detroit's tech high schools, where they were among the few black students enrolled, but she was not so successful in breaking down barriers when she tried to join one of the city's grocery cooperatives.

My father and uncle ended their formal education with high school, joining the service after graduation, just before the armed forces were desegregated. But my father was an educated man. He read Thomas Hardy and Ayn Rand for pleasure, wrote elegant prose in a calligraphic longhand, and recited poems from Volume 10 of The Junior Classics to his children at bedtime. I don't know what he would think of what's happened to his hometown and to the generations that followed his. He left Detroit without looking back and never expressed much nostalgia either for it or for any big city, and spent his last years in complete contentment in a small Midwest rural town. He died before the birth of the internet, but he was the first person I knew with an Apple IIc, and he loved to read and write and pontificate. I think he would have had something to say, and it would have been worth hearing.

School budget sunshine

2010-03-15T11:20:00.009-05:00

It's school budget time, and our district has invited public input on budget issues at public sessions later this month and next month. Because the district already possesses the taxing authority to raise property taxes significantly to cover the shortfall created by this year's substantial state education funding cuts and the district's perennial operating budget deficit, these public discussions are intended to gauge the balance that the district should strike between budget cuts and tax increases. This could be an invaluable opportunity for people to express, and for the district and school board to hear, what people are willing to fund, or to forgo, when it comes to spending on schools, but a full picture of the district's budget situation is essential for making the most of this opportunity. So, in the spirit of this week's Sunshine Week, here's a budget information wish list:

1. The proposed 2010-2011 budget.

Budget-related discussions have focused on the $30 million funding gap, and budget discussions are on the calendar, but the actual proposed 2010-2011 budget needs to be made available (School Information System has provided assiduous coverage of this issue and overall budget news). The current year's budget, in "citizen's budget" format, was published last week, and the proposed budget for 2010-2011 should be made available in that format as well. In the meantime, here's a treemap comparison of the 2009-10 citizen's budget with the 2007-08 citizen's budget:

This shows relative spending allocations and changes in them over the two periods for which we have budget information in citizen's budget format. However, I am not sure that this budget incorporates ARRA (federal stimulus) expenditures for 2009-10, and it should be updated to include this year's stimulus-funded expenditures if not already accounted for here.

2. Expenditure and budget reduction history.
Here are a couple of charts showing the history of spending increases and budget cuts since property tax limits were enacted in Wisconsin in 1993. It would be useful to bring these charts current with proposed budget information (in addition, the expenditure numbers for the past few years in the first chart below need to be updated to "actuals," which I don't have).

3. Future funding issues. Long-term and short-term budget projections that include:

Contingency plans to address the likelihood of future deficits and unfunded liabilities for the state and Milwaukee Public Schools and their impact on state funding for our district, and competing demands on the taxpayer from other taxing authorities, local through federal.
Specifics of all "funding cliffs" (from the stimulus and all other limited-term funding sources) that are embedded in the proposed budget.
Disclosure of the 2010-2011 and permanent budget commitment and funding assumptions for 4-year-old kindergarten (which the district was rushed into adopting in order to meet the deadline for the state's failed Race to the Top bid).
Descriptions and explanations of (consistent with GASB) how non-pension retirement benefits are being addressed.

4. Program evaluation. Which programs work well, which not so well, and what is their cost? This should be a continual, year-round process, not one that comes to the fore only at budget time.

5. Data access. RSS feeds for budget information updates, and data in slice-and-dice-able format, please!

[Updated 3/28/10 to include subsequently obtained actuals for 2007-08 and 2008-09.]

Race to the Top snapshots

2010-02-28T19:43:00.008-06:00

In anticipation of the first-round Race to the Top finalists being announced this week, here's an assortment of data points which may be of interest (without being too much like the blind men patting down random regions of the elephant, I hope), as rough indicators of how much RttT help is needed (achievement gap), how well the RttT applications are targeted (students in poverty), how much "buy-in" was received (MOU signoffs), and who may have (or not) an inside track via a Gates Foundation boost.

Italicized states did not submit a Race to the Top application in Phase 1.

Scale scores: 2007 NAEP Reading Grade 4:
(better) = significantly better than national gap

(worse) = significantly worse than national gap

Source: U.S. Department of Education Report NCES 2009-455, "Achievement Gaps: How Black and White Students in Public Schools Perform in Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress / Statistical Analysis Report," July 2009.

MOU participation percentages: from states' Race to the Top applications, as posted by U.S. Department of Education.

Gates Foundation Technical Assistance (from Foundation announcement and EdWeek Politics K-12 blog):
Pre-selected 1st 15: among the 15 states pre-selected for technical assistance

Selected in 2nd round: selected for technical assistance after applications opened to remaining states

Not selected: unsuccessful application for technical assistance

Did not apply: did not apply for technical assistance

Updated 3/4/2010: the 16 first-round finalists as announced by the US Department of Education are highlighted in yellow above.

Further updated 3/29/2010: the first-round winners (Delaware and Tennessee) are highlighted in blue above; final scores and rankings also added.

Further updated 7/28/2010: Phase 2 finalists are highlighted in green above (light green for first-time finalists, dark green for states that were also finalists in Phase 1). Column noting status of states' adoption of common standards also added.

Reading Recovery, parents and experts

2010-02-14T16:58:00.002-06:00

Debate has been joined (after a fashion) over Reading Recovery on the Learning & Reading Disabilities blog and the Wrightslaw site. In two recent posts ("Should I Stop My Child's School from Using Reading Recovery to Teach Him to Read" and "What Mistake Do Parents of Children At-Risk for Reading Disabilities Make About Reading Recovery"), L&RD defends Reading Recovery against criticisms in the Wrightslaw article "Reading Recovery: What Do School Districts Get for Their Money?" by Melissa Farrall, Ph.D. Farrall says scientific evidence doesn't support the effectiveness of Reading Recovery; it doesn't help enough kids (because a meaningful percentage of kids don't complete the program successfully) and it doesn't help kids enough (because the threshold for "success" in the program can be set too low); and it's too expensive. L&RD says Reading Recovery has been validated by scientific evidence (including a meta-analysis of multiple studies published in 2004, not cited by Farrall) and by the What Works Clearinghouse, and that Reading Recovery may not be "perfect" (as no program is), but that parents should see if Reading Recovery works for their child first before rejecting it untried.

Since Reading Recovery and the "wars" over its effectiveness have been around a while, the fact that these battles continue to rage is an indication that neither side can dispositively claim victory. If Reading Recovery didn't work at all, that would have become clear enough by now, anecdotally and scientifically; if Reading Recovery were a silver-bullet solution to reading remediation, it's hard to imagine that educators, researchers and parents wouldn't all be united in getting it disseminated as widely as possible.There's no reason to doubt the sincerity and veracity of parents who report that Reading Recovery worked wonders for their child, or to dismiss the legitimacy of peer-reviewed studies that show that there are reading programs out there which have implemented Reading Recovery with good results.

But how much should parents defer to "the experts"? Parents are challenging the experts in Seattle, where parents have prevailed in litigation to prevent the adoption of "discovery" math, and in California and Connecticut, where parents want the right to pull the "parent trigger" to reform failing schools. I believe that parents who step in and take the reins from the professionals who've been entrusted with their children's education do so only as a last resort; parents would much rather trust that the interests, goals and judgments of experts are aligned with theirs. To earn and keep that trust, experts need to show their work and intelligibly demonstrate the reasoning behind their decisions.

I'm inclined to find that verified studies are useful for ruling out programs that have been proven ineffective, but it's not clear to me that the studies which demonstrate Reading Recovery's effectiveness speak to whether Reading Recovery success is readily replicable in the vastly different environments (school districts, schools, classrooms) in which it's implemented. It's not enough to learn that Reading Recovery works well for those for whom it works well. In evaluating the efficacy of a program, we should know more about the children who were supposed to be, but weren't, helped by the program, whether there were other interventions that could have worked for them during their year in the program, and how many other children could have been helped with other resources that could have been funded by the money spent on the ineffective intervention.

Our school district has used Reading Recovery since the 1989-90 school year, with declining success over time:

Last school year, 349 students in the district qualified for Reading Recovery; 262 students participated in Reading Recovery; of those students, 110 were successfully "discontinued" from the program. (This success rate of 42.3% is significantly lower than the 58.5% national success rate last reported by Reading Recovery.) Last year's Reading Recovery program cost the district approximately $1,271,200, or $4,852 per student enrolled in the program, or $11,556 per student successfully "discontinued" from the program.

Reading Recovery resources in the district are directed toward schools with higher poverty levels, and 83% of the students enrolled in Reading Recovery last year (approximately 217 of the 262 students) were low-income students. Despite this focus, reading proficiency levels for low-income students in our district, measured at the first state assessment opportunity following early-grade intervention, have been on the decline (the following information is from the DPI web site):

Because the district's Reading Recovery resources are allocated among higher-poverty schools, there are students who meet Reading Recovery criteria (i.e. in the lowest 20% of readers) who don't get enrolled if their school is not a "Reading Recovery school", and students who are "overqualified" for Reading Recovery who do get enrolled in Reading Recovery to "fill out" the program group in their school's Reading Recovery program. (The latter phenomenon may not be a good thing: it's reported that text reading level gains of "overqualified" students in the program may end up not progressing on pace with their non-Reading Recovery peers.) It also appears that some students in the lowest 20% of readers have skill levels that are too low to allow them to complete Reading Recovery successfully. Also, although Reading Recovery is implemented in a series of three "rounds" throughout the school year, students in the first round have a much better chance of completing the program successfully than those who enroll in the second or third rounds.

It's been suggested that Reading Recovery resources be redistributed to reach more of the lowest 20% of readers, with the thought that success rates may improve if better targeted toward the types of students for whom the program was designed. However, program success doesn't seem to be correlated with participation levels:

The district produced two written reports evaluating Reading Recovery in 2004 and 2009 (much of the information in this post, and the information in the first and third charts in this post, are drawn from those reports):

From the 2004 report: "Reading Recovery clearly serves a population of needy students based on income and other demographic factors. Reading Recovery serves a population that has deficits in reading ability at the beginning of Grade 1. However, it is not clear that they constitute the lowest 20-25% of all first graders, a stated goal of the program developers."

From the 2009 report:

"Reading Recovery clearly serves a population of needy students based on income and other demographic factors."

"It is difficult to accurately define the students who are in the lowest 20% but this table [Table 1 of the 2009 report] indicates that there are probably significant numbers of students who need help with literacy but either do not have the opportunity to receive Reading Recovery (not available at their school) or Reading Recovery did not identify them or was unable to place them."

From the 2004 report: "When combining both successful RR students and the unsuccessful RR students over an entire school year of service delivery the overall program impact does not yield statistically significant achievement gains when comparing performance of participants to similar but non-participating students after controlling for intervening affects [sic] (e.g., poverty, special education status, parent education, etc.)."

From the 2009 report: "When combining all Reading Recovery students over an entire school year of service, the overall program impact does not yield statistically significant achievement gains when comparing the performance of participants to similar but non-participating students after controlling for intervening affects [sic] (e.g., poverty, special education status, parent education, etc.)."

From the 2004 report: "There appears to be a need to develop a better method for identifying students who could be successful in this program. In 2003-04, more than half of all Reading Recovery students were not discontinued. Targeting services more efficiently to students who benefit most is strongly encouraged. The longitudinal data provided by the district’s Primary Language Arts Assessments (PAA) may be a useful resource in developing such predictive tools while simultaneously affording meaningful instructional and diagnostic information."

From the 2009 report: "It is recommended that Reading Recovery teachers utilize the access they have to the student information system to record enrollment as well as observation summary data on all students eligible for Reading Recovery and those who receive the intervention. This should also be tracked in the Student Intervention Monitoring System for reference by other staff involved with an individual student's literacy programming. This would allow the development of better predictive models that accurately identify students with a high likelihood of success in the Reading Recovery program."

The 2009 report recommended that the Reading Recovery program continue, with efforts to achieve fuller implementation among the targeted population, and then be re-evaluated within two years. In light of the history and results of this program, I found this recommendation astonishing, but was thankful when the school board directed district staff to revisit and report back on the district's reading programs as a whole before proceeding further. I hope for the best in the discussions and decisions that ensue.

Virtual schools, students with IEPs, and Wisconsin open enrollment

2010-02-01T08:30:00.002-06:00

Virtual schooling can be an educational choice with particular benefits for some students with disabilities. The recent study "Serving Students with Disabilities in State-level Virtual K-12 Public School Programs" by Eve Müller, Ph.D., published in September 2009 by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE)'s Project Forum, and funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs, surveyed state education agencies nationwide regarding their virtual K-12 public school programs:

Eleven states described one or more benefits associated with serving students with disabilities in virtual K-12 public school programs. These include:

accessibility of curriculum for students on long-term suspension or homebound placement;
individualized attention;
self-pacing of online education;
availability of multi-media content and supplemental resources;
students' needs for fewer behavioral supports since they are removed from the school building setting—especially students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, or emotional disturbance (ED); and
creation of another placement option for students with disabilities and their families.

The report "Demystifying Special Education in Virtual Charter Schools" by Lauren Morando Rhim and Julie Kowal of Public Impact, published in January 2008 as part of the Primers in Special Education in Charter Schools series funded by the U.S. Department of Education, notes:

as public schools, virtual charter schools are required to abide by all federal education statutes, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution....Consequently, [chartering agencies] are responsible for abiding by all special education rules and regulations, including conducting special education student identification and evaluation, developing individual education programs (IEPs) and providing individualized support, curricular modifications and adaptations as well as related services such as occupational, physical and speech therapy.

In Wisconsin, virtual schools are chartered through local education agencies (i.e. school districts); there is no current state-level virtual school program. This means that students who want to enroll in a virtual school but do not live in the school district which charters that virtual school can enroll in that virtual school only by applying for admission through Wisconsin's annual open enrollment process.

The Wisconsin open enrollment application period for the 2010-2011 school year starts today and runs for 2 weeks and 5 days (February 1-February 19, 2010). The open enrollment general information page on the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) web site shows 15 virtual schools (a few of which are new this year) for 2010-2011, chartered through 14 different school districts. Three virtual schools serve K-12, two serve K-8 only, one serves grades 6-8 only, two serve grades 6-12 only, and seven serve grades 9-12 only. Applicants are limited to 3 choices in their open enrollment applications.

An open enrollment application can be denied by the virtual school's school district if the applicant has been referred for a special education evaluation that was not completed prior to the application, or if special education or related services are not available, or if there is no space available in the special education or related services program. (Please note that there are several additional reasons—not covered in this post—as to why an open enrollment application can be denied by a school district that the applicant is seeking to transfer out of or into, which are summarized elsewhere on the DPI's general information page.)

A piece of information that is not publicized to parents is that a student with an IEP cannot be denied open enrollment on the basis of lack of space or services in the special education program if the parent has refused or revoked consent for special education services (DPI January 30, 2009 memo in Microsoft Word, accessed from the DPI web site by following the link to the "Public School Open Enrollment page," to the link titled "Special Education" under the "Information for School Districts" heading, to the link titled "DPI Memo January 2009 - Recent Changes in IDEA Law Affecting Open Enrollment"). Where a parent has refused or revoked consent for special education, "the child's application must be reviewed as an application for regular education."

Since a student's open enrollment application is limited to 3 choices, it would be useful for parents to know how much space and what services are available for the special education needs of their child, so that they can make full use of their limited selections. Unfortunately, this information isn't readily available. This information is not included in either the marketing web sites for the virtual schools or the school district web sites. A query to the DPI elicited the following response:

You can call the virtual charter schools to investigate the programs available at the school. You can ask to speak with their special education director about your child’s needs. However, it is important to understand that nothing a school district/virtual charter school/special education director tells you is a promise either of approval or denial and such conversations will not be accepted as part of the record in an open enrollment appeal.

The track record of Wisconsin virtual schools in approving or denying admissions applications for students with disabilities is not monitored by the DPI. School year 2009-10 is the first school year for which school-level information on open enrollment virtual school approvals or denials has been gathered by the DPI, but this information has not yet been compiled or published.

Enrollment (at November 2008) for students with disabilities in Wisconsin virtual schools is at a significantly lower proportion than the proportion of students with disabilities enrolled in Wisconsin public schools statewide (the following table is compiled from data from the DPI web site):

This information does not tell us why enrollment is proportionately lower in Wisconsin virtual schools for students with disabilities. We don't know how many students with disabilities apply for admission to virtual schools, how many are denied admission, and how many are approved but decline to enroll. It would also be useful to know how many denials are made on the grounds of "not enough space" in the special education program or related services (despite the fact that all virtual schools appears to have significantly proportionately lower enrollment by students with disabilities). Improved information will be a critical component of improving access to this educational alternative to students with disabilities who may benefit from this choice.

Euclid, Newton and Adam Smith

2010-01-24T15:51:00.001-06:00

I missed the hubbub over the piece by Mark Slouka in Harper’s last fall (“Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school”), but came to it after reading a few mentions of it recently. Its title does a pretty good job of giving the gist of it, which (roughly restated) is that priorities of commerce have hijacked American education policy, shutting out the humanities, and unduly elevating math and science (or “mathandscience,” in Slouka’s formulation). It’s an interesting polemic, although its attention-seeking rhetorical feints (which you'll get the full flavor of if you read the whole thing) leave me outside the choir to which it preaches.

I worry about young people who can't find work. The unemployment numbers from last summer were discouraging; I expect this summer's numbers will be worse. The kids from demographic groups that are the least successfully served by our educational system fare worst in the job market. They won't have the social capital to draw on to get a foot in the door, to get helped onto the first rung of the ladder. Where will they be without employable skills?

Slouka's piece is profoundly wrongheaded not just because it treats as trivial the matter of how one puts bread on the table, but also in its claim that skills that are useful and knowledge that is valuable are mutually exclusive things. If we can get public education back to basics—to teach kids how to read and write, do math, and think critically, in a school that is safe—is there any reason why that education could not, and should not, teach its students the beauty of Euclid's Elements, the philosophical and theological origins of Newton's science, and how Adam Smith understood human nature and ethics in The Theory of the Moral Sentiments?

Do you often come across people for whom, all their lives, a "subject" remains a "subject," divided by watertight bulkheads from all other "subjects," so that they experience very great difficulty in making an immediate mental connection between let us say, algebra and detective fiction, sewage disposal and the price of salmon—or, more generally, between such spheres of knowledge as philosophy and economics, or chemistry and art?
Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Tools of Learning” (presented at Oxford University in 1947).

The student revolution has thus come full circle and joined those who were originally its worst enemies: those who willingly corrupt the present in any degree necessary to achieve an imagined future, those vicious establishment constructors of the rat-race who reduce the lives of students and workers to mere means.
Wayne C. Booth, Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent (1974).

But the world as revealed by its scientific discoveries is also reality, regardless of how it may appear, and people in John's dimension are going to have to do more than just ignore it if they want to hang on to their vision of reality. John will discover this if his points burn out.

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (1974).

The question of what a good job looks like—of what sort of work is both secure and worthy of being honored—is more open now than it has been for a long time. […] The meta-work of trafficking in the surplus skimmed from other people’s work suddenly appears as what it is, and it becomes possible once again to think the thought, “Let me make myself useful.”
Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work (2009).

Special Education Stimulus Spending

2010-01-17T14:45:00.002-06:00

Last year's stimulus legislation (American Recovery and Recovery Act of 2009, a/k/a "ARRA") provides a one-time boost (to be spent for the 2009-10 and 2010-2011 school years) in federal funding for students with disabilities in elementary and secondary schools under IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act), Part B.

According to the State of Wisconsin's stimulus tracker web site, IDEA Special Education Grants to the states under ARRA totaled $11.3 billion (for context, "regular" IDEA Part B appropriations were $11.51 billion in 2009 and in 2010, according to the New America Foundation's 2010 Education Appropriations Guide). Wisconsin has received ARRA IDEA Part B funding of $208.2 million, with $6.199 million to the Madison Metropolitan School District.

Madison's plans for special education stimulus funds (summarized from the district's ARRA funding report to the Board of Education):

Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction's FAQ page on special education stimulus funding includes the following guidance [the acronym "LEA" below means "local educational agency," i.e. school district]:

B3. How should the IDEA Recovery funds be used?

These funds should be spent in ways likely to improve results for students, produce long-term gains in LEA capacity and effectiveness, accelerate reform, and foster continuous improvement. LEAs are cautioned to invest one-time IDEA Recovery funds thoughtfully to minimize what the federal government is calling the “funding cliff.” The funds should be invested in ways that do not result in unsustainable continuing commitments after the funding expires. Suggested strategies for using IDEA Recovery funds in conjunction with other funding sources to accomplish ARRA’s goals may be found at http://dpi.wi.gov/recovery/pdf/uses-strategies2009-05-05.pdf.

How are your state and school district using their special education stimulus funds?

About

2010-01-09T17:03:00.002-06:00

The title of this blog is inspired by the following excerpt from this blog post by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution:

On another point, as I get older, I tend to view "family structure which encourages an obsession with education" as an increasingly important variable for explaining levels in per capita income, if not always growth rates in the immediate moment. It's not a truly independent variable -- when it comes to growth what is? -- but it's one good place to start.

I'll be using this blog to write from time to time about topics in education that are of particular (some might say obsessive) interest to me, which include (in no particular order): school choice; virtual schooling; classical education; the "achievement gap"; special education; the autism spectrum and neurodiversity; school safety and discipline; school funding and finance; transparency and accountability; and data, information and communication. I'll also be using Twitter (sidebar feed) to note items of interest from the rich world of education blogs and other sources.