Category: Education

Posted on in Education

High Graduation Rates Are Sadly Inflated; H.S. Diplomas, Meaningless

This NYT article discusses how the increase in high schoool graduation rates doesnt mean more students are graduating at grade level– the truth is students are more likely to graduate far below grade level. 

What’s so disturbing about this article is that it’s not that high school graduates aren’t just unprepared for college, they’re unprepared for life. They’re underperforming in fundamental english, math and verbal skills. It’s sad that schools are sending teenagers out into the world with a valueless diploma for the sake of graduation rates. It’s sad they can do that. It’s sad that students are passing fifth grade without writing clear, coherent sentences and graduatting high school without being able to artuculate themselves. Not everyone is made for college, but most high school students should at least have the most basic skills down pat…we’re required to go to school for TWELVE years…what do we have to show for it? 
As you know, my high school was going through the turn-around process while I was a sophmore. With a little less than 200 students in my class, I was in the top twenty and scored a 5 on the AP English exam. I got to college and was able to avoid math but certainly wasn’t ready to compete with my peers in writing. My writing was atrocious. So, you can imagine how the bottom half (or even the bottom 3/4) of my high school class faired out. How was I able to write paper after paper, complete with weak sentence structure, an inability to connect thoughts and poor grammar, and still  get a 95 in English? I tend to side with teachers when it comes to attactching exams to high-stake consequences, but teachers are blantly deceiving students like myself. More shockingly, New York state and city required exams, along with AP exams, are certainly poor indicators of academic acheivement. Are the standards that low? 

Graduates are only being scarred by this false acheivement. This, to me, only proves that Common Core, No Child Left Behind and the city and state-wide exams required to graduate are in no way accurate when it comes to evaluating life-readiness. A high school diploma, unfortunately, doesn’t represent the deep content a student has learned. Nor does it  indicate that she’s mastered foundational math, literacy, written and verbal skills. Graduating high school students is far less about prepping them for the real world and more about giving off an appearnce that students are learning. This, now an apparent fact, begs the simple question: why is public high school education prioritizing graduation rates over quality education?

I feel the answer lies in high stakes testing and our schools curriculum structure. More on that in a later post.

Posted on in Education

Finally Reading Paul Tough’s “How Children Succeed”

I’m only on the first chapter, but so far I love the anecdotes, which bring the troubles some children go through to life. I’m also fascinated by economist James Heckman’s interdisciplinary work on the Perry Preschool Program and Tough’s use of the research in the book’s introduction. The reader understands what Tough is going to talk about but he provides this strong piece of research that is a catalyst in his quest to understand how children succeed. More thoughts on the book as a read!
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Posted on in Education

Teachers Get One-Size-Fits-All Training

Pauline Zdonek, a Illionois teacher and math coach, wrote a blog post on Edutopia about the importance of  effective professional development. I won’t go into too much detail, but I can’t agree with the point of her post anymore: Teachers, like students, benefit from development geared towards their individualized needs more than non-applicable, repetitive information. We should want each teacher to leave a session learning something useful, rather than waste their time, as Pauline recounts in her post. The problem, she says, is that administrators apply a one size fits all technique, which ends up being so vague, no one can benefit it.

While it is hard to provide granular, one-on-one professional development for every teacher, any attempt to “meet the teacher where she is at” is a safe bet on making an actual improvement to her skill set. Pauline recounts the all too often situation is a teacher not being asked what she would like to gain from a training session but given a requirement to attend sessions, regardless if she walks away with meaningful, useful guidance or not.

Why do we expect teachers to be amazing when we don’t understand or care for how they’re being taught? Professional development needs to be a more transparent component of education as a whole. Perhaps professional development organizers could meet with a wide range of teachers and discuss what could be covered over a series of future professional development trainings. Or, if meeting is not possible, have students fill out a detailed survey that leaves plenty of room for open-ended answers, which would be sufficient to engage the teacher about how they can be accommodated. With that said, genuine professional development for teachers that takes their needs into consideration would just let teachers know that, just as students’ individual needs matter, theirs do too…because they are…students, after all.

I know reformers don’t like accommodating teachers, but I think PD accommodation is worth the investment, no?

 

Posted on in Education

Intrinsic Motivation and Students

Great article by Edutopia on kids and intrinsic motivation. We’re so used to telling kids/students what to do. The key item I pulled out of this read is the what kinds of choices and directions you give students. The examples they provide are clear to see the differences in style of what is traditionally done and what kids would respond to better.

I was writing in Starbucks a few weeks ago, when a mother asked her 3 year old daughter if the girl wanted to finish the apple she took one bite out of or throw it away. I was confused by the latter option, simply because I thought she could have asked the girl if she wanted save it for later or if she would like to cut it (it was a whole apple). I can see how this was the mom trying to give her daughter options, at the same time, her daughter didn’t understand the value of food, so she said shed like to throw it away. Giving the girl options to eat it at a later point would highlight that value and at the same time, allow the girl to make her own decision.

This may not quite be intrinsic motivation and could simply be a difference in value for food, but it certainly something that some parents are picking up on.

Posted on in Education

No K-12 Ed Policy on the 2016 Pres. Campaign Trail

The 2016 presidential candidates, especially the democrats, are vocal on changes to college affordability. But, this Ed Week post talks about how little attention K-12 reform is getting on the 2016 presidential campaign trail. Part of the assumed reasoning behind the lack of conversation is because ESSA was just passed to replace NCLB, probably the most controversial education policy law in recent memory. One can argue that the fed is taking a lighter hand in ed reform because, traditionally, education reform is a state issue.

I appreciate Hillary’s comment on charter schools and it makes sense why John Kasich is quiet about his mess in Ohio. But I wish candidates spoke on the subject simply because they care, and not because they’ll lose political points or because it won’t heavily effect their campaign or time in office. Ed policy, especially ed policy that affects the early ages, is an American issue that each potential leader should be well versed and opinionated about.

Posted on in Education

Green Dot on Community Participation

Great blog post by Green Dot Public Schools. Reformers don’t emphasize familial and community involvement…they seem to hardly mention it! Let’s continue to pretend that teachers are the main, if not only, source of impact in students lives! When we put all the pressure on teachers, we’re saying that the family and school don’t affect student learning, whether it is positive or negative.

Posted on in Education

Greed & Law School Indebtness

This NYT article discusses why both for-profit & non-profit schools jack their tuition up and graduate students who wont be able to find a job.

The following quote from the article summarizes what allows schools to do this:

In 2006, Congress extended the federal Direct PLUS Loan program to allow a graduate or professional student to borrow the full amount of tuition, no matter how high, and living expenses. The idea was to give more people access to higher education and thus, in theory, higher lifetime earnings. But broader access doesn’t mean much if degrees lead not to well-paying jobs but to heavy debt burdens. That is all too often the result with PLUS loans.

What’s happening here seems to be, in part, true for colleges. Who’s responsibility is it to present students with a current, true, blunt and comprehensive view of what loans, schools, career and desire really mean?

If schools are fudging with the numbers, they clearly know that they’re doing something wrong. Schools and students shouldn’t receive federal loans until the school can actually produce a 67% field-related employment rate for their students.

Posted on in Education, Reading

Most Likely to Get a Menial Job Post Graduation

Tiny Dintersmith and Ted Wagner write, “‘You can either get your college degree or end up with a menial job.’ But the reality in America today?  Millions of adults end up with both.”

It’s upsetting that leaders in the higher education community won’t acknowledge this.

It’s even more absurd that colleges with gross price stickers take money from middle income families that have to take out loans to pay the school, but end up with a degree that can’t get them anywhere.

Our students aren’t counseled enough to understand their “investment” both in high school and throughout college. Diane Ravitch has said that college isn’t necessarily for those seeking to make tons of money, which must be true because graduates are coming out with tons of debt and low jobs–there debt far exceeds there income.

Some people say college is a lifetime investment, so even though one may not make much right after college, the gains will come later in life. But that can’t be the case for, say, art history at middle rate college.

I thinks students are conditioned to believe that to believe that hard work in first high school, then college, is the key to “success” but they’re not told that there’s so much more that goes into that, including finding what one wants to do with their life in order to make these loops worth it.

We put too much pressure on students to perform well academically and tell them that going to college but they’re too young and have been conditioned to theoritical learning to fully understand what kind of real investment they’re making. The schools certainly won’t stop and tell them.

Part of me thinks students should pay the amount economists predicts what a students major will garner, not necessarily throughout their lifetime but maybe expected salary in the current job market. It seems to be fair for the students because one ridiculous high price tag does not benefit all. We sadly go under the assumption that it does.

Posted on in Education

Diane Ravitch on TFA’s Anti-TFA Campaign

In a reaction post to a Washington Post article, Diane Ravitch questions Teach For America’s anti-TFA campaign:

“Does TFA believe that a recent college graduate with five weeks of training should be responsible for children with disabilities? Do they think no special training is necessary? Are they saying that people who earn an M.A. or a doctorate in special education have wasted their time?

Does TFA ever reflect on its constant boasting? Does TFA ever feel a little bit ashamed of claiming that any TFA recruit is superior to an experienced teacher? Do their recruits have nothing to learn?”

You don’t realize how self-involved a organization can be until they spend at least a half a million dollars to ignore some of their most hurtful and obvious flaws. Diane’s questions highlight TFA’s undeniable damage by weaving their ill-prepared, yet well known, way of “training” their mostly temporary teachers into her poignant questions.

Wendy Kopp is aware of what her organization is doing. She’s just selfish and doesn’t want to accept the fact that  her organization does more harm than good. TFA seemed like a great idea and it was started based on what I believe to be good intentions, but those intentions are no longer good. TFA’s leadership is holding onto pride, control, power, money and a disgusting ego.