If you want to lower standards in education, all you have to do is sprinkle your proposal with words like 'rigorous' and 'standards-based'. Your slide to the lowest common denominator will be heralded as the path to closing the achievement gap. After all, the lower the standard, the narrower the achievement gap. It's simple math.
Susan Castillo has just announced that 'credit by proficiency' is the key to improving Oregon schools in the future. The first question that comes to mind is why she would believe that she knows this, given that Oregon implemented and discarded the 'credit by proficiency' nonsense during the waning years in the 1980's. (Not her fault, really, since she may not have been involved in education in the 1980's) Every high school class had a list of proficiencies as long as your arm, and every teacher was expected to check off each 'proficiency', one at a time, for every student. It fell flat. It was a phenomenal waste of time. It did nothing for student achievement. For many courses of study, it simply made no sense. But like every failed idea in education, it has waited in the wings in hopes that memories would fade, allowing it to be relabeled as an innovation.
Credit by Proficiency is just the latest rendition of the old war between 'academics' and vocational training. The 'proficiency' theory is that students should receive high school credit based on what they can do and should not receive credit just for sitting in a classroom for the designated amount of time.
The argument appears at first to be just a matter of common sense, but on closer inspection it is founded on a classic straw man. Whether they call it 'seat time', call it 'sit and get', or any number of names that are intended to discredit (in this case literally) the exchange of ideas between teachers and students, the claim is that students are currently receiving high school credit based solely on how long they sit in a chair. It's a simple claim, and it has a certain appeal to everyone who was every bored in school. But it takes very little reflection to realize that only in cases of outright fraud did 'seat time' automatically generate credit toward graduation. If it had, we wouldn't have such vivid memories of tests we didn't prepare for, papers we didn't finish on time, and failing grades. Yes, failing grades. Why? Because contrary to the myth perpetrated by the Credit by Proficiency folks, grades are not and have never been based on seat time, but on performance on several measures including classroom discussions, quizzes, tests, papers, daily math lessons, ect.
LET'S BE CLEAR. THE 'CREDIT BY PROFICIENCY' ADVOCATES' FREQUENT CLAIM THAT STUDENTS CURRENTLY EARN CREDIT BY ACCRUING 'SEAT TIME' (SIMPLY SITTING In A CLASSROOM FOR THE APPROPRIATE LENGTH OF TIME) IS A LIE. TAKE AWAY THAT LIE AND THEY HAVE LITTLE OR NOTHING TO OFFER.
But is it a lie, really? And if it is, is it polite to say so? Consider this. If credit is currently given just for showing up, why are so many students credit deficient? Why is the graduation rate so abysmal? One of the top reasons that students give for leaving school is that they are hopelessly behind in earning credits toward graduation. How did they get so far behind? By missing seat time? Not so. It is against the law in Oregon to withhold credit or to lower a grade based solely on lack of attendance...clearly a devaluation of seat time and a requirement that grades be based on performance and not on showing up. Kids who fail to earn credit fail to achieve.
Finally, if seat time is all that matters, how is it that some students are earning A's and B's while others are earning C's, D's and yes, even F's? Clearly there is much more than seat time going on here. And one has to believe that the proponents of 'Credit by Proficiency' know all of this.
In Corbett, which can make a claim to being a high performing program, about one in every seven grades is an 'Incomplete'. This is in a school in which 90% of sophomores pass the 1oth grade reading assessment. Clearly we don't believe that proficiency is enough. There is more to being an educated person than meeting some state-sanctioned minimal proficiency, and that 'something more' should be our priority.
So what is the goal of the 'credit by proficiency' clan? It's to create the illusion of education without having to work at the real thing. It is education by checklist, with the goal for every child being identical...put a check in every box. It's the 'field strip and M16 in 30 seconds while blindfolded' theory of learning. Ultimately, it is about education on the cheap. It's about devaluing the role of the teacher. It's about devaluing any learning that can't be reduced to a checklist.
Proficiency as a goal has it's place. In vocational training. But not in education.
Why not? Because like every permutation of the Standards Movement (credit by proficiency is just the blue collar version of the broader Standards debacle), its implementation inevitably limits student achievement. It has a leveling effect whereby the minimum standard tends to be adjusted downward (like the Oregon 10th grade assessments in Reading and Math) so that a respectable number of students will pass (it's funny how these 'standards' always wind up being normed to a curve) and it discounts excellence. Everyone gets pushed to the middle...standardized, as it were. Once a student has met a standard (and it is imperative to remember that this standard will always have to be low enough that the vast majority of students can meet it without too much effort!) then there is no need for the most able students to extend their learning. In fact, in a true proficiency model, there won't be any course material beyond the 'proficient' level...it will be time to move on and demonstrate another 'proficiency'.
A final word for you professionals: the proficiency movement, to the degree that it is internally consistent, will wind up decapitating Bloom's taxonomy and leaving little (if any) room for anything beyond application. This is the level at which the vast majority of 'proficiencies' will be targeted, since synthesis and evaluation don't lend themselves to a checklist approach. Whatever is easiest to measure is what we will always tend to measure most.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Oregon's Race to the Middle
The State of Oregon is preparing an application for federal 'Race to the Top' funds. This is a competitive grant, and if Oregon's feeble proposal warrants financial support then the nation is in worse shape than even I believe.
What are Oregon's strategies? (See if any of this sounds familiar)
1. Merit pay for principals and teachers if their school improves. (But not for principals and teachers whose schools already perform?) This old shoe will never be implemented, though national examples of half-implementation followed by gradual abandonment abound, offering the consolation that others have been gullible before us.
2. Reshuffle teachers and administrators if schools don't perform. What does this mean, exactly? Move those supposedly low-performing teachers and principals to better schools and move teachers from better schools into the low-performing school? That's it? But doesn't that mean that the district-wide teaching staff is precisely what it was before, but is now assigned to different schools? Doesn't that just redistribute the same level of effectiveness? (And didn't Portland do this in the early days of NCLB?) How is that improvement? And for the 100-or-so Oregon districts that have only one building per grade level, it means less than nothing. It means that they are superfluous.
3. Frequently inform students how their performance compares to grade-level benchmarks. Yes, it's called 'scientifically-based nagging'. This is a clear winner, because no-one can resist the motivational power of a good nag. I suppose that this could eventually lead to merit pay for the very best nag. Maybe even a nag-of-the-year award down the road!
Conspicuously missing from the list? Anything to do with Oregon's bare tolerance of charter schools. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan thinks enough of charter schools that he stopped by to address the national charter convention to unveil the Race to the Top program in person. Where does Oregon stand on this strategy? Out in the cold. Why? Because in the Oregon political 'verse, unions determine elections and children are too young to join unions. So charter schools, which are opposed by the NEA, the OEA, the national pTa, COSA, and every other major stakeholder in the status quo, are only grudgingly tolerated and are under attack in every legislative session. Yet charters are at the center of the federal improvement strategy. So Oregon sides against the Democratic president, his Secretary of Education, and the grant-readers who will determine the distribution of significant federal dollars. And we offer them a good old-fashioned 'nagging' in hopes that they don't real the grant too closely.
Poor, poor Oregon. We tolerate the absurdity of No Child Left Behind because of the availability of grant money...a case of bad practice tolerated in the name of fiscal necessity. And now we are essentially turning down federal dollars because we don't want to see real innovation take hold in the form of charter schools...a case of promising practice avoided in spite of urgently needed financial incentives.
Nobody can say that Oregon doesn't act on principle...but the principle seems to be that what's good for reelection is good for the kids. And reelection means avoiding real reform while talking incessantly about oh-so-incremental school improvement: the song that never ends.
Superintendent Castillo has announced that she is running for a third term. The word on the street is that nobody will bother running against her. But she's not taking anything for granted, and her campaign is clearly underway.
What are Oregon's strategies? (See if any of this sounds familiar)
1. Merit pay for principals and teachers if their school improves. (But not for principals and teachers whose schools already perform?) This old shoe will never be implemented, though national examples of half-implementation followed by gradual abandonment abound, offering the consolation that others have been gullible before us.
2. Reshuffle teachers and administrators if schools don't perform. What does this mean, exactly? Move those supposedly low-performing teachers and principals to better schools and move teachers from better schools into the low-performing school? That's it? But doesn't that mean that the district-wide teaching staff is precisely what it was before, but is now assigned to different schools? Doesn't that just redistribute the same level of effectiveness? (And didn't Portland do this in the early days of NCLB?) How is that improvement? And for the 100-or-so Oregon districts that have only one building per grade level, it means less than nothing. It means that they are superfluous.
3. Frequently inform students how their performance compares to grade-level benchmarks. Yes, it's called 'scientifically-based nagging'. This is a clear winner, because no-one can resist the motivational power of a good nag. I suppose that this could eventually lead to merit pay for the very best nag. Maybe even a nag-of-the-year award down the road!
Conspicuously missing from the list? Anything to do with Oregon's bare tolerance of charter schools. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan thinks enough of charter schools that he stopped by to address the national charter convention to unveil the Race to the Top program in person. Where does Oregon stand on this strategy? Out in the cold. Why? Because in the Oregon political 'verse, unions determine elections and children are too young to join unions. So charter schools, which are opposed by the NEA, the OEA, the national pTa, COSA, and every other major stakeholder in the status quo, are only grudgingly tolerated and are under attack in every legislative session. Yet charters are at the center of the federal improvement strategy. So Oregon sides against the Democratic president, his Secretary of Education, and the grant-readers who will determine the distribution of significant federal dollars. And we offer them a good old-fashioned 'nagging' in hopes that they don't real the grant too closely.
Poor, poor Oregon. We tolerate the absurdity of No Child Left Behind because of the availability of grant money...a case of bad practice tolerated in the name of fiscal necessity. And now we are essentially turning down federal dollars because we don't want to see real innovation take hold in the form of charter schools...a case of promising practice avoided in spite of urgently needed financial incentives.
Nobody can say that Oregon doesn't act on principle...but the principle seems to be that what's good for reelection is good for the kids. And reelection means avoiding real reform while talking incessantly about oh-so-incremental school improvement: the song that never ends.
Superintendent Castillo has announced that she is running for a third term. The word on the street is that nobody will bother running against her. But she's not taking anything for granted, and her campaign is clearly underway.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Charter Schools, Politics and Market Forces
In some people's minds there is a 'charter school movement' that is at odds with school districts and is driven by economic theories about competition and 'market forces'. I don't put much stock in competition as a tool for improving schools. It might be useful in some instances, but I don't personally know of any cases in which competition has been a catalyst for much improvement. And I don't have much use for 'movements'. They are not, as we have seen, of much use in education.
This is why the conversation about approving or denying a particular charter application ought to have exactly one dimension: Is there a reason to think that the charter school in question will improve student achievement? If a charter school increases students' access to a better education, then it should be approved. Whatever distractions might be brought introduced to the conversation, whether they be matters of convenience, pride, annoyance, greed or embarrassment, all ought to be put aside in favor of academic achievement.
We are not acting out parts in a Clancy novel, and we ought to quit playing at political intrigue when it comes to our children's futures.
It's time for a change. While they are still children.
This is why the conversation about approving or denying a particular charter application ought to have exactly one dimension: Is there a reason to think that the charter school in question will improve student achievement? If a charter school increases students' access to a better education, then it should be approved. Whatever distractions might be brought introduced to the conversation, whether they be matters of convenience, pride, annoyance, greed or embarrassment, all ought to be put aside in favor of academic achievement.
We are not acting out parts in a Clancy novel, and we ought to quit playing at political intrigue when it comes to our children's futures.
It's time for a change. While they are still children.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
If Oregon Uses a Continuous Improvement Model...
then where is the improvement? And please don't answer that it is in the progress of our 3rd graders. Since we started saying that, 12 cohorts of 3rd graders have become fully bearded without having met the 10th grade standards in any significant numbers.
O.K. This isn't about Corbett. At any rate it's not just about Corbett. Or maybe it is, but it's also about education in general and about Oregon education in particular.
Nearly two decades after the passage of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century, education statewide is experiencing a peculiar malaise. I say peculiar, because it is characterized by an almost hyper-activity regarding initiatives, programs, trainings, policies and promises all aimed at improving student achievement. Never have so many adults been so busy at 'improving' schools. But student achievement isn't budging. The achievement gap isn't appreciably narrower than it was five years ago. Where passing rates appear to have improved, most of the change is due to the State of Oregon having lowered 10th grade standards in Reading and Math, garnering what appeared to be a 10 point bump in passing rates in both of those subjects in 2007. That same year, the State increased the cutoff score for Science (the subject that doesn't count for AYP calculations) by 1 point, and passing rates have remained stable. Overall, 10th grade passing rates might be creeping upward at a rate of 1-2% per year. With the State assessments in a continual state of flux, I don't put a lot of stock in even that meager 'gain'.
So what do we, as a state, intend to do differently next year? Well, nothing at all. That doesn't mean that we won't see new initiatives, new grants, new buildings, new funding proposals, and new promises. We will. In droves. And each new idea, regardless of its merits, will be subjected to a process that has, to date, prevented any really good idea from being implemented to any significant effect. What is this amazing 'sterilizer' through which every promising idea must pass lest a good idea might survive intact? It is the ironically-named Continuous Improvement Planning Process. What does it do? It limits vision, sets parameters on 'acceptable' goals, and virtually guarantees a very safe mediocrity.
What is the alternative? What ought we to do?
What Oregon needs, and what the education establishment in Oregon will never tolerate, is outrageous aspirations. We need impossible goals, audacious undertakings. Because getting even partway to something really worthwhile represents far more progress than meeting an utterly pedestrian 'SMART' (yes, it's a real acronym, but I've never cared to know what the letters stand for) goal. What I do know about SMART goals is that they are small, cheap, easy, achievable in no time at all, and the total result of 10 years of Oregon schools meeting annual SMART goals is virtually no improvement at the high school level. We are stalled out, with plans in place to repeat this process until the federal grant money runs out.
I believe that Charter Schools represent the only possibility for rapid, meaningful school improvement. Although Oregon law goes a long way toward trying to tame the wild energy that Charters often possess, there is enough breathing room for charters to aspire to greatness. Greatness, not compliance. Inspiration, not bureaucracy. Achievement, not excuses. That's the path that Oregon needs to take, and I don't see anyone at the state level breaking trail. We need to decentralize. Scattered outbreaks of inspiration would be a vast improvement over standardized mediocrity. And today mediocrity is the only SMART goal that ever makes it through the Continuous Improvement Planning Proccess.
This cannot continue.
O.K. This isn't about Corbett. At any rate it's not just about Corbett. Or maybe it is, but it's also about education in general and about Oregon education in particular.
Nearly two decades after the passage of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century, education statewide is experiencing a peculiar malaise. I say peculiar, because it is characterized by an almost hyper-activity regarding initiatives, programs, trainings, policies and promises all aimed at improving student achievement. Never have so many adults been so busy at 'improving' schools. But student achievement isn't budging. The achievement gap isn't appreciably narrower than it was five years ago. Where passing rates appear to have improved, most of the change is due to the State of Oregon having lowered 10th grade standards in Reading and Math, garnering what appeared to be a 10 point bump in passing rates in both of those subjects in 2007. That same year, the State increased the cutoff score for Science (the subject that doesn't count for AYP calculations) by 1 point, and passing rates have remained stable. Overall, 10th grade passing rates might be creeping upward at a rate of 1-2% per year. With the State assessments in a continual state of flux, I don't put a lot of stock in even that meager 'gain'.
So what do we, as a state, intend to do differently next year? Well, nothing at all. That doesn't mean that we won't see new initiatives, new grants, new buildings, new funding proposals, and new promises. We will. In droves. And each new idea, regardless of its merits, will be subjected to a process that has, to date, prevented any really good idea from being implemented to any significant effect. What is this amazing 'sterilizer' through which every promising idea must pass lest a good idea might survive intact? It is the ironically-named Continuous Improvement Planning Process. What does it do? It limits vision, sets parameters on 'acceptable' goals, and virtually guarantees a very safe mediocrity.
What is the alternative? What ought we to do?
What Oregon needs, and what the education establishment in Oregon will never tolerate, is outrageous aspirations. We need impossible goals, audacious undertakings. Because getting even partway to something really worthwhile represents far more progress than meeting an utterly pedestrian 'SMART' (yes, it's a real acronym, but I've never cared to know what the letters stand for) goal. What I do know about SMART goals is that they are small, cheap, easy, achievable in no time at all, and the total result of 10 years of Oregon schools meeting annual SMART goals is virtually no improvement at the high school level. We are stalled out, with plans in place to repeat this process until the federal grant money runs out.
I believe that Charter Schools represent the only possibility for rapid, meaningful school improvement. Although Oregon law goes a long way toward trying to tame the wild energy that Charters often possess, there is enough breathing room for charters to aspire to greatness. Greatness, not compliance. Inspiration, not bureaucracy. Achievement, not excuses. That's the path that Oregon needs to take, and I don't see anyone at the state level breaking trail. We need to decentralize. Scattered outbreaks of inspiration would be a vast improvement over standardized mediocrity. And today mediocrity is the only SMART goal that ever makes it through the Continuous Improvement Planning Proccess.
This cannot continue.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Talented or Gifted, Part II
The twin practices of grade leveling by age and of teaching to standards create the need for special programs like 'Talented and Gifted' by imposing on each successive age cohort of unsuspecting students the convenient (for the grownups) assumption that all children should learn the same things at the same rate .
The result is the delivery of a chaotic and largely ineffective educational experience to all but the 30% of students who are reasonably close to this imaginary 'average'. The 70% of students who fall hopelessly below or ridiculously above this 'ideal' trajectory experience everything from discouragement to boredom to outrage at the misalignment of their abilities with the curriculum. The majority of students are willing to troop along, stay out of trouble, and enjoy those classes and activities that tend to be geared toward achievement (athletics, music, various clubs and competitions) rather than age or grade level. Those on the more extreme ends of the 'curve' (for lack of a better word) tend to wind up in the hands of special programs where it often feels like more hours are spent planning and debating than instructing.
One important (though largely unconscious) function of special programs is to legitimize the mainstream programming the creates the need for them in the first place. They imply that there must be something amiss with the student and never call the general classroom practices into question. So far it is working like a charm. There are raging debates about how much special education costs, and wars within special education regarding best practice. There is constant litigation regarding the rights of parents and the obligations of schools. And what none of this furious activity ever gets around to is questioning the practices that create 90% of the need for special education in the first place.
The same dynamic is a play with Talented and Gifted education, minus the money and most of the litigation. The would-be Talented and Gifted lobby lacks the emotional appeal and the sheer weight of numbers to prompt much political action, but there is little question that the general curriculum in most schools is as inappropriate to the intellectually capable students as it is the those who are the least able. Feeble, unfunded legislative suggestions (it would be hard to call them mandates) hint that something ought to be done if only anyone had some notion of how to proceed.
What is the primary need of Talented and Gifted students? It is to be unfettered from grade level expectations all day, every day, without the need for meetings, plans, tears and threats. They need to be able to walk through the door and access their own appropriate 'next steps' in their educational journey. How did this become a mystery and why are we always only on the verge of solving it?
There are only two barriers, as I see it, to the vast majority of gifted students accessing a great public school education.
First, the culture of public education is such that all students are 'supposed' to undergo the same age/grade-level curriculum at the same time unless the proper forms and filled out, meetings attended, consensus reached, authorizations issued and documents signed. Gifted children need more than anything else to spend time in a room with someone who is versatile, able to create on the run, think on his or her feet, innovate, make rapid and sound judgments. Instead Suzie gets a clumsy committee process that has nothing educational to offer except to those students seeking the patience of Job. The end result of the process varies from place to place and from parent to parent. It almost never leads to higher achievement but tends to focus on 'enriching experiences'...experiences that would be enriching for almost all children and have little to do with the particular needs of Talented and Gifted children.
The second barrier, which sometimes supports the first in a destructive way, is the discomfort that some teachers experience in the presence of an extremely intelligent student. This results in limits to what a gifted student is able to achieve within the structure of the school environment. The result is that a gifted student is hampered by the need to find a mentor, an outside expert, to provide guidance outside the school setting.
It is my experience that multiage classrooms and multiage teachers easily overcome both of these barriers. And because they dismiss the grade level myth out of hand, they are inclined to support whatever sorts of learning beyond the standard curriculum are appropriate to each child. Multiage practice is extremely demanding, and teachers who embrace this practice are risk takers. They are thinkers...planners...schemers...often dreamers. They delight in work that takes an unexpected turn and that exceeds all reasonable expectations.
I believe that the Corbett School and Corbett Charter School are intellectual playgrounds for gifted teachers and students. This is equally true at all grades, and it takes a unique twist at the high school level. Corbett students can complete a year or more of their college education without ever leaving the high school campus and without sacrificing the companionship of their classmates. And their classes are taught entirely be those teachers that they already know and who know them.
One quarter of the high school students in Corbett School District are taking AP Calculus this year. This number includes about a half dozen 9th graders. None of these students were placed Advanced Placement classes as the result of being "Identified" as Talented and Gifted (it occurs to me that you don't have to be 'identified' if people already know you!) or attending committee meetings. It was just their next step. In the case of the 9th graders, they took Algebra I in elementary school, Algebra II with a middle school teacher in 7th grade, precalculus with the high schoolers in 8th grade, and just kept moving along with no particular fanfare. It's just school. Corbett students progress in reading and writing according to the same logic and students have done advanced work in English, Science and History as early as 9th grade when it seemed like a good fit.
40% of Corbett's graduating class of 2009 earned AP Scholar designation (they passed three or more AP exams) prior to graduation. In most Talented and Gifted programs, earning AP Scholar recognition would be a reasonable goal for the participants. But obviously 40% of the class wasn't identified as TAG! So with all of this going on, how can you tell the Talented and Gifted students from the rest? My own strategy is to look more closely at results. 40% of the class passed three or more exams with a score of 3 or higher.
The top 10% of the class (more than would typically be identified as talented and gifted) passed an average of 10 exams each, placing them in the top fraction of 1% of the Advanced Placement program participants. I don't know if that Talented and Gifted, but it will do.
Giftedness often doesn't feel to parents like a 'gift' at all. It is tempting for students to wish (and I've hear more than one do so out loud) to just be 'normal'. Schooling can't alleviate all of the hassles that can come with possessing exceptional ability while attending schools that are preoccupied with 'meeting standards'. But schools can be organized so that the most able students benefit from, rather than having constantly to fight against, the status quo.
Highly able students walk away from Corbett Schools with evidence of exceptional achievement and with the support of an expert adult community. They leave having gained admission to selective colleges and universities and with thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars worth of earned credits. They receive significant financial aid in support of their undergraduate pursuits. And they leave with an extraordinary K-12 education.
Giftedness should be experienced as a gift and not as a struggle against institutional rigidity. Although there will always be challenges that come with seeing the world through the eyes of an exceptional intellect, schools themselves should be safe harbors and not sources of additional frustration.
The result is the delivery of a chaotic and largely ineffective educational experience to all but the 30% of students who are reasonably close to this imaginary 'average'. The 70% of students who fall hopelessly below or ridiculously above this 'ideal' trajectory experience everything from discouragement to boredom to outrage at the misalignment of their abilities with the curriculum. The majority of students are willing to troop along, stay out of trouble, and enjoy those classes and activities that tend to be geared toward achievement (athletics, music, various clubs and competitions) rather than age or grade level. Those on the more extreme ends of the 'curve' (for lack of a better word) tend to wind up in the hands of special programs where it often feels like more hours are spent planning and debating than instructing.
One important (though largely unconscious) function of special programs is to legitimize the mainstream programming the creates the need for them in the first place. They imply that there must be something amiss with the student and never call the general classroom practices into question. So far it is working like a charm. There are raging debates about how much special education costs, and wars within special education regarding best practice. There is constant litigation regarding the rights of parents and the obligations of schools. And what none of this furious activity ever gets around to is questioning the practices that create 90% of the need for special education in the first place.
The same dynamic is a play with Talented and Gifted education, minus the money and most of the litigation. The would-be Talented and Gifted lobby lacks the emotional appeal and the sheer weight of numbers to prompt much political action, but there is little question that the general curriculum in most schools is as inappropriate to the intellectually capable students as it is the those who are the least able. Feeble, unfunded legislative suggestions (it would be hard to call them mandates) hint that something ought to be done if only anyone had some notion of how to proceed.
What is the primary need of Talented and Gifted students? It is to be unfettered from grade level expectations all day, every day, without the need for meetings, plans, tears and threats. They need to be able to walk through the door and access their own appropriate 'next steps' in their educational journey. How did this become a mystery and why are we always only on the verge of solving it?
There are only two barriers, as I see it, to the vast majority of gifted students accessing a great public school education.
First, the culture of public education is such that all students are 'supposed' to undergo the same age/grade-level curriculum at the same time unless the proper forms and filled out, meetings attended, consensus reached, authorizations issued and documents signed. Gifted children need more than anything else to spend time in a room with someone who is versatile, able to create on the run, think on his or her feet, innovate, make rapid and sound judgments. Instead Suzie gets a clumsy committee process that has nothing educational to offer except to those students seeking the patience of Job. The end result of the process varies from place to place and from parent to parent. It almost never leads to higher achievement but tends to focus on 'enriching experiences'...experiences that would be enriching for almost all children and have little to do with the particular needs of Talented and Gifted children.
The second barrier, which sometimes supports the first in a destructive way, is the discomfort that some teachers experience in the presence of an extremely intelligent student. This results in limits to what a gifted student is able to achieve within the structure of the school environment. The result is that a gifted student is hampered by the need to find a mentor, an outside expert, to provide guidance outside the school setting.
It is my experience that multiage classrooms and multiage teachers easily overcome both of these barriers. And because they dismiss the grade level myth out of hand, they are inclined to support whatever sorts of learning beyond the standard curriculum are appropriate to each child. Multiage practice is extremely demanding, and teachers who embrace this practice are risk takers. They are thinkers...planners...schemers...often dreamers. They delight in work that takes an unexpected turn and that exceeds all reasonable expectations.
I believe that the Corbett School and Corbett Charter School are intellectual playgrounds for gifted teachers and students. This is equally true at all grades, and it takes a unique twist at the high school level. Corbett students can complete a year or more of their college education without ever leaving the high school campus and without sacrificing the companionship of their classmates. And their classes are taught entirely be those teachers that they already know and who know them.
One quarter of the high school students in Corbett School District are taking AP Calculus this year. This number includes about a half dozen 9th graders. None of these students were placed Advanced Placement classes as the result of being "Identified" as Talented and Gifted (it occurs to me that you don't have to be 'identified' if people already know you!) or attending committee meetings. It was just their next step. In the case of the 9th graders, they took Algebra I in elementary school, Algebra II with a middle school teacher in 7th grade, precalculus with the high schoolers in 8th grade, and just kept moving along with no particular fanfare. It's just school. Corbett students progress in reading and writing according to the same logic and students have done advanced work in English, Science and History as early as 9th grade when it seemed like a good fit.
40% of Corbett's graduating class of 2009 earned AP Scholar designation (they passed three or more AP exams) prior to graduation. In most Talented and Gifted programs, earning AP Scholar recognition would be a reasonable goal for the participants. But obviously 40% of the class wasn't identified as TAG! So with all of this going on, how can you tell the Talented and Gifted students from the rest? My own strategy is to look more closely at results. 40% of the class passed three or more exams with a score of 3 or higher.
The top 10% of the class (more than would typically be identified as talented and gifted) passed an average of 10 exams each, placing them in the top fraction of 1% of the Advanced Placement program participants. I don't know if that Talented and Gifted, but it will do.
Giftedness often doesn't feel to parents like a 'gift' at all. It is tempting for students to wish (and I've hear more than one do so out loud) to just be 'normal'. Schooling can't alleviate all of the hassles that can come with possessing exceptional ability while attending schools that are preoccupied with 'meeting standards'. But schools can be organized so that the most able students benefit from, rather than having constantly to fight against, the status quo.
Highly able students walk away from Corbett Schools with evidence of exceptional achievement and with the support of an expert adult community. They leave having gained admission to selective colleges and universities and with thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars worth of earned credits. They receive significant financial aid in support of their undergraduate pursuits. And they leave with an extraordinary K-12 education.
Giftedness should be experienced as a gift and not as a struggle against institutional rigidity. Although there will always be challenges that come with seeing the world through the eyes of an exceptional intellect, schools themselves should be safe harbors and not sources of additional frustration.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Talented and Gifted, Part I
The most significant obstacle to the education of Talented or Gifted children is not the lack of Talented and Gifted teachers, coordinators or programs. Those things, where they exist at all, are makeshift patches to a leaky boat. Those who care about the education of our brightest students had better attend to the boat itself and stop wasting time and energy advocating for ever more elaborate patches. There's no funding for patches, and they don't get at the root of the problem.
So what about this boat? How did it get so leaky? What can be done? Long story.
Some kids are taller than others. Some have better vision. Some weigh more than others. Some have more musical talent. Some are more mechanically inclined. Some kids are smarter than others. None of these qualities is a virtue in itself. They are just the circumstances into which various children are born.
Schools do a pretty good job of accommodating differences among children's heights, weights, visual acuity, and to a lesser degree, musical and mechanical aptitudes. But then none of these qualities is central to our mandate. The attribute that bears the most directly on the mission of schooling is intelligence, and that is where we really drop the ball. This isn't entirely the fault of schools, as our school inevitably reflect the long-standing ambivalence of our national culture toward intelligence, but we could do better.
So what's the explanation for our inability to deal with intellectual diversity? Institutionally, it's our practice of grade leveling by age, a process in which children whose birthdays are spread across a 364-day range are pronounced to be in the same 'grade' and we are told to hold them all (which winds up meaning 'hold them down' in some cases!) to the same standard. Is there any reason to believe that there is a single standard that has any relevance to children whose ages vary by 15 to 20 percent? Is there any reason to imagine that even if they were all born on the same day they should be identically prepared to pass a given test on a given day? Of course not. This practice has no basis in reason or in a knowledge of children. It is just what's cheapest and easiest for the grownups. At least it started out that way.
It seemed so simple. Put the annual crop of children in a single grade and in straight rows. Deliver the lessons. Administer the exams. Administer discipline as needed. Repeat for 12 years (kindergarten is a fairly recent invention). Issue diplomas to the 20% who made it through. Well, up until recent times. Now we are up to 60%.
The faults (and the hidden expenses) in this approach were largely invisible until the mid-20th century when, for the first time in history, over 50% of teenagers were attending high school. It's true. Even with today's headlines about dropout rates (which are horrendous) there is a larger percentage of teenagers graduating from high school today than even enrolled in high school prior to World War II. (I hope you weren't longing for those good old days in which everyone graduated from high school! Never happened.)
So what about these percentages? How do they play out today? It is likely that 90% of school aged children enter a public school at age five or six. (Kindergarten is not mandatory in Oregon, by the way). Nearly all of those students are placed in a grade-leveled classroom where they do identical work for the next several years. Along the way, about 13% of them (over 20% in some districts) are identified as having one or another sort of learning disability and are enrolled in Special Education. Another 4 or 5 percent (again, over 20% in some districts) are identified as Talented or Gifted. According to the law, students in Special Education and in Talented and Gifted programs are entitled to something more than is offered to the average student in the average classroom. Statewide, nearly one student in five is officially acknowledged as requiring something that cannot be provided in the grade leveled classroom! How cheap and efficient are these grade-leveled classrooms looking now?
But maybe you are a 'glass half full' sort of person. Isn't the ability to meet the needs of 80% of our students a pretty good argument for keeping the grade-leveled classrooms? Here's where the numbers get really bad. Nearly half of those students whose needs are supposedly being met in the 'regular' classroom are failing to graduate from high school!
The most generous interpretation that one could put to the numbers is that roughly 50% of students who enter the grade level classroom and who do not receive services through Special Education or TAG go on to graduate from high school. That's some kind of efficiency!
So what about this boat? How did it get so leaky? What can be done? Long story.
Some kids are taller than others. Some have better vision. Some weigh more than others. Some have more musical talent. Some are more mechanically inclined. Some kids are smarter than others. None of these qualities is a virtue in itself. They are just the circumstances into which various children are born.
Schools do a pretty good job of accommodating differences among children's heights, weights, visual acuity, and to a lesser degree, musical and mechanical aptitudes. But then none of these qualities is central to our mandate. The attribute that bears the most directly on the mission of schooling is intelligence, and that is where we really drop the ball. This isn't entirely the fault of schools, as our school inevitably reflect the long-standing ambivalence of our national culture toward intelligence, but we could do better.
So what's the explanation for our inability to deal with intellectual diversity? Institutionally, it's our practice of grade leveling by age, a process in which children whose birthdays are spread across a 364-day range are pronounced to be in the same 'grade' and we are told to hold them all (which winds up meaning 'hold them down' in some cases!) to the same standard. Is there any reason to believe that there is a single standard that has any relevance to children whose ages vary by 15 to 20 percent? Is there any reason to imagine that even if they were all born on the same day they should be identically prepared to pass a given test on a given day? Of course not. This practice has no basis in reason or in a knowledge of children. It is just what's cheapest and easiest for the grownups. At least it started out that way.
It seemed so simple. Put the annual crop of children in a single grade and in straight rows. Deliver the lessons. Administer the exams. Administer discipline as needed. Repeat for 12 years (kindergarten is a fairly recent invention). Issue diplomas to the 20% who made it through. Well, up until recent times. Now we are up to 60%.
The faults (and the hidden expenses) in this approach were largely invisible until the mid-20th century when, for the first time in history, over 50% of teenagers were attending high school. It's true. Even with today's headlines about dropout rates (which are horrendous) there is a larger percentage of teenagers graduating from high school today than even enrolled in high school prior to World War II. (I hope you weren't longing for those good old days in which everyone graduated from high school! Never happened.)
So what about these percentages? How do they play out today? It is likely that 90% of school aged children enter a public school at age five or six. (Kindergarten is not mandatory in Oregon, by the way). Nearly all of those students are placed in a grade-leveled classroom where they do identical work for the next several years. Along the way, about 13% of them (over 20% in some districts) are identified as having one or another sort of learning disability and are enrolled in Special Education. Another 4 or 5 percent (again, over 20% in some districts) are identified as Talented or Gifted. According to the law, students in Special Education and in Talented and Gifted programs are entitled to something more than is offered to the average student in the average classroom. Statewide, nearly one student in five is officially acknowledged as requiring something that cannot be provided in the grade leveled classroom! How cheap and efficient are these grade-leveled classrooms looking now?
But maybe you are a 'glass half full' sort of person. Isn't the ability to meet the needs of 80% of our students a pretty good argument for keeping the grade-leveled classrooms? Here's where the numbers get really bad. Nearly half of those students whose needs are supposedly being met in the 'regular' classroom are failing to graduate from high school!
The most generous interpretation that one could put to the numbers is that roughly 50% of students who enter the grade level classroom and who do not receive services through Special Education or TAG go on to graduate from high school. That's some kind of efficiency!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
K-12 Education: A Failed Public Option?
I went to a meeting downtown last night. I was invited to speak at a public forum. The group calls itself U-Choose and it convenes to discuss matters of public policy. Meeting to discuss, and not even for a grade? I already liked them before we got started. Last night's topic was education...more precisely (according to the pre-meeting publicity) how 'K-12 Education' was a 'Failed Public Option'. I was grateful to see friendly Corbett faces in the audience, because I wasn't entirely sure how the presentation would be received.
Although I was warned that it was politically unwise (and evidently bad for my career) to attend, I am not much of a politician and any group that wants to sit down and talk about education without rancor can always have as much of my time as they can tolerate.
As evidence that I am not much of a politician, I opened my segment with a challenge to the premise of the conveners (two lovely people, by the way, who went out of their way to make me feel welcome). I pointed out that just as it is unfair to declare every economic downturn a 'failure of capitalism', it is absurd to declare the ineffectiveness of some schools a 'failure of public education'. There are good schools and bad schools, public and private, and it is not the funding mechanism that determines the quality of a school. Schools should be judged, I suggested, by their results and not by the means through which they are funded. I knew that it might be bad manners to poke a stick at the banner under which we all had gathered, but I could see that my argument struck a chord with the audience and I was encouraged at not being booed off the stage after the opening statement.
I spent the next 15 or 20 minutes sharing some of the values and beliefs that make Corbett Schools unique, and the presentation was very warmly received. As soon as the conversation was steered away from politics and toward kids and teachers and schools, it was apparent that we were among caring people who want the best for their kids and are less than fully certain how to go about getting it. A number of people wanted to visit after the meeting, and the tone wasn't unlike a number of charter meetings that we have conducted.
The big question in the room regarding public schools? "Since public schools can work, what can be done to make more of them successful?" My answer? "Public schools are not especially conducive to rapid and effective change. I believe that the Charter School movement represents the best hope for replicating quality schooling in the public domain." Based on twenty years in public education, hundreds of hours of training in how to change schools, and thousands of hours logged in fruitless meetings, I believe it to be the true. It's tempting to say that I would love to be proved wrong, but I have to think that if I am wrong the proof should have emerged at least a decade ago.
Along with other members of the Corbett staff, I have spoken to a number of groups around Oregon and at national conventions regarding the challenges and successes Corbett Schools. There was one respect in which this audience was absolutely unique. Because not many of the audience members were professional educators, there was no attempt to discount Corbett's success as being merely the result of student demographics. Most of the people who spoke were openly admiring and appreciative of what we have accomplished. Rooms filled with educators rarely exhibit that kind of reaction. For whatever reason, they immediately begin firing questions regarding SES, minority populations, ESL, Special Education...anything to overcome their concern that maybe we are on to something. There was no subterfuge in this room. Just a kind of genial curiosity that there was a small public school getting the job done. The consensus? "Good for you. Thanks for your work."
It was a good night. If we were successful, maybe there are a few engaged citizens in Multnomah County who had questions and who have been reminded of the potential of public schools. Maybe they will encourage others that we ought not throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to our obligations toward the next generation.
Many thanks to Debra Mervyn and Suzanne Gallagher for their wonderful hospitality.
Although I was warned that it was politically unwise (and evidently bad for my career) to attend, I am not much of a politician and any group that wants to sit down and talk about education without rancor can always have as much of my time as they can tolerate.
As evidence that I am not much of a politician, I opened my segment with a challenge to the premise of the conveners (two lovely people, by the way, who went out of their way to make me feel welcome). I pointed out that just as it is unfair to declare every economic downturn a 'failure of capitalism', it is absurd to declare the ineffectiveness of some schools a 'failure of public education'. There are good schools and bad schools, public and private, and it is not the funding mechanism that determines the quality of a school. Schools should be judged, I suggested, by their results and not by the means through which they are funded. I knew that it might be bad manners to poke a stick at the banner under which we all had gathered, but I could see that my argument struck a chord with the audience and I was encouraged at not being booed off the stage after the opening statement.
I spent the next 15 or 20 minutes sharing some of the values and beliefs that make Corbett Schools unique, and the presentation was very warmly received. As soon as the conversation was steered away from politics and toward kids and teachers and schools, it was apparent that we were among caring people who want the best for their kids and are less than fully certain how to go about getting it. A number of people wanted to visit after the meeting, and the tone wasn't unlike a number of charter meetings that we have conducted.
The big question in the room regarding public schools? "Since public schools can work, what can be done to make more of them successful?" My answer? "Public schools are not especially conducive to rapid and effective change. I believe that the Charter School movement represents the best hope for replicating quality schooling in the public domain." Based on twenty years in public education, hundreds of hours of training in how to change schools, and thousands of hours logged in fruitless meetings, I believe it to be the true. It's tempting to say that I would love to be proved wrong, but I have to think that if I am wrong the proof should have emerged at least a decade ago.
Along with other members of the Corbett staff, I have spoken to a number of groups around Oregon and at national conventions regarding the challenges and successes Corbett Schools. There was one respect in which this audience was absolutely unique. Because not many of the audience members were professional educators, there was no attempt to discount Corbett's success as being merely the result of student demographics. Most of the people who spoke were openly admiring and appreciative of what we have accomplished. Rooms filled with educators rarely exhibit that kind of reaction. For whatever reason, they immediately begin firing questions regarding SES, minority populations, ESL, Special Education...anything to overcome their concern that maybe we are on to something. There was no subterfuge in this room. Just a kind of genial curiosity that there was a small public school getting the job done. The consensus? "Good for you. Thanks for your work."
It was a good night. If we were successful, maybe there are a few engaged citizens in Multnomah County who had questions and who have been reminded of the potential of public schools. Maybe they will encourage others that we ought not throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to our obligations toward the next generation.
Many thanks to Debra Mervyn and Suzanne Gallagher for their wonderful hospitality.
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