Category — General

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education – Mark Twain.

Our new, wired world has brought forth many positives. One of the simplest, yet powerful, of the new tools available is the ability to bookmark worthy Internet materials for future use.

Even more powerful is the ability to share those materials indirectly through the use of sites like Delicious. We subscribe so as to have the most popular education bookmarks forwarded to us on a daily basis.

Over the last few days, two noteworthy pieces have proven most popular. The first is a copy of a speech given by a teenager at her graduation. The class valedictorian’s address essentially articulated that famous quote from one of America’s most celebrated writers, Mark Twain.

The second piece drawing extensive attention involved a visual representation of what it means to study for a Ph.D. While far less incendiary, it nonetheless gave this reader some very negative vibes.

But the two in total offer a very important lesson for those who work with young people.

The Speech

The valedictory address from Erica Goldson begins with this simple little story:

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years ” The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.”

“But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student.

“Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”

Offering rare insight for one so young, Goldson acknowledges that book learning is not the same as wisdom. The valedictorian notes that her position at the top of the class is not as meaningful as most would have it.

“…in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. … I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it.”

Of course, what makes the speech so impressive is how unassuming this young thinker is. Yes it is a scathing rebuke, but it is clear that this young lady is someone of merit, even if she wants to toss her class ranking on the scrap heap. She clearly did more than learn how to regurgitate facts, developing some incredible thinking skills along the way.

In mid-stream, she further displays wisdom beyond her years as she turns to those who helped shape her education over the last few years:

”For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.”

And most notably, she in turn gives thanks to her classmates for the role they played in who she has become to date:

“So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.”

Everyone involved in the field of education should read and contemplate the content put forward in this magnificent speech.

The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.

Biased to a fault, I think educators are a special breed of people. One of the strengths the best teachers display is the ability to break down sophisticated ideas into easy to assemble chunks.

Such is the case with the second piece earning so much attention, Matt Might’s post. In it the assistant professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah shares with readers a presentation he uses each fall to explain to first-year Ph.D. students just what a Ph.D. is.

Given the challenges of articulating such a concept in words, Might uses a great set of visuals to express the concept concretely. The visuals represent another element that great teachers consistently employ, the concept of modeling.

The model in fact may do the job too well. By the time his concentric circles and protruding radii reach the outer point where the Ph.D. appears, the bump that forms represents yet another analogy we have heard all too often (something about the pimple on the behind of…).

Indeed, while the presentation completely expresses what it means to earn a Ph.D., it does not conjure up positive educational thoughts for this writer. Instead, it reeks of what the young lady so artfully railed against, book-learning versus what we might call wisdom.

Even the bachelor’s degree imagery is less than flattering to this reader. My guess is it would reinforce the notion of those who see a college degree as a waste of time for so many students.

And the final image? Well it articulates that pimple analogy far too well.

The Educational Challenge

In a nutshell, these two pieces represent the challenge teachers and professors face as they seek to motivate the next generation. There is little doubt that pure knowledge is not necessarily a bad thing – not for individuals and certainly not for society as a whole.

But the world will move forward only when knowledge is combined with that element we have come to call wisdom. As educators, our task is to understand this critical difference, to be certain that we instill in our charges an understanding that there is a difference between these two concepts.

Perhaps our system does promote one without the other – after all we do seem to place so much emphasis on the accomplishment (high school graduation, earning a Ph.D., or becoming class valedictorian) that we have little opportunity to recognize the process. But that is where individuals can and should make a difference.

The question is – what do you place the greatest emphasis on with the students in your classroom?

Readers of our blog no doubt understand our fundamental mission statement featuring that very simple phrase:

Free education for all.

And that we license our work under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Given our fundamental commitment to providing cost-free educational resources, we featured a three part series on the need for a free, unregulated Commons, a series that featured Ahrash Bissell of the Creative Commons and highlighted some of the amazing projects underway based on the Creative Commons concept.

Our support for the movement today leads us to help the folks at CC with their new effort, the Catalyst Campaign, a program designed to raise seed funding for projects around the world devoted to increasing access and openness.

Launched June 1st and continuing for the entire month of June, the Catalyst Grants program is designed to help individuals as well as organizations harness the power of Creative Commons. Grants could theoretically support a study of entrepreneurs using Creative Commons licenses to create a new class of socially responsible businesses or enable a group in a developing country to research how Open Educational Resources can positively impact its community.

Jane Park, Communications Coordinator at Creative Commons, explains the Catalyst Grants will “empower individuals and communities that are deeply rooted in the principles of openness and sharing” while spurring the capacity for “CC adoption in much needed areas” including education.

“With the Catalyst Grants program, Creative Commons will seed activities around the globe that support our mission,” explains Park. “Our goal is to scale our community’s efforts and support them in becoming self-sustainable—hence, the grant sizes are around $1,000-$10,000 to catalyze communities into action.

“We are expecting at least a good number of CC jurisdictions to apply (currently, we have over 70 jurisdictions), and perhaps a few non-jurisdiction or jointly developed project proposals.”

According to Park, many of these jurisdictions could use the grant to jumpstart projects in open education, open web, open science, etc. The key is to help provide funding for those jurisdictions that are lagging behind other, more well-funded peers.

“We want to do all we can to help them become sustainable so that they can continue to do the great work they’re doing,” adds Park, “or start on innovative open projects that could transform the web.

The goal, to raise $100,000 from CC supporters, is off to a great start. The Milan Chamber of Commerce got the program off and running with a generous donation of EUR 10,000.

But the program could well rely on the basic generosity of thousands of small donors. With that in mind, donors offering pledging as little as $75 or more will be entitled to a limited edition “I Love to Share” t-shirts.

For more on how readers and fellow bloggers can ignite openness and innovation around the world, visit the CC Grants page.

Maine GOP sets an example, albeit a poor one, for middle school students.

In the realm of you can’t make this stuff up, students in the King Middle School “Four Freedoms” learning expedition recently received a concrete lesson in free speech courtesy of the GOP. The school served as a private meeting space for members of the Republican Party while the large-scale convention was held May 7th at the Portland Expo.

It seems when Paul Clifford, an eighth-grade social studies teacher, returned to his classroom the Monday after the convention he found that a poster celebrating the labor movement had been removed from his wall and replaced with a Republican sticker. According to news sources, the poster offered this quote from union leader Eugine Debs: “Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.”

Upon returning to school that morning, Clifford found his labor movement poster had disappeared, replaced by a large sticker with the following inscription: ‘Workers Vote Republican.’ In addition, the teacher found a note on his desk that offered these words: ‘A Republican was here. What gives you the right to propagandize impressionable kids?’

Response to Student Collages?

Clifford told reporters that the note appeared to be a reaction to several student-made collages that were displayed in the classroom. However, it seems that the group had not only left their mark on his classroom, they also had called school officials to complain about student collages posted about the room as well as copies of the U.S. Constitution they found in his classroom.

Since our constitution theoretically represents the fundamental guiding document for all government operations, one has to wonder how convention goers could find fault with such documents being present in an eighth grade social studies classroom. But then, the documents had been donated by the American Civil Liberties Union, and apparently to make matters worse in the eyes of the Republicans using the classroom, they also featured a “know your rights” section.

But while the poster and collages were in plain site, the copies of the constitution were actually stored in a closed box on the floor. When discussing the behavior of the Republicans, Clifford pulled no punches with Randy Billings at The Forecaster.

“We allowed someone to use our building,” Clifford offered noting that other teachers also reported problems with litter and stray fliers. “They came in and searched our stuff. Stole a poster. Left our building trashed. And then called us to complain about what they found when they searched our house.”

Punishments Forthcoming?

The Portland School Department has indicated that it would not seek criminal charges against the group of Republicans though going through and removing school materials clearly crosses a behavioral line that educators would not tolerate. And though Superintendent James Morse indicated the actions of the delegates set a bad example for students, he was not interested in pursuing the issue further.

“For me to file a criminal complaint against them to me seems like I would be sucked into the political game and it’s not a game I want to play,” Morse told Billings. “I think it (would be) a waste of precious taxpayer’s money to push an issue because a group of grown-ups behaved badly.”

School Committee member Sarah Thompson was a little stronger in her outrage, indicating any damage done to facilities (we would assume that would include clean up costs) should be the responsibility of those who used the school.

“I think there should be repercussions,” she said. She further noted that if the weekend incident involved students, they would likely have been punished.

Giving some hope, Christie-Lee McNally, the executive director of the Maine Republican Party, issued an apology on the party website. “The Maine Republican Party does not condone the destruction of property,” she stated nor does it encourage the lack of tolerance that these people demonstrated.”

But while the head of the party seemed chagrined, it seems some Republicans did not agree that an apology was necessary. Aroostook County Republican Jim Cyr noted that his group met in a different classroom in the school. There they found disturbing material including a bumper sticker on a classroom wall that said: “Do something nice for the environment. Uproot a Bush in 2004.”

Cyr went on to blame the media coverage for failing to provide a balanced assessment of the issues. Instead of concentrating on the removal of the poster, Cyr thought the media should focus on the larger story that children are “being used as pawns in an indoctrination war.”

A Teachable Moment

In response, Portland High School senior Simon Thompson, a student representative on the School Committee a year ago, penned a letter to the Maine GOP.

“I am not brainwashed, I am not a puppet, I am not anti-American or anti-religious,” notes the King graduate. “Paul Clifford’s class taught me to think critically, to deductively reason and, if anything, to appreciate America for all the freedoms with which I am ensured on a daily basis.”

Meanwhile, as all good teachers would, Clifford’s ultimate response was to use the incident as a teachable moment for students. He informed students that when some people believe in their own ideas so strongly they sometimes forget others have a right to their own point of view.

“This is not an opportunity to trash somebody,” he summarized. “We know this is not something that would be condoned by the Republican Party. This type of stuff happens on both sides of the party line.”

Amidst the political rancor engulfing our country, Clifford’s balance is most welcome. He even publicly noted his initial bemusement with the ‘Workers Vote Republican’ bumper sticker.

As one looks at the incident independently, it seems that the teacher asked to educate the next generation of voters is doing just what is expected of him: teaching students the importance of intelligent discontent. Too bad convention attendees have not had access to such lessons.

It wasn’t that long ago I began my high school teaching career. Fairly early on, I worked with one teacher who epitomized the mindset of many secondary school colleagues.

“My job is to present the material in an interesting and meaningful way,” he would say. “It is the student’s job to learn that material.”

Implicit in his statement was the idea that it was the student’s role to adjust to the various styles employed by different teachers. Whether the teacher featured a lecture format or a hands-on approach was immaterial – the assumption was that students were the ones who needed to be flexible, especially if they were thinking that college was to be part of their future.

In addition, any failure on the student’s part to master the material was not the responsibility of the teacher. If students were unable to learn the required subject matter, the consensus would be that the student simply had not worked hard enough.

At that time (and still the dominant theme in many classrooms today), students moved along as a group, each doing the same set of assignments, each expected to master the exact same set of learning objectives by a date set forth in the syllabus. Adjusting any parameter for the group was deemed as watering down expectations while differentiating for a specific learner was perceived as showing favoritism.

New Viewpoint – Personalizing Learning

Clearly, that mindset has changed. With learning styles now a part of the educational landscape today’s teacher is expected to adjust to the varied preferences of students so as to maximize the learning potential of each individual in the classroom.

Such an approach has been characterized by the global term: personalizing the learning experience. The concept is considered as critical to the next generation of teachers as it is for the next generation of students.

Personalizing learning involves differentiating the curricula, including expectations and timelines, and utilizing various instructional approaches so as to best meet the needs of each individual. Essentially, students should be able to do varying assignments and have the freedom to work at a pace that is conducive to their abilities and skill set.

Not too surprisingly, individual elements of a personalized learning environment are well known to current educators. The challenge is not so much what those elements consist of but how to piece the elements together to form a cohesive strategy.

Most importantly, personalizing learning for the current generation of learners demands specific technologies. Educators need to understand that children are growing up in a media-rich environment.

Schools must deliver a product that engages students and generates within them the desire to learn. Today’s curricula must involve liberal uses of technology whenever it is relevant to the task at hand.

But technology also plays a more important role in the personalization process. Ultimately it is the conduit for teachers to move to a learning approach that features materials developed for each individual student.

Learning Platforms

One of the critical elements to a cohesive strategy involves the concept of a learning platform, a phrase featured prominently in Europe. It is a strong descriptor or label, one that befits the concept of personalizing or individualizing the learning environment for every student.

Such a learning platform involves a number of fundamental principles. First teachers must have a clear understanding of the learning needs of each student. Those needs must be documented from year to year and access to such information must be readily available.

In addition to understanding each student’s individual needs, teachers must monitor and assess student progress intently if they are to help each student achieve to his or her full potential. To facilitate this monitoring and assessment process, both the student and the teacher must have access to a wide variety of technological tools.

Learning paths must then be created that match the aptitude and learning styles of every individual. Once that path has been constructed, the teacher must make a commitment to supporting each student’s progress along that path.

Such a step also requires access to a wide variety of technological tools. In Europe, students in each and every school are expected to have access to a safe and secure personal online learning space. In fact, that commitment has been in place since March of 2008.

The European personal online learning space consists of the following elements:

• anytime/anywhere access to the learning resources created and stored by or for the student;
• communication tools (email, messaging, etc.) to enable dialogue between a student’s peers and mentors;
• management tools to monitor and assess progress.

It is important to realize that only with such a space can true personalization be put into action. First, students can work at their own pace at all times and do so in the environment that allows them the greatest level of productivity.

Second, teachers can work more closely with each individual and work towards improving engagement by tailoring the material to each student’s ability and interest. Here again, technology is critical, allowing teachers to organize and store what can be an unwieldy body of work.

Third, technology ensures the maximizing of time and resources. Teachers can coordinate and share resources with other educators at other schools. Perhaps even more importantly for teachers, technology ultimately streamlines administrative tasks significantly.

It’s All About Technology

Personalizing the learning experience has shifted the aforementioned philosophy that still tends to exist within most high schools. While that fundamental shift has some specific parameters, there is clearly no one method for implementation.

One of the first elements is increased communication among educators themselves as well as with their individual students. Teachers must understand that ongoing contact between themselves, their students and the parents of their students, is a must for personalizing the learning experience of every child.

That means increased use of email; teachers must be willing to accept and subsequently respond to emails from students or parents when students arrive home without a clear indication of that day’s assignment. Better yet, it means posting that assignment online for students and parents to access directly.

It also means that teachers must begin posting syllabi, study guides, assignments, and learning tasks in a conspicuous area that is available to other teachers as well. Of course such an area must first be created. But more than any other attribute, personalization requires an end to the days of teachers going inside a classroom and closing their door to the outside world.

In the new arena, educators must figuratively open their doors, adopting a mindset that materials can and should be shared among colleagues as well as educators in other school systems (in addition to parents and students). Teaching has too often been an isolating activity – personalized learning requires that teachers become collaborative.

No one educator could possibly create unique learning materials for every single student, day after day, year after year. Not if the teacher is to handle his or her traditional workload. There simply is not enough time in the day to realistically do so. But if a variety of materials are available in an organized online repository, teachers can begin the process of personalizing the learning experience for each student.

As we noted, in an ideal world, these materials would be web-based so that even parents could access whatever has been posted. Perhaps the greatest shift in mindset for 21st century education involves making materials available to parents and other adults who can then assist the student with any and all tasks.

Building Capacity

An expectation that all teachers are ready for such steps is destined for failure. Therefore, the first step to personalizing the learning environment for each student is to assess one’s current tech capabilities. While such a step should originate with school administration, there is nothing to prevent individual teachers from taking this step themselves.

But school administration must work diligently to build the technological confidence and capabilities of the staff in their respective buildings. In addition, leadership must foster collaboration and hold staff accountable for personalizing the learning environment.

But everywhere one turns, whether it is the instructional approach or the management of the materials to be used, technology is at the heart of the 21st century classroom. And when it comes to the notion of personalizing the learning environment for students, it is today’s technology that makes such an individualized environment possible.

For more on technology and the specific concept of learning platforms, visit BECTA.

A Rhode Island high school recently took one of the more radical steps towards school improvement when it fired 93 staff members. Citing an inability to reach agreement with the teacher’s union on a plan for teachers to spend more time working with students, the school board of the Central Falls School District voted 5-2 to terminate 93 staff members: one principal, three assistant principals, 74 classroom teachers, guidance counselors, reading specialists, physical education teachers and the school psychologist.

The simplistic, sledgehammer approach, often called the turnaround model, set off a firestorm with unions of every form. But while the step seems nothing short of hideous (are we to believe that not one educator in the building was performing up to expectations?), the situation does beg a simple question: What is the school board to do when the union rejects all proposals set forth to increase student performance at a poor performing school?

Central Falls High Data

By all data models, Central Falls High has been struggling. Of course, providing a quality education in a poverty-ridden school district is never easy.

The school is 65 percent Hispanic and for most of them English is not their first language. According to news accounts, half of all students are failing every subject. A total of 55% have been deemed proficient in reading; a mere 7% in math.

Central Falls High also had a reported graduation rate of 48%.
So, in one of the state’s tiniest and poorest cities, federal and state education officials are insisting that dramatic steps are necessary to transform this poor-performing school. But on the other side, the unions see the move as an attack on the very working conditions they have worked so hard to obtain.

Despite the poor performance label, the president of the Central Falls Teachers Union insisted that the teachers were simply being made a scapegoat. Union leadership also cited a 21 percent rise in reading scores and a 3 percent increase in math scores in the last two years as signs of progress

Furthermore, George McLaughlin, the guidance counselor who had been terminated, questioned the accuracy of the calculated graduation rate. Citing a transient population, he insisted that three times as many students are accepted to colleges now than five years ago.

The Firings

In what has to be one of the toughest moments anyone could imagine, on the night of the 5-2 vote to terminate, the board read the names of every staff member being fired. In an effort to help put a face to a name, each teacher attended the meeting and stood as his or her name was read.

Many were dressed in red, one of the school’s colors. Some cried while others lashed out verbally at the board members and School Superintendent Frances Gallo.

Sadly, the situation came from a set of stalled negotiations. Gallo and the teachers initially agreed on what is called the transformation model (no one is terminated) but reportedly the talks broke down when the two sides could not agree.

Gallo wanted a set of six conditions that included teachers spending more time with students in and out of the classroom. That time included a longer school day of seven hours, a one-hour tutorial for students weekly outside school time, teachers having lunch with students, and a 90 minute session with students every week to discuss education. She also sought a commitment from staff to attend training sessions with other teachers after school and during the summer months.

Ultimately, the sticking point was not the time request – the deciding issue instead centered on pay. Gallo offered to pay teachers for some additional duties (not all) and to do so at $30 per hour. Union leaders sought $90 per hour.

When they could not come to agreement on the steps to take, the superintendent decided the best option was the turnaround model.

Opposing Views Rampant

Education Secretary Arne Duncan defended the termination action. “Students only have one chance for an education and when schools continue to struggle we have a collective obligation to take action.”

Indeed, the firings come directly from a step Duncan has taken to require states to identify their lowest 5 percent of schools according to their performance on standardized tests and graduation rates. As for fixes, there are four options: — school closure; takeover by a charter or school-management organization; transformation; and “turnaround.” It is the latter category that the Central Falls High board has taken – the step requires the entire teaching staff be fired and no more than 50 percent rehired.

And B.K. Nordan, one of the two dissenting votes, still blistered the high school’s teaching staff at the end of the meeting.

“I don’t believe this is a worker’s rights issue. I believe it’s a children’s rights issue,” Nordan was quoted. “…By every statistical measure I’ve seen, we are not doing a good enough job for our students … The rhetoric that these are poor students, ESL students, you can imagine the home lives … this is exactly why we need you to step up, regardless of the pay, regardless of the time involved. This city needs it more than anybody. I demand of you that you demand more of yourself and those around you.”

But comedian and social commentator Bill Maher clearly articulated some of the flaws in the strong-arm approach being used.
“It’s just too easy to blame the teachers, what with their cushy teachers’ lounges, their fat-cat salaries, and their absolute authority in deciding who gets a hall pass,” writes Maher. “We all remember high school – canning the entire faculty is a nationwide revenge fantasy. Take that, Mrs. Crabtree!

“But isn’t it convenient that once again it turns out that the problem isn’t us, and the fix is something that doesn’t require us to change our behavior or spend any money. It’s so simple: Fire the bad teachers, hire good ones from some undisclosed location, and hey, while we’re at it let’s cut taxes more.”

Maher went on to add:

“What matters is what parents do. The number one predictor of a child’s academic success is parental involvement. It doesn’t even matter if your kid goes to private or public school.”

An Indication of the Challenges

And therein lies the difficulties with school reform measures. On the one hand, poor performing schools are asked to work with students from families that do not value education. Students from poor families arrive at school having had more limited learning opportunities from day one and no academic reinforcement as their schooling progresses.

By the same token, it is clear that great teachers, and particularly schools with large numbers of quality educators can make a significant difference. As Nordan states, the kids at Central Falls are in desperate need of teachers willing to step up and to do so regardless of the pay and the time involved.

And that, in my estimation is what separates the really good ones in this noble profession. It is what has always separated those that make a difference with their students.

They are willing to step up, to do what needs to be done, irrespective of pay or recognition or the time involved. And though taking a sledgehammer to a high school seems a painful way to reinforce such a point, there is a lesson to be learned.

According to Duncan’s criteria, no more than 50% of those teachers may be rehired. There are no doubt some very talented individuals who will have to swallow some serious pride to find it in their hearts to reapply.

But those that do so will be applying for work in a school that is now setting a standard as to what it wants and expects from teachers. Nordan is right, this is not a union issue, it is a kid’s issue, and school leadership should be able to insist on steps it needs to take to ensure that the kids needs are met.

And that means that maybe some time a sledgehammer just might be necessary.

We wrote a few weeks back about the passing of one of public education’s greatest supporters, Gerald Bracey. One of Bracey’s key attributes was to point out the statistical discrepancies that could occur when data is broken out by various subgroups.

Many times Bracey demonstrated how one had to look behind as well as beyond the numbers, that whole group progress might contrast with individual sub-group performances and vice-versa. In simplest terms, statistical analysis is very challenging and determining valid conclusions more difficult still.

With that in mind, we turn to some recent research that examines sub-group scores on the national and state achievement tests. While proponents of NCLB continue to insist that law has helped close the achievement gap, that is to say, to reduce the difference in scoring on standardized tests between whites and various subgroups, the law has not done so for one of the most important subgroups, the highest achieving students.

Researchers Jonathan A. Plucker, Ph.D., Nathan Burroughs, Ph.D. and Ruiting Song recently released a new report called Mind the (Other) Gap! The Growing Excellence Gap in K-12 Education (pdf). The writers note:

“One of the major objectives of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is to narrow the achievement gap among demographic subgroups of K-12 students. In NCLB’s implementation, the principal focus has been on minimum competency—of bringing a larger proportion of students to a basic level of educational achievement and closing achievement gaps.”

While there has been progress on that specific front, the researchers also noted:

“…. some observers believe the focus on minimum competency has come at a price. Although there has been a general improvement in academic performance, are achievement gaps also shrinking at the highest levels of student achievement?”

The answer, the researchers found, was no. In fact, they emphasize a new phrase called excellence gaps which is used to describe the differences between subgroups of students performing at the highest levels of achievement. The researchers concluded:

“The existence of such gaps raises doubts about the success of federal and state governments in providing greater and more equitable educational opportunities, particularly as the proportion of minority and low-income students continues to rise. The goal of guaranteeing that all children will have the opportunity to reach their academic potential is called into question if educational policies only assist some students while others are left behind. Furthermore, the comparatively small percentage of students scoring at the highest level on achievement tests suggests that children with advanced academic potential are being under-served, with potentially serious consequences for the long-term economic competitiveness of the U.S.”

Key Findings

The researchers concluded that the achievement gaps between students of different genders as well as different racial, economic, and linguistic profiles were extensive for the nation’s top-performing students. This of course is in direct contrast to what is happening for K-12 students as a whole.

Analyzing more than ten years worth of 4th and 8th grade state and national reading and math assessment tests, the researchers cast a spotlight on the data for the highest performing students. When looking at that one subgroup, they found that the achievement gaps between girls and boys, whites and minority students, disadvantaged and affluent students and their better-off peers, and those with English as their first language versus English-language learners either remained the same, or if the gaps were reduced, they declined only by the tiniest of fractions.

Two examples:

In 4th grade math, from 1996 to 2007 , the percentage of white students scoring at the advanced level on NAEP rose from 2.9 percent to 7.6 percent. In contrast, the percentages of black and Hispanic students rose from near zero to just about 1 percent.

For those 4th graders qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches, advanced-level math scorers raised their totals from 3.1 to 8.7 percent. In Grade 8 mathematics, the percentage of students scoring at the advanced level not eligible for the National School Lunch Program increased by 5.7 percentage points: for the students eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch the increase was .8 percentage points.

Citing a number of other such comparisons, the researchers concluded that excellence gaps on most NAEP tests were growing at both Grade 4 and Grade 8.

NCLB Impacts

While NCLB may not be totally to blame for this development (the achievement gap amongst the highest performing students was growing prior to enactment of the legislation), many predicted such results shortly after the law was enacted. The basic premise was that a focus on bringing all children to fundamental standards would lead to the brightest students, already under-served in most schools, to be shortchanged even further.

In addition, the punishment structures associated with NCLB led many states to set some very low proficiency standards. With NCLB focusing on getting all subgroups to pass that respective basic proficiency level, there is no incentive for schools to see to it that the best students climb further up the performance ladder.

And again, in a clear indication that data must be thoroughly scrubbed, there was one area where there seemed to be some positive developments. If one looked at the 90th percentile as a cutoff, there was some statistical progress in closing gaps for this high-performing subset.

Sadly though, in many cases the closing of the gap was due to one of two results: declining or stagnating scores for white students or modest improvements for disadvantaged groups. The incremental closing of the gap led the researchers to create a rate-based formula with the following predictions:

“it would take 38 years for free-lunch-eligible children to match more affluent children in math at grade 4 and 92 years for English-language learners to equal non-ELL students.”

Concern for our Highest Performers

In simplest terms, a state that narrowed gaps at the “proficient” level did not necessarily reduce those gaps at the “advanced” level. The researchers further note that this excellence gap is seldom discussed by any policy experts when school reform measures are reviewed.

For that very reason, one can attack NCLB and attack it hard. One could never contend that the law is ensuring that No Child is Left Behind, not when the achievement gap among the best and brightest is increasing with each passing year.

Has the time come for parents to pull the plug on mobile media?

A recent study completed by the Kaiser Family Foundation brought little in the way of surprises for those who work with children. But just to set the record straight, the foundation found that daily media use among children and teens is up dramatically even when compared to just five years ago.

With mobile devices providing nonstop internet availability, it is easy to see that entertainment media has never been more accessible than it is right now. The results of the Kaiser survey reveals that children, particularly minority youth, are taking advantage of that access.

But for parents and educators, the key question should not be simply how much time is actually spent with media. Instead, the issue should center upon what effect such consumption has on the mental, emotional and academic development of our youngsters.

The Findings
According to the Kaiser Foundation, “8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).” Again not too surprisingly, a good portion of that time is spent using more than one medium at a time.

The Kaiser folks estimate that if we were to add in the time spent “multi-tasking” as separate exposure time, the daily average increases to 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) of media exposure for 7½ hour usage time frame.

Back in 2004, the data indicated that 8-18 year-olds averaged 6 hours and 21 minutes of consumption time and 8 hours and 33 minutes of exposure time (again when multi-tasking was taken in to account). The 1 hour and 17 minute increase in consumption equates to a 20% increase over the five year period and the 2 hours and 12 minutes of exposure time represents a 26% increase over the same time frame.

Most of the increase is due to the availability of mobile devices. According to the Kaiser study, increase in cell phone ownership among 8- to 18-year-olds has gone from 39% to 66% over the five year period. For ownership of iPods and other MP3 players, the increase is even more substantial: from 18% in 2004 to 76% in 2009.

What will not come as a surprise to parents of teens or teachers, the study revealed that young people now spend more time listening to music, playing games, and watching TV on their cell phones than they spend talking on them (49 to 33 minutes daily).

The impact even affects the one time major concern, time spent in front of the television. For the first time, Kaiser found that the amount of time spent watching regularly-scheduled TV actually declined, by 25 minutes a day.

But those mobile devices are, of course, providing new ways to watch television. The result was an overall increase in total TV consumption of 38 minutes a day, from 3 hours and 51 minutes to 4 hours and 29 minutes (2:39 consisting of live TV on a TV set and 1:50 on DVDs, online, or on a mobile device).

For those wondering, the Kaiser study did not count texting as media use. If they had done so, 7th-12th graders would have spent an average of another 1:35 a day consuming media.

And the study focused only on recreational use of media. Any time spent using the computer or using mobile devices for school purposes was not included in the Kaiser media use calculations.

Household Expectations

The amount of time spent on entertainment media is clearly a function of the expectations and the example set by the parents. First, only about three in ten young people reported having rules regarding how much time they can spend watching TV, playing video games, or using the computer. But in those households where rules were set, children spent significantly less time with media: 2 hours and 52 minutes less.

Almost two-thirds of young people indicated that their TV was usually on during meals. Nearly one half (45%) stated that the TV was left on “most of the time” in their home, even if no one was watching.
Perhaps most disappointingly, more than 70% of the children reported having a TV in their own bedroom. A full 50% indicated they had a console video game player in their room as well.

Children in those homes where the TV was on during meals or when no one was watching reported spending 1 hour and 30 minutes more per day on the television. For those with a television in their room, the average reported television consumption increased by an hour.

Ramifications for Parents

Ultimately, the important item for parents is the impact of media consumption that now amounts to 13 hours more than the typical work week for adults.

According to the Kaiser study, the heaviest media users, those who consume more than 16 hours of media a day, reported getting lower grades. About one-half of heavy media users said they usually get fair or poor grades, defined as mostly Cs or lower. Only one-fourth of light users, those who consume less than 3 hours of media a day, reported getting such grades.

While cause and effect is not made clear by such revelations, other experts have noted significant ramifications of a child’s hypermediated environment. Tufts professor and researcher Maryanne Wolf believes that parents need to limit the time their children spend on electronic devices.

The director of the Tufts University Center for Reading and Language Research has spent time researching the impact of digital media on the brain. While technology has some pluses, Wolf expresses strong concerns about the instant gratification that today’s media provides. She also believes that technology is slowly eroding our ability to think deeply.

Of today’s media immersion, Wolf offers:

“A child is learning to be distracted,” she explains. “They aren’t learning in too many places to concentrate and think deeply for themselves. The volume of information, the immediacy of information . . . these are characteristics that can be good, but they can also lead to a less active, [less superficial] learning style.”

The antidote to all the media exposure is simple and yet oh so challenging. Wolf insists that we must take that all important step, to limit usage by turning the “darn things off.”

Wolf is not a parent of a current teen – but if she were, she clearly indicates what she would do:

“If I were a parent today, I would limit the time that my children were online or hooked up to something. What you really want is to help each child learn to use their time well.”

As an example from her own busy life, Wolf states that she expressly
begins and ends each day with an hour that is completely free of anything that is professionally demanding, whether it be e-mail or Internet or anything. Instead, she focuses on hitting the proverbial pause button, books or activities that require her to slow down.

Parents Need to Be Aware

There is no hiding one fact – media use by our youngsters is exploding. In light of that development, parents need to be aware that concerns are growing regarding the time our “wired” youngsters are spending with that media.

Given what we are learning about brain development, such exposure is no doubt having an effect on the intellectual capacities of those youngsters. With cognitive development still forming throughout that 8-18 year-old time frame, it would seem to be a no-brainer that parents would want to insist on a little more balance in their children’s lives.

What is right about college athletics about to fall victim to what is wrong.

As a sports fan, and sadly a Notre Dame football fan, I have been closely following the situation involving head coach Charlie Weis. For those who have not, the storied athletic program that was once led by the famed Knute Rockne is simply not winning enough football games.

On Saturday, the Irish fell victim to Connecticut, by college football winning standards, an average team. By other standards, those that involve athletics in its purest sense, UConn is anything but average; certainly not when you have to play through a season in which one of your key players was murdered on campus. In fact, for those who love college football, the win by UConn and the emotional reaction of head coach Randy Edsall demonstrated precisely what amateur athletics is all about.

But the loss left Notre Dame with a six-win, five-loss record. It is the same record that the last Notre Dame team coached by someone other than Charlie Weis had. And sportscasters have been quick to point out that Weis, upon being hired, noted that a 6-5 record simply was not good enough at Notre Dame.

Having Some Academic Standards

That record has most insisting it is time for Charlie Weis to be dismissed with some using the turkey day analogy to make their point. Amidst the great debate as to whether Weis should be fired, it is interesting to note a couple of elements not often talked about by the national media: the idea that amateur athletics should be about developing character and the spirit of competition; that the second most important emotion involves losing; that in the amateur setting, dusting oneself off when goals are not initially reached, to reset them and then try and try again is to teach one of life’s greatest attributes, resiliency.

The national media has also fallen victim to the charade that is college athletics, that today Division I programs are about two things, winning and money. Actually, in the media, it seems to be only about the winning; it is the schools that seem to place the emphasis on the money. Then again, that money is now greatly needed to win.

Notre Dame has actually gone so far as to implement admission standards, meaning you truly have to be a student-athlete to compete at Notre Dame. In fact, it is interesting to note that the Irish have begun having trouble beating Boston College and Navy in recent years, coincidentally as the Irish continue implementing similar admission standards that these two other schools utilize.

And Notre Dame does what it is supposed to do, graduate students, particularly football players. In fact, taking data from college freshman from 1999 to 2002 and using the traditional six year graduation rate, the school matched academic powerhouse Duke for the nation’s highest player graduation rate. According to the numbers released by the NCAA, Notre Dame and Duke graduated football players at a 96 percent rate. Those rates were followed by Navy (93), Northwestern (92), Boston College (91) and Vanderbilt (91).

The average graduation rate for Division I football programs is apparently at an all time high according to the NCAA, now at 67% for Division I football teams. Of course, there is another discussion to be had since federal statistics have the number far lower, at 55%. Still readers of this site will note that these numbers actually are above those of college students as a whole.

But in contrast to Notre Dame, if one looks at the Bowl Championship Series standings where schools are rated according to their football prowess, only one in the top ten, Cincinnati can boast a graduation rate of 70 percent by both NCAA and federal measures. Among the very top teams, one in line for the national championship game, Texas, had a 49 percent NCAA measure and 41 percent federal measure, while another, Florida, had a 42 percent federal graduation measure.

Arrogant or Respected by Players

There are those sportscasters who call Weis arrogant, who point to that initial press conference and his comments about his predecessor going 6-5. Still others point to his off-field behavior even as others note the amazing contract Weis received, i.e. the millions he is getting despite his inability to win more football games.

But we noticed on Saturday, for senior day at South Bend, the Irish did not race out onto the field in traditional fashion. Instead, before the game, Irish captains Eric Olsen and Jimmy Clausen asked Weis to walk arm-and-arm with the captains onto the field.

It was an amazing site, the captains and the seniors arm-in-arm, with Weis in the middle. It was powerful and the move by the very players Weis is tasked with coaching, the young boys he is asked to turn into men, had the head coach in tears as he entered in the stadium.

Someone with a little different eye, one with a bit more perspective, might have noted that it is rare to see two opposing football coaches tear up at the same athletic event. But such was the case on Saturday.

It was first and foremost, the day Randy Edsall’s UConn team had arguably its biggest win. It was also, at least according to sportswriters, the same day that Irish football coach Charlie Weis sealed his fate in regards to his Notre Dame coaching future.

The contrast could not have been more noticeable, especially since it was simply one more day where the world of amateur athletics took another step backwards.

There are those who are listening to the sportswriters ready to stick a fork into Charlie. Me, I will defer to the men who go to battle with him each Saturday, the same men that sought him out to walk arm-in-arm with him.

And that of course explains the tears – because if I were Charlie, it would be the assessment of those individuals that would matter most to me.

Are you still new to the Twitter process? Ever wondered if that Tweet-texting your son or daughter was doing would ever amount to anything useful?

Well, now you just may see some possible value in what that college-age son or daughter has been up to. Given our love for all good things free, we could not help but point folks in the direction of CollegeScholarships where the site supporters are offering $14,014.00 in scholarships for the best in Tweeting.

It is a contest that would make any English teacher proud, as in how can one say something extremely profound in just a few words. Given that “Twitter is Connecting the World,” the assignment is simple, “in 140 characters or less, write a Tweet highlighting how we can use Twitter to improve the world.”

OK, so it’s not so easy.

But it is a helluva an idea backed by some serious generosity.

And yes, it looks like there just might be a theme here: the total prize money, $14,014.00, seems to highlight a certain three-digit number.

The details on the 140 Scholarship can be found here.

Imagine heading to a college ratings/ranking site and viewing the following:

Yale – F
Cornell – F
Johns Hopkins – F
Bowdoin – F

Got your attention? How about:

Penn – D
Harvard – D
Dartmouth – C
Princeton – C

And in contrast:

University of Texas-Austin – A
Baylor University – A
City University of New York – Brooklyn College – A
City University of New York – Hunter College – A

WhatWillTheyLearn.com

Such are the ratings offered at a new web site, WhatWillTheyLearn.com, a new guide that seeks to provide interested students a different lens with which to view America’s top colleges. Focusing in on specific curriculum expectations, the site aims to identify the schools that “are making sure their students learn what they need to know” to be successful upon graduation.

To determine which universities are making sure their students are learning just that, institutions are rated on seven key subjects: English composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics, and science. In addition, the rating examines the specific curriculum within each course as well as who has been assigned to teach that course.

Utilizing that very specific criteria in relation to these seven study areas, schools are then assigned a grade based on how many core subjects students must complete while completing their bachelor degree program. In the case of those schools mentioned above receiving an F, the rating comes from requiring only 0-1 core subjects. For those receiving an A, the rating is equated to the school requiring the completion of 6-7 core subjects.

While the site does also examine college costs, the ratings focus in on what is deemed to be a troubling development in higher education, the fact that these curriculum elements have become “mere options on far too many campuses.”

Liberal Arts School Ratings

WhatWillTheyLearn.com is sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), an independent, non-profit organization that is a strong supporter of a liberal arts education model. But while focusing on a liberal arts program that features specific general education requirements, it is interesting to see that the site actually provides very poor ratings for many schools deemed the best small liberal arts colleges in America (Amherst, Bowdoin and Middlebury for example).

The reasons for the poor ratings stem from a philosophy that excellent general education programming is about the unity of knowledge and making connections between different ideas and not the combining of random ingredients that marks the curricula offered at these elite colleges today.

Of course, given how poor some of our perceived best schools score on the specific criteria, we can expect some of these colleges and universities to offer their view in the very near future. We can also expect them to find fault with the criteria being used to create the ratings.

But while the specific course expectations seemingly could receive further debate, the concept of the site is a very good one. Given the move towards standards in K-12 education, it stands to reason that higher education would sooner or later become part of such a movement.

Given that development, we would think it was time that college ranking systems measure something other than an institution’s prestige, endowment and reputation. That is where WhatWillTheyLearn.com seeks to go and why it is a site that prospective college students should look at when examining specific schools.

And it seems like an extremely viable endeavor. Taking a look at what students are actually required to learn while earning that diploma certainly ought to figure somewhere into the ratings that have been created.

Flickr photos courtesy of wallyg and Flannery626.