Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Where's R&D for education
Check out the President's R&D and innovation speech on September 21 and the related white paper, particularly about the need to invest in R&D to spur innovation. Great stuff but the Administration's blind spot persists. No mention of R&D in education and its link to innovation.
"Quiet" Success
Quiet Success? --- See this interesting opinion piece by Ruth Marcus about the "quiet" success of Obama's ed reform efforts. Interesting indeed how an observer who is looking into the ed reform arena from the outside sees progress relative to all of the other big items on the administration's agenda. Perhaps those of us who are immersed in these efforts on a daily basis need to pay more attention to what the outsiders think.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
More than Congratulations!
Congratulations, Aldine, Texas! Consistently closing the acheivement gap between low income and non-low income students, the Aldine School District won the Broad Prize, $1 million dollars in scholarships for their students. Four other districts across the states finished as finalists, and received 250,000 each in scholarships for their students who are breaking the cycle of poverty through excellence in education.
It's worth asking, now, "how exactly is Aldine acheiving these results?" A part of their success lies in their outperformance of other districts that serve similar income communities in both reading and math. What is Aldine doing in their professional development, school wide accountability for meeting behavioral and academic goals, expectations for teachers, that allows them the capacity to achieve such progress?
Surely researchers could design a study and gather evidence around the effective methods at this outstanding school to find out what is working. We know who is working, now we need to find out how exactly how they get there.
It's worth asking, now, "how exactly is Aldine acheiving these results?" A part of their success lies in their outperformance of other districts that serve similar income communities in both reading and math. What is Aldine doing in their professional development, school wide accountability for meeting behavioral and academic goals, expectations for teachers, that allows them the capacity to achieve such progress?
Surely researchers could design a study and gather evidence around the effective methods at this outstanding school to find out what is working. We know who is working, now we need to find out how exactly how they get there.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Not so fast...
Our friend leading out at the Fordham Institute spoke to a cohort of educational entrepreneurs at Rice University last week, exhorting them to imagine an entirely different public education system. Chester Finn compared the current structure to the weak and short sighted Articles of Confederation. Much like the nation’s first federal documents, schools not only fall short of the infrastructure changes that are needed to make them work efficiently and effectively, but recent reforms are unlikely to make those fundamental changes.
After nearly forty years of “reform”, reformers themselves are exhausted, he argues, and their projects are splitting the system itself. Simple amendments may not work. We need a new constitution, an entirely new framework with which to think about and construct our schools.
Checker encouraged these entrepreneurs to use their imagination, statesmanship, courage, and adaptation not to reform schools, but to reinvent them. We are working in a system that’s collapsing he said. There is disagreement regarding governance and within governance. Even some of the reforms are crumbling upon themselves – for example accountability leading to a stifling curriculum and school choice not necessarily improving the choices for families at all.
Many might agree with the call for overhaul, something new. But not so fast...if the next generation of school leaders can bring to the table the elements Finn suggested, it may be wise to add one more thing to the list: research and knowledge.
The most recent analysis of higher education trends in Crossing the Finish Line adds that from the last quarter of the twentieth century through the present, graduation rates are flat. The number of students graduating from institutions of higher education is not increasing, even with incredible financial incentives o f the college graduate wage premium.
Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson point out that “the failure of educational attainment to continue to increase steadily is the result of problems at all stages of education, starting with pre-school and then moving through primary and secondary levels of education and on into college.” And, indeed, these reforms, beginning with President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and the 1965 signing of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), are hardly changing the system through the grade levels. The legislation’s intent to provide federally funding to help low income students, and even the resulting education programs, such as Title I and bilingual education, are doing little to influence graduation rates.
Knowledge from research has the potential to weed out programs that don’t work, and focus funding, staff, and innovation on developing most effective early childhood curriculum for healthy kids and families to ensure American does not continue pushing students through high school, accepting them into college, and wondering why they do not graduate. Knowledge from research maximizes the reforms that Johnson began over fifty years ago, offers solutions to the real problems underlying stagnant graduation rates, and addresses Finn’s concern for incremental change that is destroying the system it intended to better.
Whether or not you agree with Checker’s ideas presented at Rice, the evident lacuna in his remarks is the lack of reference to research and development in the entrepreneurial process. While other sectors pour money into R&D efforts, resulting in innovation and focused planning, the education field does not. Education research and development must be an integral part of this reinvention or we are destined to repeat history and age old mistakes.
After nearly forty years of “reform”, reformers themselves are exhausted, he argues, and their projects are splitting the system itself. Simple amendments may not work. We need a new constitution, an entirely new framework with which to think about and construct our schools.
Checker encouraged these entrepreneurs to use their imagination, statesmanship, courage, and adaptation not to reform schools, but to reinvent them. We are working in a system that’s collapsing he said. There is disagreement regarding governance and within governance. Even some of the reforms are crumbling upon themselves – for example accountability leading to a stifling curriculum and school choice not necessarily improving the choices for families at all.
Many might agree with the call for overhaul, something new. But not so fast...if the next generation of school leaders can bring to the table the elements Finn suggested, it may be wise to add one more thing to the list: research and knowledge.
The most recent analysis of higher education trends in Crossing the Finish Line adds that from the last quarter of the twentieth century through the present, graduation rates are flat. The number of students graduating from institutions of higher education is not increasing, even with incredible financial incentives o f the college graduate wage premium.
Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson point out that “the failure of educational attainment to continue to increase steadily is the result of problems at all stages of education, starting with pre-school and then moving through primary and secondary levels of education and on into college.” And, indeed, these reforms, beginning with President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and the 1965 signing of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), are hardly changing the system through the grade levels. The legislation’s intent to provide federally funding to help low income students, and even the resulting education programs, such as Title I and bilingual education, are doing little to influence graduation rates.
Knowledge from research has the potential to weed out programs that don’t work, and focus funding, staff, and innovation on developing most effective early childhood curriculum for healthy kids and families to ensure American does not continue pushing students through high school, accepting them into college, and wondering why they do not graduate. Knowledge from research maximizes the reforms that Johnson began over fifty years ago, offers solutions to the real problems underlying stagnant graduation rates, and addresses Finn’s concern for incremental change that is destroying the system it intended to better.
Whether or not you agree with Checker’s ideas presented at Rice, the evident lacuna in his remarks is the lack of reference to research and development in the entrepreneurial process. While other sectors pour money into R&D efforts, resulting in innovation and focused planning, the education field does not. Education research and development must be an integral part of this reinvention or we are destined to repeat history and age old mistakes.
Friday, August 28, 2009
How Should Students be Prepared for College?
*Originally posted at the National Journal here.
Right now, we don’t know.
Little data, and therefore no significant knowledge base, exists to address the lack of college ready students. If college readiness is a public priority, the government should quickly mobilize the national research and development initiative to find research-based, innovative solutions to this pressing problem. Other sectors do it. Why not education?
To date, the issue has not been a focus of the What Works Clearinghouse or research centers. Federal and state governments have not adequately invested in research to uncover present problems of practice. In fact, only one twentieth of one percent of the federal research and development budget goes to funding education research and development.
With an agenda to change those statistics, the White House aims to focus on and strengthen high schools through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act by making “progress toward college and career-ready standards and rigorous assessments that will improve both teaching and learning.”
In addition to common college and career-ready standards, the Administration plans to help America “build a new foundation strong enough to withstand future economic storms and support lasting prosperity. That means having the best-educated, highest-skilled workers in the world …and investing in research and development,” Obama said.
Federal education policy has evolved in phases over the past 15 years in concert with the implementation of the elements of standards-based reform. The focus on standards and assessments in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s spawned major attention to the alignment of standards, curriculum, and assessments in the 1990’s which has led, in part, to the current emphasis on accountability in No Child Left Behind. The next logical step in the reauthorization of NCLB is to develop standards that raise academic expectations, combined with significant investments in R&D that gathers evidence of what works to prepare high school students for college and beyond. This will put us on the right path of ensuring that high school seniors are ready for college and our nation will remain competitive on the global stage.
Right now, we don’t know.
Little data, and therefore no significant knowledge base, exists to address the lack of college ready students. If college readiness is a public priority, the government should quickly mobilize the national research and development initiative to find research-based, innovative solutions to this pressing problem. Other sectors do it. Why not education?
To date, the issue has not been a focus of the What Works Clearinghouse or research centers. Federal and state governments have not adequately invested in research to uncover present problems of practice. In fact, only one twentieth of one percent of the federal research and development budget goes to funding education research and development.
With an agenda to change those statistics, the White House aims to focus on and strengthen high schools through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act by making “progress toward college and career-ready standards and rigorous assessments that will improve both teaching and learning.”
In addition to common college and career-ready standards, the Administration plans to help America “build a new foundation strong enough to withstand future economic storms and support lasting prosperity. That means having the best-educated, highest-skilled workers in the world …and investing in research and development,” Obama said.
Federal education policy has evolved in phases over the past 15 years in concert with the implementation of the elements of standards-based reform. The focus on standards and assessments in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s spawned major attention to the alignment of standards, curriculum, and assessments in the 1990’s which has led, in part, to the current emphasis on accountability in No Child Left Behind. The next logical step in the reauthorization of NCLB is to develop standards that raise academic expectations, combined with significant investments in R&D that gathers evidence of what works to prepare high school students for college and beyond. This will put us on the right path of ensuring that high school seniors are ready for college and our nation will remain competitive on the global stage.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
RIP
I was just so saddened by the passing of Ted Kennedy yesterday. I wanted to write a long statement for the media but so much has already been said in so many brilliant ways I can’t find the words except to say that his immensely powerful voice for equity and excellence in education will be sorely missed in the years ahead but his legacy will echo forever in profound ways. Rest in peace, Senator, while we continue the battle to transform education for the next generation of learning.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
the Head and the Heart - Mutually Exclusive in the Context of Research?
Denis Doyle recently posted his feedback regarding the Innovation Summit in Tamaya, New Mexico, and drew a few conclusions about research. I diassembled the ideas to gain a deeper understanding, and pulled out the essence of Doyle's thinking, which you can read below. A response is on its way, but for today, find the context and conversation enclosed:
An excerpt from Doyle's latest post at schoolnet.com:
Take bilingual education – it is hard to imagine a more politically freighted issue. As a consequence there is little that research has to offer the debate. I support it for intellectual and cultural reasons, not pedagogical reasons which is why David Kearns and I argued in our book Winning the Brain Race nearly twenty years ago that every child in America (land of immigrants) should learn English and a second language. Research can help illuminate such a view, can help in deployment and implementation, can even help pedagogically, but it remains at heart an issue of what you believe.
Our conversation:
August 26, 2009
Dear Candice:
In response to your note, Q and A follows:
Q. Are you intimating that, perhaps, research is not an answer to the questions raised by education settings?
A. A partial and necessarily incomplete answer. For illumination, see Alfred North Whitehead’s famous essay The Aims of Education.
Q. Also, when you wrote "research can help illuminate such a view", did you mean that research could help the public come to the conclusion that every child should learn another language?
A. Yes, but the real argument is economic, political and cultural. See Paul Simon’s The Tongue-tied American, in which he makes the famous observation that “you can buy in any language, but sell only in your customer’s…” Or look comparatively at the Dutch, for example, 98% of whom speak English; why? They are a nation of merchants and the new lingua franca is English.
Q. You stated that research can help in "deployment and implementation", do you mean in general, or to a particular intervention, or to a child learning another language?
A. In general. And it should be in particular as well.
Q. When you wrote "it remains at heart an issue of what you believe", what do you mean?
A. The big decisions people make are normative (or ideological) rather than objective or scientific; they are informed by research, not driven by research.
Q. I would sincerely appreciate any help you could provide in breaking apart the last few thoughts of your piece, and additionally, what you believe the role of research to be in education, if any.
A. To cast light on vexing problems and to help guide right-thinking as Aristotle might have said.
I think education research should, above all, be practical and bear fruit; for example, solving the mystery of reading instruction should be within reach. So too should math and second language instruction.
A good example of education research-based practice is Rosetta Stone an IT-based language instruction program.
Finally, permit me to draw your attention to my latest book (co-authored with Stacey Childress and David Thomas, published Jul 14, 2009, by Harvard Ed Press) Leading for Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in Montgomery County Public Schools, available from Amazon.com.
Finally, finally, I’d like to post this colloquy with the View Point that inspired it, unless you have an objection.
I hope this is helpful.
All the best,
Denis
An excerpt from Doyle's latest post at schoolnet.com:
Take bilingual education – it is hard to imagine a more politically freighted issue. As a consequence there is little that research has to offer the debate. I support it for intellectual and cultural reasons, not pedagogical reasons which is why David Kearns and I argued in our book Winning the Brain Race nearly twenty years ago that every child in America (land of immigrants) should learn English and a second language. Research can help illuminate such a view, can help in deployment and implementation, can even help pedagogically, but it remains at heart an issue of what you believe.
Our conversation:
August 26, 2009
Dear Candice:
In response to your note, Q and A follows:
Q. Are you intimating that, perhaps, research is not an answer to the questions raised by education settings?
A. A partial and necessarily incomplete answer. For illumination, see Alfred North Whitehead’s famous essay The Aims of Education.
Q. Also, when you wrote "research can help illuminate such a view", did you mean that research could help the public come to the conclusion that every child should learn another language?
A. Yes, but the real argument is economic, political and cultural. See Paul Simon’s The Tongue-tied American, in which he makes the famous observation that “you can buy in any language, but sell only in your customer’s…” Or look comparatively at the Dutch, for example, 98% of whom speak English; why? They are a nation of merchants and the new lingua franca is English.
Q. You stated that research can help in "deployment and implementation", do you mean in general, or to a particular intervention, or to a child learning another language?
A. In general. And it should be in particular as well.
Q. When you wrote "it remains at heart an issue of what you believe", what do you mean?
A. The big decisions people make are normative (or ideological) rather than objective or scientific; they are informed by research, not driven by research.
Q. I would sincerely appreciate any help you could provide in breaking apart the last few thoughts of your piece, and additionally, what you believe the role of research to be in education, if any.
A. To cast light on vexing problems and to help guide right-thinking as Aristotle might have said.
I think education research should, above all, be practical and bear fruit; for example, solving the mystery of reading instruction should be within reach. So too should math and second language instruction.
A good example of education research-based practice is Rosetta Stone an IT-based language instruction program.
Finally, permit me to draw your attention to my latest book (co-authored with Stacey Childress and David Thomas, published Jul 14, 2009, by Harvard Ed Press) Leading for Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in Montgomery County Public Schools, available from Amazon.com.
Finally, finally, I’d like to post this colloquy with the View Point that inspired it, unless you have an objection.
I hope this is helpful.
All the best,
Denis
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