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Education Nation
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, talks about the future of No Child Left Behind, the importance of science education, and how to ensure great teaching for the next generation.
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Brians question implies that a unregulated system is over all healthier for our economy and the nation, I dont know what world he has been living in this past year, the economic devastation is the greatest since the Great Depression!
I am tired of these radio talk show disk jockey who have no idea and no background on these complex subjects giving their vale analyses as knowledge.
I want to quote an email that I send to Barack Obama recdently on the fact that this country has been increasingly hostile towards educated and talented students and professionals. "Of my incoming class in a graduate program at Columbia University, 10% of students that were accepted and paid the fees, did not get a visa and thus were not able to join a traditionally very international program.
I feel very fortunate to have entered this country as a student myself nine years ago, when the Clinton administration had established a fruitful exchange of knowledge and talent. I have seen the narrowing of this opportunity over the past nine years and am convinced that the US is not acting in its favor, when denying young talented, motivated students and professionals entry into this country, and denying this nation the benefit of their talent."
Given the amazing and important events that happened here in NYC yesterday, I'm shocked that this show is not covering them.
You have had lots of coverage of the politics of the situation, lots of coverage of the anticipation. Where is the coverage of the actual events and outcomes?
WNYC and NPR generally give excellent and timely coverage of events with a depth that other outlets lack. I understand that your trip to Aspen is scheduled, expensive and must be taken advantage of. However, I do not understand why you could not have done a 15 minute segment on the arrival Bloomberg's promised soviet take over of the schools.
Think about this: most Americans with a college education spend what, 17 years in school? And here in New York, most of the college graduates that I know have middling written language skills, couldn't for a million dollars explain how a bill becomes a law, name the Justices of the Supreme Court, explain the Theory of Evolution or the Big Bang Theory. And on and on.
We have the worst rate of return on the investment of time and money we make in educating our children. Even the very smart, engaged young people that I know haven't been well served. They either flourished in spite of school, or at least didn't learn nearly what they should have given the amount of time and effort.
This isn't a question of standards -- the whole paradigm is broken. Trying to cram more "math and science" down the throats of board 13-year-old -- most of whom will never go into a math or science-intensive profession -- is not the answer.
Questions for Secretary Duncan:
1) Given the recent report that showed that twice as many charter schools perform worse that non-charter public schools as perform better, why is is putting so much stock in charter schools? Doesn't this report show that charterness is no magic bullet? Why is he pushing a governance reform so hard that in 15 years has not shown a systemic advantage over traditional school governance?
2) Does he know of any research about "instructional sensitivity" of standardized tests? That is, actual credible research about how tests need to be designed to reflect instructional quality -- rather than home, community, school or peer effects?
3) Can he comment on the Rothstein paper (out of Princeton) that showed that value-added analyses show -- quite illogically and impossibly -- that teachers have impacts on students in the years BEFORE they reach their classrooms? Doesn't this kill the credibility of value-added analysis?
Defense contractors hate it when their invoices get audited. CEOs hate it when their bonuses get questioned. Bankers don't want to tell us what they did with the bailout money went.
And, teachers hate it when we test their students. The opposition to objective testing is driven by educators who want to keep us in the dark about how badly our children are being served. They want fuzzy, touchy-feely evaluations that obfuscate problems and obstruct reform.
National standardized tests are a much-needed dose of Sunshine in a very dark place.
"bored" 13 year-olds. See -- case-in-point! Years of school and I can't spell "bored."
Did the Secretary of Education just propose saying to every 8th grader "This is your strengthS and this is your weaknessES?" - apparently grammar is not among his personal strengths...
This is all about money.
The only reason we use multiple choice mass testing is that it is cheap. It would be much costlier to giving 20 minute oral exams to each of the millions of students and keep the assessments standardzed. The easiest are the cheapest. Tesing arithmetic and testing vocabulary and reading comp.
To test other topics costs more to do it fairly and accurately. We don't need more good tests we need more money.
If the Secretary believes that the National tests are the gold standard, and there has been no gain at all on these tests during the entire tenure of Mayor Bloomberg/Joel Klein, then should not the past 8 years of Mayoral control be considered to have been a failure?
Secretary Duncan implies that the creation of a standard and assessment of that standard is easy to do. I question that. High scores on the SAT and ACT are more of an act test taking skills. See Kaplan and other test prep companies that show marked results for their clients.
Arne Duncan talks about children who do well on standardized tests but yet are still not prepared for the SAT or ACT. What about teaching for the sake of knowledge gathering and creating life long learners. Isn't teaching for the SAT or ACT just about getting kids into college?
The very thing that Duncan says was inspiring to him as a student--excitement of teachers for subject matter-- is the very thing that disppears under the test-driven educational plan such as one he is advocating for. Why should a teacher give a darn about his/her subject matter when teaching is all about testing.
He's influenced the President and I.
When the teacher was disinterested in the subject....
Spoken by the Secretary of Education...all hope is lost.
LOved Brian's sly little question about whether the ACT and SAT tests are "the real tests" The "good tests." Totally lost on our Education Secretary. GADS
Another question --
The Harlem Childrens' Zone schools have classes half the size of neighboring public schools, wonderful faciilities, and limitation on the number of Special Education students and Limited English Proficiency students.
Don't the schools which accomodate such special needs students need at least what the Harlem Childrens' Zone schools have, and then even more?
Secretary Duncan -
If somebody believes they have a _big_ part of the solution to educational underachievement, yet they don't work for a University or Think Tank, how can they get funding and/or the attention of policy makers to implement their project?
Is the system (or your office) open to hearing ideas from the outside?
Mr. Duncan speaks of the lie of standardized tests, and says that they give a false sense of security. I can think of a few more lies:
Lie 1: They are capable of measuring everything important about a student. Tests should never be used as the only assessment tool. To accurately measure a student's progress, we need to look at things such as portfolios and anecdotal observations, and to do that we need skilled teachers with the time and resources to really do their jobs.
Lie 2: It's our leaders' goal to have every child succeed and go to college. In fact, that would be a nightmare for them. There aren't enough colleges to make that happen, and there certainly aren't enough well-paying, life-fulfilling jobs.
What we really need to do is reexamine the basic structure of our society and ask why we still accept a system based on inequality, and what we can do to change that.
Mr. Duncan is right that our kids should be involved in the arts and other academically enriching activities. However, currently, schools often freeze out interested kids because they aren't "varsity" level or "the best". Schools want to win awards with those who can already perform rather than enrich and educate all kids. We have to remember that school is about education, growth and enrichment for all.
When I went to Tilden High School in Brooklyn in the early 1960s, there were THREE kinds of diplomas offered: Academic, Vocational, and Commercial. Oh, and a fourth called "General" for those who basically showed up and barely passed their courses. The Academic diploma, of course, were for the minority who were "college prep." The Vocational diploma were for those going on to work mostly with their hands, and included a lot of "shop" courses. The Commerical diploma included typing, bookkeeping and other office-related clerical courses. And the General was for those who really barely managed to hang on, but were not sufficiently troublemaking enough to get them transferred to the "600" schools, were the juvenile delinquents often ended up. I think it was a better system and should be resuscitated. Of course, what ended was the accusations of racial bias in "tracking" kids into one curricula or the other, some of which was quite correct, but throwing the baby out with the bath water has not solved anything.
Is this guy crazy? 12 hours a day??? I am an actor, I temp 9-5 and hustle for acting work when I can. I audition, I try to do readings, go to the theatre, exercise, read, etc etc and I am worn out! You can't overstiumlate kids like that. they'll have plenty of time in this world to be locked and chained to something. Let them enjoy their youth!
What he just said about extending school hours and adding all sorts of programs and resources that make schools "community centers"--very inspiring and couldn't agree more!
God this is awful. Good ideas Arne. Endless school but with very little learning. You reject the "agrarian" model but what about the "corporate slaves" model? Where do we get the idea that we suck all of the fun and reality out the first two decades of a person's life and then all learning stops so that we can go off to work in a cubicle somewhere and help to make rich people richer.
My own biases aside, this is the worst kind of thinking -- when you have a system that is not working and the only thing you can think to do is just throw in more money, and become further invested.
Here's a secret: learning things can be fun. And if we weren't so terrified of "falling behind the japanese" or whatever the new nonsense fear is, we'd worry more about our children having full, rich lives than about whether they pass a standardized test.
Your guest is confirming the role of public education as being primarily that of a daycare, a social service, for working parents. It's not the case that kids aren't in school long enough--not at least for their education. A longer school year or a longer school day will result only in the further dilution of content and the increasing boredom of students. Kids, rather, should be and could be getting the equivalent of an AP high school education by 16, but only if the priority of public education is education. That means fewer, longer classes, the involvement of parents in the educative process, and the accountability not only of educators but of students and parents as well. "If we're serious about leading the world," etc. you don't compare our issue-dodging methods (more school!) with others'.
These other countries may have longer school days, but at the same time individual teachers spend less time with children.
That is, they are given more time to prepare, plan and mark papers -- and not simply by making them stay at work for longer days.
A longer school day cannot come simply by demanding more hours and responsibilities of teachers -- not even in exchange for more money. Rather, it takes rethinking how we staff our schools, with true professionals hired to cover the extended hours and additional programs. Else, teachers attention and intellectual energy will be spread too thin to maintain effectiveness.
How do we get there from here? Where do we find these additional people? Where to do we find the money to pay them? What kind of training do we expect them to have? Are we going expand school principals' jobs to cover them as well? Are we going to give principals the additional support and administrative staff they need to do the job?
A store or business might be able extend its hours because those longer hours generate the additional revenue to pay for additional staffing and management. But additional school hours do not generate more revenue for school districts. Anyone who raises this kind of idea without addressing the need for massive additional funding is either being disingenuous or dishonest.
BRIAN,
ASIANS AND IDIANS ARE NOT THE ONLY STUDENTS THAT ARE DOING WELL IN SCHOOL, HAVE YOU EVER HAVE A CHANCE TO TALK TO A HAITIAN FAMILY, THEY ARE AS SMART AS ANYBODY ELSE.
THE LEVEL OF THEIR EDUCATION IS VERY HIGH.
I HAVE THREE BROTHERS AND ONE SISTER, WE CAME HERE SPEAKING FRENCH AND CREOLE, WE ARE ALL
MARRIED NOW, EACH OF US HAVE FOUR CHILDREN, AND
THEY ARE ALL GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE....
IT CAN BE DONE, AN EXAM IS AN EXAM..YOU STUDY
YOU PASS..YOU DON'T STUDY YOU FAIL..SIMPLE AS THAT.
The more I hear (and I've heard a lot lately) about the state of public education, the more convinced I am that my husband and I made the right choice by enrolling my son in Catholic school. Yes, it is a struggle for us to pay the tuition (though about five times cheaper than your average New York City private school), but his education is our top priority, and we are willing to make sacrifices elsewhere. He is in a small classroom in a small school with dedicated, intelligent, creative, and inspiring teachers. When I tell people what my son is learning in Kindergarten, they are astonished. And he LOVES going to school! What more could a parent ask for? In this economic climate, in which private schools are becoming ever further beyond reach and the public schools are becoming ever more disorganized, Catholic school is the way to go for more and more New Yorkers.
I'm a big fan but I'm always a little perplexed when Brian refers to a trend toward encouraging minority children to the trades vs. college. Actually, kids who end up in the trades are MORE influenced by community of origin/class (blue collar vs. middle class), family of origin and tradition (often children go in to family businesses or trades), and availability of/lack of availability of other resources (actually there are far more scholarship opportunities for minority children than for working class white children).
I have worked in real estate and construction in NYC and live in NJ in a diverse neighborhood and so I have hired many trades, both professionally and personally. I have not seen a proliferation of persons of color in the trades, quite the contrary. Many trades such as millwork, electrical contracting, plumbing, etc., are typically Italian or Irish American and they are often second or third generation tradespeople. The same is true of public service such as fire departments and police departments, etc. It has been my observation that it is often harder for persons of color to break in to these fields and gain acceptance into some labor unions, etc., due to tradition, lack of mentoring, etc.
I think too often intellectual cliches and/or one academic study become permanent facts. My in depth experience does not support your ongoing assertion.
Given the importance of education (and I don't think I have heard anyone - Democrat or Republican - argue to the contrary), why can't we pay teachers more in order to attract and retain more and better talent? Perhaps that will give the teaching profession more respect. And judging from all the comments here one can see how difficult it is to actually reach any agreement on something so subjective. From personal experience I can say that the support of family and the dedication of a few wonderful teachers (among many good ones) are the most important in my educational progress. It is really a partnership and we ALL need to do our part: parents, schools, teachers need to provide the proper environment and tools. And students need to put in the effort. Parents can't send their children to school without the proper respect/discipline or school-readiness and expect teachers to babysit and teach them things that should be taught at home. Schools can't expect students to learn in a violent environment or without the proper books and supplies. Teachers can't expect every student to learn the same way or simply follow a cookie-cutter plan. And students can't expect to do well without working hard. National standards and policies are very important in providing this environment. In the end I think if we look at the successful students we will find responsible parents, hard-working students, innovative schools and dedicated teachers (or at least a couple of these partners who put in extra effort to offset disadvantages in others) that have brought them there.
Senti:
I do no thtink it is justified to change the school year to an 11 month year. Why are we going to create a school year that is long to benefit single working mothers only. I had only ONE child because that is what I decided what we could afford. If all Americans limited the amount of children they had to three and no more and only if they could truly afford it without relentless public assitance. Why should middle class American children have to be penalized those who bare more than they can afford with changing the system. Maybe the we need one parent to be around more and that would solve the problem.We also, live in a big country and sometimes we need to fly out to see family world wide to celebrate weddings, holidays etc. how is one going to be able to do that if one is in school 11 mths. out of the year. What about all the camps that would go out of business. Isn't like a prison to be in school all day all year and they to go to one's cubicle or to ones factory job. We will be creating a life not worth living. It would not be a democracy.
aussi:
Yes, I like the comment from the Haitian family. Right on further more why do I never hear about how they do it France. Europeans have a good school system such as the French. What we need is more time for lunch and reccess. Yes, more time for the ARTS. If you want to make a longer school day that gives 45 minutes for lunch or hour so they can come home like I did in elementary school sometimes and as my French friends do still good. If you want to offer ART all of them after school great but not a longer year. I am planning on spending part of our summers in Europe or else where and I do not want someone messing up our summers for someone trying to make us into South Korea or Singapore. It feels like we are moving away from individualism here and democracy.I think over population is the problem and we need to teach BIRTH CONTROL and if one can't afford to have children limit the quanity like I did or don't ahve them. I feel so sorry for our children to be tested, pushed and stressed. I feel sorry for all the camps, and vacation destinations which will loose money. All the Europeans and othe multi nationals living here won't come if they don't think they can go home over summer break. I remember counting the yrs. when I would get out of school like a prison...not COLLEGE that was a different story. You talk only about trade vs. academics what about the MUSICANS, the PAINTERS, the WRITERS we have a place too!
"Your guest is confirming the role of public education as being primarily that of a daycare, a social service, for working parents."
to quote someone previous tome that's right school isn't DAY CARE and should not be maybe there si something wrong with bothe parents working FT. Hence, why I work for myself and why I had only one child. Why don't people only have what they can afford and if not just have the one and struggle along w.o. burdening the rest of us.
One way you can help parents determine whether the results of a test have meaning or not is to publish those tests after they have been given. When the DoE had a contract with Princeton Review, the tests and children's test answers were available to parents and students online. Now, with McGraw Hill, not only are the tests not published, but the ARIS system does not even include a breakdown on what the test showed about the student's strengths and weakenesss. It simply prints a number 1-4. How can Klein justify actually destroying a fairly functional system and replacing it with McGraw Hill, which was widely discredited several years ago when they lost the DoE contract? Why are they back again? Let's talk specifics and not talk in broad generalities about the meaning of testing vs. not testing.
Re-Thinking our educational system...(?) International standards and accountability >
BRAVO!
And as you stated, Brian, we need to change American culture.
Enough with the smoke and mirrors, and misdirection in the media.
I didn't hear this program, but I heard this Arne guy several months ago, and the only thing I remember is horror, horror, horror. An Orwellian corporate type who has only corporate interests in mind was bubbling about a need to teach how to write manipulative memos and probably science. All these insanely rich lovers of globalization (Thomas Friedman, for example) talk about science. Dear Arne, first it's mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology etc., secondly, more importantly, all totalitarian societies tend to teach "science" quite well (look up, Nazi Germany, or Stalin's Soviet Union, for example). The present American problem (a BIG one) is a collapse of unsustainable plutocratic system (the one you love), wrong values (lack of ethical values), wrong role models (yes, I dare say Kenneth Lay, Jack Welsh and Bernard Madoff, are not the best role models) and deliberately destructive educational system. Dear Arne, sorry to inform you, but the purpose of education is not a supply of corporate zombies, but preparation of educated and civilized citizens (look up the vocabulary) by cultivating natural curiosity and giving knowledge of mathematics, physics, etc among other things. I must stress that teaching of "science" only without any awareness of history and societal structure is destructive. Poorly educated scientists constitute a significant percentage of most far right groups, for example.
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