Let's Do the Time Warp Again!

The Fordham Foundation, talking about our math standards:

Washington’s standards are easy to read and well organized. They come with extensive explanatory notes and examples. They cover nearly all the essential content with rigor and do an excellent job of limiting and prioritizing the content to be covered. In elementary school, arithmetic is both given priority and developed well. The high school content is generally strong, but a few STEM-ready topics are not included.

Neat! Hey, what math document did they look at?

Washington State K-12 Mathematics Learning Standards. July 2008.
Accessed from: http://www.k12.wa.us/mathematics/Standards/K-12MathematicsStandards-July2008.pdf

Well, that's 2008. What does the Washington Policy Center say about things?

Washington's math standards, which in 2005 earned an "F" from the Fordham Foundation, were rewritten last year by a consultant hired by the State Board of Education in response to a legislative directive. This new set of math standards has now earned an "A" from the Fordham Foundation.

But....last year was 2009, and these standards came out in July of 2008. Easy mistake. Hell, I can barely remember my age most days thanks to years of Red Bull abuse.

Here's a mistake not anyone can make:

Here we have a clear example of how contracting out to a private consultant a government service (like writing learning standards) results in a superior product (math standards) and not doing so (English Language Arts) results in a mediocre product.

I'm guessing I can find some people who disagree with that. I'll open with OSPI:

The state’s K-12 Mathematics Learning Standards have been revised by dozens of educators and mathematicians from across the state and the nation.

Then consider the actual standards document, which lists 34 Washington State professionals who were involved in writing the standards (see page 249).

And to close? Go to the original WPC post and look at what State Rep. Ross Hunter, one of the legislators most involved in the ed reform legislation of recent years, has had to say. I took a picture for posterity:
I'll be curious to see how Fordham feels about the other Common Core Standards that are supposed to come down the line.

Read more here, if any.

Dear Fordham...

A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era from Education Gadfly on Vimeo.

Just a thought, but when the screenshot that begins the video shows two people sleeping and one person who looks bored as hell, it doesn't exactly draw you in to the material.

Merry Christmas, your friend,

--Ryan--

p.s.: You've actually done this video in a fairly brilliant way, with the still shots superimposed over some of the audio. The whole thing loads with beautiful efficiency even on my slower-than-typical connection; kudos to your tech department for a job well done.

Read more here, if any.

Liam Julian on Whiny Teachers

Over at The Flypaper, official blog of the Fordham Foundation, Liam Julian has written an interesting post on the defensive admonition common to the profession: "You can't know what it's like--you've never been a teacher!" He finds that to be a crap argument, and I don't disagree, but as a counterpoint I'd like to remind everyone of the words of famous education observer John Rambo:

Col. Troutman: You did everything to make this private war happen. You've done enough damage. This mission is over, Rambo. Do you understand me? This mission is over! Look at them out there! Look at them! If you won't end this now, they will kill you. Is that what you want? It's over Johnny. It's over!

Rambo: Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war! You asked me, I didn't ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn't let us win! And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting. Calling me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me? Who are they? Unless they've been me and been there and know what the hell they're yelling about!

Comparing teachers to mentally unstable Vietnam veterans is a stretch, but let's play with the idea for a minute.

I think it can be universally accepted that teaching requires a certain skill set to transmit information to the students and get them to retain it. There's a science to teaching, and there's an art to teaching. I don't think it's out of line to suggest that if you haven't practiced the craft then you don't really have an authentic understanding of what's involved.

Consider, as an example, the practice of law. I've a layman's understanding of what's involved in being a lawyer, but when it comes to knowing what goes into getting a case ready for trial, or having the knowledge of case law that makes a good lawyer effective, I can only guess. When I pass judgment on lawyers (e.g., "Marcia Clark sure screwed that up!") it's not an informed opinion, nor should it be considered as such.

And that's why this piece from Julian's article makes no sense:

Furthermore, the teachers who evoke this lame excuse are typically lightyears behind the wonks they vilify in realizing what actually works for public schools.

Oh, are they now? It's one thing to be Ken DeRosa and trumpet the power of Direct Instruction, but it's another to actually be in the schoolhouse and make the modifications to accomodate DI, or RTI, or SFA, or TAG education, or widening the math pipeline, or differentiated instruction, or more counselors, or more librarians, or.....

I think this also goes to the research/practice divide that I've written about before; a theoretical understanding can only become a practical understanding through application of the theory, and most K-12 schools as constructed aren't designed for that sort of experimentation.

It's an important conversation to have.

Read more here, if any.

Fat Bastard Takes to the Classroom

Interesting piece from Mike Petrilli at the Fordham Foundation on the cost of teacher obesity in the country; by his figuring, fat teachers cost the system $2.5 billion a year in increased health costs. He errs when he suggests that this is a good reason to make teachers pay more for their health care, but I do like the idea of the district paying for my monthly Weight Watchers fees and personal trainer.

At my school we've got all sorts, from the ladies who do yoga three times a week and run half-marathons for fun, to the guy who can drink two liters of Pepsi in a day without really thinking about it. That would be me.

I've really got to work on this. It'll benefit my health, and it'll benefit the kids when I can match their energy level.

More on Petrilli from Eduwonkette, here. Also check out the Fordham Factor YouTube posting with Mike Petrilli here; it makes for good internet TV.

Read more here, if any.

Speaking of video....

....the Fordham Foundation just recently got their own YouTube Channel.

Mike Petrilli on Margaret Spellings? Good!
Mike Petrilli channels Al Shanker while a man twice his size looms in the background? Not so good!
A swipe at Ed in '08 with an old, bald man saying "I am the future"? Frickin' bizarre.

They're still the best education podcast around, though.

Update: I hit the page refresh button and get this message:

This is a private video. If you have been sent this video, please make sure you accept the sender's friend request.

Apparently, the Ed in '08 dagger was intended to be in-house only. Tee-hee!

Read more here, if any.

Something That I Wish More Think Tanks Would Do

Surfing around I came across the web page for the Leadership Limbo report that Fordham published a couple of months ago; I had looked at it then, but today I noticed that they've added links to Google video of the roll-out event they had for the report. This is a bright idea that I wish more of the players on the scene would grab onto (I'm looking at you, Education Sector and American Enterprise Institute), because if it's on Google or YouTube I can download it to watch later at my convenience and I know it's going to get to my computer, but when you host it as a stream-only video on your website sometimes the stream doesn't work (AEI is especially bad at this) and I don't always want to be at my computer for that long.

Read more here, if any.

What if it DOESN'T make a difference?

While blogsurfing I came across Fordham Fellows: The Blog, the collective effort of a group of young up-and-comers working with the Fordham Foundation on education issues. It's also hosting one of the most thoughtful posts that I've seen in some time, Can We Really Be the Change?, where the author uses some brutal honesty in describing what she's sees as being wrong with the schools today, and why it might be beyond our ability to do anything about it.

Definitely worth checking out.

Read more here, if any.