Since this has a distinctly Chicago-slant, can we keep it here in this forum? I was pretty interested in the article from the latest edition of CSM that features Arne Duncan, and how he sees basketball and education reform. Also, a nice shot of the Prez playing with Arne and trying to defend a MUCH bigger gentleman as he goes to the basket. I seem to recall Scott May saying that he played basketball with Mr. Duncan back in his Maroon days. Here's a quote from him The issue of tying student performance and teacher salary seems to be putting the cart before the horse (how do you know your measure of student performance is what counts, and that the performance is tied with the teacher's ability?) Anyway, thoughts?
Its indeed a tough issue to break down when it comes to student and performance but I do prefer teacher accountability (and possibly even elimination of the tenure system) to what he have here in a backward state like Florida, where accountability is linked to standardized testing and teachers are curtailed from really teaching subjects to only being able to "teach the test."
A good evaluation system probably needs to do more testing than what is typically done now. A big problem in educational testing is typically tied to whatever happens in that particular year of school. But successful education is retaining that knowledge over a longer term. In short: 1. You have to have something to measure, otherwise a concept of "performance" isn't possible. Perform at what? Lots of educators, especially, tend to try and talk their way out of standards. This ranges from "tests don't capture what's important" to "the tests don't allow me to teach what I want to teach" (e.g. "I don't want to have to talk about the Founding Fathers, I want to talk more about Hellen Keller). The latter arguments always gather a lot of sympathy because we want our teachers to be "creative", but there's a real tension between giving teachers freedom and our desire to have everyone have a certain baseline set of knowledge and capabilities. I'm all for creativity, but if it comes at the cost of that baseline set of knowledge and capabilities, it's not worth it. Which is why we need to establish what that baseline is and test it. Without measuring performance, it's pretty impossible to make teachers accountable. After a few years of teaching, I've come to not really have any problem with standardized tests. It's certainly possible to game them (see the chapter in Freakonomics on cheating teachers, for example), but there's no practical way I see to evaluate without testing. If a teacher is teaching to the test, it's evidence they're a shitty teacher. Remove the test, and you've removed the evidence they're a shitty teacher, but you haven't removed the incentives in place to let them be a shitty teacher. Tests suck, until you consider the alternatives. 2. Performance is tied to teacher ability, and teacher effort, but it's a complex thing. To really evaluate teachers, you have to have a good set of data on the students and you have to be willing to use it. That's one reason why you need standardized testing across the board. You combine the test scores with socioeconomic data, IQ, and cohort data, and you can start to get a better picture of things. In most of the "merit pay" systems I've seen now, you don't have most of this data. And you have teachers in different places teaching very different stuff. A system that routinely says a teacher is doing a better job because they've got better ingredients isn't much of a system. If you have the right data and frequent testing, you distinguish the folks who teach the stuff people need to know to pass the test (which is fine if the test is a good demonstration of the knowledge required) from the people who teach people how to pass a test and then forget everything a day later. So what's a good teacher? Well, you can look and see that in some places, students with a similar background, learning similar stuff, score differently on tests. Some teachers and some methods produce systematically better results than others. I want them paid more, and I want the ones who suck run out of town. In reality, this is one of those things to me that's actually a very simple problem to solve. That is, it's simple in the sense that the solution is not a difficult one to understand for anyone. It's not solved because it requires great courage, in a society in which we're afraid to look people in the eye and tell them they're not doing a very good job, to honestly talk about that. We don't want to offend, so we put up with teachers who make truckloads of money, can't be fired, and don't teach our kids a fucking thing. By the way, here are some of my favorite articles on education. Here The Ayres book is well worth reading. Also, this article from the Atlantic and associated book, Teaching As Leadership are some of the most accessible and practical guides I've seen to the subject.
Thanks, Mike! Here's my basic problem. 50 years ago, maybe, we could have agreed on a basic set of knowledge and skills. But now, good luck. You'll have no problem finding a significant number of people who think that the founding fathers are passe, and Helen Keller is THE truth about American History. And it's actually worse in Physics. Because if you let science educators decide what should be taught as basic physics, you'll get a very different baseline than if you work with physicists, and each one judges the other as being completely out of touch. And the more "conceptual" you go, the harder it is to decide what is the right conceptual framework to teach. I personally would much rather have science educators who know how to do science and can have an enthusiasm for doing it than is the norm right now. Most HS science teachers are knowledge machines, but are out of touch with what makes science worth anything.
Sorry, but the "just make it interesting" argument is wrong. There needs to be a baseline of knowledge. It needs to be taught at the beginning. In every discipline. There is some room for flexibility, for instance if you are teaching reading comprehension it doesn't matter if the students are reading about Helen Keller or the Founding Fathers. But if you are teaching American History, you absolutely start with the Founding Fathers. Because if you don't understand the baseline fundamentals, you don't understand why the interesting stuff is interesting, and it just becomes a series of cute anecdotes.
No way am I advocating the just make it interesting approach. But the reality of education in America today is that if its not interesting, forget it. There's too much choice. And while I could agree with an approach that heavily restricts that choice up through HS, I do think that the "knowledge-feeder" approach to education is never going to return. And in truth, in science education, one could argue convincingly that approach kills the interest in science as a field of study more than it helps. The problem with the knowledge-feeder approach is that it gives a very skewed and harmful view of what it means to be a scientist. Real science occurs when people, who absolutely have a baseline of knowledge and experiences, confront situations that cause them to question what is happening, and simultaneously, what they know. That's when real discovery and advance takes place. But students are too easily led into thinking that a good scientist is like Mr. (Dr.) Science from Public Radio: The guy who has an answer for every question already. From wikipedia: That show worked because it's a little too close for comfort.
What makes a great teacher? In my life, the teachers who made me a better person weren't the ones who pumped data, worked from carefully prepared outlines and gave quizzes and tests designed to vomit back that which was fed. The teachers I would like to thank are the ones who put forth questions, challenged me to think, explored concepts, applied history to examine current events. Those are the educators who made my mind grow. I had little use for teacher/puppets who were there to do little more than present material in a way that in this day and age could be done with clicks of a PowerPoint presentation. Minds need to be fed, but not spoon-fed.
I think it appears that way because there's such a disparate view of things between the folks who do the teaching and the folks who do the learning. It seems to me there's very little accountability for the folks doing the teaching these days, so they have much greater voice than they probably ought to have. To me, that view on the part of teachers can't possibly be right. I mean, it's possible that, say, real physicists might have unrealistic expectations about what can be accomplished by teachers, but it's not possible they are "out of touch" with what real physicists are doing. On the other hand, it's quite possible that those who teach physics are out of touch with what physicists actually do. But it's sort of absurd for a teacher to say those folks who actually do it don't know what they're talking about, I think. Even in a field like econ, I can talk about what, say, the Federal Reserve is doing, but it'd be pretty nuts to act like I knew better than them. Even though I do
I think that's a sort of disagreeable attempt at understanding a distinction between something like DI and relying on the talent of individual teachers. As the article points out, the teacher as hero model, even if you believe it's ideal, has a bit of a problem because, by definition, heroes are uncommon. The idea of direct instruction is not at all to do something that could be replaced with a power point. It's much more akin to learning the techniques that work for teaching particular subjects, and being relentless in evaluating what works and what doesn't. Teaching is very much like being an actor. In fact, it's exactly like being an actor in the sense you need to get up in front of a lot of people, sound knowledgeable and connect with them. And actors aren't the same. At one extreme, you have natural talents who memorize their lines the first time through, naturally say things with a tone that connects with people, and improvise beautifully. James Earl Jones could make buying Preparation H seem cool. At the other extreme, you've got an ocean of guys who can barely read a script, who sound wooden, and who could, in reality, be easily replaced with a Power Point. Again, the big problem is that there's scarcity of natural talent. A great natural actor can be made better with better method. An ok one can be made better. A shitty one who works at it might be made passable. But given that not everyone is a hero, the question then becomes how do you make the mediocre to average teachers better ones? Just as there are proven techniques for taking shitty, wooden actors and making them better, there are techniques for taking teachers and making them better. But both require evaluation. In acting, evaluation is easy because you hear cheers and see sales. In education, there's not that immediate feedback, so there has to be a defined set of standards to measure against. Otherwise, it's very easy, even at college levels, to get "cheap applause", or shallow learning, without teaching deeper understanding. This can be a problem in high schools too, where teaching to your particular test (say 7th grade math) can come at the expense of foundations of follow on learning. That's one of the reasons data collection and evaluation at secondary levels needs to be a lot more in depth than it is now. It becomes much less of a problem if you evaluate a teacher in part based on how their students perform years down the road, in addition to how they do in the hear and now.
Well, their point is that physicists don't necessarily know how ordinary people can learn physics. They just know how they and other fellow smart people learned it. So things like the huge disparity between men and women in physics get propagated, among other things. But yeah, it's kind of nuts.
I'm not looking for superheros. I just know that in my own history, I appreciate teachers who taught me to think and consider teachers who taught rote facts and nothing more to be dispensable. Its pretty easy to teach to a test and have students memorize the fact that WW I started in October, 1914, with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Its more useful and doesn't generally take a superhero (although it would take a superhero in a teach to the test state) to challenge students a little bit and explore WHY the Bosnian-Serb student was intent on killing. The Balkins, the Austrian-Hungarian alliance, the unification of Germany, etc. It doesn't take a superhero to create timelines and link concepts -- that aren't tested on standardized exams, but are more important than memorizing dates and places -- like how the Treaty of Versailles and the harsh treatment of Germany after WW I planted the seeds of discontent that Hitler sowed in his rise to power -- or how the German/Austrian/Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian/Baltics problem played out through the 90's and to this day, its affect on Russia and through that, the stress caused in US world politics. In other words, 1492 Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue is a common knowledge fact, and is important for that, I guess, and is testable, but is less important a fact (would it matter except for rhyming purposes if he sailed in 1493?) than examining the situation and having students think about WHY it was useful to find a west approach to China, WHY was an Italian sailor trying to get financing from the king and queen of Portugal, WHY was the spice trade was so lucrative, heck, what were the implications of the spice trade even in Biblical times (and the mention of Biblical references can be put aside for another time) WHAT was the Dutch East India Company and WHY was it such a revolutionary concept and HOW did that competitor of Columbus contribute to modern business models? What is a share? What is limited liability? To me, all of these concepts are far more compelling than memorization of a certain date but less testable by standardized measures. For that reason, I am more in favor of supporting systems that promote independent and critical thinking than I do standardized systems that promote success on statewide "answer a, b, c, d" tests. I have to admit that standardized tests were key in my own advancement in education. I started in a Montessori system and when I transitioned to a more traditional education, I pretty much rebelled. I took charge of my own education, to the chagrin of my parents and my educators. I didn't give a crap if I got a D in English because I wasn't reading the assigned Canterbury Tales. To my own credit, I wasn't ignoring my education in not reading the Canterbury Tales, which didn't interest me, but was instead at the time getting into Existentialism and reading Camus and Sarte. My Senior Year English Lit teacher tried to publicly humiliate me by exposing plagiarism when I wrote an essay about 1984 that compared the politics of eastern and western systems to being ultimately two sides of the same coin. I answered all his questions in front of the class and ultimately told him if he wanted to discuss it further we should go to the principal or vice-principal at which point he shut up. He was right to have a red flag up though because I typically turned in crap because I didn't read what was assigned. It just so happened that I HAD read 1984 -- although I had done so a year earlier, when I was ignoring my assignments in American lit and following my then fascination with Dystopian literature -- 1984, Brave New World, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. So I got crappy grades from the majority of teachers who were looking for memorizers (good grades from the few teachers looking for thinkers) but I still kept advancing because I found standardized tests to be pretty laughably easy and scored well over and over. I guess I have to admit that while I've had a lot of formal education its been a sparring process. I like teachers who expect students to think and encourage that process -- like Robin Williams in dead Poet's Society (more on the heroic side, it doesn't need to be that extreme, but that should be the goal). Names, dates and places teachers are of no use to me. I can read the freaking book just as well as he/she can and if there is nothing more to add, than leave me to the book, I guess, and if the information seems useful, I'll get to it.
I guess it depends on the test and what is being tested. My problem with standardized testing is it teaches to the lowest common denominator, focuses on rote memorization of the most basic concepts and in the process of teaching to that test, the possibility of teaching bigger concepts that are more difficult to test with a bubble sheet and a #2 pencil get lost. In the Columbus example, I place a value on those bigger concepts -- economics, politics, the rise of the concepts of "insurance" and "business entities" and "well, we didn't get pepper, tea or lavender but lets see what we can do with this coffee, chocolate and citrus" and the fact that the world really IS round and there are whole continents that Europeans hadn't figured on in their Ethnocentric conceit -- even the modern debate between Italian American champions of Columbus -vs- Columbus the Racist Exploiter critics -- more than I do facts like what year Columbus set sail. But its 1492 that seems to get tested and that's the least interesting and least important detail of the story.
The tests cannot realistically consist solely of questions like "What year did Columbus 'discover' America?" Even so, "1492" is pretty important to know - it means "284 years from 'discovery' to 'Declaration of Independence'." The fact that the kid has to read and comprehend the question in the first place is a pretty big deal. If the test contains a question like: "If a train leaves the station in NYC at 8AM going 31 MPH and another leaves the station in SF going 73 MPH, what time do they crash in Chicago?" There's a lot more to teaching to the test than people suggest.
Its not entirely a black and white issue and is easier to apply to math and logic than it is to English, History and Social Studies. History dates aren't completely unimportant if the overall perspective of the importance of a date in a timeline is emphasized. In the Columbus example, I still think the concepts of trade, supply and demand, insurance, liability, financing, expansion of the "known world," relations between Europeans and non-Europeans, opening up the door to further exploration and settlement, etc. and getting students to think about those concepts and make connections in their minds as to how that applies to the world around them is far more important.
I'd also point out that the 284 year example, without a proper framework, is part of the problem that I'm describing in terms of fact dropping without perspective -- the danger inherent in standardized testing in subjects exploring loose social concepts rather than hard/firm subjects like math. For example, I'd suggest that the 284 year between Columbus discovering the Western Hemisphere and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, while not wholly unrelated, is more serendipity/synchronicity than true cause and effect, other than the bare fact that Columbus' "discovery" of South and Central America led other explorers to the shores of Massachusetts, Virginia and New York. Far too many students seem to condense Columbus and the eventual establishment of the United States into a mish-mosh of "Columbus discovered Manhattan and then George Washington freed the Slaves by defeating Hitler's Redcoats and then he brought America out of the Great Depression by dropping the A bomb on Japan." That's an exaggeration, certainly, but the point is, the connection between Columbus and the Declaration of Independence is tenuous. The more important lesson in my thinking of the subject, is in economics, the development of corporations to promote exploration, motivation to bypass the middle eastern dominance of the Silk Road, cross-cultural financing, financing between states and independent endeavors, negotiations between/treatment of Europeans and aboriginals, marketing of new found "exotic" products, treatment of sailors -vs- officers on long term excursions (cross-teach Moby Dick here) and so on. Translating all that into Circle A, B, C or D is pretty close to impossible. An algebra problem? Can do in standardized form. A philosophy "what is justice" problem? Can't really be done, but is no less important. Even with the math question, though, while skills to work through problems can be easily tested, I think more attention is warranted on why an algebra formula always works for a particular formula solving for "x" as opposed to simply teaching a formula in a vacuum. There is a big picture even with mathematics and if you don't get that picture and just rely on memorizing formulas, you don't get it, overall, even if you are capable of spitting back a lesson. Math and classic logic should be taught hand in hand.
Between Columbus and 1776 gives you a lot of things to think about. 284 years of being colonies. 284 years of slavery, but "all men are born equal!" Between 1492 and 1863 is 371 years of slavery. Between 1492 and 1880 is 388 years of living mostly peacefully with the Indians. &c I'm still failing to see the issue with teaching to the test. If the test has questions about Moby Dick, the teacher has to teach Moby Dick. If the teacher doesn't know it's about Moby Dick, but could be about it or A Tale of Two Cities, he has to teach both. Students win!
My problem is teaching to a standardized test to the fault of over-focusing on a bare minimum requirement.
The issue becomes, "what happens when they don't teach to the test and the kids fail the test?" I mean, these tests aren't designed to be advanced placement or SAT type exams. They're supposed to measure a fairly basic set of expected subject matter that the students should have learned by a certain schedule (e.g. 3rd grade). So really, what's the point of teaching economics or philosophy to the kids if they can't read, write, or do basic math? And yeah, I think we're having trouble teaching kids to read, write, and do basic math.
As a teacher of economics, I think you're right. And here's a very simple, very obvious example of "teaching to the test" vs. teaching for comprehension. Last exam i gave, I asked a basic question about scientific method. Now, the book I use has a specific written definition. In lots of cases where you get a book to teach with, it also comes with sets of exam questions. Those books that aren't very good will have exam questions that will provide a word for word copy of the definition as one of the potential answers. This makes it easy for a kid to remember and answer the question correctly based on association of the word pattern (I'm sure there's a better term than that, but I can't think of it) rather than really understanding the concept. The better way, and what I do, is to reword the definitions in a way that forces the kid better demonstrate they understand the concept by eliminating the ability to just recognize the patter. Inevitably, this trips up a lot of people who are used to just looking things up or memorizing. What's worse though, and here's where you do need to teach (and therefore test) specifics, is that if you use anything beyond the simplest words, you get people complaining that they can't understand the question and can't distinguish the answers. In other words, these kids are in college and have both kinds of problems: 1. They've been taught to pass tests, not to learn anything. 2. And they actually haven't learned anything at a foundational level, so they have a hell of a time learning at something approaching an advanced level. If you haven't learned that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, it's pretty difficult for me to draw on that sort of historical fact to explain why, for example, a gold standard not a great economic idea.
