Teach Effectively!

Looking at the entries on Teach Effectively for yesterday, I was struck by the juxtaposition of the announcement about the NCLB commission report with the reminder of the availability of the fourth chapter of Zig Engelmann’s recount of his time in education. In one of those posts we have reference to the education rebel who’s championed strong instruction for 40 years and is now telling his side of the story about how the US has managed to avoid adopting effective instructional practices. In the other we have reference to a report that will likely dilute—if not eviserate—some of the most valuable educational reforms that have been implemented in the recent past.

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not arguing that NCLB is even near-perfect; it needs some fixing. But it has two very valuable features that that I judge to be at risk for inappropriate modification: (a) Reading First, and (b) the effort to create consistent metrics by which consumers can assess the benefits of educational practices (i.e., standards). The latter has already been corrupted by states’ turning standards into something with strength approaching that of way-overcooked spaghetti. And there appears to be an on-going interest in bringing down the former for what appear to me to be a few indiscrete comments by people who were working hard to realize the spirit of an ambitious and admirable program.

Having seen the report the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education, I’m not sanguine about the value of its sibling, the forthcoming NCLB commission report. I fear it will be a political document that acquiesces to entrenched educators, panders to a cobbled-together plurality of special-interest voters, and harbors more rhethorical promise of for kids than policies that would actually help them.

In contrast, we have Engelmann, whose one guiding imperative has been maximizing students’ outcomes. Its discouraging to me that of the policies promoted by an administration with which Engelmann disagrees, the two that come anywhere within ½ Earth radius of catching up with Engelmann’s approach to education are the two that may take a fall.