Archive for January, 2008

Keillor on Reading First

Published by JohnL on 31 January 2008 in News, Reading and The press. 2 Comments
Garrison Keillor, photo courtesy Jonathunder.

In a column distributed by the Tribune Media Services, entertainer Garrison Keillor makes a clear pitch for teaching reading effectively and sustaining the Reading First initiative. Mr. Keillor, who has consistently supported politicians in the Democratic party, argues that Democrats should not discard the RF program on political grounds when there are children who need help.

And then there is the grief that old righteous people inflict on the young, such as our public schools. I’m looking at U.S. Department of Education statistics on reading achievement and see that here in Minnesota - proud, progressive Minnesota - on a 500-point test (average score: 225), 27 percent of fourth-graders score below basic proficiency, and black and Hispanic kids score 30-some points lower than white on average, and the 30 percent of public schoolkids who come from households in poverty (who qualify for reduced-price school lunches) score 27 points lower than those who don’t come from poverty.

Reading is the key to everything. Teaching children to read is a fundamental moral obligation of the society. That 27 percent are at serious risk of crippling illiteracy is an outrageous scandal.

This is a bleak picture for an old Democrat. Face it, the schools are not run by Republican oligarchs in top hats and spats but by perfectly nice, caring, sharing people, with a smattering of yoga/raga/tofu/mojo/mantra folks like my old confreres. Nice people are failing these kids, but when they are called on it, they get very huffy. When the grand poobah Ph.D.s of education stand up and blow, they speak with great confidence about theories of teaching, and considering the test results, the bums ought to be thrown out.

There is much evidence that teaching phonics really works, especially with kids with learning disabilities, a growing constituency. But because phonics is associated with behaviorism and with conservatives, and because the Current Occupant has spoken on the subject, my fellow liberals are opposed.

Read the full version of Mr. Keillor’s column in the Chicago Tribune, Salon (be forewarned that there may be a gateway advertisement before one gets to the actual column), or other sources that carry it.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Reading First Federal Advisory Committee. That I have pointed to Mr. Keillor’s column does not imply that I endorse or condemn the views expressed in his column. I’m only passing along the news here, folks.

Enhanced Reading Opportunities I

Published by JohnL on 29 January 2008 in News, Policy, Reading and Research. 1 Comment

The National Center for Education Evaluation released a report yesterday (28 January 2008) describing preliminary findings from an evaluation of the effects of two supplemental literacy programs focused on improving reading comprehension and school performance of ninth-grade students who have achievement problems. The report, “Enhanced Reading Opportunities: Early Impact and Implementation Findings,” describes the effects of Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy and Xtreme Reading on a group of students who begin high school reading two to five years below grade level.
Continue reading ‘Enhanced Reading Opportunities I’

WWC again

Published by JohnL on 28 January 2008 in Administration, Musings, News, Policy and Research. 0 Comments

The US Department of Education What Works Clearinghouse released new reviews of practices last week. One is about “New Chance” and the other is about “First Things First.” Here are the descriptions of the interventions from the WWC pages (based on what WWC could obtain from publicly available documents).

New Chance:

New Chance, a program for young welfare mothers who have dropped out of school, aims to improve both their employment potential and their parenting skills. Participants take GED (General Educational Development) preparation classes and complete a parenting and life skills curriculum. Once they complete this first phase of the program, they can receive occupational training and job placement assistance from New Chance, which also offers case management and child care.

First Things First:

First Things First is a reform model intended to transform elementary, middle, and high schools serving significant proportions of economically disadvantaged students. Its three main components are: (1) “small learning communities” of students and teachers, (2) a family and student advocate system that pairs staff members and students to monitor and support progress and that serves as a bridge between the school and family, and (3) instructional improvements to make classroom teaching more rigorous and engaging and more closely aligned with state standards and assessments.

Continue reading ‘WWC again’

Stern backs toward instruction

Published by JohnL on 27 January 2008 in Administration, Content learning, Musings, News, Policy, Teacher education and The press. 0 Comments

Sol Stern, who writes regularly about schooling as a contributing editor of City Journal and has long championed school choice alternatives such as vouchers, appears nearly ready to embrace the idea that the problems with education in the US (and perhaps elsewhere, too) have more to do with curricula and teaching than with incentives for schools to produce good outcomes for students. Mr. Stern has not abandoned his advocacy for choice, but he’s more clearly supporting reform of instruction.

That “incentivist” outlook remains dominant within school reform circles. But a challenge from what one could call “instructionists”–those who believe that curriculum change and good teaching are essential to improving schools–is growing, as a unique public debate sponsored by the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education revealed. Founded in 1999, the Koret Task Force represents a national all-star team of education reform scholars. Permanent fellows include not only Hoxby and Peterson but also Chubb, Moe, education historian Diane Ravitch, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation president Chester Finn, Stanford University economics prof Eric Hanushek, and the guru of “cultural literacy,” E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (recently retired). Almost from the start, the Koret scholars divided into incentivist and instructionist camps. “We have had eight years and we haven’t been able to agree,” says Hoxby. But in early 2007, members did agree to hold a debate at the group’s home, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University: “Resolved: True School Reform Demands More Attention to Curriculum and Instruction than to Markets and Choice.” Hirsch and Ravitch argued the affirmative, Hoxby and Peterson the negative.

Continue reading ‘Stern backs toward instruction’

RTI in Ed Week

Published by JohnL on 23 January 2008 in Administration, Musings, News, Policy, Research and The press. 0 Comments

Everyone’s talking about it, but not everyone’s convinced that response to intervention will prove as helpful as we hope. In “‘Response to Intervention’ Sparks Interest, Questions: Critics say approach depends on too many complex factors,” Christina A. Samuels of Ed Week presents some of these concerns. In a news piece that is unusual in its balance (Ed Week does better with balance in education issues than its popular siblings, in my view), Ms. Samuels starts with the usual anecdote—the Tigard-Tualatin (OR, US) local education agency has a program that has attracted many visitors—and quickly goes to the controversy.

As educators in Tigard-Tualatin and elsewhere are learning, a lot of people want to see what they are doing. Response to intervention—an educational framework that promises to raise achievement through modification of lesson plans based on frequent “progress monitoring”—is one of the most-discussed education topics today.

Continue reading ‘RTI in Ed Week’

Bologna takes a lick

Published by JohnL on 22 January 2008 in Administration, Musings, News, Policy, Research and The press. 0 Comments

Orac, whom regular readers will recognize from a few earlier posts, has a lengthy-but-informative piece about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) that I read a day or so ago. In “The infiltration of woo into mainstream academic medicine: The media notices,” Orac explains that he is glad that some news media are recognizing the fluffy nature of some popular medical treatments.

Along with Dr. R.W. and few others, I’ve made a bit of a name for myself in the medical blogosphere by bemoaning the infiltration of non-science- and non-evidence-based medicine into academia. It’s not a particularly popular viewpoint. The prevailing attitude seems to be: Why be so negative? It’s all good. Moreover, with a credulous media eager to publish stories of “healing” and “humanistic” medicine, those of us who remain skeptical of applying unproven and/or untested remedies in an academic setting, thus giving them the imprimatur of academic medicine and the respect associated with it, are easily painted as dinosaurs, unable to get with the plan, unaccepting of the new order of medicine.

Continue reading ‘Bologna takes a lick’

Bad Behavior has blocked 1045 access attempts in the last 7 days.