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.
I was pleased to happen upon a Web site entitled The Concord Review. The folks there—principally Will Fitzhugh—pitch the idea that academic excellence should be treated just as well as athletic excellence, so they have a varsity team of high school history writers. According to the home page, “Varsity athletics and athletes are celebrated everywhere. We celebrate varsity academics.” Continue reading ‘Concord Review’
Our tour of the Republic of Korea has been wonderful. The temples, the foods, and (especially) the people have been quite delightful. Although Pat Lloyd and I have been seeing some sights, I’ve also been meeting with special educators in Changwon, Busan, and Seoul. Continue reading ‘Korea talks’
In case you missed the earlier post regarding the series of presentations at the April 2007 meeting of the Council for Exceptional Children, here’s a reminder that you can obtain copies of the passouts for the presentations right here at Teach Effectively! Continue reading ‘Response to Intervention Presentations’
Several years ago I published a paper for some folks. Carl Binder, Elizabeth Haughton, and Barbara Bateman had written Fluency: Achieving True Mastery in the Learning Process and were looking for a way to disseminate it. It’s been out in the wild since 2002 and I know a few folks have read it. But lots more folks should read it, in my view. So I’m issuing a reminder about it here.
How can you tell whether someone has truly mastered a skill? What is the measurable indicator that a person really knows how to do something? These questions should be at the heart of every teaching decision, every observation of a child’s performance, and every evaluation we make about the success of an educational program. Yet for many educators, and certainly for most parents, answers to these questions are anything but clear. Most of us have grown up in a “percentage correct world” where 100% correct is the best anyone can do. But is perfect accuracy the definition of mastery? Or is there another dimension that makes the difference? In fact, we see many children and adults who can perform skills and demonstrate knowledge accurately enough – given unlimited time to do so. But the real difference that we see in expert performers is that they behave fluently – both accurately and quickly, without hesitation.
I’ve added a copy of the slides for the presentation by Charles Hughes and Donald Deshler to the list of availble documents available on the page covering RTI issues. Please see “RtI Commentaries” in the navigation element under “pages.”
Good news for those who discovered too late that Zig Engelmann was publishing a history of his time in education. The chapters were available only briefly (2 weeks each) but Zig’s making the entire product available again briefly.
If you missed downloading any of the earlier chapters of “The Outrage of
Project Follow Through,” Zig is re posting ALL chapters on Monday, March 12
about 8am pacific and will leave them up until Monday, March 19, around 8am
pacific.
Bryan
Bryan Wickman,
Executive Director
Association for Direct Instruction
Save the dates. Get it while it’s free. Go to zigsite.com.
Special Connections is a Web resource, developed by Suzanne Robinson and Sean Smith of Kansas University, that provides recommendations about teaching procedures for students with disabilities. There are modules about instruction, collaboration, assessment, and behavior plans, each describing research-based methods.
Special Connections is a Project of National Significance (CFDA #84.325N) funded through the federal Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and coordinated through the University of Kansas. The ultimate goal of the project is to provide educators, both classroom teachers and university faculty, with tools and resources that support students with special needs in general education settings and in accessing the general education curriculum in meaningful ways.
Four main areas of focus include Instruction, Assessment, Behavior Plans, and Collaboration. Best practices are identified within each of these four areas and nationally recognized experts create materials for a module about that topic. Teacher tools for implementing specific practices, case study materials, and references and resources related to each practice are provided in each module. Suggestions on how to develop online collaboration are included along with technical specifications and examples of how online collaboration can improve teacher practices and outcomes for students.
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