education reform

Matthew Lynch published in list, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

3 Entities That Rebelled Against Standardized Testing in the US

Standardized testing in K-12 education is a perennial hot button issue. Proponents feel that measuring knowledge in these rigid ways helps lift the entire educational system. But critics say the measurements do nothing but encourage “teach to the test” methods and narrow the scope of what instructors are able to teach if they want to have acceptable test results.

This article will look at three groups of people who have urged us to reconsider standardized testing in our country. Here they are:

  1. Maya Angelou and other authors. Along with 120 other children’s book authors, beloved poet and activist Maya Angelou (now deceased) called President Obama on the carpet for his “testing overuse and abuse.” The authors said that the pressure on children to learn narrow testing materials, and then perform well, robs them of a love for learning. Among the authors on the list are Ruth Spiro, Whitney Stewart and Alma Flor Ada.

The letter, addressed to President Obama himself, scolded the Administration’s role in heightening standardized test ramifications and therefore putting more pressure on students and teachers to perform. Some highlights of the letter include:

“Our public school students spend far too much time preparing for reading tests and too little time curling up with books that fire their imaginations.” 

“Students spend time on test practice instead of perusing books. Too many schools devote their library budgets to test-prep materials, depriving students of access to real literature. Without this access, children also lack exposure to our country’s rich cultural range.”

“We offer our full support for a national campaign to change the way we assess learning so that schools nurture creativity, exploration, and a love of literature from the first day of school through high school graduation.”

While many teachers, parents and education experts (like Diane Ravitch) have spoken out about their concerns with teaching-to-the-test, and most recently the Common Core Standards, this was the first time such a list of “who’s who” has come out against reading and testing culture. Angelou had always been a strong and vocal supporter of Obama.

  1. School districts in Florida. Some school districts passed motions against standardized testing and certain parent groups have tried to opt their children out of various exams.

As a result, last year, The Florida Department of Education announced plans to review the state’s standardized testing. The announcement came after a year of criticism of testing policies and opposition toward the new standards.

Florida Education Commissioner Pam Stewart stated that in addition to the plans to review the testing, she was establishing a Keep Florida Learning Committee. The Committee would examine areas where the state could deregulate the school system, boost parental involvement, review instructional material and track the introduction of Florida Standards throughout the upcoming year.

“At the Department of Education, we are committed to ensuring our education system has appropriate policies and procedures in place to help Florida’s students excel,” Stewart said.

“I am proud to lead these efforts, which I am confident will help us better understand students’ needs so we can better prepare them for colleges and careers,” added Stewart.

Stewart said that there was no plan to stop the end-of-course exams or the Florida Standards Assessment, which was due to begin last spring.

  1. Education officials across the US. Due to growing complaints from the public, education officials offered to re-examine standardized testing in the U.S. last year. The general consensus is that students pre-kindergarten to 12th grade are taking too many exams.

Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools said, “Testing is an important part of education, and of life. But it’s time that we step back and see if the tail is wagging the dog.” The Council of Great City Schools represents 67 urban school systems.

The Council of Chief State School Officers, which represents education commissioners in every state, also joined in on the effort.

Teachers have always administered tests; but exams became a federal mandate in 2002 under the No Child Left Behind Act. It requires states to test students annually in math and reading, starting in grades 3 through 8 and ending with high school.

In the past few years, four states delayed or repealed graduation testing requirements. Four other states, including Texas, where the idea of using these tests began, reduced the number of exams required or decreased their consequences.

In addition to federally required tests, states have added on more assessments, many that mandate exams such as an exit test to graduate high school.

On average, students in large urban school districts take 113 standardized tests between pre-K and 12th grade.

The number of standardized tests that U.S. students take is too high. While I feel that the idea to use tests to hold schools accountable is a good one, the frequency and redundancy of standardized testing has gone too far. It is essential to measure student achievement, but I hope that further analysis of standardized testing will lead to ways to relieve some of the burden that these tests bring to our students.

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Higher Education, list, Matthew Lynch

4 Reasons Why We Need More Minority Instructors in Schools and Colleges

The number of minority students enrolled in U.S. schools and colleges is growing at a rapid rate, yet student enrollment is not matched by minority teacher representation.

In this article, I will discuss four reasons it is important to have more minority instructors in our schools and colleges.

1. The numbers don’t match up.

In K-12 schools, black and Hispanic students are two to three times more common than teachers of the same ethnicity. The gap is typically the widest in areas of the country with high percentages of students of color. Meanwhile, nearly 82 percent of public school teachers are white.

In colleges, the numbers are even more dismal. A report from the National Center for Education Statistics found that full-time faculty on college campuses heavily favors white candidates (at just over 1 million) over black (not even 100,000), Asian (86,000) and Hispanic (under 60,000) faculty. These numbers may not mean much out of context however, so let’s take a closer look at why they matter.
While nearly 30 percent of undergraduate students around the nation are considered minorities, just over 12 percent of full-time faculty are minorities. That number drops to around 9 percent for full-time professors of color. Though half of all undergraduate students are women, roughly one-third of full-time professors are women. In 1940, the number of women faculty was at 25 percent, showing just how slowly this particular minority group is climbing. The numbers are going in the right direction, but not quickly enough.

2. Minority students will perform better. Students will perform better when they can identify with and relate to their teachers. Minority teachers are in a position to put a stop to negative stereotypes and act as role models and mentors for students of color. Teachers who can relate to their students’ backgrounds usually are better able to look past biases of their abilities.

Even the research seems to support this point, as a study in Economics of Education Reviews tells us minority students perform better with minority teachers.

3. Minority instructors will influence the culture of the school in the long run. As far as colleges are concerned, yes, it is important to have diversity in student populations but those groups are temporary college residents. Faculty members have the long-term ability to shape the campus culture and make it more in sync with the rest of the real world. This idea can apply to K-12 schools as well.

4. Non-minority students can benefit. Increasing the number of teachers of color will help students who are not of color too. Putting minority teachers in front of children who are not minorities could prevent stereotyping and promote acceptance of diversity and equity.

The education gap is a serious obstacle our country faces – and I think that the “diversity gap” is a major part of our struggle. The education gap is staggering and it is hindering our country socially and economically. We have to find ways to get more instructors of color in our schools. Students perform better when they can relate to their teachers, and teachers who can relate to their students are less likely to have a preconceived idea of how each student will perform.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Why The U.S. Education System is Failing: Part II

In part I, I examined problems hindering the U.S. education system. Understanding these issues and how heavily they will influence student success in the coming decades is vital to making needed improvements in the education system. The rapid changes in learning technology and student demographics, along with the shrinking global landscape, have led to a call for education reform in recent years. There is no time to sit by idly as a diverse group of students wade through average to below-average educational opportunities. Instead, discussions on improvements, advancements and reforms need to be established and ongoing. In part II of my series, I will continue to examine the reasons why the U.S. education system is failing.

Stagnant school spending. As the U.S. economy continues to improve, according to news headlines, one area is still feeling the squeeze from the recession years: K-12 public school spending. A report this month from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that 34 states are contributing less funding on a per student basis than they did prior to the recession years. Since states are responsible for 44 percent of total education funding in the U.S., these dismal numbers mean a continued crack down on school budgets despite an improving economy. If we cannot find the funding for our public schools, how can we expect things like the achievement gap to close or high school graduation rates to rise? It was understandable that budgets had to be slashed when the bottom dropped out of the economy. Now we are in a more stable place, though, it is time to get back to funding what matters most: the education of our K-12 students.

Outdated teacher training methods. With respect to the students of the past, modern classrooms are full of sophisticated youngsters that show up with a detailed view of the world formed from more than home life experiences. Instant access to information from instant a child can press a touchscreen on a Smartphone and widespread socialization from as young as six weeks old in the form of childcare atmospheres – kids arrive at Kindergarten with less naivety than previous generations. Teachers don’t, in other words, get a clean slate. Instead, they get young minds cluttered with random information and ideas, all of which need fostering or remediating.

Lack of teacher education innovation. It stands to reason that if students are changing, teachers must change too. More specifically, it is time to modify teacher education to reflect the demands of the modern K – 12 classrooms. There are policy and practice changes taking place all over the world – many driven by teachers – that address the cultural shifts in the classroom. Public education in America needs teachers who are better trained to meet the needs of specific student populations, though; who understand the necessary role of distance learning, and are willing to speak up to facilitate classroom change. Without these teachers, effective reform to meet global demand is not possible.

The school to prison pipeline. Sadly, over half of black young men who attend urban high schools do not earn a diploma. Of these dropouts, too, nearly 60 percent will go to prison at some point. Perhaps there is no real connection between these two statistics, or the eerily similar ones associated with young Latino men. Are these young people bad apples, destined to fail academically and then to live a life of crime? If some of the theories of genetic predisposition are true, perhaps these young men never stood a chance at success and have simply accepted their lots in life. But what if those answers, all of them, are just cop-outs? What if scoffing at a connection between a strong education and a life lived on the straight and narrow is an easy way to bypass the real issues in K-12 learning? Students who are at risk of dropping out of high school or turning to crime need more than a good report card. They need alternative suggestions on living a life that rises above their current circumstances. For a young person to truly have a shot at an honest life, he or she has to believe in the value of an education and its impact on good citizenship. That belief system has to come from direct conversations about making smart choices with trusted adults and peers.

Well that is the end of part II of on my series. Stay tuned for par III and remember to comment.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

P-16 and P-20 Initiatives: Critical for Education Reform

If the goal of P-12 education is to prepare students for success in the adult world that follows, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect when a high school diploma is handed over. Students are sent off to college as adults and there is a sharp separation between the support and guidance in all the classrooms they’ve ever visited and the new ones on the horizon. We seem to assume that our well-educated youth will know exactly how to act on their own when it comes to secondary education. That’s a problem. In this article, we will discuss how P-16 and P-20 initiatives are critical for education reform in the U.S.

A study from Harvard University found that only 56 percent of college freshman actually receive a degree within six years, and only 29 percent of students in two-year programs actually finish. If those numbers were applied to a P-12 system words like “outrageous” and “failure” would be tossed around, particularly if these were public schools. Yet, so far, the American public seems content to let these numbers lie. Culturally, there are many “acceptable” reasons why students make a goal to earn a college degree and then change their minds. They are, after all, adults right?

Enter the concept of P-16 education. The term used to describe the goal of creating a seamless education system of public education that spans the years from pre-school through college completion. One of the major themes of P-16 education is to reduce the number of high school graduates that need remedial education at the college level. This, in turn, will reduce college dropout rates and ensure a more qualified workforce.

Taking that concept a step further, P-20 initiatives support collaboration between academics and workforce training. Instead of handing over a college degree with a “good luck,” colleges and universities with P-20 programs strive to guide students in their early careers. Organizations like the P-20 Council of Connecticut offer readiness workshops and help college graduates find and keep jobs.

States and individual colleges that have put P-16 and P-20 programs into place have seen success. Things like achievement gaps narrow when students are given a more streamlined approach to their entire education and how it all amounts to workforce readiness. Education reform through these specific initiatives is the key to cultivating the life success of all students, regardless of their race and socioeconomic status. It seems like there is a lot of talk about supporting P-12 students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but it quiets after high school.

Shouldn’t that be the time when students blazing a new family trail should have the MOST support? Additionally, if these students have always had support on their P-12 journey – how are they supposed to feel when they are suddenly on their own?

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds can certainly benefit from P-16 and P-20 programs, but I believe the value of these initiatives is even more far-reaching. Even young adults with a strong family support system regarding their educations, and successful role models, are coming of age in a time much different than previous generations. Workforce readiness is a whole different ball of wax than even a decade ago. Young adults cannot be expected to know or understand the full ramifications of their roles in the economy without close guidance, particularly in the early years of their careers.

College and the years that follow it should certainly be a time of self-discovery, and not everything should be taught or mandated by the country’s education system. Educators, from preschool through college, should do a better job of preparing students for what life will bring them, though. More focus on the immediate years following P-12 will result in better academic outcomes that translate into a better quality of life for students.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Matthew Lynch

Education Technologies and Concepts that Every Teacher Should Know: Part I

Click here to read all the posts in this series. 

The Information Era began some decades ago. Since its inception, though, it has dramatically changed the way we educate our children. We live in a world of rapid change and the resemblance to yesterday is fleeting. Above all, communication has changed, and an enormous variety of information is now accessible to almost everyone at the click of a mouse or swipe of a finger. Old-fashioned classrooms equipped only with books and chalkboards are long gone. In their place, we have new technologies and concepts such as Internet research, experience-based education, virtual learning, and online live assessments are being introduced to meet educational needs in the Information Era.

Throughout 2013 and during the first half of 2014, we have seen a lot of advancement in education technology designed for the classroom, and to be effective, teachers need to stay abreast of these new technologies and concepts. The summer is the perfect time for teachers to receive retooling in the area of education and several innovations and concepts are available to help teachers familiarize themselves with important concepts.

In this five-part series, I plan to discuss education technologies and concepts that every teacher should know about. Some are old, some are new, and some nascent, but they all have viable classroom uses. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on these technologies and concepts in the comment section as well.

BYOD. The first thing I want to discuss is a concept of technology that basically embraces mobile technology through the devices that students already own. As a kind of movement within education, BYOD has already gained momentum in many districts across the country, but should continue towards mass adoption within this calendar year. Places like Chesapeake Public Schools are already allowed to use privately owned electronic devices to access the wireless network on the school system’s filtered Internet. In Chesapeake, as in the other public and private schools where BYOD policies exist, students must sign a responsibility form that says they will only use the mobile device for academic enrichment while on school property. Students who bring their own devices into the classroom eliminate the initial costs and are also already comfortable with the technology. The downside is that not all students can readily afford such technology. Many must look for schools to develop technology financial assistance programs for families to help offset the full cost and maintenance of school-owned devices.

Customized learning experiences. Self-initiated and self-directed learning experiences are based upon the needs, preferences, and abilities of individual students. The traditional way to look at learning is via the creation and assignment of work by teachers in a one-size-fits-all approach for every classroom. Customized learning, however, allows students to direct focus on feedback techniques that provide strategies for improvement during the process, instead of waiting for a given test period see if the methods are working.

Considering pros and cons of this concept, we must not that customized, or personalized, learning is often met with hostility, especially as teachers must relinquish some classroom control for this trend to really work. On the flip side, though, customized learning has the potential to incorporate a variety of resources, such as virtual learning, to aid in the learning process while allowing teachers to moderate one-on-one learning experiences in practical ways. I think that the idea of handing control to students is frightening to some educators and administrators but once attempted, even on a small scale, it is easy to see the benefits of personalized learning.

Online learning. Virtual learning is certainly not new to the K-12 scene, but its increasing popularity is difficult to ignore. Once, only the world of distant learning embraced the process of online learning. Today, though, online learning is segmented and increasingly a part of a more traditional learning experience. It is no longer all or nothing. Distance learning has become mainstream and will continue to transform in-classroom learning in the coming year.

Virtual learning also makes it possible for parents, teachers and students to have access to information they may need regardless of their actual physical location. In essence, it expands the classroom and gives students more time and space to complete and comprehend their lessons.

In coming posts, we will look at more technologies and concepts that every teacher should know.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Matthew Lynch

Ask An Expert: The State of the U. S. Educational System

Question: Dr. Lynch, at one point in time the United States K-12 educational system was considered to be the best in the world. However, currently we are not even ranked in the top ten. What are your thoughts on the matter and what can we do to get our K-12 educational system back on track. Anthony D.

Answer: Anthony, thank you for submitting such a timely question. The United States entered the 21st century as the world’s sole superpower. Our diplomatic strength, military might, financial resources, and technological innovation were, and continue to be, the envy of the world. However, in the crucial area of education, the U.S. lags behind many other developed countries. Although the U.S. spends more per student than almost any other country in the world, international exams have demonstrated that we consistently perform well behind countries such as South Korea, China, Japan, and Finland in the areas of reading and math.

The ramifications of this trend are considerable. China, Japan, and South Korea understand that well-educated workers are crucial for survival in the competitive global economy. Thus, they are placing enormous emphasis on education, ensuring that their students are given not only foundational reading and math skills, but also that they are able to think creatively and solve problems. Their youth are poised to take on and conquer the world. Educating, hiring, and retaining high-quality teachers are key to lasting reform. The teaching profession in America is undervalued, certainly in comparison with countries like Finland and South Korea.

The U.S., on the other hand, is losing the battle. School systems are using more money but have less to show for it. Test results, especially among the children from low socioeconomic backgrounds are dismal. America has extraordinary natural resources, a solid, functioning democracy, and an excellent infrastructure, but unless we can reform our educational system to produce students who are able to take advantage of new technologies and compete in the global economy, we will cede our position as world leader.

A number of recent books and films have brought this situation to the attention of the American public. What is needed now, though, is a plan to solve those problems: we need to learn to become supermen and women. The educational system involves seven major players: the federal government, district authorities, the community, parents and family, the school administration, teachers, and the students themselves. In order to reform our schools, we must look at each of these players, investigating the interactions among them, and offering suggestions for bolstering involvement and efficacy between them.

In areas where schools are successful, community involvement has proven to be a critical element. In low socioeconomic communities, there is often a sense that schools are separate entities, run by elite elements that have little connection to the community. Perhaps the starkest difference between students from low socioeconomic environments and those from wealthier environments is the amount of parental involvement in students’ education.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), while admirable, has also proven fundamentally flawed. It is not producing the anticipated results, and has had the effect of forcing schools to teach to the exam, rather than fostering a love of learning among students. There is mounting evidence that the U. S. education system is failing our students. Appropriate engagement and direction by district authorities is crucial to creating a quality learning environment. Too often, cronyism, corruption, and misuse of resources diminish the influence of the district-level administration.

Society in general needs to understand that the lack of quality teachers, effective administration, and parental involvement are all factors that contribute to the current state of our educational system. The country must unite and work together to carry the responsibility of enriching and continuing America’s future via educational excellence. We must become supermen and superwomen.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in list, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

8 More Reasons the U.S. Education System is Failing

In the first part of this series, I discussed 10 reasons the U.S. education system is still struggling to return to its glory days. In thinking about the future of education in this great nation, we are inspired by innovation. At the same time, K-12 institutions seem notoriously slow to adapt to the new practices and technologies that are constantly emerging. This is not only a disservice to students, but also problematic for the economy at large. Better access to top-notch education starts before Kindergarten – not after a high school diploma has been earned. In the final part of my series, I continue to examine the problems hindering the U.S. education system from being all that it can be.

  1. We still do not know how to handle high school dropouts. It seems that every time the issue of high school dropouts is discussed, it all centers on money. U.S. Census Statistics tell us that 38 percent of high school dropouts fall below the poverty line, compared with 18 percent of total households in every demographic. Dropouts are also 40 percent more likely to rent their residences and spend $450 less per month on housing costs than the overall population. Only around 60 percent of dropouts own vehicles and they spend over $300 less on entertainment annually than average Americans. It’s clear that a high school diploma is in fact the ticket to higher earnings, at least on a collective level. The negative financial ramifications of dropping out of high school cannot be denied, but the way they are over-emphasized seems like a worn-out tactic to me. Instead of focusing on students as earners, we really need to value them as learners so that we can encourage them to finish their high school education.
  2. We have not achieved education equity. Equity in education has long been an ideal. It’s an ideal celebrated in a variety of contexts, too. Even the Founding Fathers celebrated education as an ideal – something to which every citizen ought to be entitled. Unfortunately, though, the practice of equity in education has been less than effective. Equity, in the end, is a difficult ideal to maintain and many strategies attempting to maintain it have fallen far short in the implementation. To achieve equity, school systems need to have an approach for analyzing findings about recommended shifts in learning approaches and objectives. These approaches should also help teachers and administrators understand not what they have to avoid but what it is that they can do to achieve optimal equity moving forward.
  3. Technology brings a whole new dimension to cheating. Academic dishonesty is nothing new. As long as there have been homework assignments and tests, there have been cheaters. The way that cheating looks has changed over time, though. Technology has made it easier than ever. Perhaps the most interesting caveat of modern-day cheating in U.S. classrooms is that students often do not think they have done anything wrong. Schools must develop anti-cheating policies that include technology and those policies must be updated consistently. Teachers must stay vigilant, too, when it comes to what their students are doing in classrooms and how technology could be playing a negative role in the learning process. Parents must also talk to their kids about the appropriate ways to find academic answers and alert them to unethical behaviors that may seem innocent in their own eyes.
  4. We still struggle with making teacher tenure benefit both students and teachers. One of the most contested points of teacher contracts is the issue of tenure. Hardline education reformers argue that tenure protects underperforming teachers, which ends up punishing the students. Teachers unions challenge (among other reasons) that with the ever-changing landscape of K-12 education, including evaluation systems, tenure is necessary to protect the jobs of excellent teachers who could otherwise be ousted unfairly. It can often be a sticking point – and one that can lead to costly time out of classrooms, as recently seen in large school systems like New York City and Chicago. Now, I’m not suggesting that teachers just “give up” but I would support adjusting the expectations for tenure. It seems an appropriate step in the right direction for teachers in all types of schools. That energy then can be redirected towards realistic and helpful stipulations in teachers’ contracts that benefit the entire industry.
  5. More of our schools need to consider year-round schooling. Does it work? The traditional school year, with roughly three months of vacation days every summer, was first implemented when America was an agricultural society. The time off was not implemented to accommodate contemporary concerns, like children needing “down time” to decompress and “be kids.” The system was born out of economic necessity. In fact, the first schools that went against the summers-off version of the academic calendar were in urban areas that did not revolve around the agricultural calendar, like Chicago and New York, as early as the mid-1800s. It was much later, however, that the idea as a whole gained momentum. Overall, year-round schooling seems to show a slight advantage academically to students enrolled, but the numbers of students are not high enough to really get a good read on it at this point. What does seem clear, however, is that at-risk students do far better without a long summer break, and other students are not harmed by the year-round schedule.
  6. We are still wrestling the achievement gap. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education released student performance data in its National Assessment for Educational Progress report. The data is compiled every two years and it assesses reading and math achievements for fourth and eighth graders. This particular report also outlines differences between students based on racial and socioeconomic demographics. The data points to the places in the U.S. that still struggle with inequality in student opportunity and performance, otherwise known as the achievement gap. The achievement gap will likely always exist in some capacity, in much the same way that the U.S. high school dropout rate will likely never make it down to zero. This doesn’t mean it is a lost cause, of course. Every student who succeeds, from any demographic, is another victory in K-12 education and it benefits society as a whole. Better recognition by every educator, parent and citizen of the true problem that exists is a start; actionable programs are the next step.
  7. We need to consider how school security measures affect students. In theory, parents and educators would do anything to keep students safe, whether those students are pre-Kindergartners or wrapping up a college career. Nothing is too outlandish or over-the-top when it comes to protecting our kids and young adults. Metal detectors, security cameras, more police presence in school hallways, gated campuses – they all work toward the end goal of sheltering students and their educators, protecting some of the most vulnerable of our citizens. Emotions aside, though, how much does school security really increase actual safety? Do school security efforts actually hinder the learning experience? It sounds good to taut the virtues of tighter policies on school campuses but is it all just empty rhetoric? Given the fact that state spending per student is lower than at the start of the recession, how much should schools shell out on security costs? Perhaps the best investment we can make to safeguard our students and educators is in personal vigilance. Perhaps less reliance on so-called safety measures would lead to higher alertness.
  8. We need to make assistive technology more available for students with disabilities. A key to improving the educational experience for students with disabilities is better accommodations in schools and continued improvements in assistive technology. Assistive technology in K-12 classrooms, by definition, is designed to “improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability.” While the word “technology” automatically conjures up images of cutting-edge electronics, some assistive technology is possible with just simple accommodations. Whether high-tech or simple in design, assistive technology has the ability to transform the learning experiences for the children who benefit. Assistive technology is important for providing a sound education for K-12 students with disabilities but benefits the greater good of the country, too. Nearly one-fourth of a specific student population is not being properly served and with so many technological advances, that is a number I believe can drop. Assistive technology in simple and complex platforms has the ability to lift the entire educational experience and provide a better life foundation for K-12 students with disabilities.

As you may have now noticed, public education underachievement is not the result of one problem. It is a collection of influences that undercut the cultural importance of broad-based knowledge. To reach better outcomes, we must peel back the layers of policy and perception to their cores. I hope you have enjoyed this careful analysis of the present state of K-12 public education in America and its problems and issues. The changes suggested will benefit future generations of students and citizens.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Adopting a New Paradigm in K-12 Education

Substantial educational change will never occur until we as a country decide that enough is enough and make a commitment to change, no matter what it takes. When America realizes all children deserve a stellar education regardless of who their parents are, what their socioeconomic status is, or where they happen to live, we will be able to reform our education system. The American K-12 education treats minority students in under performing urban environments like collateral damage.

The disheartening reality is that America has billions of dollars to fight a two-front war, but cannot or will not properly educate its children. If a hostile country attacked the U. S., it would take less than 24 hours for American troops to be mobilized into battle. However, we seem unable to mobilize a sea of educated teachers and administrators to wage war against academic mediocrity, which is a bigger threat to our national security than Iran or North Korea.

The structure of schools in the U.S. is no longer able to meet the educational needs of children today. No longer are the poor restricted to the prospect of becoming manual laborers in a local factory or simply entering just another blue-collar job. Nor are the benefits of education confined to the elite in society. Times have changed and it would only be natural to expect that the demands on our education system have changed as well. No longer can we rest assured that the best and brightest members of our society will educate our children.

Educational change will never occur if school systems are expected to implement change on their own. State and federal governments need to oversee changes to ensure that local school districts are held accountable for needed changes. School administrators often seem to buy in when educational reform is suggested, but somehow genuine change in education is rarely implemented.

Over the last century, many reform movements have come and gone, but in the end it seems there have been no substantial changes. Some might even believe the American educational system is now worse off than ever. From Bush’s No Child Left Behind to Obama’s Race to the Top, presidents have shown an inability to tackle the real issues of education reform. Reform is primarily used as campaign rhetoric, and when it comes time to take real action, the politicians simply unveil a grandiose plan with all the bells and whistles amounting to a dog and pony show.

America’s schools were originally intended to ensure that all citizens were literate. The founding purpose for American schools has long been obsolete, and Americans must have the courage to realize that in order for us to remain a world power, we must institute change. The risks have never been greater; the future of our country and its children is at stake. Americans cannot continue to allow the educational system to operate in its current state. While there is no magic formula or configuration to solve the problems our schools face, we must engender change, and we must do it now!

On the surface, the concept of sustaining school reform is an oxymoron, simply because change is inevitable. In many ways, what is needed is sustainable change! In other words, schools must change to meet the current needs of children and youth in order to support their development into contributing and productive adults. As the needs of our society shifts, our education system must adapt to ensure that it prepares an educated populous to meet society’s needs.

Education reform is possible, but it depends on what the nation is willing to do to achieve its educational goals. Will America develop and pass effective educational legislation aimed at creating viable solutions to the problem at hand? Or will America continue to develop legislation, such as No Child Left Behind, that operates under the fallacy that 100% of our students will be proficient in their core subjects by 2014? The bar for education should be set higher, but there has to be exceptions and differentiated goals in order to effectively accommodate all the differences among teachers, students, administrators, and school cultures.

Our youngsters are the future of this great country, and our educators must do their part to help put America back on top as a major world power in both economics and education. Lasting and beneficial change in our schools will require hard work from a committed group of stakeholders — teachers, administrators, parents, policymakers, and community members alike. Ultimately, it is the children who matter most. At the end of the day, they are the reasons why we must champion the work of public education and adopt a new paradigm.

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Automaticity: How can it be sometimes bad, sometimes good?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Bruce Deitrick Price

Automaticity means that you recognize something instantly. You see a neighbor’s dog and in a split-second you say, “Bucky!” That’s automaticity.

Curiously enough, the Education Establishment thinks that automaticity is sometimes evil, sometimes ideal. This strange paradox reveals a great deal about the intellectual chaos and corruption in our K-12 system.

This paradox is even more extreme and perverse than you may at first imagine. When automaticity is helpful, our experts say it’s bad. When automaticity is destructive, our experts say it’s good. That’s what ideology and secret agenda have done to the field of education.

Historically, children were expected to learn simple addition problems and the multiplication tables. You knew automatically that 7 times 8 is 56. You knew that 7+12 is 19. With just a small amount of such information, a person can readily solve the common math that we  encounter in everyday situations. Remarkably, all the so-called “reform” programs of the last 60 years specifically crusaded against this capability. New Math, circa 1965, emphasized all sorts of high-falutin activities (Boolean algebra, statistics, algebraic matrices) but denigrated any tendency toward memorizing arithmetic facts so you would have them as standard intellectual equipment.

Reform Math circa 1985, specifically forbade children to learn basic math facts. An early reliance on calculators was encouraged! Then we come to Common Core Math, which  brags that children will engage in higher-level thinking and creative problem-solving but doesn’t want them to know the multiplication tables. The pattern is relentless. Automaticity, with regard to numbers and doing arithmetic, is constantly denigrated.

Clearly, everything that was ordinary and desirable in all cultures for thousands of years has been deemed unacceptable by our Education Establishment. If you look at only this part of the story, you know that these people have a perverse love for whatever is inefficient. Why? Most likely, they are addicted to collectivist thinking. The worst possible outcome for these people (people like Bill Ayers) is that some children master math quickly and sprint ahead of their classmates. So our progressives use any trick to block that possibility. Leveling is the goal. Ergo, no automaticity in math classrooms.

Now let’s look at a situation where automaticity can be destructive.  That’s the process of learning to read. Public schools for 80 years have ordered children to seek automaticity in the memorization of sight-words. The essence of Whole Word reading instruction is that children are told to memorize entire words as graphic units. This  fundamentally absurd approach has a dozen different names (sight-words, high frequency words, Dolch words, look-say; don’t be confused by the interchangeable aliases). The basic idea is that children look at a word (for example xgfh) and they memorize it as a design. You might object that xgfhis not a real word. But a first-grade child would not know that or guess that. All the designs look the same to children (that is, they look bizarre and unfriendly just as xgfh now looks to you).

Children DO need to memorize the smallest units with automaticity, that is, the individual letters. Then they need to memorize the sounds represented by these letters with automaticity. That is the correct way to proceed (it’s known as phonics). But this approach is precisely forbidden in our elementary schools. Instead the children are told to memorize larger, more complex units than the brain can easily handle, i.e., whole words such as xgfh.

Please note, for the brain any memorization is essentially the same task. You look at an airplane in the sky and you say that’s a 757. You look at a  coin and you know it’s a nickel. No big deal, especially in the case of arithmetic  where there are only so many scores of helpful facts. On the other hand, memorizing many hundreds of sight-words is extremely difficult.

The more objects there are and the more similar they are,  the more quickly the project becomes hopeless. Imagine somebody put together a collection of 100 coins from around the world, all of them more or less silvery and all of them the size of our nickel and dime. Naming these coins with automaticity would be very similar to naming English sight-words with automaticity. Now imagine the teacher says you have to move up to 300, and then 500. That’s what learning to read with sight-words is like for  kids in elementary school. A nightmare. Not only is automaticity virtually impossible to achieve, but trying to do so is destructive to the child’s mind. The brain is asked to switch back and forth from phonetic reading to sight-word reading—two completely different mental operations.

The bottom line here is that  our elite educators are social engineers with ideological goals. They want an undifferentiated society. They don’t want educational excellence. So they pick the worst ways to do everything.

If  a child needs automaticity to be good at arithmetic, our commissars will forbid automaticity.

If automaticity with sight-words is the worst thing that could happen to a child,  the same commissars will demand automaticity.

Anybody even a bit fond of common sense has to be appalled by this. Anyone who has a heart has to be appalled by this.

We have millions of high school graduates arriving in college who’ve never been asked to memorize much of anything— arithmetic, science, history, geography, dates, presidents—because memorization is bad. The Education Establishment will tell you that there’s nothing more evil than rote memorization. They will tell you that again and again.

Meanwhile, these same students starting in K will be required to memorize sight-words. So we have a wonderfully screwed up society now where many people don’t know much of anything, and one main thing they don’t know is how to read.

With regard to Common Core, there is a lot of new verbiage and jargon, but this massive retooling of American public schools seems to have accommodated all the worst things from the past. The Education Establishment insists that this is a wonderful new reform. That’s what they always say.

 

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Bruce Deitrick Price explains education theories and methods on his site Improve-Education.org

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Why the U.S. College Landscape Still Needs HBCUs

It’s no secret that Black, and other non-white, students in the U.S. have always faced an uphill struggle when it comes to education. Even today, the achievement gap between white students and their peers of color is wide – with the latest National Assessment for Educational Progress report What are now called HBCUs were at one time the only route many young scholars could take to obtain a college degree and elevate their lifestyles. This is not to say that these HBCUs were second-rate; the education received at these establishments has always rivaled that of institutions without the same label, producing such graduates as Thurgood Marshall, Toni Morrison and Spike Lee. Traditionally, HBCUs have also had a strong alumni presence, with the great minds of the graduates giving back to the institutions that taught them so much.

What was once a role built of necessity has slowly disappeared, however. The Civil Rights Movement, affirmative action initiatives and more recently, the popularity and legitimacy of online degree programs, have all chipped away at the core reason HBCUs were developed in the first place. Declining enrollment has unsurprisingly led to a domino effect, reducing the resources available to students on-campus, and making the HBCU experience less attractive to students choosing between a plethora of higher education options.

There are standouts, of course – HBCUs whose reputations have sustained them through the changing landscape of Black college education in the U.S. Atlanta liberal arts powerhouses Morehouse College, often referred to as the “Black Ivy League,” and Spelman College continues to attract the top talent in the country to their programs. Morehouse boasts an 83 percent freshman retention rate while Spelman is the largest producer of black graduates that go on to medical school (of ALL U.S. colleges).

For every Spelman or Morehouse, however, there is a Saint Paul’s College, forced to close its doors in 2013 after an unsuccessful merger attempt and unsustainably low enrollment figures. Atlanta’s Morris Brown College filed for federal bankruptcy protection after finding itself $35 million over its head.

Not surprisingly, these headline-grabbing instances and others like them have called HBCUs to the table. Are these colleges still a necessity in the growingly accepting and diverse American culture? Do these colleges help their students reach graduation effectively? Why, when considering all the other educational options available to students of color, should an HBCU be chosen? Are these schools still relevant?

Despite the struggles of some HBCUs, I think that these institutions are actually more relevant than ever – and for a larger pool of students than ever before. Instead of closing the door on these schools or questioning their relevance, the educational community should be encouraging them to remain open, and for more reasons than one.

Safe havens for students of color

Though traditionally “white” schools now accept students of color, they often do not do enough to ensure that those students, particularly first-generation college attendees, have the resources to make it to graduation. With some exceptions, retention, mentoring and cultural programs often do not exist on non-HBCU campuses. Though subtle, racism still exists on non-HBCU campuses too. HBCUs have always provided more than the curriculum in a textbook, or the expertise of the professor in the classroom. They have been safe havens for young adults, struggling with the demands of a college education and to rise above the insidious inferiority complex society places on them. HBCUs don’t just include students of color out of obligation; HBCUs encourage, strengthen and celebrate Black and other minority students. Even though “times have changed,” HBCUs still remain pillars of holistic creation of students who succeed not only academically, but in every aspect of their lives.

How HBCUs can stay relevant

For HBCUs to keep their doors open, and their educational offerings relevant in an increasingly competitive higher education market, they need to keep one foot grounded in tradition and the other pointing forward. By “tradition,” I do not mean that they need to hold on to the exact practices of the past, or foolishly cling to a culture of exclusion, but I believe the purpose of HBCUs should remain steadfast: providing student-centered experiences with strong academic backgrounds.

While it is certainly impressive to make “top” lists in academic areas, HBCUs have a secret weapon when it comes to student retention, graduation rates and lifelong success and it lies outside what is in the textbooks. Can HBCUs survive without strong academic performance, and a competitive staff of the leading scholars in the nation and world? Of course not. But I’d argue that even with those things, HBCUs cannot survive without remaining grounded in the student-focused, “under our wings” mentality that have always made them a different sort of college education – one that is fulfilling on many levels beyond what is printed on a transcript.

HBCUs should also continue to embrace a spirit of diversity, particularly outside its traditional student body demographic. Black students should not make up the entire student body – or even a majority of it. Students from all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds should be welcomed in. The first-generation college students looking to elevate their family status. The student immigrants who are still assimilating into U.S. culture. The underdogs from every race, creed and color who need that extra bit of encouragement in a close-knit environment to accomplish their educational aspirations. It is this pool of students who have the highest potential to be innovators and to step outside their comfort zones to build a better future for themselves and our country. HBCUs can play that pivotal role in getting these students to that point.

So while the historical part of HBCUs should stay in the past, the future of these institutions of higher learning depends on leading through a diverse example that puts student needs above all else.

Read all of our posts about HBCUs by clicking here.

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