Comments Re: Issues Presented by the Participants of the September 30 Rowan Class

No Child Left Behind:

It is hard to find any outcomes for Utah's lawsuit regarding No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This leads me to believe it is not resolved, though it was filed in 2005. Eight other states and the National Education Association joined in the lawsuit. One thing is for certain: states can deny NCLB funding and try to go it alone, but I can't imagine any state financially independent enough to do so.

Technology and Curriculum:

1. We ban iPods, cellphones and handheld devices from classes so that students will not cheat by interacting with others and quickly find resources to get correct answers.

Aren't we in the business of teaching students to prepare for the future workforce? The last time I checked, the workforce was looking for people who can interact with others and quickly find resources to get correct answers.

Maybe it isn't the students. Maybe it is the way we test.

2. How do impoverished students access computers at home?

Read about the One Laptop Per Child Project. Originally meant for third world nations, it is expanding to the home front.

3. How can we afford to have laptop computers with on-line textbooks for every child?

Find the cost of texts and materials for each subject that your students take. Add the costs up and look at your sum.

You might find yourself asking how can we afford not to?

A Framework for Understanding Poverty

OK, author of this book, Ruby Payne, is not embraced by everyone. The glass is also half full. Ruby Payne is a starting place for us to look at a glaring problem...the haves continue to succeed as the have-nots continue to fail. Part of the reason for this is a disconnect between the teacher and the impoverished student. The achievement gap is closing, however, though ever-so-slightly. Our next job is to find where to go beyond Payne's text. Classroom Instruction That Works (Robert Marzano et. al.) is a must read. The book's insights on effort (v. ability) cut across race and wealth with 30+ years of research-supported evidence.

Global Competition

Don't not let the alarmists fool you. Yes, we have a huge technology revolution going on and yes we can lose our position of dominance in world power...someday. The turn over of economic power should prove to be a long, slow process that perhaps we and/or our children will never live to see. China and India truly have more honor students than we have students...because of the huge populations in both countries, they also have an enormous share of very horrific schools with millions of children who live in substandard conditions. China is trying to develop what we are eager to throw away: individual talents, divergent thinking, deviation, creativity, and a system without government dictation (Catching Up Or Leading The Way, by Yong Zhao page vi.). As for the better use of natural resources by other countries, I suggest an investigation into China's lack of pollution restraints and a good whiff of their cities' air quality.

Dropouts

Nowhere will you find statistics telling you that students drop out because the work is too rigorous. Allowing dropouts will increase test scores...maybe. Look again...are the lowest achieving students really the ones who are dropping out? Test scores are not the real issue...the American society remains healthy only when a great deal of people are contributing to social services and fewer need to take from them.

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)

Again, it is about effort, not ability. Make the curriculum rigorous, increase the recognition of effort, and the students will rise to the challenges ahead.

All Topics As A Whole

Identifying problems is the easy part. The contribution of optimistic, future educational leaders will be finding and providing solutions. Let your network begin here in this course.

Stem Education

STEM refers to the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The STEM initiative promotes education in these areas so that students would be better prepared to pursue STEM related careers. ITAA President Harris N. Miller emphasized that “increasing global competition from countries like India and China is fueling major concerns in corporate America about how well the United States is developing the pipeline of skilled STEM workers.”
In fact, the National Bureau of Economic Research noted that as of late 1975, the United States granted more scientific and engineering doctorates than Europe, and more than three times as many as Asia. However, by 2001, Europe granted 40% more science and engineering doctorates than the United States. Furthermore, the U.S. ranks below 13 other countries in the percentage of 24 year olds with a college degree in STEM related subjects, down from the third place 25 years ago. Overall, it’s not surprising that most engineering jobs are now given to people born abroad. Indeed, 24% of U.S. jobs requiring a Ph.D. in science and technology were filled by individuals born abroad in 1990. Now that number has increased to 38%. If current trends continue, by 2010, 90 percent of all scientists and engineers will be living in Asia.
With the way STEM education has been progressing and the retirement of the baby-boomers, The National Academy of Science argues that we will eventually lose quality jobs to other nations, resulting in a lower standard of living, reduction of tax revenues, and weaker domestic market for goods and services.
Our task as educators is to educate graduates for STEM related fields. First of all, we need to reshape the curriculum. With the creation of No Child Left Behind Act, intense focus on math and reading has been placed across schools at the expense of programs focusing on science, engineering, and technology. Furthermore, NCLB requires students to be only tested in reading and math. The literature suggests that the U.S. is the only country that emphasizes reading/language over math/science. Other nations have recognized for a long time how important science and math education is to the future of the country. The United States needs to grasp the same lesson.
The research also suggests that we do not have trained teachers educating our students. In fact, there is a shortage of trained science and math teachers. A study found that 28% of science teachers who teach science in middle school and high school do not have a major in science. Even more shocking is that 40% of public school math teachers who teach math in grades 7-12 have not majored in math in college. It seems that math and science graduates have more lucrative career options than teaching. After all, the state teaching certification requirements has not made it easier or more appealing for trained graduates to enter the field of teaching.
I agree with Steve Ricks, a state director of the STEM initiative, in that the first step for educators is to have the students enjoy the subjects. Schools can establish this with trained professionals. Teachers who have not majored in math/science already approach the subject as if it was something difficult, giving students the impression that math and science are difficult subjects. A survey also discovered that nearly two-thirds of students are discouraged to pursue STEM careers because they don’t have contact with anyone who works in these fields.
I believe that school curriculums need to be reshaped entirely so that math/science are priority. Furthermore, I think schools need to do a better job recruiting science/math teachers and exposing students to STEM related careers. With enough perseverance and funding, I believe that the United States can at least provide some skilled STEM workers so that we do not depend entirely on Europe and Asia.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty

Barbara Chambers

A Framework for Understanding Poverty

Today, teachers, principals, administrators are in a quandary. They are faced with enormous challenges on how to close educational achievement gap between poor and wealthy school districts. The pressure is even more apparent for those failing school district with large number of disadvantage, homeless and foster children. Since the advent of NCLB law in 2002, administrators and principals have been scrambling around trying to find programs that address the needs of disadvantage children, so that teachers could apply different learning methods and use tools to help their students improve test scores. One such person who received a great deal of popularity is Ruby Payne, author of the book, A Framework for understanding Poverty. She conducts over two hundred workshops a year based on the principles from her book. The main components of her book are scenarios and topics such as the use or lack of resources, “hidden rules” of different classes, language and story in speaking and writing, characteristics of poverty (generational and situational), and different approaches to discipline, role models and support systems. Her workshops focus on the habits and behaviors of people with different socioeconomic backgrounds. Some educators in school districts praise her work, while academic researchers frown upon it.

How useful is A Framework for Understanding Poverty in closing the achievement gap for poor students? According to Payne, it may serve as “practical, real-world support and guidance in working with people from all socioeconomic backgrounds” (1995).

It may help educators:

· Establish open dialogue about issues of poverty particularly “class” differences

· Recognize and apply cognitive strategies to be used to create meaningful relationships between teacher and student

· Recognize the different characteristics of poverty, generational and situational so that recommendations can be made to the appropriate support agencies.

· Reinforce “formal register” language skills over “casual register” to improve test-taking and employability skills.

· Take the initiative to be good role models in supporting student learning

· Establish open communication with parents and guardians

Some positive comments include:

“…the chapter on The Role of Language and Story…has changed the way I approach writing in the classroom.”

“…I found her explanation of the registers of language and issues surrounding them to be particularly useful in understanding some of the problems in schools today that are related to both cognition and behavior.”

“…Payne’s book has helped me look at my students behaviors through a different lens.”

Some of Payne’s work has been met with much criticism from academic scholars. The two most common criticisms have been that her work is based on assumptions rather than scientific thought, and that she perpetuates offensive stereotypes of poor families. For example the quiz from her book, “Could You Survive Poverty” make reference to these comments about people in poverty:

· I know how to get someone out of jail…

· I know how to get a gun even if I have a police record…(p.38)

Bohn (2006) says, “her work ignore social science research on poverty and language.” Gorski (2006) says that “Payne manages to exploit nearly every stereotypical deficiency” of the poor. Perhaps this might be true.

Payne’s work has raised a level of awareness in identifying different language styles and characteristics “hidden rules” of people who grow up in poverty, and that these differences in social and cultural belief influence student behaviors in the school environment. By knowing this, it may help teachers to connect and reestablish better teaching methods with poor students. However, as her critics point out it can be dangerous when she offends the same ethnic groups and does not address serious social issues that plague our schools. Perhaps, Payne needs to revamp or rework on issues relating classism and social injustices. If we want poor students to be successful in school and work, we need to modify lesson plans and instructional activities. Perhaps, if we put more emphasis on project-base learning activities, this may help improve critical thinking skills, promote creative thinking and teamwork and thus lead to better test-taking skills for all students.

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu

www.amazon.com

www.tcrecord.org

www.rethinkingschools.org

No Child Left Behind

Esther Pennell


The Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation has impacted every public classroom around the Country by redirecting the focus of our teachers towards the state tests. Schools have begun to spend more time on math and reading as compared to other subjects. Some schools have even lengthened the time of the math and reading periods. Teachers are spending so much time teaching to the state tests that they have narrowed the content of the curriculum being taught to our children. Students are not being provided with adequate time to develop their critical thinking skills. Nor are they provided with adequate time to pursue other special interests such as art and music. More time is however, being spent on individual students who fail to meet the benchmarks set for state standardized tests. Schools have begun to analyze individual student test results to determine which students need more help. These students are being pulled out of other classes to be tutored in the area of reading and math. This practice has reduced the achievement gap with regard to the standardized tests.

The NCLB legislation was signed into law in January 2002 with bipartisan support. The purpose of the legislation is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and assessments. The NCLB legislation requires every state to put in place a set of standards together with a detailed testing plan designed to make sure the standards are being met. These standards defined by the individual states must at least include math, reading, language arts and science. The legislation requires schools to raise reading and math test scores and it gives the states twelve years to reach their target. The success of the legislation, as it is currently written, will be highly dependent upon the way it is administered by states and specific strategies they devise to promote improvement. Since the fifty states are allowed to set different academic standards, states are able to dummy down their standards and testing which may result in artificially high test scores.

While NCLB holds schools accountable for their students’ test scores, individual students are not. NCLB does not require standards for high school graduation or levels of performance for passing one grade to the next. While states can require these standards on their own, they are under no Federal mandate to do so. Arne Duncan, U.S. Education Secretary, “thinks we are lying to our students because when they meet state standards, there is a false assumption that they’re prepared for leaving high school. But when the students have trouble passing the ACT and SAT tests, it becomes evident that they were not adequately prepared at the high school level. Our students must be prepared for global competition when they graduate high school. National college-ready standards would ensure that no student is surprised when they leave high school and take college entrance exams.” National standards that conform to internationally bench marked standards must be incorporated into the NCLB legislation to prepare our students for the global competition which they will face upon entering the job market.


Sources:
Peterson, Paul E. No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School Accountability
Duncan, Arne – Interview with Brian Lehrer – summer 2009
http://www.ed.gov/policy

Global Competition: Impacting the U.S. in Multiple Aspects

Global competition impacts the U.S. education system as well as politically and economically. Global competition consists of countries fighting to surpass each other in all aspects. In the late 60s it was imperative to beat the Russians from landing on the moon first. Global competition fosters antagonism for resources, scientific advancements, and student competence. Elite countries stride to overcome the U.S. and crown their country as number one.
Eighty-seven percent of U.S. citizens ages twenty-five to thirty-four earned a high school degree in 2004. Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development recently released over half of the countries’ population of twenty-five to thirty-four individuals report earning a high school diploma. Furthermore, Canada, Japan, Korea, and a few other elite countries exceed this percentage to ninety percent. The U.S. dropped in rank to 16th in high school graduation and 9th in higher education enrollments. The U.S. higher education enrollment increase to twenty-one percent from 1995 to 2003. However, this increase is insignificant to countries such as, Australia, the Czech Republic, Greece, and several others. These countries postsecondary education enrollment increased from thirty-three percent to one hundred and sixty-nine percent from 1995 to 2003.
The higher education system invites international students to attend U.S. universities and colleges. However, once international students achieve their degree they fly home to their native country a hero. These former students then become the U.S. competition. Back in their native homes advancements develop in companies from technology to engineering.
Drawing awareness to global competition sheds light on closing the achievement gap. The urgency of not only maintaining, but improving the education system contributes to raising the issue of the achievement gap. In response to global competition affecting the education system the U.S. stress improvement on standardize test.
John V. Farr and Donna M. Brazil suggest emphasizing leadership skills. Farr and Brazil, mainly focused on the development for future engineers, provide insight into how educators can inspire students to learn on a different level. Instilling leadership skills presents students with a chance to act proactively in their education, instead of taking the back sit and allowing teachers to man the forefront.
Survival of the fittest is a humanistic reaction. Global competition is an issue that will always raise important conversations. For years to come, the U.S. and other countries will fight to be the best. However, education will be the key piece to staying one step ahead of the competition.

The New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards: Final Revisions and Drafts from 2009:

http://www.state.nj.us/education/cccs/2009/


Note: Language Arts and Mathematics standards are not yet rolled out as "revised." For these and all standards that are still in a draft stage, use the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards Archives, found at:

http://www.state.nj.us/education/cccs/

A "Quick and Dirty" Method of Curriculum Mapping:

1. Know the standards that you need to teach at your grade level
2. Think of your 5 favorite units & lessons:
Do they match the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for your grade level?
If not, can the lesons be modified to do so?
If the answer to eithr question is "yes," add thse lessons to your map first!
3. Fill in lessons for 80% of the days between September and April (expect the unexpected)
4. Put them in a sensible sequence
5. Put those that don’t make the top list in May or June
6. Put the rest on an “if-there’s-time” list