March 5, 2012--Achievement Gap
On Friday, Morning Joe again devoted an entire show to education. It is commendable and remarkable that they have done this periodically because hardly anyone in the public square is paying any serious attention to education. That is expect for governors such as Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, and Scott Walker who have been demonizing teachers unions as the sole cause of the nation's education failures.
Oh yes, they have one other thing in common--political ambition.
Morning Joe covered familiar ground--the role of governors in improving public schools (participating were Connecticut's and Maryland's); education reformers such as former Washington, DC superintendent Michele Rhee and the chair of the board of Communities In Schools; and union representatives, including AFT president Randi Weingarten. And, yes, a 4th grade math teacher from Newark. His contribution was to point out that his students do not have enough money to buy pencils and, from his $50,000 a year salary, has been buying and distributing them.
He was of course making a bigger point--that a school district such as Newark which spends nearly $17,000 per student per year should be able to do a lot better.
The other guests' bigger point was that we have to (1) spend more money than at present; (2) "empower" teachers; and (3) employ "authentic accountability" methods to determine who are and aren't effective teachers.
Lost entirely in the discussion was anything about about what actually goes on in classrooms and the gathering evidence that the achievement gap between rich and poor students is expanding rapidly. Nor was there any conversation about the relationship between the two--how affluent children are taught in school (and prepared at home to achieve) and the instructional methods that are being employed.
Recent studies have shown that though the gap between white and black students has been narrowing the divide between poor and more privileged students has been widening.
“We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race,” said Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. Professor Reardon is the author of a study that found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites. (See linked New York Times article.)
These data are clear and disturbing.
Equally disturbing is the fact that educators have been aware of this for decades but have spent too much of their time, as they did on Morning Joe , asking for more money (when there is no evidence that money is the solution) and blaming unions for protecting ineffective teachers. In some districts unions are indeed a problem, more devoted to protecting incompetent members than the fate of their students, but weakening teachers unions is also not the silver bullet. Throught the south teacher unions are weak and schools are among the worst.
Again, what has been missing in the debate is a close look and critique of what is actually going on in classrooms. Over the years there has been much methodological innovation. Some of it even rigorously evaluated and, in the process, we have learned a lot about what doesn't work and what does when it comes to teaching low-income students--white low-income students as well as those of color.
Success For All, as one example, is a proven approach to teaching reading, and if it were to be widely adopted would do much to close the literacy achievement gap. The resistance to do so stems from educators who believe they know best what's good for their students. There is a professional reluctance to emulate other people's methods, even if they have been proven to be more effective than what is going on in individual classrooms, schools, and districts.
And when there is a movement to gravitate toward common methods, often the decision is made at the state level and the methods imposed are of dubious value. In Florida, to cite one case, the Education Department pressed all schools to adopt Math Connects as the state-approved approach. This in spite of the fact that there was little independent research that showed it to be effective. The only evaluations were those few sponsored by the for-profit company, Macmillian/McGraw-Hill, that developed and licensed the system.
And so Florida's school children continue to languish near the bottom in math achievement in comparison to other states. This is not the result of unions protecting incompetent teachers or lack of money. It is because of irresponsible leadership that grasps at one unproven panacea after another while excuses and finger pointing continue and students and the nation are the sad losers.
Oh yes, they have one other thing in common--political ambition.
Morning Joe covered familiar ground--the role of governors in improving public schools (participating were Connecticut's and Maryland's); education reformers such as former Washington, DC superintendent Michele Rhee and the chair of the board of Communities In Schools; and union representatives, including AFT president Randi Weingarten. And, yes, a 4th grade math teacher from Newark. His contribution was to point out that his students do not have enough money to buy pencils and, from his $50,000 a year salary, has been buying and distributing them.
He was of course making a bigger point--that a school district such as Newark which spends nearly $17,000 per student per year should be able to do a lot better.
The other guests' bigger point was that we have to (1) spend more money than at present; (2) "empower" teachers; and (3) employ "authentic accountability" methods to determine who are and aren't effective teachers.
Lost entirely in the discussion was anything about about what actually goes on in classrooms and the gathering evidence that the achievement gap between rich and poor students is expanding rapidly. Nor was there any conversation about the relationship between the two--how affluent children are taught in school (and prepared at home to achieve) and the instructional methods that are being employed.
Recent studies have shown that though the gap between white and black students has been narrowing the divide between poor and more privileged students has been widening.
“We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race,” said Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. Professor Reardon is the author of a study that found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites. (See linked New York Times article.)
These data are clear and disturbing.
Equally disturbing is the fact that educators have been aware of this for decades but have spent too much of their time, as they did on Morning Joe , asking for more money (when there is no evidence that money is the solution) and blaming unions for protecting ineffective teachers. In some districts unions are indeed a problem, more devoted to protecting incompetent members than the fate of their students, but weakening teachers unions is also not the silver bullet. Throught the south teacher unions are weak and schools are among the worst.
Again, what has been missing in the debate is a close look and critique of what is actually going on in classrooms. Over the years there has been much methodological innovation. Some of it even rigorously evaluated and, in the process, we have learned a lot about what doesn't work and what does when it comes to teaching low-income students--white low-income students as well as those of color.
Success For All, as one example, is a proven approach to teaching reading, and if it were to be widely adopted would do much to close the literacy achievement gap. The resistance to do so stems from educators who believe they know best what's good for their students. There is a professional reluctance to emulate other people's methods, even if they have been proven to be more effective than what is going on in individual classrooms, schools, and districts.
And when there is a movement to gravitate toward common methods, often the decision is made at the state level and the methods imposed are of dubious value. In Florida, to cite one case, the Education Department pressed all schools to adopt Math Connects as the state-approved approach. This in spite of the fact that there was little independent research that showed it to be effective. The only evaluations were those few sponsored by the for-profit company, Macmillian/McGraw-Hill, that developed and licensed the system.
And so Florida's school children continue to languish near the bottom in math achievement in comparison to other states. This is not the result of unions protecting incompetent teachers or lack of money. It is because of irresponsible leadership that grasps at one unproven panacea after another while excuses and finger pointing continue and students and the nation are the sad losers.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:18 AM
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