During the Democratic presidential debate a few nights ago, host Brian Williams asked a question about extending the school day or year. Since this is an issue I've been following, I thought I'd update you on what the candidates think about the idea of a longer school day or school year. The full transcript is here.
Williams asked: Do you believe we in this country need to extend the school day and/or extend the school year? And will you commit to it?
Some excerpts from their 30-second responses included:
Kucinich saying there's a statue above the House of Reps entitled "Peace Protecting Genius", that there's a connection b/w global warring and global warming, and that pre-k and college should be free to all. I'm not getting the connection to school time but maybe it's got something to do with more bake sales and books?
Richardson saying he'll commit to "it" by hiring 100,000 new science and math teachers, getting rid of NCLB, and integrating civics, language and art back into the curriculum. The last point tangentially hits the problem of a narrowing curriculum, which more school time could address, so he's ahead so far.
Obama saying we need more instruction in the classroom, and more money for math and science research. Talking about "more" in general I guess means he's good with the "more school" thing too.
Clinton saying "a family is a child's first school" and that we need to support "it" through "nurse visitation or social work or child care" and that we need pre-k and an "innovation agenda". Also, something about Sputnik and more math and science. She gets a demerit just for bringing up Sputnik.
Edwards saying we still have two public school systems, we need pre-k, better nutrition, a national teaching university, incentive pay, and second-chance schools for dropouts. A lot of interesting education ideas, pre-k the only one that hits on extending school time and even that is not really what the extended school debate is about at this point.
Dodd saying how proud he was to be Head Start's Senator of the Decade, says the feds need to be a better partner with locals, and that community colleges should be tuition-free. Again, invoking head starters and then maybe something meaningful is hidden in his comment about fed-local supports?
And there was Biden saying: Yes. We should go to school longer, we should have a minimum of 16 years of education, and we should focus these efforts on the poorest kids.
This was a lightening round (30 sec limit) and the issue of extending school time is complicated so I didn't expect anyone to get into the many pros and cons of implementing and paying for this type of reform. But it was, after all, a yes or no question. So the prize goes to Biden on this one.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Small (podlike, academy-style, learning community, schools-within-a) School
Small schools are not the hot topic anymore, at least not like they were ten years ago. This is unfortunate because it is now, after more than a decade of experimentation and research and writing, that we really have something to learn from. But so goes education reform.
Still, small schools reform has a little (I won't say small) stream of federal funding in the Small Learning Communities Initiative–$93 million this past year). And they are still touted by philanthropists and ed reformers as a "modernization" approach for high schools and middle schools (in crowded company with early college, dual enrollment, IB programs, et al).
So it seems we still clearly value the goal of small for our schools. It's hard to find a high school out there that isn't trying, somehow, to get smaller. Small schools, schools-within-schools, small learning communities (SLCs), "houses" or "families" or "pods" or "academies", as well as charters and magnets, which both often highlight their smaller size as a benefit–the one sure thing is that there is great variation in how we intend to get small. I would add that, depending on the model, there is also great variation in the degree to which small really means small. I've seen SLCs- and dare admit that I've been a part of creating them- that bring teachers and kids together into a "learning community" in the same huge building with the same huge 2000+ population and with the same average 30+ class size. I can't say that the "school" or the "learning community" seemed much smaller, to the kids or to the teachers. And I know principals who nearly pulled their hair out over the scheduling nightmares it created. But I've also seen it work, even for large traditional high schools. Albeit with a lot of staff and community support, large schools that break into small schools really can function as separate small organizations, where the students and parents and staff create a new structure and a new culture. And, like charters, these have a sense of new vision and purpose and "small community" that seem to work. But, again like charters, there are also a whole host of questions about cost and space and sustainability.
Edweek captured these and other worthy comments and questions about small schools–what the term actually means and what it looks like in practice– in an online chat on Tuesday, transcript here worth reading.
Still, small schools reform has a little (I won't say small) stream of federal funding in the Small Learning Communities Initiative–$93 million this past year). And they are still touted by philanthropists and ed reformers as a "modernization" approach for high schools and middle schools (in crowded company with early college, dual enrollment, IB programs, et al).
So it seems we still clearly value the goal of small for our schools. It's hard to find a high school out there that isn't trying, somehow, to get smaller. Small schools, schools-within-schools, small learning communities (SLCs), "houses" or "families" or "pods" or "academies", as well as charters and magnets, which both often highlight their smaller size as a benefit–the one sure thing is that there is great variation in how we intend to get small. I would add that, depending on the model, there is also great variation in the degree to which small really means small. I've seen SLCs- and dare admit that I've been a part of creating them- that bring teachers and kids together into a "learning community" in the same huge building with the same huge 2000+ population and with the same average 30+ class size. I can't say that the "school" or the "learning community" seemed much smaller, to the kids or to the teachers. And I know principals who nearly pulled their hair out over the scheduling nightmares it created. But I've also seen it work, even for large traditional high schools. Albeit with a lot of staff and community support, large schools that break into small schools really can function as separate small organizations, where the students and parents and staff create a new structure and a new culture. And, like charters, these have a sense of new vision and purpose and "small community" that seem to work. But, again like charters, there are also a whole host of questions about cost and space and sustainability.
Edweek captured these and other worthy comments and questions about small schools–what the term actually means and what it looks like in practice– in an online chat on Tuesday, transcript here worth reading.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Scholarly Spirits
In the spirit of the holiday, today’s Inside Higher Ed has an interview with the author of Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses. Gets you thinking about hauntings at your own alma mater.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Shanghai Diary
Greetings from the other side of the world. I'll post pictures and offer lengthier observations that aren't clouded by the effect of the 12-hour time difference on my mental state when I get back later this week. A few notes in the meantime:
*Shanghai is vast. Once you get outside of the Bund and the older touristy areas like the French Concession, it's just huge swathes of helter-skelter construction, wide boulevards, and liberal use of neon. It's like Houston crossed with Las Vegas except ten times bigger and everyone is Chinese.
*There's really been an explosion in activity internationally around college rankings. Twenty-five years ago it was pretty much just U.S. News & World Report; now there are multiple global higher education rankings (like those produced by Shanghai Jia Tong University, host of the event), as well as lots of countries doing internal rankings, continental rankings, etc. Apparently the Malaysian equivalent of Margaret Spellings got canned a few years ago when the state university dropped 19 places in the Times Higher Education Supplement rankings (even though the decline was entirely a function of a switch in the methodology).
*I wish I could say that I was able to listen to a half-hour presentation from the very nice woman from the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education describing their new, quite sophisticated college rankings system without mentally composing various snarky blog posts with titles beginning "Cultural Learnings of...." But that would be a lie.
More later this week.
*Shanghai is vast. Once you get outside of the Bund and the older touristy areas like the French Concession, it's just huge swathes of helter-skelter construction, wide boulevards, and liberal use of neon. It's like Houston crossed with Las Vegas except ten times bigger and everyone is Chinese.
*There's really been an explosion in activity internationally around college rankings. Twenty-five years ago it was pretty much just U.S. News & World Report; now there are multiple global higher education rankings (like those produced by Shanghai Jia Tong University, host of the event), as well as lots of countries doing internal rankings, continental rankings, etc. Apparently the Malaysian equivalent of Margaret Spellings got canned a few years ago when the state university dropped 19 places in the Times Higher Education Supplement rankings (even though the decline was entirely a function of a switch in the methodology).
*I wish I could say that I was able to listen to a half-hour presentation from the very nice woman from the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education describing their new, quite sophisticated college rankings system without mentally composing various snarky blog posts with titles beginning "Cultural Learnings of...." But that would be a lie.
More later this week.
The Gifted Island
New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is starting his revamp of the city’s gifted education program by limiting admission to only those students who score in the top 5 percent on two citywide exams. According to the NYT article, one of the tests used, the Bracken School Readiness Assessment, “gauges students’ understanding of colors, letters, numbers, sizes, comparisons and shapes.” But according to the results of an NCES study released today, sorting students based on a test is unlikely to address problems of equal access in NYC’s “gifted and talented” system.
Findings highlighted from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which assessed preschoolers’ knowledge and skills, included:
Children with two-parent families scored higher than children with single-parent families in several aspects of early literacy: letter recognition, or children’s ability to identify letters of the alphabet; phonological awareness, or understanding of the sounds and structure of spoken language; and conventions of print, or understanding such aspects as the reading of English text from left to right.
The percentage of children demonstrating proficiency in numbers and shapes ranged from 40 percent among lower socioeconomic status (SES) families to 87 percent in higher SES families.
Given these results, won’t the tests Chancellor Klein wants to use only reinforce existing socio-economic divisions among who participates in "gifted" programs, maintaining the heaviest concentration of “gifted and talented” in the wealthy Upper West Side of
Also, do we want to be testing and sorting kids before they even start school? Research from social psychologists indicates that labeling kids as “gifted” impacts both student and teacher expectations, and subsequently student academic success. It seems to me that offering a “gifted and talented” curriculum (i.e., engaging, challenging, creative) to all students wouldn’t be such a bad idea, rather than reserving these "islands of relatively happy functionality" for students who test well.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Obama's Plan(ning) for Education
So it looks like Obama's going to announce a plan on education. Good. Now, c'mon. With a record of ideas and nearly a year now on the Education Committee, you've got plenty of good stuff to work with. We're waiting and we're expecting something better than this.
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