The lead editorial in yesterday morning’s Boston Globe urged Massachusetts’ lawmakers to approve a proposal that would double the funding available to support extended school days in Massachusetts’ schools. According to the Globe, “alert urban educators recognize that expanding learning time allows them to close the achievement gap between minority and white students.” The Globe editors also claimed that longer schools day will offer time for the art and enrichment programs “that are often lost to the demands of the standard six-hour school day.”
Extended school days have become one of the latest fads in urban schools desperate to improve the achievement of poor and minority students. The achievement gap between White and Black and Hispanic students is a real crisis in American education. There is little evidence, however, that longer school days can make much of a difference in remedying the achievement gap. A report from the non-profit Education Sector , for example, indicates that more academic time in which students are engaged correlates with higher achievement . . . but longer school days do not.”
The issue isn’t more time in the school day, but what happens during the hours that are available in urban schools. And the evidence indicates that time in many urban schools is spent very differently from how time is used in more affluent, suburban schools. Too often, students in urban are plagued by impoverished, basic skill curricula that limit their reading and writing development. While urban students are drilled in atomistic reading skills, their suburban counterparts are reading and discussing challenging, engaging texts. While students in low-performing urban schools are practicing writing for the test, students in high-achieving suburban schools are learning to write for a wide range of purposes and audiences. The rich get richer and the poor get instruction in skills, skills, and more skills.
As for the claim that longer school days will provide space in the curriculum for art and music, I’ll believe that when I see it. The current evidence indicates that, in low-performing, urban schools, if it isn’t tested, it won’t be taught. In many schools even science and social studies are largely ignored because they aren’t tested (see Nichols & Berliner's new book, Collaterall Damage).
In their book, Breakthrough, Fullan, Hill, and Crévola conclude that the goal of education for all students in the 21st century must be “learning to learn, about becoming independent thinkers and learners. It’s about problem solving, teamwork, knowledge of the world, adaptability, and comfort in a global system of technologies, conflict, and complexity” (p. 3). The key for achieving this lofty goal for students in urban schools is not more time, but engaging, high expectation curricula typically found in highly successful suburban school districts.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Bushisms and Campbell's Law
President Bush is famous for his “Bushisms,” what Slate calls his “accidental wit and wisdom.” My favorite Bushism is the time he invoked The Who by saying, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." Here’s a Bushism most educators will remember. “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” This one is only sort of funny since “passing the literacy test” has become the goal of reading instruction in many school districts across the country.
In one of my classes at Boston College we’ve been reading and talking about genre theory as it applies to the teaching of reading and writing. Last Wednesday during a discussion of an article we’d all read one of my students (I’ll call her Marsha), a veteran teacher in a large urban school district, shared a personal anecdote. Marsha said she had been telling her principal about some of the articles on genre she’d been reading and what genre theory had to say about how they taught writing in their school. The principal told her that she wasn’t to worry about different ways to teach writing in her classroom. Her job was to “teach the (state) writing test.” (“Teach a child to write and he or she will be able to pass the writing test.”)
I’m currently reading a book by Sharon Nichols and David Berliner called Collateral damage: How high stakes testing corrupts America’s schools. I recommend it. In Collateral damage, Nichols and Berliner refer often to “Campbell’s Law” which stipulates that “the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor” (pp. 26-27). Nobody has to tell Marsha’s how high stakes testing is distorting and corrupting the teaching of writing in her school.
In today’s Boston Globe there’s a comic (“F Minus”) in which a man is seated at a table across from a potential employer who says, “The job you’re applying for will require you to know long division, state capitals, and cursive writing.” The cartoon caption reads, “Dale’s fourth-grade education pays off.” I suggest substituting this caption with a different one: Thank goodness this was on the state test.
In one of my classes at Boston College we’ve been reading and talking about genre theory as it applies to the teaching of reading and writing. Last Wednesday during a discussion of an article we’d all read one of my students (I’ll call her Marsha), a veteran teacher in a large urban school district, shared a personal anecdote. Marsha said she had been telling her principal about some of the articles on genre she’d been reading and what genre theory had to say about how they taught writing in their school. The principal told her that she wasn’t to worry about different ways to teach writing in her classroom. Her job was to “teach the (state) writing test.” (“Teach a child to write and he or she will be able to pass the writing test.”)
I’m currently reading a book by Sharon Nichols and David Berliner called Collateral damage: How high stakes testing corrupts America’s schools. I recommend it. In Collateral damage, Nichols and Berliner refer often to “Campbell’s Law” which stipulates that “the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor” (pp. 26-27). Nobody has to tell Marsha’s how high stakes testing is distorting and corrupting the teaching of writing in her school.
In today’s Boston Globe there’s a comic (“F Minus”) in which a man is seated at a table across from a potential employer who says, “The job you’re applying for will require you to know long division, state capitals, and cursive writing.” The cartoon caption reads, “Dale’s fourth-grade education pays off.” I suggest substituting this caption with a different one: Thank goodness this was on the state test.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Language and Children Living in Poverty
All poor children are not alike. They do not share the same culture. They do not share common language practices. They do share economic deprivations but even then poor families tend to move in and out of poverty. Poor children are also at higher risk for academic failure but, as Jonathon Kozol has documented, children living in poverty are rarely offered the same, high quality educational opportunities experienced by their more affluent peers.
Yet school districts serving large numbers of poor children continue to undertake initiatives that implicitly blame the poor for their economic, social, and academic struggles. A recent article in the Boston Globe (“With babies, words for wisdom,” April 2, 2008) described Boston’s “Early Words” program that seeks to increase the amount of talk low-income parents direct to their children. According to the Globe, the rationale for this initiative comes Betty Hart and Todd Risley’s 1995 study that “showed that by age 3, most middle-class children had much larger vocabularies than children from low-income families. Middle-class parents speak, on average, 300 more words per hour to their children, according to the [Hart and Risley] study.” (See my earlier blog on Hart and Risley.)
I’m all for parents talking to their children. What troubles me is the presumption that low-income parents don’t talk to their children. It seems more that a little unreasonable to make general claims about parents and children living in poverty based on Hart and Risley’s study of six poor families from Kansas City, all of whom were Black. It would be very hard to argue that these families have much in common with poor families here in Boston or anywhere else in the country.
I think we should focus less on what poor parents may or may not be saying to their children and consider the frightful toll poverty takes on poor children and their families. Recent research by neuroscientists, for example, indicates that the heightened stress levels associated with living in poverty may impair the brain development of children, limiting their future life chances (“Here and Now,” March 6, 2008). This line of research makes it pretty clear that the problem for poor children is poverty, not parents who are poor.
Yet school districts serving large numbers of poor children continue to undertake initiatives that implicitly blame the poor for their economic, social, and academic struggles. A recent article in the Boston Globe (“With babies, words for wisdom,” April 2, 2008) described Boston’s “Early Words” program that seeks to increase the amount of talk low-income parents direct to their children. According to the Globe, the rationale for this initiative comes Betty Hart and Todd Risley’s 1995 study that “showed that by age 3, most middle-class children had much larger vocabularies than children from low-income families. Middle-class parents speak, on average, 300 more words per hour to their children, according to the [Hart and Risley] study.” (See my earlier blog on Hart and Risley.)
I’m all for parents talking to their children. What troubles me is the presumption that low-income parents don’t talk to their children. It seems more that a little unreasonable to make general claims about parents and children living in poverty based on Hart and Risley’s study of six poor families from Kansas City, all of whom were Black. It would be very hard to argue that these families have much in common with poor families here in Boston or anywhere else in the country.
I think we should focus less on what poor parents may or may not be saying to their children and consider the frightful toll poverty takes on poor children and their families. Recent research by neuroscientists, for example, indicates that the heightened stress levels associated with living in poverty may impair the brain development of children, limiting their future life chances (“Here and Now,” March 6, 2008). This line of research makes it pretty clear that the problem for poor children is poverty, not parents who are poor.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Outrageous Claims
I seemed to have lost the blogging habit but I’ve been waiting for some inspiration to get me back on track. The inspiration came when I was Googling my name on Internet (another story) and came across the following quote from a chapter by Devery Mock and James Kaufman (2004) in a book entitled Controversial therapies for developmental disabilities: Fad, fashion, and science in professional practice (Jacobson, Foxx, & Mulick, 2004). Here’s the quote: “The 1980s whole-language instructional approach was introduced by reformers who openly and explicitly rejected the value of quantitative evidence of effectiveness and held to the belief that learning to read is as simple as learning to speak” (p. 119). For these assertions Mock and Kaufman cite Elaine Garan, Ken Goodman, and ME (it is an honor to be linked to Ken Goodman and I'm sure Elaine agrees).
The assertion that Goodman, Garan, Dudley-Marling or other whole-language theorists reject quantitative evidence out of hand simply is untrue. It is true, however, that many literacy theorists do reject the quantification of certain reading behaviors that misrepresent the reading process that has been verified in numerous research studies. For example, I can’t accept the quantification of reading fluency in a way that separates reading from meaning (see Rereading Fluency: Process, Practice, and Policy by Altwerger, Jordan & Shelton). This just isn’t what readers do in the process of reading text.
Similarly, it is not true that Goodman, Garan or anyone else I know “hold to the belief” that learning to read is as simple as learning to speak. First of all, learning to speak isn’t so simple. Learning to speak is an extraordinarily complex process that has never been adequately described by linguists or psychologists. Second, many whole language folks have argued that there are language-learning principles derived from research on oral language acquisition that can be generalized to written language acquisition. This is not, however, the same as saying that these are identical processes or that learning to read is “as simple” as learning to talk.
Mock and Kaufman go on to claim that 1994 NAEP data show that "40% of fourth graders instructed using a whole language approach were unable to read grade-appropriate texts" (p. 119). This is particularly curious since no such data are available for whole language classrooms. Further, Mock and Kaufman lament that whole language practices were "so universally adopted in the absence of credible evidence" (p. 119). "Universally adopted?" Where? Whole language has influenced reading instruction but it has NEVER been a dominant reading practice in the United States.
There are fair criticisms that can be leveled at whole language and some of these criticisms have contributed to the ongoing development of whole language theory and practice. Caricatures about whole language theorists and practitioners who reject research and equate oral and written language learning are neither fair nor helpful.
The assertion that Goodman, Garan, Dudley-Marling or other whole-language theorists reject quantitative evidence out of hand simply is untrue. It is true, however, that many literacy theorists do reject the quantification of certain reading behaviors that misrepresent the reading process that has been verified in numerous research studies. For example, I can’t accept the quantification of reading fluency in a way that separates reading from meaning (see Rereading Fluency: Process, Practice, and Policy by Altwerger, Jordan & Shelton). This just isn’t what readers do in the process of reading text.
Similarly, it is not true that Goodman, Garan or anyone else I know “hold to the belief” that learning to read is as simple as learning to speak. First of all, learning to speak isn’t so simple. Learning to speak is an extraordinarily complex process that has never been adequately described by linguists or psychologists. Second, many whole language folks have argued that there are language-learning principles derived from research on oral language acquisition that can be generalized to written language acquisition. This is not, however, the same as saying that these are identical processes or that learning to read is “as simple” as learning to talk.
Mock and Kaufman go on to claim that 1994 NAEP data show that "40% of fourth graders instructed using a whole language approach were unable to read grade-appropriate texts" (p. 119). This is particularly curious since no such data are available for whole language classrooms. Further, Mock and Kaufman lament that whole language practices were "so universally adopted in the absence of credible evidence" (p. 119). "Universally adopted?" Where? Whole language has influenced reading instruction but it has NEVER been a dominant reading practice in the United States.
There are fair criticisms that can be leveled at whole language and some of these criticisms have contributed to the ongoing development of whole language theory and practice. Caricatures about whole language theorists and practitioners who reject research and equate oral and written language learning are neither fair nor helpful.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Stopping the Re-authorization of NCLB
A recent article in the New York Times documents the rising opposition to the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) which has stalled. Democrats tend to oppose NCLB because of concerns from teacher unions that NCLB has undercut the professionalism of teachers. Many Republicans oppose NCLB because they believe it intrudes on the role of states to make educational policy.
This situation gives hope to those of us who feel that NCLB has harmed teachers and students across the US by limiting the professional discretion of teachers and by denying students in low achieving schools access to challenging, high expectation curricula. It is also clear that NCLB has failed to alleviate the so-called achievement gap. As I wrote in an earlier posting, based on the most recent NAEP report, “at the current rate of improvement since 1992, it will take another 135 years for the average performance of Black students to pull even with White students. Using the same logic, it will take 375 years for the average performance of Hispanic students to catch up to their White classmates.”
Given the current political realities, the time couldn’t be better for NCTE members and other teachers of the English language arts to contact their congressional representatives to voice their opposition to the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind. When I was a member of NCTE’s Executive Committee we heard from a number of congressional staffers that they rarely hear from teachers. Now is the time for our voices to be heard. Contact your representatives but be clear that we are in favor of high standards, but not standardized testing and uniform curricula. We also favor accountability for teachers but not an accountability based on test scores.
So let us resolve in the new year to make a difference in American education by making our voices heard by contacting our congressional representatives to oppose the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind. This is a real chance to turn things around for ourselves and our students.
This situation gives hope to those of us who feel that NCLB has harmed teachers and students across the US by limiting the professional discretion of teachers and by denying students in low achieving schools access to challenging, high expectation curricula. It is also clear that NCLB has failed to alleviate the so-called achievement gap. As I wrote in an earlier posting, based on the most recent NAEP report, “at the current rate of improvement since 1992, it will take another 135 years for the average performance of Black students to pull even with White students. Using the same logic, it will take 375 years for the average performance of Hispanic students to catch up to their White classmates.”
Given the current political realities, the time couldn’t be better for NCTE members and other teachers of the English language arts to contact their congressional representatives to voice their opposition to the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind. When I was a member of NCTE’s Executive Committee we heard from a number of congressional staffers that they rarely hear from teachers. Now is the time for our voices to be heard. Contact your representatives but be clear that we are in favor of high standards, but not standardized testing and uniform curricula. We also favor accountability for teachers but not an accountability based on test scores.
So let us resolve in the new year to make a difference in American education by making our voices heard by contacting our congressional representatives to oppose the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind. This is a real chance to turn things around for ourselves and our students.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Being Accountable to Children's Needs
I just finished grading exams and papers. For my reading methods course, I ask my Boston College students to write about how they will teach reading when they have their own classrooms. I’m particularly interested in they’re being able to provide a rationale for how they will teach reading. Certainly, I hope that they will be able to cite a research base that supports their decision-making, but I expect more than that. I also want my students to be able to talk about theories of reading (how people read and how they learn to read) that inform their reading program. Do they believe that reading is the fluent, linear processing of visual information (a cognitive-psychological view)? If so, how does their instruction – and the research base they cite to support their reading program – comport with this model of reading? If they view reading as a range of sociocultural processes that vary according to the text, the reader’s purpose, the cultural context, and so on, how does this affect their instructional decision-making and the research they draw on to support their work? Is their reading program theoretically coherent or does it include (theoretically) contradictory practices that send confusing signals to developing readers? To my chagrin, my students sometimes argue that their teaching will draw on both cognitive-psychological and sociocultural views of reading.
In any case, I think it is a reasonable expectation that all teachers of reading be able to provide a clear rationale for their instructional decisions. What they do as teachers of reading should make sense (that is, it should have some theoretical support), have a research base, and, perhaps most importantly, be based on the assessed needs of individual children. This is something else I tell my students (over and over and over again): what they teach must address the individual needs of their students. They should not teach what students already know nor should they teach what students are not ready to learn. Put differently, teachers should be held accountable for showing that their reading instruction supports INDIVIDUAL students’ developing reading abilities within a theoretical coherent framework. Regrettably, narrow standards and high stakes testing often leads to whole class approaches to reading that do not consider the needs and abilities of individual children.
In any case, I think it is a reasonable expectation that all teachers of reading be able to provide a clear rationale for their instructional decisions. What they do as teachers of reading should make sense (that is, it should have some theoretical support), have a research base, and, perhaps most importantly, be based on the assessed needs of individual children. This is something else I tell my students (over and over and over again): what they teach must address the individual needs of their students. They should not teach what students already know nor should they teach what students are not ready to learn. Put differently, teachers should be held accountable for showing that their reading instruction supports INDIVIDUAL students’ developing reading abilities within a theoretical coherent framework. Regrettably, narrow standards and high stakes testing often leads to whole class approaches to reading that do not consider the needs and abilities of individual children.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Negative Portrayals of the Poor
One of my students and I have been writing a critique of a study by Betty Hart and Todd Risley that attributes the high proportion of academic failures among poor students to limited language opportunities in their homes. Hart and Risley claim, for example, that by age 3, children in professional families have heard more than 30 million words spoken in their homes, children in working-class families 20 million words, and the children in poor families only 10 million words. This particular finding has been widely quoted in the professional literature and the popular press and has been used to support calls for universal pre-school, especially for poor children.
When we submitted a conference proposal based on this critique one of the reviewers complained, “you just don’t like Hart and Risley’s negative portrayal of the poor.” The reviewer was right. I don’t like negative portrayals of families living in poverty that blame the poor for their academic and economic struggles. I don’t like Ruby Payne’s program based on the assumption that the poor share a dysfunctional “culture of poverty.” Nor do I like family literacy programs that portray the literacy environment in poor families as deficient. And I certainly don’t care for the repeated claim that children in poor families fail in school because of linguistic and cultural deficiencies in their homes.
All children come to school with an amazing repertoire of language and literacy skills although not all children come to school with the same experiences. The problem is when the differences between middle-class and non-middle-class families are portrayed as deficiencies. No good ever comes from teachers viewing their students and their families as deficient. There is considerable evidence that successful teachers of poor and minority students respect their students and the communities from which they come. Deficit-based approaches to teaching poor students are inherently disrespectful.
A respectful approach to literacy instruction for students from non-dominant groups begins by acknowledging the literacy experiences students bring with them to school. Respectful language arts instruction recruits students’ cultural and linguistic resources in support of school learning. Respectful literacy instruction challenges children attending under resourced schools with the same rich, high expectation curricula common in more affluent schools. Finally, a respectful literacy curriculum addresses crucial literacy skills in the context of schooling.
In the context of a respectful language arts program, parents aren’t the problem, the problem (teaching children school literacy practices) is the problem.
When we submitted a conference proposal based on this critique one of the reviewers complained, “you just don’t like Hart and Risley’s negative portrayal of the poor.” The reviewer was right. I don’t like negative portrayals of families living in poverty that blame the poor for their academic and economic struggles. I don’t like Ruby Payne’s program based on the assumption that the poor share a dysfunctional “culture of poverty.” Nor do I like family literacy programs that portray the literacy environment in poor families as deficient. And I certainly don’t care for the repeated claim that children in poor families fail in school because of linguistic and cultural deficiencies in their homes.
All children come to school with an amazing repertoire of language and literacy skills although not all children come to school with the same experiences. The problem is when the differences between middle-class and non-middle-class families are portrayed as deficiencies. No good ever comes from teachers viewing their students and their families as deficient. There is considerable evidence that successful teachers of poor and minority students respect their students and the communities from which they come. Deficit-based approaches to teaching poor students are inherently disrespectful.
A respectful approach to literacy instruction for students from non-dominant groups begins by acknowledging the literacy experiences students bring with them to school. Respectful language arts instruction recruits students’ cultural and linguistic resources in support of school learning. Respectful literacy instruction challenges children attending under resourced schools with the same rich, high expectation curricula common in more affluent schools. Finally, a respectful literacy curriculum addresses crucial literacy skills in the context of schooling.
In the context of a respectful language arts program, parents aren’t the problem, the problem (teaching children school literacy practices) is the problem.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Improving Academic Achievement with Cell Phones
A recent article in the New York Times (“Reaching out to students when they talk and text,” November 13, 2007) describes a planned campaign in New York City Public Schools to improve the academic performance of students in underachieving schools using mentoring and various incentives for high performance. According to the Times article, the incentives will include “free concerts and sporting events and free minutes and ringtones for their phones.” That’s another part of the program. Each student in participating schools will be given a cell phone even though the Mayor of NYC has banned cell phones in City schools.
The program will also include the use of text messages created by an advertising agency that promote academic achievement. This is an effort to “rebrand” educational achievement. The article cites a study undertaken by the NYC schools that many poor Black and Latino students in the city’s poorest neighborhoods “had a difficult time understanding that doing well in school can provide tangible, long-term benefits.”
I guess the problem is that academic achievement has a bad “rep.”
Apparently, the antidote to under resourced schools, impoverished curricula, a shortage of “highly qualified” teachers, and the material effects of poverty is an advertising campaign. This all seems incredibly naïve to me. And, if the stakes weren’t so high, I might find such blind faith in the power of advertising charming.
But the stakes are very high and ads and incentives miss the more important point. Students in high poverty schools need better facilities. They need better teachers. And, most of all, they need challenging, high expectation curricula.
Sarah Michaels and I are currently examining data we collected in a South Bronx elementary school that used Shared Inquiry and Accountable Talk as part of its reading program. In this program, students read and discussed challenging texts, using textual evidence to make sophisticated arguments. We also found that, during the time students were involved in Shared Inquiry, reading scores increased and teachers’ perceptions of their students’ learning potential were transformed. Our findings are consistent with the work of Jeannie Oakes and other urban scholars who have demonstrated the power of high expectation curricula to turn around low achieving schools.
Maybe if I had the cell phone numbers of NYC school officials I could text them.
The program will also include the use of text messages created by an advertising agency that promote academic achievement. This is an effort to “rebrand” educational achievement. The article cites a study undertaken by the NYC schools that many poor Black and Latino students in the city’s poorest neighborhoods “had a difficult time understanding that doing well in school can provide tangible, long-term benefits.”
I guess the problem is that academic achievement has a bad “rep.”
Apparently, the antidote to under resourced schools, impoverished curricula, a shortage of “highly qualified” teachers, and the material effects of poverty is an advertising campaign. This all seems incredibly naïve to me. And, if the stakes weren’t so high, I might find such blind faith in the power of advertising charming.
But the stakes are very high and ads and incentives miss the more important point. Students in high poverty schools need better facilities. They need better teachers. And, most of all, they need challenging, high expectation curricula.
Sarah Michaels and I are currently examining data we collected in a South Bronx elementary school that used Shared Inquiry and Accountable Talk as part of its reading program. In this program, students read and discussed challenging texts, using textual evidence to make sophisticated arguments. We also found that, during the time students were involved in Shared Inquiry, reading scores increased and teachers’ perceptions of their students’ learning potential were transformed. Our findings are consistent with the work of Jeannie Oakes and other urban scholars who have demonstrated the power of high expectation curricula to turn around low achieving schools.
Maybe if I had the cell phone numbers of NYC school officials I could text them.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Homework 2
In my last posting I wrote about homework. I wrote that there is little research supporting the efficacy of homework in the elementary grades. I also cited evidence from my own research that homework can seriously disrupt the lives of many families, depriving parents of the pleasures of parenthood. But I want to address a particular kind of homework practice, what I’ll call “school-to-home” literacy practices.
School-to-home literacy includes various efforts to encourage parents to read with their children at home, to set aside time for children to read independently, or for parents to model reading for their children. These school-to-home literacy practices are motivated by the sense that children do better in school when their parents provide rich reading experiences in the home. There is also the worry that some parents, particularly poor urban parents whose children experience higher levels of academic failure, need lots of guidance to help them provide appropriate literacy experiences in their homes.
Because I was curious about the degree to which various home-to-school literacy practices were considerate of the values, beliefs, and time demands of urban parents, I undertook a study of how parents perceived these initiatives. Toward this end, we interviewed African American and immigrant, ESL parents in two large, underperforming urban districts not far from Boston College.
What we found was that school-to-home literacy practices, as experienced by the parents we interviewed, did not always fit well with family routines, cultural values, or expectations. We also found that the interaction between parents and schools was marked by a one-way model of school-home communication that provided few opportunities for school-to-home literacy initiatives to respond to the needs of individual families.
One of conclusions I drew from this study is that, although we may believe that practices like shared and independent reading in the home are crucial literacy experiences, there is no reason to believe that parents will automatically share this belief. Moreover, merely asking parents to embrace school literacy practices common in middle-class homes does not mean that non-middle-class parents can or will embrace these practices.
So what is a teacher to do? Here are a few suggestions I have come up with.
Teachers should be clear with parents that there are kinds of school literacy practices that are quite different from out-of-school literacies. Encouraging/modeling independent reading, for example, is more than something fun to do after the homework has been completed. But we can’t just tell parents what to do. We must also persuade them that it is important.
Teachers/schools should be clear about the kinds of support they can offer parents to encourage family literacy practices particularly supportive of schooling, how to read with their children, for example. But we need to leave it to parents to determine what they are able to do. In other words, teachers must be prepared to accept the possibility that some school-to-literacy practices don’t fit well with cultural patterns in the home. Other parents may just not have the time to do one more thing.
If teachers feel that there are crucial literacy experiences (shared and independent reading, storybook reading) all children need to have then they should make space for these experience IN SCHOOL.
Teachers must recognize the various literacy practices students have experienced in their homes and find ways to build on students’ knowledge of literacy. ALL children come to school knowing something about literacy. We need to discover what children know and build on that.
Finally, recognizing that the home literacy practices of some students (i.e., middle-class students) more closely match school literacy practices than the home literacy experiences of other students, teachers MUST be much more explicit about how school literacy practices work.
School-to-home literacy includes various efforts to encourage parents to read with their children at home, to set aside time for children to read independently, or for parents to model reading for their children. These school-to-home literacy practices are motivated by the sense that children do better in school when their parents provide rich reading experiences in the home. There is also the worry that some parents, particularly poor urban parents whose children experience higher levels of academic failure, need lots of guidance to help them provide appropriate literacy experiences in their homes.
Because I was curious about the degree to which various home-to-school literacy practices were considerate of the values, beliefs, and time demands of urban parents, I undertook a study of how parents perceived these initiatives. Toward this end, we interviewed African American and immigrant, ESL parents in two large, underperforming urban districts not far from Boston College.
What we found was that school-to-home literacy practices, as experienced by the parents we interviewed, did not always fit well with family routines, cultural values, or expectations. We also found that the interaction between parents and schools was marked by a one-way model of school-home communication that provided few opportunities for school-to-home literacy initiatives to respond to the needs of individual families.
One of conclusions I drew from this study is that, although we may believe that practices like shared and independent reading in the home are crucial literacy experiences, there is no reason to believe that parents will automatically share this belief. Moreover, merely asking parents to embrace school literacy practices common in middle-class homes does not mean that non-middle-class parents can or will embrace these practices.
So what is a teacher to do? Here are a few suggestions I have come up with.
Teachers should be clear with parents that there are kinds of school literacy practices that are quite different from out-of-school literacies. Encouraging/modeling independent reading, for example, is more than something fun to do after the homework has been completed. But we can’t just tell parents what to do. We must also persuade them that it is important.
Teachers/schools should be clear about the kinds of support they can offer parents to encourage family literacy practices particularly supportive of schooling, how to read with their children, for example. But we need to leave it to parents to determine what they are able to do. In other words, teachers must be prepared to accept the possibility that some school-to-literacy practices don’t fit well with cultural patterns in the home. Other parents may just not have the time to do one more thing.
If teachers feel that there are crucial literacy experiences (shared and independent reading, storybook reading) all children need to have then they should make space for these experience IN SCHOOL.
Teachers must recognize the various literacy practices students have experienced in their homes and find ways to build on students’ knowledge of literacy. ALL children come to school knowing something about literacy. We need to discover what children know and build on that.
Finally, recognizing that the home literacy practices of some students (i.e., middle-class students) more closely match school literacy practices than the home literacy experiences of other students, teachers MUST be much more explicit about how school literacy practices work.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
The burdens of homework on parents and children
This past week-end the Boston Globe published an article (Sara Rimer, “Less homework, more Yoga,” October 31, 2007) about the principal at Needham (MA) High School who has undertaken a number of measures to reduce stress among his students including “homework free” days to help students catch up on their school work. Apparently, this has provided fodder to conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh who have accused the Needham principal of “coddling” students.
Homework continues to be the subject of heated debates among parents, students, politicians, educational reformers, and the general public. Newt Gingrich once argued that children who weren’t required to do at least two hours of homework every night “were being cheated for the rest of their lives.” A new book by Alfie Kohn (The homework myth, Da Capo Press), on the other hand, presents a mountain of research evidence documenting the negative effects of homework on parents and children. But I suspect most people are likely to ignore the research and side with Gingrich on this issue even if they might wonder about the requirement of two hours of homework for every child.
When my children were younger I learned to loath homework that disrupted our family routines and often created nearly unbearable tensions in our household. Thinking about the time my daughter lost a major homework assignment that took weeks to complete in fourth grade still makes me sick to my stomach.
Motivated by our experience with homework I undertook an interview study with 24 parents of elementary aged children who struggled in school to learn how these parents experienced homework (A family affair: When school troubles come home, Heinemann). Over and over again parents shared stories of stress and turmoil. In these households, homework created tensions between parents and children and mothers and fathers. Several parents claimed that tensions around homework had permanently damaged their relationships with their children and sent a few couples to marriage counseling. It was worst for the single mothers who struggled to work, manage their households, and support their children’s schooling. In general, homework robbed the mothers and fathers I interviewed of many of the pleasures of parenthood.
So why are parents, teachers, and the general public so supportive of homework, even in the earliest grades? I suspect most people believe that, whatever its downside, homework
supports academic achievement. But an extensive body of research indicates otherwise. Homework has not been shown to have beneficial effects for elementary students and the benefits for high school students are modest at best. And, as my research shows, homework often has a negative effect on the emotional lives of parents and children.
There are critics of American schooling who argue that the cure all for educational failures is “scientifically-based” research. I don’t agree for reasons I’ve discussed in previous blogs, but I have to wonder why we persist to push homework in the early grades in the absence of research support.
Homework continues to be the subject of heated debates among parents, students, politicians, educational reformers, and the general public. Newt Gingrich once argued that children who weren’t required to do at least two hours of homework every night “were being cheated for the rest of their lives.” A new book by Alfie Kohn (The homework myth, Da Capo Press), on the other hand, presents a mountain of research evidence documenting the negative effects of homework on parents and children. But I suspect most people are likely to ignore the research and side with Gingrich on this issue even if they might wonder about the requirement of two hours of homework for every child.
When my children were younger I learned to loath homework that disrupted our family routines and often created nearly unbearable tensions in our household. Thinking about the time my daughter lost a major homework assignment that took weeks to complete in fourth grade still makes me sick to my stomach.
Motivated by our experience with homework I undertook an interview study with 24 parents of elementary aged children who struggled in school to learn how these parents experienced homework (A family affair: When school troubles come home, Heinemann). Over and over again parents shared stories of stress and turmoil. In these households, homework created tensions between parents and children and mothers and fathers. Several parents claimed that tensions around homework had permanently damaged their relationships with their children and sent a few couples to marriage counseling. It was worst for the single mothers who struggled to work, manage their households, and support their children’s schooling. In general, homework robbed the mothers and fathers I interviewed of many of the pleasures of parenthood.
So why are parents, teachers, and the general public so supportive of homework, even in the earliest grades? I suspect most people believe that, whatever its downside, homework
supports academic achievement. But an extensive body of research indicates otherwise. Homework has not been shown to have beneficial effects for elementary students and the benefits for high school students are modest at best. And, as my research shows, homework often has a negative effect on the emotional lives of parents and children.
There are critics of American schooling who argue that the cure all for educational failures is “scientifically-based” research. I don’t agree for reasons I’ve discussed in previous blogs, but I have to wonder why we persist to push homework in the early grades in the absence of research support.
Friday, October 12, 2007
The Tyranny of the Norm (or, it’s normal to be different)
According to the Boston Globe (“Student takes his C to federal court,” October 4, 2007), a student at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst has gone to court to challenge a grade in one of his courses. The student determined he had done “A” work in the course but, because the final grade was computed “on a curve,” he got a “C” for his final grade. Lots of high school and college teachers grade “on a curve.” It’s more or less assumed that the bell curve provides a natural description of most human behaviors, including academic performance. The idea that, in general, human behavior distributes “normally” is a powerful idea that stands behind whole-class instruction (most kids cluster around the average), special education (students who depart significantly from the norm require a “special” education), educational testing (students are often compared to the “average” student at their grade level), educational research (statistical comparisons between groups or instructional interventions are based on the mean), and, sometimes, grading practices.
One of my doctoral students and I have been researching the history of the normal curve. Almost everyone assumes that the normal curve is an accurate model for representing variation in human behavior, but does the evidence actually support this common-sense assumption? As it turns out, some physical characteristics like height do distribute along a bell-shaped, normal curve. The vast majority of human behaviors do not, however, distribute normally. Weight doesn’t. Running speed and reaction time don’t. It’s not clear that intelligence or academic achievement distribute normally, either. Standardized tests are designed to produce normal distributions so the degree to which traits like intelligence and academic achievement distribute normally says more about the skill of the people who construct tests than it does about the human condition (and, even then, actual test scores often do not produce normal distributions). So, as it turns out, normal distributions are not the norm and this has been apparent to a few statisticians and social science researchers for over 100 years.
If the normal curve is a myth, as we believe that it is, then beliefs and practices based on the assumption of normality must be challenged. One particularly troubling practice that emerges from the “myth of normality” is the use of means (or averages) to represent groups of people, especially school children. The problem of using averages to represent the performance of children in our schools is that averages obscure the natural variation that characterizes the behavior of human beings. The claim that boys do less well in school than girls does not consider the fact that many boys do very well in school (better than most girls) and many girls do poorly in school (worse than most boys). Similarly, research on fourth grade readers or students with learning disabilities, for instance, obscures the individual needs of real children who are not statistical averages.
The assumption of normality has led to a range of educational practices and research that ignore the variety of ways children learn and the wide range of experiences they have in and out of school. We need to replace the notion that it’s normal to be average with the idea that it’s normal to be different. This will lead us to shift the focus of research and instruction from the mythical average student to the needs of individual learners.
One of my doctoral students and I have been researching the history of the normal curve. Almost everyone assumes that the normal curve is an accurate model for representing variation in human behavior, but does the evidence actually support this common-sense assumption? As it turns out, some physical characteristics like height do distribute along a bell-shaped, normal curve. The vast majority of human behaviors do not, however, distribute normally. Weight doesn’t. Running speed and reaction time don’t. It’s not clear that intelligence or academic achievement distribute normally, either. Standardized tests are designed to produce normal distributions so the degree to which traits like intelligence and academic achievement distribute normally says more about the skill of the people who construct tests than it does about the human condition (and, even then, actual test scores often do not produce normal distributions). So, as it turns out, normal distributions are not the norm and this has been apparent to a few statisticians and social science researchers for over 100 years.
If the normal curve is a myth, as we believe that it is, then beliefs and practices based on the assumption of normality must be challenged. One particularly troubling practice that emerges from the “myth of normality” is the use of means (or averages) to represent groups of people, especially school children. The problem of using averages to represent the performance of children in our schools is that averages obscure the natural variation that characterizes the behavior of human beings. The claim that boys do less well in school than girls does not consider the fact that many boys do very well in school (better than most girls) and many girls do poorly in school (worse than most boys). Similarly, research on fourth grade readers or students with learning disabilities, for instance, obscures the individual needs of real children who are not statistical averages.
The assumption of normality has led to a range of educational practices and research that ignore the variety of ways children learn and the wide range of experiences they have in and out of school. We need to replace the notion that it’s normal to be average with the idea that it’s normal to be different. This will lead us to shift the focus of research and instruction from the mythical average student to the needs of individual learners.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Remedying the Achievement Gap
The recently released results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reveal a persistent achievement gap between Black and Hispanic students and their White counterparts. The data also indicate that the achievement gap has held fairly steady since the results of the first NAEP were released 15 years ago.
Why has the achievement gap proven to be such an intractable problem? Presumably, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was drafted specifically to ameliorate the chronic underachievement of poor Black and Hispanic children, especially in reading.
My sense is that NCLB has promoted teaching practices that largely sustain the achievement gap. NCLB and related programs like Reading First promote circumscribed, skills-focused reading curricula that deny students in under-performing schools the rich reading experiences routinely provided to students in more affluent, higher-performing schools. It’s no surprise that students in poor urban and rural schools are plagued by a “fourth-grade reading slump.” An obsession with discrete skill instruction to the near exclusion of reading connected text virtually insures that many underachieving students will struggle when the expectation changes from learning to read to reading to learn.
I don’t understand why many policy makers think that students in underachieving schools – places overpopulated by poor Black and Hispanic children – require qualitatively different reading curricula from students in high performing schools. If students in high performing schools have lots of opportunities to read and discuss engaging texts – and they do – then this is what students in low performing schools need, too. If high achieving students have time for sustained engagement with various kinds of texts through practices like sustained silent reading – and they do – then this at least as important for low achieving students.
The antidote to the achievement gap then is high expectation curricula informed by the practices and opportunities common in high achieving schools. The evidence that the rich and varied curricula found in high achieving schools “work” is obvious: the students in these schools do very well academically. The evidence that low expectation curricula common in underachieving schools do not is equally obvious.
Why has the achievement gap proven to be such an intractable problem? Presumably, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was drafted specifically to ameliorate the chronic underachievement of poor Black and Hispanic children, especially in reading.
My sense is that NCLB has promoted teaching practices that largely sustain the achievement gap. NCLB and related programs like Reading First promote circumscribed, skills-focused reading curricula that deny students in under-performing schools the rich reading experiences routinely provided to students in more affluent, higher-performing schools. It’s no surprise that students in poor urban and rural schools are plagued by a “fourth-grade reading slump.” An obsession with discrete skill instruction to the near exclusion of reading connected text virtually insures that many underachieving students will struggle when the expectation changes from learning to read to reading to learn.
I don’t understand why many policy makers think that students in underachieving schools – places overpopulated by poor Black and Hispanic children – require qualitatively different reading curricula from students in high performing schools. If students in high performing schools have lots of opportunities to read and discuss engaging texts – and they do – then this is what students in low performing schools need, too. If high achieving students have time for sustained engagement with various kinds of texts through practices like sustained silent reading – and they do – then this at least as important for low achieving students.
The antidote to the achievement gap then is high expectation curricula informed by the practices and opportunities common in high achieving schools. The evidence that the rich and varied curricula found in high achieving schools “work” is obvious: the students in these schools do very well academically. The evidence that low expectation curricula common in underachieving schools do not is equally obvious.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The Latest NAEP Results and No Child Left Behind
The results of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the “nation’s report card,” were released yesterday. The NAEP report indicates that here have been modest gains in reading achievement for 4th and 8th graders since 1992 when the NAEP was first administered. These gains generally hold for all groups – Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics and males and females. But the data also reveal the persistence of the so-called “achievement gap” between White students and Black and Hispanic students. For example, although the gap in reading achievement between White and Black students has narrowed slightly since 1992, the average reading scores for Black students in 8th grade still lag 27 points behind their White classmates, down from a 30 point gap in 1992. The difference between White and Hispanic in 8th grade is now 25 points, down from 26 points in 1992.
The primary goal of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation was to eliminate the achievement gap, particularly in reading, by focusing on children too often “left behind.” The report of the National Reading Panel, Reading First grants, and the establishment of the What Works Clearinghouse were all intended to help achieve this worthy goal. Following the release of the NAEP report yesterday, President Bush called the results “outstanding,” adding that the NAEP scores confirm that No Child Left Behind is working” (New York Times, “Scores Show Mixed Results for Bush Education Law,” September 25, 2007).
My reading of the NAEP report is less optimistic. At the current rate of improvement since 1992, it will take another 135 years for the average performance of Black students to pull even with White students. Using the same logic, it will take 375 years for the average performance of Hispanic students to catch up to their White classmates. A cynic might conclude that NCLB is working to maintain existing educational inequities.
The primary goal of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation was to eliminate the achievement gap, particularly in reading, by focusing on children too often “left behind.” The report of the National Reading Panel, Reading First grants, and the establishment of the What Works Clearinghouse were all intended to help achieve this worthy goal. Following the release of the NAEP report yesterday, President Bush called the results “outstanding,” adding that the NAEP scores confirm that No Child Left Behind is working” (New York Times, “Scores Show Mixed Results for Bush Education Law,” September 25, 2007).
My reading of the NAEP report is less optimistic. At the current rate of improvement since 1992, it will take another 135 years for the average performance of Black students to pull even with White students. Using the same logic, it will take 375 years for the average performance of Hispanic students to catch up to their White classmates. A cynic might conclude that NCLB is working to maintain existing educational inequities.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
What works: Not for Everyone
A recently released review of beginning reading programs from the What Works Clearinghouse found that few commercial reading programs could claim evidence that they are effective in raising student achievement (Kathleen Manzo, Education Week, “Reading Curricula Don’t Make Cut for Federal Review, August 15, 2007). This isn’t particularly surprising to those who have studied commercial reading programs, but it raises a question that is seldom asked: what does it mean to claim that a reading intervention “works?”
To begin with, no reading intervention has been found to be effective with all children, all of the time. So a reading strategy that “works” does not work for everyone. From a statistical point of view, strategies work only for a mythical average student. The reliance on means for determining statistical significance obscures the fact that a strategy that was found to work did not work for everyone and may even have been detrimental for some.
The claim that a reading intervention works must be further qualified with the phrase, “compared to what?” Typically, reading research compares one intervention to one or two other interventions. In some cases, the intervention may actually be compared to nothing (i.e., the intervention is better than no intervention). In any case, a strategy that works only works better than the interventions to which it was compared and, even then, because of the reliance on the mythical average student, a strategy that didn’t work could still be effective for some children.
Finally, the assertion that a reading intervention works begs the question, “works at what?” Some researchers will be satisfied that an intervention was effective if it improved students’ performance sounding out nonsense words. Others will only be satisfied if the intervention improved students’ reading comprehension and, even then, reading researchers have different views on the meaning of reading comprehension.
So to say that a reading intervention works really means that the intervention was effective for some children compared to one or two other interventions on measures the reading researcher(s) – but likely not all reading researchers – believed were related to reading.
From this perspective, the ultimate arbiter of “what works?” is the teacher who determines the efficacy of various reading interventions with individual children in her/his classroom.
To begin with, no reading intervention has been found to be effective with all children, all of the time. So a reading strategy that “works” does not work for everyone. From a statistical point of view, strategies work only for a mythical average student. The reliance on means for determining statistical significance obscures the fact that a strategy that was found to work did not work for everyone and may even have been detrimental for some.
The claim that a reading intervention works must be further qualified with the phrase, “compared to what?” Typically, reading research compares one intervention to one or two other interventions. In some cases, the intervention may actually be compared to nothing (i.e., the intervention is better than no intervention). In any case, a strategy that works only works better than the interventions to which it was compared and, even then, because of the reliance on the mythical average student, a strategy that didn’t work could still be effective for some children.
Finally, the assertion that a reading intervention works begs the question, “works at what?” Some researchers will be satisfied that an intervention was effective if it improved students’ performance sounding out nonsense words. Others will only be satisfied if the intervention improved students’ reading comprehension and, even then, reading researchers have different views on the meaning of reading comprehension.
So to say that a reading intervention works really means that the intervention was effective for some children compared to one or two other interventions on measures the reading researcher(s) – but likely not all reading researchers – believed were related to reading.
From this perspective, the ultimate arbiter of “what works?” is the teacher who determines the efficacy of various reading interventions with individual children in her/his classroom.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Taking Responsibility (Don't do as I do)
Accountability is the linchpin of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. This is as it should be. Teachers are professionals and they must be accountable for student learning. There has, however, been considerable debate over the meaning of accountability in the context of NCLB including what teachers should be accountable for and how they should be held accountable. As a keen observer of American politics I think that teachers can learn a lot by observing how members of the Bush administration take responsibility for their actions.
When, for example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report that gave the Iraqi government failing grades for not meeting a series of political benchmarks, the White House complained that the GAO’s standards were “too high.” Following this example, I suggest that teachers whose students do poorly on state achievement tests utilize the same tactic. Claim that the test makers’ standards were just too high.
Alberto Gonzalez, Scooter Libby, and even the President have attempted to deflect criticism of failed policies and inept performance by occasionally asserting, “I don’t recall….” When teachers are chastised for their students’ failures, I suggest they consider a similar defense: “I don’t remember that student.”
Accountability in Washington often involves blaming failure on somebody else. The failure to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina? The fault of state and local officials. Recommending Harriet Myers for the Supreme Court? It was John Roberts’ idea. When students fail, I suggest that teachers consider blaming parents, administrators, students, or even custodians (“my classroom was too dirty for learning to occur”).
But sometimes teachers need to be prepared for the ultimate gesture of accountability. Teachers must be ready to tell parents, administrators, and students that they take full responsibility for low test scores. There is no better way to show that they are doing a “heck of a job.”
When, for example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report that gave the Iraqi government failing grades for not meeting a series of political benchmarks, the White House complained that the GAO’s standards were “too high.” Following this example, I suggest that teachers whose students do poorly on state achievement tests utilize the same tactic. Claim that the test makers’ standards were just too high.
Alberto Gonzalez, Scooter Libby, and even the President have attempted to deflect criticism of failed policies and inept performance by occasionally asserting, “I don’t recall….” When teachers are chastised for their students’ failures, I suggest they consider a similar defense: “I don’t remember that student.”
Accountability in Washington often involves blaming failure on somebody else. The failure to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina? The fault of state and local officials. Recommending Harriet Myers for the Supreme Court? It was John Roberts’ idea. When students fail, I suggest that teachers consider blaming parents, administrators, students, or even custodians (“my classroom was too dirty for learning to occur”).
But sometimes teachers need to be prepared for the ultimate gesture of accountability. Teachers must be ready to tell parents, administrators, and students that they take full responsibility for low test scores. There is no better way to show that they are doing a “heck of a job.”
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