Essential reading on US K-12 education

I’ve created an
Amazon Listmania! list with some terrific references on the US K-12 system.

These books are basically all critical of the public school system. I hope to find some more optimistic materials to round out the list.

Singapore education culture in U.S.? Not likely.

Singapore’s obsession holds lessons for us all (Andres Oppenheimer MiamiHerald.com): “”

The article suggestions that the academic success of Singaporeans is due to a culture that constantly and consistently promotes the value of education in society.

Such a culture is unlikely to take hold in the United States any time in the next cople of decades at least. The nation is much larger and more diverse than Singapore, and we have no deep-rooted culture of education boosterism. We should not look to the federal government, or even state governments, to promote the value of academic success in this country.

Any initiative to encourage learning and value education must start locally in the U.S. I suggest that public school districts, or individual schools, would be the right place to start.

Daniel Willingham: Reading Is Not a Skill

From The Answer Sheet blog at the Washington Post

We tend to teach comprehension as a series of “reading strategies” that can be practiced and mastered. Unfortunately it really doesn’t work that way.

This style of teaching reading as a set of “strategies” is true even in the top-ranked school district in California. I suspect that it is true in many private schools as well. Parents are strongly encouraged to make sure that children read regularly at home, with explicit prescriptions for daily reading time and reading logs. The school makes no effort to recommend particular content, so parents are left with the job of ensuring that our children acquire sufficient background knowledge through reading at home that they can pass the routine classroom tests.

Certification Of Teachers as Painful Farce

Jay Mathews relates several examples where highly-qualified teachers are rejected by short-sighted bureaucrats for failure to meet extremely narrow criteria for qualification to teach in the public school system.

Warning Signs

In a recent conversation at Kitchen Table Math, several ideas were mentioned for recognizing warning signs of a problem curriculum or teacher. This is my summary of that discussion.

If I spot any of these items in my child’s classroom, then I will worry that my child is receiving an unsatisfactory education.

Buzzwords

Use of terms like “inquiry-based”, “student-centered” or “interdisciplinary learning” – or any phrase that cannot be explained quickly using simple language.

Any use of the word “pedagogy” in regular conversation.

Curriculum Gaps

Absent or unsatisfactory coverage of key subject areas. This is subjective. Particular areas of concern: geography, history, English spelling and grammar.

Adoption of commercial textbooks with an unreasonable amount of online criticism. Again, subjective.

Projects

Assignment of project work where the students have not previously been given adequate instruction in the tools they need to do the work. For example:

• “create a Powerpoint presentation about Napoleon” (when the child has never been explicitly taught how to use Powerpoint)
• “research the causes of the Great Depression” (when the child has never been shown how to do library or online research)
• “prepare and deliver a group presentation about the hydrologic cycle” (when the students have never been given guidance in how to divide up work within a team, or in how to use props effectively or deliver a compelling presentation)

Gimmicks

Tasks that appear to be intended merely to be “fun”, without education value commensurate with the effort required, instead of just delivering work results as a written report or oral presentation. For example, “make a T-shirt”, “build a diorama”, “write a rock song”.

Elementary Reading & Writing

What are the major textbook series used in elementary schools (or by homeschoolers) for reading, writing or language arts? I haven’t found a comprehensive list elsewhere, so I’ll build my own list here. To start with, links to textbooks from major publishers:

• Houghton Mifflin Reading
• Open Court Reading
• Scott Foresman Reading Street
• Macmillan/McGraw Hill
• Holt McDougal
• Great Source (division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Step Up to Writing

Core Knowledge vs. 21st Century Skills

A new conflict is developing around the general curriculum that is being used in elementary through high school education in the United States. The labels for the competing schools of thought are “21st century skills” and “core knowledge”. Both factions appear to be building lobbying organizations to encourage state education departments to commit to their approach.

The “21st century skills” movement is led by Partnership for 21st Century Skills (“P21″), with funding from several large technology firms and the national teachers’ union. P21 publishes a Framework for 21st Century Learning but there’s no specific curriculum guidance.

The “core knowledge” meme was started in the 1980s by E.D. Hirsch and is promoted by Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Foundation and by Common Core. CKF publishes specific curriculum guidelines in their Core Knowledge Sequence. CKF claims a large number of private schools as adopters of their approach, including the Stratford Schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Additions to list of math textbook selections

Math textbook selections for some more elementary schools in the Bay Area:

• Saratoga Union School District: Houghton Mifflin
• Portola Valley: Everyday Math
• Woodside Elementary School District: Everyday Math
• Las Lomitas Elementary School District: Singapore Math
• Campbell Union School District: Houghton Mifflin (textbook page)
• Cambrian School District: Envision Math; McDougal Littell (textbook page)
• Luther Burbank School District: Saxon Math (instructional services page)
• Bullis Charter School (located in Los Altos; chartered by Santa Clara County Office of Education): Everyday Math
• Keys School (private school in Palo Alto): Singapore Math

Affluent & high-performing schools

Fantastic conversation in the blogsphere regarding the dilemma of determining the contribution of the teachers and schools to student learning in affluent areas where school performance is high and parents supplement learning at home.

The conversation started with the alternative universe posting at kitchen table math, and continued at:

• Rich Schools and On Criticizing Schools (Laura McKenna at 11D)
• Low Performing “High Performing” Schools (Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber)
• The Rich Really Are Different
  (Megan McCardle at The Atlantic)

Also see these earlier KTM postings on affluent schools.

Laura M. says “you should not rely on your schools to educate your kids” and believes that since the kids are getting into college, it doesn’t matter what the schools are doing.

Harry B. thinks that schools in affluent areas get too much public funding anyway, and funds should be redirected elsewhere. Megan M. appears to agree.

Excellent discussion in the comment sections on all these blogs.

No world history in elementary school?

Am I reading this correctly?

The California state content standards for history and social science (PDF, 68 pages, 846K) show zero coverage of world geography or history at the elementary school level. No identification of continents or countries on a map, no reading about Ancient Egypt, no conversation about national borders.

Those six years are entirely devoted to American and California state history and related topics.

Is it wise to postpone all discussion of the world beyond our borders until middle school? Won’t this leavee our children at a disadvantage on the world stage compared to students in those nations that have a more expansive definition of elementary social studies?

This looks like another area where concerned parents will supplement primary education at home, and the rest will fall behind.