Wednesday, January 26, 2011
RSU 12 is one 150 School Districts to Participate in Conference on Labor-Management Collaboration
RSU 12 (Wiscasset) will head to DC to discuss labor management.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Grammar Making a Comeback in Texas
fads come and go as they continually fail students...
they always manage to come back to the traditional basic education at some point!
“Grammar Making a Comeback in Texas”
by Donna Garner
1.15.11
I am literally sitting here almost in tears after reading the article in the Dallas Morning News this morning entitled “Richardson Schools Retool Grammar Instruction To Meet New Texas Education Mandates.” Finally after so many lost years, educators are listening.
Do you know what it is like to have spent most of your adult life trying to get people to listen to you and having your words fall on deaf ears? I taught English in fourteen different schools during my 33+ years of teaching, having retired several years ago. Each time that I would change schools I would have to try to convince those around me of the importance of my teaching students grammar directly and systematically.
I had learned early-on in my teaching career that students cannot correct their writing and speaking if they don’t know grammar:
How can they correct an error in subject/verb agreement if they cannot find the subject and the verb, cannot figure out whether a verb is singular or plural, and do not know how to match them together correctly?
How can a student punctuate a compound-complex sentence correctly if he cannot figure out where one clause stops and another one begins?
How can he punctuate a possessive noun correctly if he cannot tell when a noun is possessive or is simply plural?
Because the ELA books were so poor, I began to develop and write my own grammar packets around 1976. These took many years to finalize; and when I finally had them perfected and I was able to motivate my students to learn them, the grammar packets took on a life of their own:
Not long ago I ran into one of my students who is a successful office manager, and she said she still keeps her grammar packets in a drawer in her desk and refers to them constantly.
One year for Christmas my students laughingly gave me a T-shirt that said, “Packet Woman.”
I frequently have ex-students who tell me they never would have made it through college without knowing my grammar packets.
One student said recently that what he learned in my ninth-grade English class is what has enabled him to become a successful district attorney.
When distance learning became popular, I worked with a wonderful fellow to create an interactive website to teach students English proficiency skills. However, we were ahead of our time; and the education establishment was not interested in using our site ($35 per year/per student) because they were deep into whole-language and holistic writing.
In the mid-1980’s, somebody had came up with the bright idea to vilify the teaching of vital, basic English skills with the term “drill and kill.” Teachers were told that they must not require their students to memorize but must let them “discover” learning. Guess what! They didn’t, and they aren’t!
Proof positive: Look at how poorly most students now write, speak, and read. We are losing our English language; and our abilities to communicate effectively, clearly, and intelligently are falling into disarray.
Into this climate came the elected Texas State Board of Education -- 15 members whose decisions impact textbooks not just for the 4.7 million public school students in Texas but also for millions of students in other states whose textbooks are influenced by those adopted in Texas.
Seven of these SBOE members took seriously their charge to produce new English / Language Arts / Reading (ELAR) standards that would emphasize once again the importance of correct English grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and handwriting.
These seven SBOE members also knew that the writing section on the TAKS tests emphasized the personal narrative which was being scored on how well students emoted their opinions rather than on their having a grasp of persuasive/analytical writing and research skills.
For over two years, the Board went through the ELAR adoption process; and after many public hearings and contacts from thousands of concerned parents, businessmen, and educators, the new ELAR/TEKS standards (K-12) emerged in May 2008.
[Meanwhile, for twenty-five years I had been doing everything in my power to convince people that a return to the basics of the English language was imperative; and I worked behind the scenes for no remuneration to come alongside policymakers to help them move our public schools into English proficiency.]
This school year is the second year of implementation of the new ELAR’s, but students have not yet been tested on the new standards because it has taken a period of time to replace the TAKS tests with the new tests -- STAAR.
The STAAR tests are being piloted this school year and will be given for real in the next school year. As has been the case for a long time, “Teachers will invariably teach to the test.” However, this time, it is a good thing because the STAAR tests will require teachers to teach their students grammar along with other foundational elements such as spelling, handwriting, persuasive/analytical writing, research skills, and the various genres of literature along with their characteristics.
[The new ELAR’s also have a strong emphasis in the emergent reading grades (K-3) on phonemic awareness and phonics, and the standards will require teachers to quit using those discredited whole language programs (e.g., guided reading, word walls, predicting text, etc.]
The STAAR tests will include an entire section of specific multiple-choice grammar questions that did not exist on the TAKS tests. The new emphasis on explicit English skills will also help our Texas students to become much better prepared to take the SAT and ACT, both of which contain specific grammar questions.
The SAT contains 49 multiple-choice grammar questions in the Writing section, and the score on those 49 questions counts 70% of the score on that section. Since the SAT only has three sections (Math, Critical Reading, and Writing), the best way for a student to raise his entire SAT score is to do well on the 49 multiple-choice grammar questions. The ACT Writing Test also contains numerous grammar/usage questions; and the better a student does on those questions, the higher his composite score will be.
Of course, the ultimate goal is not just for students to do well on tests. The ultimate goal is for them to be able to express themselves clearly and correctly both in their writing and in their speaking. All of us have heard the college professors gripe and complain about how poorly their incoming students use the English language, and businessmen across this country bemoan the poor quality of their employees’ English proficiency.
Please read today’s article (posted below) about the Richardson ISD schools and what they are doing to get their students up to par in their grammar skills, and then read Don McLeroy’s article from 12.31.10 in which he explains what the SBOE has achieved in the last three years.
Unfortunately, because too many voters were not aware of the outstanding work done by the seven SBOE members and instead listened to well-funded candidates (one of whom is a wealthy lobbyist), some of our most courageous SBOE members were replaced in the last election cycle.
Now what we Texans must do is to make sure that the new TEKS standards adopted in the last three years (ELAR, Science, and Social Studies) are left in place and are implemented with fidelity into teachers’ classrooms.
Thanks to the SBOE, our Texas public school students can and should become much better English writers, readers, and speakers in the years to come; and these skills will translate into greater academic achievement in all of their other courses, too.
Donna Garner
Clarion Call Nurturing the Dumbest Generation
The progressive theory pushed in education schools may explain why high school students read easy books.
January 11, 2011
Editor’s note: The Pope Center now welcomes readers’ comments, which may be added at the end of this article (and other articles). If you’re a “Boomer” or somewhat younger, you probably remember the literature you had to read in high school. As you went from grade to grade, the books and plays became more difficult and so did the level of analysis you were supposed to give them. You probably had teachers who were sticklers for attentive reading of the works and polished writing about them.
But that was then. Now, teachers assign less challenging works. Do you remember reading plays like Hamlet and novels like Silas Marner? I do, but high school students are not likely to have to study such works in 2010. Far more common are books in the young adult fantasy genre, for example J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and books by Stephanie Meyer such as Twilight (which appears to be the most popular book in high school classrooms these days).
Evidence of this educational decline continues to accumulate. A recent illustration is Professor Sandra Stotsky’s report “Literary Study in Grades 9, 10, and 11” (Forum 4). Stotsky is a well-known critic of K-12 education who had an important role in turning around the underperforming Massachusetts public education system. In this report from the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, she reveals that high school students are being assigned less demanding books and that the assignments regarding those books are being “dumbed down.”
From her survey, Stotsky observes that almost all the books assigned today are relatively easy. In restrained tones, she states, “It does not seem that the challenges and pleasures of reading mature works are being cultivated by the high school curriculum. Nor are advanced reading skills being developed.”
Why do teachers select books that are easy and probably already known to many of their students? That is a question the report doesn’t completely answer, and I have been considering the possibilities. One is that teachers are setting low expectations, knowing that many students are so used to quick, light reading on their computers and Blackberrys that they’d rebel if required to delve into longer and more difficult books. That’s in harmony with Professor Mark Bauerlein’s argument in his book The Dumbest Generation.
But a big part of the explanation, I suspect, lies in the culture of education schools where most teachers earn their credentials. One of the dominant ideas pushed in education schools is that schools and classes should be “learner-centered” (rather than teacher- or subject-centered). That, supposedly, will help to make students feel good about education and turn them into “lifelong learners.”
East Tennessee State University education professor John Stone, one of the most severe critics of ed school fads, writes (scroll down to second article) that to education theorists “the only good way to engage students is by making education exciting, engaging, and fun.” They claim that if teaching is “enthusiastic, innovative, and creative, students will learn spontaneously, if not effortlessly.”
Having your English students read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, rather than, oh, Crime and Punishment is consistent with that notion. If schooling should be “learner-centered” why not choose books that most students will regard as pleasant and fun instead of ones they might find hard and boring? Furthermore, struggling with difficult books doesn’t make students “lifelong learners,” so don’t assign ones that might discourage them.
In addition to finding that high school students are often assigned easy books, Stotsky reports that the kinds of homework teachers now give to students demand little of them.
English teachers used to stress close, analytical reading of texts accompanied by assigned papers that required students to show their comprehension of the works. Teachers today are more likely to teach “around” a work by discussing the author’s life and times rather than focusing on the text and its meaning. And they often give assignments that call for the students to present their feelings about it. Such assignments are consistent with the “learner-centered” theory; they’re also easier to grade since there are no wrong answers.
Stotsky offers several reasons for the two trends, easy books and easy assignments. One is that English teachers have been discouraged by their education-school training from using analytical approaches. I’d like to dwell on that one, but, of course, there are others. A friend, who is a university English professor, says that teachers like the easy approach because it’s less work for them. (He asked not to be identified for fear that other educators might hold his uncollegial remarks against him.)
So back to education schools. There is abundant evidence that the “progressive” ethos dominant in ed schools discourages teachers from using old-fashioned, text-centered methods and encourages them to use supposedly modern, reader-centered methods. This surely inhibits traditional, analytical approaches to the teaching of literature.
Ed schools want their students to become facilitators. “[A]s a facilitator, the teacher is not required to know any of the answers,” write Lawrence Baines and Gregory Stanley in their article “Constructivism and the Rage Against Expertise” (Phi Delta Kappan, December 2000, not available online). “Even if a facilitator does know an answer, he or she is not supposed to communicate it to students. That would be a tyrannical imposition of the teacher’s will upon the minds of the students.”
It follows that the proper way to teach literature is to allow students free rein to “construct” the meaning of a text as they see fit and to give them easy assignments in which they discuss how the work affected them. That is so much better than insisting that the author had something specific in mind that the students should discern and explicate. Teachers steeped in constructivist theory in ed school would instinctively shy away from those “old-fashioned” approaches to literature.
In his 2008 Pope Center paper on education schools, retired professor George Cunningham confirmed this emphasis. He wrote that instead of learning the traditional methods, ed school students “are immersed in the progressive education culture, which turns out graduates who … favor constructive, student-centered pedagogy and the belief that the prime goal of schooling is to solve social problems.” The erosion of high school literature teaching is yet another symptom of this disease.
One of the many consequences of the dumbing down Stotsky has identified may well be low college graduation rates. Many incoming college students will be weak in reading and writing, a problem not only in their English classes, but throughout much of the curriculum. Once they encounter professors who don’t subscribe to the “feel good, be happy” approach to education that they’re used to, they may find that college is too hard and drop out. Students nurtured in the warm cocoon of “learner-centered” education eventually get the cold shower of reality—and if it doesn’t happen in college, then it will in the working world.
Thus there are many reasons why ed schools should change their approaches. And if the education schools cannot be changed—and they are very resistant to such efforts—we will have to find alternative means of training future teachers.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Is the Bangor School Committee ‘all in favor’ after 300 unanimous votes?
300 votes and all unanimous.......hmmmmmmm
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
No Matter How Hard You Try, You Cannot Deny U. S. Math Performance is Terrible
See the comments for discussions on different math curricula.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Public school debate via Times Record OpEd
In response to the Hyde School Commentary:
Hyde’s response to Shuttleworth:
http://www.timesrecord.com/articles/2011/01/07/opinion/commentaries/doc4d274eebe026c824205071.txt
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Times Record: Novel school model sowed
An article on the proposed Maine Enterprise School in Bath, ME.
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