Rhee’s stated goal is for her StudentsFirst company to be a “voice” for children in education. The piece on her website regarding her is quite slick. It says she’s been working the last 18 years to give children what they need to succeed in school.

Of those 18 years, 3, and only 3, were spent in a classroom. She was a Teach for America Corps teacher in Baltimore, Md. Her claims of greatness in the classroom cannot be verified. At least, the Eduskeptic hasn’t found anything to support her claims. What seems to be true is that she was simply an average rookie teacher who quit after 3 years to pursue a corporate career path instead.

Her brief tenure (3 years) as Chancellor (Superintendent) of the Washington, D.C. school system was marked by a slash and burn approach and left things in chaos, with an unresolved cheating scandal. Her main claim to “reform” was firing a few hundred teachers who, according to her, weren’t good enough.

Rhee’s position is that senior teachers shouldn’t be given any preference in the layoff schedules. She leans toward keeping the newer, younger, and very much less expensive teachers. It is nothing more than an economic strategy, and has scant little to do with educational abilities.

The long and short of it is this: follow the money, always follow the money. Rhee seems to be much more interested in the economics of being on a large stage. To be sure, there is a lot more money to be had running a “non-profit” that bashes teachers, unions, and schools under the guise of reform than there ever will be in teaching. It’s about positioning for the big, national dollars, a lot of them.

If you are in the city of Sacramento, there is another caution, and it has to do with Kevin Johnson and his bid for a “strong mayor” position, which puts him in a spot to have direct effect on the city school system. His wife is Michelle Rhee. Be careful what you wish for.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything. Check all the links out, do your own research, come to your own conclusions.

There are those who believe that, somehow, becoming a teacher doesn’t really require University level educational training, along with the appropriate degree. “Life experience” is often put forth as the equivalent of the entire teacher training program.

That sentiment demeans the entire profession of teaching. It is an easy thing for those who want to run a school system like their businesses to say. Apparently the degree and training don’t count for anything in their business.

Teaching is a very complex endeavor. Having a bucket full of “life experiences” certainly can be helpful on the road to becoming a teacher. That bucket full cannot replace the foundation that teachers learn and build on at the University level, and then put to use in the classroom.

Considering the staggering number of new teachers who don’t make it past the first year, and an even greater number who quit the profession before leaving the rookie ranks at year 5, one can intuit that this may be an experience that isn’t a walk in the park.

As Ravitch, me, and many others have pointed out, there isn’t an “alternative path” to other professions. I trust that the people at the bank have the appropriate training to do what they do there. The doctors I see are all fully qualified in their fields. All of them went through University and medical training to become doctors. The nurses who have taken care of me during hospital stays were all qualified RN’s. Not one of them got their RN degree by presenting their experiences as a truck driver, engineer, or mom. And on it goes.

I can’t drive one of the big trash trucks that come to my house each week. I don’t know anything about them. If I could start one, I wouldn’t know what to do next. Ever seen inside the cab on one of those things?  It looks like a land based F-16 in there. I would need extensive training and practice to drive one.

So, why would anyone think that an “alternative path” to become a teacher would be OK? When I became a teacher, I had worked at quite a few other jobs, including selling soap door-to-door, and being a Good Humor Ice Cream man. I was a veteran, not far out of my Army service.

So what? Rightfully, I didn’t receive any credit for any of it, including being a bag boy at Ralph’s market. I had to get a university degree, get accepted into the teacher training program, get through that and my student teaching, and then, and only then, was I granted a teaching credential. There was no job guarantee after all that.

That process weeds out quite a few people. Those of us who made it through then had to get through probationary status at various school districts.

I expect that teachers, at all levels, have the necessary training, expertise, and intestinal fortitude to teach at their best. I think most parents do too. I do not believe that life experiences equal the equivalent of a fully earned teaching credential.

You should be happy that I’m not driving a large trash truck through your neighborhood. It’s much safer that way.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

Diana Lambert and Vanessa Gibbons, both of the Sacramento Bee, reported on the rejection. According to Gibbons, California lost out on $49 million. The reported reason? State officials would not sign off on “endorsing the establishment of statewide teacher evaluation methods…”

As Eduskeptic has said many times before, it’s not quite that simple. It is clear that the states have to play by the federal rules to get federal funds. Not every has to play either.

Teacher evaluations in California are generally subject to negotiations with teachers unions or associations. Districts simply aren’t legally able to unilaterally impose evaluation systems on teachers. For the most part, this works out pretty well, unless of course one is intent on either bashing teachers, teachers unions/associations, or collective bargaining in general.

Evaluating how effective teachers are is difficult at best. There is no clear cut way to do it. It is important to note that business models applied to evaluating teachers simply won’t work. Business is not in the same boat as education, no matter how much business types wish it to be so.

It is relatively easy to evaluate workers on an assembly line, or in a cubicle farm. Since the business has complete control over raw material and processes, metrics are easy to apply.

The software end of the tech businesses is the same. Evaluation is based on whether the code produced works. Either one produces workable solutions to whatever software issue is at hand or not. Proof is immediately available. As soon as the code is launched, the system either works with the newest release, or crashes everything in sight.

Teachers, and districts, in  the public sector, do not have that kind of luxury. Public school teachers have no control over the raw material they work with: the children who show up in their classrooms. Districts have no control either. Whoever shows up is put into the mix, and the school year begins. 180 or so days later, a grade level is completed, and the children either stay in the same grade level or move on to the next.

It is extremely problematic to fairly evaluate teacher performance over those 180 days, or over a few years. The mix of children changes constantly, from day to day in some cases, and every year for everyone. The curriculum is subject to change as well. Just because a district pushes one set of books and approaches this year, which the teachers are responsible to know, with little or no training, is no indication that the same approach with the same materials will be in place the following year.

Within each classroom is a mix of children who range from simply not ready to the very bright, and every iteration in between. The only constant is the teacher. One fabulous year may be followed by a year that is beyond polite description.

Developing an evaluation system that works across the entire state, any state, is an admirable goal. In California, no one has yet come up with one. No one else has either, despite what the feds say.

The teachers in California aren’t against a good, fair system. They are rightly concerned, as is the State, that just cobbling something together to get the federal money would simply not be worth the damage done to the profession, and by extension, the children in our schools.

If you have the solution to this issue, let me know. As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

As a long time Kindergarten teacher (24 years when I retired), the shift to children being a full 5 years old at the start of Kindergarten simply makes sense. As the Eduskeptic has reflected on many times, developmental processes cannot be made to happen sooner than is natural. There is no amount of anything that will make it happen.

The problem with children who are a few months shy of their 5th birthday when they enter Kindergarten isn’t necessarily how they will do in Kindergarten, or maybe even first grade. The problems, for the most part, show up later. Starting school on a relatively equal basis with the other children is a good idea.

California has established a “transitional kindergarten” to accommodate those children who are not 5 by the time school starts.

An article in the Sacramento Bee, on November 14, provided some information regarding transitional kindergarten. This new “grade level” accomplishes a couple of things that probably aren’t part of the up front reasoning behind the move.

Districts will be able to keep teachers in the classroom. Districts budgets are based on the number of enrolled children. If all of the not yet 5 year olds weren’t enrolled somewhere in the district, revenues would drop. By the time September 2014 rolls around, it could be a significant drop, as the full impact of the 5 year old requirement hits home. Transitional kindergarten eliminates this issue.

Another thing it does is provide what one hopes is a very high level of day care for all of those not quite 5’s. It’s a gift to the parents who were counting on having there little one in school as soon as possible. The goals are currently unclear, but rest assured that there will be goals aplenty, which brings up the question of whether a child could fail to “pass” transitional kindergarten.

It will be a challenge for districts to come up with the appropriate people and method of caring for these very young children. Teachers of young children, being the caring and professional people they are, will undoubtedly do their very best for these young ones.

The issue of age appropriate starts in Kindergarten has been discussed by Kindergarten teachers since the first Kindergartners stepped into classrooms. The state legislators have been batting the idea around for 25 years, according to Sen. Joe Simitian, who was quoted in the Bee article.

He authored the legislation that created transitional kindergarten. His take on it is that it will be a “game changer” (Sac. Bee). While it is unclear in the article, authored by Diana Lambert of the Bee, who said that it will “ultimately lead to better test scores, fewer children placed inappropriately into special education classes and fewer held back in school”, there is no supporting link or evidence related to the statement. How such a “grade level” would do such a thing is at this point a mystery.

Here is another quote from the article: “TK will focus on improving motor and social skills to prepare children for the academic rigors of kindergarten.”

It’s a pretty simple statement, except for the last four words: “academic rigors of kindergarten.” Academic rigors should, in the Eduskeptics opinion, never ever be used in conjunction with Kindergarten. Ever. Never.

That kind of statement reflects a very disturbing direction in our schools. The only rigors children in Kindergarten should encounter is who will be line leader, what’s for lunch, what’s going on in their world, how many A/B patterns can you make, and what stories will we hear today.

More to come on this issue as the days flow by. As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

Todays musings target an ongoing question: is any of it necessary for learning? At what grade level? The short answer to the necessary part is no. As to the grade level issue, it depends.

Children in the elementary grades do not need the techno gadgets in order to learn. Some say that the use of computers (just one of the available techno gadgets) in the early grades is just plain wrong. Others offer a more diffuse opinion, saying that it can’t hurt.

If one adheres to the Waldorf, Steiner, Montessori or developmental philosophies, then computers, especially in the early grades, simply aren’t a necessary part of the learning formula. From a teaching perspective in the public sector, mine to be exact, they don’t need to used at all in the early years. They can be, but don’t have to be.

The balancing act is this: with every minute spent on the computer, time is taken away from hands on imaginative explorations either inside the classroom or outside. Children learn best by doing. The tactile quality of what they use, coupled with auditory and olfactory input (what they touch, hear, and smell), is extremely important in the process. There is no way to replace those experiences. The stick, that lovely piece of wood that exists all over, is actually in the National Toy Hall of Fame. It is probably the most versatile toy on the planet. Its ability to morph into a wand, pony, spear, bridge, best friend, is unlimited. Imagination dictates what it may become.

Young children need to be active. Running, jumping, swinging, climbing, rolling about are all part of learning how to do things. Mud, snow, rain, dirt, rocks, are all part of it. They need to be able to explore without adult interference. They learn so much by doing so.

They learn patience, what works and what doesn’t, how to fix what doesn’t work so well, how to cooperate, how to be compassionate, how to lead and follow, what cause and effect are, how to make up and follow the very complex rules they invent for the very complex games they invent. The result of all this is that they learn about the real world and how they fit into it. Their imaginations create all kinds of wonderful experiences. Skinned knees, hurt feelings, the wonder of a best friend, smiles and tears imprint their brains with very real lessons.

Without all that, the joy of being a child is lessened. None of that can be had on a computer, not because computers are bad, but because computers are not animate. A day in the mud cannot be had on any computer generated program.

Young children need all of that curiosity and activity in order to have the letters and sounds and words they study make sense. Dry, wet, cold, hot, hurt, joy all come from real experiences with real things. Those things pop up when connected with words.

As children progress through the grade levels, increasing use of the available technology offers tools that help them put their ideas into a universal format that othermakes can understand. If the use of a computer program helps a 4th grade student to read or write better, use it.

The ability to use the tool, and understand the consequences of using it, stems not from the computer, but from the lessons learned rolling around the floor, the dexterity that comes with climbing things, figuring out what comes next, and the expanding curiosity that comes with it. There is a time and place for everything.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

During the Eduskeptic’s time in the classroom there didn’t seem to be any clear delineation of willingness to adopt new technology, in whatever form it came in, based on the age of the teaching staff, administration, or support staff.

What was stratified was the basic familiarity with the technology. The younger staff grew up with computers and all that they have evolved in to. Those of us of a certain age possibly took longer to understand some of the operating skills required, but we did learn.

One frequent question is this: Are computers/technology necessary for children to learn?

From the vendor standpoint, the answer is yes. The common refrain is that schools are responsible for not only educating children, but ultimately getting them ready for the working world of the future. It is only possible to do so with a robust computer/technology program.

From the educator standpoint, the answer is diffuse. The technology is good to have, but it may not actually be necessary. Given the pace of change in the techno world, it is fundamentally impractical to get children ready for tomorrows technology systems using what exists today.

Teachers, in general, will use any tool at their disposal if it will help children learn. Keep in mind that the span of abilities in any classroom is very large. A tool that will help one or some children may not do anything for others. The art in this process is being able to apply the correct tool at the correct time.

Computers can be useful in most classrooms. For children who are struggling, programs on a computer may be what they need to practice, review, and move on to the next lesson. For advanced students, computers can fill the need to go past what is being presented, and stay engaged in the learning process. For the vast middle group, individual explorations are possible.

None of this is possible without a good teacher in the classroom. The teaching end of the business remains critical to the learning process. The teacher puts together the lesson and hopefully brings it to life. The computer/video screen/recorder/smart board allows for either remediation, review, or extension of the lessons.

The Internet allows for anytime, anywhere academic learning. Children who are natural night owls can plug away later in the day. Children who are early risers can start early in the morning. Being out of the classroom doesn’t mean being out of the loop. Actually, it never did. It’s just the method of staying connected to the learning that’s changed.

The biggest drawback to the proliferation of all the techno gizmos in the classroom is this: technology is the black hole of education funding. There is no end to it, and it only seems to grow.

While there doesn’t seem to be any definitive research to either support or disprove the usefulness of computerized learning in schools, the Eduskeptic can say that the entire spectrum that comprises “technology” in the classroom can be helpful to children and teachers. The caveat is this: nothing in my experience suggests that a good teacher is secondary to the learning process.

Without inspiration and insistence on excellence by a real teacher in the classroom, the personal touch by a caring teacher, all the technology in the classroom just sucks up electricity, and produces not much else.

Next time the Eduskeptic will address whether any of that stuff is really necessary, especially in the younger grades.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

One would think that it’s a pretty simple proposition: present a concept, spend some time exploring it, then test the students understanding of the concept. When the Eduskeptic was in the Army, the tests were exactly that. Proof of learning was getting through a course in one piece, or hitting the target in the correct spot. Failure to learn could be pretty unpleasant.

The Army didn’t invent this structure. It’s been around since dirt first appeared on the planet. The testing procedure is not only related to the content that has been taught, it is cumulative. One concept builds on another. Babies crawl, then totter about, then walk, and then run.

There has been controversy about testing from early on as well. Socrates was vehemently opposed to the written word. He thought that reasoned debate was a far better test of ones skills and learning.

All of this is to say that the current hubbub about testing is nothing new. Not much in education is. The difference today seems to be the consequences of not meeting the required norms of the testing regime. The requirements were put together by politicians, which doesn’t make the unintended consequences all that surprising.

One of the biggest complaints from actual teachers in actual classrooms is the need to teach to the test, almost to the exclusion of everything else. To be fair, the term “teaching to the test” isn’t very illustrative. Teachers have always taught to the test. How could it not be? Present information, test on the information presented.

It’s the loss of the other stuff that is frustrating. Learning to regurgitate factoids doesn’t actually do much toward educating anyone. Robots can be programed to do that.

It’s the person who is doing the programing of the robot who is critical. That person must have critical thinking skills. The ability to branch out and explore quite a few “what if’s” and accept a non-working solution as a step on the road to success is very important.

That’s the major draw back of the current testing drama. Without the ability to take a leap out into the unknown with the information that has been presented, it’s not education. It’s robotic regurgitation. Factoids have limited usefulness.

What is needed is a much more rounded, still vigorous, testing mechanism. It just can’t be so simplistic that only a scantron is used to evaluate what children have learned in school. Education, and children, are much more complicated than that.

The people who are most qualified to put such a system together are, oddly enough, teachers. Newbies, mid-career, end of career, and retired teachers and administrators, along with some of the university profs who are very good at research. Leaving such a thing to the political establishment is, to put it mildly, insane.

Because of the amount of money involved though, it is unlikely that anyone will put together a group of educators anytime soon. In the meantime, the system will probably continue waste energy with the current untenable situation.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

The push for ever more expectations of Kindergartners and first grade students started prior to the No Child Left Behind legislation. It came to the forefront with gusto when NCLB was passed into law. It was a seemingly good idea. However, it was ill formed, badly executed, carried forward by people who had no experience actually working with very young children.

Developmental processes cannot be hurried along. They are called “developmental” for a reason. There isn’t any known method of speeding up how the brain, and the body develop. The best nutrition and care in the world, while certainly a benefit for young children, don’t equal a faster process. Conversely, lack of good nutrition and care can have a negative impact on development. The body does need nutrients and care to prosper.

The biological time table rolls along at an individual pace. Each child is different in reaching certain milestones. Children crawl, walk, run, talk, explore, at different times, dictated by their own internal biological clock. None of these happen at the same time for children who are the same age. That much is certain.

The ability to read is determined by many things happening in the brain, and in the child’s environment. Reading depends on the brains ability to connect and integrate various sources of information–visual with auditory, linguistic and conceptual areas–and to do so quickly.

All this is dependent upon the maturation of each of the brains’ individual regions, their associated areas, and the speed with which they can be connected and integrated. The speed with which these actions occur depends a great deal on the myelination of the neurons axons in the brain.

Myelin is the fatty sheathing wrapped around a cells axons. More myelin equals a faster neuron, basically a faster conduction of the electrical charge that fires across a synapse to another axon.

Myelin growth follows a developmental schedule that differs for each region of the brain. For instance,  auditory nerves are myelinated in the 6th prenatal month; visual nerves, 6 months postnatally. Sensory and motor regions are myelinated and function independently before 5 years.

The principal regions of the brain that underlie our ability to integrate visual, verbal, and auditory information rapidly–like the angular gyrus–are not fully myelinated in most humans until 5 years of age or later. This is a critical piece of information related to reading.

It has been suggested (Norman Geschwind) that for most children the myelination of the angular gyrus is not sufficiently, or fully, developed until between 5 and 7 years of age. The process takes longer for boys.

This is the information that is commonly referred to by some teachers as the “developmental processes” . It is in fact probably not understood at this level by most people, including teachers, who are outside the medical field. Brain research related to teaching is woefully inadequate. Who in the teaching field has ever heard of something called the angular gyrus and the myelination processes?

The Eduskeptic, in all of the professional development workshops attended over a 30+ year career, never heard anything about this. Reading specialists the Eduskeptic has spoken to are in the same boat.

What all this means is that, prior to the full myelination of the angular gyrus, the processes that lead to reading simply aren’t in place. It also goes a long way in explaining the reason that some children read before others.

It also points out the futility of insisting that Kindergartners read before getting to first grade. It is a biologically ridiculous idea for most 5 years olds’. What is OK is the preparation for reading. Being exposed to books and print, learning rhymes and songs, being read to–which is hugely important–are all critical to the process. It is important to remember that decoding and reading are two wildly different things.

It illuminates the importance of a systematic, sensitive, and fully informed approach to reading in first grade and second grade, taught by teachers who understand the developmental processes the brain must go through prior to being able to read. Anything less places unwarranted expectations and stress on very young children.

The Eduskeptic encourages anyone in the early education field, teaching children from 5 to 7 years old, to read Maryanne Wolf’s book Proust and the Squid. The basis for this series of posts regarding reading are due to the information presented in her book, along with many years of complete frustration dealing with “educational leaders” and colleagues who simply didn’t, and may still not, understand developmental processes.

Next post: what’s important in teaching reading to the very young. As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

The break is generally a big hit with teachers, children, and parents, although some parents might really rather that the little ones continue to spend time away from the house. This break happens in summer due to one seasonal fact: it gets hot.

Long ago, after the industrial revolution, students were, for the first time in this country, going to school in large warehouse-like buildings. The move off the farms into the city put large numbers of children in school. The buildings lacked one really important feature: air conditioning of any kind. The summer break was born.

The Eduskeptic is convinced that this break is absolutely necessary, for everyone. There are those who will claim that children lose what they learn over the summer break. Some still think that the break is 3 months long. It isn’t and never has been. The pundits who claim that this educational loss occurs regularly advocate for a longer school year. They will point out that other countries do it, so we should.

Our system is different than most other countries. It’s difficult to produce a good comparison without launching into the apples and oranges mirror.

There isn’t any evidence that children lose what they learn. The beginning of the school year start up always produces a need for everyone to get back into the swing of things. Teachers need just as much time to get back into it as the students do.

What does the summer break do then? Ideally it provides a time for children to simply be children. Unstructured time, especially for the elementary years, is extremely important. It’s a time for children to put to practical use what they learned at school. It’s a time for unfettered running amok of their imaginations, the pure joy of exploration for explorations sake. It’s a time for the teenagers to run till they are empty, then sleep for long periods of time. It’s a time for them to explore the emerging teen relationship/friendship puzzle. It’s a time for families to play, love, and live without any particular reason to pay attention to the clock.

In short, the summer break gives everyone time to just be. It’s good, it’s always been good, and will, in the Eduskeptics opinion, always be good. It’s good to take time to wonder, explore, and learn at your own pace.

If you stop at just the title of the article, or don’t read it thoroughly, you might come away thinking that preschool for all is a cure all for all. It isn’t.

Here is a snippet from Time, the online version:

“To cut crime, raise education and income levels, and reduce addiction rates among the poor, no program offers more bang for the buck than preschool, as a new study published in Science demonstrates.” Again, sounds pretty good.

Read a bit further, either in the actual study, or the Time article, and one discovers this:

The children in the study were from the “…lowest-income neighborhoods of Chicago, where nearly 40% of residents live below the poverty line; most of the children were African American.”

This study, like the Rand Corp. (where Chicago was also the area of the study) and other studies, says that children from an impoverished inner city life who went to a “quality” preschool did marginally better than children from the same situation who did not attend a “quality” preschool.

According to the study, the preschool children, 900 of them, had a better graduation from high school rate, a better college acceptance rate, had fewer drug, including alcohol, problems, and fewer arrests, than the control group of 500. It is not a spectacular difference, but any positive difference is good.

The problem isn’t that this study, like the others, will be used in the push for mandatory universal preschool as a panacea for all that ails the national school system and the nation in general. Carefully chosen snippets will be trotted out by various politicians and other hucksters to support their particular school reform package of the day. They can’t help themselves. They smell money.

The real issue isn’t addressed. Preschool, no matter how good, solves nothing. The impoverished communities still exist, the drug infested, squalid houses still exist. Embedded unemployment, constant crime, still exist. A lack of hope for a better life still exists.

With these kinds of issues facing inner-city children and their families every day, the best preschool experience in the known universe won’t overcome the effects of poverty. There doesn’t seem to be anyone willing to put the effort into actually addressing the underlying issues that seem to relegate some children to a clearly difficult life.

Chicago isn’t alone in high poverty inner-city problems. Every state, every city, has it’s own version of the kinds of neighborhoods that the children in the study come from.

It will take a national effort to make any kind of a dent in the multiple ravages that drug addiction, split families, single parent families, and multi-generaltional poverty produce.

The Eduskeptic is forever skeptical of studies like this one, and the others, simply because they are used to further the mistaken notion that their conclusions are applicable to the general population. One simply cannot extrapolate the information and apply it broadly to all children. It simply doesn’t work.

This is not to say that a very good preschool can’t help children get ready for their first few years in the public school system. They can, and do. What they won’t, and can’t do, is solve the basic problems that so many very young children face as a reality every day in poverty stricken areas of our country.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.