by Brian

Back in September I wrote a post called How Much Math Does a Man Need?  I questioned the wisdom of requiring every student to take and pass Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2 in order to graduate from high school, beginning with this year's freshmen.  Today state superintendent Randy Dorn wrote a guest editorial in the Seattle Times, and posted on OSPI's website his proposal for changing the math and science graduation requirements.  He proposes using a two tiered model, already in use in Massachusetts, to provide students in Washington the opportunity to graduate with either a ranking of "proficient" or "basic" math skills.  Proficient will be the goal for all students, but under this proposal the student with basic skills will continue to take additional math courses, and still be able to graduate.

I think the superintendent has taken a huge step toward setting the bar for high school graduation at a realistic level.  For far too long we have been telling too many students that they were below standard in math, when the problem was not their skill level, but how hard the WASL was. We were giving the same test to students in Algebra 2 and Pre-Algebra.  It didn't matter what course they were taking; they all got the same WASL.  Now they will take end-of-course exams over the math they have just learned, and they will be judged to be at a proficient or basic level.  That seems a lot more fair.

I'm still not convinced that everyone needs to take Geometry, but this would be a vast improvement. (And thank goodness Algebra 2 has disappeared from the required list).

I applaud the Superintendent's honest and realistic recommendations, and I hope the Legislature will consider them carefully.

by Brian

I love my job, but I really hate having to eat lunch in thirty minutes.  It must be nice to be able to meet friends away from work and sit down for a leisurely hour.  But 30 minutes for lunch is just a synecdoche for the larger problem: the traditional 6 period day used in most of our high schools.  It's not only hectic, it's inefficient.  Think of the organizational skills that our students must have to keep track of 6 different subjects every day. And with 125 to 150 students per day, even if I had common planning time with my colleagues in the math department, which I don't, how could I collaborate with them when my time is devoured by my own classroom responsibilities.  The schedule creates isolation, even for brand new teachers who would benefit the most from collaboration. So why do we keep using it?  And what does it have to do with teacher quality?

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by Brian

I generally don't like articles that begin by saying something like the Obama administration's Race to the Top will fail.  My default position is optimism, and I don't want it to fail.  But I read an article like that today that made a lot of sense.  

Marion Brady, writing in the Washington Post says that it will fail for a reason no one is talking about: A curriculum adopted in 1893 that grows more dysfunctional with each passing year.  I teach math, and when my students ask me why they have to do two-column proofs in Geometry, I tell them we settled that question in 1893.  We do it because that's what we do.

You should read the whole article, but here's the money quote:  

"There are, however, some things Congress and the administration could do.  First, they could stop basing education policy on the opinions of business leaders, syndicated columnists, mayors, lawyers, and assorted other education "experts" who haven’t passed the 10,000-hour test-10,000 hours of face-to-face dialog with real students in real classrooms, all the while thinking analytically about what they’re doing, and why."

I recently participated in the NBCT Symposium where we were asked to prioritize how to allocate the money to implement the reform package encompassed in ESHB 2261.  While I appreciated the opportunity to contribute, I could not help but reflect that there was no one on the Quality Education Council, that could pass the 10,000 hour test.

And I remembered a New Yorker article byJames Surowiecki about Toyota's success.  He titled it The Open Secret to Success, which it is.  Toyota has defined innovation as an incremental process, fueled by the suggestions of workers (teachers?) on the factory floor.  He says Japanese companies get a hundred time more suggestions from their workers than U.S. companies do.  So instead of trying to throw long touchdown passes, Toyota moves down the field by making short and steady gains.

We can do that in education too, if the real experts, the teachers who have passed the 10,000 hour test, are increasingly involved in the process of planning reform, not just implementing top-down decisions.

by Brian

My wife owns her own business, a home decor shop, and I think I first heard the phrase "value-added" from her.  She talked about finding an article at an estate sale, adding something to it to increase its value, marking up the price, and making some money.  Value-added.

Now the phrase is being used with respect to evaluating teacher performance:  when you get a student in September she knows something.  Measure that and compare it to what she knows in June.  If she knows more in June, value has been added.  If she knows a lot more in June, there is real evidence that effective teaching has occurred.  If there is little improvement from September to June; well there's the rub, because there are a myriad of reasons to keep a student from advancing that are outside of a teacher's control.  So the largest teachers' unions (the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers) have been reluctant to endorse any kind of value-added component for teacher evaluation.  But doesn't this make more sense than measuring last year's class against this year's?  Or this year's against next year's?  The idea that each year the class we are testing should do better than the class we tested last year is so dumb it's not even wrong.

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by Brian

I teach high school mathematics, and this year I have 132 students in 5 classes.  That's an average of 26.4 students per class.  Not bad, right?  Except that one of them only has 13 (Pre-calculus)  and one has 33 (Geometry).  So the "average" really doesn't tell the story. 

What about that Geometry class?  I know it would feel better to both me and the students if there were only 25 of them, but would they really do better?  This Saturday I am going to participate in a Policy Symposium of National Board Certified Teachers, and one of the topics we will discuss is class size. Superintendent Randy Dorn has recommended class sizes of 15 in Kindergarten to third grade, and 25 for fourth grade through high school.  So has the Basic Education Funding Task Force, and the Washington Learns Council.  Ample research has shown that reducing class size at the elementary level has a real and lasting impact on student achievement.  But there is little evidence that smaller classes have a noticeable impact at the secondary level.  When my colleagues complain about large classes it is usually about their own workload rather than their students' success.

So given the reality of limited resources, and scant evidence of class size making much difference at the secondary level, shouldn't we concentrate our efforts at the lower elementary grades?

 By Brian

My district has two elementary schools, one middle school, and a single high school.  Three of the four schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and are now designated as  Schools in Improvement by the federal government.  (One of our elementary schools did hit the mark.) This happens when a school does not meet standard in one of the categories the federal government uses to parse the student population; for example too few students from low-income families pass the test.  Out of 2,133 schools in Washington, 1,286 did not make AYP.  That's 60%, a supermajority.  There are over 1,100 Schools in Improvement in Washington State.  Remember Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average?  Evidently we're not there.

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by Brian

My apologies to the gender police, but it
seems appropriate to borrow the title of Tolstoy's wonderful short
story to ask the question.  Because as Pakhom tragically found out, we need far less than we think.  The State Board of Education
has increased the amount of math needed to graduate from 2  to 3
credits for this year's incoming freshmen class. The requirement for
the class of 2013 is for every student to take Algebra and Geometry,
and pass an end of course exam in both.  Then they will have to take
and pass Algebra 2, or take an alternative course after a conference
with their parents and an administrator approves of the plan.  I teach
high school math.  I generally try to avoid sarcasm, but what have
these people been smoking?

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by Brian

Labor Day is here, and while it has come to represent the end of summer and the imminent beginning of school, we should remember that it constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions
workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. 

I
went back to working with my hands this summer, and I thoroughly
enjoyed myself.  I worked with one of my former students (he is 29
years old now), only our roles have been reversed.  Sixteen years ago I
was his middle school math teacher.  Now he is the master and I am the
apprentice.  He started learning carpentry when he was about 14, and it
is amazing to watch him at work.  It's not just the tricks of the
trade, although those are pretty cool.  It's the way he approaches the
problems that always arise when you're building something.  He can come
up with three solutions, weigh the pros and cons, and make a
decision in less time than it takes me to figure out that we have a
problem.  And he's happy when he's working.  He never went to college,
but he didn't get left behind.

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