In eleven days we celebrate the first day of the new year. For Californians it is the most critical year for our future as a state, at least in my lifetime, in my opinion.
Few can argue that quality public education is the means for us to reduce crime, increase employment, grow the economy and decrease poverty. California schools have $20 billion less than was promised by the legislature three years ago. Therefore, we can no longer continue to slash funds from already under-resourced institutions without peril to our children, their teachers and our future. This insanity must stop in 2011 with the help of Governor-elect Jerry Brown’s leadership. If not, we face an educational disaster of epic proportions.
California has the highest number of students per teacher, the highest number of students per administrator, the highest number of students per counselor, the highest number of students per nurse and the highest number of students per librarian. We are in the bottom three states out of all 50 states for funding per pupil and we have some of the neediest and most diverse students in the nation. We should be able to agree on these facts since they have been vetted by a vast majority of comparative studies using similar variables.
The stars, sun and moon must align just right for education to be placed in its rightful place as the number one priority for a majority of California’s voters, especially since only one out of four voters have children in schools. The celestial bodies might be indicating that things might work out.
Today marks a pagan tradition of celebrating the Winter Solstice, a very unique one with a total lunar eclipse last night. A Winter Solstice with a total lunar eclipse is quite rare. In fact, according to NASA the concurrence of the two events has not occurred since Dec. 21, 1638, 372 years ago, when America’s evolvement as a nation was in its embryonic stages.
I take these phenomena as an omen of potential alignment of the California voters who will vote, sometime this spring, to fund schools by increasing state revenues. The resultant dollars will provide the state with enough revenue to fund per-pupil expenditures at the national average of all 50 states.
In order for us to cease devolving as a state, we must come together like never before and do what is right for public education. So with this in mind I prepared a short list of priorities that I have for St. Nicholas to put in my stocking this and subsequent Christmases:
Increase the school year to 200 days for all students. Teacher contracts will be for 210 days. The ten extra days are for high quality professional development and R & D.
Build respect for teachers and the profession throughout the system so as to increase the number of top tier college graduates that wish to consider the profession as a viable career option.
Blow-up tenure as we know it and convert it into a model similar to partners in law firms. Ensure the public that the teachers’ unions support removing teachers that fail a rigorous 360-degree evaluation process (beyond test scores) after coaching and professional development had been implemented.
Pay the best teachers based on collectively bargained benchmarks 25-35 percent more than others. The best teachers can be determined through a process by peers, students, parents, student performance, and a variety of other variables including administrator input.
End fill-in-the bubble testing, but not accountability. Make accountability related to how students perform on real life skills in math, writing, critical thinking, following directions, listening, speaking and working with others.
Lastly, St. Nick, please ensure that each and every student in California has equitable access to the visual and performing arts, music, world languages, and career technical education.
Merry Christmas to all and to all please vote yes on increasing funding for the children in 2011.
And send all school district “staff” back to the classrooms to teach our children!
> Few can argue that quality public education is the means for us to reduce crime, increase employment, grow the economy and decrease poverty.
Joe:
I AGREE!
FEW can make that argument because it’s a difficult and preposterous argument to make.
Wise and informed people would instead argue that UNIVERSAL education would be an important means to achieve a productive labor force, increase general economic prosperity, and raise living standards.
A state supported system of universal education, which is what society really wants, is VERY, VERY different from a public education monopoly of government operated, union staffed schools.
“Public education”, whether “quality” or generic is not “THE” means to achieve the ends you promote; it is only a means to increase employment within the public education establishment.
Hey TM, how’d your meeting with Joe go? Was it awkward? Details, please!
Hi Joseph. Good wishes for the last few days of Advent.
When you write “End fill-in-the bubble testing,” are you suggesting the permanent end of multiple choice questions at all levels of classroom education – throughout all days of a course calendar? Are you also suggesting the end of the SAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT and Multistate Bar Examination as they now exist?
Intrigued,
Chris S.
Chris,
My concern is the over reliance on bubble testing K-12. In CA we even test 2nd graders with fill- in bubble testing for STAR, a travesty in my mind.
Joseph, thanks for writing a reply. I see no difference between multiple choice questions and what you describe as “bubble testing.” I presume you also consider fill-in-the-bubble to be substantively the same as “circle the correct answer.”
So, with this as a point of agreement, I still am perplexed at your concern about multiple choice questions. My third grader’s homework frequently has multiple choice questions, though there also are fill-in-the-blank questions and many pages of math questions that request numeric calculation (kind of a math-fill-in-the-blank). His mom and I review the work and ask him to explain how he arrived at some answers he chose. Not every question merits a short-answer essay and multiple choice does provide a quick assessment of a student’s general subject understanding. I can see quick trends of what he “gets” and what he doesn’t.
When you applied to attend Bellarmine, I’m sure you completed some type of “fill-in-the-bubble” test that enabled the reviewers to determine your basic mastery of prioritized topics. Likewise, I presume you took the SAT prior to enrolling at San Jose State. I also have taken many bubble tests over the years and, while no test format is perfect, multiple choice exams do provide a general sense of what academic information I understand and what information I understand less well. No test is perfect, but if well-constructed, it can assess a student’s basic skills.
Regarding second graders taking STAR tests…, I am highly intrigued to learn why you consider this specific use of multiple choice to be a travesty. By late Spring, second graders are halfway through their six years of formal elementary school education, and more than halfway through if one counts preschool and pre-K experiences. Third, fourth and fifth grades will rush by quickly and soon the little ones aren’t so little any more. The halfway point seems a reasonable opportunity for objective assessment.
As a parent I want to know how my child performs on standardized tests so I have extra data to evaluate academic strengths as well as areas that need more focus. And, I also want to know areas in which my child may have achieved high proficiency so I can be sure to challenge him with appropriate additional study.
I suggest most schools don’t over-rely on K-12 bubble tests. Rather, too many schools under-rely on data gathered by regular assessments. If the tests are presented with sighs and negative energy, then the whole experience will be less than optimal. But all students experience objective evaluation from day one of Kindergarten through deep graduate study. We can use the data more effectively to educate children – especially when a school employs readiness-leveled classrooms.
This is not either “bubble tests” or art. This is not “multiple choice tests” or music. Or sports. Or travel. Or languages. Or CTE. You and I both experienced more daily classroom hours in our youths than the average 2010 public school elementary student. We need higher expectations and strong accountability at all levels of public education. Students won’t wilt under extra academic work. To the contrary, we thrived. And many other countries expect much of their children and reap the benefits of a well-educated population.
I look forward to reading more in our dialogue.
Joe, I hope you’re not taking lessons from John Vasconcellos… now his methods were truly a travesty.
Dumping more money into the Black Hole that we call our public school system is not the answer. Here are some suggested solutions:
1. Abolish the U.S. Department of Education
2. Get rid of the position of State Superintendent of Education
3. Get rid of the County Board of Education
4. Eliminate the Teachers Union
5. Give parents the right to not send their children to any existing public school. Give them their choice of private, religious or charter schools.
6. Stop the nonsense that everyone should go to College.
7. Establish good vocational training programs.
If people had more faith in our existing public education system they would be more willing to pay the cost.
And one last thought! Send Congress and our State Legislature and Governor Moonbeam on a Sabbatical. Seven years would be nice for openers.
RE: “Increase the school year to 200 days for all students.”
Q: What specifically, Joe, would you cut back on, to provide the requisite funding for associated increased costs of salaries, facilities, etc.?
RE: “Blow up tenure as we know it … ensure the public that the teachers’ unions support [X]”
Q: What specific changes to California collective bargaining statutes do you espouse, to achieve this end?
RE: “End fill-in-the bubble testing, but not accountability.”
Q1: To follow up on Chris’s question [and in framing mine, I will assume you do not object to *all* objective measures of subject mastery], what is your *specific* objection to a test format that [a] requires one to come up with [or at least recognize!] the correct answer to a question in order to get credit; prevents grading bias & error (e.g., based on handwriting legibility, grader error & proclivities, etc.); [c] enables maximal cost-effectiveness (score sheets are graded by computers, not highly-trained-&-compensated humans); etc.
Q2: What alternative *objective* measures of subject *mastery* do you propose [please be specific!], to replace computerized-graded multiple-choice tests and, [assuming your recommended alternative requires human graders], what current educational programs would you cut back on or eliminate to pay for the training of those graders, continually assessing their consistency and objectivity in grading, and their time spent in actually grading tens-of-millions of examinations?
Q3: Going back to Chris’s question, do you object to our current practive of requiring physicians, patent agents, attorneys, entrants to [colleges, grad schools, business schools, law schools, dental schools, medical schools, etc.-] schools, to show their mastery of subject matter by being able to identify correct answers on multiple-choice tests?
RE: “Make accountability related to how students perform on real life skills in math, writing, critical thinking, following directions, listening, speaking and working with others.”
Q1: How (and please be specific) would you propose to *objectively* (i.e., non-prejudicially, fairly, accurately, etc.) assess “how students perform on real life skills” in [you name the subject]?
Q2: How (and please be specific!) would you propose to *objectively* (i.e., non-prejudicially, fairly, accurately, etc.) assess “how students perform … in critical thinking, following directions, listening, speaking and working with others?”
Q3: Assuming it costs substantial money to create and implement the programs you recommend (and even if it’s realistically possible to devise programs to *objectively* measure things like “life skills,” “listening, speaking and working with others,” I can’t imagine they would be anything other than humongously expensive to implement ongoing), what specific programs would you cut back on or eliminate, to fund the development and ongoing implementation of your new programs?
Q4: Assuming that by now you still hold to your original precepts, please share exactly how you would translate the your answers to Q1 & Q2 above, into a nonprejudicial, objective means to ensure “accountability”?
RE: Your very own webpage requires that, “In order to fend off mechanized spam, we need to ask you a question to confirm that you are a human being: What is missing: North, South, East?”
Q: Why do you believe a multiple-choice question is a competent way to ensure I am a human being, and yet believe it is not a competent way to ensure a 5th-grader knows that a triange has 180 degrees; or that the two phrases separated by a semicolon must each be able to stand alone as a sentence; or that if Jane has fourteen pecans to share amonsgst herself and two friends then they will each get four pecans and she will have two left over; or that California is to the West (oops, I just gave away the answer to YOUR multiple-choice question) of New York?
Ina,
I strongly believe that we need to increase revenue to schools to provide for a longer school year, arts, etc…if we can have the best military on the planet we must provide our children with a second to none educational system. I know it is a hugely uphill battle, but if there is a will there is a way.
Authentic assessment needs to become an integral component of our classroom systems. Regular formative assessment with specific feedback by teachers, mentors, peers should become the norm and costs less than the model we now use in CA.
From this waffly response it’s my opinion that Joe is incapable of providing specific answers to questions. It simply isn’t in him. I guess he’d call his reply “authentic assessment” and give himself an A+. Vague platitudes are evidently the best that HE can do so he wrongly assumes that’s the best our students can do. It’s my concern that, by projecting his own limitations onto our kids he’s squashing the development of those kids who DO have the potential to acquire specific and quantifiable knowledge.
Ode To My Dear Friend Joe
I’d like to know why you have so much trouble
with assessments you sneeringly mock as “bubble?”
Why do you see as “travesty” wanting to see
if a 2nd-grade kid knows 1 plus 2 is 3,
or that sentences start with a capital letter?
Why is “peer feedback” (by fellow 8-year-olds!) better?
The doctors you trust to prevent and treat cancers
had to “show what they know” by “bubbling” their answers –
have you told the Med Board that it would behoove them
to license docs based on whose “peers” had approved them?
Joe, you’ve been FUZZIFIED! But you’re a smart man –
approach this with logic! I know that you can!
Best wishes for a logical, analytical, fact-oriented, reality-based, defuzzified New Year!
Joe,
1. It’s easy to list a zillion things one would like to have, if only one had Bill Gates’s fortune. The money situation in CA is getting worse, not better. Therefore, when I ask “what programs would you cut or eliminate to fund the (cost-ineffective) solutions you propose,” an answer like “we need to increase revenue for education equates to a non-answer.
2. Whether or not we have “the best military in the world” (and actually, on a per capita or per dollar basis, I think Israel’s is probably better, but that’s neither here nor there), is not the issue. Implicit messages, in educational blogs, that we should spend more money for education and less for defense, don’t contribute anything practical to the problem of US education in the today’s, as opposed to in a pacifistic ideal world. Rather, this kind of response affirmatively avoids answering my questions.
3. Joe, you say, “Authentic assessment needs to become an integral component of our classroom systems.” I asked before, and I’ll ask again, precisely what do you mean by “authentic” assessment, as opposed to {counterfeit? false? ungenuine? otherwise-unauthentic?) assessments? To me, the most “authentic assessment” is the most objective means of assessing a student’s mastery of subject material they had the responsiblity to learn. To me, the most basic requirement for “authenticity” in an assessment tool is that, at the very least, it reflects a student’s ability to come up with [or at least recognize!] the correct answers to well-framed questions on the subject material that’s supposedly been “mastered.” What does “authentic” mean to you, in the context of assessment tools—and please, please, please be specific.
3. You’ve made it clear you vehemently and passionately opposed multiple choice tests, and persist in using the perjorative name-calling semantic “bubble tests,” instead of the normative descriptor “Multiple Choice Tests” to refer to them. [NB: Plese stop doing this—it demeans your position, looks immature, is unbecoming, and undermines your credibility.] Yet, you still have not expressed any disagreement with my assertions that they are: [a] the most cost-effective assessment tool currently available; the most efficient assessment to administer to large numbers of students; [c] completely objective in the information they provide (i.e., not subject to grader prejudice based on attributes other than subject mastery); [d] so competent a tool for assessing subject mastery that they are universally accepted for medical licensure [Been There, Done That], medical specialist licensure [BTDT], attorney licensure [BTDT], patent agent licensure [BTDT], real estate broker licensure [BTDT], licensure to sell stocks and bonds [ain’t BTDT yet, but my daughter has!], entry to college, grad school, law school, business school, medical school [BTDT], and even licensure to be a Substitute Teacher in CA [BTDT] or a CA teacher [hey, you’ve BTDT!] So, can you please provide a logical, rational reason for your negative stance on multiple choice tests? And, as Chris asks, why you see it as a “travesty” to cost-effectively and objectively enable 2nd graders “show what they know” by using these kinds of “authentic” assessments?
4. Can you provide some examples of what you mean by “Regular formative assessment with specific feedback by teachers, mentors, peers” and explain why you feel that [whatever this means] “costs less costly than the model we now use in CA.” Note that I am not being sarcastic here, I really don’t have any idea what you mean by this. I don’t even know what kind of non-teacher “mentor” in the US Public School System would be competent to objectively assess a student’s mastery of subject matter, or exactly how you envisage a 2nd- or 5th- or 8th- or 11th-grader’s “peers” would contribute objective, expert information as to subject mastery?
Wow, Joe, this is FUN! Marry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!
“California has the highest number of students per teacher, the highest number of students per administrator, the highest number of students per counselor, the highest number of students per nurse and the highest number of students per librarian. We are in the bottom three states out of all 50 states for funding per pupil and we have some of the neediest and most diverse students in the nation. We should be able to agree on these facts since they have been vetted by a vast majority of comparative studies using similar variables.”
California also has the following: The highest average pay per teacher (per teacherportal.com), the ninth highest starting salary per teacher (same source), and one of the highest year-over-year salary step increases for teachers in the nation. California also has the fourth highest average mean salary for school administrators (per the BLS).
So, for all this largesse, we get what? Bottom-of-the-barrel results.
You want results, Mr. DiSalvo? Here’s what you do:
1. Cut the administrative bloat. Consolidate urban one- and two-school districts, eliminate those school boards and superintendent/assistant superintendent positions, etc. etc.
2. Cut salaries 30% to 40% across the board for any and all administrators. Those who choose not to accept the new salaries are welcome to leave, and their positions will remain vacant until someone accepts those positions.
3. Decertify ALL teacher unions.
4. Enable parents to openly enroll their children in schools with a proven record of success, whether public or private, through the use of vouchers.
Of course, this goes against the liberal statist orthodoxy of More Money For The Chilllldrennn (TM), but carrying out the above four points will get you far more positive result than continuing the same track record of FAIL by throwing more money into the hole.