Kitchen Table Math

is about doing math with children

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Linda Moran's listserv

09 Dec 2006 - 15:56 CatherineJohnson

I think everyone here knows about Linda Moran's Teens and Tweens blog.

I've recently (re)discovered that she has a listserv attached to the blog.

I joined last week, and I think some of you might like to join as well. There have been some very interesting posts to the listserv that I don't believe have been posted to the blog itself — and that I don't expect to see posted to the blog itself.

-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Dec 2006

comments...

slide and glide

06 Dec 2006 - 22:55 CatherineJohnson

The problems with AYP are clearly evident in .... schools whose students are meeting their AYP goals, but little growth is occurring. Most such schools are found in affluent communities, where high test scores go hand in hand with high family income. These schools can be referred to as “slideand- glide” schools because they rest easily on the laurels of their students. It is important to understand that NCLB does nothing to hold these schools accountable for providing their students with the annual growth to which they are entitled. In a global economy characterized by fierce competition for demanding jobs that pay high salaries and benefits, this is a highly significant shortcoming.
Value-Added Assessment and Systemic Reform: A Response to the Challenge of Human Capital Development

NCLB's requirement that schools bring all their children to high standards by 2014 is a worthy goal. So, too, is the insistence that school-wide averages are not enough - student subgroups, including low-income, non-English-speaking, special needs and those of varied ethnicities, must meet these standards as well. The problem with the legislation, however, is that it doesn't identify which schools are on target to meet these requirements. In most cases, NCLB's AYP measures can correctly sort out successful schools from those that are failing their students. But for many schools, AYP measures do not provide a fair and complete assessment of school performance.
At the heart of this problem is the fact that AYP focuses on achievement to the exclusion of growth. The following chart helps us identify and understand AYP's twin deficiencies. Proficiency (achievement), high and low, is tracked on the vertical axis, while growth, high and low, is tracked on the horizontal axis. In the bottom left cell are schools that are clearly not serving the needs of their students - providing them with low proficiency and low growth - and thus deserve to be sanctioned. Schools in the top right cell are performing wonderfully. They are doing what we want all schools to do: provide their students with both high proficiency and high growth. For the schools in these two cells, AYP measures accurately reflect their educational outcomes.

The KIPP Academy is in the lower right-hand corner.

slide and glide in Seattle

The Seattle Times requested the district's data for all schools from 2002-04 and shared its findings with district officials, who agreed with the trends The Times identified. The analysis revealed:
• High WASL scores don't automatically mean students learned more: For example, in reading, six elementary schools — all of them in affluent neighborhoods — with above-average WASL scores gave the average student less than a year's growth.
• Districtwide, the average student in grades four and seven is gaining more than a year's growth in math and reading; in grades six, nine and 10, normal growth. But there is wide variation among schools, with high-poverty schools tending to show the most robust gains.
• High schools vary greatly: In 2004 the average 10th-grade student at three schools fell behind in reading, and at five other schools grew more than a year. Passing the WASL is a graduation requirement starting with the Class of 2008.
• The average student falls behind the year after taking the WASL, which has been given in grades four, seven and 10. In half the schools, eighth-graders didn't show a year's gain in reading and math, and in more than half the schools, fifth-graders didn't show a year's gain in math.
Those trends raise many questions: Are advanced students in some schools being challenged enough? Why are students advancing their skills in some grades and falling behind in others? Why is one high school more successful than another in taking its slowest students' skills to the next level? And does this measuring tool simply allow schools to shift the focus off low test scores?

A new way of judging how well schools are doing
By Sanjay Bhatt
Monday, August 29, 2005

slide and glide

Those are the words I've been missing.

Unfortunately, "slide and glide" doesn't solve the issue of factoring out the tutors and parent reteachers.

Unless Sanders has something to say about that, too. Which I imagine he may.

smoking gun

Clowes: Is there any reason why students in schools with high concentrations of poverty should learn any less than students in an affluent district?
Sanders: Interestingly, I've caught the most political heat from some of the schools in affluent areas, where we've exposed what I call "slide and glide." One of the top-dollar districts in the state had always bragged about its test scores, but our measurements showed that their average second-grader was in the 72nd percentile. By the time those children were sixth-graders, they were in the 44th percentile. Under our value-added scheme, the district was profiled in the bottom 10 percent of districts in state. They were not happy. You'd think I had nuked the place.
With our value-added approach, we can demonstrate that our measure of school effectiveness is totally unrelated to traditional socioeconomic indicators. We have more than 1,300 elementary schools in this state; their effectiveness is totally unrelated to the racial composition of the school or the percentage of children in the federal free and reduced-price lunch program. That's looking at measures of progress, not at raw test scores.
You shouldn't hold teachers and principals of school districts accountable for things over which they have no control. You should hold them accountable for those things they do have control over. Schools and teachers don't have control over the achievement level when children walk in the door, but they do have control over how much that level is raised during the year.
If that is sustained over time, it becomes like compound interest, and what you see is populations of children constantly rising to higher and higher levels of achievement in later grades, regardless of where they started.

interview, William Sanders

interview William Sanders
slide and glide
statement of Kati Haycock
value-added assessment
value-added assessment in PDK

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Dec 2006

comments...

how many tutors in Scarsdale?

06 Dec 2006 - 22:43 CatherineJohnson

on a walk around Halsey Pond:

Friend: J's tutor says 50% of the kids in Scarsdale are being tutored.

Me: 50%?

Friend: That's what the tutor said.

Me: In Scarsdale?

Friend: In Scarsdale.

Me: 50%.

Friend: She said 50%.

Me: I believe it.

interview William Sanders
slide and glide
statement of Kati Haycock
value-added assessment
value-added assessment in PDK

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Dec 2006

comments...

precision teaching part 2

06 Dec 2006 - 22:21 CatherineJohnson

My neighbor the statistician just sent me this link to a site on precision teaching.

I thought it sounded familiar, then discovered I'd posted an abstract awhile back.....

I like the words "precision" and "teaching" so much I could almost go for this just because of what it's called, sight unseen.

Precision Teaching: A Brief History

Which reminds me, does anyone know what went wrong with "outcomes-based learning"? (I think that was the term.)

Naturally I keep thinking we ought to be looking at the outcomes of curriculum and pedagogy; then I find out there already was an outcomes-based movement of some kind (while you were sleeping) and it was a fiasco.

What was it?

Why was it a fiasco?

writing objectives

Some of us were talking about writing objectives on IEPs the other day. This page may be useful.

behavioral fluency as mastery, not percent correct

This is cool:

His research was showing "frequency to be 10 to 100 times more sensitive than percentage correct in recording the effects of drugs and different reinforcers" (Lindsley, 1990b, p. 10). He was painfully aware that when researchers applied their methods, even behavioral methods, to academic behaviors of school children, they typically recorded only percentage correct, "the time-honored educational measure."
[snip]
"Our first class-wide frequency recording was in a Montessori class for special education children...Elaine Fink showed we could effectively use rate of response with curricula as varied and as difficult to measure as Montessori materials. Clay and Ann Starlin showed an entire first grade class could correct and chart their own academic work on standard celeration charts...Ron Holzschuh with Dorothy Dobbs and Tom Caldwell showed that academic frequencies (rates) recorded 40 times more effects of curricular changes than did percent correct...These and many other studies proved behavior frequencies significantly more sensitive to learning variables in the classrooms than percent correct and percent of time on task." (Lindsley, 1990a, p. 7).

This, too:

Van Ostrom stressed that aims should be meetable and beatable. This suggests that our long-term goals and aims might require mini-aims for some learners as they strive for high fluencies.

That's Saxon Math.

Aims that are meetable and beatable.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Dec 2006

comments...

Scarsdale speaks

04 Dec 2006 - 23:30 CatherineJohnson

I know I've mentioned before that Irvington has a Scarsdale complex.

What Scarsdale does, we do.

Thus: if Scarsdale selects and implements Math TRAILBLAZERS, we select and implement Math TRAILBLAZERS. [ed.: that's a joke]

I can't for the life of me think why this would be, unless it has something to do with the fact that Scarsdale's SAT scores are a teensy bit higher than ours:

Scarsdale 2005: 1251 Combined / 611 Math / 640 Verbal

Irvington 2005: 1180 Combined / 602 Math / 578 Verbal

source: Westchester Magazine (pdf file)

So today I learn that Scarsdale's Superintendent, one Mike McGill, has been named Superintendent of the Year.

Mike is a passionate guy, "a 1960s person ... pre-disposed to a kind of professive [sic] social vision," who is, of late, discovering the virtues of local control and the "danger in moving to big government."

The danger in moving to big government being, one gathers, way too much accountability.

Mike's not down with that:

If you listen to people like Richard Elmore, who’s a teacher at Harvard, he says the very top top American kids are scoring about the 75th percentile on international studies. So we know our top performing kids are doing very well.

I have now read this passage at least 10 times....and I'm still asking myself whether I can possibly be reading correctly.

Did the superintendent of Scarsdale's public schools just tell us that the top-top American kids are scoring at the 75th percentile in international studies?

Did he then tell us that when the top, say, 5 percent of our kids score at the 75th percentile internationally this is correctly viewed as an indication that they are doing "very well?"

It appears so:

...the very top top American kids are scoring about the 75th percentile on international studies. So we know our top performing kids are doing very well. What what are the challenges posed by those kinds of data? [ed.: you mean, aside from the challenge of our top kids scoring twenty-five points below the top kids in Europe and Asia?] What’s interesting to me about places like Scarsdale is that because high-performing school districts aren’t having to deal with some of the very gritty kinds of reality that some of our urban schools must deal with, we’re in a position to explore alternative ways of doing things and ask questions that go to the heart of what truly strong public institutions do and and to the heart of how they can function most effectively.
It’s a real privilege but it’s also a responsibility. [ed.: and the good part is ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY! slide and glide! Nobody's checking to see if any truly strong public institutions actually result from my spending a lot of time thinking about how truly strong public institutions can function most effectively!] Particularly today when so much of the impetus for educational change has shifted from localities to the federal or state government. I think it’s very easy to lose sight of the fact that historically one of the tremendous strengths of the American public school system has been the initiative and the individuality of local school districts.

When you cut through the blah-blah, Mike's point seems to be that what really interests him is "the important civic and ethical issues we face as human beings."

Drawing upon my top-knotch inferencing and restating skills, I would say that Mike's message is:

Hey. This is Scarsdale; I don't have to think about scores.

Good enough is good enough.

There is a huge amount of tutoring in Scarsdale, fyi.

You want to see tutoring up the wazoo, go to Scarsdale.

Also parent unrest.

There is parent unrest in Scarsdale. Possibly because they have to hire so many damn tutors.

In fact, if I had to bet, I'd bet Scarsdale will be the next town to have a listserv.

spot the TRAILBLAZERS difference

So here's an interesting factoid known only to me, Ed, my next-door neighbor, and our erstwhile Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum. (I know he knows because I gave him the data, walked him through it, and stood there while he read and reacted.)

You'll notice that Scarsdale is way out in front of Irvington on Verbal scores, but not on Math. We're close to even on Math.

Why would that be?

I don't know, but I suspect Math TRAILBLAZERS has something to do with it.

Scarsdale has had TRAILBLAZERS for quite awhile longer than we've had it.

They show a much more dramatic 8th grade slump in math scores than Irvington.

If you compare Irvington (pdf file) to Scarsdale (pdf file) in school year 2003-2004, here's what you see:

Irvington 4th grade 8th grade

Scores of 4       52%           41%
Scores of 3     40%           45%

Scarsdale 4th grade 8th grade

Scores of 4       71%           37%
Scores of 3     28%           56%

In school year 2003-2004, Math TRAILBLAZERS had been used in Scarsdale long enough for the 8th graders to have used TRAILBLAZERS in elementary school.

No children in Irvington had used TRAILBLAZERS at that point.

I assume that one reason our curriculum committee thought TRAILBLAZERS was a great idea was the fact that Scarsdale 4th graders were so far ahead of Irvington kids on the state tests. 71% of Scarsdale kids were scoring a 4, compared to just 53% of our kids. That's a big gap. (I assume.)

But did they look at the scores for 8th grade?

I don't know.

I've just checked last year's math scores for Irvington and Scarsdale.

The Scarsdale 8th graders, I believe, have been using Math TRAILBLAZERS for their entire school career.

The Irvington 8th graders left K-5 before Math TRAILBLAZERS was adopted.

28.4% of Scarsdale 8th graders last year, 2005-2006, scored a 4 on the state test.

38.9% of Irvington 8th graders last year, 2005-2006, scored a 4 on the state test — and these are kids, remember, who have been through Irvington's Death March to Algebra Phase 4 extravaganza. The Irvington Middle School math curriculum is a mess no matter who's teaching the thing.

And still, we have 38.9% of our kids scoring a 4 compared to just 28% of Scarsdale's TRAILBLAZERS kids.

I'm going to call upon my Bayesian priors to say there's a reason for that.

(Photo for Robyn)

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2006

comments...

Iowa Test of Basic Skills

04 Dec 2006 - 21:19 CatherineJohnson

I have now mentioned ad nauseum the fact that my district no longer gives standardized tests that would provide actionable intelligence to parents or anyone else.

We have no idea what our kids' scores mean.

Nor does the school have any idea what our kids' scores mean. This is the state's fault, not the school's. The new ELA test is a mess — even the score reports are a mess. Some kids got score reports with one score on one side, a different score on the flip side. At this point the school doubts the validity of either the test or the scoring or both. Not sure.

We certainly have no idea what ~~decline~~ growth in our children's scores means. Judging by the conversations I'm having, more than a few students seem to have experienced ~~decline~~ growth last year.

But of course there's no way of knowing, because all data in Irvington goes straight to the Data Warehouse.

It's Top Secret!

I'm serious about this.

Ed and I have requested subscores for gender and race.

The school is not going to give them to us.

At some point they'll have to; it's the law.

At some point the state of New York will give the data to us — or, alternatively, at some point I'll put on my Girl Reporter cap and go out and get the info myself, ~~then spray paint it on the school wall~~ right next to the statistics about wife-beating.

WAIT!

DID I SAY THAT!

DID I SAY SPRAY PAINT?

Surely not.

[pause]

I will not be spray painting state test subscores on the middle school walls.

Anyway, the main reason I want the gender data is that if there is a large gap between boys and girls on the new ELA test, which I suspect there is (lots of writing on the test; writing typically skews test results to girls) I would be inclined to view the results as incorrect.

But since the school has opted to stonewall I will carry on being upset about my son's ~~decline~~ growth in ELA scores, and I will carry on encouraging other parents of boys to be upset about their sons' ~~decline~~ growth in ELA scores, too.

This is why political consultants the world around recognize stonewalling as the brilliant form of damage control it so obviously is!

Of course, I can kind of see why the school might not like me getting my hands on the subscores for race.

Especially when you take a look at our local achievement gap in years gone by.

Irvington is no KIPP.

defensive testing

The point is: I need information.

Where exactly does Christopher stand?

Enter the ITBS, a test favored by E.D. Hirsch.

You can order the ITBS from two places:

Piedmont

Bob Jones^*

The ITBS is one long test. About 6 hours worth; 13 separate tests.

vocabulary

reading comprehension

spelling

capitalization

punctuation

usage and expression

math concepts and estimation

math problem solving and data interpretation

math computation

social studies

science

maps and diagrams

reference materials

wow

The science test was so hard I couldn't score it (informally score it, I mean — the tests are scored by computer after you return them).

The maps and diagrams test was impossible.

Everything else was doable.

Ultimately I'll have scores on each separate scale that tell me where Christopher ranks in terms of his fellow-students throughout the country.

For the time being, I'm assuming Christopher is fine on reading comprehension. That scale had 46 questions; he missed 6.

So we'll see.

what the middle school is doing right

The one terrific moment vis a vis our school happened when Christopher took the usage and expression test.

He looked at the first couple of questions and said, "Ms. K taught us all this stuff last year." (And she taught it in one semester, too, in his case.)

He missed 3 out of 41

That's teaching.

The schools here have tremendous teaching talent.

What they don't have is a decent curriculum and a focus on academic achievement.

Math was somewhat disheartening.

My take is that Christopher is exactly where Ed keeps saying he is: his procedural skills aren't bad, but his comprehension is poor.

mathematics problem solving and data interpretation MISSED: 3 out of 35 (91% correct)

mathematics computation - hmmm... I didn't record my scoring .... he wasn't great on computation (back to KUMON?)

mathematics concepts and estimation MISSED: 14 out of 52 (73% correct)

I think I'll probably start giving Christopher the ITBS once a year. That's what Jerry Moore at My Short Pencil does.

^* I know this thanks to Nick's Mama.

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2006

comments...

how hard is this book?

04 Dec 2006 - 19:59 CatherineJohnson

I found 3 resources for assessing the difficulty of a book or article yesterday:

Dale-Chall Readability Index (pdf file) (used in conjunction with Dale-Chall Word List (pdf file)

QUEST book list

Lexile Book Search (use in conjunction with Lexile FAQ) (I think Mark Roulo put me onto Lexile, but have lost the note I remember having made about it...)

And here is Hoagie's Gifted Education Page on readability tests.

When it comes to figuring out your child's reading level, I found the San Diego Quick Assessment helpful. I'll let you know how well it jibes with Christopher's ITBS scores.

Scholastic on the San Diego (pdf file)

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2006

comments...

how children read

04 Dec 2006 - 15:03 CatherineJohnson

Now that we have across-the-board ~~decline~~ growth in Christopher's scores in just one year's time, I'm trying to figure out how panicked I need to be about his future.

The "challenge" here in Irvington is that we have a spiral curriculum in math and ELA classes that assign novels two years below grade level. This results in predictable not-great achievement by the end of middle school, at which point we throw the kids into ferocious competition and tracking for accelerated and Honors classes.

Only the children who "belong" in Honors and/or accelerated courses gain admission, and the admissions process is grueling. Students have to write essays; parents have to sign letters saying they know their kids are applying to Honors and giving their OK.

No effort is made to recruit students into the Honors track.

Ever.

The goal is to make cuts. Figure out who doesn't "belong."

I've been hearing that word for many, many years here in Irvington.

belong

Last year an Irvington administrator told me that "Irvington is the most heavily tracked district I've ever seen."

Direct quote.

So that's the dilemma.

We're paying $20,000 a year in property taxes for Darwinian gatekeeping.

Plan A has to be figuring out whether there is or is not a decent Catholic boys' school somewhere in Westchester County. At this point I think even Ed would be on board for packing Christopher off to the Jesuits for the next few years.

(He's come a long way, baby.)

Christian claims there's a good one in White Plains, so I'll look into it.

[pause]

wow

They have a parents Crusader Club at Stepinac High School.

That could be good.

[pause]

whoa

Their graduates are going to good schools. (Click on "Admissions"; then Click on "Graduates.")

So....I guess the next step is to check out tuition.

Good Lord.

$6,650

We could do it.

[pause]

hmmm....

Their SAT scores are "above average."

No further info.

That's a bad sign.

Alright, enough of that.^*

As I was saying, I'm trying to figure out ~~how panicked to be~~ what to do now.

Over the weekend, this seemed to mean cruising reading comprehension websites.....

I don't even know what got me going on that, but there you are.

oh!

I remember.

Elaine McEwan's book Raising Reading Achievement in Middle and High Schools: Five Simple-to-Follow Strategies arrived with depressing news: just having your kids read books doesn't seem to be enough.

I haven't finished reading that chapter, but Elaine said she was depressed by the research on this, so naturally I became depressed, too. Being sick in bed with the flu helped.

Elaine (apparently we're on a first name basis, Elaine & me) thinks students have to be "held accountable" for their reading - i.e. they have to do something, such as writing a summary, to show they not only read a book or two, they understood what they read. And they have to read more complicated books this year than they did last year and the year before.

That made sense, but what's a more complicated book?

How complicated are the books C. is reading now?

And how do I find out?

This question led to lots of cruising of readability websites & white papers.....

[pause]

San Diego Quick Assessment (pdf file)

The San Diego Quick Assessment is a dandy tool, I think.

I gave it to Christopher and discovered that his "reading for pleasure" level is grade 6; his "instructional" level is grade 7. I suspect he's going to come out higher than that on the ITBS, but the San Diego was helpful. The two words Christopher couldn't read both belong to science vocabulary, which I think is probably good:^** "relativity" (grade 6) and "capillary" (grade 7).

If you're going to use it with your own child, use this link.

So I cruised the readability stuff....and got out my book on summarizing and finally committed to reading the whole thing....and in brief, semi-lucid waking moments I was trying to figure out how, exactly, I'm going to make sure Christopher reads progressively more challenging material AND is "held accountable," by me, for his progressively more challenging reading, I came across the following passage:

Studies show that children often select books both above and below their current reading level, and this is a good thing. Children can often understand large sections of books that are "too hard" because of their interest in and knowledge of the topic,2 and "easy" books often provide valuable background in a new genre that encourages subsequent reading and makes it more comprehensible (Carter, 2000). Left on their own, children engage in a "back and forth movement" between easy and hard books, reading both below and above their current reading levels (Fresch, 1995). In addition, children gradually read books that are more challenging, without the use of reading levels (Krashen, 2001a). The back and forth movement is actually a sine wave that gradually moves upward.
Stenner appears to agree. in one Metametrics brochure ("The 3 Rs': Using the Lexile Framework"), it states that "one strategy that works well is to have students read an easier text on the same subject in order to provide some background knowledge and vocabulary" (p. 3). And Stenner, Burdick, Sanford and Burdick (2001) advise that "the Lexile Framework should never be the only factor considered when selecting a book" (p. 49).
source:
The Lexile Framework: The Controversy Continues

This is one of those dilemmas where I don't have time to figure it all out; I'm going to have to rely on Bayesian priors and, furthermore, I am going to have to assume that I have some Bayesian priors worth listening to.

The one Bayesian prior I have to hope is gold in the bank is me: as far as I can tell, I owe my own recentered Verbal 790 not to anything my schools did, but to the fact that I was a bookworm. (Do people even use the term "bookworm" any more? Do bookworms still exist?) I read all the time, from age 5 on. I read whatever I wanted to read, and what I wanted to read was fiction. I read fiction & only fiction up until high school when I started reading the Great Works of authors like A.S. Neill, John Holt, and Eldridge Cleaver.

So....I'm going to do what my mother did.

Keep Christopher well-stocked in the best books I can find, buy him anything he's remotely interested in reading, and hope for the best.

I may also try to bribe the school into giving him an assigned reading list filled with books at his actual reading level.

The difference between Christopher and me is PlayStation and pro wrestling.

If the school told Christopher he had to read X number of books this year, he'd read X number of books.

Unfortunately, the school's reading plan for 7th graders appears to consist of....two books?

Three?

Well, maybe it's four. Maybe they read one book a quarter.

I don't know.

Parents never know!

I think Ed and I are going to figure out a whole new plan....

Meanwhile I continue to feel that Vocabulary Workshop is an excellent work-around for non-bookworm boy-type kids.

Elaine McEwan website

^* The quest for rescue-by-parochial-school has begun early this year.

^** "good" because I suspect that science vocabulary is the least important language Christopher needs at this point and even down the line....and because Christopher has had two quite good science teachers so far in middle school. I think he's getting what he needs there - or getting as much as he can.

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2006

comments...

room for growth

04 Dec 2006 - 14:28 CatherineJohnson

I hadn't quite grokked the use of the word "growth" in edu-speak.

What is Expected Growth? (204 KB, PDF)
by Gary L. Williamson, Ph.D., July 2006

We are all familiar with children, either through knowing our own or through acquaintance with those of other people. Perhaps no other thing in life is as obvious as the dramatic way that human beings develop and grow. Our key social and political institutions devote a significant part of their resources to ensuring that children grow and learn to function as productive citizens. Growth and learning are central to the mission of our country’s public schools...
Because there are a number of alternative ways to conceptualize student growth and to measure it, states face a challenge to design and implement accountability systems that address a variety of information needs and still comply with state and federal laws. In this context, there are naturally many viewpoints about how best to conceptualize and measure student growth and to set appropriate goals for growth. This makes it especially important for students, parents and educators to better understand student growth, how it is measured, and how growth expectations may be set in different contexts for different purposes...
source:
White Papers
The Lexile Framework for Reading

I think I first picked up on this last month (late to the party!), reading the middle school newsletter.

Apparently there is room for "growth" at the middle school.

There is room for growth because the middle school is not at this moment "exemplary" as defined by the National Middle School Association.

It's good of course.

It's just not exemplary.

So there's room for growth.

Unfortunately, parents don't seem to be on the same page with the NMSA:

...there is much confusion about what middle level education is and which characteristics make middle schools exemplary. In casual conversations with parents, I have found that there are many misunderstandings about what we do and why we do it....
It is important to know that middle school is not junior high.
source:
Irvington Middle School News

So there you have it again - those endlessly, ongoingly confused parents!

Parents who don't understand!

Parents who need to be educated about the mission of an exemplary middle school!

So parent education will commence!

.... If I were the new principal of a middle school in which numerous well-educated parents seem to be operating under the impression that middle school is or ought to be junior high, I would take that as a sign that my "audience" is people who are actively concerned about knowledge and academic achievement.

Not team-teaching and exploratory programs.

What is growth?

What is growth? In the simplest terms, growth is change over time. To study growth, we measure a thing repeatedly on successive occasions and draw conclusions about how it has changed. People may speak of growth in the context of a system (e.g., a population) or in terms of an organism (i.e., an individual). In the former, we may be concerned with how many individuals comprise the population, how they are dispersed and how rapidly their number increases. In the latter instance, we are generally concerned with how attributes of the organism (e.g., height, weight, reading ability) change over time. Although both notions of growth are interesting, in this paper we are mainly concerned with the second idea because it most closely relates to the concern we have for how individual students develop physically and cognitively.

Pay attention, class.

Growth is change over time.

e.g., growth in height, weight, and reading ability

Question: when your child's test scores in reading and math decline from one year to the next, is that growth?

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2006

comments...

the name is Bond

04 Dec 2006 - 00:22 CatherineJohnson

We took Christopher to see Casino Royale this weekend.

All those folks worrying about the decline of the west and Eurabia can relax.

James Bond is back.

Way back.

We're going to see it again.

yup
Yahoo!
completely finished
When you're wrong, you're wrong.
Village Voice

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2006

comments...

National Institute for Literacy

02 Dec 2006 - 16:24 CatherineJohnson

Is this what I think it is?

Is this a federal agency directing parents to a homeschooling website for help assessing their children's reading level?

and....

If it is....then why?

Is there a particular reason why our federal government can't provide parents with help assessing their children's reading level?

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Dec 2006

comments...

not age appropriate

02 Dec 2006 - 01:57 CatherineJohnson

at the middle school...

Possibly for the next 16 days.

Unless somebody complains.

I would really like that person not to be me for once.

So...the kids can't figure a 10% tip on a pizza delivery, but they do know that 34% of all men who beat their wives do so at least 3 times.

Also, every 15 seconds (or is it 16) another woman is beaten.

They know this because the halls of the middle school are apparently plastered with posters trumpeting this data.

Let women live freely! the posters say.

Bonne idée!

Maybe I'll throw everyone a curve and fire off an email urging them to adopt a Violence Against Women in the Earth Sciences course for kids who don't make it into the Regents class.

Violence at Home
For countless women home is not a refuge but a place of terror. Every day, in every country in the world, women and girls are beaten and sexually assaulted by husbands, fathers, and other family members.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Dec 2006

comments...

differentiated instruction map

01 Dec 2006 - 13:35 CatherineJohnson

source:
Johnnie's Math Page

Yeah, that'll work.

meet the parents

What does a focus on the language of math mean for students at home?

Parents must be encouraged to support the development of the language of math at home.

Everyday activities are rich in potential for mathematical discovery.

It is important for children to realize that math is a way to understand the larger world. It is more than just a subject at school.

Parents need to recognize the math found in their work and in their homes matters to their children. School math and life math must be connected.

source:
Johnnie's Math Page, Language and Mathematics

How about no.

Strategic Plan

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Dec 2006

comments...

sweeping changes t/k!

30 Nov 2006 - 15:11 CatherineJohnson

Killer fact!

Calculators
Calling technology "a powerful student motivator," the committee endorsed more use of calculators, starting with basic four-function calculators in kindergarten, scientific calculators in grades 5-8 and graphing calculators beginning in grade 7. While the committee stressed that adequate state funding would be needed to assure all students have access, McSweeney said members were surprised to find widespread availability of calculators in cash-strapped New York City and other large cities.
source:
Panel: Make sweeping changes in math courses
Recommends to Regents new structure in tests, curriculum
November 18, 2004

Bill Brosnan and Terry McSweeney,
co-chairs of the Math Standards Committee.

Bill and Terry are right.

Technology is a powerful motivator.

Christopher, for instance, has been motivated to spend hours spelling "assface" on his Texas Instrument Solar Scientific Calculator Model TI 36X.

homage to Harry Hutton
(keep scrolling for complete, up-to-date list of Killer Facts)

-- CatherineJohnson - 30 Nov 2006

comments...

the reteachers

30 Nov 2006 - 13:50 CatherineJohnson

from NYC HOLD:

Letter #1
I am a physician who was initially [a] mathematics major in college. I just found your Web site today and wish I had known about it 6 years ago when my oldest daughter began kindergarten in District 2. It was not until third grade that I realized just how little math she was learning, and how behind she was in basic skills. According to her teachers, everything was fine, but then no testing or assessment was done, other than the state wide tests - and I recently discovered that our teachers do not even get access to their student's individual results!
Needless to say we've been struggling ever since - we tried Kumon, had a private tutor, and have used the McGraw Hill Math series workbooks as well -. Unfortunately, attempts other than tutoring, such as workbooks don't teach -they just provide for practice of taught skills.
My daughter is a bright child, but math is not "natural" for her. She has never done well "inventing" her own ways to do problems, and I have been stymied as to why the school was not teaching her how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, etc. Once taught, and after sufficient practice, she gets it. I was never asked to invent math - I was taught the ways that math scholars developed over the centuries - why are we asking our children to reinvent the wheel? Our best year of math at PS --- was 5th grade, when all the teachers were new to NYC, all three having come from teaching in the Midwest. Suddenly there were worksheets coming home and quizzes in class, and my daughter had a sense of what she was expected to know, and I did too. All too late as far as I am concerned. Now in sixth grade we are still catching up I have now ordered the Saxon series to aid me in teaching both her and her 2nd grade sister (who unlike her older sister gets math almost intuitively, so it will be much easier going)
At any rate your mission statement summarizes everything I have been saying to friends and other parents at school for the past 4 years. I too, am convinced that our school has for far too long been taking credit for the extra work that the parents are doing in math - this is why our children are doing well, not because of the curriculum!

Christopher tells me he is to bring in $11 for a state test prep booklet.

ELA? I asked. The ELA test is coming up in January.

No. Not the ELA.

Math.

Christopher is to take $11 to school to purchase a state test prep booklet for math.

uh-oh

Houston we have a problem.

I don't feel like spending $11 on a state test prep booklet.

Why don't I feel like spending $11 on a state test prep booklet, you ask.

I don't feel like spending $11 on a state test prep booklet because:

in preparation for the state test last year class spent 3 days writing about failure and disappointment in their math journals

resulting in: class using only a couple of pages in the state test prep booklet

resulting in: parent forced to assign bulk of pages in the state test prep booklet

resulting in: screaming, yelling, crying

also resulting in: parent having to work bulk of problems in the state test prep booklet herself, because answers to state test prep booklet were supplied only to teachers, not to parents

In conclusion, I don't feel like spending $11 on a Top Secret state test prep booklet because if I'm going to do the school's job I want the school's materials — all of the school's materials, not just the materials the school sees fit to share with me.

Actually, even if the school did see fit to make my reteaching life a tad easier, I'm not sure I'd want to shell out $11 for a state test prep booklet.

Last year's actual grade 7 math test is here.

The sample tests teachers use for training on the scoring rubric are here. (I believe that's what these tests are.)

So we've got two sets of actual New York state math assessments with answers available free online.

Why spend $11 for a booklet?

Wait!

Don't tell me!

I have the answer to that!

If the school doesn't have to pay for it out of the school budget, it's not really money.

Table of Contents NY math standards
New York State standards: grade C
sample problems, NY state test
"vacation"
impending doom
math journal, day 2
math journal, day 3
thank you, Saxon Math
don't study for the test
state test

math standards- intermediate (pdf file)

State Assessment
State Assessment mathemathics
sample state tests 2005
State Tests 2006

-- CatherineJohnson - 30 Nov 2006

comments...

mission impossible

29 Nov 2006 - 23:39 CatherineJohnson

I've decided to start a collection of public school mission statements.

North Merrick Union Free School District
It is the mission of the North Merrick School Community to develop individuals who respect themselves and others, are flexible, open-minded, self-motivated, and capable of relating to and communicating with others. These individuals should be able to function independently and cooperatively, be conversant with technology, have the ability to access, process, as well as analyze data, and be able to solve problems.
Merrick Union Free School District at School Matters

According to the Superintendent's letter, K-5 students in North Merrick are doing exactly what you'd expect:

September had been a busy month for the students at Old Mill Road. As the new school year began, students were observed throughout the building focusing on their social skills. Old Mill Road’s Giving Tree is growing daily, as more and more names are added of students who are noticed being exceptionally kind or helpful to others.

Students are participating in the Second Step Program to reinforce positive social skills. Some of the areas covered are demonstrating understanding and caring to others, practicing impulse control and problem solving, and managing anger so that it does not impact negatively on others.

First and second grade teachers have been busy getting their students ready to launch Writer’s Workshop. Teachers in grades three and four are having their students use Writer’s Notebooks this year. Their personalized notebooks look fabulous! The students are excitedly recording feelings, observations, and important events in their lives.

Many of our fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students are busy creating characters for the annual Storyworks’ Create-A-Character Contest. Award-winning author, Christopher Paul Curtis, will select one character entry and write a short story using that character. Winners will be announced in the spring.

Friday, September 29th was designated as Fitness Friday as all Old Mill Road students participated in a variety of exercises, and ate healthy snacks. This is in accordance with our new District Wellness Policy and our school initiative, Old Mill Road to Wellness. The staff is working to provide a healthy school environment for every student. A total student approach to ensure physical fitness, encourage healthy food choices, and social well being, will be our focus for this year.

In October, kindergarten teachers will also be Launching Writer’s Workshop with their students. In addition, first and second grade teachers will begin Guided Reading instruction with their students.

Old Mill Road families successfully participated in International Walk to School Day on Wednesday, October 4.

North Merrick has a vision statement, too:

The North Merrick School Community resolves to nurture, guide and challenge children to maximize their potential and become contributors to society.

Irvington is looking better.

A whole lot better.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Nov 2006

comments...

page splatter redux

29 Nov 2006 - 21:00 CatherineJohnson

“It’s basically, you cover everything, everywhere, because somehow, somebody will learn something somewhere,” Mr. Schmidt told conference-goers.

Most researchers, though, have focused on curricula in an effort to discern why students in some countries tend to outshine the rest of the world, including the United States, in international comparisons.
As the principal of a Finnish intermediate-level school that is arguably the highest-scoring school in the world, Maarit Rossi, another conference-goer, has fielded many such queries. Finland ranked first in math in the 2005 PISA, and the 8th graders in Ms. Rossi’s school, Kirkkoharjun School in Kirkkonummi, scored highest in that nation.
Now studying in the United States on a sabbatical, Ms. Rossi sees obvious contrasts in U.S. and Finnish textbooks. The U.S. texts, she said, are much thicker and more cluttered than the ones her students use. “It’s impossible when you have 1,100 pages of math that you get the message,” she said.
William H. Schmidt, an education professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, would agree. He has conducted comparisons of U.S. math curricula and those used by countries that consistently score high on TIMSS. As early as the late 1990s, he characterized U.S. math classes as “a mile wide and an inch deep” compared with those of the high-scoring, mostly Asian, nations.
“It’s basically, you cover everything, everywhere, because somehow, somebody will learn something somewhere,” Mr. Schmidt told conference-goers.
More recently, his analyses have also shown that the high-performing countries teach math in a sequence that mathematicians see as more coherent, and that may be even more influential in promoting students’ understanding.

Potential of Global Tests Seen as Unrealized
Scholars urged to scour TIMSS, PISA for policy insights.
By Debra Viadero

We can all breathe a sigh of relief that scholars will continue to scour TIMSS & PISA for policy insights.

I'd like to see the question of whether mathematics taught in a coherent sequence is influential in promoting students' understanding answered in my lifetime.

That would be grand.

Glencoe page splatter
Doug Sundseth on ransom note typography
Tom Friedman piles on
distance tutors & mathematicallycorrect review Glencoe
page splatter and the frontal lobes
page splatter redux
pagesplatter

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Nov 2006

comments...

Regents Math A

28 Nov 2006 - 01:34 CatherineJohnson

from 2004: ($)

To the Editor:
According to ''City High School Students Lag in Regents Test Scores'' (news article, Dec. 17), ''Some fear that raising the passing score'' on Regents exams from 55 to 65 ''could take a particularly harsh toll on city students.'' A representative of a coalition of civic organizations says, ''It's just cruel.''
Passing scores of 55 and 65 for the Math A Regents Exam are scaled scores that correspond to raw scores of 33 percent and 44 percent, respectively. In comparison, random guessing on the exam's multiple-choice component yields an expected raw score of 15 percent.
Under the current standard, a student who answers two-thirds of the questions incorrectly will pass. Under the proposed higher standard, a student who answers more than half of the questions incorrectly can still pass. In either case, students achieving the minimum passing score are unprepared for the Regents Math B course and most certainly lack the basic algebra skills needed for college-level mathematics. That seems cruel to me.
Stanley Ocken (scroll up, too)
New York, Dec. 19, 2004

The writer is a professor of mathematics, City College, CUNY.

how to ace Regents Math A

Saxon Algebra 1

That's it.

That's the answer.

Saxon Algebra 1.

Every lesson, every problem. Correct your wrong answers; take the tests.

I took the 2006 Regents Math A exam at the end of October, and I passed with distinction.

The test had 39 problems altogether:

Part I: 30 multiple choice questions; worth 2 points apiece
Part II: 5 short answer questions; worth 2 points apiece
Part III: 2 short answer questions; worth 3 points apiece
Part IV 2 short answer questions; worth 4 points apiece

I missed 4 items, all of them 2-point multiple choice items.

Raw score: 76 points out of a possible 84
Scaled score: 94 out of 100

Items missed:

determine the equation of a perpendicular line - had never seen this problem before, didn't know how to do it. 2 weeks later Saxon Algebra 2 covered the material. So now I know.

2 problems on probability & factorials - no idea how to do either one

1 problem on graphing the equation of a linear equation, something I can (and frequently do) do in my sleep

So: 3 incorrect answers concerning material I'd never seen before.

1 incorrect answer due to dumb computation error.

This is where Saxon Algebra 1 gets you.

I can't wait to take a sample SAT test.

On the 2006 test the cut-off for passing is a raw score of 34, scaled score 65.

Cut-off for passing with distinction is a raw score of 65, scaled score 85.

If you got only the 2-pointers correct, you could pass the test by getting 17 out of 39 items correct.

I figure you could pass with as few as 14 out of 39 correct answers if you got full-credit for both 4-point questions and both 3-point questions (14 points), then got another 10 two-pointers right (20 points).

Unless I've made another dumb computation error.

Saxon: an alternate view

I hate Saxon Math right now! We have used Algebra 1 and 2 for two years, and it has been non-stop frustration. Why didn’t someone warn me that this would consume our lives? Why didn’t I pray more about this before taking the big step? Why wasn’t I smart enough to figure out after the first year that this wasn’t going to work?

For some reason, I find this comforting.

Another parent blowing it.

Another parent thinking she's got a plan when it's crystal clear to any rational person the plan isn't working, then obstinately continuing to think she's got a plan while things get worse.

Mule-headedness in parenting!

A good thing, as Martha Stewart used to say.

Well, muleheadedness in parenting often is a good thing, except when it leads to crying and yelling.

Crying, yelling, and recriminations.

Been there!

Done that!

But not, thank God, with Saxon Algebra 1 & 2.

Totally agree on the solution manual, though.

Regents Math A August 2006 (pdf file)
Regents Math A scoring key (pdf file)
2006 Regents Exams
archived Regents exams

Stanley Ocken to: Members of the Board of Education and other Interested Parties
regentsmatha

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Nov 2006

comments...

family tree

27 Nov 2006 - 01:00 CatherineJohnson

Hi —

I’m wondering whether you could post instructions for assignments on edline. (The vocabulary practice quiz is great! Thanks!)

Christopher has lost his binder, so we’re going by his memory as to what Thanksgiving break’s “poster project” is.

We’re hoping this will be the last such assignment, by the way. Christopher has had no instruction in graphic design and neither have we. We’ve never felt it was particularly fair to grade students on innate talent for graphic design and illustration, especially given the existence of large gender differences in fine motor ability.

Ed and I are both wondering whether, in place of future graphic design projects, Christopher can do extra work in Spanish.

I’m ordering workbooks to supplement the course; perhaps he could do several pages in a Spanish workbook instead of drawing family trees or pasting pictures onto a posterboard.

Or perhaps he could write sentences and paragraphs in Spanish.

We’re open to anything; we just don’t want to have to supervise any more visual arts assignments when not one of us, including Christopher, has had training in the visual arts.

Thanks —

Catherine J.

This is a Thanksgiving compromise, fyi.

My feeling about the Thanksgiving family tree assignment was, Let's not and say we did.

Ed said, No, we'll do this one, then we'll say we don't want to do any more.

So we've just spent the last five minutes arguing about whether a proper family tree would have one couple at the top, or two.

Ed thinks it ought to start, somehow, with my folks & their four kids plus his folks and their three, and then drop down from there.

So it turns out that if Christopher were doing this assignment for French, not Spanish,^* there might be all kinds of different couples pictured.

Note! All relationships are from the perspective of the red figures.

oops

wrong again

you can do it in Spanish, too

[pause]

Have I mentioned the fact that my sister, this fall, told the principal of her school that her 8th grade daughter would not be doing any more coloring for school assignments?

Her daughter is in 8th grade, and tests gifted.

She had to color in a picture of a neutron or something. Then, in class, she had to pretend to be an element from the periodic Table.

Hi! I'm Cesium!

Everyone was bummed about having to buy more crayons for their 13-year olds, and my sister kept saying, "Just tell them you're not doing any coloring."

Nobody seemed to think this was an option.

So now my sister has pulled her daughter out of the school and she's doing Independent Studies for the year.

We don't have Independent Studies here in New York.

^*the fact that Christopher is studying Spanish is a major sore point around here
familytree

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

comments...

Bank of America

22 Nov 2006 - 16:32 CatherineJohnson

hmmm

I actually kind of don't hate this.

It's possible I have completely lost what remains of my mind, at long last.

Or not!

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Nov 2006

comments...

Thanksgiving

21 Nov 2006 - 02:28 CatherineJohnson

The green beans sound great.

Don't know what to think about the brined turkey, though.

My best friend back in L.A. tried a variant of this one year and it didn't work out.

Salt turkey.

blech

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2006

comments...

five blogs

21 Nov 2006 - 01:16 CatherineJohnson

via joannejacobs & Ken, I learn that Jay Mathews & Walt Gardner are asking people to send in the names of their 5 favorite blogs.

That was easy.

On analogy to student council elections, I also decided to vote for myself.

This is another weird synchronicity event.

I had just this week uncovered the existence of Walt Gardner, and not by reading Jay Mathews, either.

Now I'm sending him emails.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2006

comments...

John Dewey, John Dewey

20 Nov 2006 - 14:05 CatherineJohnson

Somehow, I've managed to miss the fact that our friend John Dewey has dispatched not one, but two more letters from the front:

More on constructivism

and
Letter #7: A Good Swift Kick

From "More," this is wonderful:

I presented the problem [ from the TIMSS videotape of a math lesson in Japan (pdf file) ] to the class, saying I would like their feedback on whether such problem is appropriate for eighth graders. After my initial presentation of the problem I told them I would give them three minutes to work on it, but not to feel they had to solve it—I just wanted to reconvene at that time and then discuss it as a class. (This is in fact what they did in the Japanese classroom). All fell silent and worked at their desks. (Note to adherents of people-working-in-small-groups: In our class, when we are given a problem to solve, most of us like to solve it in isolation. When instructed to work in groups, one person in the group generally dominates. My mind becomes paralyzed and I crave being left to my own devices.)
After about a minute, I saw that people were perplexed, not getting anywhere, and I suddenly realized that in my excitement: I forgot to present the theorem they would need to solve the problem. I apologized and called for their attention and explained the key theorem they would need.
Now, I fully expected that no one would solve the problem in the three minutes and I would have to be “guide on the side” and coach them to see how to apply the theorem, thus proving to all who believe in constructivism that students can still “discover” when given information directly. I forgot that my classmates all have a math or science background and are not eighth graders. Three of my classmates solved it within a minute and others were on their way. Nevertheless, my oversight in not presenting the theorem did reveal something important: As smart and experienced as my classmates are, no one was having any great insights into a solution until I presented the theorem.
I led a discussion about the appropriateness of the problem for eighth graders. The people who solved the problem immediately thought that perhaps I should not give the theorem and let them “discover” it. Others who had a tougher time with the problem said, well, if you did that, maybe you should coach them to come up with the theorem rather than expecting them to do it on their own. Or maybe giving them the theorem wasn’t such a bad thing.
I suspect that the ones who had the easiest time were under the illusion that the theorem was superfluous and easily discovered. They forgot that a few minutes prior they were struggling until I told them what they needed to know. Just like people who in their memory believe they discovered all that was important in math. In short, anyone who was a constructivist at the beginning of the evening, was still a constructivist at the end of it.

We need lots more foxes in ed schools.

And lots fewer hedgehogs.

Crucial factoid about hedgehogs: hedgehogs actually perform worse in areas in which they specialize.

~~John Dewey~~, Edward L. Thorndike, constructivist

We've been operating under a misconception.

John Dewey is going to have to change his name to Edward L. Thorndike.

Edward L. Thorndike
Operant Conditioning and Behaviorism - an historical outline

John Dewey at Edspresso
John Dewey: The Complete Collection
johndewey

-- CatherineJohnson - 20 Nov 2006

comments...

who speaks for the child?

19 Nov 2006 - 22:51 CatherineJohnson

Karen A pointed me to a post at Ken's, who pointed me to this passage from Siegfried Engelmann:

The problem with the current educational system is that it has no advocacy for the children. In fact, it is a very strong non-advocacy system, which is supported by all major components of the system—the law, colleges of education, local school districts, educational publishers, federal and state grant supports, and teacher unions.

I find this moving.

Every once in awhile I wonder what on earth Ed and I are doing.

Why would we be taking on our entire school district?

Why would we be pushing for systemic reform?

Why aren't we just getting what we can for our 3 kids?

That's what other people do - and that's what they say they're doing.

It's not that they don't care about other people's children. They do care.

They don't see any other way.

Most of the time they're right.^*

Engelmann's opening line reminded me of the last conversation I had with our departing head of special ed.

We were saying goodbye, and in the middle of the conversation she said, "You and Ed are very good advocates for your children."

Then she gave me a meaningful look for emphasis.

That took me by surprise.

Of course, I guess we are pretty good advocates for our children (she meant Jimmy & Andrew)....but I didn't realize that others might see us this way - or that they might see this as a good thing.

I guess I assume others see us as a pain in the tuchis, which we are when we need to be.

Over the past couple of years I've learned the lesson a lot of parents with special needs and typical kids learn: you have to advocate for the normal ones, too.

That was a surprise. I guess it shouldn't have been, but it was.

Anyway....reading Engelmann's opening line I thought: that explains it.

Advocating for systemic reform in our district is what we have to do to advocate for our typical child.

That's why we do it.

I'm sure we've got some civic duty motives mixed in there, too.

But if you ran an fMRI on both our brains right now, I expect you'd see the "good advocates for your children" areas lit up like a Christmas tree.

At some point I began to see the sameness of all the stories I was hearing.

I came to see that allowing a school to treat your child's problem as if it were his and his alone lets the school off the hook.

It's something about him, not something about them.

Of course, it is something about him....he's having a problem.

But he's having it at school.

So let's talk about the school, too.

I haven't written about the Princeton Charter School yet.

I'll do so soon, because it's important - and because I discovered yesterday that two of the signers of the anti-constructivism letter to Secretary of Education Richard Riley were founders of PCS.

For now, here is a passage from Chiara R. Nappi's account, "Why Charter Schools?": (pdf file)

When parents complained about their child's experience in school, even if they explicitly complained about the deficiencies of the curriculum, teachers and principals tended to treat each case as new and unrelated to any previous one, preferring to come up with solutions specific to a particular child rather than trying to modify the program to improve it for all children.

Engelmann is right: in American schools there is no one to advocate for the children.

It's not a case of bad people.

It's a case of bad structure.

Not to get into detail, it's been obvious to us everywhere we've been that the structure makes it quite difficult, perhaps dangerous in some cases, for teachers to advocate for children. And still they do it, often enough.

Here's Engelmann again:

Basically, the laws associated with teaching and student performance are two-faced. In one sense, the laws were instituted to protect the students and thereby protect the state's interest in a valuable resource. The other face of the law denies that teachers have any sort of professional skills that are not possessed by the person on the street, asserts that teachers have only "responsibilities," protects schools or teachers from liability, and refuses to recognize rights of students to receive a quality education. Although special education children are modestly protected by laws, the appropriateness of programs is not determined by anything approaching tight standards.
... there is not help from the law, no hope of malpractice suits (because these suits imply that teachers have professional skills, which the law denies), and no hope of support from state boards of education or state agencies because these agencies are not accountable for achieving their stated mission.

That's Engelmann, writing in 1982.

Accountability at Princeton Charter School

"A school that holds itself accountable is one that states its objectives, assesses its success in achieving those objectives, and reports to students, parents, and the community on its achievements.

Princeton Charter School (PCS) holds itself accountable to its various constituencies, including the taxpayers who largely support the school. School accountability begins with a curriculum that includes clearly stated, measurable outcomes logically developed within and between grades. PCS assesses and reports on many measures of student academic achievement and other important outcomes of the school's program."

The Princeton Charter School is a Blue Ribbon School.

^* I don't know if there is any other way normally. If Ed weren't a professor, if I weren't a writer, if Ed hadn't worked on the History-Social Science project in CA, if we didn't see eye to eye, if we were lots younger and less impatient with tomfoolery than we are at this stage of the game......things would be different.

-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Nov 2006

comments...

help desk: combinations

19 Nov 2006 - 19:03 CatherineJohnson

What is the answer to this question?

Phil has a summer reading list of 12 books.
If he has to read three books, how many different sets of books can he choose to read?

ummmm....

Is this a combination or a permutation?

I think it's a combination.

I mention combinations, because combinations aren't in Christopher's textbook.

Ms. K covered combinations in class, but Christopher forgot to tell me, and of course there was no review sheet, because why would there be a review sheet when you've covered 18 or 19 or 20 brand-new topics in probability, some of which aren't in the book, in 2 weeks' time and now you're going to give a test?

Maybe there was something on edline.

If so, it's not there now.

So I had no idea combinations were going to be on the test, so I didn't teach myself combinations and thus couldn't reteach combinations to Christopher & assign practice problems, etc., etc.

So he missed the combination problems.....

....also, there seems to be a new mystery concerning POINTS OFF for crossing out incorrect work on your test paper.

Christopher is under the impression that Ms. K. has told them she has to take POINTS OFF for any crossed-out incorrect work, because the state tests don't allow you to cross out incorrect work.

So: POINTS OFF.

In the middle of chewing that one over (POINTS OFF! FOR FAILING TO OBSERVE MANDATORY STATE TEST STYLE AND USAGE REQUIREMENTS! I'M PRETTY SURE I'M AGAINST IT!) I was seized by an impulse to check.

What are our mandatory state test syle and usage requirements, anyway?

[pause]

As far as I can tell, there aren't any:

Mathematics Scoring Policies, Grades 3–8
Listed below are the policies to be followed while scoring the Mathematics Tests for all grades.
1. If the question does not specifically direct students to show their work, teachers may not score any work that the student shows.
2. If a student does the work in other than a designated “Show your work” area, that work may still be scored. (Additional paper is an allowable accommodation for a student with disabilities if indicated on the student’s IEP or 504 Plan.)
3. If the question requires students to show their work, and a student shows appropriate work and clearly identifies a correct answer but fails to write that answer in the answer blank, the student should still receive full credit.
4. If the question requires students to show their work, and a student shows appropriate work and arrives at the correct answer but writes an incorrect answer in the answer blank, the student may not receive full credit.
5. If the student provides one legible response (and one response only), teachers should score the response, even if it has been crossed out.
6. If the student has written more than one response but has crossed some out, teachers should score only the response that has not been crossed out.
7. For questions in which students use a trial-and-error (guess-and-check) process, evidence of three rounds of trial-and-error must be present for the student to receive credit for the process. Trial-and-error items are not subject to Scoring Policy #6, since crossing out is part of the trial-and-error process.
8. If a response shows repeated occurrences of the same conceptual error within a question, the student should not be penalized more than once.
9. In questions that provide ruled lines for the students to write an explanation of their work, mathematical work shown elsewhere on the page may be considered and scored if, and only if, the student explicitly points to the work as part of the answer.
10. Responses containing a conceptual error may not receive more than fifty percent of the maximum score.
11. In all questions that provide a response space for one numerical answer and require work to be shown, if the correct numerical answer is provided but no work is shown, the score is 1.
12. In all questions that provide response spaces for two numerical answers and require work to be shown for both parts, if one correct numerical answer is provided but no work is shown in either part, the score is 0. If two correct numerical answers are provided but no work is shown in either part, the score is 1.
13. In all 3-point questions that provide response spaces for two numerical answers and require work to be shown in one part, if two correct numerical answers are provided but no work is shown, the score is 2.
Introduction to the Grades 3 –8 Testing Program in English Language Arts and Mathematics (pdf file)

So it's a mystery.

Did Ms. K tell the kids she has to take points off for crossed-out work because you aren't allowed to cross out work on the state tests?

If so, is that what cost Christopher 2 points on his answer to number 17 (I'm thinking no. I think he got it wrong.)

And....here's the biggie.

Does the school need to dig out all the state tests Ms. K scored and check to see how many points the kids lost for crossing out incorrect work?

Have I mentioned that each school corrects its own students' tests?

Have I mentioned that the degree of training and attention to inter-rater reliability appears to be practically nil? [UPDATE 12-7-2006: Wrong. Christopher's English teacher says they get quite a bit of training. I doubt it's enough - this would be the state's fault, not the school's - but it's not nil. Of course parents don't know this because we pretty much know nothing of substance that goes on in our schools. We're constantly interviewing each other to try to find out what's coming up next.]

What a mess.

update

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is: Christopher knows how to do combinations.

He learned how to do combinations in class.

Then he remembered how to do combinations on the test, without having studied combinations the weekend before the test.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that apparently I can't understand what the he** he's talking about any more than I can understand what Ms. K is talking about half the time.

I wish I had a digital recording of the whole long series of permutation-combination exchanges Christopher and I have had today.

"Christopher, you got that answer wrong." [re: the answer Ms. K has in fact marked wrong]

"No, I didn't."

"Yes you did."

"No, I didn't, I got it right."

"I called L. She did the problem. You got it wrong. It's a Combination, not a Permutation."

"It's a permutation on the line."

"It's a combination."

"I crossed it out, I got it right."

"It's a combination."

"Christopher! That's what I just said! I said it's a combination. Your answer is a permutation, not a combination."

"It's a combination. I know it's a combination. I got it right."

"Who's on first?"

Now I'm starting to wonder.....maybe the book did cover combinations.

I mean....the whole section on selection without replacement...doesn't that get us into Combination territory?

I have no freaking idea.

I do, however, grasp the events of this our most recent foray into Phase 4 Summative Assessment.

1. Christopher recognized item number 17 as being a Combination problem.

2. Christopher correctly worked the problem, arriving at the correct answer. 220.

3. Christopher then decided that item number 17 was not a Combination, but a Permutation.

4. Christopher crossed out the computations for the Combination.

5. Christopher wrote the Permutation answer in the blank. 1320.

6. Ms. K marked it wrong, correctly citing as her authority in the matter item #6, above.

I'm too old for this.

how CA does it

-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Nov 2006

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