In formal remarks at James C. Wright Middle School in Madison Wisconsin, President Obama outlined the federal government’s 4.3 billion dollar Race to the Top awards. His presentation defined “four challenges that our country has to meet for our children to outcompete workers around the world, for our economy to grow and to prosper, and for America to lead in the 21st century.”
These are defined on White House blog as:
• transforming our lowest-performing schools
• using timely information to improve the way we teach our children
• outstanding teachers and principals in our classrooms and our schools
• higher standards and better assessments that prepare our kids for life beyond a classroom
Excerpts from his remarks:
America’s national mission: improving our schools not in unrealistic ways, not in abstract ways, not in pie-in-the-sky ways — in concrete ways we are putting our resources behind the kinds of reforms that are going to make a difference.
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And I want to get into some details about this because I want you, as parents, as well as the educators, to understand what the data and the science and the studies and the research show actually make a big difference in terms of school improvement — because that’s what we are basing this stuff on. We didn’t just kind of make it up, didn’t just do it because it sounded good, this is what the research shows is really going to make a difference.~~
The first measure is whether a state is committed to setting higher standards and better assessments that prepare our children to succeed in the 21st century. And I’m pleased to report that 48 states are now working to develop internationally competitive standards — internationally competitive standards because these young people are going to be growing up in an international environment where they’re competing not just against kids in Chicago or Los Angeles for jobs, but they’re competing against folks in Beijing and Bangalore.~~
I also challenge states to align their assessments with high standards — because we should — we should not just raise the bar, we should prepare our kids to meet it. There’s no point in having really high standards but we’re not doing what it takes to meet those standards. And I want to be clear. This is not just about more tests, because I know that in the past people have been concerned about, you know, is this about standardized tests, or are we going to have our young people being taught to the test? That’s the last thing we want.~~
And that’s why the fourth measure we’ll use in awarding Race to the Top grants is whether a state is focused on transforming not just its high-performing schools, not just the middle-of-the-pack schools, but the lowest-performing schools. (Applause.) We’ll look at whether they’re willing to remake a school from top to bottom with new leaders and a new way of teaching, replacing a school’s principal if it’s not working, and at least half its staff — (applause) — close a school for a time and then reopen it under new management, even shut down the school entirely and send its schools — send its students to a better school nearby.
These remarks are about public schools but that gives little comfort that homeschoolers will not get swept up in this reform. For homeschoolers, assessments and data collection are the broom and dustpan of this reform. Homeschoolers have seen many reforms and survived, but, not without study, understanding and effort.
Some reading:
The Common Core State Standards Initiative
Forty-Nine States and Territories Join Common Core Standards Initiative
Homeschooling in the Age of Obama
Common Core Standards In The News
Tags: assessments, home-schooling, homeschooling, interntional standards, Obama, Race to the Top, school reform, Standards
In a Letter to the editor published online and in print, Maryann Klaus, with 40 years experience as “teacher, principal, and assistant superintendent” questions testing:
Why, when all of the research points to gains made by a focus on teaching and learning, formative assessment, teacher collaboration, and strong leadership, is the government looking to increasingly restrictive and nonproductive tests? Surely officials have learned by now that standardized testing does nothing but promote a frenzied search for programs supposed to help schools meet those tests’ requirements. This strategy hasn’t worked for 40 years, and it’s not about to miraculously work now.
Ms. Klaus’ experience and allegiances differs from homeschoolers’, yet, for me having those who actually work with kids questioning testing can’t be a bad thing. I will also note that not all homeschool activists have been as helpful in questioning testing.
Tags: common test, homeschool activists, homeschooling, Testing
This disturbing piece is from May 2001 and re-published yesterday online. Counts don’t add up, by Lucy Hood, Edmund S. Tijerina and Sharon K. Hughes. Some excerpts:
To assess the extent of the dropout problem, the newspaper last fall began to track the 1,053 freshmen who enrolled at Holmes in the 1997-98 school year. Holmes was chosen for the study because it is one of the most diverse high schools in San Antonio and, with 3,000 students, represents a typical large urban school in Texas.
The school district cooperated with the Express-News and provided the entire student roll for the research, including students’ names and addresses. The newspaper agreed to keep students’ names confidential, unless they agreed to be quoted in interviews.
The newspaper and school district compared names with enrollment and transfer records and attempted to track down students who transferred more than once. Reporters also knocked on doors to find missing students and sent a survey to the reported address of every student who wasn’t enrolled, sometimes following up with a second and third mailing.
When it hit a dead end with the missing students, the newspaper hired private investigator Manuel Alfaro to track down those who could not be found. Alfaro, a San Antonio investigator for 12 years, located 46 students.
The study found that many of the dropouts had been out of school for several years, had no diploma and had not enrolled in an alternative program. In some cases, they said they would attend home school, but they never did. Others said they were transferring to another Texas school, but they never showed up.
Home-schooling is one of 24 exemptions from the dropout rate permitted by the state. The TEA also lets schools exempt students who enrolled in a certified GED program, who are in jail or state child-protective custody or who reported their intent to return to their home country.
An accurate dropout figure is important, he said, because “you don’t know which schools are doing well and which schools are doing badly until you count them properly.”
Outside of the content you have to wonder why this eight year old piece was dredged up now? Anre Duncan maintains he is big on data, so should we conclude that we will be counted?
In an article titled If School Is Cool, We Win, Author John Lewis takes us through his family’s first day of the school year through their approach to homeschooling. A few enlightening takes on the usual questions. Why we homeschool:
My wife Anne and I have been homeschooling our children for the past two years. Because the kids are generally well-behaved and articulate, we’re often asked where they go to school. Upon hearing they’re homeschooled, people’s responses generally fall into two categories: dismay (”I could never do that”) or curiosity (”I’ve always wanted to do that”). The former far outnumbers the latter, so it’s no surprise that less than 3 percent of U.S. children are taught at home.
And those responses are often accompanied by an assumption that we’re either religious conservatives, off-the-grid types, or averse to public schooling. None of those stereotypes apply, especially the rejection of public education—I’m a product of the Baltimore County school system, and Anne graduated from Western.
Basically, we homeschool because we can. Our work schedules—as editor/writer and musician, respectively—are flexible enough, we love learning, and we like spending lots of time with the kids. Don’t underestimate the importance of that last item. Sure, everyone likes spending time with their kids, but parents of homeschoolers spend a lot of time with their kids, and they wear a variety of hats. Not just teachers, we’re also curriculum setters, guidance counselors, cafeteria workers, activities planners, phys ed coaches, and janitors, too.
And there is always the socialization question:
If you’re a homeschooling parent, you know the s-word. You hear about it constantly, from friends, family members, physicians, and chances are even the mailman has weighed in on it: “Aren’t you concerned about socialization?”
“I might be if my children weren’t homeschooled,” I’m tempted to respond, but usually I tick off how they interact with peers and get outside the house—from sports, music lessons, and volunteering in the community to simply playing with other kids in the neighborhood and occasionally taking classes with other homeschoolers.
Let’s face it, we don’t live in isolated, or isolating, times. In our wired world, there are many people clamoring for our kids’ attention and homeschooling actually helps manage the onslaught.
It caught my eye that the author doesn’t even feel compelled to capitalize the s-word. This encouraging article appeared in the November 2009 issue of Baltimore magazine.
While homeschoolers will continue to live their lives according to their beliefs and convictions, public perception of homeschooling can make life easy or much harder.
With that in mind, NBC’s Housewives series has written homeschooling into their script. From this week’s online summary:
Reading, writing and respect: When Juanita lets a swear word fly in her school play, Gaby tells the principal off for criticizing her parenting. That gets Juanita kicked out of school and means Gaby has to homeschool her. She’s unqualified and uninterested, and the mother-daughter power struggles that follow only wreak more havoc on their already troubled relationship.
It will be interesting to watch as the writers and directors present their take on homeschooling.
Maybe we will be surprised, or maybe not:
Quote of the week:”We just finished gym class, now it’s time to read.” –Gaby to Juanita
“Ironing isn’t gym class!” — Juanita
So, how seriously should we take ourselves?
Tags: homeschooling, Housewives, mainstream media, Parenting, public perception of homeschooling
The compelling argument which high school teacher Christopher L. Doyle makes about kids and freedom suggests so. In an Education Week Commentary, Growing Up Scripted
And Losing Freedom Along the Way he suggests that few of his students think they will grow up to lead a free life. After exploring the state his students find themselves in, Doyle writes:
Every year, I make it a point to introduce my classes to people who are largely free to pursue their own passions—writers, dancers, painters—but most kids come away feeling merely awestruck by the artists’ talent and personality. It is hard to convince young people who have little firsthand experience with freedom, who read it as austere, uncomfortable, and implausible, that it is a legitimate aspiration.
To read this article on edweek.org requires a registration so I will post his words about solutions and let you decide if there is common ground.
I like to believe we could change direction. For starters, we could repeal the No Child Left Behind Act, offer free public education through college, eliminate most standardized tests, reconfigure town planning to make neighborhoods accessible to bicycles and pedestrians, and slash homework requirements. Doing so would be freeing.
Some people will find such proposals shocking. They see the heightened prescription of childhood as a positive development. They argue that to remain economically competitive, American kids must learn the same kind of self-discipline that their counterparts in China or India have. They also assert that because many children grow up without “structure” at home, especially poorer kids in cities, school must be all the more regimented and authoritarian. Modern life is often chaotic, so I understand why advocates of regulated childhoods have an audience.
Yet, much evidence suggests that these “reformers” have it wrong, that imposing new layers of discipline onto American kids’ lives will not lead to the production-oriented results they seek. We see, already, that the current state of prescription has produced a backlash: binge drinking is up, rates of mental illness among teenagers have risen, academic cheating is on the rise. Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation shows how poor, inner-city schoolchildren suffer intellectually and spiritually in overregimented schools. But even if the advocates of more discipline and rigor are right, I question how the ends justify the means.
Our society puts a priority on freedom, at least in theory. We consider its export worldwide a noble diplomatic and military goal. We idealize freedom as the ultimate political and economic aspiration. When this cultural rhetoric is out of step with the experience of young people, we should not blame them for becoming cynical. Neither can we realistically demand that they make good use of freedom without allowing them opportunities to practice it.
Since 1776, Americans have touted freedom as the essence of our exceptionalism. We remove it from childhood at our peril.
Tags: childhood freedom, Christopher L. Doyle, education reform, freedom, Growing Up Scripted, homeschool allies, lead a free life
A Fordham Institute’s report, Stars by Which to Navigate: Scanning National and International Standards in 2009, has brought The Common Core State Standards Initiative back into the news.
Proposed National Academic Standards Sidestep Debate
By Nick AndersonThe Common Core State Standards Initiative, as it is known, is an attempt to fashion de facto national standards for math and English without calling them that. President Obama praises it as an effort to raise what are now wildly uneven benchmarks from state to state. His administration might provide money to help states develop tests aligned with the standards — if they are adopted. But the Education Department is not drafting the standards, and Congress will have no vote on approval.
National standards not led by Federal Government? Then led by who? Education Week has extensive coverage of the Common Core Standards:
Standards Aren’t Enough
By Susan H. Fuhrman, Lauren Resnick, & Lorrie ShepardBefore anyone objects to a Washington takeover of the elementary school down the street, it’s important to note that the standards effort was initiated by two organizations of state leaders: the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Forty-eight states are participating in developing the standards. The standards are voluntary, however, and not even all of those states are likely to embrace them.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration will probably have leverage to nudge states to get on board. States will apply this winter for $4.35 billion in federal education money as part of the Race to the Top initiative that’s meant to encourage innovations, such as programs to turn around the most troubled schools. Even though the federal government did not develop these standards, only those states that embrace them are expected to be eligible to receive the money.
At this point the Common Core Standards are not a homeschooling issue. However, given the driving forces behind this initiative, the research, the resources, plus a new administration, there is a very good chance you will see these Common Core Standards being debated in your state soon.
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You’ll need to register to read Standards Aren’t Enough. You can also read more about The Common Core State Standards Initiative at the Standards site: http://www.corestandards.org/.
Tags: Council of Chief State School Officers, Education Week, Fordham Insitute, Lauren Resnick, Lorrie Shepard, National Governors Association, Nick Anderson, Obama administration, Standards Aren't Enough, Stars by Which to Navigate, Susan H. Fuhrman, The Common Core State Standards Initiative
An article in The Kansas City Star by Tim Engle is worthy of note and a thank you too. Engle starts his story, Virtual kids: Actually they’re real, but they go to school online describing the school day of eleventh-grader Philip Marten.
Marten’s second-hour class is orchestra. But first hour, third hour, fourth hour and the rest of his school day are spent not at school but at home in Shawnee.
Philip takes orchestra at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to audition for all-state orchestra. But in his 16 years he has rarely darkened the door of a school building. Before high school, his parents homeschooled him.
Having been told that Marten’s day has a flexibility familiar to homeschoolers and now knowing he had homeschooled, I was not sure where we were going. The next subhead brought a bit of a surprise – a reporter getting the distinction between homeschooling and enrolling in a-school-at-home program right!
It’s not home school
The state of Missouri runs a virtual school, the Missouri Virtual
Instruction Program (www.movip.org), now in its third year. MoVIP, as
it’s known, started with 2,000 students and grew 30 percent its second
year. But this school year, enrollment is off about 20 percent thanks
to a $1 million state budget cut, says Curt Fuchs, Missouri’s
coordinator of educational support services. “We are now stalled
because of money,” he says.
But what exactly is a virtual school?
It’s not a home school — parents are the teachers and control the
curriculum in home schools — although like Philip, some home schoolers
have transitioned to virtual school. Virtual schools employ
state-certified teachers, who typically meet in “live” online sessions
once a week with classes. Teachers might use webcams or just microphones.
Thank you Tim Engle and The Kansas City Star.
In too many conversations I have found myself weighing the risk of sounding shrill against letting a misconception about homeschooling and public school program stand. We need more of these. Read the entire piece here.
Tags: home schools, homeschooling, online programs, public school program, The Kansas City Star, Tim Engle, virtual charter schools, virtual school
Found an an interesting response to a column titled “Even Government Envious Of Homeschooling Success” on The Clarion Ledger website by former State Superintendent, Richard A. Boyd.
Matt Friedeman’s column (”Even government envious of homeschooling success,” Aug. 30) praised the success of students who are homeschooled on academic tests, and went on to point out how much cheaper it is for parents to educate their children at home rather than in the public schools. Mr. Friedeman omitted some very important facts that destroy his arguments.
The headline was nonsensical. I have never known nor heard of any public school figure or other public official who was “envious” of homeschooling. At this time in our history, the attitude of nearly all of those officials is, “If that’s what they want to do, so be it.”
Mr. Boyd goes on to say, as Superintendent he was involved with homeschooling back in the day.
I am not an opponent of homeschooling. During the time that I was serving as state superintendent of education in Mississippi in the 1980s, I had meetings with representatives of the homeschooling association to discuss their concerns that they were going to be overregulated by the state. The Mississippi Legislature ended up passing a law universally recognized as among the least restrictive in this nation.
I would argue that “least restrictive” is in the eye of the beholder. Yet, we agree on his next point.
Mr. Friedeman bases his entire argument on research done by Dr. Brian Ray, whom he didn’t mention is affiliated with a national organization that promotes homeschooling.
The most outrageous claim that Mr. Friedeman makes is that “Government now wants to get its hands on the surest educational method in the nation (homeschooling).” He is taking a page right out of the current health care debate: trying to scare people by making untruthful claims about “government.”
I do not know where to start on this last paragraph. While there is a thread of truth in the quote, I do remember well the politics within the homeschool community in the which lead us to publish Homeschool Freedoms At Risk back in 1991.
In many ways the turmoil of our national politics today seems oh, so familiar. I would assume Mr. Boyd and I remember a much less heated time. What he describes today as “scare people by making untruthful claims”, by the early 90’s, I had come to describe as the politics of fear, hate and misunderstanding.
Interesting times indeed.
Tags: Brian Ray, Homeschool Freedoms At Risk, homeschooling, Richard A. Boyd
