We Don’t Need New Standards

The standard assumption about standards, regardless of politics, is that standards are a necessary and pedagogically important part of education. After all, if we didn’t have standards for each discipline, then teachers could teach whatever they wanted. There would be chaos. There would be no equity. Some kids would get a better education than others. A recent piece in Good Education adds several other supposedly important benefits, such as providing a vision, or a “destination for learning,” and a “common language” for educators and parents.

Yet isn’t it possible to provide a high quality education without strict adherence to standards? (Many private schools supposedly do this). And are lack of a “common language” and “destination for learning” really key problems in public education?

The article does identify several significant problems with standards (or, more precisely, how we use them). For example, when the standards are tied to high stakes exams—especially those which influence teacher promotions and dismissals or school closures and restructuring—there is an incentive to teach to the test, cut course offerings and reduce instruction in areas that are not tested.  

However, there are deeper problems with standards that the author completely ignores. The most significant of these is that standards do nothing to mitigate the biggest problem with public education: poverty and the growing wealth gap. An achievement gap associated with children’s socioeconomic backgrounds is in place well before children have started kindergarten (see here and here) and tends to grow over time, as lower income students miss out on many of the extracurricular activities enjoyed by affluent children on weekends, holidays and during summer vacation.

Furthermore, the author’s assertion that standards are essential for creating educational equity is simply not true. Having the same standards and expectations for all children, regardless of their skills, academic and social maturity, and support structures at home, merely ensures that some students will fail because of their socioeconomic backgrounds rather than the quality of their schools and teachers. This serves to reinforce social class divisions by helping to sort children for future courses (e.g., advanced placement for affluent students vs. remedial courses for lower income students) and adulthood (e.g., military or blue collar work for lower income students vs. 4-year university and professional career or management for affluent ones).

Another problem is that standards are influenced far more by the needs of the market than by the needs and interests of children or the benefits to society. For example, the current California state standards for biology have completely dropped natural history to make room for more molecular biology. This is due in part to limitations in time—it’s simply impossible to cover all biological topics in one school year. However, the reason for elevating molecular biology over the study of plants, insects, birds, and marine mammals is that the big money and the jobs currently are in biotechnology, not marine biology or entomology.

For many people, natural history is not only more interesting than molecular biology, but it was precisely their experience with natural history in grade school that got them excited about science in the first place. This is not trivial. If we really want kids to like school and to become self-motivated learners, it is important give them more say in what they learn and not merely shove down their throats what the corporate employers say is important.

Additionally, education is about far more than simply learning a prescribed set of standards. Children are also learning how to communicate and collaborate. They are developing soft skills that can help them navigate the adult world. Ideally, they are also learning to be self-motivated learners who can think critically and solve unique problems. A successful molecular biologist, for example, must not only know the names of the enzymes involved in protein synthesis, but also how to design and carry out a controlled experiment, interpret the results, and communicate their analysis to their peers and the general public. Yet content standards and the high stakes exams associated with them rarely emphasize these skills.

The author suggests that the Common Core Standards (CCS) resolve this problem. While CCS do attempt to cover critical thinking and communication, they are, in fact, merely standards—they do not provide the time, resources, education or motivation for teachers to successfully teach them. And as long as they are tied to high stakes tests (which are currently being designed), most of the problems associated with state content standards will persist. At the same time, the implementation of CCS is costly (over $1 billion in California, alone, according to EdSource), taking scarce educational funding away from other, more pressing needs, like renovating or replacing dilapidated facilities and equipment, decreasing class sizes, and providing teachers and other school employees decent wages and benefits.

The author suggests that because CCS emphasize “21st century skills and knowledge that kids need to master in order to be successful,” students will be liberated from rote memorization and regurgitation of facts and teachers will be able to collaborate across disciplines, such as a science teacher and an English teacher having students “compare and contrast Apollo 11 astronauts’ accounts of the first moon landing.” The problem is that the content standards are not disappearing. CCS is being implemented on top of them. Students will still need to know facts. Furthermore, most teachers are not being provided any additional prep periods or paid time in which to collaborate with their colleagues to design new curriculum. Therefore, this sort of collaboration is not likely to increase as a result of CCS and the implementation of CCS, whether done independently or in collaboration with colleagues, will mostly be done on teachers’ own time or it will supplant their other responsibilities.

Brown’s Budget Shuffle: Something From Nothing is Still Nothing

"Equal treatment for children in unequal situations is not justice"—Gov. Jerry Brown, California (quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle)

Gov. Brown is correct—funding poor schools the same as affluent schools is not only unjust, it is pedagogically irrational.  Poor children have greater educational needs, while their parents have far less to donate to school fundraisers. Funding them equally only guarantees unequal outcomes. Yet his solution—reallocating revenues from wealthier schools to poorer school—is neither just nor rational.

None of California’s schools currently receives adequate funding. The state has slashed over $20 billion from K-12 education over the past five years and none of this will be restored under the state’s new “millionaire’s” tax. Furthermore, basic aid school districts (the so-called affluent districts that receive only the “basic” aid from the state because they have higher than average property tax bases) have already lost 90% of the funding they once received from the state. Therefore, taking away scarce resources from these schools only serves to make them more like the state’s low income schools.

While it is true that affluent schools have fewer needs than lower income schools, they were not receiving sufficient funding from the state or local property taxes even before the economic meltdown and draconian budget cuts that followed. Consequently, they have relied on fundraising to make up some of the difference, something they can do with greater ease and success than lower income schools, since the parents tend to be wealthier and have more disposable income. Yet even this hasn’t prevented basic aid schools from losing counselors, librarians and nurses; increasing class sizes to 35 students per teacher (or higher); imposing out-of-pocket fees on teachers for health insurance; and freezing or cutting wages. Furthermore, even within basic aid districts there are often low income schools with student demographics similar to poor, inner city schools. Reducing their funding because they happen to be in an “affluent” basic aid district would end up harming the lower income students Brown’s plan is intended to help.

Of course it is important to provide low income schools with additional funding, over and above what the affluent ones receive, because of their greater needs. However, this must be accomplished through increased tax revenues, not by ripping off other schools. Yet increased school funding, alone, will not solve the myriad ways in which poverty impacts educational outcomes. To really close the achievement gap, poor kids in poor schools need relief from their poverty so they aren’t coming to school hungry and suffering from stress and untreated medical conditions. Their parents need relief from poverty before they even have children, since poverty increases the chances children will be born premature, with low birth weight, and suffer from stress, malnutrition and environmental toxins, each of which contribute to cognitive impairment and learning disabilities.

Short of this, low income schools need large infusions of cash—far more than they would receive under the Brown plan. They need enough revenue to lower class sizes and hire extra teachers and reading specialists. Low income schools need full-time nurses or on-site clinics to care for uninsured children and reduce the amount of class time lost to treatable and preventable illnesses. Low income schools need staff and resources to provide adult education and English language support for parents. They need extra funding for after school programs so that children aren’t watching television or getting into trouble or hurt when classes end. They need mental health specialists to help students suffering from stress, anxiety and other common mental health problems that often go undiagnosed or treated in poor children.

If the schools truly are public, then parents should not have to pay more out of pocket for fundraisers and benefits, in addition to what they contribute through their taxes. If they were adequately funded, there would be much less need for this.

This is another major problem with school finance. Affluent families are affluent, in part, because they can shelter much of their income from taxation (e.g., deductions and write-offs) and many do not want to pay a penny for the education of other people’s children. By maintaining tax rates at their current levels (which are far lower than they were during the Reagan era and earlier), the affluent can continue amass great quantities of wealth, while getting an excellent free education for their children at the exclusive public schools in their wealthy enclaves. They can then supplement their schools’ mediocre budgets with tax deductible donations that further lower their tax liabilities, while increasing the education quality gap to the benefit of their own children. Thus, they (and their legislators) are unlikely to accept Brown’s proposal (or the tax increases necessary to put a serious dent in the problem).

California Abandoning Algebra for Eighth Graders

Image from Flickr, by ajaxofsalamis

California, which had some of the toughest academic standards in the nation, had to dumb down its curriculum and its expectations for students when it approved the Common Core Standards (CCS). One example is Algebra I, which used to be required for all eighth graders. Now, like other states that have adopted the CCS, California will allow students to take either Algebra I or an alternate course that includes some algebra, while the as yet unwritten new CCS exams will focus on content from this alternate course.

Many teachers and student advocates argue that this is appropriate since not all eighth graders are ready for algebra. When students are placed in courses for which they lack the requisite skills they are far more likely to struggle or fail, thus contributing to low self-efficacy and disillusionment with school—both reasons why some students later drop out of school. Furthermore, classrooms with large numbers of students who are not academically ready for a course can contribute to discipline problems and a poor academic environment in which a critical mass of students starts to believe there is no hope of passing, so why bother.  This can bring down the expectations, self-efficacy and motivation of the students in the middle (i.e., those who could pass with a little extra support), thus undermining their chances of success.

From the perspective of middle schools and school districts, delaying Algebra I allows them to improve their test scores (fewer students failing high stakes algebra tests because fewer would be taking them) and their graduation rates (fewer kids failing classes, in general). But this completely ignores the underlying reasons why so many eighth graders aren’t ready for Algebra I and merely passes the problem on to the high schools, where the kids may still lack the academic skills to succeed in the class. Studies indicate that 80% of students who retake algebra continue to fail the class (according to Inside Bay Area).

There are, no doubt, several factors contributing to this problem, but one is likely the social promotion that goes on in the lower grades, with students being passed from one grade level to the next, regardless of whether they have mastered their courses. One argument made in support of social promotion in the earlier grade levels is that holding students back is bad for their self-esteem and therefore harms their long-term success. However, if they are allowed to fail and move on, they continue to have low self-efficacy (i.e., “I cannot get good grades in school”) while picking up the mixed message that it doesn’t really matter (i.e., “I get to move on with my friends to the next level, regardless of whether I do homework, pass exams or classes”).

More significantly, success in math, like in reading, tends to correlate with students’ socioeconomic backgrounds and prior academic success in school. There are certainly some very bright children who are “math-challenged.” Einstein was said to be one. For these students, delaying when they take algebra may help them develop the academic maturity and discipline necessary to pass the course. But for those who are failing Algebra I, along with English and other classes, the problem is much deeper and more intractable. They may have numerous other problems (e.g., poor attendance, bad study habits, learning disabilities, low literacy, a history of failure and concomitant low self-efficacy) that will follow them throughout their academic career, regardless of when they take algebra and that have their roots in the students’ socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g., low income students often lack health insurance and, consequently, have higher rates of absenteeism).

Deferring the problem to high school has ramifications beyond students’ progress in future math classes. Basic algebra is necessary for high school chemistry and biology, courses students are likely to take in the ninth and tenth grades (and fail if they lack the essential math skills). Of course, even students who do take algebra, but fail it, may also have trouble in science, but at least there is a chance that they were exposed to enough algebra to succeed in science. Not taking algebra at all significantly decreases this possibility, as does ignoring the root causes of mass algebra failure.

Another concern is that the creation of two math pathways will allow schools to fall into past bad habits of tracking students based on race or socioeconomic backgrounds. Indeed, a recent report (see Inside Bay Area) showed that some schools were placing black and Latino students in lower level math courses even when they had the skills and prerequisites for advanced math classes. This could also lead to tracking in science classes and reduction of black, Latino and low income students taking college preparatory and ultimately Advanced Placement science and math classes.

Critics of the new Algebra I requirement argue that success in Algebra I is good predictor of future college graduation, while avoiding algebra in middle school may pull students off the college-bound track. When the 8^th grade requirement was implemented, black and Latino enrollment in the class skyrocketed—from 24% to 60% for African-Americans, and tripling for Latinos to 63%—(again, see Inside Bay Area). Even though pass rates for these groups are as low at 60%, there are still more black and Latino students passing the class than in the past (because more are taking the class).

Education Dollars at Work: The DOE’s Private Arsenal

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, there has been considerable talk about how to make our schools safer, including the NRA’s proposal to put armed guards in every school. However, this is not why the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Office of Inspector General bought 27 new Remington Model 870 police 12-gauge shotguns in 2010. Nor were these weapons purchased to improve graduation rates or close the achievement gap. Rather, these guns were obtained for the benefit of DOE’s secret identity as an elite education fraud fighting unit.

According to Valerie Strauss, the guns were purchased to replace their old guns, weapons they argue are necessary for their “high-risk” crime fighting duties. Strauss’ piece in the Washington Post quoted a DOE spokesperson who said the Office of Inspector General arrests people with criminal backgrounds, including some with “histories of murder or violence toward law enforcement officers,” and has “full statutory law enforcement authority.”

The one example that Strauss gave of such an investigation was a recent search of a Stockton, California home as part of an investigation of waste and fraud involving federal education funds.

It seems to me that if being robbed and embezzled by highly armed, violent insiders is pervasive enough to warrant having its own heavily armed police force, the DOE has been wasting taxpayers’ money with NCLB, Race to the Top, and all its other expensive “reforms.” Instead, they should be implementing sting operations in every district in the country, creating departments of internal affairs, hiring undercover agents and turning teachers into Serpicos to root out all this corruption and vice, and then using the billions of dollars recovered by these operations to buy schools more books, computers, support staff, librarians, nurses, counselors and decently paid teachers.

It’s the Money, Stupid, Not the Teachers

The results are in from the latest public opinion poll on teachers. According to the 44th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of public attitudes toward the public schools, 71% of respondents say they have trust and confidence in the nation's teachers. 43% of parents and 35% of Americans in general say money is the biggest issue, up from 17% in 2002.

While it is heartening to know that two-thirds of respondents are willing to pay higher taxes to improve the schools, it also shows a lack of understanding about the main causes of the  achievement gap and other K-12 education problems: high poverty among the students and low taxes for the wealthy. The former is the main cause of low student achievement. The latter is the main cause for shrinking school budgets.

Increasing property and income taxes would certainly add more money to state and local budgets that could be used for schools. However, to actually end the yearly uncertainty over education budgets and provide the kind of surplus necessary to shrink class sizes, increase course offerings, renovate dilapidated facilities, hire adequate nurses and librarians, and provide the quality that parents really desire, there will have to be substantial tax increases on the wealthy, including large increases in capital gains and inheritance taxes, in contrast to nominal income and sales tax increases that would disproportionately impact middle and lower income families, as proposed in California’s Proposition 30.