by on January 25, 2012 4 Comments

Obama Says: Stop Teaching to the Test; Teach With Creativity and Passion

In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Obama included a section of his speech that focused on education, not only K-12, but he also challenged colleges and universities to be more creative about how they work with students, and as well as the hundreds of thousands of young students who are not yet American citizens, and “live every day with the threat of deportation.”

I want to focus on some of the comments that the President made in his address.  Keep in mind that I believe that President Obama is struggling with how to deal with education because the policies of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) conflict with some of core beliefs that I quoted in a letter to the President that I posted here.  In his book Dreams from My Father, President Obama talked about his desire to become involved with the public schools in Chicago.  Here is the quote and the context of what I believe represents his core beliefs about students and learning:

I want to recall a section in that chapter for my readers that was very powerful, and supports the humanistic paradigm that I am proposing here. You and your colleague & friend Johnnie had decided to visit a high school, and the principal of the school introduced you to one of the school counselors, Mr. Asante Moran. He was, according to the principal, interested in establishing a mentorship program for young men in the school.

In his office, which was decorated with African themes, you discovered that Mr. Moran had visited Kenya 15 years earlier, and he indicated that it had a profound effect on him. In the course of your short meeting with Mr. Moran, he clearly told you that real education was not happening for black children, and then he offered you his view on what “real education” might be. Here is what he said on that Spring day in 1987:

Just think about what a real education for these children would involve. It would start by giving a child an understanding of himself, his world, his culture, his community. That’s the starting point of any educational process. That’s what makes a child hungry to learn—the promise of being part of something, of mastering his environment. But for the black child, everything’s turned upside down. From day one, what’s he learning about? Someone else’s history. Someone else’s culture. Not only that, this culture he’s supposed to learn is the same culture that’s systematically rejected him, denied his humanity (p. 158, Dreams from My Father).

Starting with the child as he or she is, and helping them connect to their environment—this is the core of humanistic teaching.  Most teachers know and try and act on this humanistic philosophy, but for many, it is an upstream battle.

The Department of Education is not a platform that suggests that learning should start with the child.  The cornerstone of the current Department of Education is the Race to the Top program and the new Waiver Program of the No Child Left Behind Act.  In these two programs, education for the child is a two-fold top down endeavor in which (1)  states must adopt a one-size fits-all set of standards (Common Core State Standards) that all children should attain regardless of where students live and (2) students must be subjected to high-stakes tests that will be used to determine their progress and graduation.  And to top it off, all states that want to continue to receive Federal funds through these two programs must use student achievement data to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers.

This approach has resulted in an educational system that is data driven so much so that it is in the best of interests of schools, administrators, and teachers to insist that  teaching to the test is a priority.  Remarkably the ED insists that states must tie student achievement scores to teacher evaluation, even when the prestigious National Academies of Sciences doesn’t think this is a good idea.  What we have seen is abusive behavior toward teachers resulting in psychological assaults, or what has become known as “teacher bashing.”

Did the President Open the Door?

Did President Obama, in his address last night, open the door to to a more creative approach to teaching?

In his address, the President made a few comments about teachers and teaching that might just reveal that he is interested in opening the door questioning some of the basic tenets of the ED.  Here are a few sentences from his address:

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced states to lay off thousands of teachers.  We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000.  A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.  Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives.  Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies — just to make a difference.

Teachers matter.  So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal.  Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones.  And in return, grant schools flexibility:  to teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.  That’s a bargain worth making.  (Emphasis mine).

For Obama to say that teachers should teach creativity, and stop teaching to the test is a remarkable statement give how the Department of Education is advocating high-stakes tests based on a common set of standards.  Many researchers would argue that continuing to use high-stakes tests will not result in teachers not teaching to the test.  Until high-stakes tests are banned from being used to make decisions about student learning and teacher performance, we will continue to be immobilized.

Did Obama open the door to altering the fixed and seemingly unchanging policies of NCLB and the Race to the Top?

I don’t know.  But if he would confer with Governor Brown of California, he might hear an alternate view.  California has rejected asking for a waiver on the NCLB act not only for the added billions it will cost, but because the deeper elements of NCLB and Race to the Top contradict some of Brown’s beliefs. He has stated that  principals and teachers know more about education, and that the testing syndrome that we have created not only takes a lot of time to administer (not to mention the cost), but appears to curb teachers creativity and engagement with students.

Diane Ravitch wrote about her recent her travels and speeches in California.  She wonders whether California will start a national revolt against bad ideas.  I do hope that Obama comes in contact with Brown, and California’s progressive superintendent of education.

 

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by on January 5, 2012 1 Comment

Corporations are not People: Book Recommendation

Kindle Edition of Corporations are not People

I’ve started reading Corporations are not People by Jeffrey Clements and with a forward by Bill Moyers.

On this post, and many other blogs (1,2,3 for example), the “reform” of education in the interests of corporations and private foundations has led to situation that many of refer to as the “corporate take-over of schooling” in America.  It’s a serious situation, and one that is visible in the NCLB Act, vouchers, school choice, high-stakes testing, the Common Core State Standards movement, charter schools.

But there is a movement to halt these reform actions—perhaps not a single movement, but a distillation of a number of threads or strands of revolution that we on the Internet, and on the streets of American cities.

Recently, Jeff Clements, co-founder and General Counsel of Free Speech for People, a national, nonpartisan campaign to strengthen self-government and democracy in America by reversing Citizens United v. FEC and corporate rights doctrines, has published a book entitled Corporations are not People.

Here is a synopsis of the book, taken from the Amazon website, which will lead to a Kindle version of Jeff Clements book:

The January 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision marked a culminating victory for the legal doctrine of corporate personhood. Corporations, as legal persons, are now entitled to exercise their alleged free-speech rights in the form of campaign spending, effectively enabling corporate domination of the electoral process.  Jeffrey Clements uncovers the roots, expansion, and far-reaching effects of the strange and destructive idea, which flies in the face of not only all common sense but, Clements shows, most of American legal history, from 1787 to the 1970s. He details its impact on the American political landscape, economy, job market, environment, and public health—and how it permeates our daily lives, from the quality of air we breathe to the types of jobs we can get to the politicians we elect. Most importantly, he offers a solution: a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United and tools readers can use to mount a grassroots drive to get it passed.  Overturning Citizens United is not about a triumph of one political ideology over another—it’s about restoring the democratic principles on which America was built. Republican president Theodore Roosevelt and conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist both vocally opposed the idea of corporate personhood. Community by community, state by state, we can cross party and ideological lines to form a united front against unchecked corporate power in America—and reinstate a government that is truly of, by, and for the people.

I will report more on the contents of the book, and how it relates to science education, and the content of this blog, The Art of Teaching Science.  In the meantime, I recommend the book to you.

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by on October 29, 2011 2 Comments

Is There An Assault on Science?

Is There An Assault on Science?

Yesterday, I wrote a brief post introducing a new book by Shawn Otto entitled Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America.  For the past four years, Otto has co-led Sciencedebate.org, a grassroots organization that has tried to influence the 2008 and the 2012 presidential elections.  The goal is to sponsor nonpartisan debates among candidates for the office of President of the United States.  The basis for Sciencedebate.org is reflected in this quote from their website:

By bringing candidates together with scientists, the media and the public in a safe and nonpartisan debate setting, science can be restored as an electoral value, a foundation of American democracy,  and a non-partisan basis for sound and effective policymaking, helping to “unstick” the United States from decades of paralysis on the largest policy challenges facing the country.

Otto believes that America has a “science problem” and the problem is how science is discussed (or not discussed) in the media, in the Congress, and in his case, in presidential debates.  His book is a good primer on science in American society, and I think provides people with a view that ought to be considered.

Otto points out that many important public policies challenges revolve around science, but he wonders if those in the position of decision making understand science, or understand how science-related decisions should be made.  He says this:

In an age when most major public policy challenges revolve around science, less than 2 percent of congresspersons have professional backgrounds in it.  The membership of the 112th Congress, which ran from January 2011 to January 2013, included one physicist, one chemist, six engineers, and one microbiologist.

In contrast, how many representatives and senators do you suppose have law degrees—and whom many suspect avoided college science classes like the plague?  Two hundred twenty-two.  It’s little wonder we have more rhetoric than fact in our national policymaking.  Lawyers are trained to create a compelling narrative to wind an argument, but as any trial lawyer will tell you, that argument uses facts selectively and only for the purposes of winning the argument, not for establishing the truth.

We witness arguments in Congress, on TV, on the Internet, and in presidential debates on science-related issues, and it makes you wonder about the literacy of those who have chosen to run for America’s highest office.  But, it’s really not as simple as that.  Scientific knowledge develops within a social context, and Otto notes the importance of discussing issues that connect science to society.  Medical breakthroughs, medical research, environmental sustainability, global warming, alternative energy, health care, cancer research, the teaching of evolution, bioengineering, and space exploration are some of the science areas that directly relate to policy making and the laws that Congress makes.

Otto believes that science is often assaulted when debates on policy making that require scientific knowledge are held.  Using a technique that the media loves (the split screen), all issues that are discussed have two sides—the left or the right; the Republican or the Democratic.   Although making public policy is not the same as how a theory is developed in science, it’s probably important that scientific knowledge be used in a way that represents science in making important decisions.  Years ago, the tobacco industry used the technique of arguing two sides of the smoking issue, but selectively used its own research, or denied what science research had shown about smoking, or simply raised doubt about the “science” of tobacco research in order to “win” the argument, not seek the truth about smoking.

We see similar tactics being used when climate change and global warming are debated.  Of course, the issue that has impacted science education is the teaching of evolution. The same tactic that “big tobacco” used continues to be used. Over the years, there have been attempts to show that there is another side of the theory of evolution—creation science or intelligent design.   We’ve used the courts to settle scientific and health issues, such as abortion, teaching evolution, and so forth.

Otto claims that a narrowness in thinking emerges when science related issues that lead to policy making are on the table.  Science research that could impinge of policy making is sometimes prevented from being shared, or is altered. For example, Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s chief scientist on climate change, has had some of his work censored and modified by White House (Bush) staff.  An Editorial in the Washington Post on Politics and Science discussed this case, and pointed out that a NASA spokesperson, appointed by the White House, interfered in the work of scientists at NASA:

Mr. Deutsch (A NASA media spokesperson) prevented reporters from interviewing James E. Hansen, the leading climate scientist at NASA, telling colleagues he was doing so because his job was to “make the president look good.” Mr. Deutsch  also instructed another NASA scientist to add the word “theory” after every written mention of the Big Bang, on the grounds that the accepted scientific explanation of the origins of the universe “is an opinion” and that NASA should not discount the possibility of “intelligent design by a creator.”

In science education, teachers have had to deal with topics in the science curriculum that are viewed as controversial including the teaching of evolution, discussions of birth control, theories of the origins of the universe, such as the Big Bang, global warming and climate change.  School boards, parents, and politicians have gotten involved in trying to pass rules restricting what and how “controversial” topics are taught, and have lately used the pedagogy of “critical thinking” to make sure that “all” sides of each controversial topic are discussed.  Although the teaching of evolution, or I should say creation science/intelligent design was settled by Federal Judge John Jones in the famous Dover, Pennsylvania case when the judge ruled that intelligent design was not science, and had no place in a science class.  The judge had this to say in his ruling:

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy. With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.

In my own view, case like the Dover intelligent design issue, the Kansas science standards controversy, attempts by legislators and state school boards in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Louisiana to legislate the content of the science curriculum to satisfy their own (often religious beliefs) opinions is an assault on the integrity of the teaching profession to make professional decisions on curriculum and pedagogy.

There is an assault on science and science education, and as I’ll discuss further in the days ahead, there is an assault on public education.

 

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by on October 27, 2011 2 Comments

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America is the title of a new book by Shawn Lawrence Otto, c0- founder of Science Debate 2008, one of the largest online (125 million) science sites that featured a “debate” between the 2008 Presidential candidates on science.

In Science Debate 2008, Presidential candidates (even during the primaries) were invited to participate in real debates on science, but no candiate accepted.  So Science Debate submitted 14 questions (which were reviewed by millions of readers) to the two candidates, Barak Obama and John McCain.  You can see the questions and their answers here.  I wrote many posts on Science Debate 2008, and you read one here.

I’ve just started reading Otto’s book on my iPad, and it touches on many of the themes that have been discussed on this blog including politics and science, science and religion, teaching evolution, climate change, and science in a democratic society.

I am going to write a few posts over the next week related to Shawn Otto’s new book, and of course relate it to science education specifically, and public school education generally.

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by on October 8, 2011 5 Comments

Corporate Science Education Standards—Far From the Classroom

I got a Tweet from Christopher Emdin, Professor at Columbia University Teachers College linking me to his recent article on the Huffington Post entitled 5 Reasons Why Public School Teachers are Occupying Wall Street.  His reasons, which I will list below, resonated with me with regard to the way in which corporate boards, through organizations such as Achieve are taking over public education by creating a single curriculum that will be defined by the Common Core State Standards.  Such standards already exist in mathematics and English/language arts, and science education standards are currently underdevelopment.

Although the organizers of the standards movement will tell you that teachers are involved in the process, they do not sit on the boards that make the policy decisions, and they are not part of the process that led to the standards movement in the first place.  Their voices are rarely heard, and when teachers do speak out, they put themselves at risk.

In this context, I think you will find Dr. Emdin’s article on why teachers are involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City encouraging and important.  You can read his article here, but here are the 5 reasons he gives for teachers participation:

  1. Teachers are fearful about the future of their students.
  2. Teachers are taking a stand against irresponsible investments and the closing of public schools.
  3. Teachers want the world to see the hidden problems that challenge urban public schools.
  4. Teachers want to show their connection to other pressing social issues.
  5. Teachers see Occupy Wall Street as a teaching opportunity.

The corporate movement to establish one set of standards in each content area is far from the realities of the classrooms, as Dr. Emdin points out in his article.  The standards movement is a stale substitution for curriculum, whereas the realities of day-to-day teaching involve teachers helping “to open students’ eyes to the possibilities that there is a more beautiful and equitable future than the present.”  To say this in a corporate board meeting discussing the merits of the Common Core State Standards would be heard with deaf ears.

 

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