The recent interview with Bill Gates and Randi Wiengarten in Newsweek seemed to assume that public schools in the U.S. are greatly inferior to other industrialized nations and that the main problem in our schools is under-performing teachers. It was also assumed in this interview that the curriculum in our schools is somehow weaker than that in other countries. The Newsweek story would lead us to believe that if we would just beef up and standardize the elementary/high school curriculum in all states and then find ways to retrain or replace teachers with better ones that all of our student performance problems would be solved. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here's why:
Various studies demonstrate that teacher quality is far from being the most important factor in student success. A much more important factor turns out to be the level of academic motivation of the student as influenced by his/her parents, his/her peers, and the community environment. Now there is a recent analysis of international rankings of our students that point to factors other than poor teacher quality and a weak curriculum as the major challenges.
A more intensive look at statistics from the recent PISA assessment comparing student achievement of 65 industrialized countries gives us a good indication of where the problem is. This analysis of the PISA assessment was done for the combined reading skills portion of the test by the National Center for Education statistics (NCES). NCES found that while the U.S. Students as a whole rank about 17th compared to students from the 65 other countries tested, there are big differences in the performance of different ethnic groups within the U.S.. For example, Shanghai China whose students are obviously all Asian, scored 1st among all nations. When you break out the Asian origin students in the sample of American students tested, NCES found that their average score ranked 2nd in the world, right behind Shanghai. That's pretty good. Also when you break out the Caucasian students in the U.S. sample, their results were 6th in the world. That's not tops but its still pretty good. Its ahead of all other predominately Caucasian nations except Finland. So apparently the quality of U.S. teachers and the school curriculum are working just fine for ethnic Asian and Caucasian students in this country.
In addition, it was found by analyzing the results on the PISA assessment for free and reduced lunch students in the U.S. that the level of poverty in a school has the strongest correlation with that school's average scores on overall Language arts achievement. For example, a school with a free or reduced price lunch student population (an accepted measure of poverty) of between 50 and 75% ranks 39th compared to average scores of other industrialized nations. In contrast, a school with less than 10% free or reduced price lunch students would rank second among all tested nations.
After reviewing this data, if we still believe that the quality of teachers is the main cause of student performance we would arrive at the ridiculous conclusion that our teachers are good at teaching Asian and Caucasian students but terrible at teaching high poverty minority students!
Consider a specific example of student performance observed within the East Baton Rouge school system. Following the end of the Vietnam war, a large number of Vietnamese refuges were admitted into this country. Some settled in the Baton Rouge area. They were known as the Boat people and were escaping repression by the Communist government. Most of these immigrants were impoverished and they spoke little English. The Vietnamese who settled in Baton Rouge sent their children to public schools. There was no second language program at that time in Baton Rouge for Vietnamese, so the children had to learn English from scratch. These immigrants though poor had a strong work ethic and tight knit family units which insisted on high academic achievement. Within a few years the Vietnamese children in the public school system were excelling in all subjects. When awards were given for the very top students in the school system among 60,000 students, a disproportionate number of Vietnamese students were recognized as winners in English, Math and Science. These students excelled using the same teachers and curriculum that was available to all other students.
The differences in the performance of different ethnic groups and poverty levels in the U.S. has been well known for some time. One of the major failures of the No Child Left Behind federal law was the failure to close the achievement gap between high poverty and more privileged students.
So why does the Newsweek article dwell almost completely on teacher quality and curriculum enhancement as the favored approachs to improving our schools? This is the second major story Newsweek has produced in the past few months which assumes that most of the problems of American education are caused by incompetent teachers. It is clear that Newsweek is pursuing an agenda on education that is not based on fact. What do we gain by making teachers the scapegoats for some of the deep seated problems in our society over which they have no control? Apparently some non-educators would rather pretend that the problems in American education have simple solutions. Unfortunately, both Bill Gates and AFT president Randi Weingarten seemed to buy into this bogus premise.
As I have pointed out in earlier posts on this blog, I believe you could switch the teachers from our highest performing schools with those in our lowest performing schools and you would notice little effect on the performance of the students in either school. The same is true of the expectation that introduction of a tougher curriculum would produce better achievement.
Some of our philanthropist reformers who have never once worked as teachers in high poverty schools have proposed that teachers of high poverty students simply have low expectations of these students. They suggest that if teachers would instead hold these students to higher expectations and higher standards, the students would perform up to the increased expectations. This assumption has no basis in fact. Instead many of our young teachers in high poverty schools have repeatedly had their hopes and expectations for their students crushed by continuing poor performance. Approximately 50% of new teachers leave the profession by the end of their 5th year teaching. The fact that many students fail to meet reasonable expectations of achievement and classroom behavior is a major reason for the high attrition rate of new teachers.
I believe that this obsession today's education reformers have with toughening the curriculum for all students and purging the teaching profession of thousands of imaginary bad teachers will divert attention, and funding from the real problems of public education in the U.S. Rather than spend millions on new punitive evaluation systems for teachers, we should be using that money to make sure that all students are in school every day ready to learn. Extra effort must be made to involve parents in the educational process. In addition we need to provide struggling students with more intensive learning activities focused on their specific needs. That may mean a longer school day and a longer school year with special concentration on Reading and Math skills. And finally, we in Louisiana especially need to change from a system that fails and pushes out students who do not meet our system of college prep standards for all. Instead we should provide education suitable to the needs and career aspirations of each student.
In Finland, one of the top performing countries in elementary/secondary education, students are not considered failures if they do not pass a college prep curriculum. The school system instead is flexible and provides a good education to all students whether college bound or bound for skilled and technical careers. Our present system in Louisiana stigmatizes and flunks out many non-college bound students while unnecessarily watering down classroom instruction in academic courses to accommodate non-academic students. Why not instead have a first rate college prep program in every school system with strong emphasis on modern STEM courses while at the same time provide a first rate Career Prep program in cooperation with our Community and Technical college systems?
The true experts in education who are working hard every day in our public schools must take it upon themselves to speak out against education reforms based on faulty assumptions. Otherwise the silence of educators will be seen as support for these misguided schemes. As we have learned in the years of No Child Left Behind, only educators will be blamed for the failure of poorly designed education reforms forced upon them by ill informed reformers and politicians.
Happy New Year!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Shanghai China Schools Number One, U.S. Falls
The public schools of Shanghai, China have scored first place among the industrialized nations of the world in all categories of academic achievement as measured by the 2009 PISA assessment, a test administered every 3 years by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The test is given to a sampling of 15 year old students in the subjects of Reading, Math and Science. The United States has shown declines in all areas and now ranks 30th out of the 64 nations tested in Math.
Yes, we should be very much concerned about these results because academic achievement of our students could be indicators of where our country is headed in the worldwide competition for economic progress. Click on this link to view a short video on the educational system in Shanghai as well as other leading countries on this important assessment.
A book I read recently on the tremendous educational potential of all students (discussed in my post dated Dec. 3) convinces me that our country could do much better in educating its future citizens and leaders. We would do well to carefully study the educational systems in China, Finland and neighboring Canada to gain insight as to what educational strategies may improve our system of education. But some of our problems in U.S. education are unique to our society and will require reforms that reach beyond the schools. Amazingly, as you can see in the recent post by Diane Ravitch (see the Dec. 14 post), our education reformers in the U.S. seem to be totally ignoring the main features of truly successful school systems as we rush headlong into a Stalinist-like purge of our educational institutions and practitioners. While other successful countries seem to revere their teachers and value experienced professional educators, our reformers want to install non-educators in administrative positions and remove any consideration of experience and even higher levels of training in determining teacher salaries and layoff procedures.
Yes, there is something seriously wrong with education in the U.S. and in Louisiana, but its not caused by lazy, incompetent teachers. Some of our teachers certainly are burning out because of the overwhelming challenges they face, but that's a symptom not a cause. Our teachers need support from education leaders and especially from parents to engage and motivate our students to achieve their potential in school, not mindless reprisals against teachers and principals.
Lets face it, many of our students don't know and don't seem to care why they are in school. These kids don't have a single book of any kind in their homes, they spend countless hours watching TV and playing video games, or hanging out with friends til all hours of the night. Teachers in some schools are reluctant to assign homework that requires the use of the student's textbook because so many students lose their book when they take it off campus. These kids don't have a quiet place to study, they are often kept awake till late at night by loud music, and no one sees to it that they get to school on time. Often when the school secretary calls home to check on an absent student, no one knows where he/she is. Compare that to the video you can watch on the educational climate in Shanghai or Finland. Now tell me honestly, are we going to fix this problem by firing the bottom 5% of teachers based on student test scores? There seems to be no relation between the fixes that are proposed by reformers like Bill Gates and Arne Duncan and the reality on the ground.
Note: My interview with Jonathan Plucker, an educational psychologist from the University of Indiana who recently visited the schools in Shanghai has been delayed because of a minor illness. I hope to conduct the interview early next week. Please check back for some enlightening insights on how the educational climate differs in the U.S. compared to China.
Happy Holidays!
Yes, we should be very much concerned about these results because academic achievement of our students could be indicators of where our country is headed in the worldwide competition for economic progress. Click on this link to view a short video on the educational system in Shanghai as well as other leading countries on this important assessment.
A book I read recently on the tremendous educational potential of all students (discussed in my post dated Dec. 3) convinces me that our country could do much better in educating its future citizens and leaders. We would do well to carefully study the educational systems in China, Finland and neighboring Canada to gain insight as to what educational strategies may improve our system of education. But some of our problems in U.S. education are unique to our society and will require reforms that reach beyond the schools. Amazingly, as you can see in the recent post by Diane Ravitch (see the Dec. 14 post), our education reformers in the U.S. seem to be totally ignoring the main features of truly successful school systems as we rush headlong into a Stalinist-like purge of our educational institutions and practitioners. While other successful countries seem to revere their teachers and value experienced professional educators, our reformers want to install non-educators in administrative positions and remove any consideration of experience and even higher levels of training in determining teacher salaries and layoff procedures.
Yes, there is something seriously wrong with education in the U.S. and in Louisiana, but its not caused by lazy, incompetent teachers. Some of our teachers certainly are burning out because of the overwhelming challenges they face, but that's a symptom not a cause. Our teachers need support from education leaders and especially from parents to engage and motivate our students to achieve their potential in school, not mindless reprisals against teachers and principals.
Lets face it, many of our students don't know and don't seem to care why they are in school. These kids don't have a single book of any kind in their homes, they spend countless hours watching TV and playing video games, or hanging out with friends til all hours of the night. Teachers in some schools are reluctant to assign homework that requires the use of the student's textbook because so many students lose their book when they take it off campus. These kids don't have a quiet place to study, they are often kept awake till late at night by loud music, and no one sees to it that they get to school on time. Often when the school secretary calls home to check on an absent student, no one knows where he/she is. Compare that to the video you can watch on the educational climate in Shanghai or Finland. Now tell me honestly, are we going to fix this problem by firing the bottom 5% of teachers based on student test scores? There seems to be no relation between the fixes that are proposed by reformers like Bill Gates and Arne Duncan and the reality on the ground.
Note: My interview with Jonathan Plucker, an educational psychologist from the University of Indiana who recently visited the schools in Shanghai has been delayed because of a minor illness. I hope to conduct the interview early next week. Please check back for some enlightening insights on how the educational climate differs in the U.S. compared to China.
Happy Holidays!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Virtual Charter Could Have Major Impact
A new virtual charter school approved this month by BESE has the potential to have a huge impact on public education in Louisiana! (click here to view the Advocate article) The Connections Academy virtual charter school will be based in Baton Rouge and will provide on-line instruction to students who are accepted from throughout the state. This new charter school will not have physical classrooms and will have little direct contact with students but will receive 90% of state and local per pupil funding according to the plan approved by BESE. Proponents claim that most of the per pupil funding is needed to pay for the high cost of technology instead of providing physical classrooms. Students will be expected to communicate with the school mostly by computer and by telephone. Its not clear from the packet provided to BESE what the pupil-teacher ratio will be, but the Connections Academy web site claims that teachers are required to conference with each student at least once every two weeks. This could be very minimal contact indeed! The material provided to BESE states that the Connections Academy will target a population of “high needs” students and has a plan for providing services to such students as well as for students with disabilities and to gifted students.
The service provider for this new charter is a national group that claims to service schools in 22 states. Click on this link to access the information on their web site. A similar virtual charter was also approved for the New Orleans area and is expected to serve 1100 students.
The Baton Rouge Connections Academy plans to start with 500 K-12 students beginning with the 2011-2012 school year and increase to 1750 students by the fifth year. Even though the president of the board for the type 2 charter school stated that such a school could be especially helpful to students who may be in danger of dropping out from a traditional school, there is no way to tell at this early date what type of students will be attracted and actually enrolled.
My best guess is that the school may attract a significant number of students away from private and parochial schools. Parents who had fled what they considered to be undesirable public schools may jump at the chance to save thousands of dollars in tuition by transferring their child back to a publicly funded virtual school. Also, many parents who have attempted home schooling may wish to utilize the services of this virtual school because they may feel that it takes some of the financial and time commitment burdens off of the parent to provide instruction to their child. According to the Connections website however, parents are still expected to serve as “learning coaches” directing the daily activities of their child in the virtual school. Finally, some public school parents whose children have been assigned to low performing public schools may find the virtual school to be a way to escape what they may believe to be an undesirable school environment. The virtual school may even attract students from low performing charter schools. This type of school could be a real competitor for all schools, public and private, where parents want to save money and keep their child in a controlled home environment.
It is not clear from the information provided in the BESE packet whether the Baton Rouge based virtual charter school will be a “for profit” or “non-profit” or if the school itself will be non-profit while the national service provider will be allowed to pocket a profit from the operation. This is a very critical question since once you add the profit motive, it can compete with the best interests of the customers (children). I hope to get an answer to this from the State Dept. Charter School office and post it to the blog in the near future.
As the new BESE approved school rating system goes into effect and parents begin receiving letter grades of “D” and “F” for their child's school, the virtual charter school may become even more attractive, especially if the student selection process for the virtual charter results in a more highly motivated student body. As we have explained in other posts of this blog, the most important factor in producing a high performing school is the practice of enrolling high performing students! If this first school succeeds, we can look for many imitators and for a major expansion of the Connections Academy.
The service provider for this new charter is a national group that claims to service schools in 22 states. Click on this link to access the information on their web site. A similar virtual charter was also approved for the New Orleans area and is expected to serve 1100 students.
The Baton Rouge Connections Academy plans to start with 500 K-12 students beginning with the 2011-2012 school year and increase to 1750 students by the fifth year. Even though the president of the board for the type 2 charter school stated that such a school could be especially helpful to students who may be in danger of dropping out from a traditional school, there is no way to tell at this early date what type of students will be attracted and actually enrolled.
My best guess is that the school may attract a significant number of students away from private and parochial schools. Parents who had fled what they considered to be undesirable public schools may jump at the chance to save thousands of dollars in tuition by transferring their child back to a publicly funded virtual school. Also, many parents who have attempted home schooling may wish to utilize the services of this virtual school because they may feel that it takes some of the financial and time commitment burdens off of the parent to provide instruction to their child. According to the Connections website however, parents are still expected to serve as “learning coaches” directing the daily activities of their child in the virtual school. Finally, some public school parents whose children have been assigned to low performing public schools may find the virtual school to be a way to escape what they may believe to be an undesirable school environment. The virtual school may even attract students from low performing charter schools. This type of school could be a real competitor for all schools, public and private, where parents want to save money and keep their child in a controlled home environment.
It is not clear from the information provided in the BESE packet whether the Baton Rouge based virtual charter school will be a “for profit” or “non-profit” or if the school itself will be non-profit while the national service provider will be allowed to pocket a profit from the operation. This is a very critical question since once you add the profit motive, it can compete with the best interests of the customers (children). I hope to get an answer to this from the State Dept. Charter School office and post it to the blog in the near future.
As the new BESE approved school rating system goes into effect and parents begin receiving letter grades of “D” and “F” for their child's school, the virtual charter school may become even more attractive, especially if the student selection process for the virtual charter results in a more highly motivated student body. As we have explained in other posts of this blog, the most important factor in producing a high performing school is the practice of enrolling high performing students! If this first school succeeds, we can look for many imitators and for a major expansion of the Connections Academy.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Bullying Educators and Students
State Superintendent Paul Pastorek, a person who has no experience administering a real school system and who has no actual teaching experience continues his arrogant bullying of experienced and dedicated educators. The proposal before BESE for implementing legislation to convert the school rating system to a letter grade system is the occasion for this latest snub of the recommendations of knowledgeable educators. (click on this link to the Advocate article)
UPDATE ON BESE ACTION !
This update is added to give you the result of the BESE action on the new school grading system voted on 12/9/10. Click here to see the Advocate article. Ignoring the wishes of the Accountability Commission, BESE adopted a motion by Chas Roemer that is even more punitive to struggling schools than that proposed by Superintendent Pastorek. The Roemer plan will penalize schools that have any decline in their SPS by assigning a minus to their letter grade. In addition, schools will get a plus added to their grade only if they meet the State Dept. growth target. The problem with this as I pointed out to Mr Roemer in an email, is that as we approach the year 2014 the growth goal for the low performing schools will become prohibitively high because the scoring system attempts to raise the SPS of all schools to 120 by 2014. The Roemer plan will be very discouraging to the hard working staffs of many schools serving high poverty communities.
Roemer has also been a major advocate of charter schools. I wonder what Roemer will propose to do about the Charter schools in his district that continue to perform at the bottom of the scale. At the same meeting BESE approved the Pastorek plan that will allow “successful” charter schools to indefinitely remain independent of their local school boards, contrary to the stated intent of the original Recovery School District legislation.
Many local Superintendents and other educators on the state Accountability Commission had recommended a system that would allow credit on the grading scale to be given to schools that had exceeded the average performance of schools in their general performance category. The idea was to allow a one letter grade bonus for schools that were showing the most improvement. This system would have allowed schools serving low income communities a chance to get recognition on the grading scale for showing good relative progress.
Superintendent Pastorek has asked BESE to overrule the Accountability Commission which is composed of educators and representatives of the general public, and instead adopt a grading scale that would make it more and more difficult for schools serving poor communities to get a bonus for improvement. His plan would only allow a letter grade increase if the school met the state accountability growth target. Such an improved grade would be listed as a minus grade to show that it was not on the same par as others. Such growth targets are very rapidly becoming more difficult for schools to achieve because they are calculated based on all schools reaching the same arbitrary SPS target of 120 by the year 2014. This means that as we get closer to 2014 the schools serving poorer communities will have very little chance of earning a bonus for improvement because the target SPS will be getting much higher. No matter that the arbitrary goal of 120 is inherently unfair to high poverty schools, Pastorek the politician (not educator) feels he can make more points with the uninformed public by bashing public education. The result of such a policy would be to continue to perpetrate the unfair criticism of teachers and administrators who are dedicated to working in our most challenging schools. How can the parents in these struggling communities who may be working with administrators and teachers to boost the performance of area students feel pride in their school if the goal is unrealistic?
BESE is scheduled to make a decision on which plan to approve at their meeing on Thursday, December 9. Please make your concerns known to your BESE member on this issue.
We cannot improve education in Louisiana by continuing to trash dedicated educators and the students they serve. Our students should not be used as political footballs to help politicians score points with those who would destroy public education.
UPDATE ON BESE ACTION !
This update is added to give you the result of the BESE action on the new school grading system voted on 12/9/10. Click here to see the Advocate article. Ignoring the wishes of the Accountability Commission, BESE adopted a motion by Chas Roemer that is even more punitive to struggling schools than that proposed by Superintendent Pastorek. The Roemer plan will penalize schools that have any decline in their SPS by assigning a minus to their letter grade. In addition, schools will get a plus added to their grade only if they meet the State Dept. growth target. The problem with this as I pointed out to Mr Roemer in an email, is that as we approach the year 2014 the growth goal for the low performing schools will become prohibitively high because the scoring system attempts to raise the SPS of all schools to 120 by 2014. The Roemer plan will be very discouraging to the hard working staffs of many schools serving high poverty communities.
Roemer has also been a major advocate of charter schools. I wonder what Roemer will propose to do about the Charter schools in his district that continue to perform at the bottom of the scale. At the same meeting BESE approved the Pastorek plan that will allow “successful” charter schools to indefinitely remain independent of their local school boards, contrary to the stated intent of the original Recovery School District legislation.
Many local Superintendents and other educators on the state Accountability Commission had recommended a system that would allow credit on the grading scale to be given to schools that had exceeded the average performance of schools in their general performance category. The idea was to allow a one letter grade bonus for schools that were showing the most improvement. This system would have allowed schools serving low income communities a chance to get recognition on the grading scale for showing good relative progress.
Superintendent Pastorek has asked BESE to overrule the Accountability Commission which is composed of educators and representatives of the general public, and instead adopt a grading scale that would make it more and more difficult for schools serving poor communities to get a bonus for improvement. His plan would only allow a letter grade increase if the school met the state accountability growth target. Such an improved grade would be listed as a minus grade to show that it was not on the same par as others. Such growth targets are very rapidly becoming more difficult for schools to achieve because they are calculated based on all schools reaching the same arbitrary SPS target of 120 by the year 2014. This means that as we get closer to 2014 the schools serving poorer communities will have very little chance of earning a bonus for improvement because the target SPS will be getting much higher. No matter that the arbitrary goal of 120 is inherently unfair to high poverty schools, Pastorek the politician (not educator) feels he can make more points with the uninformed public by bashing public education. The result of such a policy would be to continue to perpetrate the unfair criticism of teachers and administrators who are dedicated to working in our most challenging schools. How can the parents in these struggling communities who may be working with administrators and teachers to boost the performance of area students feel pride in their school if the goal is unrealistic?
BESE is scheduled to make a decision on which plan to approve at their meeing on Thursday, December 9. Please make your concerns known to your BESE member on this issue.
We cannot improve education in Louisiana by continuing to trash dedicated educators and the students they serve. Our students should not be used as political footballs to help politicians score points with those who would destroy public education.
Friday, December 3, 2010
The Most Important Factor In School Success
A new book by Matthew Syed, a columnist for the Times of London and former 3-time table tennis British Commonwealth National champion titled Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham and the Science of Success, has reminded me once again of the importance of motivation in the education of young people. (Click on this link to read its Amazon book reviews) This book is intended to show the importance of purposeful, intensive practice in the training of world class athletes and leaders in all fields of human endeavor. But to me, it demonstrates the overwhelming importance of motivation in the education of children in our public school systems. The author explains, with reference to recent scientific studies and specific case histories, the power of the brain to learn and direct the human body to master difficult concepts or skills and to constantly improve performance. He explains how dedication and training has transformed ordinary people into stars in every field of human endeavor.
Every educator could benefit from a better understanding of the almost unlimited potential possessed by all students as described in this interesting book. The many successful case studies provided by Bounce should give us real hope that students, if properly motivated could achieve much more academically. The capacity of the human brain to be trained to learn and hone skills critical to success in life has great implications for education. If educators could harness the tremendous power of motivation that goes into the training of star athletes, or chess-masters, or superb musicians, there are almost no limits to improvements that could be made in the academic achievements of our students!
This book demonstrates that the missing ingredient preventing many students from excelling in educational achievement is proper motivation. Many of our students today are greatly handicapped because their life experiences lack positive role models and adults who can serve as mentors to provide the motivation to excel in school and to prepare for rewarding careers. Many of our students never get to experience the spark that ignites their motivation to excel either in sports, art, or in successful careers.
So who is responsible for the proper motivation of students? When I started teaching over 40 years ago teachers thought their primary responsibility was to present the curriculum material in an appropriate manner. After the concepts or grade level expectations (GLEs) were presented and students given an opportunity to practice and absorb the material, the teacher would test the class and assign grades to each student. It was the student's responsibility to master the required concepts in a particular course to the satisfaction of the teacher. The grade achieved in a particular course and even passing or failing was the student's responsibility, not the teacher's.
Today the responsibility for student achievement is shifting more to the teacher. The state no longer trusts the teacher to set the standards for passing a class or for promotion to the next grade. Also, politicians and some new leaders in education are taking the position that if teachers are paid to teach, then they should be also responsible for the achievement of students. No matter that in the educational process “it takes two to tango”. That is, if a student is not motivated to learn the required curriculum content, no amount of teaching pedagogy or work by the teacher will result in the intended learning by the student! Nevertheless, in today's political environment, it seems that teachers alone are being held responsible for educational results.
Fortunately, there is scientific evidence, also recently documented by learning research, that curiosity about our surroundings is one of our basic human drives. Some scientists believe that all children are born with an internal motivation to learn about the world around them. Unfortunately this does not automatically mean that students are motivated to learn that which the curriculum guide dictates must be learned by all students. If educators cannot make school work relevant in the minds of students, the motivation necessary for success in school will not happen. The students' drive to learn may focus instead on computer games or social media, on cell phone texting, or on other ways of achieving status in the peer group. Often just at the time when engagement of students in school is most critical, (around the middle school level) parents and teachers seem to lose any meaningful influence on the aspirations of many of our students. All students may be ready and able to learn, but not always what educators wish to teach!
The author of Bounce also cites studies by Dweck conducted in 1978 that demonstrate how parents and some educators have unknowingly used counterproductive motivational techniques. The most glaring example of bad motivation is the improper use of praise. These studies show how well meaning parents and teachers in an effort to boost self esteem in children have sometimes resorted to using every opportunity for complimenting children on their superior abilities. The idea is that students confident in their abilities will accomplish more in school. Instead, Dweck's studies show that children who regularly received this kind of unearned praise often became fearful of failure, and as a result applied themselves less and avoided challenging subject matter that could have helped them excel! On the other hand, students who were praised for actual effort and hard work developed a healthy work ethic and performed better over the long run in school and in life.
Experienced educators know that a school's educational climate or culture can have a huge impact on student motivation and performance. I once taught at a high school that was in the process of being converted from a pure magnet school to a combination community school and magnet school. The new plan adopted by the school board allowed any area student to enroll in the school while the school continued to maintain its magnet component. The school had never had to contend with motivation problems and with discipline issues because most students meeting the magnet entrance requirements were properly motivated to succeed and were not interested in disruptive behavior. Unfortunately the school administration and teachers were not prepared to deal with the flood of poorly motivated and often disruptive students that now poured in from the inner city local community. Very quickly the entire atmosphere at the school changed from one with a positive learning environment to one dominated by classroom disruptions, fights and disrespectful behavior toward teachers followed by deteriorating academic performance. It has now been 12 years since the change and the school has lost most of its magnet students and academic performance is now consistently mediocre. In this case, the school board and the administration of the school system have never taken the firm steps necessary to reclaim a positive learning environment at the school, and cannot blame the parents for pulling their students out.
Examples like this all over the state show that if a school is to improve its effectiveness, a large emphasis must be placed on positive discipline and proper student motivation. Educators must connect with parents and students to insure that excellence in academics is the prevailing attitude in the school. We must make certain that all students see school work as extremely relevant in their lives and future success. All schools must build in a program of constant reinforcement of academic goals and of connection of school to life and careers. The school must use goal setting to encourage attainment of important steps toward success in school and in life, and excitement about the achievement of educational goals. Most schools can do a pretty good job of staging pep rallies around sporting events, but how many can create an enthusiastic pep rally promoting academic achievement?
It can be done. But educators need the help of the entire community. Responsibility for student achievement must be shared by everyone in the community including the parents and students themselves. Judges and law enforcement officials must assist in enforcing the mandatory attendance laws. We must provide our students with proper role models, mentors, tutoring and job shadowing. Some schools in Louisiana have created successful school campaigns to accomplish higher scores on the LEAP test, or to improve the ranking of their school on the state school performance scores. One idea that can be borrowed from some of the more successful charter schools is a daily or weekly motivational assembly to emphasize good attendance, good behavior and the attainment of academic goals. There is no reason why the natural enthusiasm and energy of young people cannot be channeled to focus on success in school.
I believe that school motivational efforts are so critical that many of our under-performing schools can never become successful without a major push to change the climate of the school to one that is truly motivating for success. I call on the readers of this blog to send me examples of successful school transformations and motivational campaigns in their local schools so these can be publicized and shared with others. Just send your email comments and suggestions to louisianaeducator@gmail.com
Every educator could benefit from a better understanding of the almost unlimited potential possessed by all students as described in this interesting book. The many successful case studies provided by Bounce should give us real hope that students, if properly motivated could achieve much more academically. The capacity of the human brain to be trained to learn and hone skills critical to success in life has great implications for education. If educators could harness the tremendous power of motivation that goes into the training of star athletes, or chess-masters, or superb musicians, there are almost no limits to improvements that could be made in the academic achievements of our students!
This book demonstrates that the missing ingredient preventing many students from excelling in educational achievement is proper motivation. Many of our students today are greatly handicapped because their life experiences lack positive role models and adults who can serve as mentors to provide the motivation to excel in school and to prepare for rewarding careers. Many of our students never get to experience the spark that ignites their motivation to excel either in sports, art, or in successful careers.
So who is responsible for the proper motivation of students? When I started teaching over 40 years ago teachers thought their primary responsibility was to present the curriculum material in an appropriate manner. After the concepts or grade level expectations (GLEs) were presented and students given an opportunity to practice and absorb the material, the teacher would test the class and assign grades to each student. It was the student's responsibility to master the required concepts in a particular course to the satisfaction of the teacher. The grade achieved in a particular course and even passing or failing was the student's responsibility, not the teacher's.
Today the responsibility for student achievement is shifting more to the teacher. The state no longer trusts the teacher to set the standards for passing a class or for promotion to the next grade. Also, politicians and some new leaders in education are taking the position that if teachers are paid to teach, then they should be also responsible for the achievement of students. No matter that in the educational process “it takes two to tango”. That is, if a student is not motivated to learn the required curriculum content, no amount of teaching pedagogy or work by the teacher will result in the intended learning by the student! Nevertheless, in today's political environment, it seems that teachers alone are being held responsible for educational results.
Fortunately, there is scientific evidence, also recently documented by learning research, that curiosity about our surroundings is one of our basic human drives. Some scientists believe that all children are born with an internal motivation to learn about the world around them. Unfortunately this does not automatically mean that students are motivated to learn that which the curriculum guide dictates must be learned by all students. If educators cannot make school work relevant in the minds of students, the motivation necessary for success in school will not happen. The students' drive to learn may focus instead on computer games or social media, on cell phone texting, or on other ways of achieving status in the peer group. Often just at the time when engagement of students in school is most critical, (around the middle school level) parents and teachers seem to lose any meaningful influence on the aspirations of many of our students. All students may be ready and able to learn, but not always what educators wish to teach!
The author of Bounce also cites studies by Dweck conducted in 1978 that demonstrate how parents and some educators have unknowingly used counterproductive motivational techniques. The most glaring example of bad motivation is the improper use of praise. These studies show how well meaning parents and teachers in an effort to boost self esteem in children have sometimes resorted to using every opportunity for complimenting children on their superior abilities. The idea is that students confident in their abilities will accomplish more in school. Instead, Dweck's studies show that children who regularly received this kind of unearned praise often became fearful of failure, and as a result applied themselves less and avoided challenging subject matter that could have helped them excel! On the other hand, students who were praised for actual effort and hard work developed a healthy work ethic and performed better over the long run in school and in life.
Experienced educators know that a school's educational climate or culture can have a huge impact on student motivation and performance. I once taught at a high school that was in the process of being converted from a pure magnet school to a combination community school and magnet school. The new plan adopted by the school board allowed any area student to enroll in the school while the school continued to maintain its magnet component. The school had never had to contend with motivation problems and with discipline issues because most students meeting the magnet entrance requirements were properly motivated to succeed and were not interested in disruptive behavior. Unfortunately the school administration and teachers were not prepared to deal with the flood of poorly motivated and often disruptive students that now poured in from the inner city local community. Very quickly the entire atmosphere at the school changed from one with a positive learning environment to one dominated by classroom disruptions, fights and disrespectful behavior toward teachers followed by deteriorating academic performance. It has now been 12 years since the change and the school has lost most of its magnet students and academic performance is now consistently mediocre. In this case, the school board and the administration of the school system have never taken the firm steps necessary to reclaim a positive learning environment at the school, and cannot blame the parents for pulling their students out.
Examples like this all over the state show that if a school is to improve its effectiveness, a large emphasis must be placed on positive discipline and proper student motivation. Educators must connect with parents and students to insure that excellence in academics is the prevailing attitude in the school. We must make certain that all students see school work as extremely relevant in their lives and future success. All schools must build in a program of constant reinforcement of academic goals and of connection of school to life and careers. The school must use goal setting to encourage attainment of important steps toward success in school and in life, and excitement about the achievement of educational goals. Most schools can do a pretty good job of staging pep rallies around sporting events, but how many can create an enthusiastic pep rally promoting academic achievement?
It can be done. But educators need the help of the entire community. Responsibility for student achievement must be shared by everyone in the community including the parents and students themselves. Judges and law enforcement officials must assist in enforcing the mandatory attendance laws. We must provide our students with proper role models, mentors, tutoring and job shadowing. Some schools in Louisiana have created successful school campaigns to accomplish higher scores on the LEAP test, or to improve the ranking of their school on the state school performance scores. One idea that can be borrowed from some of the more successful charter schools is a daily or weekly motivational assembly to emphasize good attendance, good behavior and the attainment of academic goals. There is no reason why the natural enthusiasm and energy of young people cannot be channeled to focus on success in school.
I believe that school motivational efforts are so critical that many of our under-performing schools can never become successful without a major push to change the climate of the school to one that is truly motivating for success. I call on the readers of this blog to send me examples of successful school transformations and motivational campaigns in their local schools so these can be publicized and shared with others. Just send your email comments and suggestions to louisianaeducator@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)