WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WELL EDUCATED?

Dr. Len Elovitz

The Five Minute University

“… THE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF OUR SOCIETY ARE PRESENTLY BEING ERODED BY A RISING TIDE OF MEDIOCRITY THAT THREATENS OUR VERY FUTURE AS A NATION AND A PEOPLE. WHAT WAS UNIMAGINABLE A GENERATION AGO HAS BEGUN TO HAPPEN – OTHERS ARE MATCHING AND SURPASSING OUR EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENTS.

IF AN UNFRIENDLY POWER HAD ATTEMPTED TO IMPOSE ON AMERICA THE MEDIOCRE EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE THAT EXISTS TODAY, WE MIGHT WELL HAVE VIEWED IT AS AN ACT OF WAR. AS IT STANDS, WE HAVE ALLOWED THIS TO HAPPEN TO OURSELVES.”

• 1. DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS STATEMENT?

• 2. WHERE IS IT FROM?– National Commission on Excellence in Education. A Nation at Risk: The

Imperative for Educational Reform.(1983)

• 3. HOW DO YOU REACT TO THE ABOVE STATEMENT?

• Do You Believe That Schools Should be Restructured?

• How? What Should They Be Like?

DO WE NEED TO CHANGE?

• Did You Know?

• Education for Today and Tomorrow

Age of Information

Age of Information

• Infoglut

• infowhelm

• 540,000 words today

• 5 X more than Shakespeare’s time

Age of Information

• New York Times gives more information to most people than a person in 1900 knew in a lifetime.

• 1.5 exabytes of new information a year (1 plus 18 zeros)

Who was John Paul Jones?

• The Maryland Colony

• What should kids know and be able to do?

• Cultural Literacy: What every American Needs to Know by E.D. Hirsch

• Cultural Literacy: What every American Needs to Know by E.D. Hirsch (1987)

• What Do Our 17-Yearolds Know? A Report on the First National Assessment of History and Literature by Diane Ravitch & Chester Finn 1987

Age of Information

• George Gilder said we are in the age of disposable information - in a 4 year program by the beginning of the third year, information learned as a freshman is either wrong or outdated.

Age of Information“The educational models of the past operate on the assumption that content was king. In fact, content is free and overwhelming in size. In a world of rapid information growth, it is context that matters. Context is king. This means that learners at all ages need to master two very important skills: 1 – the ability to locate information specifically related to the question they are exploring; and 2 – to establish the veracity and utility of this information.”

David D. Thornburg, The Future Isn’t What it Used to Be (1997)

“This is the first time in history that the student, teacher, and content do not have to be in the same place at the same time.”

David D. Thornburg, The Future Isn’t What it Used to Be (1997)

New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards

“First adopted by the State Board of Education in 1996. The standards describe what students should know and be able to do upon completion of a thirteen-year public education and provide local school districts with clear and specific benchmarks for student achievement in nine content areas.

The 2009 standards reflect current research, exemplary practices, national and state standards and standards from other countries. They were drafted by taskforces consisting of educators and experts recognized for their content area expertise and for demonstration of excellence as practitioners in their respective fields. In each content area, standards and cumulative progress indicators align with the knowledge and skills needed for post-secondary education and the workplace.” NJDOE

Standards Timeline

• Standards timeline

• Standards

Common Core State Standards initiative

• Standards for Mathematics and Language Arts Literacy are part of the Common Core State Standards initiative

• Coordinated by the Council of Chief States School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governor’s Association (NGA) in partnership with other national organizations. New Jersey is one of 44 states, Washington, DC and the U.S. Virgin Islands to join the state-led Common Core State Standards initiative.

Common Core Standards

• Math & Language Arts– What’s needed for college– What’s needed for work– What’s used around the world

• 46 States

• National Assessment?

Compulsory Education

• Massachusetts act of 1642– Required parents and masters to tend to the

educational requirements of the colony’s sons.– “The child is to be educated, not to advance his

personal interest, but because the state will suffer if he is not educated.”

– Selectmen were to ascertain if parents and masters were attending to “training in learning and labor and other employment”

– _All between 10 and 16 had to be schooled in “ye exercise of arms as small guns, halfe pikes, bows and arrows”

– Girls stayed at home and learned household tasks and embroidery

– Fines could be imposed– Law failed after 5 years

• Formalized, legislated commitment to providing education to citizens– Massachusetts’ Ye Olde Deluder Satan Act

(1647)• Settlement of > 50 required to hire a reading

and writing teacher and pay him what compensation the citizens deemed appropriate

• Settlement of > 100 required to establish and support a grammar school

Graduation Requirements

• 4 years of English

• 2 years of US History

• 1 year of Phys. Ed. For each year in HS

What do Employers Want?• Excellent written and verbal communication

skills• Self-motivation and a keenness to learn• Flexibility to manage multiple tasks• Computer literacy• Ability to work in a team• Analytical problem solving and the ability to

plan, organize, and reflect

•  

Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

ECLS

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) program includes three longitudinal studies that examine child development, school readiness, and early school experiences. The birth cohort of the ECLS-B is a sample of children born in 2001 and followed from birth through kindergarten entry. The kindergarten class of 1998-99 cohort is a sample of children followed from kindergarten through the eighth grade. The kindergarten class of 2010-11 cohort will follow a sample of children from kindergarten through the fifth grade.The ECLS program provides national data on children's status at birth and at various points thereafter; children's transitions to nonparental care, early education programs, and school; and children's experiences and growth through the eighth grade. The ECLS program also provides data to analyze the relationships among a wide range of family, school, community, and individual variables with children's development, early learning, and performance in school.

http://nces.ed.gov/ecls/

What Matters 1. The child has highly educated parents 2. The child's family is intact.3. The child's parents recently moved into a better neighborhood 4. The child's parents have high socioeconomic status.5. The child's mother didn't work between birth and kindergarten 6. The child's mother was thirty or older at the time of her child's birth.7. The child attended head start8. The child had low birthweight.9. The child's parents speak English in the home 10. The child's parents regularly take him to the museum11. The child is regularly spanked 12. The child is adopted.13. The child frequently watches television 14. The child's parents are involved in the PTA15. The child has many book in his home16. The child's parents read to him nearly every day

What Matters?

The child has highly educated parents

The child's family is intact

A family with a lot of schooling values education

What Matters?

The child's parents recently moved into a better neighborhood

The child's parents have high socioeconomic status

Successful parents are more likely to have successful kids

What Matters?

The child's mother didn't work between birth and kindergarten

The child's mother was thirty or older at the time of her child's birth

Women are more likely to be established - Education or job and likely to want the child more than a teenage mother

What Matters?

The child attended head start

The child had low birthweight.

Poor prenatal care is a good predictor of poor parentingHead start and High Scope

What Matters?

The child's parents speak English in the home

The child's parents regularly take him to the museum

Culture cramming doesn’t work

What Matters?

The child is regularly spanked

The child is adopted.

Child’s academic ability is more linked to biological parents’ IQ than to the adoptive parents’.

What Matters?

The child frequently watches television

The child's parents are involved in the PTA

PTA parent likely to have a strong relationship with Education

What Matters?

The child has many book in his home

The child's parents read to him nearly every day

Parents with a lot of books in the home are likely to be better off financially and value education more

Do These Inputs Matter?

• Books in the Library

• Teacher salary

• Books in the library

• Number of computer stations

• Class Size

• Racial mix

Which hypothesis is correct?

• There is a strong positive relationship between school quality and student achievement

• Or• There is a very weak relationship

between school characteristics and student outcomes

» Sadovnik

Equality Of Educational Opportunity

• The Coleman Report

• 1966

• 570,000 students, 60,000 teachers, 4,000 public schools

• SES mattered most

• Peer group associations matter

• Other inputs were weak

Top New Jersey High Schools 2008: By Rank

• http://njmonthly.com/articles/towns_and_schools/highschoolrankings/top-new-jersey-high-schools-by-rank.html

NJ Monthly -All High Schools.84

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Coleman report also said”… improving the school of a minority pupil may

increase his achievement more than would improving the school of a white child increase his. Similarly, the average minority pupil's achievement may suffer more in a school of low quality than might the average white pupil's. In short, whites and, to a lesser extent, Oriental-Americans are less affected one way or the other by the quality of their schools than are minority pupils. This indicates that it is for the most disadvantaged children that improvements in school quality will make the most difference in achievement.”

DO SCHOOLS MATTER?

1. EDMUNDS (1979)

A. EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS RESEARCH

B. CORRELATES

2. LAZOTTE

EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS RESEARCH

SAFE ORDERLY ENVIRONMENT

A CLEAR SCHOOL MISSION

STRONG PRINCIPAL – INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP

CLIMATE OF HIGH EXPECTATIONS

A CONCENTRATION ON

INSTRUCTIONAL TASKS

MONITORING OF STUDENT PROGRESS

POSITIVE HOME SCHOOL RELATIONS

RECENT RESEARCH - ACHIEVEMENT GOES UP

A. STUDENTS COMPELLED TO TAKE ACADEMIC COURSES

B.CONSISTENT DISCIPLINE

C.ACADEMIC LEARNING TIME

D.Reduced Total student Load (TSL)

Why do we want to raise student achievement?

• Individuals – Increased lifetime salary– Improved health – If you don’t have a Bachelor’s degree, you

are worse off than in 1975 if you do you are better off

Why do we want to raise student achievement?

• Society– Lower criminal justice costs– Lower health care costs– Increased economic growth

What’s the solution?

• Is it Structural?– Small schools– K-8 schools– Class size

• (about a 4% increase in achievement for a 50% cut in class size)

– Class grouping

What’s the solution?• Is it Alignment?

– Curriculum reform– Textbook replacement

• Is it governance?– Charter schools– Vouchers

• Is it Technology?

IT’S THE

TEACHER

Effect of Teacher Effectiveness on Student Achievement

• 3rd graders placed with 3 high performing teachers in a row averaged 96th percentile at end of 5th grade in math

• 3rd graders placed with 3 low performing teachers in a row averaged 44th percentile at end of 5th grade in math

• Tennessee’s State Math Test

“The results of this study well document that the most important factor affecting student learning is the teacher…more can be done to improve education by improving the effectiveness of teachers than by any other single factor. Effective teachers appear to be effective with students of all achievement levels, regardless of the level of heterogeneity in the classroom.”

William Sanders

• The effects on achievement of both strong and weak teachers persisted over 3 years

Dallas Study

• 1st graders placed with 3 high performing teachers in a row increased from 63rd percentile to 87th on ITBS math

• 1st graders placed with 3 low performing teachers in a row decreased from 58th percentile to 40th on ITBS math

• The difference in reading was 42 points

Dallas Study

• The negative effect of poor-performing teachers persisted through three years of high-performing teachers - it took 3 yrs. For the kids to catch up.

• Lower achieving students are more likely to be put with less effective teachers

“Highly Effective teachers are able to produce much greater gains than their less effective counterparts.”

“…not only does teacher quality matter when it comes to how much students learn, but also that, for better or worse, a teacher’s effectiveness stays with students for years to come.”

Tucker & StrongeIn Linking Teacher Evaluation and Student Learning

How do we get better teachers?

• Replace existing teachers with better ones– Increase pay

• No evidence that increased pay brings better teachers– Change certification standards

• No evidence that there are better teachers out there deterred by certification requirements

• “Love the one your with” (CSN&Y)• Improve the effectiveness of existing teachers

What Most Influenced Your Teaching Style?

• HOW YOU WERE TAUGHT

• WHAT YOU LEARNED IN EDUCATION COURSES

• YOUR PRINCIPAL

• YOU COLLEAGUES

• INDEPENDENT STUDY

Van Miller

Practice Practice

Practice Hunch Practice

Practice Hunch Principles Practice

Practice Hunch Theory Principles Practice

What is Theory?

“There is nothing impractical about good theory … Action divorced from theory is the random scurrying of a rat in a new maze. Good Theory is the power to find the way to the goal with a minimum of lost motion and electric shock.”

-Paul Mort

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein

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In Search of a Vision

Organizational Behavior is the interplay between individuals and the social environment in which they work.

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Assumptions, Beliefs, and Behaviors

• Every culture has basic assumptions about people.

• From these assumptions flow values and beliefs.• From values and beliefs flow action.• Yet in society and organizations, our expressed

assumptions do not always lead to appropriate action.– Hypocrisy abounds in education and other

organizations. Examples?

Hypocrisies

• Most money is spent at secondary level

• High schools start earlier than elementary schools

• Others?

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Modernist and Structuralist Thought

• Modernism is a way of thinking about the world and cultures in an orderly, logical manner, leading us to discover truths through the scientific method.– Up to mid 1900’s– Uses quantitative research methods– The truth is there to be discovered through the scientific method– The clockwork universe - Kepler (1605)– Fredrick the Great

• Prussian ruler - 18th century• Structure, uniformity and standardization of his army

– Chain of command– Line and staff organization– Training and development

– The organization as machine• Assembly line

Postmodernism

– is a challenge to modernism and its focus on absolute truths and “grand narratives or metanarratives”.

– Primarily uses qualitative research methods.

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Paradigms

A Paradigm is an interlocking set of scientific, social, and political beliefs.

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Psychology Paradigms

• Behaviorism—focus on extrinsic rewards and punishments to explain and control behavior.– B.F. Skinner– Remains Influential in

• Curriculum and instruction• Classroom management

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Psychology Paradigms (continued)

• Psychoanalytic Psychology—unconscious drives and internal instincts motivate people and cause their behavior.– Sigmund Freud and Bruno Bettelheim

• Cognitive Psychology—mental processes including thinking, reasoning, decision making underlie behavior (critical and creative thinking).– Jean Piaget most influential in affecting education.

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Psychology Paradigms (continued)

• Social Psychology—the study of how individuals perceive, influence and relate to others in the context of environment.– Kurt Lewin

• B = f(p · environment), that is behavior is a function of the interaction between the person and the environment.

• This is the basis of Organizational Theory -

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Sociological and Psychological Points of View

• Sociologists and Psychologists generally agree on goals of schooling.

• However, they differ on how to achieve those goals.– Psychologists tend to focus on the individual

interactions and relationships.– Sociologists tend to focus on group interactions

and organizational characteristics.

• Taken together, these points of view help us understand organizational behavior.

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Paradigms in Education

• Education has no overarching paradigm.• The last paradigm in education was

progressive education.• The conservative social and political

landscape is currently attempting to force a scientific revolution as embodied in NCLB, which does not have full support of the education community.

Schools as Educative Organizations

• School are unique and should not mindlessly follow business approaches to management.

• Schools foster learning and personal growth of all participants, including the adults as well as the children.

• Organizational Theory helps us make more informed choices to attain our goals.

• Theory enables us to describe what is going on, explain it, predict future events under given circumstances.

• This is essential to the professional practitioner so they may think about ways to exercise control over events.

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The Relevance of School Leadership Today

• The processes of developing Educational Leadership are dynamic with constant and ongoing change and development.– The emergence of new knowledge about how people

function in organizations.– The dynamic impact of changes in the larger society in

which the schools exist.

• Leaders must guide schools to be nimble, adaptive organizations that detect emerging problems and react proactively.

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No Child Left Behind

• The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).

• Signed by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002.

• Signified a clear shift in federal role toward policy maker and reformer.

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NCLB (continued)

• Three goals of NCLB:– Closing the achievement gap for disadvantaged students.– Improving the preparation of teachers and increasing their

compensation so as to have every classroom in America staffed by a “highly qualified” teacher by the end of the 2005–2006 school year.

– Instituting closely monitored systems of accountability for students, teachers, and schools.

• NCLB mentions research 116 times, giving rise to controversy over the operational definition of scientifically-based research.

• Stanford Professors – American students are falling behind foreign students in problem solving.

• Alan November – Problem solving ability is inversely proportionate to NCLB

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Research Methods in Education

• Education research has not been held in high esteem in the research community.

• A scholarly discipline has a well-defined body of knowledge from theory and research.

• The “gold standard” for research are studies that use randomized selection and assignment of participants into experimental and control groups.

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Examples of Gold Standard Research

• Framingham Heart Study– Over 5,000 participants since 1948.– Cigarette smoking, cholesterol level, and hypertension increased risk of

heart disease.• Tennessee Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR). Began in

1985 for four years.– Over 7,000 students in 300 k-3 classes, randomly assigned.– Found that:

• small classes (<18) improved student achievement and grade retention;

• low SES students gained more than high SES students; • large classes with aides were no better than large classes

with no aides.

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Impact on School Leaders

• In the wake of NCLB, School leaders should be cognizant of what constitutes “good research”.

• NCLB has been highly criticized, not in its focus on scientifically-based research or accountability, but in the over-reliance on high-stakes testing and mandates whose costs are borne by the states.– Pontiac School District v. Spellings –defendant wins in US

District Court.– Many educational leadership organizations are strong

advocates for changes in NCLB, such as AASA, NASSP, NAESP, NEA, CEC, and the National PTA.

• WHERE IS NCLB TODAY?

• Where will it be next?