Health Care and Basic Education

Almost twenty years ago, a paper appeared in the journal Public Choice that cites the inevitable challenges of providing services such as health care and basic  education:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/w394372168713921/

There are indeed striking characteristics that both health care and basic education share. For one, universal education, and child and maternal health care are among the Millennium Goals of the United Nations. Second, as pointed out by Baumol's article, these services are quite distinct from other human enterprises, such as building automobiles. Production lines designed to perform precisely each step in making cars can be made. There is room for custom-made automobiles, but for the purposes of general production, uniform lines can surely take advantage of advances in technology to lower costs of production and increase efficiency. Health care and education do not quite easily lend to these innovations. Each patient requires individualized attention and whether this is accepted or not, education is more about learning than teaching, making basic education as personal as health care. Both basic education and health care have a strong influence on a society's well-being. For these services to benefit society, these must be of high quality. A health care program or a public school that is failing can even do harm to society.

There are differences between health care and education. With regard to evidence-based research, health care is miles ahead of education. Reforms in education continue to be implemented without supporting data and studies remain poorly designed, without proper controls. On the other hand, the practice of medicine has been faithful to clinical trials and data. Health care, however, does not do well in terms of equal access. A public option, for example, in the richest country in the world, the United States, does not exist. But public schools still do.

The question that Baumol asks in the article is: Should these services remain in the public sector or should they be privatized? Current situations perhaps can answer this question. Health care is privatized in so many places. Excellent health care is available, but surely, not for everyone. Similarly, there are excellent schools that are both private and exclusive. These schools are, of course, not for every child. Privatization always tends to provide excellence first before access. Thus, there is that tempting conclusion that if quality is desired, one should privatize. To take the other option, that is, to continue with the public sector or government to provide or run these services, is then equated to low quality and inefficiency. Finland shows clearly that this is not the case. There are no private schools in Finland. Finland emphasizes equality and yet, Finland is in the top in terms of quality basic education. Excellence therefore can come with equality. When basic education is not seen as a vehicle to get ahead in life, better learning outcomes are achieved. Providing health care and basic education, without doubt, are different from making automobiles. The health and education of the members of the society are comparable to security, peace and order. I do not think societies have ever explored on a large scale the privatization of its police force or firefighters. I wonder why....

Teacher Quality: Getting the Right People to Lead the Classroom

Teachers shoulder a great responsibility of molding the future citizens of society. Yet, only a few countries (Finland is one example) demonstrate a highly selective process for teacher education. Teaching schools, for example, are far below medical schools in terms of competitiveness in most places. Raising the quality of teachers will involve two important factors: attractiveness and selectivity. The teaching profession must attract young minds who have the talent and teaching colleges must select only those who qualify. This is the case with the medical profession. And yes, it is perhaps the reason why health care costs are a great deal to any society. To achieve the same with basic education, it will come with comparable costs and priorities. After all, education is as important as health.

Marc Tucker, downloaded from http://hechingerreport.org/content/qa-with-marc-tucker-why-we-need-a-new-reform-agenda-to-compete-internationally_5915/

Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (United States) recently wrote an article, "Teacher Quality: Who's on Which Side and Why", outlining what it takes to make the teaching profession both attractive and selective. Below is an excerpt:

...No one believes that high SAT scores or ACT scores, or high high school grade point averages by themselves guarantee that a candidate will be a good teacher. Everyone I know believes that a passion for teaching and an ability to relate well to young people are very important characteristics of good teachers. But these are not mutually exclusive qualities. The record shows that countries that recruit their teachers from a pool of people who score high on their college entrance exams, had high grade point averages and also show a passion for teaching and an ability to relate well to students produce higher student achievement across the board than countries that leave out one or more of these qualities when they are recruiting their students....

In addition to stating what seems to be obvious to many, the article also points out a dilemma faced by teaching colleges when becoming selective thereby connecting issues in higher education with those of basic education. Teaching colleges from the point of view of entrepreneurship do not favor the selectivity requirement to uplift teacher quality. Having less students hurts the bottom line of these institutions. Being highly selective and serving the needs of basic education do not make teachers' colleges profitable.

If I may use an analogy, research in the basic sciences can never be funded by the market. Yet, the United States and other developed nations fund research. It is one of the obligations only a government could provide. Thus, on similar grounds, teacher education falls into this category. A government must subsidize if not fully support teaching institutions so that these colleges can be more selective. This is only one of the factors. The other is making the teaching profession attractive. Again, with a public school system, the government is one of the employers of teachers. Salaries and working conditions can dampen without any doubt enthusiasm and dedication. All of these seem obvious but somehow there are some who still think that privatization and free enterprise can provide teacher quality. No, only a government representing the society as a whole that is genuinely committed to uplifting the teaching profession can.

Oklahoma Education Truths

There is a blog called okeducationtruths that writes about public school education in Oklahoma:

I am amazed at the support this blog has received since I started it in April. I am a long time Oklahoma educator who thinks the false narrative about failing public schools needs to be refuted. While I don’t know everything about public education, I know enough to detect inconsistencies from the people and groups who would like to destroy it. With your help, I would like to give parents, teachers, administrators, board members, and any concerned Oklahoman a voice to set the record straight.

It had recent posts that Philippine educators probably should take note. One is "Still Blaming the Teachers" and the other is  "A-F Poverty Bias". And the following data of okeducationtruths shows something very important:

High poverty schools in Oklahoma are those with high participation in free/reduced lunch programs.

And apparently, this is not just specific to Oklahoma, a comment from an educator in Wisconsin points to a similar scenario:

Even an amateur's analysis of the state's school report card data is telling.

• A supermajority of Wisconsin's public schools with over 70% economically disadvantaged students were graded "Failed to Meet Expectations."
• Almost all below-standard schools had at least 45% economically disadvantaged students.
• In contrast, almost all graded schools with less than 10% economically disadvantaged students were considered by DPI's measurement to surpassed expectations.

Oklahoma and Wisconsin "education truths" are most likely applicable to other places. Poverty affects learning in significant ways. It would take so much more than a reform in curriculum to address this issue. Poverty is a factor that happens and exists inside a child's home. In the Philippines, poverty exists in both school and home. Teachers who teach in schools where majority of students are from poor families are more than likely suffering from poverty as well. School facilities are more likely to be wanting in poor neighborhoods. If poor children in the states of Oklahoma and Wisconsin (where schools provide free lunch to poor children) do not make the grade, what could we expect from poor children in the Philippines who go to classrooms with an empty stomach and receive lessons from underpaid and overworked teachers. And the Philippine government's answer to the worsening crisis in basic education is DepEd's K to 12, simply add two more years to schooling. We really need to look at the right numbers and the right data in order to lay out the right direction.

How Does One Lure Back Much Needed Talent and Expertise

The US likewise looks at other countries to find ways to improve its educational system. For example, an article in the Washington Post was published several months ago describing South Korea. Here is a paragraph worth our attention:

...South Koreans who had gone abroad to study were lured back with handsome salaries to teach. And the best students in the country were recruited with the promise of free tuition and an exemption from mandatory military service, in return for a promise to work in a government lab for three years after graduation. Over the years, Kaist graduates have filled government research institutes and top jobs at companies like Samsung and Hyundai....

Recently, I received an invitation to teach during the summer in China. The Sinoway International Summer School Program currently involves the following universities:  East China Normal University, Shanghai, Nanjing University, Nanjing. Beijing Normal University, Beijing, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou. The package includes:

Salary: $6,000 USD per course session taught (after-tax).Typically each Visiting Professor teaches between two to three course sessions and therefore receives $12,000 - $18,000 in the salary component.
Welfare: Free hotel accommodation during the term of teaching, Up to 2,000USD reimbursement for an international round-trip economy class air ticket between the U.S. or Canada and destined SIE host university, for both you and one close family member; Accident insurance coverage for you and your family member; Reimbursement of RMB 1,000 for transportation or communication expenses incurred during the Employment Term. Total value of all welfare is around $7,200.
Other Benefits: One assigned teaching assistant to help with academic affairs; One assigned welfare assistant to help with your daily living needs in China.

Whether this is attractive enough is one question but the fact is that there is considerable and reasonable effort to make it attractive. Another example is Brazil, as reported by the Public Radio International: 

"The government has more than tripled the budget for the Ministry of Science in the last ten years."

Margarida Fontes published a paper in Science and Public Policy entitled "Scientific Mobility Policies: How Portuguese Scientists Envisage the Return Home". In this article she stated:

Thus a substantial number, especially among the younger generation, express the desire to return and to “make some contribution”, but only if more favourable conditions are found at home. Their behaviour reflects some pragmatism, but their comments often express sadness or frustration with the impossibility of returning under reasonable conditions and with the waste of resources their situation epitomises, given the high investment made in them.

The Philippines needs to look closely at this issue as well. Scientific mobility, if completely unbalanced, which aptly describes the Philippine situation (outflow of talent greatly exceeds inflow), has profound implications on a country's development or progress. Patrick Gaulé points out this imbalance in his article, "Do highly skilled migrants return permanently to their home countries?":

Brain drain can be a good thing for the source country; one benefit is that some skilled workers eventually return. Unfortunately, there is little evidence on the incidence and nature of such return migration. This column presents new data on the return-migration decisions of foreign faculty based in US chemistry departments.

Finding What Works in Education

Pasi Sahlberg wrote the following sometime ago in the Washington Post:

"...many education visitors to Finland expect to find schools filled with Finnish pedagogical innovation and state-of-the-art technology. Instead, they see teachers teaching and pupils learning as they would in any typical good school in the United States. Some observers call this “pedagogical conservatism” or “informal and relaxed” because there does not appear to be much going on in classrooms. 

The irony of Finnish educational success is that it derives heavily from classroom innovation and school improvement research in the United States. Cooperative learning and portfolio assessment are examples of American classroom-based innovations that have been implemented in large scale in the Finnish school system."

The above quote is echoed in the following initiative launched recently in the Unites States:

http://www.odysseyinitiative.org/

And here are some examples the program has seen so far:

Rethinking Classroom StructureNew American Academy

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Michelle Healy

http://www.odysseyinitiative.org/rethinking-classroom-structure/

In a time when educational budgets are crunched around the country, the topics of classroom size and teacher to student ratio are highly debated topics in the educational and political spheres. What number is best for the students and the teachers in the room? 

At The New American Academy in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, school leader Shimon Waronker and the faculty have designed a new approach to class structure: 60 kids, 4 teachers, and one large, open classroom. 

The four teachers are generally made up of one master teacher, two partner teachers, and one associate teacher. Master teachers have often been curriculum coordinators or coaches before, and act as the senior mentor in the group. Partner teachers have a couple years of teaching experience, and associates are generally first or second year teachers. This structure was designed to provide an in-classroom career ladder and as well as daily chances for mentoring, feedback, reflection and collaboration between the master teacher, partner teachers, and associate teacher....

Moving Mountains Through Strong, Trusting RelationshipsCrockett Elementary School

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Todd Sutler

http://www.odysseyinitiative.org/moving-mountains-through-strong-trusting-relationships/

David Crockett Elementary School is a public school in the Balsz District in Phoenix, Arizona. Crockett serves approximately 500 students from diverse backgrounds in kindergarten through 6th grade. Over 95% of the students at Crockett qualify for free lunch, and all students have access to fresh fruits and vegetables through a federal grant. Principal Jarret Sharp is leading his “crew” toward a curriculum that is relevant and rigorous for all students. The Balsz District has added an additional 20 days of instruction to their school year, which leads to an additional year of instructional time by 8th grade. 

“You can make the most impact through relationships. Knowing the details with parents, the kids and the staff makes all the difference in the world. It is a lever to move heavy duty things on a campus. If you can build strong, trusting relationships, you can move mountains.” Principal Jarrett Sharp has taken the practice of building relationships within his school community to another level. He uses the “details” he knows about the different stakeholders to help them make the learning experience as positive and productive as possible for his students....

Helping Students Teach One Another Math LIGHTHOUSE COMMUNITY CHARTER SCHOOL

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Michelle Healy

http://www.odysseyinitiative.org/lighthouse-community-charter-schoolhelping-students-teach-one-another-math/

Lighthouse Community Charter School is a K-12 public school in Oakland, California. The mission is “to prepare a diverse, K-12th grade student population for college and the career of their choice by equipping each child and youth with the skills, knowledge, and tools to become a self-motivated, competent, lifelong learner.” Lighthouse is designed around five principles: High expectations for all students, a rigorous curriculum, serving the whole child, family involvement, and creating a professional learning community. In addition to being rigorous, the curricular approach is also authentic, hands-on and inquiry-driven. All students at Lighthouse are taught to advocate for themselves and are able to articulate their strengths and learning goals. 

When Laura Kretshmar of Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland, California, told her sixth graders that they were going to have a number talk, smiles, claps, and “Yessss!” were heard from the students as they waited in anticipation. Laura invited students to share expectations for number talks and move closer and sit on the carpet if they needed to.
In Laura’s classroom, number talks are short, strategic conversations that focus on flexible mental problem solving as well as strategy sharing and critiquing. Strings of related equations are used to help students see patterns and help them transfer strategies from one equation to the next....

And there are many more examples.

And as Pasi Sahlberg from the best educational system in the world had shown, there maybe a lot to learn from these....

A Practice That Increases Student's Engagement Without High Costs

When learning resources are quite limited, there are practices that can be employed to enhance student's participation in lecture-based classroom. To help students keep their attention during the instruction, previously prepared notes with missing items can be given to students. These notes follow the flow of the lecture but are incomplete. Students are then required to fill in the blanks as the lecture progresses. In this fashion, the student maintains specific goals throughout the lecture. The guided notes serve basically as a list of questions to which students must respond, and the answers or the missing pieces are in the lecture. Moira Konrad, Laurice M. Joseph and Elisha Eveleigh of Ohio State University have performed an analysis of how effective guided notes are in enhancing student learning:

https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/education_and_treatment_of_children/v032/32.3.konrad.html

Guided notes basically achieve two goals. First, it provides students with a good template for taking notes. By seeing concrete examples of notes, students are more likely to develop good note-taking skills. Second, by enhancing a student's engagement and attention during lecture, guided notes enhance learning outcomes. The above study pertains specifically to upper elementary and secondary schools. And as the above authors cite:

Guided notes are a low-cost and efficient way to help teachers promote active engagement during their lectures. Heward (in Guided notes: Improving the effectiveness of your lectures. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Partnership Grant for Improving the Quality of Education for Students with Disabilities, 2001) recommends the following steps for creating guided notes. First, teachers should create an outline of the lecture to be presented to students, focusing on the most salient concepts that students need to master. This outline can be created using presentation software (e.g., Power-Point) or overhead transparencies, which the teacher will use to guide the lecture. Next, teachers should create a handout for the students, strategically omitting important information from the outline, leaving blanks for students to fill in as they listen to the lecture. Though students should not need to write lengthy responses, an adequate number of blanks must be distributed throughout the handout to encourage active attending and engagement. Also, there should enough space at each blank so students can record all information provided during the lecture....

Lectures will be part of instruction for many more years to come. Guided notes are simple additions that can make these lectures more effective.

An Example: "Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction"

Formulating a vision for public education can be as easy as forming an opinion. There are anecdotes which seem prolific enough for everyone to grab just to advance an agenda. In medicine, evidence-based research is important before new therapies are introduced. In education, so much more is still desired. Reforms in education can not be taken as sound simply because these have been put forward by so-called expert educators. For instance, here is a recent description by Rep. Angara of DepEd's K to 12 curriculum (Source: Manila Bulletin):

This new curriculum is an innovation in how lessons are taught to each learner. It’s a combined result of decades of DepEd experience, years of painstaking research, and surveys of best practices in the region adapted to the local scenario.

In the United States, there is the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  Its mission is as follows:

The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence.

To illustrate how the center works, here is a specific example. In November of 2011, the Fordham Institute produced a document entitled, "Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction":

For the full article, visit EdExcellenceMedia
http://www.edexcellence.net/publications/education-reform-for-the-digital-era.html

At first glance, one may get the impression that the document is a scholarly publication. It has 46 footnotes and it comes with seemingly reasonable arguments:

Digital learning has the potential to transform teaching in three primary ways:

• Enabling excellent teachers to reach more students. 

• Attracting and retaining more of these excellent teachers.

• Boosting effectiveness and job options for average teachers.

Who would argue against these? Luis Huerta of Columbia University did. Here is the press release of Huerta's review of the above paper:

BOULDER, CO (April 3, 2012) – The Fordham Institute’s Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction, an advocacy document outlining a vision for how technology might transform the teaching profession, provides little or no empirical research evidence to support its central claim that digital age technologies will improve the education system, according to a new review. 

The report was reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project by Luis Huerta of Teachers College at Columbia University. The review is published by the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. 

Huerta writes in his review that the report’s rationale is based on claims that the current education system lacks the capacity to support revolutionary changes needed to unleash the technological innovations of online instruction that will yield increased effectiveness and efficiency. 

The report explains that effective teachers are central to the demands of online instruction and will be even more necessary in the digital age than in the current system. It asserts that the elements that constitute effective teaching can be broken down into discrete skills and then packaged and distributed to a wider group of learners via digital media. 

Harnessing the talents of effective teachers will be critical in both meeting the needs of students and in making teaching a “true profession” (p. 2) through increased specialization and tiered salary structures, the report asserts. 

Huerta notes that while the report addresses an important topic, the empirical research evidence to support its fundamental premise is insufficient and inadequate. Consequently, he concludes, the report amounts to only a vision of what changes might be necessary as the digital revolution comes of age in public education. 

Find Luis Huerta’s review on the NEPC website at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-teachers-digital-age

Thus, in a sentence:

"Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction" provides little or no empirical research evidence to support the claim that digital-age technologies will improve the education system."

Advocacy documents sound and look good. But it takes a lot more for a study or paper to be scholarly. Education reforms must be based not on ideology but on good data. Painstaking research that is good must be published in peer-reviewed journals. Only these research papers have been reviewed by experts. Without  such a review, a research paper is simply an advocacy paper and one must not confuse advocacy with research.

Homework Or No Homework?

It seems a simple question. Yet, addressing it can clearly illustrate the difference between ideology and research. Answering this question adequately pushes the right approach to education reform. Where do we begin? The president of France recently announced his plan to ban homework. An article in the Wall Street Journal states:

François Hollande has a bold new plan to tackle social injustice and inequality in France: ban homework. Introducing his proposals for education reform last week at the Sorbonne, the French president declared that work "must be done in the [school] facility rather than in the home if we want to support the children and re-establish equality." 

The rest of the article did not have kind words to describe the above plan:

Here we begin to wonder: Are the French losing their mind? Fortunately not. More than two-thirds of the country would oppose the ban, according to an Ifop poll, so there's hope that even in the land of égalité there's some recognition that state power cannot equalize everything.

One can browse through the comments on this article as well as recent conservative blogs and the overwhelming harsh remark seems to imply that banning homework as a means to re-establish equality is tantamount to making all children equally dumb. Banning or limiting the amount of homework is not new. It has been suggested as a pedagogical reform even in some schools in the United States. It should be no surprise then that there is research that has been done to address the benefits and harms of homework in schools. The Center for Public Education has compiled results from research on this topic. The following are the general highlights:

• The link between homework and student achievement is far from clear. 
• Homework appears to have more positive effects for certain groups of students:
• Homework may have nonacademic benefits. 
• Too much homework may diminish its effectiveness. 
• The amount of homework completed by students seems to be more positively associated with student achievement than the amount of homework assigned by teachers. 
• After-school programs that provide homework assistance may improve student behavior, motivation, and work habits but not necessarily academic achievement. 
• The effect of parent involvement in homework is unclear. 
• There is little research on connections between specific kinds of homework and student achievement.

From the above, it is evident that benefits of homework are far from being crystal clear. Homework, as with any additional tool to be used by schools for learning, requires a clear objective. What is the real purpose of assigning work to students outside classroom hours? With a stated goal in mind, the next step is to analyze the homework, its content and protocol. Are students supposed to work on their own? Are parents expected to assist their children when they do the homework? The answers to these questions are important as these may inadvertently introduce other factors into education. It is straightforward to demand that parents be involved in the education of their children. But in a society where the majority are poorly educated in the math and the sciences, this demand is completely unreasonable. In a society where there is a huge gap between the privileged and underprivileged, assigning homework can only exacerbate the socio-economic inequalities. This then defeats the purpose of education as a vehicle for social mobility. The following is a recent study, for example, by Marte Renning. These are results from schools in the Netherlands, but the findings could easily apply to other countries.

Downloaded from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027277571000083X#

Seeing this study makes the plan of the French president not look absurd after all. The French president was talking about social inequality and injustice. And if homework amplifies these social inequalities then it is counterproductive against the role of schools as possible social enablers or equalizers. The above study shows how homework affects the learning gap. However, it focuses mainly on how homework affects the "learning" side of education. It does not evaluate how homework can assist the "teaching" side. There are studies on this aspect as well. Below is one example.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v83465j6p823g053/fulltext.pdf

Part of their conclusions is as follows:

This study shows that to really understand students’ thinking at a deeper and internal level, teachers should grade students’ homework and analyze errors from homework. The most important contribution from this study was that it provided a sample of a new model of grading homework that is feasible and practical for US classroom teachers. This model of grading student homework helps to solve the dilemma in grading homework practice in the US. Considering US teachers do not have sufficient time to grade all students’ homework daily, this study suggests grouping students into three levels of low, middle, and high and selecting one or two students’ homework from each group to grade on a daily basis. In addition, teachers should engage in an error analysis process daily by identifying error patterns and analyzing the possible reasons for the misconception. To have students master the concepts and skills correctly and accurately, teachers must provide feedback immediately by making corrections for errors, which is also a key aspect to improving self-efficacy.

This short excursion through one specific aspect of education illustrates the complexity of how to draw education reforms. And in my opinion, at the end of the day, it is really only the teacher who could correctly answer the question on whether assigning homework is working or not. This is only about homework. Imagine adding two years to basic education. This is certainly a much bigger question yet....

Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raymond Palatino decried the “railroaded” passage of House Bill No. 6643 or the K-12 Bill on second reading, saying that the rushed bill contains provisions “not grounded on solid evidence.”

Do Schools Teach Students Not to Study Effectively

Students in Finland do not have to take standardized exams. During the first years of education, students normally receive verbal assessments and not numerical or letter grades. The decision when to start handing out numerical grades rests on each school. Children do not grow up counting points as measures of their achievement. It then becomes clear that the main purpose of going to school is to learn and not to earn high marks. This difference can have a dramatic impact on the not just on the attitude of the students but more importantly, on the true learning accomplishments of the students.

Placing emphasis on exams and grades can shape how a student manages his or her time and attention. A focus on scores places certain dates throughout the school year as more important than the rest. Reviewing for exams can become more important than being actively engaged in each and every lecture and classroom activity. The same holds true for projects and reports. Without paying attention to spacing evenly the tasks required for these activities, there is a strong tendency to squeeze all of these into the last minute. Procrastination and cramming are not the worse outcomes, however. The scores in exams may not reflect the bitter truth, but on a deeper level, students may in fact be failing to learn.

In the most recent issue of Child Development, the flagship journal of the Society for Research in Child Development, there is an article that examines the effects of sleep deprivation on student's performance:

Downloaded from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-8624/earlyview

The entire paper can be downloaded from https://www.sleepdoc.com/pdf/study%20or%20sleep.pdf

Learning in school is an everyday task. Tests inadvertently distill the school year into a few dates. Emphasis on grades conditions the minds of pupils to a pragmatic view on schooling. What really matters becomes reduced to a small fraction of the time the student spends in school. There are many more hours spent inside the classroom but what determines the final outcome happens only during the exam or in a submission of a final project. What happens along the way is lost.  The above study is important for it also demonstrates that it is counterproductive. 

There are other reasons why Finland's schools may be performing better than schools in other countries but with certainty, a misplaced emphasis on grades and exams is one reason that can hold back a school from fulfilling its potential to become a genuine place for learning.

Senior High School - Serious Questions to Ponder

The idea that additional years in high school could help better prepare students for higher education might look advantageous at first. Having the introductory courses in college covered in the senior years may reduce the number of courses a student must take in college. This can translate into savings since college is more costly than high school. In an ideal setting, this may be true. Under real circumstances, however, there are serious questions that need to be asked:

(1) Are there qualified teachers who could teach these advanced courses in high school?
(2) With a lack of uniformity across schools in the Philippines, would the two additional years further increase gaps and competitive disadvantages.

In the United States, high school students often take Advanced Placement courses during the final years of K-12. Several studies that evaluate these programs have been published. There is one book, for example, from Harvard Education press, that compiles the results of a conference held in 2007 attended by leading educators addressing the question on whether Advanced Placement courses are beneficial or not:

Image downloaded from Harvard Education Press
http://www.hepg.org/hep/book/120/AP

Commenting on this book, Scott Jaschik of Inside HigherEd writes the following:

Claims that the program helps students graduate on time or save money are found generally to have no validity. And research in the book suggests that many of the efforts to push the program into more schools -- a push that has been financed with many millions in state and federal funds -- may be paying for poorly-prepared students to fail courses they shouldn’t be taking in the first place. And the research suggests that not only is the money being misspent, but that the push may be skewing the decisions of low-income high schools that make adjustments to bring the program in -- while being unable to afford improvements in other programs.

John T. Tierney, a former college professor and high school teacher, recently wrote an article in The Atlantic ("AP Classes Are a Scam"). With the anticipated recruitment by the Philippines DepEd of college professors to teach in the proposed additional years in high school, Tierney's thoughts are worth our attention. In this article, he enumerated the reasons why he is not in favor of advanced placement courses:

• AP courses are not, in fact, remotely equivalent to the college-level courses they are said to approximate. 

• The traditional monetary argument for AP courses -- that they can enable an ambitious and hardworking student to avoid a semester or even a year of college tuition through the early accumulation of credits -- often no longer holds. 

• The scourge of AP courses has spread into more and more high schools across the country, and the number of students taking these courses is growing by leaps and bounds. Studies show that increasing numbers of the students who take them are marginal at best, resulting in growing failure rates on the exams. 

• Despite the rapidly growing enrollments in AP courses, large percentages of minority students are essentially left out of the AP game. 

• The AP program imposes "substantial opportunity costs" on non-AP students in the form of what a school gives up in order to offer AP courses, which often enjoy smaller class sizes and some of the better teachers. 

• To me, the most serious count against Advanced Placement courses is that the AP curriculum leads to rigid stultification -- a kind of mindless genuflection to a prescribed plan of study that squelches creativity and free inquiry. 

These are all insightful comments that warrant a pause among those who are currently planning what the additional years in high school in the Philippines ought to be. The "substantial opportunity costs" is one important example. With limited resources (in this case, not just classrooms, but more importantly, better teachers), is it really wiser to put these into the additional years instead of trying to improve the quality of the first ten years of elementary and high school education? The second question is the learning gap. With students unable to master the content of the first ten years, would not adding two more years simply waste their time and cause greater failure?

Thus, while we wait for the final two years of high school in the Philippines to be drawn, the following words of Tierney at the beginning of his article are worth our attention:

"Fraudulent schemes come in all shapes and sizes. To work, they typically wear a patina of respectability. That's the case with Advanced Placement courses, one of the great frauds currently perpetrated on American high-school students."

Coaching Teachers

"Implementing a new curriculum requires strong leadership at the school level. The success of a school depends a lot on the principal. A significant fraction of public schools in the Philippines currently do not have a principal or a head teacher. This clearly needs to be addressed first before any reform in curriculum is initiated. Otherwise, a new curriculum has no hope of being implemented successfully."

-"First Things First: A Commentary on K+12" 

What happens exactly inside the classroom depends largely on the teacher. There are several factors that influence learning. True enough, there are factors outside the control of a teacher but there are still ways by which a teacher can direct learning both inside and outside the classroom. Teachers.net believes that a teacher can still make a huge difference. Its mission statement is as follows:

At Teachers.Net, we recognize that education is a fundamental factor in an individual's prosperity, happiness, contribution to society, and impact on the future. Teachers.Net recognizes the vital role teachers play in education and the betterment of our culture. We also appreciate that teachers are rarely recognized or compensated adequately for their contribution and dedication. 

In support of the calling, Teachers.Net was founded on four principles:

• To allow our teacher-users to contribute the content and direct site development  

• To utilize the Internet to harness the collective intellect and wisdom of the worldwide teaching community

• To minimize costs to the greatest extent possible through automation, and 

• To never charge teachers for using our resources

One recent article by Harry and Rosemary Wong from this website deals with instructional coaching:

Downloaded from http://teachers.net/wong/OCT12/

The article begins with reminding us of the work of Jacob Kounin. The following are taken from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Classroom_Management_Theorists_and_Theories/Jacob_Kounin:

These are the main theories and history of Jacob Kounin.

I. "With-it-ness"

The teacher is responsible for inhibiting poor behavior. The teacher can maintain this strategy by making eye contact to all students at all times. The teacher should know each student on a personal basis (i.e. name, interests, strength, weaknesses, etc.)The teacher can use other non-verbal techniques to show students that they are alert and care about the well-being of all students. The teacher may also want to make a respectable suggestion to inform the student that their behavior is unacceptable. The teacher should have communicated to all students the expectations and can have these displayed so everyone can be "with-it".

II. Overlapping

The teacher can have procedures that will allow the teacher to be effective when two situations occur at the same time. For example, if a student is done with an assessment or an assignment early have something for them to do such as moving on to another assignment, reading a book, or a quiet enrichment exercise. While the early-finishers are staying busy the teacher is allowed to move around the room to answer question or assist struggling students. Another example, if the teacher is in the middle of a lecture and a student enters the room the teacher should make eye contact with the student, have an area for the student to turn in work, and continue with the lesson. Once the students are doing their work the teacher can go to the tardy student and tell them what they missed or answer any questions from the homework assigned the night before.

III. Momentum

The teacher should make lectures short to allow students to group together and move around to gain more knowledge of the content. The teacher should make sure that these exercises remain short so students do not get bored. A teacher can keep a timer and assign roles to students to keep the students moving and on a time deadline. If students are struggling the teacher can reflect on what they can do to make the lesson more meaningful and easier to understand for their students.

IV. Smoothness

The teacher can have students make hand gestures that will tell the teacher whether the student has a comment or question concerning the lesson. This technique allows the teacher to have an idea of which students may cause an unwanted tangent and which students may have a good question that could pertain to utilizing the time effectively. When placing students in group-work the teacher can walk around facilitating and listening to discussions of other students. The teacher can then intervene or take the group to a different track if the teacher feels it is necessary.

V. Group Focus

The teacher can implement this strategy with several techniques:

A. Encourage Accountability: Make students aware that they will be graded for their participation and contributions to the group. 

B. The teacher can have a canister of popsicle sticks that have each students name on them. The teacher can pick the popsicle stick at random to keep students on track and out of their seats with anticipation for question/answer time, board problems, etc. 

C. The students can facilitate a discussion. Once they have finished a task they can turn to each other or they could pair up with those who are already done and compare answers.

In order for implementation to be effective the teacher must be well organized, communicate their expectations to their students, and hold them responsible for their actions to encourage motivation and attention.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In other words, Kounin believes that the behavior of a teacher is one important factor that determines student's learning. From this perspective it is straightforward to see how important it is for a teacher to be aware of what he or she does that may significantly influence learning inside the classroom. David Ginsburg, whose work is the subject of the Teachers.Net article states:

“School leaders and teachers must always examine how their actions or inactions may be creating barriers or creating enhancements to learning. My work is practical. What matters most is what happens in the classroom. I show them how they can be effective and successful and that is what my coaching is all about."

Coaching is different from mentoring. And to elucidate this clearly, a specific example is given by Harry and Rosemary Wong. The example is the story of Emily McGinley, a second grade teacher in Philadelphia. 

Teacher Actions (Cause)	Student Reactions (Effect)	Solutions
Emily provided directions orally only and passed out materials before assessing whether students understood the directions.	Students played with materials and did not begin the activity until the teacher restated directions to them at their seats.	Provide directions visually in addition to orally; assess students' understanding of directions before passing out materials.
Emily spent extended time assisting a few students without ever assessing or assisting other students.	Some students raised their hands for several minutes, while others socialized.	Assign students to collaborative groups with the expectation that they ask each other for help before asking the teacher for help.
Emily failed to let students know what to do if they finished the activity early.	Students who finished early disrupted those who were still working on the activity.	Include in directions for each activity a constructive activity for students to move on to after they finish the first activity.

This example illustrates the philosophy of looking at what happens inside a classroom as a cause-effect pairs of events. The behavior of the teacher, what a teacher does is regarded as the cause, and what students do are taken as the effect. The solutions offered by the coach are then direct responses on how a teacher may change his or her strategy to get a better outcome. 

In this example, it is pretty clear what coaching really entails. It requires direct observation of the classroom through the eyes of both teacher and students. This is what school leaders do. A school without a head teacher or a principal cannot provide coaching to its teachers. In team sports and even individual ones, an athlete needs an additional pair of eyes for guidance and assessment. This guidance can not come from a remote air conditioned office far removed from where the action is taking place. 

“Teachers make countless decisions each day that affect children academically, socially, and emotionally,” says David.  “This is why coaches must observe classrooms through the lenses of students.

Staying in School

"Most countries have only ten years of compulsory education. Compulsory education in the US varies from state to state, but the average requires anyone who is under 16 years of age to be either enrolled in a school or home-schooled. This means that on average, the US only has 10-11 (including kindergarten) years of compulsory education. The last two years in the US K-12 education already include courses in tertiary education. These are called advanced placement (AP) or international baccalaureate (IB) courses. Examples are calculus (up to multivariable) and AP chemistry. Students who take AP chemistry usually have already finished one year of basic chemistry and one year of advanced chemistry, so in sum, a student could have taken three years of chemistry while in high school. Some schools in the US can not offer these, and consequently, there is great heterogeneity among US schools."

-"First Things First: A Commentary on K+12" 

Compulsory education requires responsibility from two sides: the learner and the provider. Requiring a given number of years of basic education without providing the resources is plain wrong. In addition, compulsory means a strong and determined implementation of a requirement. In the Philippines, kindergarten is now compulsory. Unfortunately, all that this means is that a student can not be enrolled in Grade 1 without completing kindergarten first. Compulsory education in the United States means someone goes to prison if a child fails to attend school. Of course, a government is only justified to take such action if the government provides all the necessary resources to attend school. When my son reached 5 years of age, I received a phone call from our school county board asking why my son has not attended the public school in our neighborhood during the first week of the school year. I had to inform the authorities that I had already enrolled my son in a Catholic school. This is what compulsory education seriously means. 

In the past few weeks, the Hamilton project at the Brookings Institution hosted the following forum: Back to School: Promoting Attainment and Achievement in K-12 Education. One of the papers presented in this forum is from graduate student Derek Messacar and associate professor Philip Oreopoulos from the University of Toronto:

Downloaded from http://www.hamiltonproject.org/files/downloads_and_links/THP_MessacarOreopoulos_CompSchool_DiscPaper_1.pdf

Abstract

High school dropouts fare substantially worse than their peers on a wide variety of long-term economic outcomes. On average, a dropout earns less money, is more likely to be in jail, is less healthy, is less likely to be married, and is unhappier than a high school graduate. But despite this growing education gap, dropout rates have remained mostly unchanged over the past three decades. This problem disproportionately affects low-income and minority students: among these populations, nearly half of all individuals do not graduate with their class. This paper presents a plan to increase the high school graduation rate. A key element of the proposal is for all states to increase their minimum school-leaving age to eighteen. In many studies, this intervention has been found to have a significant positive impact on several long-term outcomes. The proposal also calls for more resources for enforcement of new and existing compulsory-schooling laws, to maximize the impact of the policy change. More effort is also needed to keep students engaged in school, even at an early age. If states invest in effective support programs, they can further increase graduation rates and reduce future costs of enforcing compulsory-schooling policies. All of these interventions should be implemented with the goal of strengthening America’s primary education system to promote college attendance and improve career outcomes among America’s youth. 

The paper begins with enumerating how school dropouts affect society as a whole.  School dropouts generally face higher unemployment and a significant fraction fall below the poverty line. In the United States, school dropouts by the age of fifty earn on the average $16.50 an hour, working in construction, food services, and truck transportation. Teenage birth rates are also high for school dropouts. The rate of school dropouts also strongly correlates with the crime rate in a neighborhood as well as the overall economic standing of the community. It is with this realization that it becomes apparent the true costs of school dropouts, reminding us of the old adage, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

The problem becomes more serious with the fact that remediation is almost an impossible task. Compulsory education does come with costs. Even with adequate resources for schooling, implementing compulsory education requires personnel, time and effort. The fact that I received a phone call on the year that my son was supposed to start schooling meant someone in the government was in fact paying attention. School dropouts do not happen overnight. Thus, compulsory education requires monitoring and keeping records.

Past grade school and across the mid teen years, as the child further develops his or her own decision making, compulsory education now has to deal directly with the student. At this stage, compulsory education not only requires schools to use "sticks" but also "carrots" to reengage students who may have the impulse to leave school without fully understanding the long lasting consequences of such action. 

To apply the above thoughts on the Philippine situation is very painful. First, peer-reviewed studies are required to find out why students stop attending school. The reasons maybe obvious but a careful study is still required. Poverty is expected to be the top reason. Child labor is widespread. Classrooms are overcrowded. The high pupil to teacher ratio prevents teachers from establishing a deeper one-on-one relationship with their students. The fact that public schools are not really free makes it difficult for poor parents to send their children to schools. 

To address the above problems, of course, there are costs. Providing free lunch to poor students, ensuring that public schools do not collect any fees (no exceptions), providing the poor with the necessary school supplies and learning materials, reducing the pupil to teacher ratio especially in schools where most students come from poor families - all of these measures require money. It is quite obvious that resources are not there for thirteen years of compulsory education. So we need to take baby steps, "first things first".  We should not overextend ourselves for this will only exacerbate the situation. Doing well in the early years of education will equip students with skills and interest to continue in their education. Resources in basic education can be focused on these early years.

The costs are actually very small compared to the costs of not taking these actions. School dropouts are correlated with crime rate, drug use, early pregnancy, and poor health. School dropouts lead to a less engaged citizenry. Democracy simply can not flourish in an uneducated society. The "straight path" cannot be achieved by simply removing the corrupt from the halls of power in the Philippine government. The "straight path" requires education for all, an education that equips each and every member of society. Thus, we end with the familiar saying: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

As Senate Debates DepEd's K to 12

It is in the news (Philippine Star): The Senate of the Republic of the Philippines has started debating DepEd's new K to 12 program.

Senate starts debates on K+12  By Marvin Sy (The Philippine Star) Updated October 09, 2012 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate has started plenary debate on a bill seeking to increase the number of years in the country’s basic education or the K-to-12 program.

Sen. Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on education, arts and culture, sponsored Senate Bill 3286 yesterday, which he said would enhance the curriculum so the Filipino student would be better prepared for higher education.

“They will be prepared for higher education, middle-level skills development, employment and entrepreneurship,” Angara said.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Unfortunately, the likelihood that the discussion in the Senate will be framed within an evidence-based approach is close to nil. Angara already notes that the change in curriculum is not new and that consultations have been made throughout the entire country.

As the Senate debates DepEd's K to 12, I wish senators would first read an article by Professor Paul Thomas of Furman University where he talks about how education reform in the United States has been missing the correct approach to education reform. Thomas' important points are:

• Standards have never worked and never will.
• Student poverty is a very strong factor.
• Teacher quality is not a major factor to student learning, but society's treatment of its teachers is.

DepEd's K to 12 fails to address these important points. Upgrading of teachers' salaries still has not won the attention of the Philippine government. DepEd's K to 12 focuses more on the curriculum and number of years, which are not the important factors in student's learning. DepEd's K to 12 does not address the poverty and hunger faced by millions of Filipino children. And most importantly,

"Public education has failed historically and currently because educators have never run our school system...

...Because "reform" has been a political football; not a process of scholarship, research and implementation by educators."

Photo downloaded from Daily Kos: Faux Education Reform or Improved Education

_________________________________________________________________________________

Here's the article:

TUE OCT 02, 2012 AT 07:52 AM PDT

On "Reform" and the "Public" in Education

byplthomasEdDFollow

U.S. public education appears in dire need of reform. To address that problem central to the health of America's democracy and economy (reformers note), committees must be formed and solutions proposed and then implemented:

"That it is expedient to hold a conference of school and college teachers of each principal subject which enters into the programmes of secondary schools in the United States and into the requirements for admission to college—as, for example, of Latin, of geometry, or of American history—each conference to consider the proper limits of its subject, the best methods of instruction, the most desirable allotment of time for the subject, and the best methods of testing the pupils’ attainments therein, and each conference to represent fairly the different parts of the country."

This committee constituted of university presidents and school leaders set out to answer the following questions:

"1. In the school course of study extending approximately from the age of six years to eighteen years—a course including the periods of both elementary and secondary instruction—at what age should the study which is the subject of the Conference be first introduced?
2. After it is introduced, how many hours a week for how many years should be devoted to it?
3. How many hours a week for how many years should be devoted to it during the last four years of the complete course; that is, during the ordinary high school period?
4. What topics, or parts, of the subject may reasonably be covered during the whole course?
5. What topics, or parts, of the subject may best be reserved for the last four years?
6. In what form and to what extent should the subject enter into college requirements for admission? Such questions as the sufficiency of translation at sight as a test of knowledge of a language, or the superiority of a laboratory examination in a scientific subject to a written examination on a text-book, are intended to be suggested under this head by the phrase 'in what form.'
7. Should the subject be treated differently for pupils who are going to college, for those who are going to a scientific school, and for those who, presumably, are going to neither?
8. At what stage should this differentiation begin, if any be recommended?
9. Can any description be given of the best method of teaching this subject throughout the school course?
10. Can any description be given of the best mode of testing attainments in this subject at college admission examinations?"

Is this an initiative from the U.S. Department of Education led by Secretary Duncan? A committee formed by the governors to help schools implement Common Core State Standards? A committee funded by the Gate Foundation? A move endorsed by Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp (TFA), or the KIPP charter chain?

No. This is the Committee of Ten from the 1890s.

But it certainly is similar to any reform movement concerning education since then and including now.

The reform movement must be examined against two issues: (1) What is the status quo of education and education reform? and (2) How might we re-imagine the "public" in public education?

The Education and Reform Status Quo

Central to the potential effectiveness of reform is an essential process: identify the status quo, evaluate the status quo, and then change the elements of the status quo that are clearly failing. For education reform to change our schools directly and our society indirectly, we must first identify the status quo; thus, what are the elements of the educational status quo as well as the status quo of education reform?

• Identifying "high" standards for K-12 to insure college and work readiness is the status quo. Common Core State Standards can be traced back to the Committee of Ten; identifying standards, raising standards, and implementing new standards have never worked, and never will.

• Aligning standardized testing to those standards is the status quo. The Committee of Ten identified needed testing, and then standardized testing exploded in the early to mid-twentieth century. More and better tests have never worked, and never will.

What is not a part of the status quo (or the problem with education)?

• Unionization is not uniform or present throughout the U.S.; thus, unions are not part of the status quo. Heavily unionized states often have the highest student outcomes, while non-union states have some of the lowest outcomes. Relative student poverty is a much stronger status quo than unionization.

• Teacher quality is not central to or a major element in student achievement; thus, teacher quality is not part of the status quo needing urgent reform. But teacher assignment is part of the status quo since affluent students are assigned the most qualified and experienced teachers while children of color and children living in poverty are assigned new and unqualified teachers.

Current education reform elements being endorsed and implemented by the reformers with power and money are, in fact, perpetuating the status quo, and are in effect the exact opposite of reform.

Further, the dominant education reform initiatives in the U.S. are demonstrably counter to overcoming social and educational inequity.

Driven by more than a century of the same education policies and reforms, public schools face the exact same issues confronted in every decade since the late nineteenth century.

Re-Imagining (Not Rejecting) the "Public" in Education

In the education reform movement during the past thirty years of accountability and high-stakes testing, the U.S. has failed to identify the status quo, and has ironically perpetuated the status quo—entrenching deeper and deeper the social inequity the public schools reflect.

Universal education is a public good that should serve to correct the historical and current failures of society, such as economic inequity, racial injustice, and gender inequity. For public education to be a corrective public institution, then, public schools must be publicly funded but not politically managed.

Public funding is essential for basic aspects of a culture, such as a road system, a judicial system, a police force, a military, and the most important foundational system, schools. [The U.S. ignores the foundational nature of healthcare, however.]

Yet, when public institutions fail, that failure is not due to the public aspect of the institution but because of the failure to create a wall between public funding and partisan political bureaucracy.

Public education has failed historically and currently because educators have never run our school system.

Public funding of education, in order to reform education and overcome the failures of the status quo, must be implemented at every level of schooling—from the Secretary of Education to each teacher in every classroom—by qualified and experienced educators and scholars. Not by appointees, not by presidents, not by governors.

Then, instead of technocratic (and misleading) accountability policies imposed on education by partisan politicians, those professional educators must serve the public transparently while remaining committed to outcomes that support democracy, equity, and the public good.

Partisan political bureaucracy de-professionalizes education and creates a constant cycle of starting over with the exact same policies in different packages.

Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing for student and teacher accountability, charter schools, and Teach for America are slightly new packages for the status quo—not reform that changes schools so schools can change society.

Let's start there and re-imagine the "public" in education.

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO PLTHOMASEDD ON TUE OCT 02, 2012 AT 07:52 AM PDT.

ALSO REPUBLISHED BY EDUCATION ALTERNATIVES.