JIS Topics

The hiatus extends

2007-01-24T08:35:00.002+07:00

Dear JIS Topics reader,

You may have noticed that what started as a holiday hiatus from blogging has lingered. I've decided to take a more permanent break from daily posting. Honestly, my family needs more of my attention at the moment. And honestly, JIS Topics didn't work out as I had hoped. There wasn't a return on investment, so to speak, that justified the proverbial blood, sweat and tears (other than that I learned a great deal about education policy from great thinkers who write for newspapers, magazines, ed-policy organizations, and blogs).

So I'm hanging up my blogger hat.

Thank you so much to you for stopping by to JIS Topics, and if you shared a comment or two during its run, you have my deepest appreciation. Dialogue is one of the best ways to grow as a thinker because it requires thoughtfulness, empathy, and consideration of both sides of an issue. I learned so much from those who commented on JIS Topics.

And if you're not an educator or policy maker but would like to stay on top of the issues, opinions and dilemmas in education, then may I suggest that you sign up for a Bloglines account. Bloglines lets you set up a virtual mailbox, which will collect and display the daily feeds of blogs and news outlets that you choose.

To give you an idea of how it works, here's my Bloglines "mailbox," into which I receive daily news from 32 different education news sources. It takes me about 15 minutes a day to read through the postings, (sometimes longer if it's a busy news day). These are 15 minutes well spent, as I get to read and consider the thinking of the best minds in education, including:

Ken DeRosa at D-Ed Reckoning (amazing writer and no-nonsense guy)
Alexander Russo at This Week in Education (a big gun)
Andrew Rotherham (aka "The Eduwonk" -- and a potential candidate for the Secretary of Education post in the future)
Ms. Cornelius and TMAO, two teacher-bloggers recognized by Jay Mathews (the Washington Post's education guru) as among the best in the blogosphere. Both have brought tears and goosebumps with their postings
Joanne Jacobs, a fantastic journalist who's chronicled the journey of struggling schools trying to go from bad to great
The anonymous Education Wonks, the grand-poobah of the weekly Carnival of Education
Ryan Boots, the smart, thoughtful writer and editor at Edspresso.com
The team of writers at Kitchen Table Math -- the site that inspired me to dive into the world of blogging.

If you have a child at the Jakarta International School, I encourage you to review the new online curriculum pages available through the JIS ParentNet. The school has worked hard to get this information on the internet, and it's worth your effort to take advantage of its work by learning what your children are studying.

If you're from (or will be moving to) the United States, you can compare the JIS curriculum standards and benchmarks to those being used in your state. You'll find a complete listing of state standards at this website. It can be an eye-openning experience to see what your kids' friends back in the States are learning. (But remember, not all standards are created equal. The Fordham Foundation analyzed standards from all 50 states, and named only three as outstanding. I use those states -- California, Maryland, and Indiana -- as my gold standard.)

So thanks again for your support and kind words over the past 10 months. I'll continue to advocate for better education on behalf of all children, and I hope you will too, in your own ways.

As they say in Holland, Tot Ziens....

UPDATE: Shortly after hanging up my blogger hat, the van Tilburg family gave up on the Jakarta International School. We decided to "put our money where our mouth is," and leave a country that we love deeply in search of a stronger educational experience for our two children.

We moved to Singapore so that our kids could attend the Singapore American School. SAS is not perfect (no school is!), but it's been a good move for the kids. We're very cognizant that our decision to move isn't an option for very many expats. We were very lucky. But as I've said innumerable times on this blog -- getting a good education shouldn't come down to luck. It should be something that every family can depend on, no matter where they live.

Holiday hiatus

2006-12-16T10:59:00.000+07:00

As the school year winds down, JIS Topics is going into winter hybernation....

Wishing everyone a healthy, happy and restful holiday break. And hoping for peace on earth, and good will for all.

Great Carnival of Education this week

2006-12-14T19:52:00.000+07:00

Want to read the best of the edu-blog world but don't have time to wade through the masses of postings?

Then check out this week's Carnival of Education, hosted this week by the most-excellent Education Wonks. They do the work, so you don't have to! Lots of good reading, including:

Like the idea of school uniforms? (I do!) Whatever your opinion, you'll wonder about the two New Jersey kids who protested their school's uniform policy by wearing buttons that linked the policy to "Hitler Youth." (from Rhymes with Right)

Bemoaning the lack of penmanship instruction in today's schools, Ken DeRosa of D-Ed Reckoning takes a funny look at one of the more ridiculous programs to teach handwriting. Hide your puppets and play-dough.

What's the message to students when a principal squashes the last bastion of public recognition for academic achievement in high school (the honor roll list printed in the local newspaper)? Joanne Jacobs looks at the situation at one Massachusetts school -- and gets some really interesting comments in return.

There's lots more good stuff on the Carnival midway. Have a look and enjoy!

Edu-news roundup

2006-12-12T21:05:00.000+07:00

The vT's indo-internet went haywire last Wednesday, but that doesn't mean the education world slowed down. Lots of news lately, so here's a quick round-up:

The Washington Post issues a ranking of Washington, D.C.-area public high schools, revealing its annual Challenge Index. The index ranks schools "according to a ratio, devised by [WaPo reporter] Jay Mathews, that is the number of Advanced Placement and/or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2005 divided by the number of graduating seniors." It's controversial. And while you may not care about the specific schools, it is interesting to read about Mathews theory that great schools encourage all students to take AP or IB courses -- not just a select few. (Click here for the full list of US public high schools that rank 100 or better on the Challenge Index. It was updated in October 2006.)

Time magazine wonders "How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century." You have to subscribe to read the whole thing, but CNN.com summarizes it nicely. Via the edublog Assorted Stuff.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released its Condition of Education Report for 2000-2005. This gigantic document is chock-full of info-nuggets, including my favorite: average annual expenditure per student in the United States ($8,700 in 2001). Lots of good stuff....

Alexander Russo (writing in his excellent edublog This Week In Education) flags a recent "New Idea" from the latest New York Times Sunday Magazine that highlights one of the major problems with research in the social sciences -- it never publicizes research of things that don't work. Education research falls into this category...

Does it really make sense to push students to study a second -- or third -- language? Kevin Carey ponders the question at the Quick and the Ed, the edublog from the minds at the Education Sector. It's a matter of prioritizing, Carey concludes. What do you think?

Lastly, for a laugh, check out "Parents of Nasal Learners Demand Odor-Based Curriculum" (as plucked from The Onion, via Instructivist):

COLUMBUS, OH--Backed by olfactory-education experts, parents of nasal learners are demanding that U.S. public schools provide odor-based curricula for their academically struggling children.

"Despite the proliferation of countless scholastic tests intended to identify children with special needs, the challenges facing nasal learners continue to be ignored," said Delia Weber, president of Parents Of Nasal Learners, at the group's annual conference. "Every day, I witness firsthand my son Austin's struggle to succeed in a school environment that recognizes the needs of visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic learners but not him."

Weber said she was at her "wit's end" trying to understand why her son was floundering in school when, in May 1997, another parent referred her to the Nasal Learning Research Institute in Columbus. Tested for odor-based information-acquisition aptitude, Austin scored in the 99th percentile. (Click the link above to read on.)

Commentary impossible....I'm laughing to hard to type further.

John Dewey wonders about calculators, too

2006-12-06T19:57:00.000+07:00

John Dewey, the anonymous ed-school student who's been submitting funny and thought-provoking updates on his experience to Edspresso.com, drops another entry into the edusphere with his latest posting: "Glasnost, Perestroika, and Graphing Calculators."

Our pseudo-Dewey, who's working towards his certification to be a math teacher, reports this month about ways educators may not be so far apart on some of the "math wars" battle grounds. But he also notes that there's still a great gulf between instructional philosophies when it comes to teaching math. (This is probably the reason that the National Council of Teachers of Math -- a.k.a. the NCTM -- and its recently-released "Focal Points" document still receive so much contentious coverage in the media and edusphere.)

And if you found the calculator cartoon funny (or not....), check out Dewey's description of his class' debate on using calculators as part of math instruction. As he points out, we "...are a long way from perestroika." Good stuff.

Trimming math topics to improve student performance

2006-12-06T06:11:00.000+07:00

With some elementary math text books topping 700 pages, and state math standards specifying that students learn and master upwards of 40 topics each year, perhaps it's time to scale back and focus on the math skills that really matter.

That's the thinking behind an article in yesterday's Washington Post, "Local Schools Study Whether Math - Topics = Better Instruction."

Another in a long line of media coverage on a new set of recommendations from the National Council of Teachers of Math (NCTM), this article examines how states -- Virginia and Maryland*, in particular -- are approaching these new guidelines. State math leaders in both states are meeting this week to discuss how the NCTM's "Focal Points" document should impact their math curricula.

Stanford math professor (and huge critic of current math instruction in the United States) R. James Milgram says, "the 41-page report aligns teaching 'with what is being done with unbelievable success' in other countries." According to many prominent mathematicians, that's a good thing, as students in countries such as Singpore and Korea routinely outperform their American counterparts on international math tests.

I'm hoping Ken DeRosa at D-Ed Reckoning and Catherine Johnson at Kitchen Table Math have some insight, as they're way smarter than I am at thinking about teaching math. Sure to be interesting....

*Flashback to Barry Garelick's article, "A Tale of Two Countries -- And One School District," to see how high hopes may not be warranted in Maryland. So much potential for good -- but such weak will to accomplish it.

What makes a great educational leader?

2006-12-05T20:59:00.000+07:00

As the Jakarta International School searches to fill two principal positions (at the high school and one of our two elementary campuses), it's a good time to examine the qualities that make for great leadership in education.

New York Times writer David M. Herszenhorn looks at one example of a school leader who bucks conventional wisdom -- and produces impressive results.

"Kathleen M. Cashin is responsible for some of the roughest territory in the New York City school system — vast stretches of poverty and desolation from Ocean Hill-Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn to Far Rockaway in Queens, all part of Region 5, where she is superintendent. [snip]

Since 2003, her elementary and middle schools have consistently posted the best total gains on annual reading and math tests, outpacing other regions with similar legacies of low achievement. [snip]

'It’s not a job, it’s a lifework,” she often tells her staff. “You are saving children’s lives.'”

While JIS and the hard-knock schools that Cashin oversees may have little in common demographically, it's instructive to read about the approaches Cashin uses to build school success, even for kids who struggle. The secrets to her success?

“"The secret is clear expectations. Everything is spelled out. Nothing is assumed.' She provides her principals, for instance, with a detailed road map of what should be taught in every subject, in every grade, including specific skills of the week in reading and focus on a genre of literature every month."

"Though she uses the citywide math and reading programs in many schools, Dr. Cashin does not believe they are sufficient and customizes them extensively, with an emphasis on writing. She also uses an array of other initiatives of her own choosing or design."

“'You need to expand the knowledge base, expand the vocabulary, expand the experience base, and that only comes with good instruction and a rich curriculum,' [Cashin says]."

“'You have to be kind to people....If people feel they don’t have a voice, they are going to strike back at some point.'”

No magic formula. Just clear goals, high expectations, and hard work. Starting to see a trend? (If not, look here, here, and here.)

How multiculturalism enriches schools

2006-12-04T16:39:00.000+07:00

Sunday's New York Times carried an article that's particularly relevant for a school like JIS, which enjoys several significant national groups among its student body: "Surge in Asian Enrollment Alters Schools," by Winnie Hu.

The upshot: the vast majority of the "altering" is for the better.

"School officials, teachers and parents say the expanding Asian population has strengthened their schools, not only by raising test scores but also by promoting diversity and tolerance," according to Hu. One superintendent notes that "....the impact can be seen in everyday classroom discussions that have grown deeper, richer and more personal as students from other countries share their experiences. “Whether it’s a piece of artwork or a piece of literature,” he said, “you all gain something from seeing it from different perspectives.”

Hu also points out the challenges that can confront schools as their demographics change, particularly when it comes to encouraging different student groups to mix instead of clinging together as separate units:

"To help address such concerns, [one] school’s guidance department sponsors a 'Mix It Up' day every month, when students are required at lunch to sit outside their usual cliques, whether that means Koreans, jocks or neighborhood youths. 'We’re telling them, "These are kids in your grade, get to know them,"' said [the school's] principal."

This is a very interesting article -- definitely worth your time.

Fuzzy math humor -- the calculator

2006-12-03T14:14:00.000+07:00

Well, it would be humorous if it weren't so sad -- and true.

From the Weapons of Math Destruction archives....

This isn't rocket science -- just hard work and smarts

2006-12-02T16:45:00.000+07:00

Proving once again that improving students' academic performance isn't so mysterious, here's an article from the Anchorage Daily News (in Alaska) that examines the factors that have worked dramatically at public schools in that state:

"Goals are clearly defined, and everyone understands how to reach them."
"Tests are used often to measure progress and adjust lessons."
"Teachers expect a lot of students."
"Staff can explain test data to parents [and] use data to teach better."
"Lessons cover material that students are tested on."

There's no magic formula, according to Roger Sampson, Alaska's education chief, who says, "The difference is the incredible leadership, the high expectations, the focus."

Quote of the day

2006-12-02T16:33:00.000+07:00

"All of the things we are doing with our educational system regarding accountability in the US are great. We have put metrics, testing, and assessment systems and structures in place that are making a difference. But, while these things are making a difference, I do not think they go far enough. In a way these things are more inspection oriented versus a means for changing the culture of our educational system. We need to start teaching principles and behaviors for how our administrators, teachers, support staffs, and students can truly act accountably in all that they do. Instilling these key principles and behaviors will change the culture of our educational system and lead to sustainable advantage."

- Richard Cassidy (author), Accountability...A Noun Or A Verb?

Hat tip to the Public Education Network (PEN) Newsblast

"Cool" website for college hunters

2006-12-01T07:27:00.000+07:00

Do you have a student at home who's thinking of attending university in the United States?

If so, here's a website that may provide some assistance: COOL: the College Opportunities Online Locator. (via Wonkette.com, in a funny-but-sad posting on blooper from US Ed Secretary Margaret Spellings, who admitted she had a hard time finding information on universities for her daughter.)

A service of the US Department Education's National Center for Education Statistics, COOL allows students and parents to search for US universities by location, major, and/or type of degree. According to the site, visitors will be able to "see and compare profiles of nearly 7,000 colleges and universities across the nation."

You'll find more resources for college-hunters HERE.

Testing as a tool for learning?

2006-12-01T06:46:00.000+07:00

Here's an article from Scientific American that's sure to depress many students: "Testing Improves Retention -- Even of Material Not on Exam." (via JoanneJacobs.com)

"Teachers who give tests on a daily or weekly basis--often at the expense of their popularity--can take solace in a new study out of Washington University in St. Louis. Researchers found that tests help students remember what they've been taught--including the material that doesn't appear on the exam. The findings appear in the November issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General."

However, not all agree with the study's findings. Michael Anderson, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, "notes that over 80 published articles in the field claim that testing actually harms retention, a phenomenon called 'retrieval-induced forgetting.'"

But the study's authors remain convinced, and conclude that "courses should proceed via 'a study-test-study-test schedule' rather than studying, reviewing and then being tested. 'Restudying a subset of the learned material will not produce enhancement for the remaining material--presumably because restudying is a more passive learning process than is testing,'" says the lead researcher. (Remember yesterday's discussion of Finland's education success? Teachers there use monthly testing.)

Food for thought....

Finland's education system held up as exemplary

2006-11-30T07:17:00.000+07:00

Finland is home to reindeers, great rally and Formula I drivers (Mika Hakinen, Kimi Raikonen, Ari Vatanen, and Marcus Gronholm), and the improbable winners of 2006's Eurovision Song Contest, Lordi (this is a must-click link if you need a laugh).

But there's much more to Finland, especially if you're talking about education. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Finland's education system is amongst the best -- if not the best -- in the world. The nordic nation's success is explored in Sunday's Arab News (via ASCD Smart Brief).

The secret to Finland's success (which includes fantastic test scores in math, science and reading literacy) can be linked to these factors, according to the article:

An historic emphasis on education ("...it goes back to 18th Century when the Lutheran bishops wouldn’t allow anyone to marry unless they could read the Bible.")

An egalitarian system that offers educational opportunity to all students ("...for the last thirty-five years the schools have been open to all, free and unstreamed.)

A system of regular, systematic student assessment "by a mixture of monthly tests and teacher evaluations."

Highly qualified -- and respected -- teachers. "No teacher can teach at any level without a master’s degree. Once in a job, teachers are encouraged to keep abreast of the academic literature so that educational decisions are based on rational argument, not just everyday intuition. Moreover, they are constantly being sent on courses during their long holidays to upgrade their knowledge and skills."

To me, the egalitarian component of the Finnish system is interesting because it's one of the current hot-button issues in education in the United States. It's hard to find an education school course book (or syllabus) that doesn't include a section on "equity" or "equality in education."

The difference seems to be that while the tendency in the US system is to "teach down" to kids operating at lower levels of achievement by setting low expectations for all students (while emphasising self-esteem), the Finns have high expectations for all students, and work hard to pull the struggling students up. Seems smart. And the results are great.

Of course, Finland is much more homogeneous demographically and economically than the United States. And with fewer than 6 million people, it's surely more managable. But perhaps Finland's success story offers some valuable lessons to all interested in education.

UPDATE: Check out this posting from the smart ladies at Kitchen Table Math, who pick up on a quote from the principal of Finland's top-scoring intermediate school: "The U.S. texts, she said, are much thicker and more cluttered than the ones her students use. 'It’s impossible when you have 1,100 pages of math that you get the message,” she said.'"

They go on to quote William H. Schmidt, an education professor at the University of Michigan, who "...has conducted comparisons of U.S. math curricula and those used by countries that consistently score high on TIMSS. As early as the late 1990s, he characterized U.S. math classes as 'a mile wide and an inch deep' compared with those of the high-scoring, mostly Asian, nations.

'It’s basically, you cover everything, everywhere, because somehow, somebody will learn something somewhere,' Mr. Schmidt told conference-goers.

More recently, his analyses have also shown that the high-performing countries teach math in a sequence that mathematicians see as more coherent, and that may be even more influential in promoting students’ understanding."

Using data for accountability and improved instruction

2006-11-29T06:50:00.000+07:00

Two interesting articles popped up in today's ACSD SmartBrief (click here to sign up):

"Value Added Assesses Students, Schools" (in Monday's Pennsylvania Times Leader), and
"Push for Better Data Quality Paying Off" (from eSchool News Online)

The common thread: using specific data to track individual student performance over time can improve the academic performance of all students -- but that kind of analysis requires an investment in both time and money.

This approach to using student performance data (on things like standardized tests and internal assessments) doesn't come easy, and schools have made mistakes along the way. For example, teachers objected to one district's assessment plan because it tested students in February or March, but didn't share the student data with teachers until the following September -- when the students had moved on to the next grade. So much for timeliness.

But a carefully planned and executed data analysis program can work wonders for schools and their students, according to an article in the latest issue of Education Next (a publication of Stanford University's Hoover Institution). It looks at the efforts of three schools that have dived head first into the "brave new world of data-informed instruction" and seen positive results in terms of teaching and student performance.

Maybe small class sizes aren't the magic bullet

2006-11-28T21:49:00.000+07:00

Conventional wisdom holds that smaller class sizes will yield higher academic performance. But is that CW based on reality?

Recent studies in Chicago's public schools seem to indicate that maybe size doesn't matter, even though the idea that "small is beautiful" is so intuitively appealing. The Chicago Sun-Times asks "Honey, Should We Shrink the Kids'Classrooms?", and then follows up with "Schools are Top Scorers But Have Jammed Classes." (via Edspresso.com, JoanneJacobs.com and the Instructivist)

"The 25 highest-scoring schools in CPS [Chicago Public Schools] average roughly seven more kids in their primary classrooms than the 25 highest-scoring suburban schools, or about 27 kids vs. 20, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of state public school data indicates.
That's seven more kids in a CPS room just as children are learning everything from how to read to how to sit quietly at a desk and do classwork. Compared with the statewide primary average, it's roughly six more kids."

It's probably not as simple as pegging our hopes for increased performance on a classroom size number. Teacher quality, the school climate and culture, parental involvement -- all of these factors can improve academic performance. But its just so easy sounding....

Article on Singapore Math ready for your reading pleasure

2006-11-27T20:06:00.002+07:00

Just got a note from Barry Garelick, whose article, "Two Countries, One School District," is available now at the Nonpartisan Education Review*. Hurray!

JIS is only an hour away from Singapore, the country that produces the highest scoring math students in the world, according to the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Singapore Math follows the program used to teach these students.

It's interesting (and depressing) to peek inside the debate and decision-making process within a US school district as its schools choose -- and ultimately reject -- the Singapore Math program. If you're confused about the "math wars" and the recent barrage of news coverage on the National Council of Teachers of Math's new math curriculum recommendations, this article is a great explanation of the issues involved, and why they matter to students.

*The Nonpartisan Education Review "provides a forum for those interested in education issues but put off by the education policy groups affiliated with the two major [U.S.] political parties. "

How can schools prove their success?

2006-11-23T20:39:00.000+07:00

Yesterday we looked at the conumdrum of students who pass their classes -- sometimes with flying colors -- yet fail the high-stakes tests established to measure educational success across an entire state. Something's obviously wrong with the situation. Either:

the standardized tests are more rigorous than the state standards,
schools have failed at preparing students to take standardized tests, or
schools are failing to teach the material -- and inflating grades to mask the problem.

This all points out the difficulty communities face when trying to hold schools accountable for student performance. How do you know that the measuring stick you're looking at is accurate?

This matters at a school like JIS because, as it stands, much of the reporting on student performance comes in terms of grades on internal assessments (unit tests, papers -- if your student is lucky enough to write any -- and projects) that make up the students' grades.

Now we can look at IB and AP scores, but those are only relevant for high school students, especially since our population is so transient. (Although wouldn't it be interesting to see an analysis of these scores correlated to the number of years a student has spent at JIS?)

And JIS does participate in the ISA (International School Assessment) for students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. But that test is new, its developer was still in the process last year of tweeking the test's grading rubric, and we don't have much of a track record to go on. (FYI: this is the same test that allowed my 5th grader and his classmates to use a calculator for the math section.)

That leaves the assessments done by individual teachers as the main data source on accountability. Are the results generalizable? Do grades in one classroom mean the same in another? If you spend any time talking with parents about their children's varying experiences in the same grade, it would take a lot of convincing to get them to believe that grades would be enough to hold a school accountable.

Looking at data gathered in the classroom is tough -- both as a measure of accountability, and as a tool to improve instruction. Here's a good article from the latest issue of Education Next (a publication of Stanford University's Hoover Institution) that delves into the complexity of using a variety of data to inform and guide schools' decisions on instruction. In each example, data-driven decision making requires a significant commitment and investment in resources, training, and time.

Sorry to wax on about this subject....it's just been on my mind, and like an unreachable itch in the middle of my back, I can't get rid of it.

If you find this topic at all interesting, please have a look at this website: The Education Commission of the States (ECS) Accountability Site. I'm still wading through it, but I've found the "Accountability Policy Inventory & Analysis Tool" incredibly interesting. It gives specific examples -- bucketloads, in fact -- of the types of data that can demonstrate a school's effectiveness. (To download this Word document, follow the link above, and then click on the tool -- it's on the right side of the page under Highlights.)

A "B" in class, but an "F" on the big test?

2006-11-22T21:42:00.000+07:00

"Sylvia James hardly considers herself clueless in mathematics. After all, she finished sixth grade with a B-plus in the subject and made the Honor Roll, which she saw as a victory in a challenging year of fraction conversion and decimal placement.
But what happened when she took the state math test? She flunked it."

So begins an article, "Those Who Pass Classes But Fail Tests Cry Foul," by Ian Shapira, which appeared in yesterday's Washington Post.

Here's the situation:

Many students in the Washington region [and one assumes other parts of the US as well - ed.] are suffering from academic split personalities. Driven by the federal No Child Left Behind law and tougher state diploma standards, the testing blitz has left these students in a curious limbo: They pass their classes with B's and C's yet fail the state exams.
These cases surface frequently, with one local high school reporting, for example, that a quarter of students in beginning algebra passed the course but failed the state test.

So what's happening in schools that could create a situation where a child can pass the classes, but fail the test developed to determine whether or not students have mastered the material and skills deemed necessary? According to the WaPo:

"Students and teachers offer an array of explanations for why test scores sometimes fail to match up with grades. Some students don't take the exams seriously. Some freeze up. Still others trip over unfamiliar language. And teachers sometimes are not prepped in what the exams cover, especially when the tests are new. Occasionally, some school officials suspect, classes aren't rigorous enough to prepare students adequately."

Ken DeRosa (on a white-hot streak of excellent posts in D-Ed Reckoning) thinks the problem is much larger, and he lets it fly in "You've Been Flim-Flammed:"

"Sylvia dear, I have bad news, you've been lied to. Bamboozled. Your well-meaning teachers are pretending to teach you sixth grade math, but they're not. They're teaching you fourth grade math, maybe even third grade. They're probably not even doing a very good job either. Worse still, they're covering their incompetence by giving you high grades. It's a scam from top to bottom."

Over at the Education Sector's EduWonk.com, Andrew Rotherham also wonders whether the story dug deep enough into the dilemma of passing grades and failing test scores:

"It's a complicated issue and the story doesn't do it justice. Of course there are going to be students who don't test well, that's a pretty minor issue that garners headlines but is dealt with relatively easily in public policy through a meaningful appeals system that takes into account multiple measures. Hardly front page news.

Where Shapira falls down is by not engaging on the larger question about whether teacher grades are the best indicator of student learning. He's got anecdotes, but on this one there is also data. Grades are surely one important indicator, but the best or only one?

The question of grades versus test scores really boils down to that question, what sort of external benchmarks do we want in a public system like ours? Right now, standardized tests, which help provide information...are the worst way to do that, except for all the others.

And Kevin Carey at the Quick and the Ed weighs in:

"The only mystery here is why everyone in the article is being so circumspect about something that should be pretty obvious: states create standardized tests because local schools, when left to their own devices, don't always hold students to high enough academic standards...

...How do we know this? Because every measure of what students who have graduated from public schools actually know and can do shows deep deficiencies. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress only 59% of seventeen year-olds can perform "moderately complex" procedures in math. 40% of all college students are forced to enroll in at least one remedial--that is, high school-level--course. 43% of all adults score at only the "Basic" level or below on a test of literacy. Etc., etc."

What does all of this mean for a school like JIS, which doesn't fall under the provisions NCLB (or any other external accountability framework)?

It means JIS should be especially mindful of the problems both with standardized tests and with internal assessments as methods of measuring its educational program's success. Neither is perfect. But it's very easy to fall into the trap of believing that internal assessments (like the unit tests, papers, and projects that our students produce) are the best measure when we're talking about accountability.

More on the subject tomorrow.....

Interesting take on school choice and accountability

2006-11-21T09:22:00.000+07:00

In today's EduWonk.com, guest blogger Jal Mehta wonders if the school choice debate in the United States is focused on the wrong thing:

"[T]here is another side to the choice debate that is under-appreciated, which is the way that choice can afford greater school-level autonomy by providing an accountability metric that is less centered on tests and more on parents." (emphasis added - ed.)

Now before you log off, dear reader, thinking that that has nothing to do with JIS, consider this: every family with a child at JIS is here by choice. We are, in many ways, like a charter school. JIS isn't beholden to any state or federal bureaucracy. It doesn't have to jump through the hoops required by well-intentioned-but-ponderous regulation like the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. JIS truly is the master of its own destiny. Unlike public schools, JIS (and other schools like it) can accept sole credit for its successes -- and sole blame for any shortcomings.

Mehta explains how the "bottom-up" accountability that exists when parents actively choose (and are partners in) their school is so much more appealing than the top-down accountability of the public, non-choice system:

"If teachers' main complaint is that they are over-regulated from above, then choice can provide an opportunity to establish an educational identity at the school level, as teachers are accountable to parents rather than the state as a whole. It also provides for greater educational pluralism, which should be attractive to students, parents and teachers alike. This is the genius of charters, and it is frustrating that it has not been more widely embraced by exactly the people--teachers, principals, and the unions that represent them--who could benefit from the increased autonomy and discretion it could potentially afford."

Of course Mehta's concept of parents holding their schools accountable assumes several things:

Schools must clearly communicate student performance data on both internal and external assessments to parents -- and the information should include both specific results for the family's child, and aggregate data for individual grades and the school as a whole.

Schools have to give parents comparable data from other "like schools." This is how parents can make judgements on the effectiveness of their school's educational program. Raw data from one school isn't enough; parents need something to help them make relative sense of the numbers.

Schools have to communicate the other ways -- outside of testing -- that it's monitoring its own success. Parents want to understand the bigger picture of the education program, but that understanding won't happen in an information vacuum.

Schools and parents must be true partners in the educational enterprise, not just superficial acquaintances.

JIS is on the road to making "bottom-up" accountability a reality. Let's hope that process grows and flourishes. Here's a golden chestnut article that explains how it might look (from theMarch/April 2002 edition of the Harvard Education Letter): "Accountability-based Reforms Should Lead to Better Teaching and Learning -- Period," by Douglas B. Reeves, chairman and founder of the Center for Performance Assessment and the International Center for Educational Accountability. It's good stuff.

Project learning gone kafluey

2006-11-20T22:29:00.001+07:00

Yesterday our 8th grader cooked our family dinner as part of her health class homework. She planned the menu, shopped, prepared, served and cleaned up. Woo-hoo! Then she had to write about the experience -- using specific content knowledge. It wasn't all touchy-feelie reflecting. Woo-hoo number two! Now there's a school project I can embrace with open arms (and widening belt).

But what happens when school projects go kafluey? As parents, we've probably all seen our fair share of mobiles, dioramas, and other "make happy" work come home. But what pushes parents over the edge? Ken DeRosa at D-Ed Reckoning shares one mom's plea to educators: "Don't Make Me Do School Projects!" (from the Christian Science Monitor).

"Recently, while rummaging through my son's 20-pound backpack, I found a note from the literature teacher: "Class, please sew together a stuffed animal representing a character from the Dr. Dolittle novel we read in class. It doesn't have to be elaborate, simply use any old scraps you have around the house. And, please, whatever you do, DON'T INVOLVE YOUR PARENTS!"
Oh yeah, sure. They always say that. Who, may I ask, is going to drive to the fabric store and run the sewing machine? Who will buy the stuffing, find buttons for the eyes, and sew on the cute whiskers? Certainly not the 9-year-old boy who is busy playing a Star Wars game on the computer.

But wait, it gets worse. Beware the dreaded "group project." Three or four kids clad in old Halloween costumes might reenact the battle of Agincourt for a home video. Or if your child is studying ancient civilizations, you might need to throw together a few Babylonian ziggurats for a backdrop."

The Instructivist digs deeper into the situation to find the educational theories that drive projects in the class. It's a good, thoughtful read.

At the end of the day, I don't mind projects that build understanding of an idea or concept taught in class. Occassionally I've seen students use a project to connect complicated ideas or get hands-on experience with something that isn't so clear when taught as a theory (like the meal project). And reading the pleading mom's "9-year-old boy who is busy playing a Star Wars game on the computer" made me cringe. Yikes.

But I think all educators should question project assignments rigorously before sending them home:

How will the project enhance the students' understanding and learning?
Can you realistically expect students to complete the project with minimal parental input?
Are families likely to have the materials at home?
Is the educational value worth the effort -- or is it just a crayola curriculum experience?

We've lost another giant

2006-11-18T08:59:00.000+07:00

Bo Schembechler, ex-football coach at University of Michigan, has died on the eve of an epic battle between his beloved Wolverines and the Ohio State Buckeyes. A seven-time Big Ten coach of the year and member of the National Football Hall of Fame, Schembechler never had a losing season in his 29 years of coaching. According to Associated Press sports writer Larry Lage,

"In the end, Michigan vs. Ohio State may have been too much for Bo Schembechler's failing heart. The man with half-century-old roots to The Game died at age 77 Friday on the eve of perhaps the biggest matchup in the storied rivalry's history, No 1 vs. No. 2, and his doctor said it might have been because of all the excitement."

Another sad day....

Heartbreak in the 408

2006-11-17T21:32:00.000+07:00

Several years ago the wife of one of our dear friends (and a good friend, herself) died of breast cancer. She was too young, too beautiful, too much the great wife and mother. It was horrifying, and Robert and I promised ourselves that from that moment on, we would concentrate only on what truly mattered. We swore a earnest vow to celebrate all the great things -- both the monumental and the seemingly insignificant -- that life had to offer. No more sweating the small stuff.

In the intervening years, our promise has faded. I've fallen back into old habits of sometimes focusing on the negative things, the little issues that in the big picture won't determine the value or quality of our lives. I lost the perspective sadly brought on by our friend's passing.

But just as I'm fully reverted to old bad habits, I read something that puts life back into perspective. Teacher TMAO, writing in Teaching in the 408 (408 is a school district in California), relates the story of a student facing almost unimaginable suffering after a robbery-turned-stabbing that claimed the life of his father and injured him in ways more than just physical:

"...this high school sophomore who struggled so mightily and tried so hard in your class had his chest ripped up, his liver lacerated, a wound that required 25 metal staples to close, and wiped the kid's short-term memory clean in a flurry of repression, laying there in a hospital bed at the end of the hall, too weak to grip your hand, or the hand of the two other teachers who have come, struggling to speak against the tube down his throat."

This is writing with the power of a defibrillator. It shocked me back into remembering that life is short, the small stuff doesn't really matter, and friends and family are the most important things. Too bad it takes something this sad.

(via JoanneJacobs.com)

Can't get enough math

2006-11-17T07:38:00.002+07:00

My favorite curriculum policy guru, Barry Garelick, just sent me a link to his latest article, "Two Countries, One School District." You may remember his article in Education Next, "Miracle Math," which looked at the Singapore Math program.

Garelick describes his latest article as "an endoscopic look at the colonic decision making process in the education bureaucracy for those who are brave enough to look." It would be hilarious, if it weren't such a sad example of how lame thinking, buck-passing, and lack of follow-through hurts living, breathing students who will have to suffer the effects of subpar math curricula for the rest of their lives. You can't get those elementary years back....

Garelick's new article, which appears in the Nonpartisan Education Review, unravels the complexity of curriculum adoption -- and the pitfalls that face school districts when they forget that teachers are a critical component. It isn't enough simply to select the strongest program; schools need to consider how they will implement the program fully.

The article comes at a time when math is on front burner in education debate, spurred on by the National Council of Teachers of Math's new curriculum guidelines. Here's a sampling of what people are saying about the subject lately:

Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial on the need for "A Firmer Foundation in Math"*
The (Utah) Desseret Morning News article, "State Leaders Support Math Overall for Schools")*
The New York Times piece, "As Math Scores Lag, A New Push for the Basics"

*via edspresso.com

UPDATE (4:40 p.m.): Just received a note from Garelick explaining that he's giving his article a polishing-up, so it won't be available for a bit.... In the meantime, we'll have to wait on pins and needles for the final product. Hurry Barry!

Milton Friedman dies at 94; world loses a visionary

2006-11-17T06:37:00.000+07:00

Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate economist, died yesterday at 94. It's a sad day.

Here's the statement from Gordon St. Angelo, president and CEO of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation:

America has lost a true visionary and advocate for human freedom. And I have lost a great friend.

Milton’s passion for freedom and liberty has influenced more lives than he ever could possibly know. His writings and ideas have transformed the minds of U.S. Presidents, world leaders, entrepreneurs and freshmen economic majors alike. The loss of his passion, incisive mind and dedication to freedom are all national treasures that we mourn for today.

Milton never chose to slow down; even at 94 he kept fighting to bring educational equality to all of America’s children. And it’s this vision, this drive for educational liberty that the Friedman Foundation will continue to bring to families throughout America.

His impact on my life over the last 33 years was significant. His impact on the world was momentous. Without a doubt, few people have done more to advance civil and economic liberties throughout the world during their lifetime than Dr. Milton Friedman.

Via Edspresso.com, a publication of the Alliance for School Choice, which offers its own statement here. The New York Times also looks back at Friedman's work and theories here.

One doesn't have to agree with all of Friedman's ideas to appreciate that he was an intellectual giant and an inspiration to those who want to make the world a better place.

"You can't improve what you don't measure...."

2006-11-16T08:18:00.000+07:00

In one of the most thoughtful postings I've read lately, Brett Pawlowski from the DeHavilland blog asks, "If we can see the problem [in education], why can't we fix it?" (via this week's Carnival of Education, hosted by What It's Like on the Inside).

His focus is on US public schools, but Pawlowski's points are relevant for any school system that's trying to improve:

"We’ve known for some time that there are serious issues in education – NAEP scores for 17-year olds haven’t budged in decades (reading and math), there’s a large disparity in academic achievement between whites and non-Asian minorities, and the dropout rate is unacceptably high. Until NCLB, we were only able to see those problems in the aggregate – national statistics that allowed us to believe our own schools were fine, thankyouverymuch, and it’s the other guy’s school that’s the problem.

Thanks to local accountability provisions with disaggregated data, however, we can now see exactly what’s going on in our own schools, and it turns out that most of us see those national problems reflected in our hometown schools and districts.

By identifying the problems, the thinking goes, we’re supposed to be compelled to address them. But here’s the rub: the people who are running and teaching in all these schools are the same ones being charged with the mission of substantially improving them, and they’re left to their own devices to do so.

I’m not trying to impugn these administrators, principals, and teachers in any way. I believe that, as a rule, educators are passionate and committed people who earnestly want to hand the keys to the kingdom to their kids. They know education is the key to success, and they would like nothing better than to watch their kids leave school with the knowledge, skills, and motivation needed to succeed in life.

But the fact is, they were working really hard before we identified these problems, and there’s no reason to expect that they can materially change course now. Why? Because we’re not giving them the tools they need to succeed.

I’m not talking about new funding here: I’m talking about the knowledge and tools they need to improve instruction in substantive ways. Like proven and replicable models from both inside and outside education. Like real authority over budget, personnel, scheduling, discipline, and curriculum issues. Like access to research, free from agenda, that points to successful practices – and the authority to implement despite ideological opposition (consider the reading wars as an example). Like the intellectual freedom to explore new thinking and ideas that would allow them to question existing practices and try new things.

Instead, we box them in with rules and restrictions that deny them the opportunity to change (i.e., you have to use this curriculum, you can’t hire/fire according to needs, you can’t kick out the kids who don’t want to be there, you can’t pay people different amounts based on scarcity or capability, etc.), and we leave all conventional thinking in place. No models of success; no focus on research; faulty beliefs on effective teaching courtesy of education schools (see here and here); and confinement within the walls of the system, restricting access to new thinking.

So what we end up with is this: do what you’ve been doing, but work harder at it. And since the means and the opportunity to truly change are not available to them, here are the kinds of responses they’re left to choose from:

Kill the messenger – question the value or validity of the assessments
Cheat on the assessments
Lower the bar (usually done at the state level with easier assessments or lower standards)
Call for more resources – money, volunteers, etc.
Spend more time - double reading/math classes, start clubs, hold study sessions – using the same faulty materials
Reform around the edges, such as professional development that reinforces existing thinking
Hold pep rallies (yes, this really happens)

And when none of this works over the course of a few years, the state moves in – and, since the folks from the state don’t have the tools mentioned above either, they shift staff, make some cosmetic changes (like converting to a charter school with no attendant changes), and restart the AYP clock.

Want to change this cycle? It all comes down to a stunningly simple idea: If what you’re doing isn’t working, you need to change what you’re doing.

Eduwonk follows up with this:

Everyone likes to say that we know what works, money, class size, choice, private management, etc...but that's BS. "Turn-arounds" are complicated and hit or miss and that's not all that surprising, it's a human endeavor.

A lot of people do claim to have the answers, acting mostly on beliefs rather than data. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We do have some reliable data now on effective instruction, and in areas where we don’t, we can start to gather it by trying some truly different things and doing rigorous and objective evaluations to see what happens. But it’s going to take fresh thinking, the freedom to act in new ways, and new blood from outside the industry, and it doesn’t matter whether that work happens in public schools, charters, or private schools as long as it happens and can be shared across the industry.

It’s true that you can’t improve what you don’t measure, which is the thinking behind NCLB. But it’s also true that you can’t improve on what’s not working by doing more of the same. We need to give our schools new options, new models, and new voices at the table – and we need to do it now."

Nicely said.

How'd the US end up with so much testing?

2006-11-15T22:47:00.000+07:00

Jay Mathews, the education writer at the Washington Post, takes readers through a historical journey of testing, from Socrates to No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Some of it's nostalgic, some is disturbing. And at this point in history, all of it is controversial.

On one hand, there's the belief that too much testing stiffles the child, narrows the curriculum, and draws focus away from spending increased resources on improving teaching.

The other side says it doesn't make much sense to throw money at what isn't working -- especially if you don't know why the system's broken. And without testing, where's the accountability? How do schools (and those who pay the bills) ever know if they're succeeding in educating kids or not without some form of measurement?

Check out the article for yourself. And then have a look at Diane Ravitch's review of testing (she's a giant in the education world, and one of Mathew's sources for this story). She wrote this analysis, "A Brief History of Testing and Accountability," for the fall 2002 issue of the Hoover Digest. According to Ravitch,

"American education, in the near term at least, will therefore continue to be driven by the two paradigms: the professional education paradigm, which deeply believes that the profession should be insulated from public pressure for accountability and which is deeply suspicious of the intervention of policymakers, and the policymaker paradigm, which insists that the public school system be subject to incentives and sanctions based on its performance. How this conflict is resolved will determine the future of American education."

UPDATE: Andrew Rotherham, a big-wig blogger over at Eduwonk.com, digs deeper into the recent avalanche of stories on testing and accountability. Is testing alone the answer to creating more successful schools -- and students? No, according to Rotherham. "So sure, better assessments and curriculum are a must if we want to see real gains in student learning, but frankly so are better teachers and better teaching. But as Kati Haycock has pointed out (pdf), the latter is awfully hard to talk about. And the former is a more convenient villain." Lots of good links.

John Dewey alive and kicking in education school

2006-11-15T22:17:00.000+07:00

You might be unaware of the battle royale that's waged in the education world between "Constructivists" and "Instructivists" for years, but you still can enjoy some great writing from an anonymous education school student -- working under the nom de plume John Dewey.

He's penned seven missives to date -- all available for your reading pleasure over at Edspresso.com. He's laugh-out-loud funny, but somehow a little melancholy at the same time.

So if you want a candid peak inside the hallowed halls of "teacher school" -- or if you've traipsed those halls yourself -- check it out.

More US states consider revamping math standards

2006-11-14T21:05:00.000+07:00

The New York Times has an interesting story today that follows up on a decision by the National Council of Teachers of Math (NCTM) to release a set of new curricular guidelines for educators.

What's the fuss? “There’s increasing understanding that the math situation in the United States is a complete disaster,” according to R. James Milgram, a math professor at Stanford University. "The whole country has been in denial about mathematics, and now we’re sort of at a second Sputnik moment,” adds Washington state’s superintendent of public instruction, Terry Bergeson.

And states aren't just standing around wringing their hands while watching their students pour into Kumon classes. They're taking a look at states with strong math standards -- and expanding their search for ideas to countries like Singapore and South Korea.

UPDATE: "Donald and Antonia Chacon-Taylor, ages 10 and 9, may not be representative children for a story about math in public schools. Mom has a Ph.D. in physics. Dad has a Ph.D. in chemistry...." -- and neither believes their kids' school's Connected Math curriculum includes enough actual math. Read about what they're doing about it here (via the great education blog, Edspresso.com).

What's coming down the track in English

2006-11-14T19:48:00.000+07:00

So just what is coming down the track for middle school students when they hit English literature in a US high school? asks one of my friends today..... This was in response to yesterday's posting which bemoaned the anemic English/language arts curriculum at our daughter's middle school.

Fair question. I answered by giving a run-down of the reading, writing, and other activities that happen in 9th grade at New Trier high school. I actually taught this curriculum up until two years ago, when we moved to Indonesia:

Students began the year having read The Hobbit as a summer assignment; that way we could hit the ground running with discussion and classwork on the Joseph Campbell's hero cycle and archetypes in literature. Upper level students (New Trier tracks students in each grade into four ability-based levels) went on to read and study the following in my class (not as outside reading -- although students were required to read four books outside of class as well):

Gilgamesh
Siddhartha
Tuesdays With Morrie
Romeo and Juliet
The Odyssey (Fitzgerald or Fagels translation, and all 560 (or so) pages of it -- not just excerpts)
The Iliad and other selections from Greek mythology from Edith Hamilton's Mythology
Selections from various world mythologies
A collection of short stories
Selections from the world of poetry
(and a few brave colleagues added A Midsummer Night's Dream to the syllabus -- but I wimped out. It was just one too many.)

Lower level students read the same -- minus Gilamesh and Siddhartha -- but added Up Country. Each student purchased his or her own copy of the books, and therefore could learn to annotate properly by writing in the margins and highlighting key passages.

At the same time, students were busy writing about the literature they read, cranking out at least one major expository paper per quarter, in addition to the journal writing, homework assignments, and other miscellaneous writing opportunities that popped up each week. Students also created their own websites and technology-based projects, studied and practiced oral presentation, and learned about -- and facilitated -- Great Books discussions on the literature they read. (There's more, but even I'm starting to find this tedious.)

Are those expectations high? Did the students work their rear-ends off? Was the amount of grading hellish? Were the results astonishing? Yes to all four.

Would my daughter and the other kids in her 8th grade class be able to handle this load next year? Now that's a harder question.....

Back to blogging

2006-11-13T22:12:00.000+07:00

Finally back in the saddle after a nearly-two-week hiatus from blogging. Robert and I returned to the States for our 20-year reunion from graduate school. It was weird and wacky and head-spinningly wonderful. But all the soft-focus reminiscing and revelry made me fuzzy and vague when I returned. My edge was gone, for a minute --

[Section removed at the request of the Jakarta International School.]

This is a middle school English curriculum that I don't understand. That's not good for any parent -- but it's especially bad news for a parent who, before moving to Indonesia two years ago, taught 9th grade English literature at a large high school outside of Chicago. I know all too well what's coming down the track, and it looks like a train-wreck.

Luckily, my daughter reads voraciously on her own, loves to write because she thinks it's fun and challenging, and probably will survive any curriculum thrown her way. But I worry about the other kids -- both the ones who struggle, as well as the really gifted kids who languish. What happens to them?

So I'm getting back on the blog-horse. JIS' work to put the curriculum online is a good step, and I'm optimistic about the efforts and focus of our new adminstration. I think the school is making some great steps. But I'm wondering if we can't do more for the students right now. We don't have another year to wait for huge curricular holes to be plugged. Dialogue is good, and I'd love for someone to explain to me why I've got it all wrong. But until that day comes, I'll keep blogging away.

Grammar grows on educators

2006-10-31T08:30:00.000+07:00

Do phrases like "dangling modifier" and "split infinitive" give you the heeby-jeebies? Do you break into a cold sweat just thinking about sentence diagramming?

While anyone over 40 (or all those who've studied a foreign language) may remember the blood, sweat, and tears involved with learning grammar, chances are, your children would stare blankly if you asked them to define a compound sentence or dependent clause. And that's not a good thing, according to a growing group of educators who are reintroducing grammar instruction into their practice.

Washington Post writer Daniel de Vise explores this trend in last week's article, "Clauses and Commas Make A Comeback" (via the Education Gadfly), noting that even the US National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) "has quietly reversed its long opposition to grammar drills, which the group had condemned in 1985 as 'a deterrent to the improvement of students' speaking and writing....A 2002 council publication reasserted the importance of 'knowing about grammar' and encouraged teachers to 'experiment with different approaches,' including traditional drills and diagrams."

De Vise notes that "Grammar lessons vanished from public schools in the 1970s, supplanted by a more holistic view of English instruction. A generation of teachers and students learned grammar through the act of writing, not in isolated drills and diagrams."

Apparently, that approach hasn't worked very well, judging by the record-high number of college students enrolled in remedial English classes and plummeting scores on the verbal section of the SAT. In fact, the situation is so dire that the College Board, creator of the SAT, added a third section to the test: "The new section introduced a long-form essay and -- less publicized -- a series of multiple-choice responses that test how well students can assemble and disassemble sentences." Ought-oh!

Tonight I'm going to ask my eighth-grade daughter a few grammar questions. Then I'm going to show her this very cool website on sentence diagramming, which includes a great PowerPoint presentation that shows how it works. Gertrude Stein said it best: "I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." Woo-hoo!

Australia considers a national curriculum

2006-10-30T20:42:00.000+07:00

Like many nations currently struggling to improve their public education systems, Australia currently is toying with the idea of designing and implementing a national curriculum for all its public schools. So explains guest writer Jennifer Buckingham, a research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, writing for the US edublog Edspresso.

Buckingham describes the political -- and educational -- ramifications of such a bold move, and explores other options policy makers in Australia are bouncing around. According to Buckingham, the idea of one curriculum for all has proverbial legs:

"A recent poll revealed that 69 per cent of Australians are in favour of a national curriculum. University academics have also been confirming what parents and employers have long suspected – that there has been a significant decline in standards and therefore in the abilities of high school graduates. It is not just English and history that have been hijacked by agenda-driven curriculum development. Serious problems have been identified with maths, the sciences and even geography."

Australia's goals mirror those of any nation -- or school district -- interested in providing their children with a great education: maximize the quality and rigor of the academic curriculum and minimize the game-playing (and political bias) that often sabotages a thoughtful plan.

Bali bound....

2006-10-23T12:43:00.000+07:00

The vTs head to Bali* today for a few days of R&R, so posting will be light this week. Thanks so much for checking into JIS Topics, and Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri!

*One of the perks of living in Jakarta -- Bali's just an hour and a half away. Sweet!

Blogging students get real-world writing experience

2006-10-23T12:24:00.000+07:00

Having tried this blogging thing for seven months now, I can vouch for the medium's "authenticity." You write for real people -- people who give you real, nearly instantaneous feedback. Does this kind of authenticity make blogging a platform teachers should consider for their students?

Definitely, says Andy Carvin, host of PBS' "Learning Now" blog, in his article "Connect the Dots: Student Blogs and the Nobel Peace Prize."

According to Carvin, blogging

"... helps students feel a stronger sense of ownership over their words, their ideas and their ability to convey them. When students are merely writing an essay for a teacher, it’s often likely that the end result, if they’re lucky, will be a place on the refrigerator for that essay, next to the coupons and pictures of last summer’s trip to the Wisconsin Dells. But educators ... who have pioneered ideas around student-generated journals, websites and blogs have understood all along that the act of publishing student work in a public setting changes the rule of the game. When students publish on a blog or another online tool, they’re opening themselves up to critique, criticism and scrutiny. They must be prepared to defend their choice of words, their arguments, their perspectives. And they’re not just writing for an audience - they’re writing for a community of lifelong learners who are eager to engage them, helping them improve their writing and their critical thinking skills along the way."

Couldn't say it any better. Check out Carvin's piece, and his link to a Seattle Times article on innovative teachers using blogs in their classrooms, including pioneers Mark Ahlness and David Warlick, who've been blogging with their students for years. The article includes links to blog hosting services designed for educational application.

Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP)

2006-10-21T09:35:00.000+07:00

Want to be inspired? Check out these two segments of a CBS "60 Minutes" story on the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), an amazing school concept started by two young teachers back in the '90s. Here's Part I, and this is Part II. (Via Eduwonk.com)

Their theory -- education isn't rocket science; it's hard work -- seems to be paying off in some of the most inhospitable school districts in the United States. Students slug through 10-hour school days, parents play a critical role in keeping their kids on track, and teachers agree to be contactable 24/7. The funny thing is, everyone seems to love it.

Everyone....including founders of the Gap clothing stores, Don and Dorris Fisher, who pledged $15 million to help replicate the KIPP concept in more school districts.

So check it out this weekend (while your Jakarta internet connection isn't totally pathetic).

UPDATE: While the educational approaches of KIPP are really promising, sometimes politics -- led by those who want to maintain the status quo -- can get in the way. Have a look at the Washington Post's Jay Matthews' take on the political wrangling that threatened to shutter a KIPP program in Oklahoma.

Teacher evaluation proposal causes upset in Korea

2006-10-21T08:42:00.000+07:00

Teacher evaluation is always a touchy subject, regardless of the country. Everyone agrees that teacher quality affects student learning, but how do you measure teacher performance in a meaningful and fair way?

Policymakers in South Korea think they've come up with a solution, but teachers there are crying foul, according to an article in yesterday's Korea Times. Here's what the government is proposing:

The system would allow students and parents to join the evaluation process. Under the new scheme, teachers would be asked to evaluate other teachers' performances based on educational curricula, class preparation and contents. Students would respond to a survey to measure their satisfaction with their teachers, and then parents would evaluate their children's satisfaction levels. The evaluations would take place every three years.

But the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers' Union (KTU) says the new evaluation program "will destroy personal relationships between students and teachers and cause confusion." And they're serious -- the KTU "said that if the government introduces the system, its 80,000 members will stage a massive demonstration on Nov. 20."

So how should schools evaluate the quality of its teachers? There are a boat-load of philosophies and methods -- and an equivalent number of opposing views. Great schools have to wrestle with the issue while keeping an eye on the prize: a high quality education for all students. It's a tough issue, but one worth addressing.

Sorting through research on education

2006-10-20T07:36:00.000+07:00

One of education's Achilles heels has been the underwhelming research upon which many practices and policies are based. Here's what education writer Alexander Russo has to say on the subject (from This Week in Education):

Fair or not, education research isn't held in very high esteem.

There are several reasons for this, of course. It lacks any truly prominent peer reviewed journals (like medical research's New England Journal of Medicine or JAMA). It's produced by a broad range of academic disciplines (economics and poly sci seem to be in vogue right now), as well as by an increasing number of think tanks and advocacy groups. There's little or no agreement on proper research methods. And it often seems obscure or irrelevant in terms of topic or sample size. It's settled very few debates.

In an attempt to help educators sort through existing education research, Johns Hopkins University has unveiled a new service: the Best Evidence Encyclopedia (or BEE), dubbed "the center for data-driven reform in education."

BEE looks at research on several hot topics in education -- from elementary math curricula to reading for English language learners -- and then assigns a Consumer Reports-like rating on the validity of the research on various programs. It also includes full-text reviews on each topic.

So the education world can add another arrow to its quiver of decision-making tools. (There's also another website that wades through edu-research: the What Works Clearinghouse, "established in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences to provide educators, policymakers, researchers, and the public with a central and trusted source of scientific evidence of what works in education.")

Happy mathematicians = lower achievement

2006-10-19T09:14:00.000+07:00

From Tuesday's USA Today:

All you need is love ... unless you're doing algebra. Then you need to work it on out.

That's the take-away message from a new study with an unusual finding: The more kids like math and say they do well in it, the less likely they are to do well. (emphasis added)

The study, being released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, finds the starkest difference among eighth-graders around the world who were asked if they enjoy math.

The 10 "happiest" nations all performed below the international average. The 10 "unhappiest" all scored above average, including Sweden, England, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the Netherlands.

U.S. eighth-graders fell somewhere in the middle and followed the same pattern. They were slightly unhappier in math than the average 13-year-old, but they performed a bit better than average.

The happiness factor plays a minimal role in math achievement for millions of children, says study author Tom Loveless, who calls the difference in scores "huge" between the happiest and unhappiest nations.

The data suggest simply making math relevant and enjoyable isn't enough, he says. "If we want the United States to be high-achieving and among the world's best nations, obviously we have to do something beyond that."

The findings come as educators fret about math and science skills and five weeks after the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics urged elementary and middle schools to take a more back-to-basics approach.

Such changes have been long sought by traditionalists but criticized by those who say kids must learn creative problem-solving as well as nuts-and-bolts arithmetic, algebra and calculus.

Click here to read the full Brookings Institution / Brown Center on Education Policy report (pdf document).

For schools like JIS, which are in the process of evaluating elementary math curricula, this research may provide guidance on the question of whether "student happiness" should be considered as an important factor in the decision-making process. Based on this report, the answer seems to be a qualified no.

But it's a complicated issue. Here's some of the analysis that's begun to flow in on this counter-intuitive report:

Jay Matthews at the Washington Post
Associated Press education writer Ben Feller
Edublogger Joanne Jacobs

UPDATE: Jay Matthews takes a deeper look at Lovelace's analysis in this Oct. 24 article in the Washington Post.

Cheating to make the grade

2006-10-18T07:15:00.000+07:00

There are good ways for students to strive for that "A" in school, and then there's a darker path...

"Around 60% of American high school students cheated on a test," according to a 2006 survey of 36,122 students released by the Josephson Institute, a US-based partnership of 700 educational and youth groups trying to improve teen ethics. (Reported by Bloomberg.com, via the ASCD Smartbrief -- click here to subscribe).

The same study, ironically, found that "Ninety-two percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 74% agreed with the statement, 'When it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.'"

This study confirms previous research on student cheating, including a 2005 survey of 18,000 students by Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe, which found that "More than 70 percent of students admitted to cheating at least once on a test and more than 60 percent admitted to plagiarism."

The internet -- and a cloudy understanding of ownership -- seems to drive much of the cheating, according to McCabe. "A number of students have a very different definition of when borrowing something from the Internet rises to the level of cheating than their teachers or school do."

As a teacher, I've seen every trick in the book from students. My personal favorite: A student who turned in an essay copied word-for-word from an internet site on Greek mythology. When confronted, he insisted -- in the face of a mountain of evidence -- that he hadn't cheated. After a few minutes of probing, he admitted, "I didn't even write the paper. My mom did." A phone call confirmed it. The mother claimed not to know that copying someone else's writing from the internet constituted cheating. Aye carumba. Where to begin?

Let's switch gears to math

2006-10-17T14:26:00.000+07:00

JIS Topics has focused lately on reading and writing in curriculum, but what about the third "R"? (that's 'rithmetic, to those from outside the US.) What choices do schools make when it comes to deciding how to teach math, and how do they make them?

Education expert Barry Garelick walks us through the thought process in his excellent article, "A Textbook Case of Textbook Adoption" (via the edublog JoanneJacobs.com). Garelick is an analyst for the US federal government and a national advisor to NYC HOLD, an education advocacy organization that addresses mathematics education in schools throughout the United States.

In his article, Garelick examines how the Washington, D.C., school board decided to adopt the Everyday Math curriculum "despite considerable opposition." According to Garelick, the board used several dubious tactics to shoot down opponents of Everyday Math (a program that many mathematicians, educators and parents say falls into a a category called "fuzzy math").

Garelick also provides some valuable history on the so-called "math wars," describing the relationship between the National Council of Teachers of Math (NCTM) and the Everyday Math curriculum. (You'll remember it's the NCTM that came out with new curriculum guidelines last month, but since has danced around the issue rather inelegantly.)

I've heard that JIS is now having a look at the math program it uses at the elementary level, so this article might be particularly timely as the school tries to unravel the facts and opinions on the various math programs available, such as Everyday Math, Singapore Math, Saxon Math, and a myriad of others.

I don't know what program JIS currently uses, but I did spy a set of Everyday Math workbooks on the shelves in my 5th grade son's classroom the other day while I was volunteering. (Although interestingly, my job that day was to drill students on multiplication and division facts -- something that definitely wouldn't normally happen in the fuzzy world of Everyday Math.)

Anyway, it's a wonky read, but worth it, especially for anyone in the position of setting curriculum policy on math.

UPDATE (9:25 p.m.): JoanneJacobs adds more fuel to the fire with a New York Post guest editorial on "fuzzy math" -- this time from the trenches of the Big Apple:

"In New York City, the program required in the vast majority of schools is called Everyday Mathematics. Chancellor Joel Klein swears by it. If you ask administrators to explain it, they'll use just enough jargon to make it sound decent.
But the truth is, Everyday Math systematically downplays addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, which everyone knows are the foundations for all higher math. Instead of learning those basic four operations like the backs of their hands, students are asked to choose from an array of alternative methods, such as an ancient Egyptian method for multiplication. Long division is especially frowned upon.
There are no textbooks; that would just be too traditional. Instead, the idea is that kids ought to sit in groups, while a "facilitator" - that's the teacher - helps. And, oh, one more thing: Calculators are introduced in kindergarten."

Yikes.....

UPDATE (10/20/06): Check out this article on a recent presentation by Stanford University professor emeritus of math Jim Milgram, in which he concludes that "The numbers of mathematical concepts American children are expected to learn each year results in shallow understanding of the subject." He proposes dramatically narrowing the scope of math study to "six concepts such as place value and basic number skills, fractions and decimals, functions and equations, and measurement." (Via a great education blog Edspresso.com.)

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: During yesterday's 5th-grade ISA test (that's the International Schools Assessment), my son got to use a calculator for the math section.... Sheesh.

Content really matters -- in writing too

2006-10-16T13:06:00.000+07:00

I'm going to file this one under "I don't make this stuff up."

Here's the plug in the October issue of Educational Leadership (a monthly publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, or ASCD) for an article about putting content back into writing:

Short on facts. Long on touchy-feely. If this characterizes the expository writing that high school students are turning in, what's to happen to them in college?

So wonders Will Fitzhugh, editor and publisher of the Concord Review, who's also founder of the National History Club and the National Writing Board.

According to Fitzhugh,

Some readers may mistakenly assume that writing with content is common in schools. In 2002, the Roper Organization conducted a study...and found that in U.S. public high schools, 81 percent of history teachers never assign a research paper as long as 5,000 words...and 62 percent never assign a 3,000-word nonfiction paper (Center for Survey Research and Analysis, 2002). Although 95 percent of teachers surveyed believed that research papers were “important” or “very important,” most reported that they did not have time to assign and grade them.

Fitzhugh concludes:

In 2005, comedian Stephen Colbert introduced the idea of truthiness into the English language. The term characterizes speech or writing that appears to be accurate and serious but is, in fact, false or comical. In college, I learned that one of the objectives of critical thinking is to help us distinguish appearance from reality. The goal of truthiness is to blur that distinction. On satirical news programs, like The Daily Show, this dubious practice brings the relief of laughter, but on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning—in which students are told that it's OK to make things up and to invent experts and “quote” them—it just brings confusion.

The danger is that practices like these can lead high school students to believe that they don't need to seek information about anything outside of their own feelings and experiences. However, college students are still expected to read nonfiction books, which obviously deal with topics other than their personal lives. Students also have to write research papers in which they must organize their thinking and present material coherently. Too many students are not prepared to do this, and many end up dropping out of college. What a terrible waste of hopes and opportunity.

So what kind of content-driven writing is happening in your child's life? It's a question worth thinking about.

How to ace the toughest classes

2006-10-15T09:36:00.000+07:00

Via the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News' edu-blog Get on the Bus, here's some great advice for students who want to get an "A" in their AP, IB, and honors classes:

Read the textbook, assigned or not. Take thorough notes on reading and lectures, go over them, rewrite/type them if you need more review, and have a highlighter system.

Make flashcards. Even if you don’t use them, writing them out helps a LOT and they’re a quick way to review/test yourself.

Do your homework. And do extra problems/questions, if that helps.

Be engaged in class. Participate in discussions, and try to get yourself interested in what’s going on.

Even if there aren’t discussions in class, discuss things with people. Try classmates, friends, your parents….

Get a tutor if you need one, or ask your teacher for help.

Understand how you’re graded.

Read. Just read a lot in general - this improves your writing SO much. Also, learn to diagram sentences. Even if you have all the facts write, (hopefully) you’re also graded on how you write, so you want to write well.

Aside from the obvious “listen/do your work,” become interested in what you’re learning. Build rapport with your teachers, drink lots of coffee, and create mnemonics for everything. Confidence/outlook definitely plays a huge role…if other people think that you’re smart, you’ll feel the pressure and rise to the occasion, etc.

I'm going to print out this excellent advice, which was sparked by a student question on the website College Confidential, and tape it to the vT family refrigerator.... Common sense, but a great reminder for students. There's no magic here -- just hard work.

Carnival of Education open for business

2006-10-12T22:10:00.000+07:00

The 88th edition of the weekly Carnival of Education is up and running over at The Education Wonks.

Highlights from the midway include:

A look at whether Americans have gone testing-crazy (Going to the Mat)
An examination of one prestigious New York high school's move to eliminate AP classes altogether
A review of Building Blocks, a book by Gene Maeroff, which looks at renewing education's focus on grades K through 3
some very beautiful, touching writing from the minds of teachers.

Check it out -- always worth a read, and a quick way to keep your finger on the pulse of issues in the edusphere.

You can look it up...right?

2006-10-11T07:01:00.000+07:00

An interesting thought emerged during a meeting at school yesterday. A participant suggested that, since the amount of information in the world is growing exponentially, it's not realistic for schools to teach everything. After all, this logic says, you can always look it up.

This philosophy holds that creating an agreed-up body of core knowledge actually limits children's education and does students a disservice. Things like reading lists of great literature are seen as elitist or restrictive. Instead, according this argument, schools need to arm students with skills that will allow them to function in this fast-growing information age.

Well, no one would argue against preparing students to function effectively in a world that's evolving at a dizzying pace. Critical thinking, the ability to synthesize, interpret and analyze, and a true inner love of learning are all incredibly inportant life skills. But can they be learned in isolation?

No way, according to many leading educators, who decry what they see as an education system focused almost entirely on a Bloom's Taxonomy list of skills without any foundation in shared knowledge.

The philosophical leader of this approach is E.D. Hirsch, whose life work has focused on creating a set of "core knowledge" that all educated people should possess. (Granted, his proposed knowledge set is focused on the American student. But while the actual content he suggests wouldn't be appropriate for an international school, the overarching idea of setting a specific body of knowledge for students is appropriate for a school like JIS to consider.)

Hirsch argues that a basic agreement on what students should know at various points in their educational careers is important for several reasons:

Studying carefully selected great literature, art, historical documents, etc., gives students something meaningful to consider as they learn the "higher order thinking skills" that will help them function in our rapidly changing world. We can't separate knowledge from skills, says Hirsch. They're execorably linked.

Knowledge builds on knowledge. (For example, knowing and understanding Greek mythology helps students know and understand Shakespearean drama, which in turn, helps students handle other challenging literature.*)

A foundation of core knowledge levels the playing field, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

(Read more on Hirsch's ideas in his ground-breaking article, "'You Can Always Look It Up'... Or Can You?" which appeared in the Spring 2000 edition of The American Federation of Teachers' American Educator. This article is highly recommended.)

George Will, a Pulitzer Prize winning syndicated columnist, weighs in on the subject in his short piece, "The Demise of Literature." (Apologies for the unconventional link -- I had problems coming up with the original.) He points out that shared reading actually binds people in a common culture.

"Why does content matter?" asks Diane Ravitch, noted educational expert. "Content matters because skills are not enough. Skills are necessary but they are only the beginning of learning. Without skills, one cannot acquire knowledge. Knowledge builds on knowledge."

JIS has the unique opportunity to determine -- as it did when it created the Essential Qualities of a JIS Learner -- the body of knowledge that a great global student should possess at various stages in his educational career. What literature should that global student read? What information about science, history, culture, art, and mathematics should a great global student master? Add this framework to the already strong skills-based curriculum at JIS, and we'd have a cutting-edge approach to fully educating our children.

It would be a difficult, probably contentious project. But just the reasoned process of considering what knowledge is critical in our international setting would make us all smarter as a community.

(*And this isn't just about "dead white men" literature. For example, an understanding of Mitch Albom's 1991 book Tuesdays with Morrie helps students unravel the mystery of Gilgamesh, the oldest epic story on earth. And that, in turn, would let students fully appreciate Episode 102 of Star Trek, The Next Generation. But maybe that's pushing the whole thing too far!)**

**Geeky teacher humor -- I'm a nerd at heart.

More on homework -- is it a good thing?

2006-10-10T07:20:00.000+07:00

The debate over homework rages on this year, according to this article from last Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle. The question: how much homework helps students improve their academic achievement? The answer: no one knows.

"'The preponderance of research clearly shows that homework for elementary students does not make a difference in student achievement. It is hard to believe that a strategy used so extensively has no foundation,' principal David Ackerman of Oak Knoll Elementary in Menlo Park wrote in a letter to parents this autumn as he put the brakes on homework."

Based on that, "a growing minority of educators and researchers are calling for an end to homework as we know it -- and some are out to abolish it altogether," according to Chronicle reporter Vicki Haddock.

Not so fast, counter others in education.

"'Researchers have been far from unanimous in their assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of homework as an instructional technique,' summarized the Journal of Educational Psychology. 'Their assessments ranged from homework having positive effects, no effects, or complex effects to the suggestion that the research was too sparse or poorly conducted' to say."

According to the "most widely regarded analysis of the affect of homework," conducted by Harris Cooper of Duke University, homework yields little value for elementary school students. For high schoolers, more than two hours of homework has no positive affect on achievement.

I'd argue that for our students at JIS, the question isn't so much "how many hours of homework?" -- but "what kind of homework?" It's been our experience that teachers here assign homework prudently: reading each night, math practice to reinforce lessons already learned during the day, and studying for quizzes and tests. But occasionally we see the "macaroni and poster board" project come home. The less of that, the better!

(Click here for a golden chestnut of an op-ed piece on crazy school projects, "'Crayola Curriculum' Takes Over" -- worth a read!)

What literature is good for middle-schoolers?

2006-10-09T19:07:00.000+07:00

If you buy the argument that middle school students should read and study great literature, then what exactly does that look like?

Here are some examples of the suggested reading lists from top-rated US states:

Massachusett's State Framework for English/Language Arts (a pdf document; once it opens, click on Appendix A for suggested authors that reflect a "common literacy and cultural heritage" -- from an American point of view, of course. Appendix B is the author list from "contemporary American literature and world literature.)

Indiana's Reading List for grades 6-8. Also a pdf document.

Granted, both of these resources were created for American middle schools -- not international schools. And both documents contain copious warnings that they are not meant to be used as an all-inclusive list. These lists provide school English departments in those states with ideas and options from which to choose.

But despite those limitations, what these lists both share is a high level of rigor and a sense that a great deal of thought has gone into considering the content children should study at various points in their educational careers.

And if you dig deeper, you'll find that the standards in these two states require that students be taught how to read and analyze this literature. The assumption -- often explicitly stated -- is that teachers will guide students as they study these books, speeches, poems, plays and short stories. This is not a "free reading" list -- although wouldn't it be great if students naturally gravitated toward this type of literature!

Students must learn to construct character analyses, unravel theme, identify the key questions posed by a piece of literature, and discuss the authors' treatments of those questions. They have to understand literary devices and why they work, and how literature builds on itself with allusions, metaphors, and archetypes. And this kind of learning doesn't happen in a vacuum. Students don't magically discover how literary analysis works. Teachers have to teach it.

Other school systems also have created a list of books that they feel are critical to their students' education. (For example, Singapore American School has a "protected book list" for each grade -- I'm trying to get my hands on it now. In the meantime, here's a link to its middle school English curriculum.) Core Knowledge also focuses on the content taught in English (as opposed to a purely skill-driven curriculum).

Having a syllabus for each grade isn't controversial. It's common -- and smart. Coming up with the syllabus can be tricky. But if we ask the question, "What literature does a great global student need to read?" we'll be on our way to an answer that will benefit our children.

Google launches "The Literacy Project"

2006-10-06T08:25:00.000+07:00

Web giant Google launched a website yesterday that aims to bring together people, resources, and research on reading. "The Literacy Project," unveiled in Frankfurt, Germany, this week, is a collaboration between Google, LitCam (a German literacy organization), and UNESCO's Institute for Lifelong Learning. (Read about it in the Boston Globe, via ASCD's SmartBrief).

The website, dubbed "A resource for teachers, literacy organisations and anyone interested in reading and education," features:

A link to Google's Book Search search engine (it's amazing)
"Google Scholar," a search engine for scholarly research on reading and literacy
Google Video, a new service designed to compete with YouTube and other video sites
A map feature to help educators find literacy organizations around the world
A link to Blogger, a web service that helps people create, maintain and search weblogs (like this one)
"Google Groups," billed as a place to " discover forums on literacy projects and ideas, or start your own debate."

While many of these services already existed (Google launched its book search engine back in August, for example), the consolidation in one place may prove handy for educators and scholars trying to expand the breadth and depth of literacy and reading around the world. Check it out!

This week's Edu-Carnivals

2006-10-04T15:55:00.000+07:00

If you're looking for more news from the world of education, check out these two Carnivals now open for business:

The Carnival of Education, hosted this week at Current Events in Education, and
The Carnival of Teaching, assembled by A Blog Around The Clock.

Lots of interesting (and sometimes challenging) thinking from all points in the edusphere. Have a look and see what's happening.

What's school like in ____?

2006-10-04T07:03:00.000+07:00

My understanding of school systems in other countries is, sadly, pretty limited. But you're never too old to learn new things, right? So what's it like to be a student in Bulgaria? If you're curious, check out this article from The Sofia Echo (via the ASCD SmartBrief -- click here to subscribe.) Interesting.

If you ever bump into articles about schools in other countries, would you let me know? I'll post them on JIS Topics. Or better yet, you could write a description yourself for JIS Topics readers. (I'm sure Robert's description of Catholic boarding school in Kenya would be captivating -- especially the part about getting spanked weekly with a golf club.* Ouch!)

The broader our understanding of other educational systems, the better.

*with the handle end of the club, Robert informs me. Double ouch.

UPDATE: Apparently corporal punishment still happens in the United States. Click here for an article in last week's New York Times that describes the practice, which surprisingly is banned in only 28 of the 50 states.

Video madness in Chicago burbs

2006-10-03T21:15:00.000+07:00

Here's a gem that should go down in history as the worst example of employee relations ever:

"A suburban school superintendent says he was only trying to be funny when he took videotaped interviews with his new teachers, spliced in his own gag questions and made the faculty members look like killers, strippers and drug users," according to the Associated Press (via CNN.com).

If you couldn't see the video with your own eyes, you wouldn't believe it (via the edu-blog JoanneJacobs.com).

And as if making the video weren't bad enough, the superintendent posted it on his district's website. His excuse for the project: He "...made the video to boost morale," according to his lawyer. His district's school board meets Tuesday night to discuss how well that worked out.

Can kids have "too much of a good thing" with school activities?

2006-10-01T08:53:00.000+07:00

At a parent coffee morning last month, the school counselors divided us into groups based on our interest in various teen topics, ranging from internet safety to substance abuse. One of the topics that garnered the most interest: helping kids maintain a balanced life.

The overall feeling was that students were being crushed under heavy schedules of academics, sports, clubs, and other activities.

Well, maybe parents can rest easy, based on a yet-to-be-published study by Yale psychologist Joseph Mahoney. In his research, "Organized Activity Participation, Positive Development, and the Over-Scheduling Hypothesis," Mahoney finds that:

"...the more time children spend in organized activities, the better their grades, self-esteem, and relationship with parents and the lower the incidence of substance abuse. Even high school students with more than 20 hours of activities a week don't suffer for it, he says. The study defines organized activities as adult-led and having a purpose. It includes community service and after-school programs, as well as music, religious education, and sports."

"'Based on our data, it's difficult to argue that parents should limit participation,' Mahoney says." (Click here to read an article by Boston Globe reporter Barbara F. Meltz that discusses Mahoney's research. Via the edu-blog JoanneJacobs.com.)

Why content matters -- even in middle school

2006-09-29T16:38:00.000+07:00

Middle schools are, indeed, caught in the middle as far as education goes. It's a tricky time not just for the kids, but also for the educators who work with them. Teenage bodies and brains are changing. Issues of friendship and fitting in grow exponentially in importance. Expectations -- both social and academic -- increase dramatically. It's a tough time for everyone.

Unfortunately, middle school also is a time of decreasing academic performance, as numerous studies have shown. (For a recent look at the so-called "middle-school slump," check out this article from the New York Times, and this one from the Baltimore Sun, which now, sadly, is available only for purchase.)

And if your internet is working at something faster than the speed of slight, have a look at this video from ABC's World News with Charles Gibson, which explores the problems of reading and writing scores that drop precipitously during middle school (link via the Education Wonks).

It all boils down to this: kids in middle school need our best thinking and our best efforts to ensure that they've got a solid foundation for moving on in their educational careers.

What things make a difference in preparing students for high school? The Southern Regional Education Board, a consortium of US schools, districts and states, addressed this question by studying 3,100 students transitioning between 8th and 9th grades. They looked for commonalities between the students who made the transition successfully, and they found three common middle-school experiences linked to success in 9th grade:

"Studying 'something called algebra' in the middle grades;
Reading a great number of books in grade eight; and
Expecting to graduate from college."

(Click here to read the full SREB research brief, Middle Grades to High School: Mending the Weak Link, by Sondra Cooney and Gene Bottoms.)

JIS does really well on two out of the three indicators of 9th grade success. But what about the "reading a great number of books" bullet? In our experience, this hasn't been happening at the school.

How many books is "a great number of books," according to the SREB? The research brief explains that

"SREB's reading goal for middle grade students is at least 25 books per year across the curriculum. Data from High Schools That Work indicate that improved performance in high school English is associated with reading at least 10 books each year."

Now you can argue that 25 books per year is too many, even when spread across all subjects in middle school. But you'd be hard-pressed to argue that three books in three years is sufficient.

So what to do? We'll look at that next.

Language arts content at JIS -- why it matters

2006-09-28T20:34:00.000+07:00

Why does the content taught in the middle school language arts curriculum matter? After all, the program is rich in skills, and there is reading happening, even if it's not in the form of a book.

In my view -- which is that of a high-school English teacher who knows too well what lies ahead for our middle school students going into 9th grade and beyond -- reading great, age-appropriate literature matters because:

if done in conjunction with instruction on close reading and analysis, it helps students prepare for reading more difficult texts latter in their education;

it provides students with the background knowledge and vocabulary they'll need later to handle more advanced texts. In other words, reading builds knowledge that makes it possible to add more complex knowledge;

it gives students something meaty to chew on in their writing and thinking, and actually makes them better writers, themselves (click here to see why); and

it gives students membership in "the club" of shared understanding with other scholars who have also read great books.

But don't believe me. Read about it yourself from the mouths of education experts:

Here's noted educator E.D. Hirsch, Jr., in his excellent article for the American Educator's Spring 2006 issue:

"...knowledge of content and of the vocabulary acquired through learning about content are fundamental to successful reading comprehension; without broad knowledge, children’s reading comprehension will not improve and their scores on reading comprehension tests will not budge upwards either."

And here's Diane Ravitch, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education and current professor of education at New York University, speaking about "Why Content Matters," in a presentation to the Reading Reform Foundation:

"Why does content matter? Content matters because skills are not enough. Skills are necessary but they are only the beginning of learning. Without skills, one cannot acquire knowledge. Knowledge builds on knowledge."

Check out Mortimer Adler, Ph.D., noted philosophy and educational theorist, as he responds to a student's question, "Why should we read great books?":

"People who question or even scorn the study of the past and its works usually assume that the past is entirely different from the present, and that hence we can learn nothing worthwhile from the past. But it is not true that the past is entirely different from the present. We can learn much of value from its similarity and its difference."

Want something more esoteric? Then consider Harold Bloom, the ultimate advocate of reading great literature:

"If you are to really encounter a human otherness which finds an answering chorus in yourself, which can become an answering chorus to your own sense of inward isolation, there truly is no authentic place to turn except to a book."

"Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?"

In books....

UPDATE: Need more reasons to encourage JIS to pump-up the reading program? Have a look at this article from the New York Times, which is a powerful testament to the power of reading great literature.

Language arts content at JIS

2006-09-27T07:22:00.000+07:00

Someone asked me the other day if I thought JIS offered a curriculum rich in content as well as skills.....

Great question -- and one that will be much easier to answer this January when JIS publishes its curriculum on the ParentNet. (This is a really good move on the part of the JIS administration, by the way! I've seen a demonstration of the new curriculum search engine, and it's pretty cool.)

At the moment, my opinions on JIS' curriculum are formed by the information I can gather from the "curriculum binders" in the school libraries, and more importantly, by personal observation. In other words, I look at what my kids bring home from school -- their assignment notebooks, homework, graded tests (although that's another subject altogether), and report cards. That gives me a (imperfect) view of what my children are studying at JIS.

So what do my personal observations tell me about whether JIS offers a content-rich curriculum? Let's look at middle school language arts. In the two years that my daughter's been in the JIS middle school, she's read three novels in language arts class: The Cay, The Giver, and Tomorrow When the War Began.

This year, her 8th-grade language arts class will read no novels. That's right -- zero.

Of course, students are reading something in language arts class. (I'm guessing short stories and poetry.) But only three novels in three years? That can only be described as "content poor."

Next, why does this matter?

Grumpiness the path to enduring intellegence?

2006-09-26T21:04:00.000+07:00

Here's some news that explains a lot: a recent study has concluded "...that upon reaching 60, disagreeable people maintain a higher level of intelligence than more easy-going seniors."

Read all about it in last Sunday's Baltimore Sun (via the nice education blog, Assorted Stuff).

School uniforms: the good, the bad, and the ugly

2006-09-25T19:58:00.000+07:00

Warning to our most excellent readers outside of Jakarta: the following posting is totally local in nature and reflects years of internal wrangling and debate at JIS. Read further at your own peril.

My 8th grader has sworn she'll divorce me as a parent if I go down the path on which I'm about to embark. But I can't help myself -- and she's to poor to realistically consider independence. So here goes nothing....

Anyone thought about uniforms lately? I have, for two reasons.

First, a New York Times article, "Do Clothes Make the Student?" explored the issue earlier this month. The article notes that many public schools are moving to uniforms, despite the dearth of research that supports that shift.

But, the Times asks, does research really matter on the subject of uniforms? Shouldn't schools consider factors that may not be quantifiable throught research?

That brings me to the second reason I've been thinking about uniforms lately: the JIS School Council's "Owner Perception Audit" last year, which revealed a general impression among our school community that JIS lacks a shared sense of culture and values. (Click here for the JIS website, then click "ParentNet" and log on. You'll find the "Owner Perception Audit" report under the "Council" section.)

See where I'm going with this?

Uniforms definitely have downsides (if you'd like a list of the 3,289 reasons uniforms stink, please see my daughter, who will tick them off through gritted teeth). But for a school like JIS, there are upsides that go beyond any potential academic implications.

Uniforms create a sense of community -- everyone belongs to the "team" in a tangible, visible way
Uniforms level the playing field between all economic and social groups
Uniforms take the focus off the external (the dress code, the bling, the style), and put the focus on the internal (the scholar, the artist, the sportsperson), where it belongs in an academic setting
Uniforms make parents' lives easier

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not a blanket-supporter of uniforms. At the school where I used to teach, uniforms would never work. But they weren't necessary either. The student body, while not 100-percent homogenous, did share a relatively common set of values and a feeling of community, sharpened by the years spent together as students.

JIS is different. We're a transient community, with 1/3 of the student body turning over every year. Our students come from a bucket-load of countries -- and from many different traditions. We don't naturally share a culture or values.

In the past, JIS has raised the issue of uniforms by asking parents -- on its bi-annual questionnaire -- whether "uniforms would improve the educational experience" of our children. But maybe that's the wrong question.... Maybe we should be asking, instead, whether uniforms would improve the school climate and culture.

What do you think? Have you been at an international school with student uniforms? Could uniforms be one way to create a sense of shared culture?

Science goes "back to basics" too?

2006-09-23T08:04:00.000+07:00

Apparently not wanting to be left out in the cold on the whole "back to basics" pendulum swing, a group from the US science community came out on Thursday proposing a curriculum shift for elementary students that would focus on fewer topics, but with more depth and connections.

In "Report Calls for Improvement in K-8 Science Education," Washington Post's Valerie Strauss explores recommendations issued by the National Research Council (NRC), which is a part of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. According to the report:

"We are underestimating what young children are capable of as students of science -- the bar is almost always set too low," the report said. "Moreover, the current organization of science curriculum and instruction does not provide the kind of support for science learning that results in deep understanding of scientific ideas and an ability to engage in the practices of science."

So what does the NRC recommend? Strauss explains,

"To provide a more comprehensive science education, the committee on science education said that educators should concentrate on core concepts central to the understanding of science rather than the many strands that now exist in school systems around the country." (emphasis added)

Link science concepts from grade to grade.

Provide teachers with better training, and incorporate new findings on how students learn into the curriculum, "including the notion that children starting school are much more sophisticated, analytical thinkers than has been assumed in the past."

"There are too many ideas in the [science] standards. That just throws a monkey wrench in the system. If we have some core ideas, we can really invest in the system," says Gerald F. Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association.

However, the NRC cautions against focusing exclusively on content, while ignoring the teaching methods that deliver the content. "Teaching content alone is not likely to lead to proficiency in science, nor is engaging in inquiry experiences devoid of science content," the report said. (Think back to E.D. Hirsch and Diane Ravitch's thinking on the importance of content in the curriculum. It's like Marvin Gaye once said: "It takes two, baby")

Does this sound familiar? If you've been following what's happening in education's math-o-sphere right now, it should. (Now we just have to wait and see if the social studies and language arts/English worlds follow suit!)

It will be interesting to look at JIS' science curriculum when it goes online in January. We've got an abundance of science-minded experts in our JIS community -- hopefully the school will reach out to them as resources in its effort to fine-tune the science curriculum.

To read the NRC's full report, "Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8," click here.

UPDATE: If you'd like to see Reuters' take on the report, please click here (via CNN.com).

Even more on math

2006-09-22T08:00:00.000+07:00

Ken de Rosa of the education blog D-Ed Reckoning keeps the heat on the topic of math, honing on on what he calls "another NCTM backpedals story" from the Chicago Tribune (registration required).

As you'll remember, the US-based National Council of Teachers of Math (NCTM) ignited a fire storm of controversy in the math world (that's a hilarious visual image!) by issuing its new guidelines on teaching math to children last week. Those guidelines call for a back-to-basics approach that's a big shift away from the "concept-based" math of the past 17 years.

Lattice multiplication? Russian peasant method? Humbug, says de Rosa. These are all ways to compensate for students' lack of quick recall of their multiplication tables, he says. (My personal favorite: the "finger method" for multiplying by 9s. It's hard to look cool in calculus when you're holding up both hands with digits spread wide....)

Check out de Rosa's argument. He's a great writer (but even a worse speller than me!). What do you think about the "math wars"?

Vindicated! (at least a little...)

2006-09-22T06:45:00.000+07:00

The other night at the dinner table, my family had a discussion about spelling (I know...weird. But it was a refreshing change from the usual sport, auto racing, or bodily-function topics that usually dominate).

"I'm the worst speller in the universe, because I forget how to spell 'orange'," says the 8th grader.

"No, I'm the worst speller in the universe, because I forget how to spell 'were'," I volunteer.

"Noooo, I'm the worst speller in the universe, because I forget how to spell 'of'," pipes in my 5th grader, an outstanding math student, but a struggling reader and writer.

Uproarious laughter ensued -- including from the 5th grader, who has an amazing attitude and unusual insight into his own academic abilities.

But then, we suddenly stopped laughing. "U-V," says the 8th grader. "Uv...." We all nodded our heads in shared understanding. It was a "Eureka!" moment for all of us. Spelling is hard.

And also apparently inherited. Wednesday's The Age (Melbourne, Australia) reports on a study of 650 pairs of twins that found "...the ability to read and spell were about 50 per cent inherited, with a child's upbringing and schooling controlling the other half."

What's even more amazing, according to the study, "was the discovery that the same genes were involved in both activities."

Now wait a minute, you're probably thinking, I'm a great reader, but a terrible speller. If that's you, The Age says you're not alone: "...anecdotal evidence shows many people believe they're good at one but not the other." But apparently your experiences in life (schooling, practice, reading) can help compensate for the genetic weakness.

For some like me, though, practice and experience will never overcome poor spelling. I just have to accept the limitation and find strategies to address the problem. (Although if you read this blog regularly, you'll see that even my best vigilence -- or is it "vigilance'? -- fails me regularly.)

So is the study right? Is bad spelling inherited? What about reading? And is one problem easier to fix than the other? What do you think?

How much time is enough time in class?

2006-09-21T06:40:00.000+07:00

Tuesday's Cincinnati Enquirer explores the subject of hours in class and number of school days in "Schools Taking Longer Look at Extended Classroom Time."

According to the article, "Demands for more tests and more academic rigor are spurring schools to consider something that makes most students shudder: more time in class."

Another potential reason for the increase: US schools currently lag behind many other countries in terms of days of instruction, with an average of about 180 instructional days per year. Other countries such as Australia, Japan, Denmark and the Netherlands hit 200 or more. (JIS is close to the US average, with a total of 176 instructional days on the calendar this year.)

(Click here for UNESCO's most recent report on the statutory number of teaching hours and weeks per year in countries around the world. And here's a Word document from the Education Commission of the States, which lists each state's school-year requirements. If your kids have gone to school in the US, see where your state falls.)

"We're looking around the world and saying: 'Holy smokes!' There's other societies that are much more dedicated to creating knowledgeable workers of the future," said Charlie Kyte, director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators."

The Enquirer article points out that schools are under pressure to up the academic ante, while at the same time they struggle to provide a well-rounded program that includes classes in arts and physical education. Additionally, educators (and parents) are concerned about helping students maintain a healthy, balanced life. It's tough.

I'd argue that what's more important than the number of school days or hours is how those days and hours are spent. Does the way the school day is structured make sense? Are "instructional days" really instructional days that involve actual learning? How much time each day are students actively engaged in a curriculum that is both content- and skill-rich?

It's a sensitive, complicated topic, but one worth examining in depth at any school.

Nurturing strengths; redefining weaknesses

2006-09-20T20:25:00.000+07:00

Mel Levine, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School and the cofounder of All Kinds of Minds, is one of the world's foremost proponents of understanding that children's brains aren't "one size fits all" when it comes to learning. He's written a ton of books (The Myth of Laziness, and A Mind at a Time, for example), developed a boat-load of teacher tools, and heck, he's even appeared on Oprah.

This is all to say that he's a big kahuna in the education world.

So it's big news when he speaks, and his latest utterances come to us via an interview in the September issue of Educational Leadership, a publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

It's worth a read for parents and teachers -- especially if you have a child who sometimes feels like a square peg in a round hole at school.

(Then, to see how others view his theories, take a look at this webpage from the Illinois Loop site. It's pretty harsh. But education history has shown time and again that before you fall hook, line and sinker for the latest edu-theory, consider its possible flaws.)

College hunting -- internet style

2006-09-20T14:51:00.000+07:00

On Monday, we explored MIT's attempts to de-stress-ify the college application and admissions process. But what if your child doesn't know where he or she wants to apply in the first place? How can you find out what options are out there?

For JIS students interested in pursuing higher education in the United States, there are web-based services, including one called "Counselor-O-Matic," that can help students explore options and discover colleges and universities they may never have considered.

According to the New York Times, "Counselor-O-Matic and similar sites are free to students because they are operated by companies that make money from advertising, from fees paid by colleges and from selling the names of prospective students to colleges." But the payoff may be worth exchanging your data. After entering data (GPA, test scores, interests, geographical limitations), the website cranks out a list of potential schools. According to the Times:

With more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States, search engines can help narrow the field by provoking students to think about what factors matter to them. This is particularly useful for students seeking admission to the most selective institutions, because they may apply to a dozen or more.

However, as with any newfangled gadget, you should exercise caution. The Times points out that, "critics say students must realize that search engines are not guidance counselors. They reduce the search to a numbers game and cannot factor in the culture of a campus, the personality of a student, or the more elusive concept of a fit."

But it never hurts to look....

FYI....Counselor-O-Matic requires students to enter a high school name, but "Jakarta International School" and JIS aren't recognized. As a trial, I entered the high school where I taught, New Trier, a highly competitive college prep school of 4,000 students. Does anyone know of another US high school that would be a good approximation of JIS? Also, if anyone has a report on how the whole process works out, please comment and share your experience!

Links to other internet search engines for colleges:

The College Board's Match Maker
Thompson Peterson's College Search
US News and World Report's "Best US Colleges" search tool

If you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry

2006-09-19T22:06:00.000+07:00

Moving from the sublime (math wars, college admissions stress, homework woes...) to the ridiculous, check out this story that stresses the importance of font selection when creating a handout for parents. Too funny!

More on math

2006-09-19T08:24:00.000+07:00

It's been math-o-rama in the edusphere since the US National Council of Teachers of Math's release of its new math curriculum recommendations last week. As predicted, aftershocks have ensued:

The New York Times publishes a really interesting editorial yesterday, "Teaching Math, Singapore Style"

Ken de Rosa at D-Ed Reckoning deconstructs and analyzes that editorial in his typical, pithy style -- worth a read.

Kitchen Table Math points out that while the mind may be willing, the NCTM's heart is weak, noting the NCTM's executive director is already backtracking on the issue. (Click here to hear the podcast of San Francisco Chronicle's Debra J. Saunders describing her brief conversation with the NCTM's director. It's really interesting, but sad too.)

What are the options to "Fuzzy Math"? The programs I've seen floated include Singapore Math (click here for info, and have a look at the placement tests), Saxon Math, and Connecting Math Concepts.

But take all of this with a grain of salt: See the What Works Clearinghouse (a research database sponsored by the US Department of Education's Institute of Educational Sciences) for analyses of several different math programs for elementary and middle schools. The research on all is pretty underwhelming.

Clearly, we're only witnessing the beginning of this debate.

Kinder, gentler college admissions policies?

2006-09-19T07:13:00.000+07:00

Yesterday's CNN.com education site had an interesting article for JIS parents with high school kids: "Taking Aim at Admissions Anxiety."

In the article, MIT's dean of admissions, Marilee Jones, discusses her views on the pressure cooker that faces students applying to top flight universities. (See this previous post on the related issue of AP/IB over-programing.) According to Jones, the anxiety is literally making students sick. She points to "statistics on the increase in ulcers, anxiety disorders and control disorders such as cutting and anorexia."

The CNN.com article explains that,

"For years, high school teachers and counselors have been complaining about the emotional and physical toll of the competition for slots in selective colleges. SAT prep classes and an arms race of extracurricular resume-building, they say, are draining the fun out of life for their students."

Jones agrees, and now she's one of higher education's most vocal proponents of revamping the college admissions process. "Nothing will change unless we get up, look ourselves in the mirror and say, 'I'm responsible,'" Jones told her admissions colleagues. "We have to look ourselves in the eye and say, 'Am I an educator, or am I marketer?'"

The negative effects of all this pressure on students go beyond the physical and emotional, says Jones:

"'You don't see the kind of wild innovation from individuals you used to see,' Jones said over lunch during a recent interview. 'You see a lot of group and team projects overseen by professionals, but you don't see the kind of rogue, interesting stuff that we used to see at MIT.'
MIT faculty told her many students just weren't much fun to teach. The issue of perfectionism had been brought painfully to the fore at MIT by a series of student suicides. Students 'want to do everything right, they want to know exactly what's on the test,' faculty told her. 'They're so afraid of failing or stepping out of line, that they're not really good students.'"

So what's the solution? At MIT, Jones has rewritten the admissions application to make it seem less like a laundry list form for awards, prizes, AP scores, and class rank. And MIT's essays "...asks applicants to write about something they do simply for pleasure...[and] to talk about an experience where they found value in failure or disappointment."

Jones also applauds Harvard's move to drop early admissions, a policy she believes adds to admissions pressure. And she hopes for the day when MIT and other top-flight universities make the SAT optional for applicants.

Will Jones succeed in her quest for kinder, gentler admissions policies? According to CNN.com,

"She probably won't persuade many parents that it really doesn't matter which colleges accept their children. Nor will it be easy getting other colleges to tone down their recruiting. Many struggle simply to fill classrooms and don't have MIT's luxury of limitless talent to pick. And even MIT's highly selective peers care about rankings; in the marketing arms race, they aren't likely to unilaterally disarm."

But at least she's trying....

Update: "Princeton Joins Harvard in Dropping Early Admissions" (from CNN.com, 9/18/06)

Update 2: The Washington Post's Jay Matthews unpacks six compelling reasons for colleges to keep Early Admissions programs (9/19/06)

The middle years and substance abuse

2006-09-18T06:57:00.000+07:00

When I look at my eighth grader sleeping like an angel, its hard to imagine that she's confronted with issues like drugs and alcohol. She looks too young, too composed, too "pulled together." But according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (NCASA), a US-based think tank at Columbia University, my "little girl" is about to enter the most challenging, risky age for teens.

In "At 14 Candles, Kids are Facing a Darker Path," Baltimore Sun columnist Susan Reimer reports that:

Compared with 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds are four times likelier to be offered prescription drugs, three times likelier to be offered Ecstasy, three times likelier to be offered marijuana, and two times likelier to be offered cocaine, according to the group.

One problem, according to NCASA: parents who, like me, can't imagine their kids would do drugs. Our naivete allows kids space to dabble in drugs and alcohol right under our own noses. The evidence: a survey conducted by the NCASA, which yielded some shocking results:

Virtually all parents surveyed (98 percent) say they are present during parties they allow their teens to have at home. But a third of teen partygoers report that parents are rarely or never present at the parties they attend.

Virtually all parents (99 percent) say they would not serve alcohol at their teen's party, but 28 percent of teen partygoers have been at parties where parents were present and teens were drinking alcohol.

So what to do? Reimer offers these suggestions:

The kids will be mortified, but the parents have to be the parents and supervise any gathering at their homes, whether it is an official party or not.

That means greeting everybody at the door and asking for introductions; eyeballing the guests and acting when you sense trouble. Don't be afraid to send someone packing.

It means passing through the room where the kids have gathered every few minutes. Smile cheerfully and offer something to eat, certainly. But never retreat to your bedroom.

I can already envision the eyerolling and moaning that my daughter will produce when I "smile cheerfully" while "passing through the room" every few minutes at her get-togethers. But I'll sweetly remind her that it could be worse: I could perform a rendition of the Chicken Dance for her friends' enjoyment....

News for families from Texas

2006-09-16T17:05:00.000+07:00

Walking around the JIS campuses, it's not unusual to hear a Texas twang -- we have lots of families from the Lone Star state. So here's some news that may affect the education plans for those who may some day return to the land of the Yellow Rose:

The Texas State Board of Education just approved new graduation requirements for next year's freshman class that will require four years of both math and science to graduate with a regular diploma. That's up from three years each.

Read all about it in the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle.

What is Singapore Math?

2006-09-16T08:27:00.000+07:00

Lots of math news lately, which is befuddling for a lowly English major like me. But if you're wondering about Singapore Math, a math-teaching program mentioned on this blog and around the edusphere, read Barry Garelick's description and analysis in the latest issue of Education Next (via JoanneJacobs.com).

Update: Thanks to Barry Garelick for pointing out that Education Next's web address has changed! Click here for the new link directly to his article on Singapore Math.

National standards an issue Down Under

2006-09-15T22:35:00.000+07:00

Americans aren't the only ones wondering if a set of national education standards would help pump-up the volume on a currently-enemic public school system. Our neighbors "Down Under" are tackling the same issue -- and they've come up with a plan, reports Kevin Donnelly (guest-editorializing for the Thomas B. Fordham Institutes' Education Gadfly).

According to Donnelly, Australia is "developing so-called Statements of Learning in key subjects such as mathematics and English that describe 'the essential knowledge, skills, understandings and capacities that all students should have the opportunity to learn' at key stages in schooling (years 3, 5, 7, 9)." (Those are grades 2, 4, 6 and 8 at JIS, if I've got it straight.)

Supporters of the effort point to research that shows a correlation between national standards and higher academic performance. They also highlight the rationality of bringing the (sometimes vastly different) state standards into one consistant national plan (with national testing to back it up). And supporters highlight the benefits of giving teachers "clear, succinct, and easy-to-follow road maps at the start of each year that detail what is to be taught and what students are expected to learn."

But the Statements of Learning fall short, according to Donnelly, for several reasons:

They don't include any specific content information, (yes, we're back to content);
They don't include a way to assess success (yes, we're back to backwards design -- start with an assessment of what you want students to know and do, and then work back to how to get them there); and
They aren't meant to stand alone, but instead to be used as an "overlay" to existing state and territory curriculum standards (now we're talking sheer and utter confussion).

Having perused the Standards of Learning for English, I'd add one more problem to Donnelly's list: they are full of jargon, fluff, and meaningless sentences that any rational person would laugh at. But at least they're honest about it: "It is not the express intent that the document is promoted directly with teachers or the general community." (Whew, that's a relief. We poor dolts would surely couldn't handle all that high-falutin' fancy talk.)

(Click here for the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) webpage on the Statements of Learning; you can download PDFs for its standards covering English, Mathematics, Science, Civics & Citizenship, and Information & Communications Technologies.)

Is lots of AP/IB a bad thing?

2006-09-15T07:35:00.000+07:00

Here's an interesting article from the Washington Post that explores the issue of AP/IB overload in high-performing schools. It's probably worth reading if you have high school student at JIS.

A WaPo reader takes education reporter-extraordinaire Jay Matthews to task for glorifying hellish course loads that include 8 or 9 AP or IB courses in the 11th and 12th grades. And she points another finger of blame at "...high schools and colleges pushing every bright student toward a course load that is 75 to 80 percent AP," saying those educators are:

"...doing many bright students a disservice by pushing AP to such an extreme. These kids would do well in college anyway, and they are sacrificing their childhoods, which are so important, and are taught to obsess over individual achievement at an early age."

Matthews doesn't necessarily disagree with the reader, saying, "I think you are right to be concerned about some students taking more AP or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses than are good for them."

Matthews goes on to explain why too much emphasis on AP/IB -- at the expense of other activities and passions -- can actually make admission to Ivy Leagues and other upper-eschelon universities more difficult. He's interviewed boat-loads of high school counselors and college admissions officers, and he's discovered that:

If an admissions officer has one applicant who has taken nine AP tests and has the usual collection of class offices and clubs and sports teams, and another applicant with three AP scores and a collection of published poetry, the selective college admissions officer -- all other things being equal -- is going to take the poet every time. Interesting and unusual after-school passions are the gold standard of modern college admissions, so loading up too many AP courses can actually hurt you.

That's something to consider as you and your high school student sit down to create an educational plan for those 9th-to-12th-grade years. How many AP/IB classes are enough to demonstrate a solid ability to handle university-level classes, while at the same time allowing a kid to be a kid?

(In a related note, here's the website for the College Board's Advanced Placement International Diploma -- or APID -- program. It's something that JIS offers, in addition to the JIS high school diploma and the IB diploma. The APID requires students to score a 3 or above on at least four AP exams in several different subjects.)

Huge math news rocks edusphere -- It's back to basics!

2006-09-14T19:42:00.000+07:00

The math-curriculum pendulum has just made a mighty swing back to basics, thanks to a new report issued by the US-based National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

The changes the NCTM recommends for the K-12 math curriculum -- its first overhaul of its influential math standards in 17 years --can only be described as seismic. Among its conclusions, according to the New York Times:

At a time when most states call for dozens of math topics to be addressed in each grade, the new report sets forth just three basic skills for each level. In fourth grade, for example, the report recommends that the curriculum should center on the “quick recall” of multiplication and division, the area of two-dimensional shapes and an understanding of decimals.

The report's aftershocks are shaking educational journalism already. Read about the issue (and the potential implications) in these excellent places:

The New York Times "Report Urges Changes in Teaching of Math in US Schools"

Kitchen Table Math's take on the report -- with chunks of a Wall Street Journal article that you can read in full at WSJ-online for a fee. The ladies also include great links on Singapore Math, a program that closely resembles many of the NCTM's new recommendations.

Ken De Rosa's sharp analysis of the news at his blog, D-Ed Reckoning. So hot, it sizzles.

Read the NCTM's full report, "Curriculum Focal Points: A Quest for Coherence." (And no, I didn't add the subtitle....it's honestly the one chosen by the NCTM.)

Educators (and parents) who thought the state of math instruction in the United States was catastrophically flawed are breathing a little easier today. (I'm one of them -- still recovering from the fuzzy, "cutting-edge" discovery math of my sixth-grade experience. Somehow learning to divide using piles of macaroni just doesn't cut it when you reach higher levels of math. Now I pay the price, watching worthlessly while my 8th-grader struggles to master algebra.)

And lest anyone think this is all "just school stuff," check out Bloomberg.com's take on the OECD's annual report this week on education. While it doesn't mention math, specifically, the report concludes that :

The U.S. spent about $12,000 per student, second only to Switzerland among the 30 OECD countries based on 2003 figures....[but] outperformed only five of the 30 countries on an OECD test given to 15-year-olds, ranked 12th in high school completion rates and averaged 23 students per class, higher than the average of 21.

And who can forget the 2003 TIMSS study, which ranked the United States number 12 in 4th-grade math performance, behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and a host of others? A glutton for punishment? Have a look at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) analysis of math achievement in the lower grades:

The study, “Reassessing U.S. International Mathematics Performance: New Findings from the 2003 TIMSS and PISA,” focused on students in the United States and 11 other industrial countries that participated in all three assessments: Australia, Belgium, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the Russian Federation.

U.S. students consistently performed below average, ranking 8th or 9th out of twelve at all three grade levels. These findings suggest that U.S. reform proposals to strengthen mathematics instruction in the upper grades should be expanded to include improving U.S. mathematics instruction beginning in the primary grades. (From the AIR news release on the study.)

The new NCTM math standards can only be good news for students -- and a wake up call for educators.

UPDATE: Here's the feedback on the new NCTM report from Chester Finn, Jr., (the Education Gadfly) and his compatriots at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute:

[W]e salute NCTM's newfound wisdom in this matter. Now, we pray, states (and textbook publishers, test builders, etc.) that slavishly follow NCTM's lead will revise their own standards and instructional materials, thus gradually reintroducing common sense--and math competence--into American schools. (From the Education Gadfly)

UPDATE 2: Joanne Jacobs reports on NCTM's executive director, who claims that the new guidelines don't represent a change in philosophy. A true Kool-Aid moment -- but sadly, probably also a portent of how difficult changing curriculums will be.

Homework brouhaha

2006-09-13T13:51:00.000+07:00

It's an annual rite of fall: the veritable journalistic orgy of discussion over homework. Too much? Too little? Too much busy work? Two recent Washington Post articles highlight the debate on this evergreen topic.

In "As Homework Grows, So Do Arguments Against It," Valerie Strauss takes a look at what the US' best researcher on homework has to say about the current state of homework in K-12 schools. According to Duke University professor Harris Cooper:

Elementary school students get no academic benefit from homework -- except reading and some basic skills practice -- and yet schools require more than ever.
High school students studying until dawn probably are wasting their time because there is no academic benefit after two hours a night; for middle-schoolers, 1 1/2 hours.
And what's perhaps more important... is that most teachers get little or no training on how to create homework assignments that advance learning.

Ah-ha! So those complex projects students bring home to cut, color, paste, and accessorize probably add little value to learning, but add considerable frustration to parents' lives.

Ben Wildafsky opened the whole can of worms with his article, "Busy Work," which examines the claims of two hot books in today's edusphere: The Case Against Homework, and The Homework Myth. Both books posit that today's students are buried under a mountain of homework that is not only of little value, but also is actually causing them physical harm.

But Wildafsky points to research that indicates these claims are overblown. For example, scholar Tom Loveless at the Brookings Institution released a report in 2003 that:

found that even in high school the typical American student spends less than one hour studying per day. While there has been a marked increase in homework among younger students in recent years, the average amounts are still modest -- about two hours per week for kids ages 6 to 8, and under four hours per week for those ages 9 to 12 -- and the rising average is largely driven by a decline in the proportion of kids who had no homework at all. What's more, studying is far outpaced by time playing sports, and is dwarfed by -- surprise -- hours devoted to watching television (13 and a half per week among 9- to 12-year-olds, for example).

It's a subject worth thinking about, no matter which side of the debate you favor.

Content matters

2006-09-13T07:24:00.000+07:00

So what was wrong with my idyllic-sounding 6th grade? After all, it was chock-full of collaberative learning, student-guided curriculum, teachers functioning as "coaches" and "facilitators." And it emphasized creative, "higher-level" thinking! How can that be bad?

It was empty. Sixth-grade students aren't capable of teaching themselves Beowulf. Peer editing of student writing? Same thing -- if students don't understand grammar or the components of an expository essay, then how good can the editing advice be? It's garbage in -- garbage out. Figuring out creative ways to solve math problems is nice, but just try to do long division (or worse yet, algebra) without a firm grasp of multiplication facts. And the projects full of hours spent coloring, cutting, gluing....it's craft class, not education.

So while my sixth grade teachers celebrated our creativity and pumped up our self esteem, they forgot to spend time actually teaching the content that would make us successful later in our academic career. They cheated us out of the hard work that would make accomplishing more difficult, complex work later possible.

I'm not suggesting that collaborative learning, student-directed learning, or coming up with creative ways to engage students as learners are bad. They're critical -- when used wisely and judiciously. These progressive teaching methods must be paired with a strong, rigorous curriculum that includes specific content.

Seems like common sense, but remember the Fordham report last month that gave US state standards an average grade of C-? States received poor grades because, in part, they ignored the issue of content.

But don't believe me... Read education expert Diane Ravitch's excellent speech, "Why Content Matters." It's long, but for anyone interested in understanding the ins-and-outs of curriculum design and instructional design, its worth the effort. And then backtrack to E.D. Hirsch's thinking on the importance of a content-rich curriculum.

A year in the life of a child is a terrible thing to waste. Let's make sure that we're doing all we can to ensure that doesn't happen here.

Where's the beef?

2006-09-11T20:16:00.000+07:00

My sixth-grade class was a model of progressive teaching. We worked in self-directed groups to explore the classic epic Beowulf. We created our own lists of spelling words by finding words we didn't understand in literature. We explored ourselves and our world views by creating multi-media projects over a quarter. We discovered the wonders of math by trying various approaches to solving problems. My school was on the cutting edge of education theory.... and this was way back before George Lucas introduced us to Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars movie.

The best thing about my 6th grade -- we were never wrong! It was all about self-esteem, self-discovery, and creative, reflective thinking.

The problem -- it was a total waste of a year.

It's not that there's anything inherently bad about progressive teaching methods. And self-esteem and creative, critical thinking are both noble and important goals. But if those goals are pursued without any meat behind them, then it's a fraud.

Here's a great article from noted education writer Joanne Jacobs on why focusing on the delivery -- and not the content -- is a dangerous, foolhardy approach to education. Unfortunately, it's also a common approach. The eduworld has exploded with angry debate on the subject. One pithy comment from Ken de la Rosa of the blog D-Ed Reckoning should give you a taste:

If the kids were really developing super higher-order thinking brains with these new-fangled progressive teaching techniques why are they unable to use those super brains to solve algebraic equations on a simplistic multiple choice exam? Why are they unable to higher-order think their way to the correct answers on lower-order basic skills exams?

Hmmmm.

Tomorrow: The three components of a great curriculum, and why content matters.

Same issues, different location

2006-09-07T20:41:00.000+07:00

Sometimes it feels like we have such different issues at our international school than we did back in our home-country school system. But just how dissimilar are those situations?

In "Preparing Hispanic Parents and Children for School," New York Times writer Valerie Cotsalas explores how one program is trying to ease the transition for very young children. These kids -- and their parents -- have to deal with hurdles very similar to many in our JIS community: language and culture.

It's easy for those of us who speak English as our mother tongue to forget how difficult it must be to study -- or figure out the system -- in a totally different language. (I shudder to think how I'd do as a parent in a Dutch school district. I'd probably end up crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. There certainly wouldn't be much of a "partnership" going on!)

Anyway, food for thought.....

YouTube and Parental Involvement

2006-09-06T20:52:00.000+07:00

Have you bumped into YouTube.com yet? Depending on how you look at it, this website chock-full of video clips is either the next step in our planet's evolution to web 2.0, or a sign of the impending apocolypse.

Oh well, let's think positively....while there's a lot of junk on YouTube (anyone with a webcam is a actor/director/commentator? Uh, don't think so), occasionally you'll find a gem. One example: this little clip by Missouri Commissioner of Education, D. Kent King, who talks about the critical need for more parental involvement in St. Louis Public Schools.

Granted, JIS isn't in the same spot as the beleaguered St. Louis school district. We're already in a pretty good place. But even great schools make strides to improve. It makes you think....maybe homework help and fundraising aren't enough. Does a true parent-school partnership require something more?

Here's my daughter

2006-09-05T13:42:00.000+07:00

Want to see a picture of my middle school daughter? Click on this link (via Learning is Messy, a really nice edu-blog).

I laughed my head off -- it's SO accurate. But then it made me wonder how many other kids there are at JIS who look exactly the same. And that made me wonder if there are other parents who worry about some of the things in this picture.....

Would it be helpful to have a session at school on the cyberworld our kids live in? I'm not one of those "the sky is falling" people who believe MySpace and its ilk are the root of all adolescent evil. But I am one of those people who thinks you have be aware and stay on top of things.

If you think it would be a good idea, would you help me put a session together? Parents, teachers, admin., tech-gurus -- we all could help educate each other on this very current subject. Leave a comment, or send an email to vantilburgindo@yahoo.com.

The universe deserves perspective, too

2006-09-04T20:04:00.000+07:00

My dad sent me a link to the coolest website: The Florida State University's "Molecular Expressions" page. It starts at the outer edges of the Milky Way, and zooms in until you're looking at the tiniest bits of matter.

I'm not a scientist, or even a very logical person. But there's something magical about zooming in and out of the galaxy by powers of 10. Absolutely amazing, and humbling too. Definitely worth the time to click the link.

Putting some perspective on teacher pay

2006-09-04T09:17:00.000+07:00

I've always said, no one goes into teaching to become rich. But just how bad is it? The New York Times puts teacher pay into perspective in "A Teacher's Year, a CEO's Day: The Pay's Similar." Yikes.

Pumping up middle school academics

2006-09-03T08:46:00.000+07:00

Last week's Baltimore Sun had an interesting article: "A Focus on the Needs of School 'Tweens," by education writers Gina Davis and Liz F. Kay (via the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development's SmartBrief -- click here to sign up).

"There's an awakening nationally about the need to reform the middle grades and accelerate the rigor to get students ready for high school," according to Gene Bottoms, senior vice president of the Southern Regional Education Board, which oversees the Making Middle Grades Work initiative used in 21 states.

Check out the article to see what kinds of ideas are on the table. Very interesting stuff.

If you want to learn to write, read great writing

2006-09-01T21:29:00.000+07:00

Pulitzer-prize winning writer and journalism professor Michael Skube has the solution for what he sees as a dearth of strong writers in today's schools: read great writing. He explores this idea in an excellent article in The Los Angeles Times.

Skube bemoans the language arts programs in many schools, which he believes have raised creative writing "to a status that supersedes modest craftsmanship and even waives the requirements of mere competence."

"[I]n the middle schools and even elementary schools, students scribble away in journals, write skits and sketches, labor over sentences littered with misspelled words (this is called "creative spelling") and faulty grammar. The aim is not competency in the plain carpentry of prose but self-expression and creativity. It is the Little League of Art. Nothing wrong with self-expression. But it's worth asking when self-expression devolves into self-spelunking and the preening narcissism evident everywhere on the Internet....Ask them to write straightforward English and you would think it was a second language, even for kids whose ancestors have been here generations. Sentence structure, punctuation, the parts of speech — they are almost completely unfamiliar with any of it."

Ouch.

Skube posits that reading the works of great writers is the best way to learn the elements of great writing -- the cadence, the impact of carefully chosen words, the way authors craft sentences together.

It makes you wonder: are our kids reading the kind of writing that takes away the breath, that demonstrates the power of precise, finely crafted prose? If we value good writing (think back to our discussion of standards), then maybe it's time to revisit the subject of reading and make sure we're offering our students the best examples upon which to build their own writing skills.
After all, it could be true, as Skube believes, that "....you learn to write well by reading good writing. And by emulating. It's not too late to start."

Related News: According to this article in The Times of London, a new service from Google now allows users to search, download and print entire texts of classic books, including the complete works of Shakespeare, Dante's Inferno, and boat-loads of other classics. I tried out a few searches on it, and it's pretty fantastic.

Reflecting on Reflections

2006-08-31T14:24:00.000+07:00

Professionals in many industries love to use jargon and puffed-up terminology to make what they do sound important and difficult -- and educators are no different. (Confession: I have used the phrase "instructional pedagogy" -- which means "the way you teach something" -- with a straight face, so I'm guilty, too.)

If you'd like to read a great example, read this article by New York Times journalist Samuel G. Freedman: "Upon Further Reflection, A Few Random Thoughts."

I laughed out loud.... But then I felt uneasy. As a teacher, I embraced the concept of "reflective thinking" at teacher school. It just sounds so scholarly, so deep. But upon reflection (ha), what other kind of thinking is worth teaching or encouraging? Knee-jerk, impulsive thinking? Shallow, half-hearted thinking? Scatter-shot thinking?

Anyway, it just made me wonder.

UPDATE: Can't get enough of edu-babble? Check out this bracing article by Martin A. Kozloff, Distinguished Professor, Watson School of Education, University of North Carolina in Wilmington (via IllinoisLoop.com). Scary, but accurate. And for some fun, zip over to the Science Geek's Education Jargon Generator, which claims to be "particularly useful for people involved in writing reports for WASC accreditation." Hillarious.

More on standards

2006-08-31T08:26:00.000+07:00

After yesterday's post on the Fordham Foundation's "State of State Standards" report, I could almost hear the audible yawns emanating from drowsy readers as their eyes glazed over. Okay, so education standards aren't the most exciting topic. I'd rather be thinking about pretty much anything else....

But standards, while boring, are the guts of the educational enterprise. They're critical to schools that want their students to succeed. Here's why:

Standards give everyone a clear definition of what needs to be accomplished.

For a school board (or council, in JIS' case), standards could be an important component of its "Ends Policies" -- specifically addressing the "what service or product does JIS offer?" question. While a school board using the Carver model of policy governance may not want to get into standards for all grades, it seems that setting standards for graduating 12th graders (and setting a percentage goal for the head-of-school to achieve) might make a lot of sense because they are -- by definition -- the ends that we all hope our students reach at JIS.*

For administrators and teachers, creating and evaluating standards requires them to ask, "what's worth knowing and what skills are worth learning?" at specific points in students' educational careers. Once this HUGE question is answered (hopefully in concert with students and parents), teachers and administrators can create and organize curriculum by answering these questions: "If we want students to do _________ by 12th grade, how do we get them there? What steps need to happen? What's the best way to make sure they get there?" (Educators call this process "Backwards Design," and its a great way to plan curriculum.)

For parents, standards help them understand what their children's school is doing. They are the "method to the madness" that we see when our kids bring home essay assignments, lab reports, and all the rest. Theoretically, at least, all the work our students do should be aimed at helping them achieve (and hopefully exceed, if things are going well) the school's standards. When parents understand, they can be partners in the process and support the school's efforts.

Now granted, standards aren't a guarantee of success. In fact, there's no clear evidence that US states with great standards have better academic results than other states across all subject areas . (After all, setting standards is one thing -- but implementing them is something else. Some schools do well; others don't.)

But strong, well-crafted standards are linked to improve performance in some subjects, according to Fordham's report. For example, "Five states made statistically significant gains on the science NAEP [the National Assessment of Educational Performance] between 2000 and 2005 at both the fourth- and eighth-grade levels, and three of these have among the best sets of science standards in the nation, according to Fordham’s reviewers."

And standards give educators something important: clear expectations of what students should learn. As a wise man said just yesterday, "If you don't have clear expectations, then anything you do is the right answer."

*For more on the "Ends vs. Means" distinction and how standards fit into that discussion, please click on this link and scroll down to the blog posting for March 10th, "Ends vs. Means: the big question." For some reason, I can't get a direct link to the post -- sorry! Obviously still figuring this whole blog thing out....

Fordham releases "The State of State Standards" report

2006-08-30T21:33:00.000+07:00

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (a Washington, D.C.-based organization focused on issues in elementary and secondary education) released today its much-anticipated "State of the State Standards" report for 2006.

Among the report's findings:

Two-thirds of schoolchildren in America attend class in states with mediocre (or worse) expectations for what their students should learn.

Don't expect this report to be universally embraced; the Fordham Foundation (home of legendary Chester Finn, Jr., a.k.a. "The Education Gadfly") is known for its conservative views on many education issues. This report, which names names, so to speak, is sure to receive both kudos and a good lambasting.

But regardless of how it's received, the report is good fodder for a discussion on education standards -- especially at an international school like JIS, which gets to set its own educational program outside of governmental restrictions like the "No Child Left Behind Act" in the United States.

Technically speaking, standards are concrete descriptions of what a state (or school like JIS) wants its students to be able to accomplish at each grade level in the four major academic subjects: English, mathematics, science, and history. These accomplishments usually fall into two categories:

Specific subject area knowledge (for example, multiplication facts from 0 to 12)
Specific academic skills (like being able to comprehend a non-fiction text)

"The State of the State Standards" report gives letter grades to each state's standards. For example, Illinois (the state where I used to teach) received a B for its English standards. That, in and of itself, isn't very interesting or useful -- but what is useful is the rationale behind that grade:

English, language arts and reading receive good coverage, and vocabulary benchmarks are clearly outlined. Illinois students cannot expect to receive a full-bodied English education, however, when their state standards eschew naming specific authors, literary periods, literary genres, and texts. No substantive curriculum can be formed without these components. Illinois avoids them, though, and in so doing cheats its K-12 population of a major segment of English education that they surely deserve.

What's the useful part? The descriptions of what makes a good standard....in the case of English, according to Fordham, it's not only skill benchmarks, but also subject area knowledge (for English, that includes things like books written by specific authors).

Designing standards is complicated, and no state (or school) ever feels like it's come up with the perfect set. It should be an ongoing process -- a process that the Fordham report describes in great detail in its analysis of three states' success stories. (These are definitely worth a read.)

If you're a parent from the United States (or have lived in -- or will be moving to -- the States), here's a webpage that has links to the actual academic standards in all 50 states so that you can see what the Fordham report is analyzing.

Do PTAs matter?

2006-08-29T19:06:00.000+07:00

Over at Eduwonk.com, guest blogger Steve Barr (founder of Los Angeles' cutting-edge Green Dot charter schools) asks the question....

You probably know my thoughts on the subject!

Does teacher gender affect student success?

2006-08-29T17:55:00.000+07:00

Didn't get enough arguing in yesterday's debate over stressed-out students? Well, get ready to rumble: Here comes another edu-hot-potato that should get blood pressures roiling.

In the Fall issue of Education Next (a quarterly publication from Stanford University's Hoover Institution), Thomas Dee examines "How a Teacher's Gender Affects Boys and Girls."

Dee, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at Swarthmore College and faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), comes to a startling conclusion:

Simply put, girls have better educational outcomes when taught by women, and boys are better off when taught by men.

Check out the Associated Press' analysis of Dee's article (via CNN.com).

Not everyone is buying Dee's conclusion, according to the AP. "'I don't think there are many parents or students, looking back over their educational careers, who haven't been inspired by a teacher of the opposite sex,'" says Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, which works to advance the progress of women. "'And many have had very unhappy experiences with teachers of the same gender that they are. We have to be careful of too many generalizations.'"

But Dee argues "his research raises valid questions," according to the AP. "Should teachers get more training about the learning styles of boys and girls? Should they be taught to combat biases in what they expect of boys and girls?"

Stressed out kids -- or a lot of hype?

2006-08-28T09:37:00.000+07:00

In a Washington Post article sure to cause many dinner-table debates, edu-journalist Jay Matthews discounts the popular notion that today's high school students are overstressed.

The object of his ire: The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, a new book by Alexandra Robbins, who

...follows the lives of students from a Bethesda, Md., high school as they navigate the SAT and college application process. These students are obsessed with success, contending with illness, physical deterioration (senior Julie is losing hair over the pressure to get into Stanford), cheating (students sell a physics project to one another), obsessed parents ( Frank's mother manages his time to the point of abuse) and emotional breakdowns (Publishers Weekly).

But Matthews, creator of US News & World Report's annual ranking of the best high schools in America, says Robbins is perpetuating a modern myth.

While he acknowledges that a small percentage of students in the wealthiest school districts may indeed suffer from stress, Matthews points out that "the parents and students in such communities fail to see...that they are in the uppermost 5 percent in homework, just as they are in housing square footage, money spent on vacations and stock market investments. Only about 10 percent of American high school students have Ivy League ambitions. For the vast majority, academic stress is pretty rare."

Matthews goes on to site a study by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute that found two-thirds of high school students spend an hour or less on homework each night.

"If they are not doing much homework in high school," Matthews asks,

what are they up to? The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research collects time diaries from American teenagers. These documents make clear our youth are not taking long walks in the woods or reading Proust. Instead, 15- to 17-year-olds on average between 2002 and 2003 devoted about 3 1/2 hours a day to television and other "passive leisure" or playing on the computer. (Their average time spent in non-school reading was exactly seven minutes a day. Studying took 42 minutes a day.)

See the debate brewing? Yikes....

In the end, Matthews says "Robbins is right to lambaste parents who insist that their children do nothing but AP and tell them they must get into Princeton. But keep in mind that our real national problem is not that we ask most teens to do too much, but too little."

Opposite ends of the parent spectrum

2006-08-27T08:18:00.000+07:00

Two articles in this week's edupress demonstrate the variety of parents and parenting approaches that exist. They both took my breath away, but for different reasons.

First, this article from the Education Wonks, which demonstrates the highest common denominator in parenting.

Then, shifting from the sublime to the ridiculous, there's this news flash from South Carolina (also via the Education Wonks). It just makes you wonder....

New year....new opportunities

2006-08-25T07:22:00.000+07:00

Like a bear emerging from a long, restful hybernation, JIS Topics finally leaves its cozy cave and faces the sunlight of a new school year. Has it really been more than two months since our last posting? Oh well, I guess it's true what they say about good intentions....

Hope everyone in the JIS community had a fun, energizing school holiday. Despite some educators' warnings about the dangers of "summer slide" (apologies to all Southern Hemispherians), I'm one of those rebels who really believes in the rejuvenating effects of an extended break -- for students AND teachers and parents.

But now it's back to the proverbial grindstone. There's stuff to learn, new friends to make -- and I'm not just talking about the kids! So much opportunity. So much potential. So much work!

Speaking of work, if you're like us, homework is already in full swing. It's never too early to start building a strong quiver of resources to support our students at home. Here's an article from yesterday's Los Angeles Times at lists a bucket-load of links to excellent educational resource sites. You might have to register to view the entire article, but it's free and relatively painless. You'll find links on everything from archeology to world facts. Some of the links require cutting and pasting, but save them in a "Homework Helpers" folder you create under Internet Favorites, and your kids will thank you.

Other sites that are well-loved favorites at the van Tilburg house include:

Bartelby.com -- an amazing website with searchable databases on great books, poetry, quotations, and writing resources.
Wikipedia -- a community-created encyclopedia resource available in many languages.
Math Fact Cafe -- requires a little work to figure it out, but you can create your own flash cards and math-fact worksheets. Geared toward elementary kids...but great for review for everyone!
MIT's Writing Center -- It may be known for its engineering and math programs, but MIT has a fantastic online resource for writers. Information on the writing process, strategies, and ESL make this site a gem.
OWL Writing Lab -- Purdue University's website on writing and grammar is the gold-standard. Lots of practice worksheets and plain-English explanations of grammar issues from dangling modifiers to comma splices.
Grammar Bytes -- Take a bite out of grammar issues with this fun, easy to use website.
Harvard University's "Close Reading" site -- great advice on how to get the most out of reading tough texts. These people aren't smart for nothin'.
Study Skills Center at NTHS -- shameless plug for my old employer. Hands down the best general site on the planet for general study resources and subject-specific links. Just ignore the corny graphics!

Have you bumped into other good resources on the internet? Let us know -- we're compiling a list that hopefully we'll be able to post on its own page soon.

JIS Topics hits the big time!

2006-06-15T08:14:00.000+07:00

Thanks so much to Edspresso, a fantastic edu-blog from the States, which featured a story about JIS Topics in its commentary section this week. How cool is that?

Edited by Ryan Boots at the Alliance for School Choice, Edspresso tackles some of the more contentious issues in education today, like school vouchers for families in under-performing US school districts and charter schools to compete with public schools. It's good stuff -- especially the site's debate section, which features running debates on hot topics by some of the greatest minds in education today. Definitely worth a look!

Seeking out diversity in parental involvement

2006-06-09T07:30:00.000+07:00

Couldn't resist plugging this article on a groundbreaking program in California that has resonance for any school with a diverse community. Julie Feldmeier, writing for the Washington Post, explores the International Parent Leadership Program being implemented in the Howard County school district.

The program's goal: "to encourage immigrant parents to assume leadership roles in their schools and at the district level."

Interestingly, the Howard school district isn't so different than JIS -- students hail from 85 countries, Asians make up 12 percent, Hispanics 4 percent, and the district's schools have a reputation for excellence. And like JIS, they've recognized that cultural differences can affect how parents see their roles within the school.

This program aims to bring parents from those different cultures to the table by providing training in leadership structure, policy making, and curriculum. The hope is that, with the training and information, parents from other countries will feel more comfortable and confident with how their children's school works -- and they'll want to play a role in the decision making.

What a great idea!

Happy Holidays

2006-06-08T20:29:00.000+07:00

I just want to join Cheryl in wishing the JIS community a lovely and re-energizing break.

We'll soon reach the 3-month anniversary of the blog. I hope we've laid the groundwork for more open and spirited discussion of education issues in the 2006-2007 school year. We look forward to serving the community "IRL"also as President and Vice President of the PTA. At the bottom of this web page, you'll find a blue box noting that the opinions expressed on the blog are personal, and do not represent those of the PTA.

During the summer months, we'll be posting only occasionally from various points on the globe. If you are traveling, stay well and safe...and don't stray too far from a computer screen.

Thanks to our readers and especially to our commenters. You've enriched and educated us.

As the school year winds down....

2006-06-07T20:08:00.000+07:00

Every morning this week I've been greeted by the excited voice of my 4th grader exclaiming "Only [fill in the blank] more days of school!" He's apoplectic with joy -- and for good reason. Another year of education under the proverbial belt!

As the school year wraps up, I'm reminded of the bittersweet quality these last few days embody. There's that unadulterated excitement in anticipation of a hard-earned break as students revel in yearbooks, class parties, graduations and "moving-on" ceremonies.

But then there are the goodbyes, with friends leaving Indonesia and beloved teachers moving on. Our transient community is the source of both great joy in its diversity and friendships, and great sorrows when it comes time to part ways. The most we can hope is that we're better people for knowing each other.

So as the curtain falls on this school year, we at JIS Topics wish you and your loved ones restful breaks, rejuvenating times with family and friends, and safe travels. And to those in our community who are moving away from Jakarta, Selamat Jalan.

Raising the Rhetorical Bar: More on Diversity and Global Citizenship

2006-06-05T20:53:00.000+07:00

Open discussion is best served by responsible argument and rhetoric, particularly when the topic is a sensitive one. So as a follow-up to Saturday’s posting on global citizenship, this posting addresses each of the italicized comments made by an anonymous reader.

“Quotas are the wrong solution. All of the baggage (key assumptions) you uploaded upfront does not take into account the unfortunate student that would be a high achiever at JIS if they were not denied admissions on a pre-defined quota.”

Anonymous and I seem to have very different definitions of excellence in education. He or she apparently defines excellence as the abilities of the best and the brightest students. I, on the other hand, think we should look to school attributes – particularly high-quality teaching and curriculum – as the primary elements of educational excellence. All students can be “high achievers” – defined as growth from their personal starting points – with these elements in place. And many more students can be “high achievers” – defined as standardized test scores – when schools focus their efforts on that goal with concerted team work and discipline and combine a traditional standards-based approach with innovative educational approaches.

In her “Cherry picking” posting of 27 May, Cheryl discussed a fascinating and inspiring case in point at two Illinois schools. According to the Director of Education Research and Evaluation at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the two schools achieved the following gains:

The average ACT score rose from the 60th percentile nationally in 2000 to the 75th percentile in 2005 even as the percentage of students taking the ACT increased from 80 percent to 100 percent after the state passed a law requiring all 11th graders to take the exam. This shift might have been expected to drive average scores down because more low-performing and special education students were taking the test.
From 2003 to 2005, measured student growth in performance on ACT-benchmarked assessments exceeded predicted growth by approximately 71 percent. Value-added growth gains were most dramatic for students most at risk, including low-income and special education students.
For every 100 students who enter 9th grade requiring remediation, 50 to 75 are enrolled in college prep or honors courses by the beginning of 11th grade.

JIS often cites the number of students who make perfect scores on IB exams and the highest possible score on AP exams as a measure of its excellence. However, many educators acknowledge that they can’t claim responsibility for the best and brightest few, who would achieve the same results even in average schools. I believe the far more reliable measure of educational excellence is this: What gains is a school able to achieve and document for the majority of students?

"The grandfather clause will not help. On the one hand you are recommending that JIS adopt a nimble and adaptable admissions policy, yet you recommending [sic] tying the hands of the decision makers with a policy that does not allow rapid change. The grandfather clause will not allow change, but will hamper it for many years in the future."

There is a 30 percent turnover in the student population every 6 months. At that rate, approximately 2,300 students (i.e., a number almost equivalent to the current student population) leave JIS and are replaced every year-and-a-half. Furthermore, the average student stay at JIS is 4 years. Suppose a ceiling of 15 percent per nationality was adopted. At present, just 2 countries exceed that quota schoolwide: the USA and Indonesia by 6 and 2 percent respectively. By the way, after South Korea at 14 percent, the 4th largest national group is Australia, which accounts for a mere 7 percent of the student body. Unfortunately, I don’t have disaggregated data in full so the percentage of American and Indonesian students may well be higher on individual campuses. At the high school, for example, 3 countries exceed the hypothetical quota: Indonesia at 23 percent, the USA at 18.6 percent, and South Korea at 18.6 percent.

Given these facts and assuming a quota of 15 percent, it is logically and mathematically impossible that a grandfather clause would “hamper” JIS for “many years in the future.” On the contrary, with the high turnover rate and relatively low average stay per student, it would take only a few years to trim back the percentage of students of these 2 or 3 nationalities. Meanwhile, JIS would be free to accept many high-achieving students from the 58 other countries represented in the student body – and still other countries for that matter.

When you add to these facts and arguments my proposal that admissions policy allow modification or elimination of quotas under emergency conditions, it is simply impossible that quotas or grandfather clauses would put JIS in a policy straitjacket.

"Furthermore, the following statement of ‘Once the size of any national group crosses a certain threshold, insularity results. In turn, appreciation of diversity and the capacity to learn from it suffer’ is just a weak attempt to justify an overtly racist position. This position does not measure the academic record of the majority population. It just measures their race and makes flawed assumptions on those conditions."

Irresponsible rhetoric tends to shut down dialogue about sensitive topics. I am proposing a single quota for all national groups, including the one I belong to (the USA). Furthermore, I have stressed that no national group is exempt from the tendency to insularity. I also suggested that Indonesians may be at particular risk of insularity by virtue of this accident of geography: JIS is located in Indonesia. So the charge of racism is unfounded.

There is one important correction and clarification in my thinking since my earlier posting. Given JIS’ relationship and obligations to its 3 surviving founding Embassies (the USA, Great Britain, and Australia), I was not sure whether the school could set quotas for students of those nationalities. However, I have since realized that the “Category 1” designation applies to families holding diplomatic passports and companies or organizations holding Certificates of Guarantee. Since the number of American students whose parents work for the US Embassy or for companies and organizations holding Certificates of Guarantee is very small, JIS can and should impose the same 15 percent ceiling on these three national groups. Above all, I am an advocate of equity.

"I agree that educational policies can change to teach true globalization. However, issuing quotas is not the way to teach people to work together."

We agree on the need for a more rigorous approach to teaching global citizenship, Anonymous. Our difference is this: I think a quota system is a necessary but not sufficient means for enabling us to come together as a community and learn from diversity. May the dialogue continue!

Building Responsible Global Citizenship at JIS: By Osmosis or Design?

2006-06-03T13:10:00.000+07:00

Last Tuesday, our outgoing Headmaster, Niall Nelson, led an interesting review of demographic trends at JIS over the past decade. So it seems timely to revisit the topic of diversity, last addressed by the blog on April 19th.

Charts and graphs highlighted the impact of economic and political instability on Jakarta’s expatriate community and JIS’ student body. As a result of the Southeast Asian financial crisis in 1997, Indonesia’s political crisis of 1998, and security concerns here over the last 5 years, Jakarta’s American population has shrunk as the number of Asian expatriates has grown. JIS’ student body has mirrored these trends in percentage terms. Furthermore, the number and percentage of Indonesians attending the school has increased significantly in part as a result of the government’s relaxation of entry requirements for nationals wishing to attend international schools.

Two issues, among others, surfaced in the discussion that followed the presentation.

1. Should admissions policies change as a result of these demographic trends?

2. Should educational policies change as a result of these demographic trends?

In my opinion, the answer to both questions is yes.

To avoid misunderstandings, I am unpacking some of my key assumptions and values up front.

Diversity strengthens and enriches any group or community. That’s why I feel privileged to be able to send my children to an intensely multicultural international school.
“Emotional intelligence” is a more reliable predictor of success in life than I.Q. (For an accessible review of the extensive literature supporting this theory, have a look at an article by Professor Cary Cherniss of Rutgers University.)
Our school is therefore wise to set goals for teaching non-cognitive abilities or “life skills” such as “Responsible Global Citizens” and 6 other “Essential Qualities for JIS Learners.”
Because their student populations represent so many nationalities, international schools have a potential comparative advantage in teaching global citizenship.
Another source of comparative advantage in promoting global citizenship, learning about the host culture is best accomplished by admitting students from the host country. Indonesian students are an indispensable part of the demographic mix at JIS. Of course, offering opportunities to study the language and culture is also important.
Demographic diversity alone will not produce optimal global citizenship outcomes in an international school setting.

The last assumption is supported by recent trends at JIS. As our Headmaster noted, the school is more diverse than ever before. Yet the ownership perception audit and forums revealed concern over “culture clashes” and “segregation” by nationality. Korean and Indonesian respondents worried that their children’s ability to master English could be compromised if current demographic trends continue. Other respondents voiced the opinion that community feeling at JIS is not as strong now as in the past.

Some of these concerns were echoed in the discussion following Tuesday’s presentation. I believe they are motivated not by prejudice, but by common sense and parents’ desire to secure the best possible education for their children. Rubbing shoulders with people of different nationalities every day is not enough to create responsible global citizens. Paradoxically, unity is necessary for appreciating and learning from diversity. In other words, administrators, teachers, parents, and students must feel a strong sense of allegiance to our international school community, which is defined by core values such as diversity, a global perspective, compassion, and empathy.

While espousing these values is a good start, it can be difficult to internalize them and even harder to put them into practice. Cultural and national identities are very powerful. It is human nature to prefer the ease of the familiar to the rigors of cross-cultural communication and learning.

That is why I believe JIS’ admissions policies should ensure demographic balances at school, campus, and classroom levels. Once the size of any national group crosses a certain threshold, insularity results. In turn, appreciation of diversity and the capacity to learn from it suffer.

Of course, insularity is a tendency across all national groups. However, Indonesian students may be at particular risk because JIS is – if you will – a tiny island of internationalism in an Indonesian sea. The school plays a less prominent role in the lives of local students and their parents because they have a stronger and more extensive network of family, professional, and community ties here.

Though JIS may not be at liberty to impose ceilings on enrollment of students from countries represented by its founding embassies or other “Category 1” applicants, I believe the school should develop an equitable quota system based on nationality for the two other categories of students identified in the current admissions policy. Grandfather clauses are also needed so that no students enrolled before quotas are imposed lose their places at the school.

Some might argue that ceilings or quotas are a rigid policy instrument that could threaten JIS’ survival. After all, the admission of proportionally more Asian and Indonesian students helped the school ride out the fiscal crisis it experienced in the late 90’s. To maintain a nimble posture in the event of economic or political instability, JIS should adopt a nimble admissions policy that allows modification or elimination of quotas under specified emergency conditions.

At the end of the day, however, astute admissions policies are not enough to protect our fragile island of internationalism. Significant demographic changes call for changes in educational policy. As I suggested in my posting of April 19th, the means currently in place for creating responsible global citizens may not be adequate to the task, particularly given demographic trends of the past decade. If so, JIS is not alone according to Bambi Betts, Director of the Principals’ Training Center for International School Leadership.

"To write the notion of global citizenship into our mission statements was the easy part. Many of our schools have been struggling for well over a decade to understand what it really means to be a global citizen, and how we actually produce such citizens from our schools. Check out the report cards in most of our schools....It is unlikely that you will see a holistic, analytical or any other approach to describing student progress toward this all important goal. Our lack of clarity regarding what it really means to be a global citizen naturally translates into very little when it comes to assessing same."

Betts suggests that the bulleted factors below prevent international schools from realizing their potential comparative advantage in teaching global citizenship.

Schools fail to identify the specific knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors that would need to be taught on the pathway to becoming a global citizen.
Teachers and administrators may lack the skills that should be part of an effective global citizenship curriculum.
It will be a challenging task to develop assessment tools for measuring global citizenship in part because most schools are far more comfortable assessing content knowledge than attitudes and behavior.

Her conclusion is a fitting one for this posting.

"We have set ourselves a demanding, but clearly worthwhile and essential challenge by including global citizenship in our missions. We cannot rely on the fact that we have the word ‘international’ in our name, that we have X number of cultures and nationalities represented in our schools, or that we hold intercultural events to meet that challenge. These are simply some of the conditions that should make it easier and should allow us, the international schools, to be leading the thinking and practice in this vital undertaking."

Singapore teachers form learning communities

2006-06-01T10:14:00.000+07:00

When I think of learning communities, usually an image of young students and their wise teachers pops into my head -- something like the tv shows Room 222 or Welcome Back, Kotter. But learning communities also can consist entirely of adults who want to become smarter together, as "life-long learners." Educators in Singapore are embracing that concept, actively nurturing learning communities in an effort to support and expand their expertise as teachers.

According to Channel NewsAsia, "There are some 1,000 learning communities in [Singapore] schools today, up from just 8 in 1998. These are informal groups of teachers who gather to exchange ideas on how to improve themselves." This is movement supported by the nation's Ministry of Education, which is hosting its 3rd annual Teachers' Conference from May 31 to June 2.

Speaking at the opening session of the conference, Singapore's Education Minister Tharman Sanmugaratnam highlighted the concept of teacher Learning Circles, noting that Learning Circles provide teachers with "a safe and reassuring environment to engage in open, reflective dialogue and inquiry into their concerns about teaching and learning. He went on to say that:

Learning Circles have the added benefit of being ground-up and organic, not top-down. It brings flexibility. There can be as many Learning Circles as there are interested and willing groups of practitioners. Groups can form, close down or re-form, as issues of interest change and as problems are solved and new opportunities identified. And extensive use of Learning Circles gives teachers the sense of autonomy - to go ahead and improve practices and try out new things.

Teachers teaching -- and learning from -- teachers. That's cool, and I know it's happening at the Jakarta International School. Does the concept have further applications, perhaps with parents?

Parental voice leads to math program choice

2006-05-31T21:29:00.000+07:00

Our idols over at The Education Wonks uncovered an interesting story about parental choice that harkens back to the discussion we've been having about educational philosophies and the debates that can erupt when people disagree.

In this story, a school district in Utah has listened to parents, who formed a network to express their concerns about a math curriculum adopted by the district five years ago. Schools in the district now will be able to choose between the current curriculum and one that uses a more traditional approach to math.

ALPINE, Utah (AP) -- The Alpine School District will allow elementary schools to choose between two math programs after years of complaints that a new, progressive curriculum wasn't emphasizing enough of the basics.

The "Investigations" math curriculum was adopted in 2000 and the district has heard complaints ever since. Some parents claimed the program gives too little emphasis to memorizing multiplication tables and learning long division.

"There were strong advocates for and against the program," assistant superintendent Gary Seastrand said. "Those who were against it felt the system had made a central decision. There were parents and teachers who did not buy into it or like it."

Parents unhappy with the program formed a network to advocate for a restructured math curriculum in the district, which serves nearly 70,000 students. Some dissatisfied parents have transferred their children from Alpine public schools to private, charter or home schools.

"Everyone is excited that Alpine has finally listened to parents after five long years, (during) three of which our children were not taught the times tables under Investigations math," American Fork resident Oak Norton said. "I think it's a mistake for them to offer it in the future, as there are much better programs that work for visual learners."

The feud is part of a national argument between those who want the basics in the classroom and those who emphasize concepts and use estimation and calculators.

Seastrand said a committee will review math programs and choose two for the district in time for the 2007-08 school year. He estimated the cost of obtaining new math materials at around $2 million.

"This is a door that has opened," he said. "We just want to get out of the divisiveness. We believe the school-choice option is better for local patrons. They'll have an opportunity to be involved in the conversation."

Carnival of Education Time

2006-05-31T21:12:00.000+07:00

Take a jaunty wander through education-land in this week's Carnival of Education, the weekly round up of news, ideas, and opinions from the edu-blogosphere. This week's Carnival has a southern flare, hosted by Education in Texas. This is a teacher-run blog, nicely done by Mike, a 13-year veteran science and technology educator in the Lone Star state. So mosey on over to Mike's place for a good read!

What makes a great competitor: precision, creativity -- or both?

2006-05-30T21:25:00.000+07:00

Okay -- I take it back. If you read only one article this month, make it "Are We Fixing the Wrong Things?" by Yong Zhao, in Education Leadership (the monthly publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, or ASCD).

Yong Zhao, Distinguished Professor of Education and director of the U.S.—China Center for Research on Educational Excellence at Michigan State University, discusses the panic caused by the 1983 report, A Nation At Risk, which still reverberates today. That report questioned the United States ability to compete against countries like South Korea and Japan because of its educational shortcomings in science and technology.

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and the hand-wringing over America's ranking in the education world continues, despite the fact that it has survived -- even thrived -- as an economic powerhouse. The worries are spurred on by reports such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and even day-time talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who featured Bill Gates in a recent discussion about how the American education system's failures are hurting the nation's competitiveness.

Yong Zhao wonders, "Is it possible that U.S. schools were not in trouble after all? Or were they in a different kind of trouble? Did reforms overlook the real problem and try to fix something that wasn't really broken?"

He speculates that "the secret weapon that has helped the United States remain an economic leader and innovation powerhouse is the creative, risk-taking, can-do spirit of its people. This spirit is not normally measured in standardized tests or compared in international studies."

Hmmm, interesting. Yong Zhao goes on to note:

Whereas U.S. schools are now encouraged, even forced, to chase after test scores, China, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan—all named as major competitors—have started education reforms aimed at fostering more creativity and innovative thinking among their citizens. China, for example, has taken drastic measures to reform its curriculum. As the United States raised the status of standardized testing to a record high in 2001 with No Child Left Behind, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued an executive order to significantly minimize the consequences of testing (2002). As the United States pushes for more centralized curriculum standards, China is abandoning its one nation—one syllabus tradition. As the United States moves toward a required program of study for high schools, China is working hard to implement a flexible system with more electives and choices for students. As the United States calls for more homework and more study time, China has launched a battle to reduce such burdens on its students.

So we're not alone here in Jakarta trying to figure out what works. In his blog Learning is Messy, 6th-grade math teacher Brian Crosby talks about an interesting visit to his Nevada classroom by two principals and two superintendents from Singapore (worth a look).

Learning is messy, indeed -- but it's worth the struggle to get it right.