Education Week 4/6/2011 Reflection

School Meals Makeover Stirs Pot:  I'll begin by first saying that I absolutely love food.  Food is one of the many things I truly enjoy in life.  A really good meal just can't be beat.  That being said, I did not grow up eating meals provided by the schools until about Jr High.  I took a bag lunch to school almost every single day but I think that was largely due to the cost of school lunches as opposed to buying groceries and taking a sack lunch (however it should be noted that not all families are in the same situation financially and must buy school lunch at reduced rates).  In fifth and sixth grade I was waking up early in the morning to pack lunches for myself and my little brother.  I also have to say that I am also a big fan of Jamie Oliver.  If you have not already seen his miniseries special  Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, you absolutely have to see it.  It will dramatically change the way you look at food provided by the schools.  You will also be shocked at what these kids end up getting served.  The chicken nuggets are absolutely disgusting.  He does an experiment in which he brings kids into his cooking shop and grinds up a chicken that just bones and crap meat, breads and cooks them, and the kids want to eat the chicken nuggets.  It is apparent from that scene that many of these kids are not going to want to change the way they eat, regardless of what the food they like is currently made of.
This article is slightly misleading because of some of what is included about the Potatoes council and their being upset about cutting down potatoes from the meals.  The advocate for the potatoes say that "many fries are baked in the oven" but really there are no numbers to back that up.  Many schools could just be an indication of the number of schools that do it and not the percentage of schools that do it.  Who really cares if 10,000 schools bake their fries in the oven but thats only 1% of the schools in the country?  I also thought it was interesting that they mentioned that many of the kids started avoiding whole grain pizza.  Perhaps that is still a good thing though.  Most pizza really isn't that good for you.  As much as I love pizza, changing the bread to whole grain probably isn't going to do too much to increase the total healthiness of that food.  By the time I was in high school I was eating nothing soups and sandwiches for lunch every single day and sometimes an extra donut because those were the most filling things.  Kids mostly want to eat what tastes good and if the school are able to make things healthier without them noticing that much that is great.  In reality though, there needs to be a dramatic change and it doesn't matter whether or not the kids are super happy about it.

Education Week 3-30-2011 Reflection

Studies Shed Light on How Cheating Impedes Learning:  This article caught my eye right from the get-go.  I thought it was interesting that judging from the recent results of a 2010 study that the older a student gets makes it more likely that he/she will cheat.  To me, this can be attributed to a couple of things.  First, the more obvious (to me) of the two, is that students who are getting older are more likely to cheat because of the increased difficulty of their classes and the increased expectations they find in those classrooms.  Is an elementary school student learning addition and subtraction as likely to cheat as a high school student who is learning calculus?  I would venture to guess that it isn't as likely in large part because the material is not nearly as difficult at a younger age.  The more nuanced reason for students most likely cheating in their later years is that fact that students who have already spent time cheating are going to see that there are "no negative consequences" for their cheating.  They will only see that they have gotten a better score on that last test and that means they get an A in the class instead of a B+ or an A-.  It becomes reinforced in their minds because there are no perceived consequences and only the positives of getting a better grade on the test or assignment and in the class.
I actually found it pretty funny that the students at Harvard had duped themselves into thinking that they would be just as successful on tests if they weren't allowed to cheat.  Admittedly the test only had 36 people involved in it and the students were from Harvard.  I don't think that anyone going to Harvard are going to be indicative of normal students who are going to try and cheat on a test or a quiz.  This might also be a little presumptuous but the fact they are from Harvard would also indicate that they are pretty darn confident in their own abilities.  It may not be the case that they are thinking that way because they are cheaters, but rather because they go to Harvard.  This is more or less confirmed when the study showed that social recognition reinforces self-deception.  Anyone who goes to Harvard is probably going to make a big deal of it, or their parents will, or their school will.  It seems pretty unavoidable as it is the top school in the country (or one of them.)
Finally, I thought the biggest point of the article, as it pertains to me as a future teacher is that students are more likely to cheat in an environment in which the teacher is not fair or is not trying to engage them to learn.  This means that I am going to have to do my best as a teacher to make sure that students do not cheat simply by being a good teacher and not by focusing on not having them cheat.  Who wants to work hard for a teacher that isn't working hard for them?

Education Week 3-17-2011 Reflection

Schools Use Digital Tools to Customize Education:  One of the things that I question about this article is the fact that, in a way, moving away from a one-size-fits-all method of teaching into a more personalized way is in fact pandering to students.  It is not to the degree that Vikram Savkar suggests when he says the pandering is complete and total personalization.  The reality of it is that when you change your curriculum to include a variety of different learning styles is that the teacher is pandering to students.  Admittedly, the teacher is not going out of his/her way to personalize assignments for each of thirty students, but moving from a lecture based lesson to one in which the students are interacting with each other and sharing their knowledge is pandering to those students who work better that way.  One of the most interesting things about the entire article is when it brings up programs that allow kids to work at their own pace and tailor their lessons around the subjects which they are least comfortable and not quite as good.  I, personally, would not fare very well in that program because I wouldn't want to spend very much time on the things that I am not good at!  Math would be a subject in which I would continually try to avoid doing the hard parts of it as much as possible because I am not good at it at all.  It is very comforting to know that Savkar knows about the challenges that teachers face and that we as teachers have to rise to the occasion if we are going to be successful in the world of education as it currently is and in the ways that it is changing.  He is completely correct when he says that more talented teachers are going to be required to teach students in the coming years because they will have to incorporate all of these new technologies.  Old teachers could very well be left in the dust (pun intended).  Older teachers must be able to push themselves as well.  It does not take very much talent to be able to create a lecture based classroom, or as this article would call it, a one size fits all classroom.  "All" the teacher has to do is get up there and talk and the students have to listen.  That isn't belittling those teachers, because yes it does take quite a bit of effort to do that.  Even more effort is going to be required if they are going to help the future students of this country succeed in the ways in which this article has pointed out.  One of the things that this article mentions is 1 to 1 laptop initiatives and I would be very much interested in learning more about those.  I love having a laptop for my personal use, but I'm not sure if I would be particularly successful as a student if I were to have one with me at all times as a student growing up and in high school.  It's the same way with cell phones.  I didn't get one until I was 16 years old, and even by many of today's standards that is very late for a kid to get a cell phone!  Would I have been as successful as I was as a student if I had one as a 7th grader?  I'm inclined to guess that I wouldn't have been.

Education Week 316/2011 Reflection

Study Links Pupils' Stress to School Environments:  It totally makes sense that "the lack of adequate, appropriate materials can affect children negatively in part because teachers become more harsh or frustrated when they cannot teach properly given a lack of resources" I can say for sure that I would experience a lot of frustration if I didn't have all the materials necessary to teach my students the things they need to be taught.  I think that is one of the most interesting things about Teach for America is the fact that they dump teachers in low income neighborhoods and expect them to teach students when they are woefully unequipped to handle the situations.  My friend Steven Millard went into Teach for America and he went to Chicago and some of the experiences he has described to me have been absolutely frightening.  I'm not sure if there is any way that I would be able to do the things he was able to accomplish under the circumstances.  I guess I never really thought about the consequences that it would have on the students.  My question is how are the researchers able to distinguish the mental damage done to the children that is a result of the kids not having the benefit of the resources that would help them and mental damage that is a result of the teacher being stressed.  Perhaps there isn't any difference?
School Health Centers:  I'm very curious as to what district they took the study from in Washington State.  And I'm also curious as to what they mean by Health Centers.  Does that mean that it is just the nurses office?  I honestly don't even know if my high school had a nurses office.  We definitely had an athletic medicine office though.  I spent a lot of time in there but I was never really sick in high school, and even if I was I probably just went home rather than to the office.  Greater access to the health is indicative of a lower dropout rate in part because the students get another resource for help.  People who care about them are showing them that they care and the kids probably take notice of that and want to stick around.

Education Week 3-9-2011 Reflection

Seattle Ousts Superintendent After Program Audit by State:  Well I have to say that I'm glad they got her out of office cause it definitely sounds like she was siphoning funds into her own pocket!  Seriously, 300,000 dollars are missing for services that the district never received?  Doesn't think make people want to do an audit of her personal finances just to see if she happened to get something like thirty ten thousand dollar checks over her three years in office?  More than 1.5 million dollars spent on questionable services?  They only gave one example of these questionable services.  Are relaxing weekends at the spa or private getaways with some lover part of these questionable expenses.  Based on this article it sounds like the school district decided to get rid of her based on the fact the school district wasn't getting everything it was paying for.  I think she should be personally investigated.  in addition to all of this they are still giving her a severance package of a 1/4 of a million dollars and benefits on top of that.  "Thanks for doing a really terrible job for us, but we are still going to give you a giant severance package.  Good luck in life and good luck in ripping the next school district off that you work for!"  How is it that it isn't in these people's contracts that if they are fired for conduct like this that they won't get any benefits whatsoever?  It's a gross misallocation of state and district funds.  She shouldn't receive a dime for the money she stole/wasted during her time in office.
Tying Class Sizes to Teachers Skills:  Now doesn't this just seem like a wonderful idea in theory?  Give the better teachers more students, and subsequently more pay, and the worse teachers fewer students and less pay.  First of all, you better make sure that however you are evaluating these teachers, and from what it sounds like they would be evaluating them on whether or not their students do well enough on tests, is going to be an accurate way of measuring teacher effectiveness.  I can easily see a situation happening in which teachers teach to the test even more so than they already do in an effort to get a few more students and a few more bucks added to their salary.  What does this say about teachers who teach mostly electives classes?  How are you going to judge them and even then what are you going to do about their class sizes?  I'd be willing to guess that a lot of those classes they have are totally determined by the number of students who sign up for them.  That is how it was done at my high school.  Of course, this comes into question that Bill Gates is bringing this up, and wasn't he one of the biggest sharks of the computer industry next to Paul Allen?  I'm not sure if his advice is the kind I would be seeking in terms of figuring out how I would want to pay teachers.

Education Week 3/2/2011 Reflection

There are times when I read articles like In War of Words, Reform is A Potent Weapon, that I just want to say things like "duh" and "no kidding Sherlock."  Of course people are always going to use rhetoric to try and claim the moral high ground.  That is the whole point of rhetoric!  Using the right words to belittle or make your political opponent look bad or like they don't really care is how people win and lose elections.  It goes a lot farther than that.  Two weeks ago the Pittsburgh Steelers runningback Rashard Mendenhall made kind of controversial claims about the death of Osama Bin Laden.  Regardless of what he might have meant to say, people didn't take too kindly to his words because they implied that he wasn't happy about Bin Laden being killed and seemingly questioned America's War on Terror.  The fallout of his Twitter comments were pretty far reaching.  The Pittsburgh Steelers organization issued a statement about his comments pretty much saying that they disagreed with their running back.  Champion Sports, a pretty big sports supplier, severed their relationship with Mendenhall so that he is no longer representing their company.  This guy lost out on probably hundreds of thousands of dollars because the rhetoric he used indicated that it was wrong that so many people were celebrating the death of an (albeit very evil) man.  It just goes to show you that words are very powerful, and that they definitely do affect people more than most realize.  That is why it is not at all surprising that people in government use the words they do.  They know exactly what they are saying.  When the whole "groupthink" issue starts to come into play, more people begin to realize the power that certain buzzwords have and they want to use them for their own purposes.  Look at this article.  These proponents of reform are trying to sway people to their side.  How are they doing that?  By insinuating that people who are not on their side have no interest in "putting students first," they are hoping the public will latch onto that and say "why on earth would I want to vote for so and so when they don't want to put my child first.  They are only protecting their own interests!"  Mr. Freeman touches on this issue at the end of the article.  It doesn't matter that he wants to improve education.  The fact that he doesn't approve of increased support for Charter Schools is grounds for claiming that he doesn't want to improve education because that is what the rhetoric has trained us to believe.

Education Week 2/23/2011 Reflection

House GOP Presses for Deep Cuts in Education:  Ok these are the articles that have me extremely frustrated with our government and particularly with the Republican party.  Yes, at this point I am aware that the government avoided a shutdown for the first time in ten years (no we should not applaud them for agreeing to do their jobs when that should just be common sense...) but this is simply ridiculous!  Cutting almost 16% of the Department of Educations discretionary funding which would totally remove programs such as Pell Grants?!  Honestly what kind of a move is that?  We don't spend enough money on education in this country as it is and they want to cut their current budget by that much?  God forbid that we get out of the two or three wars that we have going on in the Middle East and devote some of those BILLIONS of dollars that we are investing in those wars to education and other focuses.  No I'm not advocating that we totally pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan immediately and do nothing to help stabilize the region.  I am advocating that we do a better job of pulling out of the area and redistributing a percentage of those funds that we would be using there on education.  The Republican Harold Rogers from Kentucky is kidding himself when he says that the cuts are shared commitment and sacrifice.  What a bunch of baloney!  A shared commitment to sacrifice would be reducing the tax loopholes for big business.  As a whole, our country, its general population and our government, do a really terrible job of living within its means.  What does that mean exactly?  Look at the credit card debt that so many Americans are in.  Look at the budget deficit that our government runs every single year, year after year, until we have a 9 trillion dollar debt.  Are we ever going to pay that money off?  I seriously doubt it.  All we are doing are selling the future generations short by making these cuts.  Back to wanting to get rid of Pell grants, why on earth would they want to get rid of those?  I thought they wanted more people with low incomes to be able to go to college?  If anything getting rid of them would make sure that few low income and minority students actually go to college.  Also wanting to get rid of 100 million dollars in technology grants seems stupid considering the goals of our country are focused around getting our education in technology and the sciences back on par with the other nations around the world that are currently kicking our butts in those areas.  All of the cuts proposed indicate one thing to me: our government is one that is penny-wise but dollar-foolish.  A commenter on the site, Cathy Winters, had this to say: "Do the leaders of this country have any semblance of reality?"  Good question Cathy, good question.

Education Week 2/9/11 Reflection

College for All Confronted:  In general, I have to think that many of the readers of this article and of the "college for all" initiative are taking the term college much too literally.  I completely agree with Michael Cohen when he says that it isnt just going to be a 4 year University that they are trying to get students to go to but any kind of post-high school education.  I was really impressed with the statistic (however, I have to say that I have absolutely NO idea as to how they came up with it; I would be very interested to know as to how they figured it out) that half of the new jobs are going to be ones that require associate degrees or vocational training.  This further emphasizes the increasing need for more and more high school graduates to continue with their education.
Another alternative to continuing their education past high school, and the article touched on this, is that high school could do a better job of preparing students for life in the technical fields.  I for one side on the air of hesitation for exactly the reasons outlined by Kati Hayock, the president of Education Trust.  I have done a project on tracking before in one of my education classes I took in undergrad and have personally been tracked myself (even though I was the receiver of many of the benefits of a tracking system) and just like she says, more minorities and more lower income students inevitably get funneled towards the lesser of the tracks.  This means that we are selling our kids short and they are not realizing their full potential.
I'm not sure if it is entirely possible to make it so that the minorities and the lower income students are not funneled towards tracks.  I think that the suggestion/model school in which students take all of the same core classes but choose a certain kind of field or focus for their electives is a great idea.  Say for instance that a kid did all of the electricity courses in addition to all of his normal core classes.  Sure that kid is probably in all likelihood going to heads towards becoming an electrician but that isn't a "for sure" thing.  What is to stop that kid from going to a "traditional" four year college or university?  Won't they see that he had that electrician kind of focus and disregard him? NO!  If anything that makes him/her a much more intriguing prospect for the school and will add to the diversity of that class significantly with the unique skillset and opinions that he/she brings to the classroom.  The focus fields of these "tracks" still need to be wide enough that a kid will still be fully prepared to do anything else should he/she decide that whatever track they are in is not what they want to do with the rest of their lives.

Education Week 2/2/2011

 Education Innovation:  Tougher than It Looks.  This article hits the nail on the head of one of the largest problems in our society, which is everyone is trying to get more money.  Normally that wouldn't be a problem.  I grew up as a republican and entrepreneurship is one of the major tenants of that political party.  However, the issue here is that no one is willing to invest the money in programs that could potentially really help the schools in this country.  It is the very same issue that we are facing in our government today.  So many of the brightest and greatest thinkers have absolutely no business or desire going into politics because of exactly that: there is no business going into it.  The president of the United States of America makes something like 110,000 dollars a year.  Mind you this is a pretty penny for pretty much all of us normal folks. The only "problem" is that the truly innovative people like Bill Gates and others like him who are able to build and develop and fund programs make millions and millions of dollars doing what they do now rather than go into government.  This article points out the same issue: for profit organizations don't want to wait for a most likely mediocre return on the investment that they would get by going into the research field of education.  They most likely realize that even if they waited 10-15 years to get a return on their investment, they would probably only break even, because if they were lucky enough that enough school districts had purchased their programs or whatever they are selling, more research would come out that would render theirs in second place.  What then?  Start over from scratch?  It isn't like the computer business where you can just get out there and do more research and development to get the newest, faster processor and beat out the competition that way.  There is so much prior knowledge to build off of there that you have a legitimate starting point.  I'm willing to bet that there isn't nearly the same kind of thing with the development of teaching strategies because of the issues this article described.  There is no real way to win.  Even if they demonstrate in a small subject area that something works, it won't work for everyone.  Even then if it has been found to be successful in that setting, there is the very distinct possibility that when it is sent out into the real world, some teachers won't use it because it isn't technically practical.  Why would someone buy it?  Exactly, they wouldn't.  So why would others work on developing it.  Obviously the answer here is that educators don't teach for the money otherwise they wouldn't be a teacher.  The issue is that the rest of the world runs on this notion.

No I'm not arguing for the redistribution of wealth.  Just trying to put my voice out there that there is a very obvious reason why we have the issues described in the article.