RttT = Current Reality Bites
3.4.10 – Danaher M. Dempsey, Jr. – On May 20, 2009 Martha McLaren and I announced to the Seattle School Board in public testimony that we were dissatisfied with the results of their misuse of information and the damaging consequences for Seattle’s children. We said that the Board’s adoption of Key
RttT = Current Reality Bites
On May 20, 2009 Martha McLaren and I announced to the Seattle School Board in public testimony that we were dissatisfied with the results of their misuse of information and the damaging consequences for Seattle’s children. We said that the Board’s adoption of Key Curriculum Press’s “Discovering” math series for Seattle High Schools was the last straw. We were pursuing legal action.
Seattle’s years of widening math achievement gaps correlated with increased use of minimally guided inquiry teaching techniques and materials. Our mined data from Seattle and Bellevue indicated to us that a change of direction was needed but we seemed to be the only two who thought we could win a legal appeal. An appeal of the Board’s adoption decision was filed on June 5. Within the twenty-day limit the Board submitted the 1100 pages of evidence to the court on which their decision was based. It included ZERO pages of the public’s submissions to the Board. We submitted 300 pages to the court previously sent to the Board.
On February 4, 2010 Marty sent me an email: OMIGOD WE WON!! Judge Julie Spector announced her finding of “arbitrary and capricious” in the Seattle School Board’s May 6 vote. Her decision states, “The court finds, based upon a review of the entire administrative record, that there is insufficient evidence for any reasonable Board member to approve the selection of the Discovering series.”
The Superintendent’s TEAM [BG1] hastily responded: we will appeal. My first thought was on what grounds? Had we violated the oligarchy’s right to exclude evidence?
The night before, the team oligarchy had approved a contract with a provider for $800,000 to be spent over three years that would help a Seattle school copy a model [BG2] used by a network of 41 schools that use Project Based Learning. I sent the school directors a great amount of evidence over the two weeks preceding the vote. It showed that a similar model had produced substandard test results in Oregon, California and Colorado. None of that mattered to four school directors who ignored the evidence preferring to rely on “Happy Talk” sprinkled with two teaspoons of excessive optimism as the Board voted its approval 4-2.
I wrote up an appeal filing and contacted the attorney from our Math legal victory. His analysis was: they sure made a lot of mistakes and your case is not frivolous but you will not win as this is education and almost anything is acceptable in education. He further went on to say what is really needed is a mismatch between the Action Report and the Contract.
Upon comparing the Contract with the Action Report there were several mismatches. The largest of which is the Action Report aligns with the district’s ongoing pitch of one school of 1000 with four separate grades of 250 in each grade, all organized into two academies. The contract obligates the district to use two distinctly separate schools capping enrollment at 450 students each. Each school must have its own principal and lots of other expensive duplication. Every class is required to use Project Based Learning as the primary instructional mode. The Action Report stated that 67% of the provider’s schools are STEM but in reality, only 24% are STEM. Well, that’s OK: it’s education we’re talking about, so anything goes because lawsuits are time consuming and expensive. I was wondering if any of those directors even read the contract. Marty is still raising funds to cover $13,140 in legal fees for the math victory. You can get an update at Seattle Math Group.[BG3]
So why copy what substandard schools are doing by choosing the ineffective Project Based Learning? Because it was all about the “Race to the Bank” and soon with “Race to the Top” funds it is likely that two million dollars will come to Seattle’s two new STEM high schools and the vendors can participate in “Race to the Bank”.
What about the kids? Well, according to information on learning effect sizes from “Visible Learning” (by Hattie)[BG4] the learning effect size for phonics is 0.6, while Whole Language is 0.06. We wasted a decade on Whole Language. The learning effect size for Problem Based Learning (PBL) is 0.15 and Mastery Learning is 0.58. Get ready for a decade of the PBL twins, Project and Problem. After all, it’s only education and anything goes–if someone will buy it.
Turn out the lights on the Republic for the Oligarchy has arrived. It’s all about the “Race to the Bank” and a belief in fairy-tales.
Danaher M. Dempsey, Jr. lives near Olympia, Washington and blogs at the Math Underground. He is working for legislation that will require school districts losing cases involving a violation of article IX of the state constitution to pay the winning plaintiff’s legal fees up to a maximum of $20,000. Currently there are no enforcement mechanisms for article IX. He believes that in a republic laws should protect the citizens. He apparently believes in fairy-tales also but knows that to improve a system requires the intelligent application of relevant data.
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John Hattie's Visible Learning is available at Amazon and elsewhere. Highly recommended ..
http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Learning-synthesis-meta-analyses-achievement/dp/0415476186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267692608&sr=1-1
March 3, 2010 the Seattle Public Schools have appealed Judge Spector's February 3, 2010 ruling of "Arbitrary and Capricious".
As soon as we have the actual appeal we will inform EdNews.org readers of the reasons why.
–dmd
Seattle Math Group:
http://seattlemathgroup.blogspot.com/
John Hattie wrote:
Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement
December 2008
Product Description
This unique and ground-breaking book is the result of 15 years research and synthesises over 800 meta-analyses on the influences on achievement in school-aged students. It builds a story about the power of teachers, feedback, and a model of learning and understanding. The research involves many millions of students and represents the largest ever evidence based research into what actually works in schools to improve learning. Areas covered include the influence of the student, home, school, curricula, teacher, and teaching strategies. A model of teaching and learning is developed based on the notion of visible teaching and visible learning.
A major message is that what works best for students is similar to what works best for teachers – an attention to setting challenging learning intentions, being clear about what success means, and an attention to learning strategies for developing conceptual understanding about what teachers and students know and understand.
Although the current evidence based fad has turned into a debate about test scores, this book is about using evidence to build and defend a model of teaching and learning. A major contribution is a fascinating benchmark/dashboard for comparing many innovations in teaching and schools.
About the Author
John Hattie is Professor of Education and Director of the Visible Learning Labs, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
The model is Project Based Learning from the New Technology Network.
http://www.newtechfoundation.org/
The following is a letter I sent recently to the ministers of our church.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
December 29, 2009
Dear Ministers A, B, C, D, and E,
The Hispanic children with whom I am associated are very intelligent and motivated, yet, I am very concerned about the appalling reading and arithmetic skills that I find during the Tuesday night tutoring sessions. One child ( about 12 years old) is completely illiterate and innumerate. Nearly all the children struggle with reading. All of the children are grossly delayed in learning their math facts.
Of the children with whom I have worked, all have a poor grasp of phonics and none ( regardless of grade) have mastered basic math facts ( addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). To compound the problem, their homework requires mastery of these basics even though the children have not mastered them!
If it is child abuse to send a child who cannot ski up to the top of a mountain and push him off onto a double black diamond trail, then it is child abuse for a public school teacher to assign homework to a child that is utterly impossible for him to complete. The frustration, guilt, and depression on these children’s faces is plainly evident. Every day in school and every evening at home with homework must be a minor hell of despair for them. Why would we be surprised that too many drop out at the first opportunity?
On Tuesday before the Christmas school holiday, I helped a girl with the addition of mixed fractions. This was her formal homework assignment for that day. How is it possible for a child to add mixed fractions if she has absolutely NO idea what the denominator or numerator of a simple fraction represent? How can she find common denominators when for multiplication and division she needs help drawing lines and dots on paper for her to group? How can she convert improper fractions to proper fractions and whole numbers when she adds and subtracts with her fingers and can not carry a value from the ten’s column to the one’s column? In other words, the assignment sent home for this child was **impossible** for her to understand. She told me that she is given homework assignments like this every day! This child is literally being pushed off a double black diamond educational mountain every day when she is not even a beginner. I call this child abuse.
What I am witnessing is SYSTEMATIC EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE and CHILD ABUSE!
I suggest that the following begin IMMEDIATELY:
· These children need a DAILY ,SATURDAY, VACATION, and an ALL- SUMMER afterschool educational program in highly structured and systematic phonics.
· DAILY drills in math facts.
· Appropriate rewards, certificates, and ceremonies to recognize the 100% mastery of specific levels of achievement in phonics and math facts.
· The children MUST NOT MOVE ON UNTIL THEY HAVE MASTERY OF A LEVEL!!!
· The older children must have 100% mastery of the fundamentals of arithmetic before moving to fractions. Each level of mathematics needs 100% mastery if there is to be any success on the next level.
· The parents must be instructed on how to create a learning centered home with TV, DVDs, I-pods, games, and Internet completely restricted until the child fully completes his weekly assignment goals. These goals must be rational and achievable.
· These children will need volunteers to pick them up and take them home from any afterschool program. Many of their parents are working more than one or two jobs and it is likely that many would find it impossible to bring their children to an afterschool program. Some may need tutoring in their homes.
Long term solution would include a combination of the following:
· Totally restructuring the public schools.
· KIPP charter schools or something similar.
· The church opens its own private tuition-free schools.
Although the Tuesday evening tutoring program is functioning as best as can be expected under the circumstances, it is far too little to do much good. It is like aiming a water pistol at a raging forest fire. The futures of these children are literally being burned up in slow motion. These children need INTENSIVE and SYSTEMITIZED INTERVENTION!!! They need it IMMEDIATELY!
The problem is a failure of the school to teach phonics in a systematic and rational manner, and a failure to demand that children master the basic levels in math before moving forward. It is a failure of the schools to properly group these children into an appropriate levels of mastery. It is a failure of the schools to assign the appropriate skill level of homework to these children.
Please forward this letter to those in the church and community with the authority to make a serious change. Children should never be neglected and emotionally abused in this manner.
Respectfully,