Mc entarffer education myths
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for a talk on education myths (metaphor = Mythbusters!) The myths I try to bust are 1) we're falling behind the rest of the world 2) US kids can't read or do math, and 3) this is the biggest crisis in the history of everything.
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Mc entarffer education myths
- 1. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Mythbusters, Education Edition: We're not failing! Rob McEntarffer, rmcenta@lps.org Twitter = @rmcenta Video = http://videocenter.lps.org/videos/vide o/1653/ Slides =
- 2. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 3. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 4. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Myth #1: We’re falling behind!
- 5. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 6. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/A_Nation_at_Risk.jpeg
- 7. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Berliner http://edsource.org/
- 8. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Source: http://www.hmleague.org/fullreport/
- 9. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Source: http://www.hmleague.org/fullreport/
- 10. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Myth #2: Our kids can’t read or do math.
- 11. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Zhao http://zhaolearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WorldClass.pdf
- 12. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska http://nces.ed.gov/ nationsreportcard/pubs/ main2012/2013456.aspx National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
- 13. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 14. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Myth #3: This is the most important education crisis ever!
- 15. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Sources: http://www.jamievollmer.com
- 16. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 17. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 18. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 19. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 20. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 21. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska
- 22. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Labaree https://ed.stanford.edu/faculty/dlabaree
- 23. Lincoln Public Schools Lincoln, Nebraska Photo ‘Molten Waters’ CC by Jason Samfield
Editor's Notes
- One of my family’s favorite shows is Mythbusters. These passionate folks use experiments and other research methodologies to test claims of truth. My goal during this short talk is to explain why I think two common beliefs about US Education are myths, and to introduce a few education “mythbusters” who don’t get talked about often enough.
- I’m here because LPS is an important place for me and my family. Many of my family members work or worked for LPS (maybe do a raised hands thing for how many people know my mom or Frank from LNE?) I taught for 13 years and LSE and at least 19 of my former students now work for LPS (not all pictured here). I decided during college to devote my life to teaching because teachers were the only adults I met who seemed to love thinking and talking about thinking. LPS is an important place to me. And a unique place in the country. as an ed measurement person and an LPS person, I’m offended by the “US Schools are failing” rhetoric ----- Meeting Notes (10/16/14 11:25) ----- ADD phil Kozol
- It’s not hard to find “US schools are failing” claims – these are Headlines from a brief search for “Education is Failing” (google news search on Aug. 5)
- international test scores - this is the myth starts – in 1983 Nation at Risk, a presidential commission concluded that our nation was at risk because of the quality of our schools. This conclusion was based on international test score comparisons, and at first glance, this is not where we want to be in the line up. But we should glance more than once… (if time, mention the report Randy found, 1st myth buster = David Berliner, Manufactured Crises
- Berliner pointed out that if the Nation at Risk commission had looked a little deeper, they would have noticed that over the years we’ve ALWAYS ranked at about the same place – this wasn’t a current trend when Nation at Risk was published in 1983 and it’s not a new thing now. If we’ve always ranked at the same place, have we ALWAYS been horrible? He also carefully examined the data and found that poverty is a huge factor in the text scores – when you compare high poverty schools internationally, the US compares well. Berliner’s book, The Manufactured Crisis, pointed out this and many other issues with Nation at Risk. It’s a mystery to me why this book doesn’t get more attention.
- Myth 2 is related to myth 1 but more specific to achievement in reading and math.
- The PISA test we talked about earlier coms into play in this myth too: some people say our students can’t read or do math based on international test score comparisons from the PISA test. We already talked about mythbuster David Berliner and some of the curious things about the PISA test in myth #1, but I want to introduce a 2nd mythbuster related to PISA tests. Much Yong Zhao (who was an EN Thompson forum speaker) pointed out that China who ranks very high on the PISA test is worried that it focuses TOO MUCH on memorization and other test prep skills that help it to that very high ranking. He said Chinese education officials he works with are worried about a lack of creativity and leadership skills among their students, and he and other researchers noticed that most countries who have done well on the PISA over time have NOT done well economically, while many countries who haven’t done well historically have seen growing economies and leaps forward in technology. Maybe the PISA measures something that we don’t want to emphasize? This graph shows an inverse relationship between PISA Math scores and “entreprenuership” – that’s a TOUGH thing to measure, but it’s worth thinking about. Maybe we don’t want to march up those ranks?
- Other folks base the “our kids can’t read or do math” based on a different test. The only true nationwide achievement test we have is the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It’s been around for a LONG time (the late 60s) and they are careful with sampling and other psychometric issues. These charts for Math and reading show a similar story: since 1971, NAEP achievement scores on Math and reading have been slowly climbing for younger people and pretty stable for older students. If someone wants to use these data to base this myth on and say that US students can’t do math and reading, they should add “but we’ve never been able to, and it’s getting better”
- Another google news search – “National assessment of educational progress proficiency” – it’s tough to be a consumer of this information , and we need to keep out “mythbuster” instincts hones when we hear generalizations like this – because we need to think critically about what authors mean by “proficiency”. This next part is pointy headed assessment stuff, so hum a quiet tune to yourself if you’re not in the mood for assessment geekiness: the NAEP test defines proficiency is a very spcific way, and it’s a different definition from many other tests (including our statewide test, NeSA) so we shouldn’t compare them directly. But people get sloppy and do that all the time.
- The 3rd myth is related to the 1st: if we’re failing, this is the most important educational crises ever, and we better address is now or the sky will most DEFINITELY fall this time. I wanted to show you this whole poster from ed. Historian Vollmer, but don’t worry – we’re going to take a closer look at each decade. Anyone in the audience who has been around education for a while has heard multiple versions of the “sky is falling” over the decades. Volmer looked at the history of education and documented the additional responsibilities added in each era
- In the 1st decade of the 1900s, we added…
- From 1910 to 1030, we added…
- In the 1940s we added…
- In the 1950s we added…
- In the 1960s we added… Does anyone notice the 1 thing on this list that Lincoln schools are NOT responsible for any more? What responsibility was dropped?
- Driver’s ed is the only thing we’re stopped doing! Each of these additions came along with it’s one version of this myth: someone was convinced that our schools needed to add this because of a crisis, and if we didn’t add it, dire consequences would come our way. And in education, nothing ever goes away – we just keep piling responsibilities on top of each other. Our current crisis is this era’s sky is falling crisis.
- Labaree (educational historian) points out that our society has always wanted our schools to accomplish many things, and some of those things are contradictory. He points out that there are inevitable tensions between the large number of goals/ missions schools have, and if we emphasize one, others will be de-emphasized, which opens the door for someone to point out how schools are “failing”. As long as we have multiple goals for schools, we may always have a “this is the most important crisis” of that era of schools.
- Fortunately, these crises and myths often miss the most important places in our education systems: inside classrooms with teachers and kids. Labaree described education reform as a storm above the surface of the water: above the water, the storm rages, but classrooms are beneath the surface, and are pockets of calm while the storm rages above. I plan to spend the rest of my life in LPS trying to do figure out more about teaching/learning - there are hundreds of ways to do it well, from reading alone in the library, to listening to a lecture, talking with others, doing mine craft, playing on the playground, drawing, etc etc etc. In LPS we can keep our heads as others lose theirs (sky is falling reference?) and we know that teaching and learning are bigger, more important, and more inclusive than the myths imply.