Monday, June 30, 2008

How much math does a teacher need to know to teach math?

An interesting blog post in the Education Week blogs yesterday raised this question. This takes up the discussion that has been going since the National Council on Teacher Quality released its report concerning the (lack of) mathematics preparation of teachers. The post also brings up the forthcoming TEDS-M study, which will probably add to this discussion.

So, how much should a teacher know? The following quote from the blog post touches this:
It seems obvious that teachers must have knowledge of the subject matter they will actually teach. But how much more knowledge should a teacher have than what she or he is seeking to assist students in learning? The case of secondary school mathematics is instructive. Is it enough for a high school trigonometry teacher to know trigonometry cold – but not, say, real analysis, or ordinary differential equations?
This issue was exactly the one that was raised in the LMT project (Learning Mathematics for Teaching) at University of Michigan. This was also the main issue in an article written by Heather Hill, Deborah Ball and Stephen Schilling in the last issue of Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. (The LMT team has also written several other scientific articles about the issue.)

How much math does a teacher need to know to teach math?

An interesting blog post in the Education Week blogs yesterday raised this question. This takes up the discussion that has been going since the National Council on Teacher Quality released its report concerning the (lack of) mathematics preparation of teachers. The post also brings up the forthcoming TEDS-M study, which will probably add to this discussion.

So, how much should a teacher know? The following quote from the blog post touches this:
It seems obvious that teachers must have knowledge of the subject matter they will actually teach. But how much more knowledge should a teacher have than what she or he is seeking to assist students in learning? The case of secondary school mathematics is instructive. Is it enough for a high school trigonometry teacher to know trigonometry cold – but not, say, real analysis, or ordinary differential equations?
This issue was exactly the one that was raised in the LMT project (Learning Mathematics for Teaching) at University of Michigan. This was also the main issue in an article written by Heather Hill, Deborah Ball and Stephen Schilling in the last issue of Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. (The LMT team has also written several other scientific articles about the issue.)

Teacher Mentoring and Student Achievement


UPDATE (6/28/2010):
"Positive Effects of Comprehensive Teacher Induction"


Friday afternoon's blog post on Education Sector's The Quick and The Ed offers a surprisingly negative take on a new teacher mentoring study, but does raise some shrewd points about the importance of a shared vision around supporting new teachers.

As I recently discussed, last week the American Enterprise Institute featured an event at which Columbia University economist Jonah Rockoff spoke about his study of teacher mentoring in New York City. One of the principal findings in Rockoff's study is that students' math and reading achievement was higher in the classrooms of new teachers who received more hours of mentoring, supporting the notion that time spent working with a mentor does improve teaching skills.

Rockoff writes:

The magnitude of these effects are substantial, with an additional ten hours of mentoring expected to raise student achievement by 0.05 standard deviations in math (0.10 in the survey sample) and 0.04 standard deviations in reading (0.06 in the survey sample). If truly causal, these effects would lend considerable support for the notion that mentoring has an impact on student achievement.

In her blog post, Laura Guarino speaks of "slight increases" in student achievement and Rockoff's overall "tepid" results. I think that understates this finding in his study. However, I think some of Guarino's other counsel is wise and her perspective as a new teacher tremendously valuable.

Guarino writes:

If the purpose of mentoring is to provide support in order to keep good teachers and make them better, then the responsibility of a mentor must be clear to both parties involved. When there are numerous goals and assorted models of mentoring, it is clear that we need to find “a best practice” in carrying out these programs. Mentoring is one of those good ideas in theory, but is far more complicated than it seems.

As a first-year TFA teacher in Charlotte, it sounds like Guarino experienced some sporadic and haphazard mentoring. It’s an experience from which we can learn. She references four different mentors giving her advice with four different visions of what their roles were. Four mentors?!?! Egads! That might sound like an embarrassment of riches, but certainly it isn't if the mentors are operating at cross-purposes and if they haven't been trained for the role.

Guarino is correct in saying that "Mentoring is more complicated than it seems." That’s a lesson that policymakers and district leaders need to learn. It is not enough simply to require mentoring. It’s not enough merely to assign a mentor to every new teacher. There’s much more that goes into designing induction and mentoring programs to produce the desired impact on teaching and learning.

A well-designed induction program pairs a carefully selected, intensively trained mentor with each first- and second-year teacher. It provides protected time for a mentor to meet regularly with a new teacher for 1.25-2.5 hours per week. Induction is not an old-fashioned buddy system that makes everyone feel good but doesn’t provide the regular, structured, contextualized and substantive support and feedback to the beginning teacher. I cannot underestimate the importance of mentor training and time in this regard. A prepared mentor is the necessary engine to ensure that the mentoring relationship focuses on improving teaching practice rather than on providing psychological and social support alone. Like it or not, that costs money, but it’s an investment that pays dividends if done right.

A strong induction program also has a clearly articulated vision shared by all stakeholders. Key stakeholders are not just the mentor and new teacher--but also the program site administrator, instructional coaches, school principal, and district superintendent. The program vision should include supporting new teacher development and strengthening student learning—not simply reducing teacher attrition and improving teacher morale.

Finally, I should note that the despite the positive results, New York City did take some shortcuts in implementing this program. Its decision to provide mentor support only during the first year of teaching may have been a fundamental flaw. It's a short cut that many states and districts take, sometimes for financial reasons and sometimes because they fail to understand that second-year teachers have unique needs as they continue to develop into veteran educators. In the Big Apple, this decision could well have depressed the potential for additional student learning gains. New Teacher Center research [see Figure 1, page 2] from California shows that greater student achievement gains are realized as a result of intensive induction sustained over two years. That's a finding that should be investigated further in different school and district contexts.

---------------------------------------

UPDATE: Here is Alexander Russo's post on this topic.


JRME, July 2008

Issue 4 of JRME is out, and it contains lots of interesting articles:

JRME, July 2008

Issue 4 of JRME is out, and it contains lots of interesting articles:

Sunday, June 29, 2008

ICMI newsletter

A new issue of the ICMI newsletter is out. If you are not subscribing, you can read the entire newsletter in text format here.

One of the many interesting news in this newsletter is concerning a new website about the history of ICMI. The website is edited by Fulvia Furinghetti and Livia Giacardi, and this site provides you with en excellent set of resources for information about the history of ICMI and, in many ways, the history of our field of research.

Another interesting information is concerning the so-called "ICMI Reading Room" at SpringerLink.

Up to December 31, 2008, members of the international community of
mathematics educators will have open access, via SpringerLink.com, to
selected works published in Springer journals of the four most recent
ICMI medallists (Paul Cobb, Ubiratan D'Ambrosio, Jeremy Kilpatrick and
Anna Sfard).
These sholars represent some of the most important milestones in our field, and this is a very nice opportunity to learn more about the work of these four medallists.

The newsletter also announces the launcing of a new journal in mathematics education: Sutra - The International Journal of Mathematics Education. Sutra is the official journal of the Technomathematics Research Foundation, and the first issue will be published online in August this year.

You can read about this and much more in the lates issue of the ICMI newsletter. If you want to subscribe to the newsletter, there are two ways of doing that:
  1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/ICMI/Mailinglist with a Web browser and go to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to ICMI News online.
  2. Send an e-mail to icmi-news-request at mathunion.org with the Subject-line: Subject: subscribe

ICMI newsletter

A new issue of the ICMI newsletter is out. If you are not subscribing, you can read the entire newsletter in text format here.

One of the many interesting news in this newsletter is concerning a new website about the history of ICMI. The website is edited by Fulvia Furinghetti and Livia Giacardi, and this site provides you with en excellent set of resources for information about the history of ICMI and, in many ways, the history of our field of research.

Another interesting information is concerning the so-called "ICMI Reading Room" at SpringerLink.

Up to December 31, 2008, members of the international community of
mathematics educators will have open access, via SpringerLink.com, to
selected works published in Springer journals of the four most recent
ICMI medallists (Paul Cobb, Ubiratan D'Ambrosio, Jeremy Kilpatrick and
Anna Sfard).
These sholars represent some of the most important milestones in our field, and this is a very nice opportunity to learn more about the work of these four medallists.

The newsletter also announces the launcing of a new journal in mathematics education: Sutra - The International Journal of Mathematics Education. Sutra is the official journal of the Technomathematics Research Foundation, and the first issue will be published online in August this year.

You can read about this and much more in the lates issue of the ICMI newsletter. If you want to subscribe to the newsletter, there are two ways of doing that:
  1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/ICMI/Mailinglist with a Web browser and go to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to ICMI News online.
  2. Send an e-mail to icmi-news-request at mathunion.org with the Subject-line: Subject: subscribe

Math history on the internet

The excellent blog: Let's Play Math! presents a post about history of mathematics on the internet. The blog post features an extensive list of links for further reading about the history of mathematics.

Math history on the internet

The excellent blog: Let's Play Math! presents a post about history of mathematics on the internet. The blog post features an extensive list of links for further reading about the history of mathematics.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Switching Languages May = Switching Personalities

Fascinating study:
People who are bicultural and speak two languages may actually shift their personalities when they switch from one language to another, according to new research. . . .

The authors studied groups of Hispanic women, all of whom were bilingual, but with varying degrees of cultural identification. They found significant levels of "frame-shifting" (changes in self perception) in bicultural participants--those who participate in both Latino and Anglo culture. . . .

In one of the studies, a group of bilingual U.S. Hispanic women viewed ads that featured women in different scenarios. The participants saw the ads in one language (English or Spanish) and then, six months later, they viewed the same ads in the other language. Their perceptions of themselves and the women in the ads shifted depending on the language. "One respondent, for example, saw an ad's main character as a risk-taking, independent woman in the Spanish version of the ad, but as a hopeless, lonely, confused woman in the English version," write the authors.

Switching Languages May = Switching Personalities

Fascinating study:
People who are bicultural and speak two languages may actually shift their personalities when they switch from one language to another, according to new research. . . .

The authors studied groups of Hispanic women, all of whom were bilingual, but with varying degrees of cultural identification. They found significant levels of "frame-shifting" (changes in self perception) in bicultural participants--those who participate in both Latino and Anglo culture. . . .

In one of the studies, a group of bilingual U.S. Hispanic women viewed ads that featured women in different scenarios. The participants saw the ads in one language (English or Spanish) and then, six months later, they viewed the same ads in the other language. Their perceptions of themselves and the women in the ads shifted depending on the language. "One respondent, for example, saw an ad's main character as a risk-taking, independent woman in the Spanish version of the ad, but as a hopeless, lonely, confused woman in the English version," write the authors.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Preparation of math teachers

The National Council on Teacher Quality has released a report about preparation of math teachers in the US. Here is a copy from the press release:
No Common Denominator: The Preparation of Elementary Teachers in Mathematics by America's Education Schools, June 2008
American students' chronically poor performance in mathematics on international tests may begin in the earliest grades, handicapped by the weak knowledge of mathematics of their own elementary teachers. NCTQ looks at the quality of preparation provided by a representative sampling of institutions in nearly every state. We also provide a test developed by leading mathematicians which assesses for the knowledge that elementary teachers should acquire during their preparation. Imagine the implications of an elementary teaching force being able to pass this test.
On the web site of NCTQ, you can download an executive summary, the test and answer key, or the full report.

Preparation of math teachers

The National Council on Teacher Quality has released a report about preparation of math teachers in the US. Here is a copy from the press release:
No Common Denominator: The Preparation of Elementary Teachers in Mathematics by America's Education Schools, June 2008
American students' chronically poor performance in mathematics on international tests may begin in the earliest grades, handicapped by the weak knowledge of mathematics of their own elementary teachers. NCTQ looks at the quality of preparation provided by a representative sampling of institutions in nearly every state. We also provide a test developed by leading mathematicians which assesses for the knowledge that elementary teachers should acquire during their preparation. Imagine the implications of an elementary teaching force being able to pass this test.
On the web site of NCTQ, you can download an executive summary, the test and answer key, or the full report.

Triangles as intuitive non-examples

Pessia Tsamir, Dina Tirosh and Esther Levenson (all from Tel Aviv University, Israel) have written an article about concept formation in kindergarten children in Educational Studies in Mathematics. The article is entitled: Intuitive nonexamples: the case of triangles. Here is the abstract:
In this paper we examine the possibility of differentiating between two types of nonexamples. The first type, intuitive nonexamples, consists of nonexamples which are intuitively accepted as such. That is, children immediately identify them as nonexamples. The second type, non-intuitive nonexamples, consists of nonexamples that bear a significant similarity to valid examples of the concept, and consequently are more often mistakenly identified as examples. We describe and discuss these notions and present a study regarding kindergarten children’s grasp of nonexamples of triangles.

Triangles as intuitive non-examples

Pessia Tsamir, Dina Tirosh and Esther Levenson (all from Tel Aviv University, Israel) have written an article about concept formation in kindergarten children in Educational Studies in Mathematics. The article is entitled: Intuitive nonexamples: the case of triangles. Here is the abstract:
In this paper we examine the possibility of differentiating between two types of nonexamples. The first type, intuitive nonexamples, consists of nonexamples which are intuitively accepted as such. That is, children immediately identify them as nonexamples. The second type, non-intuitive nonexamples, consists of nonexamples that bear a significant similarity to valid examples of the concept, and consequently are more often mistakenly identified as examples. We describe and discuss these notions and present a study regarding kindergarten children’s grasp of nonexamples of triangles.

Pythagorean approximations

Javier Peralta from Madrid, Spain wrote an article that was recently published online in Teaching Mathematics and its Applications. The article is entitled Pythagorean approximations and continued fractions, and it relates to the Fibonacci sequence, sequences of rational numbers, etc. Here is the abstract of the article:
In this article, we will show that the Pythagorean approximations of Formula coincide with those achieved in the 16th century by means of continued fractions. Assuming this fact and the known relation that connects the Fibonacci sequence with the golden section, we shall establish a procedure to obtain sequences of rational numbers converging to different algebraic irrationals. We will see how approximations to some irrational numbers, using known facts from the history of mathematics, may perhaps help to acquire a better comprehension of the real numbers and their properties at further mathematics level.

Pythagorean approximations

Javier Peralta from Madrid, Spain wrote an article that was recently published online in Teaching Mathematics and its Applications. The article is entitled Pythagorean approximations and continued fractions, and it relates to the Fibonacci sequence, sequences of rational numbers, etc. Here is the abstract of the article:
In this article, we will show that the Pythagorean approximations of Formula coincide with those achieved in the 16th century by means of continued fractions. Assuming this fact and the known relation that connects the Fibonacci sequence with the golden section, we shall establish a procedure to obtain sequences of rational numbers converging to different algebraic irrationals. We will see how approximations to some irrational numbers, using known facts from the history of mathematics, may perhaps help to acquire a better comprehension of the real numbers and their properties at further mathematics level.

Effectiveness of teacher education

Sigrid Blömeke, Anja Felbrich, Christiane Müller, Gabriele Kaiser and Rainer Lehmann have written an article that was recently published online in ZDM. The article is entitled "Effectiveness of teacher education", and here is the abstract:
Teacher-education research lacks a common theoretical basis, which prevents a convincing development of instruments and makes it difficult to connect studies to each other. Our paper models how to measure effective teacher education in the context of the current state of knowledge in the field. First, we conceptualize the central criterion of effective teacher education: “professional competence of future teachers”. Second, individual, institutional, and systemic factors are modeled that may influence the acquisition of this competence during teacher education. In doing this, we turn round the perspective taken by Cochran-Smith and Zeichner (Studying teacher education. The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah 2005), who mainly take an educational-sociological perspective by focusing on characteristics of teacher education and looking for their effects. In contrast, we take an educational-psychological perspective by focusing on professional competence of teachers and examining influences on this. Challenges connected to an assessment of teacher-education outcomes are discussed as well.

Effectiveness of teacher education

Sigrid Blömeke, Anja Felbrich, Christiane Müller, Gabriele Kaiser and Rainer Lehmann have written an article that was recently published online in ZDM. The article is entitled "Effectiveness of teacher education", and here is the abstract:
Teacher-education research lacks a common theoretical basis, which prevents a convincing development of instruments and makes it difficult to connect studies to each other. Our paper models how to measure effective teacher education in the context of the current state of knowledge in the field. First, we conceptualize the central criterion of effective teacher education: “professional competence of future teachers”. Second, individual, institutional, and systemic factors are modeled that may influence the acquisition of this competence during teacher education. In doing this, we turn round the perspective taken by Cochran-Smith and Zeichner (Studying teacher education. The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah 2005), who mainly take an educational-sociological perspective by focusing on characteristics of teacher education and looking for their effects. In contrast, we take an educational-psychological perspective by focusing on professional competence of teachers and examining influences on this. Challenges connected to an assessment of teacher-education outcomes are discussed as well.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Musical Elective of the Week

The Musical Elective of the Week is Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer.

These two folk musicians paired up in 1996 after Tracy approached Dave at one of his shows in Portland, Oregon. Carter had recorded his debut album, Snake Handlin' Man, that same year. He had already gained a reputation as a widely acclaimed folk songwriter. To the partnership, Grammer brought her own vocal skills in addition to skilled musical talents on the violin and mandolin.

The collaboration between Carter and Grammer spanned the next six years and resulted in three albums--1998's When I Go, 2000's Tanglewood Tree and 2001's Drum Hat Buddha. The All Music Guide called Tanglewood Tree "a landmark album in contemporary folk music." The partnership came to a sad and premature end when Carter died of a heart attack at the age of 49 in 2002. A web site (www.daveandtracy.com) remains dedicated to their musical partnership.

However, Tracy Grammer has continued on to make music with Carter's spirit close at hand. In 2005 she released her own debut album, Flower of Avalon. It includes nine previously- unreleased songs by Dave Carter. She also released an EP in 2004 called The Verdant Mile. Over the last two years, Grammer has been prolific with 2006's Seven Is The Number and two EPs in 2007, Book of Sparrows and the holiday album American Noel. In recent years, Tracy has collaborated and toured with Massachusetts-based musician Jim Henry. While Henry has begged off large-scale touring, he stills plays many dates in New England.

If you want an introduction to Dave and Tracy's music, I highly recommend beginning with Tanglewood Tree. For Tracy's solo work, start either with The Verdant Mile or Flower of Avalon.

If you want to check out Tracy live in concert, here is her current tour schedule.
Love is a tanglewood tree in a bower of green
In a forest at dawn
Fair while the mockingbird sings, but she soon lifts her wings
And the music is gone
-----

Extra Credit -- Past Musical Electives of the Week:
Neil Finn
Ray LaMontagne
Stuart Stotts
Dan Wilson
Kathleen Edwards

Does Mentoring Improve New Teachers?

Even though I'm sitting 1000 miles away in Madison, Wisconsin, my sources inform me that an event is happening as I write at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. It features a presentation and discussion of a new paper on urban teacher mentoring by Columbia University economist Jonah Rockoff.

Rockoff looked at teacher mentoring in New York City, including the impact on student learning and teacher retention. The New Teacher Center worked with NYC to launch the mentoring program back in 2004. The city dismantled the program after 3 years -- not due to lack of positive impact -- but as part of its effort to devolve authority and decision-making from the central office to school principals.

Some key findings in Rockoff's paper include:
  • Student achievement in both reading and math were higher among teachers that received more hours of mentoring, supporting the notion that time spent working with a mentor does improve teaching skills.
  • Teacher retention within a particular school is higher when a mentor has previous experience working in that school.
  • Strong relationships between measures of mentoring quality and teachers’ evaluations of the impact of mentors on their classroom success.
  • Additional supports for new teachers (e.g., common planning time, professional development workshops, reduced teaching loads) beyond mentoring alone helps to increase retention, consistent with the research of Tom Smith and Richard Ingersoll (2004).
For those interested in the impact of high-quality, robust support for new educators, Rockoff's paper is well worth a closer read.

For those of you with a specific interest in teacher mentoring in New York City, a recent policy paper from the New Teacher Center (NTC) is also worth reading.

Also, here's what the NTC has to say about high-quality mentoring and induction practices and the cost effectiveness of investments in such programs.

Poll: Education *Not* A Top Issue for Voters?

Last week I wrote this post entitled Poll: Education A Top Issue For Voters.

Oh, well.

Today, a new national poll released by the Public Education Network (PEN) suggests something slightly different, although quite honestly I don't believe it contradicts last week's title. In the PEN poll, education was ranked as the third "most important" issue, by 12 percent of respondents. Gas prices (22 percent) and jobs/economy (19 percent) led the way. Trailing education were health care (11 percent), taxes (8 percent) and crime/drugs (8 percent).

Unlike the recent Pew poll which allowed respondents to select several issues that were important to them, this question requires poll respondents to select only one issue as the most important. So, the fact that education comes out third isn't all that bad given the intensity of feeling and economic importance of issues such as employment and fuel costs.

In terms of the presidential election, today's PEN poll found that slightly less than half (48 percent) of respondents cited the candidates' positions on education as "one of the most important" issues or "very important" to how they will vote in November.

There's lots more good stuff in this poll worth checking out as well.

For more, here is pollster Celinda Lake's analysis (PPT). And here's the Education Week story.

Life purpose and "moral education"

This has been cross-posted at Smart and Good.

The most recent issue of Education Week included a piece highlighting Bill Damon’s new book, The Path to Purpose:  Helping our Children Find Their Calling in Life.   Damon is a Stanford psychologist and long-time moral development researcher whose earlier work, The Moral Child, sets out a worthwhile vision of what makes a child good.

Damon’s work is a hermeneutically-enriched form of survey research.   He is asking large numbers of young people aged 12 through 26, through paper and pencil surveys and selected in-depth interviews, about their lack of direction in life.    The work, still in progress, has a comparative dimension in that Damon and his colleagues are trying to determine whether the youth of today differ from past generations in their ability to frame meaning and purpose in their lives.

Damon’s preliminary answer is that more than a quarter of young people are “disengaged” and about a fifth have actually found something meaningful to which they wanted to dedicate their lives.   The vast numbers in between have not given up on meaningfulness but haven’t found a way to make sense of their lives either.    Damon calls on schools and communities to address this “malaise.”

Damon’s on target here in my estimation, and this may be one of the premier ways that “moral education” can – and must – be integrated with academic purposes in schooling.   When a young person (in high school or college) learns biology, the purpose is not that he will know the difference between mitosis and meiosis.   One purpose is that he will understand himself in the world as a form of life, as a walking miraculous process, as a complex system, as an atomic unit in a much larger complex system, and so forth.   Another purpose is that she will possess the resources (knowledge, analytic skills, skills of appreciation/communication) to respond in a fitting way to the day’s practical issues re health, innovation, nourishment, etc.   And if he finds himself fascinated with either the mechanisms of biology or the issues that biological understanding illuminates, he may find a pursuit (of employment or leisure) to which he can commit large amounts of time and energy.   Each of these purposes is about life meaning, about one’s way of being in the world, and about the actions that turn meaning into meaningfulness.   This is moral education (as Damon’s background and life purpose would portend)  -- without the direct weight of  moralizing or evangelization or indoctrination.  

These are unquestionably educational issues though perhaps not narrowly academic ones.   Are our school structures, schedules and curricula designed to make it likely that this work is being done?  Are teachers willing and/or able to take up these issues even when time – and administrative fiat -- “permits”?  I’d answer no.

Life purpose and "moral education"

This has been cross-posted at Smart and Good.

The most recent issue of Education Week included a piece highlighting Bill Damon’s new book, The Path to Purpose:  Helping our Children Find Their Calling in Life.   Damon is a Stanford psychologist and long-time moral development researcher whose earlier work, The Moral Child, sets out a worthwhile vision of what makes a child good.

Damon’s work is a hermeneutically-enriched form of survey research.   He is asking large numbers of young people aged 12 through 26, through paper and pencil surveys and selected in-depth interviews, about their lack of direction in life.    The work, still in progress, has a comparative dimension in that Damon and his colleagues are trying to determine whether the youth of today differ from past generations in their ability to frame meaning and purpose in their lives.

Damon’s preliminary answer is that more than a quarter of young people are “disengaged” and about a fifth have actually found something meaningful to which they wanted to dedicate their lives.   The vast numbers in between have not given up on meaningfulness but haven’t found a way to make sense of their lives either.    Damon calls on schools and communities to address this “malaise.”

Damon’s on target here in my estimation, and this may be one of the premier ways that “moral education” can – and must – be integrated with academic purposes in schooling.   When a young person (in high school or college) learns biology, the purpose is not that he will know the difference between mitosis and meiosis.   One purpose is that he will understand himself in the world as a form of life, as a walking miraculous process, as a complex system, as an atomic unit in a much larger complex system, and so forth.   Another purpose is that she will possess the resources (knowledge, analytic skills, skills of appreciation/communication) to respond in a fitting way to the day’s practical issues re health, innovation, nourishment, etc.   And if he finds himself fascinated with either the mechanisms of biology or the issues that biological understanding illuminates, he may find a pursuit (of employment or leisure) to which he can commit large amounts of time and energy.   Each of these purposes is about life meaning, about one’s way of being in the world, and about the actions that turn meaning into meaningfulness.   This is moral education (as Damon’s background and life purpose would portend)  -- without the direct weight of  moralizing or evangelization or indoctrination.  

These are unquestionably educational issues though perhaps not narrowly academic ones.   Are our school structures, schedules and curricula designed to make it likely that this work is being done?  Are teachers willing and/or able to take up these issues even when time – and administrative fiat -- “permits”?  I’d answer no.

Alternative take on USM expansion

I probably won't have the time to go through the plans / blueprints regarding the USM expansion so I won't be able to add much more to what I've already said earlier. While my take is slightly more positive, here's a very negative opinion on the project written by Anil Netto. Anil is right to be skeptical of such ambitious plans in the Malaysian context given our poor track record but I hope that there are some grounds for my optimism.

Mathematics teaching during the early years in Hong Kong

Sharon S. N. Ng and Nirmala Rao have written an article for the journal Early Years. The article concerns teaching of mathematics in Hong Kong, and it is entitled: Mathematics teaching during the early years in Hong Kong: a reflection of constructivism with Chinese characteristics? Here is the abstract:
This paper characterizes early mathematics instruction in Hong Kong. The teaching of addition in three pre-primary and three lower primary schools was observed and nine teachers were interviewed about their beliefs about early mathematics teaching. A child-centered, play-based approach was evident but teachers emphasized discipline, diligence and academic success. Observations also revealed practices reflective of both constructivist and instructivist pedagogies. Results from interviews suggest that teachers' traditional cultural beliefs about instruction were challenged by western ideologies introduced in continuing professional development courses and by notions promulgated by the educational reforms. Both consistencies and inconsistencies between teachers' beliefs and practices were identified. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Mathematics teaching during the early years in Hong Kong

Sharon S. N. Ng and Nirmala Rao have written an article for the journal Early Years. The article concerns teaching of mathematics in Hong Kong, and it is entitled: Mathematics teaching during the early years in Hong Kong: a reflection of constructivism with Chinese characteristics? Here is the abstract:
This paper characterizes early mathematics instruction in Hong Kong. The teaching of addition in three pre-primary and three lower primary schools was observed and nine teachers were interviewed about their beliefs about early mathematics teaching. A child-centered, play-based approach was evident but teachers emphasized discipline, diligence and academic success. Observations also revealed practices reflective of both constructivist and instructivist pedagogies. Results from interviews suggest that teachers' traditional cultural beliefs about instruction were challenged by western ideologies introduced in continuing professional development courses and by notions promulgated by the educational reforms. Both consistencies and inconsistencies between teachers' beliefs and practices were identified. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Students' problem solving behaviours

Tracey Muir, Kim Beswick and John Williamson have written an article that was recently published in the Journal of Mathematical Behavior. The article is entitled “I’m not very good at solving problems”: An exploration of students’ problem solving behaviours.

Abstract:

This paper reports one aspect of a larger study which looked at the strategies used by a selection of grade 6 students to solve six non-routine mathematical problems. The data revealed that the students exhibited many of the behaviours identified in the literature as being associated with novice and expert problem solvers. However, the categories of ‘novice’ and ‘expert’ were not fully adequate to describe the range of behaviours observed and instead three categories that were characteristic of behaviours associated with ‘naïve’, ‘routine’ and ‘sophisticated’ approaches to solving problems were identified. Furthermore, examination of individual cases revealed that each student's problem solving performance was consistent across a range of problems, indicating a particular orientation towards naïve, routine or sophisticated problem solving behaviours. This paper describes common problem solving behaviours and details three individual cases involving naïve, routine and sophisticated problem solvers.

Students' problem solving behaviours

Tracey Muir, Kim Beswick and John Williamson have written an article that was recently published in the Journal of Mathematical Behavior. The article is entitled “I’m not very good at solving problems”: An exploration of students’ problem solving behaviours.

Abstract:

This paper reports one aspect of a larger study which looked at the strategies used by a selection of grade 6 students to solve six non-routine mathematical problems. The data revealed that the students exhibited many of the behaviours identified in the literature as being associated with novice and expert problem solvers. However, the categories of ‘novice’ and ‘expert’ were not fully adequate to describe the range of behaviours observed and instead three categories that were characteristic of behaviours associated with ‘naïve’, ‘routine’ and ‘sophisticated’ approaches to solving problems were identified. Furthermore, examination of individual cases revealed that each student's problem solving performance was consistent across a range of problems, indicating a particular orientation towards naïve, routine or sophisticated problem solving behaviours. This paper describes common problem solving behaviours and details three individual cases involving naïve, routine and sophisticated problem solvers.

Monday, June 23, 2008

TEACH Grants: Coming Soon....

News from ED today: Final regs on the TEACH grant were passed. It's a little better than before, since students will now apparently sign a "service agreement and promise to repay" that explains "the service obligation that students must carry out for the TEACH Grant award not to convert to a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan."

Just one question: Why call it a grant? Why not a loan-forgiveness program? This is a grant that for 80% of students will become a loan. And why not, at least, a subsidized loan?

Apparently, because ED isn't allowed to change the name, purpose or structure of the program, all of which were dictated by the HEA. I suppose they did the best they could....

The only other good news is that the regs include an amendment which makes institutional participation in the program voluntary. Now the burden is shifted to schools to opt out of a program that would- on the face of it- appear to provide needed money to students. A tough call, but one that schools might consider making in the interest of their students. Most won't get past the word "GRANT."

Bakri Musa's take on Science & Math in English

M Bakri Musa wrote this piece on his blog last week. I agree with most of this points. I'm agnostic when it comes to this issue since I recognize that there are pros and cons on both sides of the argument. I'm a pragmatist and I would choose the option which will bring about the most benefits with the least cost. Given that internal studies of the MOE have shown that teaching Science and Math in English doesn't really affect the results of students (I'd like to see the methodology though), I think that it makes sense to continue teaching both these subjects in English.

Continue Teaching Science and Mathematics in Malay

The government’s decision to revisit (and most likely do away with) the current teaching of science and mathematics in English is an instructive example of how an otherwise sensible policy could easily be discredited and then abandoned because of poor execution. Had there been better planning, many of the problems encountered could have been readily anticipated and thus avoided, or at least reduced. The policy would then more likely to succeed, and thus be accepted.

Ironically, only a year ago a Ministry of Education “study” pronounced the program to be moving along “smoothly,” with officials “satisfied” with its implementation. Now another “study” showed that there was no difference in the “performance” (whatever that term means or how they measure it) between those taught in Malay or English.

The policy was in response to the obvious deficiencies noted in students coming out of our national schools: their abysmal command of English, and their limited mathematical skills and science literacy. They carry these deficits when they enter university, and then onto the workplace.

The results are predictable. These graduates are practically unemployable. As the vast majority of them are Malays, this creates tremendous political pressure on the government to act as employer of last resort. Accommodating these graduates made our civil service bloated and inefficient, burdened by their deficient language and mathematical abilities.

This longstanding problem began in the late 1970s when Malay became the exclusive language of instruction in our public schools and universities. Overcoming this problem would be a monumental undertaking.

The greatest mistake was to underestimate the magnitude of the task, especially in overcoming the system’s inertia. Today’s teachers and policy makers are products of this all-Malay education system. Change would mean repudiating the very system that had produced them, a tough sell at the best of times.

In their naivety, ministry officials convinced themselves that such enormous obstacles as the teachers’ lack of English fluency could easily be overcome by enrolling them in short culup (superficial) courses that were in turn conducted by those equally inept in English. Or by simply providing these teachers with laptops programmed with instructional modules!

Even if we had had the best talents devoting themselves exclusively to implementing the policy, the task would still be huge. Unfortunately we have Hishammuddin Hussein as Minister of Education shepherding the change. An insightful innovator or an effective executive he is not. Being simultaneously an UMNO Youth Chief, he was also distracted in trying to pass himself off as the champion of Ketuanan Melayu.

These factors practically ensure the initiative’s failure. The tragic part is that the burden of the failure falls disproportionately on the rural poor, meaning Malays, a point missed by these self-professed nationalists. I would have thought that that alone would have motivated them to succeed.

A Better Way

Teaching science and mathematics in English would solve two problems simultaneously. One, considering the critical shortage of textbooks, journals, and other literature in Malay, teaching the two subjects in English would facilitate the acquisition of new knowledge by our students. With the exponential growth of new knowledge, it would be impossible to keep up solely through translations, even if we were to devote our entire intellectual resources towards that endeavor.

The other objective was to enhance the English fluency of our students. Of course if that were the only consideration, there are other more effective ways of achieving it, like devoting more instructional hours to the subject.

If, as the recent Ministry’s “study” indicates, there is no difference in performance between those taught in Malay or English, that in itself would favor continuing the program because of the twin benefits discussed earlier. Besides, changing course midstream would not only be disruptive but also counterproductive. Our educational system needs predictable stability and incremental improvements, not disruptive U-turns and faddish changes, especially in response to political pressures.

A more important point is this. Altering a politically pivotal and highly emotional public policy requires careful preparation and deliberate execution. If I were to implement the policy, this is what I would do. Lest readers think that this is hindsight wisdom on my part, rest assured that I had documented these ideas in my earlier book, long before the government even contemplated the policy.

Being prudent, as we are dealing with our children’s and nation’s future, I would begin with a small pilot project, analyze the problems, correct the deficiencies, and only then expand the program.

First, I would implement the policy initially only at primary and selected secondary schools, like our residential schools. The language requirements as well as the science and mathematical concepts at the primary level are quite elementary, and thus more readily acquired by the teachers. And at that level the pupils would not have to unlearn much as everything would still be new.

In schools where the background English literacy level of the pupils is low as in the villages, I would have the pupils take English immersion classes for a full term or even a year. We had earlier successful experiences with this with our Special Malay Classes and Remove classes. This strategy has also been tried successfully in America for children of non-English-speaking immigrants. Another idea I put forth in my earlier book is to bring back the old English schools in such areas. As the Malay literacy level in the community and at home is high, these pupils are unlikely to “forget” their own language.

At the secondary level, our residential schools get the best students and teachers. Consequently the program could be more easily implemented there as the learning curve would be steep, and mistakes more readily recognized and corrected. Once the kinks have been worked out, expand the program.

Second is the issue of teachers. Fortunately Malaysia has two large untapped reservoirs of talent: recently retired teachers trained under the old English-based system, and native English speakers who are either spouses of Malaysians or residents of this country. Given adequate compensation and minimal of hassles, they could be readily recruited.

I would add other incentives especially if they were to serve in rural areas where the need is most acute. Thus in addition to greater pay, I would give them first preference to teachers’ quarters.

A permanent solution would be to convert a number of existing teachers’ colleges into exclusively English-medium institutions to train future teachers of English, science, and mathematics. As the present teacher-trainees have limited English fluency, I would begin admitting them right away in January following their leaving school in December of the preceding year.

From that January till the regular opening of the academic year (sometime in July), these trainees would undergo intensive English immersion classes where their entire 24-hour day would be consumed with learning, speaking, thinking, and even dreaming in English. With the subsequent three years of additional instructions exclusively in English, these graduates would then be fully fluent in English.

With such quality programs, these graduates would be in great demand within and outside their profession. With their heightened English facility and mathematical competency, their educational opportunities would also expand as they could further their studies anywhere in the English-speaking world. With such bright prospects, these colleges would have no difficulty recruiting talented school leavers. Our teaching profession would also be enriched with the addition of such talents.

As for textbooks, there is no need to write new ones. The contents of these two subjects are universally applicable. Meaning, textbooks written for British students would be just as suitable for Malaysians, so we could select already available books. With its purchasing clout, the government could drive a hard bargain with existing publishers.

I hope Ministry of Education officials, including and especially Hishammuddin, would heed these factors when they review the current policy. They should continue the current policy, correct the evident errors, and strengthen the obvious weaknesses. The success of this policy would also mean success for our students, and our nation. That is a worthy pursuit for anyone with ambitions to one day lead the nation.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

TMME, July 2008

The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast has just published a combined number 2&3. This large issue is filled with content. Here is the list of featured articles:

1. Jeff Babb & James Currie(Canada)
The Brachistochrone Problem: Mathematics for a Broad Audience via a Large Context

2. Michael Fried (Israel)
History of Mathematics in Mathematics Education: a Saussurean Perspective

3. Spyros Glenis (Greece)
Comparison of Geometric Figures

4. Giorgio T. Bagni (Italy)
“Obeying a rule”: Ludwig Wittgenstein and the foundations of Set Theory

5. Arnaud Mayrargue (France)
How can science history contribute to the development of new proposals in the teaching of the notion of derivatives?

6. Antti Viholainen (Finland)
Incoherence of a concept image and erroneous conclusions in the case of differentiability

7. Dores Ferreira & Pedro Palhares (Portugal)
Chess and problem solving involving patterns

8. Friðrik Diego & Kristín Halla Jónsdóttir (Iceland)
Associative Operations on a Three-Element Set

9. Jon Warwick (UK)
A Case Study Using Soft Systems Methodology in the Evolution of a Mathematics Module

10. Barbara Garii & Lillian Okumu (New York, USA)
Mathematics and the World: What do Teachers Recognize as Mathematics in Real World Practice?

11. Linda Martin & Kristin Umland (New Mexico, USA)
Mathematics for Middle School Teachers: Choices, Successes, and Challenges

12. Woong Lim (Texas, USA)
Inverses – why we teach and why we need talk more about it more often!

13. Steve Humble (UK)
Magic Math Cards


The issue also contains a couple of articles on logarithms in a historical perspective, a large section of articles with reactions on the report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, etc.

TMME, July 2008

The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast has just published a combined number 2&3. This large issue is filled with content. Here is the list of featured articles:

1. Jeff Babb & James Currie(Canada)
The Brachistochrone Problem: Mathematics for a Broad Audience via a Large Context

2. Michael Fried (Israel)
History of Mathematics in Mathematics Education: a Saussurean Perspective

3. Spyros Glenis (Greece)
Comparison of Geometric Figures

4. Giorgio T. Bagni (Italy)
“Obeying a rule”: Ludwig Wittgenstein and the foundations of Set Theory

5. Arnaud Mayrargue (France)
How can science history contribute to the development of new proposals in the teaching of the notion of derivatives?

6. Antti Viholainen (Finland)
Incoherence of a concept image and erroneous conclusions in the case of differentiability

7. Dores Ferreira & Pedro Palhares (Portugal)
Chess and problem solving involving patterns

8. Friðrik Diego & Kristín Halla Jónsdóttir (Iceland)
Associative Operations on a Three-Element Set

9. Jon Warwick (UK)
A Case Study Using Soft Systems Methodology in the Evolution of a Mathematics Module

10. Barbara Garii & Lillian Okumu (New York, USA)
Mathematics and the World: What do Teachers Recognize as Mathematics in Real World Practice?

11. Linda Martin & Kristin Umland (New Mexico, USA)
Mathematics for Middle School Teachers: Choices, Successes, and Challenges

12. Woong Lim (Texas, USA)
Inverses – why we teach and why we need talk more about it more often!

13. Steve Humble (UK)
Magic Math Cards


The issue also contains a couple of articles on logarithms in a historical perspective, a large section of articles with reactions on the report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, etc.

Ambitious USM expansion

I've always had more good things to say than bad about USM and USM's progressive and forward looking VC, Dzulkifli Abdul Razak. He's just announced an ambitious RM450 million expansion plan to build a science and arts park in Penang. I think this plan has got some good ingredients including looking at different forms of funding for this expansion plan. If it works out, hopefully, it can be one of the many good things which Penang can look forward to.

New UMS VC

Thanks to one of our regular readers for this link. It is a speech from the new VC of the University Malaysia Sabah, Lt. Col. Prof. Datuk Dr. Kamaruzaman Hj. Ampon. A brief read of his bio and a brief search on google scholar shows that he is a legit academic. His appointment was clearly a political appointment as part of a series of moves by Pak Lah aimed at appeasing the politicians in Sabah and to prevent them from leaving the BN. There was no VC select committee convened to authorize this search. But as far as political appointees go, Dr. Kamaruzaman seems like a pretty good candidate on paper. I wish him all the best in his efforts to build up UMS.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Talk about kiasu

Saw this report about Lukasz Zbylut who applied to 18 colleges in the US and got accepted into 7 Ivy League schools as well as Stanford and NYU (Stanford is not an Ivy League school, for those of you who might not know). He got accepted by 17 out of the 18 schools. MIT rejected him. He's going to Harvard and will reject, among others, Princeton and Yale. Frankly, I think that applying to 18 schools is a bit excessive but you gotta give him props given that he only came to the US about 5 years ago and didn't speak much English then.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

More students at IPTS vs IPTA

It won't be long before the number of students in private colleges and universities (IPTS) in Malaysia outnumbers those in the public universities. The ratio is approaching 1:1, according to a recent Star report. What are some of the implications? What are some of the challenges?

I reproduce the newspaper report below so that we can preserve the statistics on this blog.

GEORGE TOWN: The enrolment at private institutions of higher learning (IPTS) is increasing and almost at a 1:1 ratio with that of public institutions of higher learning (IPTA), said Deputy Higher Education Minister Dr Hou Kok Chung.

He said the 2007 intake saw 167,788 students enrolling for undergraduate courses at IPTS and 190,265 at IPTA.

This, he said, was in contrast to the total number of 365,800 students who are now pursuing undergraduate courses at IPTS and 507,438 at the IPTA.

"The IPTS is getting stronger and more important," he told a press conference Monday after a meeting with senior executives of IPTS at Trader's Hotel here.

Dr Hou said the meeting was a forum to interact with representatives from IPTS to brief them on the latest matters involving the ministry’s policies, and to hear their issues and proposals.

Among the matters addressed Monday were the ongoing establishment audit of 200 IPTS, increasing the intake of genuine foreign students, the issue of lack of teaching staff, and the restructuring of IPTS.

Dr Hou said 17 out of 33 active IPTS in Penang had approval to take in foreign students, adding that there were now 571 foreign students out of the 34,634 IPTA and IPTS undergraduates in the state.

He said the target was to have 80,000 foreign students enrolled in higher education institutions throughout the nation by 2010.

"There are now about 50,000 foreign undergraduates, with about 34,000 of them enrolled in IPTS," he said, adding that there was no quota for the IPTS while the IPTA was only allowed to take in 5% foreign undergraduates starting last year.


My impression of private colleges and universities can be summarized as such:

There will be a gradual differentiation in the quality and reputation of private colleges and universities. In fact some of this is already happening. There will emerge a handful of IPTS which will challenge the IPTA as research universities. Sunway Monash and Nottingham are obvious candidates. There will be other 'home grown' IPTS which will want to or be pushed to the direction of being research universities.
There will also be another layer of IPTS who don't have research aspirations but will be known for offering good facilities, courses and teaching. In addition, I suspect that there will also be some specialized IPTS which focus on certain types of courses - design (LimKokWing) or IT (Informatics). And then there will be a scattering of smaller IPTS which offer 'value for money' courses.

With as many students entering IPTS compared to the IPTAs, their importance will only grow and will have a big impact on the skill levels of the work force, the research activities in our universities, the job creating potential in the education sector and so on.

But there are also many concerns associated with the rapid expansion of the IPTS, including:

1) The quality and number of lecturers needed to teach the growing number of students in these institutions. While a PhD is not really necessary to teach or to teach well, one wonders what kind of quality control the IPTS have in regard to training and equipping lecturers to teach the courses they need to teach.

2) The type of courses being offered. Most IPTS offer commercially viable courses in a small number of areas - business, accounting, computing, economics, engineering, sciences. While the types of courses have expanded with competition and more IPTS, one wonders if these are the ONLY types of courses that should be offered at IPTS. Will there be a separation of markets such that the 'non-marketable' courses such as forestry, archeology, Islamic studies and so on are only offered at the IPTAs?

3) The growing number of foreign students. The problems associated with this are manifold. I generally feel very sorry for many of the foreign students who are given very skewed impressions of what it is like to study in a private college in Malaysia and then are very disappointed when they come here. Some blame has to be attributed to the aggressive agents in countries like China to are given financial incentives to 'recruit' students to come to Malaysia. There are also problems associated with 'students' coming to the country under a student visa as a cover to conduct illicit activities. Generally, I think its a good way for the country to earn foreign exchange and for private colleges to expand but there needs to be a greater level of self regulation on this front.

The expansion of the IPTS has more positives than negatives, in my opinion. It provides another avenue of job creation for the country, it gives different options to Malaysians who want to earn a degree, it earns foreign exchange for the country and it can contribute towards human capital development. But that doesn't mean that there are huge challenges associated with the rapid expansion of IPTS, some of which have been mentioned here.

Does Mathematics Remediation Work?

Peter Riley Bahr has written an article that was published in the August issue of Research in Higher Education. The article is entitled: Does Mathematics Remediation Work?: A Comparative Analysis of Academic Attainment among Community College Students. Here is the abstract:
Postsecondary remediation is a controversial topic. On one hand, it fills an important and sizeable niche in higher education. On the other hand, critics argue that it wastes tax dollars, diminishes academic standards, and demoralizes faculty. Yet, despite the ongoing debate, few comprehensive, large-scale, multi-institutional evaluations of remedial programs have been published in recent memory. The study presented here constitutes a step forward in rectifying this deficit in the literature, with particular attention to testing the efficacy of remedial math programs. In this study, I use hierarchical multinomial logistic regression to analyze data that address a population of 85,894 freshmen, enrolled in 107 community colleges, for the purpose of comparing the long-term academic outcomes of students who remediate successfully (achieve college-level math skill) with those of students who achieve college-level math skill without remedial assistance. I find that these two groups of students experience comparable outcomes, which indicates that remedial math programs are highly effective at resolving skill deficiencies.

Does Mathematics Remediation Work?

Peter Riley Bahr has written an article that was published in the August issue of Research in Higher Education. The article is entitled: Does Mathematics Remediation Work?: A Comparative Analysis of Academic Attainment among Community College Students. Here is the abstract:
Postsecondary remediation is a controversial topic. On one hand, it fills an important and sizeable niche in higher education. On the other hand, critics argue that it wastes tax dollars, diminishes academic standards, and demoralizes faculty. Yet, despite the ongoing debate, few comprehensive, large-scale, multi-institutional evaluations of remedial programs have been published in recent memory. The study presented here constitutes a step forward in rectifying this deficit in the literature, with particular attention to testing the efficacy of remedial math programs. In this study, I use hierarchical multinomial logistic regression to analyze data that address a population of 85,894 freshmen, enrolled in 107 community colleges, for the purpose of comparing the long-term academic outcomes of students who remediate successfully (achieve college-level math skill) with those of students who achieve college-level math skill without remedial assistance. I find that these two groups of students experience comparable outcomes, which indicates that remedial math programs are highly effective at resolving skill deficiencies.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Poll: Education A Top Issue for Voters

This post may signal my emergence from a flooded Badger hole here in moist Wisconsin (as well as from nearly a week away on the East Coast celebrating our anniversary)...

A quick post for starters noting a recent Pew poll which suggests that education is among registered voters' top priorities in the 2008 elections. The poll, released in late May, shows education tied with health care and jobs as a top priority in the presidential election for 78 percent of voters. The economy came out on top with a 88 percent saying it would be "very important" to their vote.


Review of mathematics teaching in early years

A report has been published in the UK about "educational best practice to enable young learners in primary schools and early years settings to acquire an understanding and appreciation of mathematics and of its importance to their lives". This report is freely available as a pdf download.

Review of mathematics teaching in early years

A report has been published in the UK about "educational best practice to enable young learners in primary schools and early years settings to acquire an understanding and appreciation of mathematics and of its importance to their lives". This report is freely available as a pdf download.

Monday, June 16, 2008

The Gap

As an SAT prep instructor for several years, and now as a high school career advisor, I have always made it a point to encourage any kid who will listen to take a year off after graduating high school to do something totally random before continuing down their career path.

It seems like the editors of the New York Times are of the same mind. Every now and then they'll publish a story about students who take a "gap year" in Ghana before going on to Princeton or Yale to study nanotechnology or microfinance.

I'm being snarky, but I really do believe that taking a year off before college was the best thing I ever did for my post-secondary education and my career. My instant best friend in college (and still one of my closest friends) had taken a year off to live in France. We were both just a little more mature, and a little more ready to get on with the whole college thing.

When I bring up The Gap to parents, they typically look at me like I'm crazy. But once I explain the benefits -- that you're likely to get more out of college when you're more mature, that it gives you another year to save for college, that you can apply for college now and defer your admission -- they tend to warm up to the idea.

A different approach to schools - what we can learn from Minnesota

This is also posted at Daily Kos

As the Federal government has delayed reauthorization of the basic law affecting public schools, the Elementary And Secondary Education Act, the most recent version of which is (unfortunately and inaccurately) as No Child Left Behind, perhaps now might be a good time to explore alternative approaches to public education. Since public education is primarily the responsibility of the states, and since the Federal government provides less than 8% of the cost of public education, perhaps rather than Federally imposed mandates we can explore what states have done to address some of the needs of public education. And if we are willing to go down that path (as I certainly am), perhaps the first state at which we would look would be Minnesota.

Had I any doubts of the wisdom of such an examination, they would have been removed after reading a May 4 column in the Providence Journal by Julia Steiny entitled Columnist Julia Steiny looks at Minnesota’s plan to save money and improve schools. Let me begin by discussing what in that column caught my attention.

Steiny begins her column with an argument about reducing the number of school divisions in Rhode Island from its current 36. That holds little interest for me, but in the process of looking for different examples, she had a discussion with Joe Nathan, the director of the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute, about whom she notes that
Nathan had a hand in writing several of the Minnesota school-choice bills, including the nation’s first charter school legislation. He was also an author of the 1991 Open Enrollment legislation that offered public-school choice to all families.
While I have never met nor spoken with Nathan, we have overlapped on various educational lists for more than a decade and I have been well aware of his work. He was gracious enough to help me in obtaining information I needed in order to write about the Minnesota approach.

Let me return to Steiny's column, in which she wrote of MN that
Its technique was to pass a series of laws allowing all children, K-12, to attend whatever school the family chooses, provided there is room. The money followed the students. The parents were thrilled, and the bureaucracies had no choice but to adjust.

Unappealing or incompetent districts lost students, so rather than run astronomically expensive programs for the remaining students, they merged with stronger districts. Good schools filled to capacity, which is the most cost-efficient way to run them. Bad ones closed, which also saves money. Kids generally got better, more efficient schools.

And there wasn’t so much to fight about. Consolidations took place. Tax money flowed more directly to good schools and away from bureaucratic waste.


Steiny quotes Nathan as saying that because the power was placed in the hands of parents, districts might have consolidated, but also might have found ways to cooperate to increase the options offered to parents for their children, options that might attract those parents. According to 2005 survey run by the Center, 80% of respondents said that parents should have some voice in selecting the schools their children attend. And while Nathan properly warned that no single approach is a panacea to solve the problems faced by our schools, he also noted that the approach in MN allowed teachers greater voice in designing the alternatives of schooling offered to parents. This has resulted in a great variety of options from which parents can choose.

Before I explore those options in more detail, allow me to quote what Nathan said about himself:
“I entered this issue in the 1970s for social justice reasons. All kids need options. Not crummy options, good options. Some kids flourish in core knowledge, Montessori, or two-way bilingual. Others need a multiple-intelligence school, international baccalaureate, or one that teaches how to repair computers. Every kid should have transportation and no admissions test. Families have options for daycare, nursery school, college, so why not public school?”
Minnesota may not yet have fully implement the sweep of this kind of vision, but as a state it has probably gone further than any other, and certainly it has done enough to warrant anyone interested in public education policy taking a closer look.

An examination of the website of the state's Department of Education will take you to this page, which lists all the options of school choice (of which I will only examine those relating to public school choice). Allow me to quote the text with which the page begins:
Minnesota is a place where all parents have meaningful public school choices for their children. Minnesota is, after all, the state that brought the nation the charter school movement. It is also a state where students may “open enroll” into schools that are part of school districts where the families do not reside. It’s a place where Minneapolis students encounter a wealth of choices not only within their district, but also in nearby suburbs, with transportation provided free. And it’s a state where the borders of a classroom can be as broad as the global connections of the worldwide web. With this wide range of learning options, Minnesota families are often able to find a school that meets their child’s individual needs.


The website provides information on five different aspects of public school choice. These are

Charter schools, which have existed in MN since 1992, and of which there are currently 158 in operation. The Department notes of charter schools that they
employ licensed teachers, offer services to special needs students and require students to take state and national tests to assure academic accountability. They do not charge tuition, and there are no admission requirements to enroll students in charter schools. New charter schools with exciting programs open their doors to students every year in Minnesota. Parents may contact charter schools directly to find out about the type of programs and enrollment options.


Alternative Education provides more than 150 programs at over 600 sites for students under 21 at risk of not graduating who meet ANY of the following criteria:
(1) are performing substantially below grade level; (2) at least one year behind in credits for graduation; (3) are pregnant or parents; (4) have experienced physical or sexual abuse; (5) are chemically dependent; (6) have mental health problems; (7) have been homeless recently; (8) have withdrawn from school or been chronically truant; or (9) speak English as a second language or have limited English proficiency.


Online Learning gives students the ability to take such courses either as supplementals in place of a regular class during the school day, or as the sole means of obtaining a public education. The state maintains a clearinghouse of approved programs, and all those certified by the state
are taught by Minnesota licensed teachers, meet or exceed state academic standards, transfer to other public school districts and apply to high school graduation. The documents linked below contain information about online learning programs, student enrollment and certification of public providers.


The Choice is Yours is a special program for families receiving free or reduced lunch benefits in the city of Minneapolis, giving them priority in placement in the schools they choose, whether for magnet programs in the city or schools in the suburbs. For those going to suburban schools the state provides the cost of transportation. The city is split into Northern and Southern sections, with the choice of suburban districts being limited by proximity.

Finally, there is Open Enrollment which
allows all Minnesota’s public school students the opportunity to apply to attend school outside of the school district where they live. More than 30,000 Minnesota students did just that last year.
While in this program parents do not have to pay tuition, they are responsible for providing the transportation for their children.


I contacted Joe Nathan to ask some specific questions, and he was kind enough to respond in detail, and to reach out to people in the State Department of Education to verify the figures. Let me note that his Center for School Change offers a great deal of information at their website, and for those interested in knowing more I encourage you to explore there as well as at the State website.

Let me offer some of Joe's concluding words from one of our earlier exchanges, because I believe this provides some appropriate context (and PSEO = Post Secondary Enrollment Options, which enables secondary students to take college courses on a part- or full-time basis while still enrolled in HS):
The broad coalition that supports the public school choice programs above (plus inclusion of private college and universities in PSEO) has NOT supported vouchers. Moreover, statewide polls show Minnesotans do not support vouchers unless private and parochial schools are open to all, with no admissions tests. Many private and parochial schools in Mn want the power to decide who is admitted. that has helped mean vouchers went no-where.

Public school choice has received strong bi-partisan support here. PSEO,
open enrollment and the charter movement all were first proposed by
Democrats who saw it as expansion of opportunity.


In other words, even though there are SOME aspects of the MN approach that do allow some limited enrollment in non-public schooling situations, the program has been implemented in a fashion that does not move in the direction of privatization of public schooling. As to vouchers, I will reiterate something I have noted on multiple previous occasions: in every case were vouchers have been placed on the ballot for the voters they have been defeated. Those voucher programs which exist have been imposed by legislative bodies without the direct voice of the voters included. MN clearly demonstrates that it is possible to offer a wide variety of options of public school education without resorting to vouchers.

In my examination, I became interested in seeing how widespread participation in the various programs of choice were in Minnesota. Joe Nathan was kind enough to contact a variety of people in the State, and he and I went back and forth several times with the data we were able to obtain. In fairness, since he understands the meaning of the numbers better than I do, I am going to present the numbers by quoting his suggested presentation:

* In 2007-2008 About 145,000 of Minnesota's 836,672 public school students used Minnesota's cross district, public school choice laws
(includes open enrollment, 2nd chance laws, charter law and Post-Secondary Enrollment Options) That's about 17%.

* In addition, Mpls and St. Paul (two different districts) do not assign students to a particular school, k-12. They have dozens of magnets, schools within schools, and other options. Those kids and families are actively selecting from within district options. So if you add the 38,000 from St .Paul and 34,000 from Mpls you are up to more than 210,000 kids. (Again, there is some double counting because of Post-Secondary Options - but that is only 7400 kids. Mpls and ST Paul also have a few thousand kids attending contract alternative schools so that is why I did not add 72,000 and 145,000 call it 217,000). 210/836 is 25%.

* Many other districts including Rochester and Duluth offer schools within schools, magnets and other options. At this point is not possible to figure out exactly how many kids involved.


Beyond the numbers, I raised several other issues about the program in order to understand it better. Joe was kind enough to offer detailed responses to these questions.

I live in Arlington VA which spends more than 19,000 per student. There are other districts nearby which spend substantially less. The district in which I teach, Prince George's County MD, spends significantly less than does the neighboring district of Montgomery County. The differentials come from local taxes. Joe's response on this was
In Minnesota, the state provides more than 2/3 of the funding for the students. So the issue you describe for Maryland and Virginia is less of an issue here. To be fair, in states such as yours, my sense is that all or a portion of local property taxes should follow students.
That is one thing that could represent a stumbling block to expanding the MN approach to other states.

I asked about the chartering of schools, and how that affected their enrollment, given the state's open enrollment approach. Joe responded that
The original charter idea was that the state legislature would give at least one other group the power to authorize, or "charter" groups of educators, parents and others to create new public schools, open to all. Thus, a law such as you have in Virginia that limits this power only to local districts is not really a charter law. In Minnesota, the following groups are allowed to authorize a new chartered school: Local districts, regional groups of districts, higher education institutions, social service agencies or foundations that are registered with the Mn Attorney General and have a bank account of at least $2 million.

Students attending Mn charter schools may move across district lines, just
like students attending district public schools. However, charters may NOT
have any form of admissions tests for their students.


I also asked if receiving schools or districts had any ability to limit the number of students coming in by open enrollment. Joe responded as follows:
The legislation gives receiving districts the ability to limit cross district enrollment, but no specific % is included in the
legislation. So a receiving district has complete flexibility in terms of
numbers of students it can accept, and has complete flexibility at each
grade, and if it has more than one school, at each school. The receiving
district may NOT limit incoming enrollment to just students of one race,
and may not use an admissions test for the school (unless it already uses
an admission test for students in its own district).


I have often written that I believe the entire structure of American public schooling is flawed, and were it up to me I would blow it up and redesign it from the bottom up. Unfortunately that does not seem a viable option. Because of our ongoing responsibility to those currently enrolled in our schools, we have to see what salutary improvements are possible within the reality in which we currently find ourselves. Merely attempting to drive performance by analyzing test scores and graduation rates has not as yet demonstrated that its effects are positive, and in fact may be proving the contrary case.

Further, we know that not all children learn alike, and that parents have different aspirations for how they want their children instructed. Because we know that the education of any child is improved when the parents are involved and committed to that education, involving the parents in the process of selecting the environment in which their children are instructed seems to warrant giving those parents some say in how their children are educated. It is often difficult for one school or even one district to provide the full range of options that parents might seek or students might need. Allowing a wide range of options within a public school framework seems a reasonable method of attempting to meet such aspirations.

I encourage those with interest in educational policy to take the time to explore more completely than I can within this posting the approach that Minnesota is taking. It may not be completely transferable to other states, but there is much than can be learned from their experience, which now extends more than a decade and a half since their implementation of the nation's first charter school program.

I will be interested in your responses to what I have presented. So will Joe Nathan and those people in the Minnesota Department of Education who were kind enough to help me with information: Glory Kibbel, Bondo Nyembwe, Cindy Jackson, and Marceline Dubose. They are rightly proud of what they have accomplished in MN, even as they seek to find better ways to serve the people of their state.

Peace.