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Is The Outcome of Public School a Generalized or a Specialized Education? The Answer is Yes.

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An old question arises constantly and though we try to make firm, theory- and research-based responses, the issue still haunts the work of public educators. Are we to familiarize children with a broad veneer of background knowledge and skills so they can say “I know something about that?” Or are we to educate children with a depth of knowledge and understanding of specific concepts and skills they can apply in their life and work with a degree of excellence?

Put in educational outcomes language, is it our goal given what we know about the future real-world needs of our children that

  1. all students read every chapter in their grade-level texts, solve every math problem, dabble in the arts, and achieve a basic score on an end-of-year test, or
  2. all students do close reading and deeper analysis of information in selected chapters of selected texts, are highly proficient in essential math processes, create a quality performance or object in the arts, and achieve a proficient score or better on an end-of-year test?

Today, teachers in America do not have a clear answer to this question. National leaders are more interested in power struggles with higher education, deconstructing the Department of Education, and rewriting the American story in their own image. State leaders know that education is a reserved power in the Constitution delegated to the states, yet they mire in petty partisan issues and pass the authority to educate to local school boards. Our representatives like to legislate but they avoid accountability for outcomes. Local boards of education try their hardest with ever decreasing funding to provide the schools demanded by local constituents. Public education in the United States is our nation’s longest standing institution; however, its compass direction today is decided in thousands of classrooms by individual teachers. Our educational mission is adrift.

What do we know?

We know the nature of educational design is theoretical, opinionated, and tenuous.

Put a dozen educators in a room, ask their opinion of “shall we make our children into generalists or specialists,” and expect a split decision. There are strong cases for either. Then, when the air clears, most educators settle into a T- or inverted triangular-shaped design for public education. All children should have a broad academic base of general education and the opportunity to delve deeply into subjects of their personal interest. At least, in principle.

Then, we put children in the classroom and teaching gets real. Children have their own agenda on what they want and need to learn. Some children want to generalize, and others want to specialize. And we educators, who are supposed to educate each child to their fullest potential, decide to generalize all children when they are young and provide specialization for children who want it when they are older. Of course, some children specialize early, and others prefer to stay generalists through graduation. Public education is a messy proposition, so we settle for a Hippocratic-like solution of “do no harm to any student” and avoid the blame game. Today, without any other imperatives, we provide a generalist education for all and hope that graduates will specialize after high school.

For the generalists –

E.D. Hirsch taught us the importance of knowing a little about a lot. He wrote in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (1987) that background knowledge provides us with content ideas to read and think about. Second, reading and thinking about facts creates a student’s encyclopedic knowledge. Further, when we all share a level of mutual understanding of communal information, we are bound together as a nation (or state). He said the role of public education is to “enculturate” children with their national story and thereby strengthen a continuity of our American society. In the end, cultural literacy prepares us to play the game of Jeopardy and win.

David Epstein, Range – Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized Word (2019), also favors a generalized background. He believes that students who specialize have more difficulty connecting disparate ideas and adapting new learning to what they already know. Specializing creates a commitment to what has been learned and a resistance to changing that knowledge base. Conversely, children with a generalized knowledge are not burdened in learning unfamiliar information and adapt it into their overall knowledge base more efficiently.

And, in school most children hear from their school counselor the importance of experiencing as much academics, arts, activities, and athletics as possible to find their true interests and aptitudes. America has a tradition of providing a liberal education in high school plus early collegiate years. Specialization for many is relegated to the junior and senior years of college, and post-graduate years of education.

For many classroom teachers, generalization only makes sense. A school curriculum responds to the loudest voices speaking to the school board. And school board members are lay leaders with little to no professional training in education. Their sole interests are in doing what is best for children, satisfying their constituents, and staying within a finite budget. Hence, school curriculum expands and never contracts. An addition to a grade level or course curriculum is not accompanied with more school days, hence every other thing in the syllabus is diminished to make room for what is new.

For the specialists –

But WAIT! In every other decade since the 1960s politicians in the United States have concluded that children in America are falling behind the academic achievements of their international peers. Political leaders believe that educational outcomes are a matter of national security. In the 60s the Elementary and Secondary Education Act funneled federal funding into math, science, and foreign language so that the United States could respond to Sputnik and be first to the moon. The Nation at Risk report (1983) gave official warning that children in America were being undereducated. Reforms abounded. In the early 2000s No Child Behind Left Behind legislation generated the Common Core Standards in reading and mathematics. NCLB mandated that all children must pass tests of their abilities to read and write and resolve math problems. Large scale, high stakes assessments were administered in all public schools and disaggregated achievement scores were published. Penalties were prescribed for underperforming schools and teachers. With heavy hands, our nation pushed specialized learning in reading, language arts, and higher-level mathematics to the detriment of all other academics, as well as arts and athletics.

With no surprise, universal and high stakes testing did not significantly increase our students’ achievement on international assessments, like PISA. And any improvements were substantively lost during the pandemic.

Government was not alone in its attempts to strengthen educational outcomes. Higher education groups beefed up teacher preparation with more intellectual rigor and exacting pedagogical training. The Holmes Group of college deans and chief academic officers proposed teacher training that resembled medical and legal professionals – the license is awarded at the master’s degree level after intensive pedagogical examination. Admission to the undergraduate college of education was more restrictive to create a more select and elite class of teacher candidates. Some aspects of the Holmes proposals were adopted by higher education accrediting agencies, but most have been nullified by the current shortage of public-school teacher candidates. Our current reality is that teacher licensing requirements are being liberalized to place a licensed adult in every classroom.

What not to do?

First, to paraphrase Rita Mae Brown (Sudden Death, 1983), “Continuously doing the same things expecting different results is a definition of idiocy.” The trending data on educational achievement looks like the same old, same old data or slightly worse. What we are doing is not achieving international competitiveness, a positive return of educational investments, or satisfying our students still in the public education pipeline.

Public education suffers annual student attrition. More students transfer to private or home schooling each year. They find secondary education in our public schools to be too unfocused. Parental choice allows parents, guardians, and 18-year-old students to choose private, parochial, cooperative, or home schooling. However, instead of changing public school programs to retain or reclaim students, we complain and make few substantive changes to K-12 education.

Second, we really know what to do but lack the courage to do it. Anyone who takes a public stand to change long standing tradition gets bloodied. Every living American is a product of traditional K-12 education, either as a graduate or as a transfer to another educational format. Love it or leave it, what we have is what we know.

Third, public educators have been made thin-skinned. In the last decade, it is increasingly common for parents to make loud and frequent complaints to their school board. The say “My child’s teacher is a task master and is too hard on kids.” Or “My child’s teacher is too easy, and kids get by without learning.” A parent may not like the teacher’s choice of books for children to read or the music literature they are to perform. A parent may think the teacher’s grading scale is too strong and her child deserves a higher, unearned grade. And parents have learned that school boards do not want to hear such complaints repeatedly. The result is most teachers acquiesce and their teaching and curriculum moves toward the middle ground of complacency.

What to do.

  • Mean what we say. Most school mission statements include the word “excellence” but do not define the term. School boards must decide the degree and rate of learning achievements that are excellent in their schools and set those as non-negotiable standards. Further, make these definitions public and then live up to them.

Our schools know what excellence looks like, but we do not want to belittle any child whose performances are not excellent. The result is we praise our champions and award-winners and wait for the next time we have a champion or award-winner. We need to treat all children as award winners in the making and teach them to be winners. Praise not just the award winners but also praise the “climbers” who are approaching excellence. Mediocracy or average is not an acceptable standard.

  • Stop acceptable failure. Too many schools adopt the 80% Rule – 80% of the children will achieve a score of 80% or better in 80% of the curriculum 80% of the time. This rule accepts that 20% of the children will not meet your standard for 20% of the curriculum 20% of the time. Use and mean the words “All students” instead of 80%. If not, how do you start a lesson when accepting that 1 in 5 students will not learn the lesson successfully? We can do better.

A principle of outcome-based education should become our rule. “Given enough time and resources, we can teach every child to succeed in their learning.” We really do have the time and resources if we believe that principle is true. If we do not believe the principle, what are we doing in education?

  • Accept the T model of generalized/specialized education and ensure that all students are proficient in all the foundational curricula. “Knowing about” or a “basic understanding” is not an acceptable level of predecessor knowledge upon which children can later specialize.

For example, no student advances to Algebra 1 without fluency in basic operations, order of operations, number sense, number properties, exponents, variables, equalities, expressions and equations, ratios and proportions, and knowledge of a coordinate plane. Why do we push children into courses we know they are not prepared to pass? Stop doing that.

Create a similar advancement requirement in ELA, science, and the social studies. All predecessor knowledge will be at Bloom’s Applying and Analyzing levels educational goals not at Remembering and Understanding. Recalling and explaining background information will not get children to excellence. Working with background knowledge in new situations and finding connections between ideas will get them there.

The concept of a Maker Lab is not just for technical education; it also applies to academic learning. Create multiple vertical legs in the T model. We currently have adequate AP and IB courses for students who want to learn more deeply in academic subjects. Our advanced academics begin in middle school and culminate with an AP or IB test. Create advanced learning sequences in each category of career education. Teach a multi-year deep, performance-based learning in each of the following curricular areas”

  • Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources
  • Business and Information Technology,
  • Family and Consumer Sciences
  • Health Science
  • Marketing, Management, and Entrepreneurship
  • Technology and Engineering

The Big Duh!

We need a new educational model if we want to achieve different results. The answer to whether we should cause all children to achieve a general or a specialized education is “yes” to A and B in the second paragraph above. However, instead of talking about a T-model, we need to execute a T-model.

During the ages of pre-K and into middle school, all children must achieve memory, understanding, application, and analysis skills in reading, ELA, math, science, and social studies, art, music, world language, and technical education. We will teach each child until each child achieves mastery of these four levels of learning goals. This is where “no child can be left behind” really applies.

In middle school through grade 12, all children must achieve given standards in their chosen field of academic and/or career education advanced learning sequences. Children may enroll in more than one field. Attainment standards in advanced learning will be the earning of articulated college or technical college credit while in high school and/or employment as an apprentice or trainee in a Career and Technical Education field of study.

High school graduation will be a clear linkage to post-high school education and/career.

Excellence in American education must mean more than daycare and universal literacy. A proactive construction of T-modeled generalized and specialized educations based on mastery of background knowledge and deeper learning in specialized subjects will redefine and re-establish our nation’s educational excellence.

Add Student Executive Functioning Skills to Your Student Performance Box Score

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In the 2020s, grades and test scores may be alternative facts because they no longer are credible indicators of annual student learning and learning that matters.  Our pandemic experience has exposed indicators of educational and personal development that are more essential life in and beyond school.

Americans love the box scores.  These are a summary display of numbers that tell us who is winning and who is losing.  In every event of significance in our culture there always are winners and losers because we score everything.  Sadly, at this date and time we work harder at discriminating between learning performances than we do in elevating all performances.  In education, the box scores are report cards and transcripts and the numbers of interest are grades, test numbers, and credits earned.

In June, millions of children will celebrate the end of the 2021-22 school year and their promotion to the next grade level or graduation from school.  Their smiles and the pride of their families are immeasurable and worthy of the moment.  Each child will have achieved the box scores required for promotion and graduation.  Congratulations all around!

Blame or give credit to the pandemic; two years of abnormal school life gave us pause to reflect on what we do and how we do it in our schools.  Promotion and graduation in the future may have and need different bell weathers than grades, tests, and credits.  The box scores of the past will not suffice.

Our early pandemic efforts to sustain academic instruction for 4K-12 children caused us to examine the essential nature of teaching and learning in our in-person, remote, and hybrid modeling.  Our continued pandemic efforts caused us to recognize the unheralded, non-academic, dispositional, and inter- and intra-personal skill sets and values of an education that are submerged in the usual nine month, in-person slog of a school year.  More now than pre-pandemic, educators are asking questions about learning that matters and how we understand that learning.

One of the first educational dispositions that leapt to our attention in the pandemic was executive function.  I will post-hole on executive functioning in this writing.  There are a dozen or more other highly significant indicators of education.  Post-holing on executive functions will illustrate how non-traditional, developmental topics should be considered as highly valued indicators of a child’s full education.  Think of these as a new “mattering”.

Usually, we speak of executive functioning as a set of skills that enhance our behaviors for planning and achieving goals.  In school settings, I frequently hear educators refer to these during discussions regarding children demonstrating ADHD characteristics and it always is about the absence of executive functioning skills.  I cannot remember a conversation pointing to where we teach all children these essential planning and doing skills.  We always assume their instructional existence in our curriculum – or how well children not being considered for exceptional education demonstrate executive functioning – without our teaching them.

Across multiple sources, these are the usual skills of executive functioning:

  • Adaptable thinking
  • Planning
  • Self-monitoring
  • Self-control
  • Working memory
  • Time management
  • Organization

Remote students were winners and losers as learners for reasons far beyond their completing or not completing graded assignments or even the quality of their technology.  We observed significant numbers of children in every school and in every grade who were more than lost; they did not know how to begin when on their own.  It was more than disconnection; it was lost in space.  If schools did not have a plan for how to educate children in a pandemic, many children had no idea of how to be a student out of school

As I consider usual report cards, I observe the 3 Rs, mathematics, science, social studies, art, music, physical education, and technology grades and credits.  Add to these the elective experiences that round out a graduate’s final transcript.  We aggregate quiz and test scores, grades on reports, papers, and projects, and report periodic and year end grades as indications of what and how well children have learned. 

Then, I look at report cards for any semblance of executive functioning skills.  While I am told that executive functioning is inherent in a child’s school success, no teacher raises her hand when I ask them to describe how they explicitly teach these functioning skills to their students.  The closest we come to meaningful instruction is providing children a planner/calendar or teaching note taking skills.  We are hit or miss, at best, when it comes to having a plan for all children to learn executive functioning.

I consider a 4K and Kindergarten child and their very early need to use these seven skills.  The introduction and development of phonics-based reading is essential for 4- and 5-year-olds learning how to read.  Equally, each of the seven executive functioning skills is developmentally essential for the same children.  I wonder how children learn to self-monitor themselves and exercise self-control.  I hear teachers telling them to do so, but I cannot find explicit teaching of either.  Memory is a natural brain function, yet we do not explicitly teach for short- or long-term memory.  We tell children to reread and study at home.   A curriculum that explicitly facilitates and supports executive functioning in 4K-5 has provided exponential value to each student everyday and in all subjects.

I consider how child and parent relations at home would be impacted if school invested explicitly in teaching executive functions.  Or, do we assume parents are more equipped and skilled at teaching these skills than professional educators.  This would be a true game changer for most for most families.

Executive functions become more complex with age.  We expect a level of these skills from our youngest children and a more sophisticated demonstration from older children.  We accept gaps in things organization and time management from younger children are less tolerant of those gaps in older children.  Interesting – we can label the deficiency in an executive functioning skill for many children, but I cannot point to a planned school intervention to remedy the deficiency, except in an IEP.  Except, do better next time.

This conversation causes me to wonder how an employer or a post-secondary school would value a school transcript that included the progressive demonstration of executive skill proficiencies?  Would these seven skills be more or less valued than the completion of high school Biology or US History?  Anyone want to make a bet?

A long-retired radio host finished his show with “… when you know what is right, try to do it”.  Apply his advice to the explicit instruction of children next year.  Embed a constant thread of instruction, planned activation, clarification, reinforcement, and celebration of executive functioning by every child in school.  I will bet a bag of Snickers that children who are taught and practice executive functions will not only demonstrate improved satisfaction with school but will raise the numbers in their other box scores.

Mission Creep Happens

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One day you take a pause, look around, and wonder, “How did we get here?  Is this where we are supposed to be?”.  You find yourself in a place and circumstance you had not anticipated.  A school is not immune from this wonderment.

Organizational creep is a phenomenon not a person though there may be similarities between the two.  The verb to creep is to move slowly and carefully and to creep has many applications in our language.  The botanical verb to creep is to grow by the extension of roots and branches.  Creeping is natural in nature.  In human endeavors, children creep to become taller and more adult-like over time.  Habits creep up on us, especially the late-night snack’s effect when we step on a bathroom scale in the morning.  Groups and organizations also creep, especially in their mission, purpose, and goals.  Mission creep occurs when an organization’s actions stray beyond the stated mission of the organization.  The outcome of creeping means the organization may no longer be faithful to its initial and stated mission, but become bit off-centered in trying to be something it isn’t intended to be.

Life gives us many examples of organizational creep.  As a micro example, an idea for a new project is presented to a group of decision makers.  In the initial explanation, the idea is straightforward.  The focus of the new idea is to create new eco-friendly space that people in the organization can enjoy in a relaxing moment – a break area.  Every person enjoys breaks, lunch, before and after work moments and this place will be enhance their relaxation and be eco-friendly to boot.  Keep it simple.  A budget of $1,000 is approved and the idea is launched.

Ah, but after a few months the tables and chairs no longer fit the concept and benches and tall boys are wanted.  An eco space calls for greenery and plantings are ordered and installed.  The new space is appealing and more folks use it.  At the close of year one, expenses total $5,000, well over the approved budget, but because the space is popular and used no one points to the budget over run.  During year two, users ask if they can bring some of their work to the eco area and work there.  Just a few users initially are interested, but the space will need new infrastructure.  WIFI and electrical outlets are installed.  Now more users are interested and management of the eco space is required to efficiently schedule its use.  And, to do increased maintenance.  And, to be present to support users who have work-related needs.  At the start of year three, decision makers are asked to approve hiring an eco space facilitator at $15.00 an hour.  That wage is $31,200 a year.  Mission creep achieved.  Break room becomes new work environment and $1,000 per year becomes $30,000-plus.  Simple is as simple does; it creeps toward complexity.

Or, is this example an example of a good idea becoming a better idea?  Retrace back to the initial purpose: an enhanced space for moments of relaxation in a workday.  Retrace back to the initial cost/effect: $1,000 for a small concept.  Retrace the decision making: instead of the mission driving decisions the space drove the decisions.  Creep.

Schools see unintentional organizational creep all the time.  Most creeping is additive and addictive.  A classroom wants new shelving for more reading materials for children to read while in the classroom.  Done.  Materials go digital and the classroom wants several computer carousels.  Done.  Tech goes personal.  The classroom wants an IPad for each child.  Done.  The new tech needs more WIFI and electrical outlets.  Done.  A behavioral study indicates that in class reading time increased with the addition of more reading material and remained at that level with the addition of computer carousels and IPads and WIFI and electricals.  The mission of reading improvement was overcome by the mission to change with the times. 

We also observe mission creep by inadvertently altering time for instruction.  An elementary school has a balanced approach to academics, arts, PE, and foreign language instruction.  The balance is that children receive instruction in all these subjects each day of the school week.  When annual assessments indicate that many K-5 children are not making expected progress in numeracy and mathematical problem solving, a school conducts a study looking for improved curriculum.  The new adoption requires more minutes each day for math instruction.  Done.  On another front, children whose reading achievement is below expectation are assigned to work with a reading interventionist.  The time for this additional work is carved out of the full instructional day and children who do not need intervention are provided time for personalized reading.  The upshot to these changes is that instructional time for art, music, PE, and foreign language are reduced.  At first the reduction was in minutes per day for these “specials” and later a shift to alternating day instruction in specials and then to once-a-week instruction.  Achievement assessments indicate that performance in math and reading improved with additional time.  Learning and individual growth in art, music, PE, and foreign language diminished with the loss of time.  And, interest in art, music, and foreign language decreased.  At no point did the school evaluate its mission for K-5 education or proclaim a change from a balanced time approach to an increased focus on academics approach.  The school crept from balance to imbalance.  After the fact, we find our creeping has inadvertent outcomes.

How to prevent creep?  Regularly check yourself in the organizational mirror.  In the left hand, hold up your adopted mission statement.  In the right hand, hold up a snapshot of your organizational structure including where you spend time, money, and resources.  Does your right hand reflect the priorities and commitments of your left hand?  If these align, your organization still has fidelity with its stated mission.  If not, your organization is experiencing creep.  It is time to reconsider your mission or to rescale your organizational behaviors.  Either reconsideration or rescaling may be appropriate as doing something is required to re-achieve organizational fidelity to mission and purpose.  Sometimes we outgrow our mission and the mission must change.  Sometimes we creep beyond our mission and we must realign our work to the continuing mission.