Is understanding a language too difficult?

Here is a list of words:

1. noun
2. verb
3. adjective
4. adverb
5. subject
6. predicate
7. direct object
8. indirect object
9. clause
10. pronoun

I could continue the list, but these will do.

You might ask, so what about these words? In answer, I can state with conviction that the knowledge of these terms, their meanings, and their usages, was key in the development of my personal understanding of our language.

Even though I spent years teaching and learning mathematics, I still use the concepts of adjective and noun when discussing fractions. Many of you might remember the terms "numerator" and "denominator", which are fancy words for the ideas of "how many?" (adjective) and "of what?" (noun).

The simple fraction \({\textstyle{2 \over 3}}\), properly read "two thirds" gives us a quantity (two) and a denomination (thirds), thus answering completely the question "How many, of what?".

This morning I made a discovery: none of these words is used, at all, in the January 2017 New York state regents exam in English Language Arts (Common Core) . 

I found that atrocious.  How can one even discuss the "art" of language without involving its grammatical structure? 

Basing an entire curriculum on grammar would be a waste of time, just as doing nothing but arithmetic under the name of mathematics would be useless drudgery. But to totally ignore grammar amounts to designing a skyscraper while ignoring the hidden structure that holds it up.

Here is question from the New York regents Comprehensive Exam in English from August 1978:

How would students react in this day and age?

I guess it won't matter too much, as long as the gun is around to take care of the grizzlies.

Who knows?

The truth is that most Louisiana teachers have not found the Common Core standards to be developmentally appropriate, nor have they liked the preponderance of informational texts at the expense of good literature, which historically has been the source of the development of abstract thinking.

The above statement is from an article by Glynis Johnston in the The Times of Shreveport, La., on May 24 of this year.

I do not question the opinions she expresses in her article. She is entitled to them.

The phrase "most Louisiana teachers" I find truly head-scratching. If she truly has access to real data that supports her claim, she should be writing for national media and addressing her state legislature if not Congress. It is hard to fathom how these "Louisiana teachers" could have judged these standards as not developmentally appropriate at a time when very few students have tried to develop under them. No state has come even close to having students progress through their k-12 years under the influence of Common Core.  

Ms. Johnston really amazes me when she claims to know what has been the historic source for abstract thinking.  Good literature? Define that phrase. As far as I know, what is good for one is lousy for another. What I can say, based on my 36 years as a high school teacher, is that students never got enough work on reading and writing for detail. The closest they cam to reading for detail was their textbooks in math, science, and history.  The top students, however, needed to do little reading because they "got it in class" while the weak students never even took their textbooks home.  It is hard to tell the impact of reading for detail is that environment.

Perhaps these rationales for dumping on the Common Core are well-intentioned. Who knows. 

On December 1 of last year, Amanda McElfresh, writing about Louisiana, states 

Teachers also said they've seen significant improvement in student performance since they started using Common Core in their classrooms. Are these two talking about the same state?

Speaking of Ms. Johnston, back on December 5 of last year she wrote an article entitled All La. teachers do not support Common Core. I guess it is an improvement scaling back from "all" to merely "most" in her statements.

Speaking of her article's title, I believe Ms. Johnston has fallen into an increasingly common error. She uses the phrase "All...are not...", which is logically equivalent to "None... are...". I believe she intended to acknowledge that some teacher's do favor Common Core, and the phrasing "Some... are..." is logically equivalent to "Not all... are...".  In her statement the "not" appears to be misplaced.

Then again, maybe back then she really was claiming to speak for all teachers in Louisiana. Who knows...

So what is that old subtraction anyway?

Most people old enough to be parents learned subtraction in the (what I think is poor) method with "borrowing" (or "renaming" as it became known, since it was never "given back"). Their work looked something like this:

Now imagine you asked an adult to explain what is going on. Better yet, ask 10 adults. I think that the phrase "you can't take 8 from 5" and "cross out the 4 and make it a 3", or similar phrases, will be heard. You will probably not hear "50 from 30" or "change 300 to 200". Why? Because people have been trained to think of subtractions such as this in terms of a gathering of individual digits and not 2- and 3-digit numbers.

For years the phrase "number sense" was bandied about, but not enough as far as I am concerned. Generations have been trained in "digit sense" while developing little in the way of number sense.  (I use the word "training" specifically because it connotes the sense of developing a skill or talent without the need to understand why you are doing it. When was the last time you heard of someone being trained to be a PhD?)

What is happening to the numbers in the above subtraction? Here it is written out in some proper mathematical notation. (Keep in mind that once you get (got?) past arithmetic, your math work was predominantly written line-by-line, one step at a time.)

\[\begin{array}{c}345 - 158 = (300 - 100) + (40 - 50) + (5 - 8)\\ = (300 - 100) + (30 - 50) + (15 - 8)\\ = (300 - 100) + (30 - 50) + 7\\ = (200 - 100) + (130 - 50) + 7\\ = (200 - 100) + 80 + 7\\ = 100 + 80 + 7\\ = 187\end{array}\]

If we can accept for the time being this line-by-line approach as having some legitimacy, consider this:

\[\begin{array}{c}345 - 158 = 345 - 100 - 50 - 8\\ = 245 - 50 - 8\\ = 245 - 45 - 5 - 8\\ = 200 - 5 - 8\\ = 195 - 8\\ = 187\end{array}\]

I include this because it is different, perfectly correct, and more easily followed mentally

My method for doing this subtraction is like this:

\[\begin{array}{c}345 - 158 = 245 - 58\\ = 195 - 8\\ = 187\end{array}\]

By having taught myself years ago to work with numbers left-to-right, the same way we say them, I can claim that I haven't "borrowed" (or "renamed") while doing a subtraction in decades.

If all you know is the handwritten version above, odds are you will find few shortcuts and will stumble doing subtraction mentally.  If you find yourself at a checkout counter with a clerk who has trouble making change, especially when you hand over a twenty, two quarters, and a dime for your bill of $19,58, consider that the clerk, who is quite possible younger than you, has only the "borrowing" method to use, which is very very awkward to do mentally.

What's your plinth?

The following quote was allegedly used in the New York State 6th grade Common Core ELA test, according to Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post (see here)

As a result, the location of the cloud is an important aspect, as it is the setting for his creation and art of the artwork.  In his favorite piece, Nimbus D’Aspremont, the architecture of the D’Aspremont-Lynden Castle in Rekem, Belgium, plays a significant role in the feel of the picture. “The contrast between the original castle and its former use as a military hospital and mental institution is still visible,” he writes. “You could say the spaces function as a plinth for the work.”

I copied this text and pasted it into Microsoft Word  so I could check some readability measures. Irs Flesch-Kincaid readability level is grade 11.0.

I took it to and received the following:

I was surprised at the 10.9 to 11.0 discrepancy of the Flesch-Kincaid rating, but noted that they all came in quite higher than the 6th grade level of the test.

Let me add a disclaimer: until I read Ms. Strauss' article, I can honestly say that the word "plinth" was not part of my vocabulary. I know that in the absence of a dictionary, the essence of this paragraph would have been totally lost to me. Were students allowed a dictionary during this test? I would hope that the skills we are allegedly teaching our youth include the basic skill of looking up a word of unknown meaning. So do they get dictionaries? Do you know?

The New York State Testing Grade 3-8 Common Core English Language Arts and Mathematics Tests School Administrator's Manual (that's a title!) states the following:

Bilingual Dictionaries and Glossaries——English language learners may use bilingual dictionaries and glossaries when taking the 2013 Grades 3–8 Common Core English Language Arts and Mathematics Tests. These bilingual dictionaries and glossaries may provide only direct translations of words. Bilingual dictionaries or glossaries that provide definitions or explanations of words are not permitted. 

I am extremely curious as to whether or not the "other" language edition's of this test used a word as exotic as "plinth", and, if so, were they translated by the accepted dictionaries and glossaries as "plinth".

This is just indicative of a poorly run and disastrously implemented testing program.

What is beginning to really annoy me is that the political climate of our culture is making it very very difficult to be in favor of outside assessments while being dead-set against what is currently being done.  The testing system being implemented just has to get tossed. It may be making a few people richer in the short run, but in the long run it will help impoverish our society and culture.

If you have read this far, you might be able to tell me why these tests are being given in April, two months before the end of the school year? Who made that call? I'll bet it was for the convenience of some corporation. 

Cuomo wants to these tests as 50% of teacher evaluations, while testing only 80% of the school year. That is weird. But consider the source.

The first step in fixing this fiasco must be to get Cuomo out of office, and then get rid of any and all politicos who signed off on this debacle.

We have to do better..

After having been away for a while, I finally had the opportunity to look at the January 2015 New York State regents Exam in Algebra I (Common Core). I looked at the first question on it, and immediately my head was scratching.
The problem is:

I know that the answer expected is choice 2, which probably should have said "hours worked per week by employee". That ambiguity made me realize a few things about this question.

First, I presumed that profit is measured in dollars (as I took this as a problem for New York State). Placing that fact together with the mathematical knowledge that no units were given in the equation, and that only like terms can be subtracted, I came to the conclusion that the 8600 was really $8600. Now the 22 could be 22 of anything, but the nearness of $22 in the problem led me to accept that most would take it to mean $22.  Basic mathematical knowledge forces the conclusion that the x must then be "unit-free". That means that the x need not be the hours worked (by the employee".

Second, and this is probably due to some basic cynicism on my part, the use of a linear function for profit is as "unreal" as you can get. Do we wish students to be pushed a bit in their minds towards the notion that employee work-time is bad for business?  Is this the best we can do in the billion-dollar industry of education in New York under the guidance of Governor Cuomo?   Who creates these tests? 

Later on appears this questions:

This problem has some style points to its credit, but a big fat goose-egg when it comes to its realism.  The acceleration due to gravity on the Moon' surface is not .8 m/sec² but is, rounded, 1.6m/sec².  In the big quest to make problems "real", doesn't it make sense to use real information?

All is not so gloomy, however. Here is question #2, which to me is a masterpiece when it comes to a multiple choice question testing a meaningful skill.

The Fuzziness Continues

Taken from  the New York State Testing Guide’s Educator Guide to the Regents Examination in Geometry (Common Core)

Students will be expected to know grade-level mathematical content with fluency and to know which mathematical concepts to employ to solve real-world mathematics problems. Students will be expected to know grade-level mathematical content with fluency and to know which mathematical concepts to employ to solve real-world mathematics problems.

Upon reading this statement I immediately became focused on the word “fluency”.  Just to check my vocabulary, I went to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fluency and found two definitions.

1)    the ability to speak easily and smoothly; especially : the ability to speak a foreign language easily and effectively

2)      the ability to do something in a way that seems very easy

I suspected that definition #1 was not relevant (unless the regents Exams will be oral exams), so definition #2 has to be the meaning intended. But is it? Imagine the mathematical content in a Geometry course actually being described as “easy” by the end of the year. What a goal! What a target! Is it realistic as an expectation? Being a natural skeptic, I went searching for more information. I checked the NYS Testing Guide for Algebra 1 (here) and found this: Students will be expected to know grade-level mathematical content with fluency and to know which mathematical concepts to employ to solve real-world mathematics problems. In both documents, the statements were attached to categories labelled Shift 5: Application and Shift 6: Dual Intensity.  So naturally I needed to delve more. When I wade through the http://www.engageny.org/ site I find that “Shift 6: Dual Intensity” is the tag for this:   Students are practicing and understanding. There is more than a balance between these two things in the classroom – both are occurring with intensity. What does that mean? I get the practicing and understanding, but what do “more than a balance” and “occurring with intensity” mean?  I find these phrases being used all over the country in all kinds of “Common Core” related documents. This is scary stuff. Do a google search on this statement: “Students are practicing and understanding. There is more than a balance between these two things in the classroom – both are occurring with intensity.”  It’s an education in the making.

As a sample, this is from El Toro High School in California:

Shifts in Mathematics
Shift 1	Focus	Teachers significantly narrow and deepen the scope of how time and energy is spent in the math classroom.  They do so in order to focus deeply on only the concepts that are prioritized in the standards
Shift 2	Coherence	Teachers carefully connect the learning within and across grades so that students can build new understanding onto foundations built in previous years.
Shift 3	Fluency	Students are expected to have speed and accuracy with simple calculations, teacher structure class time and/or homework time for students to memorize through repetition, core functions.
Shift 4	Deep Understanding	Students deeply understand and can operate easily within a math concept before moving on.  They learn more than the trick to get the right answer.  They learn the math.
Shift 5	Application	Students are expected to use math and choose the appropriate concept for application even when they are not prompted to do so.
Shift 6	Dual Intensity	Students are practicing and understanding.  There is more than a balance between these two things in the classroom – both are occurring with intensity.

Note these are called “shifts.” The implication is that it is all new and different. Some are not new, but some might be, depending on the meaning of the words used. What is the meaning of “Teachers significantly narrow and deepen the scope of how time and energy is spent in the math classroom”?  I can guess at what it is supposed to mean: fewer concepts so those dealt with can be handled better.  But does it mean that? I cannot tell.  I do know that the authors of that statement did not display much fluency with it.

The more I delve into Common Core documents at the state, district, and school levels the more I see a strange and unfortunate gathering of words. Delaware even says “Mathematics is not a list of disconnected tricks or mnemonics.” That can be found here.

 

Oops! Sorry Delaware! That idea was previously written as “Mathematics is not a list of disconnected topics, tricks, or mnemonics; it is a coherent body of knowledge made up of interconnected concepts. Therefore, the standards are designed around coherent progressions from grade to grade.” This appears in Key Shifts in Mathematics in the original Common Core postings. 

I find it insulting that such a statement appears. Thinking it is fine, even encouraged, but to find it relevant and meaningful enough to place in a formal document is an insult to all the people who have been teaching mathematics. If you need to insult some, so be it. But to insult all? That’s terrible.

Am I against the Common Core? Absolutely not. Am I pleased with it as it is? Absolutely not. 

Pearson: Friend or Foe?

As the country slowly realizes that the big issue with the Common Core is not the core itself but the testing aspect of school accountability, I feel it is my duty to help keep the debate focused.

As a preface to my comments, let me point out the existence of Pearson PLC, specifically its "North America" page, (see here) which as of today says

We are the largest provider of educational assessment services in the U.S. We mark large-scale school examinations for the U.S. federal government and more than 25 American states, scoring billions of multiple-choice tests and more than 111 million essays every year.

Uniform national standards do make it easier for such a company to offer products to a greater number of states. These states, deciding that there may be no need to invent their own wheel, may then see Pearson as a cost-effective option. Pearson (or any other such company) has no real interest in what those standards are, but a large interest in their adoption by as many states as possible. The sooner states were in lockstep, the better for Pearson.

The real push behind all the testing is the program known as Race to the Top. This program states, on its own web site,

Authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the Race to the Top Assessment Program provides funding to consortia of States to develop assessments that are valid, support and inform instruction, provide accurate information about what students know and can do, and measure student achievement against standards designed to ensure that all students gain the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in college and the workplace. These assessments are intended to play a critical role in educational systems; provide administrators, educators, parents, and students with the data and information needed to continuously improve teaching and learning; and help meet the President's goal of restoring, by 2020, the nation's position as the world leader in college graduates.

Note the phrase "consortia of states". The burden starts with states working together. Who benefits from that criterion alone? Does it really and truly matter to an 8th grade teacher whether the curricula standards they need to address have national, state, county, or district origins?  Does it matter to the students?  Does it presume that any state addressing the issue alone will be less successful?

Pearson says on their web site

Race to the Top is a federal competitive grant program designed to reward states and districts that have made innovative education reforms.

So does that contradict the stated goal of Race to the Top? Is the funding for "consortia of states" or is it a reward to states and districts?

In addition, Pearson has a link to a Race to the Top handbook for grants which states that the purpose of a grant is to:

Reward Local Education Agencies (LEAs) who have the leadership and vision to implement the strategies, structures and systems of support to move to personalized, student-focused approaches to teaching and learning that will use collaborative, data-based strategies and 21st century tools to deliver instruction and supports tailored to the needs and goals of each student, with the goal of enabling all students to graduate college- and career-ready.

 What is a Local Education Agency?  Do you know? Look it up!

Pearson's handbook goes to the assert that  "Eligible applicants include only individual LEAs and consortia of LEAs." Further, it says

1. Minimum of 2000 participating students. Consortiums can serve fewer than 2,000 students, if the consortium has at least 10 LEAs and at least 75% of the students served by each LEA are participating students.
2. At least 40% of participating students must be from low-income families.

So its natural push is to deal with larger groups. Due to the first restriction my district would not have been allowed to apply by itself. The second item would rule out many school districts.


The handbook also points to this address for more info: www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-district/index.html . Check that page out. Of course, the deadline for these grants was last October, so the page MIGHT have changed, but it seems to have very little to do with Race to the Top.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the parent of Race to the Top, stipulates

The overall goals of the ARRA are to stimulate the economy in the short term and invest in education and other essential public services to ensure the long-term economic health of our nation.

So the original motive is economics-based, which easily leads to the idea that the most crucial measures of the success of education is the "economic health of the nation." Is it really?

Back to the Race to the Top quote above: if we are to restore the US as the world leader in college graduates by 2020, we are focusing attention on students graduating from high school by 2016, which means those entering kindergarten by 2003. How does all the testing of grades K-8 in 2014 even come into play?

Late last year a group of New York state principals drafted a letter (see it here) regarding Common Core and testing in which they said "Since 2010, the amount of time spent on average taking the 3-8 ELA and Math tests has increased by a whopping 128%! The increase has been particularly hard on our younger students, with third graders seeing an increase of 163%". Who made big bucks on these tests?

During my time on a Strategic Planning Committee in the district where I taught, the recognition was made that we had to look at the system not K-12, but rather 12-K. We had to start with graduating standards and design in reverse, so that each level would seamlessly flow into the next. We were aware that the program had to remain in flux, since as students cohorts were progressing through the system, they would be different from the cohort before, and (hopefully) more successful.

I know that serious implementation of any curricular change arrives with its assessment piece, so I understand fully why the K-8 world is boiling, especially in my home state.  What I do not understand is what the K-8 world has to do with the 2020 goal. The K-8 years are extremely important, but who really gains by the mad rush into K-8 testing? Could it be Pearson?

Common Core is not about testing

The  Common Core standards are all about  Math and English. They are not about testing.

Rex Smith of the Albany Times Union says in this morning's paper

People are blaming Common Core for a cluster of pressures in the schools, including excessive standardized testing and a revised scoring system that has shown student performance to be lower than previously thought. But a lot of the folks attacking the Common Core, I’m convinced, haven’t actually looked at the standards, or talked with education experts about them. Until we have heard more from a thoughtful review by educators, the calls to abandon the reform are premature. 

 Common Core does not prescribe tests, or modules, or most of the things that people are complaining about. In New York, all those things called modules are not from the Common Core. They are designed by the New York State Education Department. The EngageNY web site states

 

The optional curricular materials on EngageNY are designed to be adopted or adapted. Educators will find both PDF and Word versions available for their use. Some lessons provide detailed instructions or recommendations but it is important to note that the lessons are not scripts and rather they should be viewed as vignettes so that the reader can imagine how the class could look.

I added in the red to emphasize that even NY does not believe it knows "the way" to do things.

I also know that there are districts that have mandates that their teachers follow the modules. Those districts are naive, misled, misleading, and dangerous. Common Core is none of those.

 

I also find it misleading for Governor Andrew Cuomo to select Todd Hathaway, for one, as a member of his new committee. After all, Common Core is about math and English, and Hathaway is a high school history (social studies) teacher. The least he could have done would be to include a math teacher and an English teacher.