Blog Posts
The Perils of Edutourism
Edutourism is not new. For American education professors in the 1920s, nothing certified one’s progressive credentials like a trip to the Soviet Union. Diane Ravitch presents a vivid account in Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms. She describes how John Dewey, the most famous progressive educator of the era, visited Soviet schools in 1928 and returned full of admiration. He appreciated the emphasis on collectivism over individualism and the ease with which schools integrated curricula with the goals of society. One activity that he singled out for praise was sending students into the community to educate and help “ignorant adults to understand the policies of local soviets.” William Heard Kilpatrick, father of the project method, toured Russian schools in 1929. He applauded the ubiquitous use of project-based learning in Soviet classrooms, noting that “down to the smallest detail in the school curriculum, every item is planned to further the Soviet plan of society.” Educator and political activist George Counts shipped a Ford sedan to Leningrad and set out on a three-month tour, extolling the role Soviet schools played in “the greatest social experiment in history.”[i]
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Implementing Common Core: Curriculum Part 3
This post is the third and final segment on implementing curriculum aligned with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). It focuses on how curriculum is shaped in schools and classrooms. Previous posts described curriculum implementation at the national, state, and district levels. Future posts in this series will examine the role of instruction, assessment, and accountability in implementing the Common Core.
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Algebra II and the Declining Significance of Coursetaking
The Brown Center released a report today called “The Algebra Imperative.” The report shows that current national and international math assessments do not adequately measure how well American students are learning algebra. In this chalkboard post, I elaborate upon a point made in the report: that taking and successfully completing an Algebra II course, which once certified high school students’ mastery of advanced topics in algebra and solid preparation for college-level mathematics, no longer means what it once did. The credentialing integrity of Algebra II has weakened.
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Six Myths in the New York Times Math Article by Elizabeth Green
The July 27, 2014 edition of the New York Times Sunday Magazine featured an article by Elizabeth Green entitled “ Why Do Americans Stink at Math? ” In this blog post, I identify six myths promulgated in that article. Let me be clear at the outset. I am an admirer of Elizabeth Green’s journalism and am sympathetic to the idea that improving teaching would raise American math achievement. But this article is completely off base. Its most glaring mistake is giving the impression that a particular approach to mathematics instruction—referred to over the past half-century as “progressive,” “constructivist,” “discovery,” or “inquiry-based”—is the answer to improving mathematics learning in the U.S. That belief is not supported by evidence.
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Implementing Common Core: Curriculum Part 2
In my May Chalkboard post, I presented Pressman and Wildavsky’s classic implementation model as a guide to analyzing the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). With policies that span multiple layers of governance, decision points at every level influence the fate of implementation. Negotiating each level of governance also leaves policies vulnerable to attack by political opponents. When 45 states and the District of Columbia initially adopted the Common Core and the federal government supported the effort through Race to the Top funding, the initiative’s opponents did not simply roll up their tents and disappear. They reorganized in several states to launch new battles, and are now preparing to fight in many districts as well.
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