Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett is behind the Common Core State Standards Initiative and hopes you will be too….

Mr. Barrett sees common education standards as essential to creating the work force of tomorrow and he wants to narrow the gap in education quality among the states. All of which sounds ideal . . . if we can agree on what those standards are. And if we can avoid the common trap of dumbing the standards down so most students in most states can pass – for the sake of passing.

I am all for setting a minimum bar. After all, how can we expect workers to understand the difference between a 401k, Roth IRA, and Keogh Defined Benefit Plan if they can’t do basic math? Labor needs have changed. It is not sufficient to be able to lay brick. Now even a brick layer needs to understand the various mortgage options he has when purchasing a home, the investment choices he has within his retirement account and the economic consequences of his union membership.

The more technology within a field the more precision and understanding for math concepts is needed. Do you want Homer Simpson running the nuclear power plant?

But the setting of standards requires that we come to a consensus on where we want the country to go and we have reason to believe that we know how to get there. With the sensitivities now displayed in textbooks, it’s hard to imagine that any knowledge can be imparted. Can we get everyone together on what is important? Whose values trump?

Without a single responsible party, or a genuine leader, the push for standards falls apart. In all fairness, states can work together the create mutually agreeable standards without involving the federal government, but the slope to federal intervention is slippery, particularly with a federal government that is increasingly centralized. In societies of the past this has typically been the work of a wise elder. We need to find a wise elder.

NOMINATE A WISE ELDER

If you have a suggestion for a “wise elder” please include it in the comments box. If you are filling in a comment box for the first time, don’t fret, the name/email are just to verify that you are human – not spam. That information is not retained or used.

The winner will be interviewed here for his/her suggestions on education standards. If I can figure out how to host you and the person you nominate for lunch, I’ll do that too. Let’s amp up the conversation on education. Please nominate a Wise Elder today!

Related posts:

1. Education Stimulus Money Establishes Test Standards, Can’t Fix Test Problems
2. Education Issues: Quantity, Quality?
3. Education Issues: Calling Out Bill Gates on Treating Schools Like Corporations

So let’s go for a drive.

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to cross the US by car . . . say from Chapel Hill, NC to Berkeley, CA, or Boston, MA to Berkeley, CA or Atlanta, GA to San Diego, CA, you have seen that there are many choices to make along the way. Do you go Interstate Highway all the way, do you detour to Route 66 (recommend in limited portions, it ain’t what it used to be)?

Do you take the most direct route . . . well, actually, what is the most direct route? If it is winter, heading across on I-50 is a BAD idea with a U-Haul. Actually, even in late April that’s a bad idea.

Some choices are better than others. So as a rational person, you do two things:

1. You establish your objective – where are you going, speed or leisure, caravan or solo….
2. Then you decide how to get there.

Sounds a lot better than someone else mandating how you will drive, what you will drive and when you will arrive. This system works well. It is the brains behind the free market. You do it instinctively.

DETOUR

The Wall Street Journal featured the concept of Saturday school in this weekend’s edition. While I am a strong supporter of more education, not less, I slam on the brakes for this one. Quantity does not equal quality – sheer volume can occasionally overtake quality instruction, but brute force versus dedicated finesse has no chance.

The bigger issue we face is that we do not have an objective for American education. We talk about being strong in science, math, well, anything, but it’s all talk. Take a look at the standards in the average classroom.

In classes taught in the science and social science subfields of Earth sciences, economics, geography, and government/civics, fewer than 50 percent of classes were taught by a teacher who held a major in the respective subfield. Fast Facts on Education

Without a clear objective, Saturday school is at best a thorn in the side of kids who yearn to play in creeks and at worst is yet more time for your children to be exposed to revisionist history and ridiculous propaganda. More college students arrive on campus fully aware of the recycling program (good), but totally UNAWARE that we participated in the Korean War of the 20th century (bad). No joke.

For any educational program to be successful, we have to establish standards. The purpose of No Child Left Behind was to do just that. The Teacher’s Unions were the most vocal opponents. No program is without flaws, but you can’t drive efficiently from the East Coast to the West Coast without a clear plan. Otherwise, you’re likely to end up running out of gas in Kansas and that means your history class never learns about the Asian theater of war in WWII or the Korean War.

2006, Twelfth-grade students who explained a reason for the involvement in the Korean War: 14%

So, before we have kids sit in class on Saturday, let’s make sure that we have teachers who understand the subject matter they teach and we have a curriculum designed for the most important elements for the students to learn. It’s nice to know how your future college’s recycling program operates, but if you stink at fractions . . . every day you will be further and further behind your international peers. And our ability to innovate as an economy dies.

Related posts:

1. Education Issues: Cuts to Classtime is Unacceptable Way to Cut Costs
2. Education Issues: Calling Out Bill Gates on Treating Schools Like Corporations
3. Education Issues: Performance Pay’s Effect is Weak?

The Wall Street Journal recently published a special section on Education. What inspired me was the opener.

If an educated work force is the nation’s human capital, business is seeing a lot of subprime these days.

It’s a snarky little comment, but it hit entirely too close to home. Even if your school’s graduation rate is stable . . . what do the kids know? You may remember my rant a few months back when I had a boyfriend explain to me that the GMAT (standardized test for those seeking an MBA) is unfair and unrealistic because it asked him to calculate the area of a triangle. And he, “Knows triangles.” After all, he “earned” A s in math, including a 98 in Geometry.

How has this happened?

The majority of our teachers are graduating in the bottom quartile of their college classes. Fewer than 31% of 8th-grade math teachers have degrees in mathematics. Less than 7% of 5th-8th grade science teachers have a degree in science.

And folks care more about climate change?

Really?

Excuse me?

A poorly educated mass population leads to slavery. If you can’t discern for yourself, you must depend on others to do the discerning for you. You give up your independence, your control and all that is holy because you didn’t bother to learn the basics.

This is a particularly sore point with me. I recently had a student complain that I unfairly singled him out when I suggested he get back to the basics. Never mind that I made the suggestion to the entire class, he took it personally.  Here’s a kid who was flunking class and had not done his homework. It was anyone’s fault but his own . . .

What’s wrong with the basics?

What do we have against doing “basic” work? Is knowing the multiplication tables really that awful? Is proficiency with simple concepts going to dumb us down or build us up?

Look at education systems that encourage the rote drills we have eschewed state-side.

Proponents of our education system will tell you that, “That’s okay, because Americans do better with complex critical thinking.”

Um, no, no we do not.

The reality check is that American students performed far below other advanced nations on a test of original, creative thinking, and also were well below the international average. The notion that students in some of the highest scoring nations simply regurgitate memorized facts is false.  -Walt Murfin

As though rote drills pushes critical thinking skills out . . . Another myth perpetuated by those who are too interested in creative teaching and not interested in the results of their experiments.

But the problem is even more insidious. Highly educated families have always had more interest and therefore created more access to education opportunities. Guess what, even our top performers are behind. Click on the graph to expand it.

We’re not just kind of behind, we’re under a rock behind. We’re in front of economic powerhouses like Malta, Slovenia and Bulgaria. These are our top students as compared to other top students.

Is there any hope? Of course! Families are voting with their wallets and private education is discovering new ways to deliver education. Adults are getting access to levels of education previously unattainable – Stanford and MIT have both made a series of classes available online for free.

But how many will partake?

The larger issues is not really one of access. At the micro-level, perhaps specifically for low income families, access is indeed a huge impediment, but families can move. We are a mobile society. At the macro-level, we have a problem with interest. What do we celebrate culturally?

We used to celebrate winning.

I’m not into the politics of education. Let’s just get it done.

Is it important to know your multiplication tables 20 years later? Yes.

Is it important to know the Krebs cycle 20 years later? Well, probably not, but wouldn’t it be great if we celebrated those who did?

Thank you to the Kenyon Biology Department and The terror of 9th grade, Gail Liljestrand – who terrorized us into learning things for life.

Related posts:

1. Education Issues: Quantity, Quality?
2. Education Issues: Calling Out Bill Gates on Treating Schools Like Corporations
3. Education Issues: Peer Effects?

Rewriting the No Child Left Behind Law is in process. If you have children in school this may be important to you. If you are childless, it may seem unimportant.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Whether or not you have children, if you plan to be living in 20 years, how our children are educated today will influence your quality of life. In 20 years, the children just starting school will be having their mid-20s crisis (did anyone have one of these prior to the baby boomers?). The children now finishing school will be leading major companies and entering the upper rungs of politics . . .

These kids are our future, literally.

So how are they doing?

Oh, #@$*@!

From what I can tell, they have a lot of self esteem. They feel good about themselves. Really, really, good about themselves. But, they don’t have any proof of earning that self esteem, and deep down, each child knows it.

Let’s take a quick look at our rankings in international tests. This chart demonstrates performance in problem solving – Math.

The reality check is that United States students performed well on some tests, not as well as might be expected on others, and very poorly on some.

There is a “counter myth” that the United States generally performed at or close to the international average in math and science. This is true, as far as it goes. However, some of the nations tested were decidedly disadvantaged compared to the United States, and the international average included the scores of those less favored nations. To say that the United States is near the international average largely means that our students fared better than students in some severely deprived countries. Many other advanced nations scored far above the average.  See the article with stats from the international tests.

But, surely there are ways to counter this information, right? The standard excuses that we educate all of our population so a comparison of our students is broader than in other countries . . . not true. How about the idea that our best students outperform the best students in other countries – again, that our average is pulled down by the lower end of students . . . again, not true. US best students ranked second to last of the 20 advanced nations. How about . . . our students are more attuned to cretive thinking whereas these other countries are drilling facts and using rote memorization?

It is true the other countries lean on heavy drills, memorization and other (apparently) seeming barbaric learning mechanisms. Guess what?

American students were dead last of the advanced countries and well below average for all countries in ability to apply knowledge through creative problem solving.

Perhaps rote memorization serves a purpose….

As a nation, we’ve been punked. Our children are learning to feel good, but they aren’t learning to read, write, add/subtract/multiply and divide. How can you feel good as an adult if you can’t cover the basic functions and then apply them. We are creating a nation of zombies.

When you cannot contribute to the vibrant, productive fabric of this country you are more likely to have problems with substance abuse and depression. Those are expensive problems for society….

Are there any bright spots?

Our 4th graders have often done well, especially in reading. Our 8th graders have done exceptionally well in civics.

Well that’s something. At least until you read the conclusion. Emphasis is mine.

However, American students have not generally performed as well as our national advantages would lead one to expect. Between 1995 and 2003 our students made good strides in factual learning in science and some improvement in factual learning in mathematics. They deteriorated in application of knowledge in all subjects between 2000 and 2003. They did very poorly in tests of original, creative, logical thinking. Most of the excuses for low American performance fail the reality test. Quibbles about sample participation and the age of students tested are specious and cannot explain away the obvious defects in US students’ performance.

The harder a student works, the more he will struggle with concepts, the more he will own those concepts once he gets them. Upon mastery of a concept, the child will develop a security that he knows something. That’s the beauty of it, he will know something. This leads to self esteem.

Self-esteem can not be taught, it must be earned.

The Secretary of Education is coming to your state by the end of December, look here for his schedule – then go give your input!

Related posts:

1. Education Issues – Teacher Signaling
2. Education Issues: Quantity, Quality?
3. Education Stimulus Money Establishes Test Standards, Can’t Fix Test Problems

In the Education Leadership post a few days ago Rob commented that teaching attracts liberals. So let’s dissect. Is it true that teaching attracts liberals or is there something more going on?

There are a few ways to go through this. Let’s start with the premise that teaching attracts liberals. That premise is either true or not true. How do we decide, scientifically? We have to identify the population of teachers as liberal or not liberal versus the same in the overall population.

If it is true that teaching attracts liberals disproportionally, what is it about teaching or liberalness that brings the two together?

Could it be that Teacher Unions somehow block non-liberals? Or matriculation for conservative PhD students is somehow blocked by liberal faculty….

If it is false, how did the profession get the reputation? Better yet, has it always been this way?

So let’s tackle these one at a time (1999 data from the North American Academic Study Survey):

By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week (April 2005). The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans….

“What’s most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field,” said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study. “There was no field we studied in which there were more conservatives than liberals or more Republicans than Democrats. It’s a very homogenous environment, not just in the places you’d expect to be dominated by liberals.”

In contrast with the finding that nearly three-quarters of college faculty are liberal, a Harris Poll of the general public last year found that 33 percent describe themselves as conservative and 18 percent as liberal.

Hmmmm.

The evidence I have for liberal professors blocking the advancement of conservative students is painful and anecdotal, so give me a few days to dig for the science to support or deny this – look for that next week.

Has it always been this way?

In the last major survey of college faculty, by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1984, 39 percent identified themselves as liberal.

Well then.

What is perhaps more troubling is the ripple effect it is having throughout the education system. I have no beef with college professors who fly left of the spectrum. That’s your gig. And, yes, I will defend your right to have those opinions no matter how much I disagree with them.

But what about our primary and secondary education system? By the time a child reaches college he or she should be able to think critically and has been molded by mom and dad. When you are 5 years old, you take everything said to you at face value.

I have a very strong opposition to politics in the classroom for those who are not even the age of reason.

Give the lack of understanding for the basics (reading, writing, arithmetic) I see in adult graduate level students, there is no time for political shenanigans in the primary classroom. Get back to math, reading and writing. Science, critical thinking, scientific method – how to conduct an unbiased experiment and scientifically assess the results… those have a solid place in late elementary school and middle school. Being told smart cars are “better” in kindergarten, no place. No thank you.

So let’s leave this politicing aside and look at something perhaps more important, teacher qualifications. If teachers are qualified to teach our children how to think and to love learning, then perhaps the right/left (rather left/far left) leanings become less relevant . . ..

Oh dear.

According to the “Meeting Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge” report published in 2003, 28 of 29 states where the same standardized teaching tests are used, a teacher may be below the national overall (teaching and non-teaching populations) average in mathematics and still be a teacher. 29 of 29 for reading . . . and in some states you may perform in the bottom quarter (i.e. with more than 75% of the population performing better than you did) and still meet the requirements to become a teacher.

What?!

Yet, from my personal experience it is next to impossible to pursue the very low pay, grueling hours of teaching due to the certification process. Thanks, I’ll stick with private education.

As large donors to the Democratic party, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have an agenda, but it doesn’t seem to be educating our young ones.

Want more? A site dedicated to information on teachers’ unions.

Related posts:

1. Cost of Education
2. Education Issues – Teacher Signaling
3. Education Issues: Quantity, Quality?

Leadership in Education is a big concern. The influence teachers have on our kids is immense and immediately powerful. I remember hearing one of my little sisters read her paper on the Iraq war circa 2004 at age 12 . . . it is safe to say she did not get those opinions from my parent’s house. Turns out her teacher had particularly strong feelings about the subject and decided to teach a current events lesson.

What is going on with education in the US? My family has been teaching for generations, elementary school through PhD. Most have been/are teachers, and a few have been administrators. Several have also been business owners . . . both teachers and business owners.

Is education now at a crossroads?

The internet has fundamentally changed both our access to information and our individual ability to provide information. If you wanted to share your thoughts on particle physics, 20 years ago you’d be lucky to find 3 people in your city who want to listen to you.

Now, you can find forums, blogs and social networking communities who want to hear what you have to say. Well, or at least they will put up with you.

This expands opportunities for learning across the broadest spectrum of subjects, yes?

We have the ability to have to increase interaction in education, but are we learning or just talking?

What is the value of education now available?

Looking at college courses you can now choose to attend college formally – as in, show up in person, or you can choose to attend class online. PhoenixOnline dwarfed all educational institutions last year and the year before and … and it made it a tidy profit. PhoenixOnline pays their teachers next to nothing so it isn’t attracting super stars though they do seem to require a PhD to teach. I calculated the pay for one class I was considering teaching and determined it to be $8-$12 and hour when you factor in the requirements on the teachers.

What’s the difference?

With Stanford making classes available online for free, is there any reason to use PhoenixOnline? I wouldn’t expect to get a higher quality product from Phoenix, but Phoenix has one thing Stanford does not. Degree granting accreditation.

So if you want your bachelor degree, you watch the PhoenixOnline version. The courses you watch at Stanford won’t earn you a degree from Stanford. You still have to show up and pay Stanford’s tuition if you want a degree. But you can get the degree much less expensively from PhoenixOnline.

Stanford can afford to offer the courses online because degree-seeking students have already paid to fill the classroom. The marginal cost to provide access to educationally motivated individuals is next to zero $.

We have two extremes. Inexpensive, essentially free education and very expensive education like MBA prep courses and top tier business schools.

From Seth Godin: The newly easy access to the education marketplace (you used to need a big campus and a spot in the guidance office) means that both the free and expensive options are going to be experimented with, because the number of people in the education business is going to explode (then implode)….

Just because something is free doesn’t meant there isn’t money to be made. Someone could charge, for example, for custom curricula, or focused tutoring, or for a certified (scarce) degree. When a million people are taking your course, you only need 1% to pay you to be happy indeed.

What he presents as options in the second paragraph is nothing new. Until you get to the 1% of people paying you. How do you feel about 1% of the people demonstrating a value for your labor?

If I work very hard for 5 years, I earn my PhD in esoteric topic X. If I struggle, stumble and fall gazillion times while launching a company, that may take me 4-5 years as well. Should I, should you, share the fruits of those labors for nothing with the vast majority of consumers? If you do, why would the 1% who might be willing to pay pay?

But, more importantly, from what you have noticed about human behavior, will any of those who do not pay value what I teach?

Related posts:

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It is difficult to find a text to ignite enthusiasm in children for basic economics. Actually, it’s difficult to find a text that teaches economics to adults (I do recommend Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics) . . . which leads to all sorts of other problems…. But that’s for another day.

In the far, far background of my pile of projects I have toiled on a set of Fairy Tales that convey complicated math concepts in bite-sized nuggets as well as basic economics with the intent of passing along to my godchildren and perhaps my own kiddos some useful stuff….

So I keep an eye out for similar projects. From me to you via NYTimes Blog via Twitter:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/the-economics-of-fairy-tales/

They’ve explained how you can convey the economic concepts of popular tales to your children.

The Three Pigs

If you think about it, what is the Three Pigs really about? Is it just a jumble of portly pink farm animals running about or is it a lesson in investment and return on that investment. Pig #3 builds a brick house. That took significant time and money. Pig #1 built a house of straw – like most start-ups, here today, gone tomorrow, but he could build it quickly. Pig #2 thinking he improved on Pig #1′s concept without the burden of Pig #3′s concept builds with sticks . . . which really proves to be nothing more than heavy straw – much like a start-up with “seasoned professionals?”

On the simple math side, the Three Pigs introduces the concept of cost / benefit analysis as well as perseverance with harder path in the face of seemingly quick fix solutions. Add in a few simple numbers and let the kids decide for themselves – build with brick or go for straw and hope your Brick brother will bail you out….

Simple Economics for kids of all ages.

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1. Basic Economics – When your voters are challenged
2. Basic Economics – Competitive States
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What is the major influence that turns children into little prodigies? Mind-blowing research in Neurology points us in a new direction.

Is it amount of practice? Is it in-born talent? Is it high-income parents – or other privileged access to resources?

No, no, no.

The driving factor that influences a child to be a prodigy is his self-perception. Now, before you race off to propose more self-esteem building exercises, know that self-perception is not the same thing as self-esteem.

Self esteem is concerned with how you feel about yourself. Do you feel capable? Do you feel pretty? Those kinds of questions are the ones associated with self-esteem.

In what may seem like a minor difference self-perception is about WHO you are. How you identify yourself as a whole person.

Are you an athlete, an academic or an actor? That is self-perception.

The students who did best are not simply the ones who practice the most, despite many theories. New work in neurology and psychology have determined a far better determinant of success: self-perception.

Students who see themselves as a musician before they even pick up an instrument are far more likely to develop into musical talents than those students who see themselves as “playing an instrument” even if the students who only see themselves as playing an instrument practice for more than twice as long. See the actual data outcome: Causing Cognition – Getting Great.

How will this change the way we approach training ourselves and our students for greatness?

Related posts:

1. Contextual Cues Influence Learning

The strongest case for Education reform in the United States

Upon reading another author’s blog’s comments I was reminded how few people are put at the peril of the market in an obvious way, daily – i.e. they work for someone else, have benefits, and believe these things due to them. We need Basic Economics training for everyone. Without understanding how market forces major and minor contribute to profits and losses for businesses, a vast portion of our vocal population perpetuate the notion that businesses are profiting by skimping on employee benefits – benefits they feel are a right and obligation for someone else to provide.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods

Howdy to healthcare reform. The comments are a hoot. On one hand, you have well reasoned responses discussing the economics behind healthcare from a personal point. Some small business owners chime in. On the other hand, you have folks attacking Mr. Mackey – these folks refer to themselves as “Progressives.”

The talkers talk loudest making demands while the doers work their butts off to provide for both. There’s only so much a doer can take before she stops producing for the talker. Productive people will always find a way to make things work, even if it’s messy. A talker depends on the productive person to keep producing. A few of my family members fall into the Talker category . . . they would gladly strangle the goose who lays the golden eggs, because they can dismiss the golden eggs as luck.

It’s amazing how lucky you get when you work really hard.

There’s just no reasoning with folks so unreasonable.

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”-Margaret Thatcher.

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”  — Milton Friedman

Related posts:

1. Education Issues: Calling Out Bill Gates on Treating Schools Like Corporations
2. Education Issues – State v Federal Standards
3. Education Issues: Quantity, Quality?