Moral Failings

One of my many, many flaws is that I harbor a regrettable fondness for being right. I won't say that I told you this just recently, but:

Students at Mount Vernon receive an extra 25 days of school a year, comprised of optional intersessions attended by 98 percent of the student body. According to the National Association for Year-Round Education there are roughly 3,000 schools in the United States with year-round programs.

This calendar is more in line with the rest of world. In Japan, for example, students spend 243 days in class, while Americans are only in class for 180.

Teachers at the school say they notice a definite difference.

"I call it the summer hangover," said first-grade teacher Jennifer Fisher, who has taught in both traditional and year-round schools. "You really have to spend so much time getting them back into the frame of mind of school. They're not even thinking about school. ... It was very frustrating.

"With this calendar, they don't have a chance -- it's like those extra five weeks, it prevents the hangover," she said. "You know, so they have five weeks of fun and then it's 'Oh, OK, we're back at it.'"

The Obama administration is pushing for longer days and more of them.

When our kids are in school for 243 days a year, let's see how well they do.

Why American Kids Fall Behind

Or maybe we should say, "Why American kids who are poor fall behind." There are many reasons, including the morally reprehensible way schools are funded, which inevitably leads to segregation by class and race and socioeconomic status. (Which adds up to the same thing, really.)

Yesterday I was reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, so I was thinking about how short the American school year is. It makes no sense that Americans cling to long summer breaks for children. There used to be a reason for a longer summer vacation. In an agricultural economy, those children are needed to help on the farm. However, I think we can all agree that that time is long gone for most Americans.

In most other countries, children have a longer day at school, and they attend school for more days each year:

The accumulating data on comparative education, itself a relatively new preoccupation of policy specialists, point up two trends. First, compared with their peers in Asian and European countries, American students stand out for how little they work. Second, compared with Asians and Europeans, American students stand out for how poorly they do.
BOTTOM DOGS
As to the first: consider a list, garnered from a variety of sources, of the varying number of days in a standard school year. This list was hard to put together--which tells us something about the neglect of this subject in U.S. educational circles.

Japan	243		New Zealand	190
West Germany	266-240		Nigeria	190
South Korea	220		British Columbia	185
Israel	216		France	185
Luxembourg	216		Ontario	185
Soviet Union	211		Ireland	184
Netherlands	200		New Brunswick	182
Scotland	200		Quebec	180
Thailand	200		Spain	180
Hong Kong	195		Sweden	180
England/Wales	192		United States	180
Hungary	192		French Belgium	175
Switzerland	191		Flemish Belgium	160
Finland	190

In the United States, this difference does not handicap children of affluent parents, as these children continue throughout the summer with their tutoring and piano lessons and family trips and online learning and all that. But what about kids whose learning is confined to a school setting?

What happens is that they lose some of the gains they made in the previous school year. When they return to school in the fall, teachers must waste time in review. Some don't, and then kids fall behind. The behinder they get, the behinder they get. Eventually, they get tired or overwhelmed by failure, and then they drop out. The drop-out rates for Hispanic and Black teen-agers is disproportionately high, which makes sense if you consider the disproportionate number of Hispanic and Black children living in poverty:

Children represent a disproportionate share of the poor in the United States; they are 25 percent of the total population, but 35 percent of the poor population. In 2007, 13.3 million children, or 17.4 percent, were poor. The poverty rate for children also varies substantially by race and Hispanic origin, as shown in the table below[4].

Children Under 18 Living in Poverty, 2007
Category	Number (in thousands)	Percent
All children under 18	13,324	18.0
White only, non-Hispanic	4,255	10.1
Black	4,178	33.7
Hispanic	4,482	28.6
Asian	431	11.9

Here's a school where students spend more time in school. From ASCD.

2/22/12 UPDATE: Reportage from the NEA on longer school days.

High Jumper Opportunity

If you happen to know anyone who is a math/science teacher or designer of math/science curriculum and assessments, here's what looks to be a fantastic opportunity at Leapfrog.

The job responsibilities include:

• Write learning goals and content to align with product interactions for early childhood learning, with special focus on math and science.
• Advise producers, game designers, product designers, web developers and others on appropriate content, pedagogy and assessment strategies
• Review materials and product prototypes and make design recommendations.
• Collaborate with internal research deparment and external scholars on assessments of learning processes and outcomes, some grant writing likely.
• Maintain a library of learning resources, and external consultants.
• Stay current with trends in early childhood education; math-science teaching, learning, and assessment.

I went to Leapfrog HQ once for an exploratory meeting. Although we didn't end up collaborating on that venture, I came away with a solidly positive impression of the Leapfrog universe and the smart, pleasant inhabitants.

My Dream Project

Sometimes I amuse myself by thinking of fun little work projects I would like to do. My dream projects.

A few years ago, I read about a study in Florida which got me thinking about developing some kind of pre-testing curriculum. (Testing isn't going to go away. Nor should it, entirely. Whenever anyone waves the anti-testing flag in my face, I think about how none of us would like to the patient in an operation performed by a surgeon who had never undergone any tests of his medical knowledge. We wouldn't even want our cars repaired by technicians who hadn't ever been tested and certified. However, let us all agree there is room for reform in state and district testing, and leave it at that.)

So whenever we administer these tests, these tests on which some children score disproportionately lower than others, why not find better ways to prepare them? Not with test prep products, but with lesson plans that tell about the brain and how it works, and how we--we, all of us, all humans--gather and store and use information. Thereby making sure that the students understand that all humans have the same kinds of brains, brains that work the same way, and no one group has brains that are inherently better or less able to function than those of another group.

We could add a little writing exercise to the lesson plan:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 16, 2009) — In a follow-up to a 2006 study, a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher and his colleagues found that an in-class writing assignment designed to reinforce students' sense of identity and personal integrity increased the grade-point averages of African-American middle school students over a two-year period, and reduced the rate at which these students were held back or placed in remediation.

This follow-up just confirms the results of the 2006 study. This kind of writing exercise clearly has a positive effect on student performance. Why is it not common practice yet?

Back to the Classroom

If anyone has a little extra time, that time would be well spent volunteering in an elementary classroom:

A program that uses older volunteers as tutors has significantly improved the reading skills of students in the early grades, according to a study released today.
. . .
The report found that the program had “statistically significant and substantively important” effects on the youngsters’ reading skills, as measured by standardized tests and teacher evaluations.

Speaking of the classroom, I may be teaching again soon. I'm applying for a position as a part-time lecturer at a local community college. It'll still be business as usual as Inkspot--you might say the teaching is for fun, or for an opportunity to volunteer in my own little way.

P.S. Some information to support literacy volunteering at the front end:

"There is not a lot of causal evidence that specifically says people with educational skills won't commit crimes, but there is definitely a strong correlation between educational ability and staying out of prison," said Peter Leone, a correctional education expert at the University of Maryland.

A comprehensive study by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, the research arm of the Washington Legislature, found that general education programs reduced the recidivism rate by 7 percent and vocational programs by 9 percent, among the best records of in-prison programs.

The academic and vocational programs cost the state about $1,000 a year per inmate but, the study concluded, vocational education produced a net benefit to the state of $13,738 per participant, and the educational programs $10,669 per inmate, in the form of lower crime rates, fewer victims and less criminal justice spending.

More than a Check

Sometimes I approach my work sort of like the way doctors approach theirs: Above all, do no harm.

Tests are hard enough for students without our setting up unnecessary roadblocks. I like to think about writing tests that are transparent--that give a straightforward view of student performance. No obstacles. Which means sticking to all the item writing rules and writing simply and clearly.

But last week, I received an email message that reminded me that some of the work that I do--writing curriculum and assessment materials for intervention with struggling readers-- actually helps kids in a significant way, and that was a very welcome message.

To be a tiny part of a second chance for a kid who's at risk for dropping out of school, to be one of many people working on materials that will help this child become a competent reader--maybe help this child experience some rare success in a setting where he has only failed before--to just do that much is to do good. It's important to feel that one's work has meaning.

Under New Leadership

I am optimistic about the possibility of change for the better. In Washington, D.C., there is movement afoot to reform the schools. Toward that end, the district is accepting applications for principal and assistant principal. Apply here.