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[cgfunmathguy]

The thing is, K-12 teachers have a set schedule handed down from the District, with every single minute of every single day accounted for.  You don't need advanced coursework in, say, Biology as much as you need gold star classroom management skills.  They'll tell you what to teach, on what day, outlining the entire school year for you on your first day. 

People who earn masters degrees tend to get frustrated at that level of micromanagement.

Wow. Not in any school in which I taught. While classroom management skills were as important as the subject knowledge and the pedagogy, NO ONE ever said "Here's your schedule of lessons for the year. Follow it, and don't fall behind." They did, however, say "Here are the books for the courses you'll be teaching. Next year, it will be assumed that you got through Topic X in Course 1 and Topic Y in Course 2. Oh, and we like them to know Topic Z in Course 2, as well, even though it's three chapters beyond Topic Y. If you get beyond those, great. Let us know if you need any help. We'll be unavailable after 8:45 every day. Good luck." Of course, my 40-minute planning period was sucked up by covering for a sick colleague for whom they couldn't find a sub, but even if it wasn't, it started at 1:37.

[mystictechgal]

The thing is, K-12 teachers have a set schedule handed down from the District, with every single minute of every single day accounted for.  You don't need advanced coursework in, say, Biology as much as you need gold star classroom management skills.  They'll tell you what to teach, on what day, outlining the entire school year for you on your first day. 

That is not true in the K-12 school districts here.  There are certainly guidelines outlining what materials should be covered in each of the grades and what students will be expected to know come standardized testing times, but the teachers all make up their own lesson plans and cover that material in the order and manner they decide best.

[gennimom]

Now, while our state does have standardized curricula for our schools, that doesn't mean they tell you what to teach and when. Our teachers do have the flexibility to plan out lessons and can arrange to teach certain competencies at particular days and times to suit some purpose of their own. That was about the only thing that made it bearable in some schools.

[spyzowin]

Now, while our state does have standardized curricula for our schools, that doesn't mean they tell you what to teach and when. Our teachers do have the flexibility to plan out lessons and can arrange to teach certain competencies at particular days and times to suit some purpose of their own. That was about the only thing that made it bearable in some schools.

I make it my policy to read these curricula for my own kid's grade. So before the start of summer, I knew every single book possibility in English for his grade, and he read them all. So the few that were chosen by the teacher weren't much of a surprise.

The curricula are your pals if you really want your own kids to pawn the class.

[msparticularity]

The thing is, K-12 teachers have a set schedule handed down from the District, with every single minute of every single day accounted for.  You don't need advanced coursework in, say, Biology as much as you need gold star classroom management skills.  They'll tell you what to teach, on what day, outlining the entire school year for you on your first day. 

People who earn masters degrees tend to get frustrated at that level of micromanagement.

Wow. Not in any school in which I taught. While classroom management skills were as important as the subject knowledge and the pedagogy, NO ONE ever said "Here's your schedule of lessons for the year. Follow it, and don't fall behind." They did, however, say "Here are the books for the courses you'll be teaching. Next year, it will be assumed that you got through Topic X in Course 1 and Topic Y in Course 2. Oh, and we like them to know Topic Z in Course 2, as well, even though it's three chapters beyond Topic Y. If you get beyond those, great. Let us know if you need any help. We'll be unavailable after 8:45 every day. Good luck." Of course, my 40-minute planning period was sucked up by covering for a sick colleague for whom they couldn't find a sub, but even if it wasn't, it started at 1:37.

Yes, this.

There certainly are some schools and classrooms that use scripted curricula--including those that claim to be "researched" and that "ensure success for all students!" Of course, if this were actually true, we wouldn't be here discussing these issues, and the proponents of  NCLB wouldn't be confronting the fact that we're up to something like 70% of all schools not being able to make Adequate Yearly Progress.

[scheherazade]

These discussions always give me a headache.

1. There is a big difference between college/university requirements for teachers, state certification requirements for teachers, and NCLB highly qualified requirements for teachers. Many colleges and universities requirements, as well as certification requirements, still don't meet the NCLB requirements. Lots of improvement has been made in this area, but if you're talking about NCLB, high school teachers must have a bachelor's degree or the equivalent of one in coursework (which is calculated around 33-36 hours no matter what a particular university's requirements are) to be highly qualified. If a teacher is looking for a job in English or social studies, they'd better be either highly qualified or willing to work in rural boondocks to get a job, because they won't be hired otherwise.

2. The assessment requirement for NCLB is a crazy mess because each individual state comes up with their own test. There have been a few enlightening studies done on the different tests and results, which tell us exactly what we would expect to see. Some states have very high standards for their tests, and some have very low standards. Eyebrows were raised a couple years after NCLB when Mississippi claimed 100% of their students were reading at average or proficient levels. FWIW, Massachusetts has consistently had the highest standards in the country for their assessments.

3. The tests are supposed to find out how well students meet their state's learning standards. These standards also vary by state. The problem is that some of the states wrote their standards as ways in which they would like to see the classroom be taught, not what should actually be taught. Illinois, for example, has horribly written standards. An excerpt:

• Analyze and report historical events to determine cause-and-effect relationships.
  Describe how modern political positions are affected by differences in ideologies and viewpoints that have developed over time (e.g., political parties’ positions on government intervention in the economy).
  Describe the growing dominance of American and European capitalism and their institutions after 1500.
  
  If you can tell what specifically needs to be covered in a history class from those, you're a better teacher than me. They can apply to dozens of things. However, the test itself will cover specifics, so the teachers are teaching what they think is good for their class but is not measured well by the test.
  
  For comparison, here's an excerpt from the MA learning standards:
  
  Define and use correctly mercantilism, feudalism, economic growth, and entrepreneur.
  Describe significant aspects of Islamic belief.
  A.  the life and teachings of Muhammad
  B.  the significance of the Qur’an as the primary source of Islamic belief
  C.  Islam’s historical relationship to Judaism and Christianity
  D.  the relationship between government and religion in Muslim societies
  Describe some of the major economic and social trends of the late 20th century.
  A.the computer and technological revolution of the 1980s and 1990s
  B.scientific and medical discoveries
  C.major immigration and demographic changes such as the rise in Asian and Hispanic immigration (both legal and illegal)
  D.the weakening of the nuclear family and the rise in divorce rates
  
  Those are things that are clear, can (and should) be included in classes, and can be tested.
  
  4. I think it's obvious the whole unfunded mandate thing was a bad idea. I just read an article on the Race to the Top money that was given to districts recently by the Department of Education. They wanted the money to be used for education reform in the schools, and they were frothing at the mouth because a large percentage of the schools instead used it to shore up their shaky finances. Schools were already struggling with budget shortfalls with the NCLB mandates, and the economy crash just put them over the edge. I can't really blame the schools for their choices regarding the DoE money, since educational reform isn't much good if there aren't teachers in the classrooms, up to date materials, or a functional school building. There's a serious disconnect between the federal DoE and the states and local districts, and until that is fixed, federal programs and mandates can only be so effective.

[polly_mer]

the proponents of  NCLB wouldn't be confronting the fact that we're up to something like 70% of all schools not being able to make Adequate Yearly Progress.

I'm still amused about the report cards in the early years of NCLB that came out in my home state listing schools not making Adequate Yearly Progress.  The top schools in the state (i.e., schools that people moved into the district and commuted a hundred miles a day to work or were paying $20K a year per kid to make sure that their kids were in these schools) were listed as not making AYP.  Someone in the state department of education hadn't done the math to realize that a school with baseline proficiencies of mid-to-high nineties cannot improve several percentage points (relative or absolute) per year because, in a statistical sense, these schools were already at 100%.

Likewise, while some of the schools listed as failing really were schools that were failing their students, busing those students to a non-failing district is out of the question in many cases.  Even if a three hundred mile daily commute were a reasonable thing to do, the handful of schools that are making AYP in that state cannot absorb all of the needy students.

While everything that Scherezade wrote is true, the fact remains that in some states, even where the standards are good ones that do evaluate what they should evaluate and are stated in such a way that what needs to be taught is clear, the numbers of teachers who are qualified even in the minimal sense of being high-school graduates who can pass the subject tests themselves aren't sufficient to meet the needs of the population.  It's nice to have standards and ideas about what should be done, but when the district is faced with the fact that less than 30% of the adult population has a GED or high school diploma even from the failing schools and few people will move to this middle of nowhere place (i.e., even buying groceries is a 50 mile drive and anything else has to come mail-order) for the wages that can be offered, putting warm bodies in the classroom who have any sort of college education and can pass a background check is better than having the entire K-12 school of 100 students taught by the three people passing through the community this year who are highly qualified according to NCLB.

[cgfunmathguy]

These discussions always give me a headache.

Me too.

4. I think it's obvious the whole unfunded mandate thing was a bad idea. I just read an article on the Race to the Top money that was given to districts recently by the Department of Education. They wanted the money to be used for education reform in the schools, and they were frothing at the mouth because a large percentage of the schools instead used it to shore up their shaky finances. Schools were already struggling with budget shortfalls with the NCLB mandates, and the economy crash just put them over the edge. I can't really blame the schools for their choices regarding the DoE money, since educational reform isn't much good if there aren't teachers in the classrooms, up to date materials, or a functional school building. There's a serious disconnect between the federal DoE and the states and local districts, and until that is fixed, federal programs and mandates can only be so effective.

This, especially the last sentence. People wonder why I distrust one-size-fits-all federal solutions to issues that are mostly state problems, and this is it. The federal government thinks rural western PA is Pittsburgh, and when they find out that it's not, they're stunned. Yes, we're Pittsburgh sports fans (mostly), and yes, we identify with the city in some sense because it's our nearest large metropolitan area. However, DuBois, Clarion, and Indiana (all largish towns in rural western PA) do not have the same demographics nor problems as Pittsburgh has. The government in Harrisburg is better attuned to this (when they're not throwing money at Philly), but the federal government has no clue. This is why if health-care reform in any flavor passes Congress, I don't expect it to have any measurably good impact on most of the people who actually have no coverage, and I expect that the Law of Unintended Consequences will kick in to hurt those of us who do, even if we don't have "Cadillac" plans.

[gennimom]

These discussions always give me a headache.

2. The assessment requirement for NCLB is a crazy mess because each individual state comes up with their own test. There have been a few enlightening studies done on the different tests and results, which tell us exactly what we would expect to see. Some states have very high standards for their tests, and some have very low standards. Eyebrows were raised a couple years after NCLB when Mississippi claimed 100% of their students were reading at average or proficient levels. FWIW, Massachusetts has consistently had the highest standards in the country for their assessments.

This is funny considering I know of at least one school district that was taken over by the state because their students weren't. Students in their vo-tech tested out as reading at the 2nd grade or lower. Of course, this is in one of those really, REALLY poor counties where the best paying jobs the students can find is selling drugs and half of the high school girls are or have been pregnant.

[msparticularity]

These discussions always give me a headache.

Me too.

4. I think it's obvious the whole unfunded mandate thing was a bad idea. I just read an article on the Race to the Top money that was given to districts recently by the Department of Education. They wanted the money to be used for education reform in the schools, and they were frothing at the mouth because a large percentage of the schools instead used it to shore up their shaky finances. Schools were already struggling with budget shortfalls with the NCLB mandates, and the economy crash just put them over the edge. I can't really blame the schools for their choices regarding the DoE money, since educational reform isn't much good if there aren't teachers in the classrooms, up to date materials, or a functional school building. There's a serious disconnect between the federal DoE and the states and local districts, and until that is fixed, federal programs and mandates can only be so effective.

This, especially the last sentence. People wonder why I distrust one-size-fits-all federal solutions to issues that are mostly state problems, and this is it. The federal government thinks rural western PA is Pittsburgh, and when they find out that it's not, they're stunned. Yes, we're Pittsburgh sports fans (mostly), and yes, we identify with the city in some sense because it's our nearest large metropolitan area. However, DuBois, Clarion, and Indiana (all largish towns in rural western PA) do not have the same demographics nor problems as Pittsburgh has. The government in Harrisburg is better attuned to this (when they're not throwing money at Philly), but the federal government has no clue. This is why if health-care reform in any flavor passes Congress, I don't expect it to have any measurably good impact on most of the people who actually have no coverage, and I expect that the Law of Unintended Consequences will kick in to hurt those of us who do, even if we don't have "Cadillac" plans.

Yes to all of the above. "One size fits all" or even "one size fits most" plans, like clothing, only really fit a few people well. The others end up with an ill-fitting system that is also incapable of adaptation, since local adaptability is the quality that got eliminated first--and for which the teachers are completely untrained.

[mad_doctor]

It has always been my understanding that the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy represent higher levels of learning, and are thus inappropriate for K-12, generally speaking.  Evaluation is an expectation for doctoral-level students, synthesis for master's level, and application for bachelors.  Well, that has been my understanding, although I'm not trained in edy theory, so I may have misunderstood the point of Bloom.

[gennimom]

When I was earning my Master's, Bloom's was the thing. We had assignments where we had to come up with examples of lessons or objectives that illustrated all of the levels of Bloom's. No one ever said it wasn't appropriate for k-12 students.

[scheherazade]

While everything that Scherezade wrote is true, the fact remains that in some states, even where the standards are good ones that do evaluate what they should evaluate and are stated in such a way that what needs to be taught is clear, the numbers of teachers who are qualified even in the minimal sense of being high-school graduates who can pass the subject tests themselves aren't sufficient to meet the needs of the population.  It's nice to have standards and ideas about what should be done, but when the district is faced with the fact that less than 30% of the adult population has a GED or high school diploma even from the failing schools and few people will move to this middle of nowhere place (i.e., even buying groceries is a 50 mile drive and anything else has to come mail-order) for the wages that can be offered, putting warm bodies in the classroom who have any sort of college education and can pass a background check is better than having the entire K-12 school of 100 students taught by the three people passing through the community this year who are highly qualified according to NCLB.

Yes. However, the topic was on NCLB. The only way to fix this problem is to target such areas, find people that would like to get into teaching (probably not difficult given the unemployment rate), and pay for them to go to college and become highly qualified. Personally, I would support such a program for a dozen reasons. The lack of highly qualified people in rural areas isn't really a failure of NCLB, though. Remember that a lot of districts with a decent hiring pool were hiring underqualified teachers before NCLB. That practice has mostly stopped.

I think it's important to identify what a federal program can and can't do. It's not a magic wand. I am not a huge fan of NCLB, primarily because of the unfunded mandate issue and the spotty coverage from state to state, but it had some successes. It cannot fix education alone.

By the by, educational research and theory is in large part a crock. There is some good stuff out there, but admins always seem to fall in love with the bad research. The nice research is always delegated to "lunch friend" status. It's sad, really.

[msparticularity]

It has always been my understanding that the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy represent higher levels of learning, and are thus inappropriate for K-12, generally speaking.  Evaluation is an expectation for doctoral-level students, synthesis for master's level, and application for bachelors.  Well, that has been my understanding, although I'm not trained in edy theory, so I may have misunderstood the point of Bloom.

I think it's important to distinguish among the age-appropriate levels of these things. Synthesis and evaluation can be as simple as learning to put together a series of inferences while reading to arrive at a prediction of how the story might end, and becoming able to tell how and why some sentences are "better" (more descriptive, more complex, more grammatical) than others, etc. By grad school, of course, we're hoping for more extensive and informed versions of these. :)

I totally agree that Bloom's gets over-deployed, but it also can be a useful tool for thinking about what kinds of processes we want our students to learn to employ, and introducing an appropriate level of variety to the tasks.

[polly_mer]

While everything that Scherezade wrote is true, the fact remains that in some states, even where the standards are good ones that do evaluate what they should evaluate and are stated in such a way that what needs to be taught is clear, the numbers of teachers who are qualified even in the minimal sense of being high-school graduates who can pass the subject tests themselves aren't sufficient to meet the needs of the population.  It's nice to have standards and ideas about what should be done, but when the district is faced with the fact that less than 30% of the adult population has a GED or high school diploma even from the failing schools and few people will move to this middle of nowhere place (i.e., even buying groceries is a 50 mile drive and anything else has to come mail-order) for the wages that can be offered, putting warm bodies in the classroom who have any sort of college education and can pass a background check is better than having the entire K-12 school of 100 students taught by the three people passing through the community this year who are highly qualified according to NCLB.

Yes. However, the topic was on NCLB. The only way to fix this problem is to target such areas, find people that would like to get into teaching (probably not difficult given the unemployment rate), and pay for them to go to college and become highly qualified. Personally, I would support such a program for a dozen reasons. The lack of highly qualified people in rural areas isn't really a failure of NCLB, though. Remember that a lot of districts with a decent hiring pool were hiring underqualified teachers before NCLB. That practice has mostly stopped.

I can't speak as to why districts with a decent hiring pool were hiring underqualified people because that has not been a problem I've observed, although I have observed desperate districts under NCLB trying to figure out how to make it work when they can't possibly get enough qualified teachers.  However, I know exactly why some of these places cannot get qualified people even when incentive programs are in place and they bring in outside people in an attempt to fix the problem.  I know far too many people who were qualified to teach math and science, loved living in the rural area, and were basically driven out of town because the local people didn't value education and didn't want to change.  They value the results of education in terms of high earning potential, but somehow the schools were supposed to change without any effort on the part of the students (the good old "fix my kids, but don't hold them to any standards, don't assign any homework or have too much in class work, and certainly don't contradict any of our deeply held beliefs or way of life with your crazy notions") and certainly not on the parts of the parents.  The situation is exacerbated by issues of race, class, and unhealthy xenophobia.

I think it's important to identify what a federal program can and can't do. It's not a magic wand. I am not a huge fan of NCLB, primarily because of the unfunded mandate issue and the spotty coverage from state to state, but it had some successes. It cannot fix education alone.

Obviously, I am not the one who will defend nearly any federal government program that has to be implemented at the state level.  However, as others have mentioned on this thread and the recent threads that prompted this one, many of the ideas were good, but implementation has been poor and some of the ideas were downright bad in and of themselves.

By the by, educational research and theory is in large part a crock. There is some good stuff out there, but admins always seem to fall in love with the bad research. The nice research is always delegated to "lunch friend" status. It's sad, really.

Yes.  I am still very pleased about the interview I had for an postdoc in my Ph.D. field to develop materials for use in K-12 classrooms.  I had these crazy ideas about combining chemistry, physics, math, and computer science to teach teachers about teaching science through hands-on methods and interactive demonstrations of hard-to-control variables.  What they wanted was someone who could make more worksheets and then write detailed lesson plans about how to use the worksheets and quiz the students about worksheet completion.  Within the first five minutes, it was clear that although they had advertised for someone with a research science background interested in K-12 science education, what they wanted was a person who had an education hoop-jumping background who knew a little science.