RSS Feed

  1. Education scam – funding discredited programs

    April 12, 2016 by Tunya

    None Dare Call It Scam — The Money Wasted In The Education Industry

    Scam, ripoff, swindle, fraud, corruption — whatever — we (gullible, naïve, hoodwinked public) are being taken for a ride. Do you suppose if I called the additional $60 million Ontario has just dedicated to the discredited “discovery” Math approach a scam I might be sued ?

    Let’s look at this another way. Maybe it’s not a scam at all. Maybe it’s MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ! What if the poor Math achievement scores are INTENDED, and this $60 M is just to make sure NO CHILD IS LEFT BEHIND. Each child MUST come to the solution that 2 + 2 = 5, AND SHOW YOUR WORK !

    This is not so far-fetched!

    Just this week in the US and going the rounds is an incredible expose that is either true statistical research or pure prank and hyperbole (or something in between). There are some very serious people whom I trust who are taking this thoughtfully (Thomas Sowell, Will Fitzhugh . . .). This site ZeroHedge.com is mostly about finance and trading and while some readers find the style conspiratorial others find it rather “sophisticated”. I’ll pull out some quotes that are credible and I do this in support of my above statements about Math and my view that outcomes and future projected even poorer Math outcomes may very well be intentional. This is about Reading but relevant to our Math discussion here.

    “Department Of Education—Our Work Here Is Done

    http://www.zerohedge.com/print/528426

    “Sources: National Institute for Literacy, National Center for Adult Literacy, The Literacy Company, U.S. Census Bureau.

    “- Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 44 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children.

    “- 3 out of 4 people on welfare can’t read.

    “- 50% of the unemployed between the ages of 16 and 21 cannot read well enough to be considered functionally literate.

    “- 3 out of 5 people in American prisons can’t read.

    “- To determine how many prison beds will be needed in future years, some states actually base part of their projection on how well current elementary students are performing on reading tests.

    “All that’s needed now is a “Mission Accomplished” banner and this is yet another perfect example of the failure of government intervention.”

    [posted on SQE re Math, and ECC, a listserve]

     

    Category Absurdities, Education Reform, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  2. child abuse via schools — many angles

    April 4, 2016 by Tunya

     

    “Child Abuse” And Schooling Is An Urgent Matter

    When I was in Teachers College (Ottawa), ’70-’71, practically the first thing we were cautioned about was not to exploit the students. This was equivalent to the dictum for doctors to “At least do no harm”.

    Though I never taught in a classroom I have ever since been struck by the humbling experience it is to be a teacher.

    Our current division in approaches to teaching arises mainly from the monopoly nature and compulsory attendance feature of current public schools. People generally act as if there should be one-best-way and it’s THEIR way or the Highway!

    Unfortunately, the biggest split is between those who favor pedagogically supported methods and those who have an ideological worldview. The “basics” or teacher-centered approach does differ significantly from the child-centered approach, which in the literature is sometimes dubbed as working for “emancipatory social change.”

    At this moment (as I have to run over asap and lengthen trousers for growing grand teens) I will provide only quotes on this topic (BTW, I’m on the teacher-centered side) from “The Conspiracy of Ignorance”, Gross, 1999”. The quotes are about Reading, which along with Math, is a hotly contested education issue:

    Ken Goodman, a prominent leader in a new reading program in the 80s says:
    “Whole language classrooms liberate pupils to try new things, to invent spellings, to experiment with a new genre, to guess at meanings in their spellings, or to read and write imperfectly. In whole language classrooms risk-taking is not simply tolerated, it is celebrated.”

    William Honig, superintendent in California says:
    “Whole language swept the nation . . . it pushed out phonics and substituted the new system . . . It became the gospel in education colleges . . . many school districts . . . The results as shown by the NAEP reading results . . . were catastrophic. The whole language experiment was interesting, but as we found out, the theory is dead wrong.” (pg 78-79)

    Pedagogic research finds whole language wanting, yet to this day it persists across education systems in the Western world. Similar concerns are now being expressed concerning Math.

    Why does the education establishment favor and cling to discredited methods? How can this malpractice be allowed to continue? Is this not “child abuse” of the highest order ?

    [ posted Apr 04, ’16 to SQE http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/child-abuse — topic: Child Abuse? ]

    Category Absurdities, Malpractice, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  3. When will teachers learn?

    April 2, 2016 by Tunya

    Which Other Professional Besides A Teacher Would Say That?

    Only in education would you hear someone say — “Teaching is such that it takes a lifetime to get good at it and then you retire.” John Myers, Professor, on Educhatter blog, Mar 26, 2016

    No doctor, engineer or accountant would say that ! Nor, would they be allowed to remain in their profession for long! To use your clientele and your field continually as subjects of experimentation and a playpen for your own learning is really upsetting and disturbing. Is this a responsible profession or a “disabling” one as Ivan Illich used to say and write about ? Why do we have to appeal to a Daniel Willingham to sort this out — aren’t there professional and ethical standards in education?

    It’s only in education that there is some kind of accepted (or is it somehow intimidated) tolerance that educators can have so many excuses to avoid proven standard practices. “Methods” is a bad word to use in conversations with teachers — “Don’t tell me how to teach. I don’t tell my doctor how to take out my appendix.” — is a frequent (or variant) reply when a parent dares mention “methods”.

    Where we’re at right now is very much where we were 45 years ago when I tried to get parent voice more heard. There actually was a much greater awareness then and a good number of groups supporting the parent voice. Unfortunately and regrettably, not so much now. All I was able to accomplish was to play a role in the launching of the home education movement — https://gaither.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/john-holts-conversion-to-home-education/

    Discredited and questionable practices and developmentally inappropriate expectations of the young are still practiced and parent qualms are still dismissed. And parents are still stuck with few choices or exits or any sympathetic listeners in the defensive system.

    Both Reading and Math are considered foundational skills that the young student should start mastering at an early stage. Where are we at with these two? Math is a continual worry and news articles continue to expose the issues.

    Regarding Reading there is a worry of colossal scale! At an international conference on comparative education held in Vancouver recently (CIES, Mar 6-10,’16) at one of the sessions it was announced that after considerable testing an initiative would soon be launched by UN and other agencies to help developing countries with reading programs. BUT, within the literature there lurks one sentence that dooms the enterprise:

    “The reading “wars” are alive and well in many low-income countries, often miring ministries of education and teaching centers in seemingly endless debates between the “whole-language” and “phonics-based” approaches.” (pg 4 Early Grade Reading Assessment Toolkit)

    What should be done? Those poor families will not be getting the best information or practices to help their children to read as promised.

    [Most of the above is also posted to Educhatter blog ]

    Category Absurdities, Obstacles, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Is it defensiveness that calls for censorship?

    April 2, 2016 by Tunya

    Unfortunate That The Distasteful Topic Of “Censorship” Emerges

    “Well, I’m surprised this idea of “child abuse” still gets by moderation. “ Stephen Hurley, Society for Quality Education, April 02, 2016

    Surely the author of this quote does not propose that my comment to this blog should have been denied?

    I had mentioned that “Stories abound concerning crying, frustrated students” who are confused about some current educational experimental practices. I said: “This abuse of children is so painful to watch.”

    In another comment on this blog I had shown how my 45 years in the parent involvement cause still drives my efforts. I reflected how many years back this was an important topic with many groups and agencies concerned but that regrettably this was no longer the case. Parents are more diminished than ever. I will copy some of the material I wrote in 1979 on the topic:

    EDUCATION ABUSE OF CHILREN

    Raised awareness helps us see that children’s interests must be protected wherever they are. The schools have their share of practices which hurt children and parents can be on the alert for these and intervene when needed:

    1 EXPERIMENTATION — . . . Anything new which has not been in your school before should have safeguards built in so that children are not used, either for half-baked amateurish effort or major shifts in educational practice without the public knowing . . . Two key documents on human experimentation apply to schools as they do elsewhere: Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki . . . (I Don’t Want My Kid to be a Guinea Pig, Lipsitz, 1977)

    2 INCOMPETENT TEACHERS — “there are thousands of mentally ill, severely disturbed, and incompetent teachers in our schools who should not be teaching children”. . . ( Positive Mental Health for Teachers, Mackiel, 1979)

    3 HOMEWORK ABUSE — . . . There is abundant literature for teachers to know what are good and bad homework practices.

    4 “MILKING” THE EDUCATION DOLLAR — . . . without proper monitoring more and more of the educational dollar will be diverted . . .

    5 FAILURE TO TEACH FOR COMPETENCE — It is known that most children can be taught the basics of most school subjects . . . Educationally handicapping practices which fail to remediate and educate all children in the basics should not be tolerated.

    6 EXCLUDING PARENTS FROM EDUCATIONAL PLANNING — . . . Failure to work in partnership with the home handicaps the child’s educational potential.

    [The above is a very abbreviated shape of the original Tipsheet on Educational Abuse of Children in “Education Advisory”.]

    [[ posted on SQE 20160402 ]]

    Category Absurdities, Malpractice, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  5. Public Education — one long experiment !

    April 2, 2016 by Tunya

    Why Is Schooling So Experimental — Still?


    No other field — medicine, engineering, pharmacy, accounting, etc. — plays with its customers as much as the education field. This should not be allowed as there are no safeguards against the damage being done. What is joyful and exciting for educators is still a “cat-&-mouse” game for students — students still get whacked in the end. Stories abound concerning crying, frustrated students and desperate parents seeking alternatives.


    The other professional fields mentioned do not have hosts of frustrated subjects who are denied best practices.


    The public money gathered for the purpose of education of the young should not be so poorly managed that discredited methods are still allowed to proliferate. And experimentation without human-subject protocols in place should be stopped altogether.


    One big problem is that the governors of this abysmal situation still hold that one-size-fits all and that we are still looking for one-best-system. Well, that stubborn belief (religion) is over. A “relinquishment” movement is building. Time to let go folks. Choices via the public education dollar are long overdue and people who oppose what they judge are inappropriate practices in our near-monopoly schools should have access to their portion of the dollar allocated to education to find alternatives.

    This abuse of children is so painful to watch.

    [ http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/math-for-lifeposted on SQE 20160402 —  Math For Life ]

    Category Absurdities, Malpractice, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

Older Entries
Newer Entries