Old Ideas: New Package
10-16-09
“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.” ~Thomas Huxley
With lofty goals in mind, the state of Delaware’s superintendents launched an initiative: to change the nature of public education. That was this year. Never mind that there seems to be a cycle of reform that rears its hopeful head every ten years or so: the same ideas in a shiny new package. This year the supers were going after those illusive high test scores. Their goal was to increase the scores and therefore they decided to adopt a program that helped reached students by changing the way teachers teach: Learning Focused Strategies.
The people who make decisions on how to spend money in Delaware on education are looking at a single test given in March as the end result of full years worth of instruction. The DOE website explains that as a result of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, “all states are required to conduct a federally approved annual assessment of all students in grades 3-8 and one high school grade.”
In Delaware, the Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) is used to assess student knowledge in reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies if the state can come up with enough money to run the program. Student results of each year’s DSTP assessment is then used as the primary means to determine school accountability ratings.
Other student learning indicators fall a short second to the DSTP results and are never really considered when looking at student achievement. The ratings given to schools chill the superintendent/administrators to the bone. Not feeling as if there is a moment to waste in the quest for the esteemed rating of Superior (superior to whom?), the superintendents found a program that would work for them: Learning Focused Strategies and began to implement it this year. Apparently, Indian River School District has been working with this for many years and has seen some positive results.
So even though this is a very lean year for education in the state of Delaware and the teachers’ have been cut by five days of in-service time, some districts are implementing Max Thompson’s Learning Focused Strategies this year. Never mind the fact that this program has so many similarities to other programs that have already been presented to teachers (and apparently abandoned) and are a part of good pedagogy.
Remember Madeline Hunter, CRISS, outcome based education? Reminisce with me. These programs had some good ideas! Guided practice, anticipatory set, scaffolding! Most teachers have a veritable file full of graphic organizers ready to be rushed into service at a moment’s notice!
The fact remains that most often these state mandated, top down, mandatory programs appear to change the culture initially but in the end they do little to make learning more effective on a sustained and profound basis for children. The programs are a stopgap solution to a serious question that seems to elude us – how can we increase authentic learning in our children as measured by a variety of instruments over a long period of time?
