As I reported in an earlier post, the College Board has planned to add a new test, a miniature version of the PSAT, to its arsenal of tests.  ReadiStep would be given to eighth graders and have three 40 minute sections:  1 math, 1 verbal, 1 writing.  The level of difficulty of the test would be consistent with eighth grade expectations. The test will be available for use next fall.  It will be interesting to see a sample version of the test and measure exactly what level the College Board sees for eighth grade performance.

A recent report indicates that America suffers from a high school dropout crisis of epic proportions.  Today, kids are less likely than their parents to graduate high school.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Think about it.  How is this really possible?  In an era where a college diploma is required for so many entry level jobs, how can we put millions of kids in such jeopardy by not even graduating high school?  How can we allow one-third of our minority population to dropout?

Some may say that if a child chooses to leave school without graduating, that is his or her choice.  This is America, land of free choice right?  But that seems a complete copout.  We live together as a community, and our community survival hinges on our children becoming better educated than we.  We spend so much time criticizing the educational system about quality, but this bottom line result is truly criminal, and we must do something about it.  Now.

High school is a rite of passage and graduation is the capstone ceremony.  One cannot have the rite without actually passing, yes?  We must pass laws that mandate high school graduation as a condition of obtaining a driver’s license past the age of 19.  If someone is over 21 and has not graduated high school without a documented medical reason, that person should be guilty of a crime.  Yes, the incentives must be so high because the cost is unbelievable — what type of life can a person who lacks a high school education expect in this world today?  Employment and earnings at the lowest level.  Poor access to other resources like health and wellness.  The probability of becoming either a virtual ward of the social welfare system or the criminal justice system is staggering.  High school is a pivotal, critcal access point.  We must take drastic measures to avoid losing generations of people to lives of poverty.  We owe that to each other as a community.  And if you want to think selfishly, if you want to shrink the crime rate and the drain on Medicaid and “welfare” draws, put everyone at least through high school.  What a national tragedy.

This interesting article from MSNBC updates some of the latest controversies over dress codes, which I have written about in previous posts.  What I find striking about the article is how the trend toward uniforms has grown and that those insisting on them take such a no-exceptions policy, stating either safety concerns or sexualizing children.  Of course, the schools need to make these justifications in order to pass constitutional muster.  But the research does support their contention that uniforms encourage better learning environments by removing distractions and differences and creating a learning community.

In what seems to be a new low trend, students trying to get into the most selective universities have taken to anonymously trashing their competition, usually from the same school.  They send letters, emails, even post campaigns on MySpace and Facebook.

Why do students resort to this tactic?  Do they think colleges actually pay attention to anonymous trash like the writing in a bathroom stall?  If so, they can forget about a selective college.  Do they think they cannot get caught, that all this electronic behavior can be traced?  Do they think libeling someone will go unpunished?

Some say this is an indication of competition gone awry, of too much pressure to get into college.  I say this is nothing more than a culmination of culture feeding into the college application process.  What do teens see in the media, whether reality TV, magazines, fiction?  Or perhaps in the latest financial crisis news?  They see people using any means necessary to get the end — the end always justifying the means.  They see that instant gratification and “I want it, it’s mine” is the ethic of the time.  The madness must stop if character and integrity will have any meaning in the future entering classes of our great institutions of higher learning.

A modest proposal.  All colleges must have two students write evaluations for other students who apply to their college.  Sort of a secret shopper.  But the kicker is that no one knows who their secret shopper is, and everyone who is going to apply to college must be secretly shopped.  This nudge behavioral modification would encourage many students to play by the rules and be kinder to their fellow classmates, who just might be the key to ending their college hopes.  Admittedly this proposal has its weaknesses, from Big Brother tone to policing problems.  But finely tuned and widely deployed, it just might be the honor system we need to change the culture of our schools.

According to this article, quite a few schools are doing just that.  The reasons vary, but the frustration seems to be one of academic authority in the classroom versus one institution dictating academic excellence to all.

In reality, the AP system offers students the chance to earn college credit and prove commitment to a certain level of academic rigor.  Use the system well and you start school as a sophomore!  But for most, the AP helps raise the bar so that high school classes resemble college classes and ease the transition from high school to college.  Should kids feel pressured to take AP exams?  No, but they should be encouraged to take the best courseload they can handle to prepare best for college.  Do colleges really give too much weight to AP exams?  Probably not.  A student who can ace lots of AP exams should already stand out in GPA.  A student who does not do real well on the exams but takes the courses shows effort and willingness to accept challenge, which colleges appreciate.  But as with any standardized test result, great test scores do not guarantee college admission to the elite schools.

The complaints from teachers seems odd.  Why would a teacher complain about having to teach a more rigorous class?  The AP requires teachers use a certain book and make sure the content of the class prepares the student for the content of the exam (and the format as well).  But I know from experience that teachers go about the same AP class in very different ways.  Teachers are not prohibited from innovation or creativity or even more rigor.  Yes, if the AP grades come back poor that teacher may be removed from AP eligibility in the future, but that could happen even if the teacher gives AP practice tests every day, just as one who never did that could have students ace the AP exam.  The proof is in the quality of the class curriculum, which is the whole point of the AP — getting that rigor, that pre-college experience.

So here is one vote for not removing the AP, but making it better.

Jason Stephens, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut, knows that cheating in high school is rampant.  And he is currently conducting a study on a way to end cheating.  This is the basis of his thesis:

Stephens and others say cheating has become widespread over the last 30 years. In the aforementioned national survey, a full 94 percent of high school students admitted to at least one form of cheating, ranging from allowing someone to copy their homework to cheating on a test, according to Don McCabe, a professor of management and global business at Rutgers University who has done extensive surveys on cheating.

Stephens doesn’t blame students for the phenomenon.

“Virtually all of them are cheating because the pressures of having good grades is extraordinary, more so now today than 20 to 30 years ago,” he said. “It’s not because these kids are morally bad. It’s because the stakes are higher and the time is less.”

The competition to get into a top college is fiercer than ever.

“It’s not enough to get a 4.0 grade point average. It’s also being involved in a varsity sport, volunteering in the community, maybe having a part-time job — along with the social lives these kids live,” Stephens said.

Cheating is an expedient, if deceptive, way for time-crunched students to get it all done, he said.

“Most kids see that as wrong. The sad thing is that most kids do it anyway,” he said.

Underlying all this is a major cultural shift toward achievement and materialism over the last 30 years, he said. A national survey of college freshmen shows that most students now view college as a steppingstone toward the ultimate goal of getting a lucrative job, a radical shift from 1967, when the survey began, he said.

“They’ve gone from looking at college as a place of enlightenment or the development of a meaningful philosophy to being a place where you get status and credentials in order to get a well-paying job. I even had a student refer to himself as a client the other day,” Stephens said.

Stephens thinks that modifying incentives will modify behavior.  I agree with that economic-based behavioral approach, but fail to see how his program can succeed — he wants to de-emphasize grades by moving toward projects rather than tests.  What will keep kids from cheating on projects?  And how can schools that have limited spaces and are competitive by definition evaluate students fairly without some real metric of skills?  And is competition not part of the world?  One could argue that the better incentive process to study would be severe punishment for those that cheat — including criminal prosecution.  If most people cheat because of an ethical lapse plus an apparent need, the criminal code is designed just for such a scenario.  Or one could use a form of social approbation — one caught cheating must repeat a grade and for the remainder of his or her time at school wear a uniform and work as a custodian, even when in class.  I just cannot see softening academic standards as a panacea for a moral failing.

As this wonderful story in the New York Times details, Michael Phelps has had a struggle with ADD since kindergarten.  His story will sound quite representative to parents in the know — teachers identified distractive behavior, Michael felt stigmatized and had difficulty and did not know how to help himself, and ultimately medication and some tutoring offered little help.  But in the end, Michael still remained an average student with lots of negative views about academic performance.

Many people have turned Michael Phelps’ success story at the Olympics into a moral for kids with ADD — do not give up, you will find your gift.  The author of the Times story put it this way:

More to the point, I think, is the moral of her story, which offers hope for parents of any child with a challenge like A.D.H.D.: Too many adults looked at Ms. Phelps’s boy and saw what he couldn’t do. This week, the world will be tuned to the Beijing Olympics to see what he can do.

While I applaud Michael Phelps’ commitment to swimming and his remarkable athletic achievements, I cannot agree with this “moral” as acceptable.  It is analogous to telling an inner city black child struggling at an underperforming school to look at LeBron James and see hope.  Both suggestions, while perhaps well intended as motivators, avoid the issue:  what to do with an ADD child struggling in school.

I have worked with many ADD students over the years, and I can tell you that the ADD impacted each of them in different ways.  The common link is not the ADD, it is the wiring of the brain that cannot process information effectively enough to handle the “normal” method of receiving and returning information in the classroom.  Each success story with ADD students over the years involved going into the individual wiring, the individual learning style, and working within that structure to create a student who can perform in “normal” classroom environments.  Some need extra time; some need medication.  All need someone to help them learn how to learn.  The sad part of the Phelps story is that to this day he feels like a failure in the classroom, that but for swimming he would have a hard time going out into the workforce and earning a living.  What of all the other students with ADD who cannot be Michael Phelps?  Do we just dismiss them?  Wish them good luck?  Hope for the best?  Direct them to a swim coach?

We do too much stigmatizing to kids with learning disorders.  The brain takes so long to develop, maturing late into our twenties.  We expect so much of kids in one uniform system when we just cannot learn at the same rate in the same mold.  We need more patience and more individual work with these students.  Given the right path, they can find true academic success.  I have seen LD students go from 14 on the ACT to 28 in the course of 18 months.  I have helped LD students failing math in pre-algebra become A students in calculus.  Success is very possible.  It takes dedication and quality guidance — it surely does not need a dismissive attitude or denial or the distraction of swimming gold as a future.

I would like to see Michael Phelps find a great academic mentor and use his high profile to encourage students to continue working for success in school.  That would be a great gift that would benefit thousands of young minds.  That could be Michael Phelps’ next challenge.

The Post-Dispatch has an interesting feature story on the Ladue School District urging its teachers to obtain a masters degree.  It is not at all uncommon for school districts to pay teachers with advanced degrees more than those with a bachelor’s degree.  But as the article asks, is that fair?  Does it make sense?  Ladue chooses to measure performance and reward teachers with pay increases for delivering results.  Some of these teachers do not have masters degrees, so the issue becomes one of how effective the additional degree really is.  If the degree focuses on a specialty area, like secondary mathematics or special education, it makes a great deal of sense, because it builds an expertise, provides a forum for developing more advanced skills — skills that teacher can share with peers in the school. 

So, while the degree itself is not everything required, the right advanced degree certainly enhances the school district staff.  But as I mentioned in earlier posts, I think that performance driven incentives make the most sense and will help produce an avalanche of positive results — if the incentives are properly structured and the results adequately stated and measured.

This story in the Post-Dispatch discusses the growing use of teacher web pages in our schools.  Are they a good idea?  Do they help or hinder classroom performance?

The best advantage of an updated teacher web site is the ability to always have key information available — a syllabus, classroom policies and guidelines, homework assignments, handouts.  Indeed, using the Internet can actually save districts money by having kids go to the website to find handouts, and print them out for themselves or use them online.  Additionally, teachers can provide links to multimedia presentations, primary source documents and other great resources that would have cost so much money in the not so distant past.

Dangers?  Some kids can get too dependent on the website and not remember to write down assignments, bring materials to class, and complete work on a timely basis.  Also, teachers could become too tempted by the ease of technology and put too much emphasis on independent learning rather than classroom instruction and interaction.

As with other discussions we have had on technology in the classroom, it ultimately comes down to how a teacher uses the technology.  I think the websites help students overall and also help parents as well — parents can stay totally up to date on what their kids are learning, what the assignments are, and can find out if their kids have been slacking.  Finally, I think that a good and enjoyable website, particularly for younger kids, can help develop consistent homework patterns and encourage doing the work regularly because of the lure and ease of technology.

As this article reveals, states have encouraged schools to add end of year exams to their programs.  The states feel that these tests will provide a better read on whether schools around a state are actually meeting knowledge-based goals in the classroom.  It would be a great way to see if an “A” really means mastery of the subject.  But critics charge, just another standardized test…

I think the test, if written properly, is a wonderful idea.  Not enough students take AP exams, and if teachers added the result of this end of course exam into the grade for the student, students would have the proper incentive to do well, and teachers would do well to pay attention to the content of the test.

What is wrong with charting whether students really are mastering subjects in high school before they move on to college?  This information could actually supplement grades and decrease pressure on SAT and ACT scores.  Standardized testing is not all bad or evil; how we test is really the big question, and it is nice to see some states moving closer in the right direction.