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Re: [Phys-l] [ap-physics] 46 States, D.C. Plan to Draft Common Education Standards



The evidence for real improvement is very slim. The tests are not that
good, and have been cooked to make schools look better. Actually many
schools have deliberately held back students at specific grades to make the
tests look better. The result is a lowered gradutation rate. But then they
cook the statistics to make dropouts look like transfers so a 50% dropout
rate becomes 30%, 20%, 10% pick your figure.

Most of the improvement has been by teaching to the test, and there have
been few real improvements in learning. Actually, in many schools all they
do is test review. This has probably reduced the thinking level of
students.

Michael Shayer test the thinking ability of students recently, and 30 years
ago in England. England went through the same draconian high stakes testing
that the US is now experiencing. Shayer found a dramatic drop in student
thinking ability.

As to the quality of teachers, the currently micro-managed school systems
have driven out many of the better teachers, and only the midrange teachers
have survived. Admittedly the very lowest teachers have also been removed.
Good experienced teachers often find the current system to be very poor.
They find that their teaching ability is being eroded by scripted curriculum
lessons.

Ah yes the Soviet Union where Lysenko was mandated in the biology classes
rather than Mendel. Actually the idea of inheritance of the parent's
environment does happen to some extent because of the oncogenes, but not in
Lysenko's fashion. Expression of particular genes may not follow Mendel's
rules, and may be influenced by environment.

One of the problems with a curriculum rigid system is that students learn
algorithms rather than meaning, and as a result transfer is inhibited.
There are a number of studies which have shown this. As a result Asian
countries are now looking at the US for educational expertise.

There is also evidence from psychology studies that when you have a system
that is too stiff, the students require tutors and actually become more,
rather than less dependent. Cheating and copying increase, and attitudes
toward the subject erodes.

The other problem is that the curriculum demands often kill innovations
which may improve overall performance at the expense of omitting some
mandated topics.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


I respectfully disagree. Just like standardized state tests have done much
to improve the quality of teaching and learning (at least for the lower-
end students - but not only for them, evidence suggests), having a
national standard is likely to be helpful precisely because it changes
"the value (or lack of it) that is placed upon learning in our society."
The big concern in "our society" is that the US is losing its competitive
edge to other countries - the US, not the state of Missouri or Alaska or
whatnot - it's a national problem that requires a national solution, I
think.

Of course, I was educated (high school + college) in the Soviet Union so I
am sure I have my biases, comrades...

Boris

Boris Korsunsky, EdD
Weston High School
444 Wellesley St.
Weston MA 02493
781-529-8030 x 7609
________________________________________
From: billt4@gmail.com [billt4@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Bill Taylor
[bt4_1284@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 12:44 AM
To: AP Physics
Cc: phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu; PHYSHARE@lists.psu.edu;
PHYSOC@listserv.uark.edu
Subject: Re: [ap-physics] 46 States, D.C. Plan to Draft Common Education
Standards

I say it means nothing -- people learn only to the extent that they
have an internalized desire to learn (learning, in this context,
meaning something that lasts more than a week). A common standard
does nothing to change the value (or lack of it) that is placed upon
learning in our society.

Bill Taylor
Physics, AP Physics, Rocketry Club


On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Richard Hake <rrhake@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you reply to this long (8 kB) post please don't hit the reply button
unless you prune the copy of this post that may appear in your reply
down to
a few relevant lines, otherwise the entire already archived post may be
needlessly resent to subscribers.
I thank Jerry Becker (2009) of the Math-Teach list for calling my
attention
to the Maria Glod's (2009) Washington Post report "46 States, D.C. Plan
to
Draft Common Education Standards."
Glod wrote [bracketed by lines "GGGGG. . . . .":

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Forty-six states and the District of Columbia today will announce an
effort
to craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from
kindergarten through high school graduation, an unprecedented step
toward a
uniform definition of success in American schools.

The push for common reading and math standards marks a turning point in
a
movement to judge U.S. children using one yardstick that reflects
expectations set for students in countries around the world at a time of
global competition. Today, each state decides what to teach in third-
grade
reading, fifth-grade math and every other class. Critics think some set
a
bar so that students can pass tests but, ultimately, are ill-prepared.

Led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State
School Officers, the states, including Maryland and Virginia, are aiming
to
define a framework of content and skills that meet an overarching goal.
When
students get their high school diplomas, the coalition says, they should
be
ready to tackle college or a job. The benchmarks would be
"internationally
competitive."

Once the organizers of the effort agree to a proposal, each state would
decide individually whether to adopt it.

The nearly complete support of governors for the effort -- LEADERS IN
TEXAS,
Alaska, Missouri and South Carolina are the only ones that HAVE NOT
SIGNED
ON -- is key. Many Republicans oppose nationally mandated standards,
saying
schools should not be controlled by Washington. But there is broad
support
for a voluntary effort that bubbles up from the states. [My CAPS.]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Judging from the state of science education in Texas [Hake (2009a,b,c)]
we
can thank our lucky stars that leaders of the Lone Star State have NOT
signed on. For example, the abstract of "Science Education in Texas #4"
[Hake (2009c)] reads:
****************************************
ABSTRACT: The National Center for Science Education (NCSE
<http://ncseweb.org/>) reported that (a) "the Texas Senate voted NOT to
confirm Don McLeroy in his post as chair of the Texas state board of
education on May 28, 2009," and (b) according to the Houston Chronicle
"there is speculation in the Capitol and within the Texas Education
Agency
that Gov. Rick Perry might elevate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, to lead
the
board." Dunbar is the author of One Nation Under God that advocates more
religion in the public square. According to a Dallas Morning News
report by
Christy Hoppe (2006), Texas Gov. Rick Perry "believes that non-
Christians
are doomed."
****************************************
To access the 7 kB complete post, please click on
<http://tinyurl.com/ph4qzz>.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands.
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/>
<http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/>

REFERENCES
Becker, J. 2009. "46 States, D.C. Plan to Draft Comm Educ Stds," Math
Teach
post of 2 Jun 2, 2009 1:14 PM (what time zone?), online on the OPEN
Math-Teach archives at
<http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1946718&tstart=0>.
Glod, M. 2009. "46 States, D.C. Plan to Draft Common Education
Standards,"
Washington Post, 1 June; online at <http://tinyurl.com/pwktx2>, and also
"beckered" into the Math Teach archives by Jerry Becker (2009) in accord
with the "fair use" provision of U.S. Copyright Law as provided for in
Section 107, Title 17, according to which copyrighted material can be
distributed, if it's done so without profit, to those who have expressed
a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes. For more information see
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> .
Hake, R.R. 2009a. "Science Education in Texas #2," online on the OPEN!
AERA-L archives at <http://tinyurl.com/nb3bem>. Post of 28 May 2009
21:01:29 -0700 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, & PhysLrnR. The abstract is also
online
at
<http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/2009/05/science-education-in-texas-
2.html>
with a provision for comments. As of 2 June 15:40:00-0700 the number of
AP-Physics responses had risen to 67 !! , not counting about 7 posts
with
slight changes in the subject line.]
Hake, R.R. 2009b. "Science Education in Texas #3," online at
<http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/2009/06/science-education-in-texas-
3.html>
with a provision for comments. Post of 31 May 2009 09:57:22-0700 to AP-
Bio
(evidently rejected), Biopi-L, Physhare, PhysLrnR, & Physoc.
Hake, R.R. 2009c. "Science Education in Texas #4," online on the OPEN!
AERA-L archives at <http://tinyurl.com/ph4qzz>. Post of 2 Jun 2009
12:58:43-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract is also online at
<http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/2009/06/science-education-in-texas-
4.html>
with a provision for comments.




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