| Author |
Message |
    
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1137
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, January 31, 2004 - 10:33 am: |     |
What do we get from you besides personal attacks? |
lumpyhead
Citizen
Username: Lumpyhead
Post Number: 651
Registered: 3-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, January 31, 2004 - 11:10 am: | |
It's not a personal attack, it's the truth. There should be room for different views and methods in education, all children are different. All you do is attack Ace, GWB and anyone who isn't an extremist like yourself. The tax payers are getting tired of your type. It will be interesting to see who you support in the BOE elections. It will speak volumes. |
breal
Citizen
Username: Breal
Post Number: 296
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, January 31, 2004 - 4:13 pm: | |
Nan--Pots and kettles, dearie. No need to get so upset.
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1138
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, January 31, 2004 - 7:09 pm: | |
Lumpyhead,
The taxpayers will get plenty tired of ACE if they end up shelling out the big bucks for a scripted reading program AND Project Ahead AND a language arts supervisor AND Reading Coaches.
I guess it might be worth it if these supposedly "scientifically proven" programs really were, but as New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said when he was FORCED to adopt one:
"It's being done in the name of science,. . .And the question is: where's the science?"
That's a Republican administration, not Nan, speaking.
Elaine Garen has a new book coming out in a few weeks called: In Defense of Our Children: When Politics, Profit, and Education Collide. Garen goes into jargon-free detail on the scam that is behind scientific reading instruction and all the
conflicts of interest and whose making the big bucks off this stuff (some of the ACE guiding lights, for example).
I recommend this highly for anyone whose interested in the topic, but has been unable to fathom the Nan-Jennifer debate--even if it's due to just glazing over and scrolling through all the long posts.
Samples from the book are available at this link: http://www.heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/E00647/sectionvi.pdf
Here's an excerpt from the publisher"s review:
She expertly helps readers cut through the avalanche of propaganda and media buzzwords so they understand which corporations and entrepreneurs are getting ahead in the name of scientific research and school reform—while we foot the bill and many of our children are left behind. Finally, this book helps readers see that the teaching methods and materials used in schools can determine the roles children will assume in society as either followers—or as thinkers, doers, and future leaders.
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J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 871
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 1, 2004 - 10:22 am: | |
Nan: "That's a Republican administration, not Nan, speaking."
Hahahahaha! Republican "administration," huh?
Joel Kelin is a Democrat, silly. And the latest political brouhaha has him accused by bloodthirsty right-wingers of staffing the NY Dept of Ed with former Clinton admin officials like himself (see http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2002/10/6/213846)
Funnily enough, Bloomberg's (presumably still Republican) office is standing up for Klein:
"Still when asked to name a single Republican appointed by Klein, Walcott went blank, instead contending, "We don't take a measure of Democrat or Republican when a person is being interviewed for a job."
I'm sure any kind of bipartisanship will satisfy no one--not the drooling hyenas on the right, and not Nancy's on the left. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1139
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, February 1, 2004 - 3:51 pm: | |
Great thread drift, er, investigative reporting there Jennifer. Did you check out Elaine Garan's research? She's got quite a bit on E. Kameenui, one of the author's of "A consumer's guide to evaluating a core reading program grades K-3: A critical elements analysis," the guide used by the ACE funded evaluators to condem our LA program. He's quite prosperous on the Crony Capitalism Education gravy train, as Garen points out:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
So we have Kame'enui reaping the rewards of his "research" at every level of our government's "reform." It's like the house that Jack built: They
do the research
that supports their programs
that match the assesments they designed
that support their own programs
that align with government mandates
that are based on their scientific research
------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to Garen, Kameenui is an author for McGraw Hill, and Voyager (both with programs recommended by ACE) and was also one of the authors for the DIBELS assessment tool(published by yet another ACE recommended program company) which was recommended by the three special Ed "reading experts" who conducted the ACE survey,
But of course, according to you, and your group ACE, these "objectivly recommended" programs will magically reduce costly remediation down to nothing as I found today on the ACE website:
Reading failure is largely preventable. The adoption of a research-based reading with a proven track record of success can reduce a school district's literacy failure rate to approximately 6%, according to G. Reid Lyon, Chairman of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.
So it's 6%, not 5% that you promise if we spend the big bucks on one of these programs. No wonder you got cranky when I accused you of waffling. |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 872
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 1, 2004 - 9:51 pm: | |
Oh nan, don't be such a ninny. NIH and Reid Lyon talk about 5 to 10 percent, not precisely "5%," not precisely "6%," and not "nothing". The ACE quote you've reproduced in the bizarre belief that it constitutes some sort of smoking gun uses the word "approximately." The phrase "approximately 6%" corresponds with "between 5 and 10 percent." Can you read multisyllabic words, or do you just guess at what they mean?
"Did you check out Elaine Garan's research?"
No. I couldn't care less about Elaine Garan's pseudo-research. Did you haul her out again in an attempt to distract attention from the fact that you didn't know Joel Klein is not a Republican, or from your incredibly presumptuous remarks to CageyD?
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J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 873
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 1, 2004 - 10:14 pm: | |
"Seems like mention of the word, "fiction" really inspired you. How else could you decide that the National Institute of Health was using the white kids in Maplewood South Orange as a benchmark!"
Well, Snarky, I wouldn't be surprised if NIH did use white middle class test scores as a benchmark. Do you think it's a bad idea to insist that the job of public schools is to educate all children to the standards the white middle class enjoys?
"And then you conclude that low remediation rates of white kids in our district, none of which were taught with "scientifically proven" reading programs..."
Ah, Nancy the Oracle reveals the truth about the education of white children in our district. It seems they're quite unlike other middle and upper-middle class kids throughout the nation, in that "none" of them are taught phonemic awareness, alphabetics, rhymes, or other aspects of "scientifically proven" reading prep in their academically-inclined preschools. Nor are they taught phonics at home by their comparatively affluent, well-educated parents who own computers and spend lots of money on kids' reading CDs and books and videos. Or by tutors hired to make up for deficiencies in the public school curriculum.
Yes, here in SOMA life is so equitable that middle class and affluent white kids suffer from all the same disadvantages as minority or economically disadvantaged kids. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1140
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 5:44 am: | |
Elaine Garen's pseudo-reasearch?
Ok, show us where in the National Reading Panel Report, not the summary, we can locate evidence that the programs recommended by ACE have scientifically proven results. |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 874
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 11:19 am: | |
We've had this argument already, Nancy. Why should I go to the trouble to retype, again, from the PDF, when the last time I bothered to quote the body of the report, you pretended I was quoting from the abstract?
I ignored you then. I'm going to ignore you now, because: you are prone to nearly hallucinatory eisegesis, you resort to silly conspiracy mongering, your arguments descend into accusation and personal ugliness at the drop of a hat, and you think there's a statistically significant difference between five and six percent. |
wharfrat
Citizen
Username: Wharfrat
Post Number: 951
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 11:45 am: | |
Crohn-
In other words, there are no scientifically proven results supporting the efficacy of the programs ACE endorses. |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 875
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 2:08 pm: | |
Sigh.
For your edification, Wharfrat: "Using Research and Reason in Education: How Teachers Can Use Scientifically Based Research to Make Curricular & Instructional Decisions," by Paula and Keith Stanovich, University of Toronto: http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/pdf/Stanovich_Color.pdf
Not that any evidence on earth will persuade you, but see, in reference to your incorrect conclusion above, the section titled "The Principle of Converging Evidence," beginning on page 18.
The principle of converging evidence is applied in situations requiring a judgement about where the "preponderance of evidence" points. Most areas of science contain competing theories. ...[R]easearch is considered highly convergent when a series of experiments consistently supports a given theory while collectively eliminating the most important competing explanations. Although no single experiment can rule out all alternative explanations, taken collectively, a series of partially diagnostic experiments can lead to a strong conclusion if the data converge.
[...description of meta-analysis as method of detecting data convergence...]
More and more commentators on the educational research literature are calling for a greater emphasis on meta-analysis as a way of dampening the contentious disputes about conflicting studies that plague education and other behavioural sciences... The method is useful for ending disputes that seem to be nothing more than a "he said, she said" debate. An emphasis on meta-analysis has often revealed that we actually have more stable and useful findings than is apparent from a perusal of the conflicts in our journals.
The National Review Panel found just this in their meta-analysis of the evidence surrounding several issues in reading education. For example, they concluded that the results of a meta-analysis of the results of 66 comparisons from 38 different studies indicated "solid support for the conclusion that systematic phonics instruction makes a bigger contribition to children's growth in reading than alternative programs providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction" (p. 2-84). In another section of their report, the National Reading Panel reported that a meta-analysis of 52 studies of phonemic awareeness training indicated that "Teaching children to manipulate the sounds in language helps them learn to read. Across the various conditions of teaching, testing, and participant characteristics, the effect sizes were all significantly greater than chance and ranged from large to small, with the majority in the moderate range. Effects of phonemic awareness training on reading lasted well beyond the end of training." (p.2-5).[Emphases mine.]
The Stanoviches are probably on someone's payroll, though, and can't be trusted. (Plus, you know, the U. of Toronto is in arch-conservative Canada.) |
wharfrat
Citizen
Username: Wharfrat
Post Number: 952
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 5:34 pm: | |
J-
Where in the National Reading Panel report is there evidence that the programs ACE recommends have scientifically proven results?
You haven't answered the question. |
Diversity Man
Citizen
Username: Deadwhitemale
Post Number: 611
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 6:00 pm: | |
nan and wharfrat, (check out the definition), perfect together, proving that ignorance is not bliss, but, rather, agitated resentment.
twM |
wharfrat
Citizen
Username: Wharfrat
Post Number: 953
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 6:47 pm: | |
In other words, Corpse, you have nothing to say in your small minded bon mots. |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 876
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 7:16 pm: | |
"You haven't answered the question."
How should I respond to a question that presupposes an argument I haven't made?
No one ever claimed that the specific reading programs ACE recommends have been evaluated by the NRP. Rather, ACE's claim is that these (published) programs employ instructional methods comparable to the kinds of instruction judged most favorably by the NRP meta-analysis--i.e., systematic phonics instruction. Do you now dispute that they do so?
Can you show a preponderance of evidence that shows reading programs that minimize systematic decoding instruction work better than those that don't?
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1141
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 8:39 pm: | |
"No one ever claimed that the specific reading programs ACE recommends have been evaluated by the NRP."
So are you claiming that the programs you recommend, specifically Open Court, and Reading Mastery, DO NOT have scientifically proven results based on the National Reading panel? They are after all used in some of the studies in the report.
Is your ONLY claim about these programs that they employ systematic phonics instruction which has been show to be better than mimimal phonics instruction or no phonics intruction?
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J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 877
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 9:33 pm: | |
This grows tiresome. When you two get around to answering my questions, I'll entertain more of yours. |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1100
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 9:48 pm: | |
Out of sheer boredom waiting for my printer to spit something out, I clicked on the Education to catch up on my reading.
I read J. Crohn's post. Does "meta-analysis" accept at face value the conclusions of the reports it totes up? If so, it would seem a meaningless way to go about deciding whether whatever is proposed is good or not. Consensus or majority agreement, or preponderance of studies favoring any method or curriculim means nothing if the underlying studies are flawed, or if conclusions have been reached erroenously. I confess I only read JCrohn's post, not the link she posted. In meta-analysis, are the studies re-examined to determine their accuracy?
But I have to also confess I am puzzled by a claim that there can be any scientifically-proven mode of instructing a human being in anything. This would seem to me to be a misapplication of science.
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harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1104
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 2, 2004 - 10:36 pm: | |
Hey, look at this.
I was reading tomorrow's Times on the web and David Brooks, the conservative columnist, is thinking along the same lines as I am. He's complaining about "scientism" at the CIA, which he traces back to 1949:
"This was at a time, just after the war, when economists, urban planners and social engineers believed that human affairs could be understood scientifically, and that the social sciences could come to resemble hard sciences like physics.
"If you read C.I.A. literature today, you can still see scientism in full bloom. The tone is cold, formal, depersonalized and laden with jargon. You can sense how the technocratic process has factored out all those insights that may be the product of an individual's intuition and imagination, and emphasized instead the sort of data that can be processed by an organization."
I'm not kidding. I'm quoting verbatim. If you're registered, you can read his whole column here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/opinion/03BROO.html
In his penultimate paragraph he says:
"Most of all, I'd trust individuals over organizations. Individuals can use intuition, experience and a feel for the landscape of reality. When you read an individual's essay, you know you're reading one person's best guess, not a falsely authoritative scientific finding."
And I agree with Paul Krugman too! I guess there is a ground where conservatives and left-wingers (like me) can meet.
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1142
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 5:59 am: | |
"No one ever claimed that the specific reading programs ACE recommends have been evaluated by the NRP. Rather, ACE's claim is that these (published) programs employ instructional methods comparable to the kinds of instruction judged most favorably by the NRP meta-analysis--i.e., systematic phonics instruction. "
That's the same rational that has been used by others to support specific programs, while labeling others "unproven" because they don't' have "evidence of efficacy established through carefully designed experimental studies" These are the exact words used by J. Ron Nelson, the behaviorist hired by ACE, who deemed our language arts to be nonscientific based entirely on the fact that he could not find experimental studies to support them.
The methods of Word Journeys also "employ instructional methods comparable to the kinds of instruction judged most favorably by the NRP meta-analysis--i.e., systematic phonics instruction." Reading the ACE evaluation of our program it does not appear that Nelson even bothered to look at our program components, such as Word Journeys. He just did computer searches and email inquiries to look for experimental studies.
This is the same hypocrisy we saw in New York where the Reading First panel rejected the Month-by-Month Phonics program as not having an experimental research base and forced them to use a supposedly "proven program" that also lacked a proven experimental base (For information on the research base of Month by Month Phonics: http://www.wfu.edu/%7Ecunningh/fourblocks/research_phonics.html). Yet another example of "ideology over evidence." |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1143
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 6:04 am: | |
Good Point, harpo.
Here's a piece I posted a while back on the difficulty of using science as the basis of educational policy: http://www.southorangevillage.com/cgi-bin/show.cgi?tpc=3130&post=181988#POST1819 88 |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 878
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 10:07 am: | |
Harpo: "Consensus or majority agreement, or preponderance of studies favoring any method or curriculim means nothing if the underlying studies are flawed, or if conclusions have been reached erroenously. I confess I only read JCrohn's post, not the link she posted. In meta-analysis, are the studies re-examined to determine their accuracy?"
Your question is dealt with in the Stanovich PDF I linked. Also, if you read the NRP report, you will find the quality control criteria used to determine whether studies under consideration were conducted well enough to be considered valid.
Brooks via Harpo: "Most of all, I'd trust individuals over organizations. Individuals can use intuition, experience and a feel for the landscape of reality."
This, too, is addressed in the article I linked.
Nan: "J. Ron Nelson...deemed our language arts to be nonscientific based entirely on the fact that he could not find experimental studies to support them."
False. The evaluation, as you well know, was a two stage process, only the first of which entailed a research literature search. In the second stage, Kinder and Marchand-Martella conducted a "critical elements analysis" of the entire curriculum (including Word Journeys) to determine whether, in the absence of published research establishing efficacy, there might still be evidence of program effectiveness. From the Overview, page 4 of their report:
"The review of programs may determine that no studies have been conducted to date to establish the effectiveness; however, these programs may contain components based on research. Simmons and Kameenui (2003) note that a lack of program efficacy should not exclude a program from consideration. Therefore, Stage II (the critical elements analysis) assumes greater importance."
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Diversity Man
Citizen
Username: Deadwhitemale
Post Number: 612
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 12:24 pm: | |
Agitated, as in no sense of humor, no ability to read another's argument and understand it, and no desire to answer it.
OH, and lot's of energy.
You two are perfect together.
And, are together.
Perfect.
todt |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1144
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 6:42 pm: | |
JCrohn,
Where in the survey does J. Ron Nelson discuss any further investigation of Word Journeys? He does not incorporate what Kinder and Marchand-Martella say about it in Stage II. That's the way the report is set up. Nelson is solely assigned the task, "Is there Trustworthy Evidence of Program Efficacy?" How can his work be considered complete if he does not either evaluate the book himself (since he is supposed to be the expert) or at least use information from the other two before declaring the book as lacking scientific pedigree? This is not scientific as he himself defines it.
In Stage II, Kinder and Marchand-Martella make scant reference to Word Journeys--and some of their comments indicate that they are not familiar with the text at all. For example, Nancy Marchand-Martella says, "Evidence of grade level? WJ not based on grade level." Anyone who spends even five minutes with Word Journeys would understand that it is based on developmental stages, not grades specifically to aid differentiated instruction. Where's the research that says programs MUST be set up to grade level? How could she evaluate a program that she clearly has no understanding of how it's supposed to work? It sounds like she's confusing it with the spelling research paper she wrote for McGraw Hill.
Later, in the Critical Elements Analysis, Marchand-Martella and Kinder focus their complaints on how "much of the teaching across Word Journeys, . . .was offered as 'choices" for teachers. Teachers could structure activities in one way or another or leave them out altogether. It is up to them to decide what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. . . .How can these be included with any degree of integrity or consistency?" Here and through out the review, teacher choice is considered a big negative. Can you point me to the scientific research that says that giving teachers choice is bad for instruction? It's certainly NOT in the National reading Panel report whose findings this evaluation is supposed to be based on.
As Joe Klein would say, "It's being done in the name of science,. . .And the question is: where's the science?"
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J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 879
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 8:18 pm: | |
"Where in the survey does J. Ron Nelson discuss any further investigation of Word Journeys?"
Page 20, where he discusses the advisability of using WJ, Words Their Way, et al., points out that the synergistic effects of materials used in the classroom should be "closely monitored," and says that "without efficacy or effectiveness data on these programs, we are left to wonder about their use...". Where does effectiveness data come from, Nan, if not "further investigation"? What does "closely monitored" mean to you, if not "further investigation"?
I'm sorry, I did not read the rest of your post. There is, from what I can see, no point, as you either misunderstand or misrepresent the scientific (and scientistic) arguments and data you purport to critique. |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 880
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 8:33 pm: | |
Harpo: "I guess there is a ground where conservatives and left-wingers (like me) can meet."
Well, there always has been. Take US isolationism, for instance, or Stalinism, or French antisemitism. (They say Hitler was a vegetarian; does that count?)
My kid is demanding I go watch this Nova special about dogs with him. All y'all left- and right-wingers have a nice evening. |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1108
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - 12:09 pm: | |
Thanks for the link, nan.
Jcrohn, I guess I'll read your whole PDF at some point, but your sour posts are surely worst possible advertisement for any educational approach I could imagine. |
J. Crohn
Citizen
Username: Jcrohn
Post Number: 881
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - 12:39 pm: | |
I'm sorry, Harpo. In future I will begin and end all my posts with the words "Hot-cha-cha-cha." |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1111
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - 1:31 pm: | |
More openly admitted nonsense might help.
I've come to thinking that "holy war" is not an inappropriate way to describe the point of view that claims there are "scientifically proven" approaches to reading. I don't think you question that. Am I wrong? |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1117
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2004 - 11:31 am: | |
Last night I was reading a wonderful article by Roger Shattuck in the New York Review of Books about Helen Keller and her profoundly insightful views on learning and language. It also details one of the most successful student-teacher relationships in the history of teaching the language arts. The article unfortunately has no web link, but it made me want to drop everything and read her books, The Story of My Life, The World I Live In and Optimism. Shattuck's persuasive argument is that Keller is insufficiently recognized as a literary figure and for her philosophical insights into how acquiring language deeply organizes our ability to live fully as intelligent human beings -- although her contemporaries Mark Twain and William James actually did recognize her outstanding contributions in her own time.
Keller also wrote poetry, and it reminded me that in any investigation of teaching language arts, poets ought ot have equal say with scientists -- and I would go so far as to say they even deserve the last word over scientists.
Helen Keller wrote:
Search out thy blindness. It holdeth
Riches past computing.
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1146
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2004 - 8:19 pm: | |
Do you suppose Annie Sullivan taught Helen Keller using "scientifically proven" educational methods? I'd guess, maybe some of the time, which would make sense to me.
But, don't look to the Stanovich document (Jennifer's link above) to agree with such flexibility. The Sanovichs' don't even want to consider that teaching may be partially an art--the best they'll budge on is agreement on a paltry definition that transforms the word 'craft' into yet another quantitative form:
. .Vaughn and Dummann (2001) have argued that the correct analogy is to say that teaching is in part a craft, rather than an art. They point out that craft knowledge is superior to alternative forms of knowledge such as superstition and folklore because, among other things, craft knowledge is compatible with scientific knowledge and can be more easily integrated with it. One could argue that in this age of education reform and accountability, educators are being asked to demonstrate that their craft has been integrated with science. .".
They go on to say that architecture is an example of a craft because they build stuff that has to use science--i.e. a building that won't fall down. He does not mention that fact that craft alone will not build a house or that artists do not appreciated being all lumped under "superstition and folklore." I was floored by the ego and ignorance reflected in this statement.
Until I read this one:
Write down every observation you make from the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed on a given day. When you finish, you will have a great number of facts, but you will not have a greater understanding of the world.
What's really scary is that Keith Stanovich (I don't know about Paula) is a government researcher and according to the website this paper was downloaded from (www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading) The Partnership for Reading is a collaborative effort by three federal agencies - the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the U.S. Department of Education"
Don't agree with these sentiments? Well, they may be coming to your kid's classroom very soon--as mandated by your government (and paid for with your taxes).
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Montagnard
Citizen
Username: Montagnard
Post Number: 400
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2004 - 9:53 pm: | |
After looking at the paper, I we struck by the following:
quote:Empirical science, by generating knowledge and moving it into the public domain, is a liberating force. Teachers can consult the research and decide for themselves whether the state of the literature is as the expert portrays it.
The rest of the paper managed to say in 5000 words what could have been said in 500, but most of it seemed quite reasonable and straightforward.
I have to say, Nan, that your critique isn't making any sense. |
John Davenport
Citizen
Username: Jjd
Post Number: 125
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 6, 2004 - 12:26 am: | |
This thread has clarified some important things, as we go into the next Board election cycle, where any major change in the LA curriculum will be considered.
My Main Point: We have more than sufficient reason to try a substantially different approach focusing on phonics as the core, but not the whole, of the K-3 reading curriculum, and see if we get better results. In an early post, Nan wrote, "Where's the evidence that all the kids in Project Ahead are there just because they don't get enough phonics?" As I've said before, I don't have demonstrative proof that the numbers needing remediation would drop with a new LA curriculum, but nor do I need such evidence (and by the way, nobody ever said that this caused the need for remediation in every case!). The vast majority of parents are worried enough that our program is failing that we have ample reason to try a new approach and see if fewer students need remediation as a result. Personally, I'd be thrilled to see our figures drop to 10-12% of elementary children, and 6% would be heaven. Can anyone conjure up a reason not to try it, at this point? If we try it and get nowhere, then Nan, I'll pronouce you correct. But you don't even want to put it to the test? Why not? Simply because some publisher somewhere might make a profit? I don't give tuppence about that.
Secondary point: It is crucial to note that it is no part of my proposal to eliminate Project Ahead. That is a non-sequiter scare tactic. Of course some children will still need tutoring, whether by pull-out or push-in. Nor would I envision any major reduction in Project Ahead staffing until and unless the need for it declined as a result of proposed trial of a published phonics-centered reading curriculum with vocabulary-building and literary enrichment. We are not going to abandon what we have until we replace it with something better. But why on earth should we not try to see if we can find something better?
The funding issue: In one post, Nan says the taxpayers will be angry if we spend money for a new published curriculum while still funding Project Ahead, a reading supervisor, and other things (which I guess she got from ACE, but I don't follow all their literature, so I'm not sure...). My response is simple: I'll hazard the guess that I could pay for the published curriculum AND some essential teacher training in using it simply by zeroing out the position of the current LA Supervisor, and one Assistant Superintendent (and you can take your own guess as to which one...). I can tell you what that would save us: about $250,000. I'd be interested to see any estimates of the costs of a new phonics-centered published curriculum, and I'll have to check if ACE has that info. So if you have such info, post away. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1147
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 6, 2004 - 2:19 am: | |
John,
If people really want some more phonics in our curriculum why can't we put it there without spending lots of money on a scripted program? Personally, I'd be against that for all children--at this point, my second grader needs little phonics. Does your second grader need more phonics? Also, The National Reading Report did not find phonics effective for helping struggling readers above first grade. If you disagree with me on that, then show me in the report (not the summary) where it finds evidence that phonics is effective for kids 2-6. Why are you still pushing phonics as the solution for k-3 reading?
And maybe you should care about publishers making profits, when they are falsely pushing products as magic bullet solutions and it's our tax dollars potentially contributing to that end. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1148
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 6, 2004 - 2:25 am: | |
Montagnard
In my last post, I was commenting on some of the views that just stuck in my craw as I was reading the paper. I was not really discussing the issues caused by using experimental research as the exclusive basis for educational policy. I'm not against scientific research; but, I have lots of complaints about the way it's being used these days to censor differing opinions and to push policies such as NCLB and Reading First.
The quote you cite struck me as odd because it contradicts almost everything else said in the paper. What would happen to teachers that decided that the research did not fit reading instruction as they saw it in their classrooms? Do you think Stanovich would approve of teachers who decided not to follow the research, especially if they FELT it was wrong? I don't get the impression that Stanovich places much value on a teacher's ability to figure things out on their own.
Did you also read the Garen link? http://www.heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/E00647/sectionvi.pdf
She shows how the experimental research in the National Reading Report often has a tenuous relationship with what happens to actual kids in actual classrooms reading actual books. Notice that few of the studies in the NPR involved children reading and comprehending connected text. The term "Reading Growth" was applied to equally to kids reading nonsense words from lists, and other isolated tasks. Garen, and others, have critisized the NRP meta-analysis as an apples to oranges comparison.
Another problem is Stanovichs's view that the meta-analysis provides "solid support for the conclusion that systematic phonics instruction makes a bigger contribution to children's growth in reading than alternative programs providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction".
It's important to remember that any treatment compared to no treatment or minimal treatment is bound to look good. Gerald Coles calls this the "Compared with What?" problem. Almost all of the NRP studies compared systematic phonics to no or minimal phonics OR to used discredited approaches to reading as such as the Look-Say method as the alternative. Naturally when compared to these approaches systematic phonics came out a big winner, but does that really tell us it's the most effective method?
There are other concerns I have, such as the way the NIDH misrepresented the findings of the National Reading Panel report in the summary, but my insomnia is wearing off so I'm going off to bed. |
Montagnard
Citizen
Username: Montagnard
Post Number: 401
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 6, 2004 - 8:59 pm: | |
I'll grant you this:
1. Scripted programs where everyone is literally (!) on the same page are complete wishful thinking. This is obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense and I'm surprised that anyone can advocate them with a straight face.
2. Open Court is expensive and probably doesn't improve scores very much.
3. Anything recommended by Rod Paige is automatically suspect, given his history of manipulation in the Houston school district (positively Enronesque).
That said, let's spend our money on something that will actually do some good.
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