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The Educators’ Guide to Skills-based Learning and Assessment Curriculum – 4: Focus on the Mission

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SBLAC 4: Focus on the Mission

Think for a moment about the reason for testing. We would not want doctors practicing medicine without first passing the medical boards. We would not want a lawyer to represent us if he/she had not passed the bar exam. As menial as it seems, in most states drivers must pass a notional drivers test and vision exam in order to drive our streets and highways. We test our food, our drugs, and our automobiles for minimal standards. When they don’t pass, they’re not released to the public. Educators who oppose standardized testing are similar to automobile executives who would sell you a car that did not run, as long as it made it all the way through the assembly line. It sounds absurd. It is absurd.

The idea behind the assessments is to first determine the skills and knowledge that you want your people to possess. This “high-stakes testing” junk is not an answer and never should have been presented as such. State assessments are not a solution to the problem; they merely identify the problem. The assessment, then, is just the means of determining whether an individual has mastered the relevant skills and knowledge. Although I am quite stymied as to why this concept is so outrageous to many people, I am equally confused as to how a system can go from kindergarten through 12th grade and so completely disregard these known and published standards.

Yes, the standards we discuss in this case are published and posted. They are assumed to be common knowledge throughout the K-12 system. Every educator I know tells me he/she is familiar with them. But regarding the ILS, the sad reality is that the vast majority of high school freshmen do not possess the late elementary skills and knowledge that would put them in a position to begin high school. Perhaps this is because Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT) only tests Goals 1, 2, 6, and 7. As even willing high school faculty struggle to teach high school standards, the sheer enormity of the task often relegates standards-based instruction to mere lip service. Winking and nodding our way through both ILS and CRS has become a way of life as teachers continue to teach their specialized content while sporadically invoking a college readiness skill here and an Illinois learning standard there.

The frustration associated with test failure rates when we have supposedly been teaching the standards via our content can only be imagined. There is a universal concern that something is wrong with the process because when we do what the education wonks say to do, we should be getting better results. It must be the assessment. These are intelligent kids whose skills and knowledge are just not captured in a multiple choice test. These are capable children whose potential and creativity are just not measured by the high stakes testing offered via the NCLB solution. How can we quantify a child’s intellect with something as impersonal as a two-day multiple choice standardized high-stakes test?

Quite frankly, how else could we quantify a child’s intellect other than via a comprehensive standardized assessment? Irrespective of the voluminous arguments to the contrary, children who possess the skills pass the tests. Regardless of the myriad conflicting explanations of why a “smart” student does poorly on a standardized test, the bottom line is that he/she simply has not mastered the skills and knowledge being assessed; which begs the question, “What have we been teaching the students?”

Lessons which have little or nothing to do with specific, measurable testable skills are the enemy of the successful student. Recalling our first assumption, a content-based curriculum is not a standards-based curriculum. Students are assessed on skills competency, on their mastery of established and published standards. When we create classroom activities that children like in order to hold their attention, we are giving in to future underachievement. Watching movies when we should be reading, drawing pictures and pasting fancy coversheets when we should be writing and formatting, or reminding students of previously covered material when we should be requiring them to search their brains for answers and problem-solving solutions are examples of teachers as enablers of mediocre students.

Children eat up class work until third or fourth grade. When the work gets tougher, when students begin to build upon previously learned material, there is no way to make it easier or less than what it is. There is a huge difference between being taught something new and learning to manipulate a previously learned skill. If we try to teach fifth, sixth, and seventh grade skills using first, second, and third grade techniques, we may have covered the higher level content, but the students haven’t mastered higher level skills. Instead of using apples and oranges, we’re simply using Jonathans and Valencias. If the child does not know that we’re not using Granny Smith and Navel or Golden Delicious and Persian, he/she is not building on previously learned knowledge, but rather learning new stuff. If the lesson does not carefully and specifically explain the skills that take you from an apple to a Jonathan apple and as opposed to a Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apple, then we are missing the point. Then our instructional method is not standards-based or skills-based, but rather, osmosis-based. Being in a room where educational-type things happen is often confused for having been taught something.

No one benefits when we tell kids a bunch of stuff and hope they figure out why we bothered. In the example above, early on a child can discern an apple from an orange. But what makes an apple a Jonathan apple? If confronted with a Jonathan, a Granny Smith and a Golden Delicious, we might select a Jonathan as the red apple from the other two which are green. But what distinguishes a Granny Smith from a Golden Delicious? There are discerning skills at work which the child should consciously bring to bear on the problem. Memorizing pictures of various types of apples does not help the child use these discerning skills in any other example. Why, specifically, are they different? What are the closer relatives and what makes them more similar? What are some of the things that make close relatives different? Higher order thinking is not about piling on more information and memorizing more detailed pictures. It’s about evaluating and analyzing the problem for patterns and possible solutions using ever more sophisticated skills. Benjamin Bloom told us this fifty years ago and all we seem to have now is that lame pyramid everyone in education seems to revere but does not understand.

Merely being in a classroom when the material is presented will likely not produce high academic achievement. The value of the metacognitive experience cannot be overstated with regards to a student having any idea what he/she is doing. We cannot create a metacognitive transition without forcing a new skill. The reading, the writing, the remembering are the tools. They are the skills we are trying to master and hone. But the content is relative. Remembering is a skill. What we remember from school is less important than the fact that we can remember, that we have the ability (the skill) to go back into the brain and consciously pull out problem solving skills and knowledge on command. We often spend eight to twelve years playing various games with content but completely miss the point about a standards-based education, the Rigor and Relevance Framework, and Bloom’s Taxonomy. Worse, we usually disregard completely the skills that we know will be assessed in the end.

If we do not teach to mastery the skills and tasks that a child is supposed to master as he/she progresses through childhood, there is no conceivable way we can jump to the end of the development continuum expecting significant success. This is essentially what we are doing and only about 50% of our children meet our standard, nationwide. We do it year after year and blast the test for telling us our children do not meet the standard. “The test is biased.” “The test is faulty.” “The test is an outrageous affront to our children and our educational system!”

The fact that only 52% of Illinois children meet/exceed the learning standards and the education system is not considered an abysmal failure is what is truly outrageous. When we know what tasks the children are responsible for and do not teach it, that is outrageous. If we focus on content and creativity while our children cannot read story problems in math and cannot decipher a simple data presentation using an x/y axis or cannot write a short essay using proper form and grammar, that is outrageous. To know that half of our young adults do not have the basic skills we expect from them after 13 years of education and continue to teach the same material in the same manner is to stick our heads in the sand and admit there is nothing we care to do about it. Now, that is outrageous.

So what can be done about the situation? Essentially the only way to prepare children for a skills-based assessment is with a skills-based curriculum. It would appear that true standards-based instruction from the first grade on would be the logical solution. It should include the early sub-skills of the later testable PSAE skills (both ILS and CRS). If such-and-such is being assessed, then it only stands to reason that we teach such-and-such. But we don’t. We teach this-and-that. Think about it. We teach this-and-that but we assess such-and-such. Why don’t we teach such-and-such? If we tested this-and-that, then we would be okay to teach this-and-that. It is a mindless contradiction that educators refuse to teach what they will ultimately assess and that they insist on testing that which has not been taught. Many elementary teachers and administrators insist they teach what is tested. But the problem with their argument is that by focusing so restrictively on a handful of reading and math standards assessed on the ISAT, the grand expanse of skills assessed on the PSAE are left without subskill mastery. To say the Common Core State Standards will now take care of that, my response is “Hogwash.” We’ve had standards before. We essentially ignored them. If we continue a content-based approach to CCSS, we will get ILS-like results.

Honest standards-based instruction assumes very little. Every task, every skill is composed of sub-skills which are, themselves, composed of sub-skills. It is absolutely essential that we ascertain a child’s understanding of the prerequisite sub-skills before we introduce a new skill. For example, we must be sure a child has mastered the skill of fraction conversion before we try to teach him/her about algebra. By assuming that a child has the basic skills and knowledge to begin algebra instruction we often find ourselves as de facto educational entertainers just making conversation. Trying to make sense out of concepts for which the students do not possess the requisite skills is a task of Herculean proportions. And our track record of success reflects the depth of the problem. Ninth grade algebra has the highest failure rate of any general education topic in high schools.

More than two thirds of Chicago children do not meet state standards at the end of the 11th grade. Consider that this percentage only reflects the number of children who are still in school at that point. It should be painfully obvious that what we’re doing is not working. Educators often violate their own principles just to get students to do something resembling academic effort. Some teachers may have students turn in papers with atrocious English grammar promising not to count off for it. They just want the children to turn something in. As a group, we often reward every minimal effort, regardless how miserable. Yet we wonder why, after eleven years of this, the students cannot meet the standard. Clearly, a line must be drawn.

The Educators’ Guide to Skills-based Learning and Assessment Curriculum – 3: The Third Grade Brain

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SBLAC 3: But don’t get me started on the Third Grade Brain . . .

I had a conversation with Allan Goldin, President of Kinetic Learning, Inc., a couple of years ago. We were discussing the use of Power Reading in the freshman curriculum of the Air Force Academy High School. He mentioned that most people read using the same techniques they had mastered in grade school. Of course, he said, most of them who go on to post-secondary education and/or become avid readers have continually honed a variety of reading skills and increased both their speed and their ability to comprehend complex literature. The point, however, was that they are doing it with the techniques they learned in grade school. And without discussing the relative merits of Allan’s Power Reading program, the illustrative nature of the Third Grade Brain is clearly evident.

Take the typewriter for example. Or the slide rule. I don’t use a typewriter or a slide rule anymore. I still know how to use both and I could use either if I wanted or needed. But I don’t want to or need to use a typewriter, electric or manual, or use a slide rule, period. Such is a Third Grade Brain’s approach to reading. It’s a typewriter. As long as it accomplishes the mission to the standard we’ve set, who is to say that it is not sufficient? A good secretary in the 1960’s could knock out some pages of typewriter prose with amazing speed and accuracy. Advanced models in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s stored 15 to 30 lines of type, let you review and edit, and then whip it out like nothing you’d ever seen before. It was pretty phenomenal. But it was a Third Grade Brain. Soon after, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the rest of the personal computing brain trust forced an evolutionary change that has made the typewriter all but obsolete. Computing innovations by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments and others have sealed the deal on both the typewriter and the slide rule. This is a technological triumph.

But the Third Grade Brain is an evolutionary anomaly. A great many metacognitive processes begin to shut down at about the time the third grade graduate realizes that he/she has the capacity to survive the world. There is no immediate imperative. A third grade graduate now has the skills and knowledge to ensure his/her own existence. The house is built. Wittingly or unwittingly, the child now has a tool kit with a slotted screwdriver, a pair of pliers, a ¾ lb. hammer, and, if he/she has been paying attention, a Phillips-head screwdriver. To a Third Grade Brain, what else do you need? This child can wash and clothe him/herself, find a store, buy groceries, make change, cook a simple meal, adjust a thermostat or find a blanket, manipulate electrical appliances and read simple recipes and directions. Complete independence, to a third grade graduate. Yet they make you go to school day after day, week after week, year after year. For what? “I don’t care about Argentina.” “I don’t care about exponents and fraction conversion.” “I don’t care about conjunctions and subject-verb agreement.” “And I really don’t care about cell mitosis.”

In 1950, 60% of employed Americans were working in jobs considered unskilled labor(1). These were mostly factory and construction jobs. A trainable Third Grade Brain was adequate. By 2000, the percentage of unskilled labor workers in American was closer to 15% and has been dropping since (and now down to about 12% or less). The 45% differential has been largely assumed by skilled labor which requires a close approximation of a “meets/exceeds” high school graduate. The WorkKeys® test (day two of the Prairie State Achievement Examination) draws that line at a score of 5/5 for Reading for Information and Applied Mathematics, respectively. In Chicago, less than a third of the graduates meet that standard. Most high schools are currently below 30%. Graduates are accepted into college these days but have to take basic math and English classes just to enter a program of study. The Third Grade Brain has devastating effects on higher education.

The basic premise is that when one realizes that he/she can read, process basic mathematics and arithmetic, feed, clothe and wash him/herself, acquire food and shelter and basically get from point A to point B, of what necessity is further education? Piaget might refer to this level of thinking as Concrete Operational which begins to manifest itself in early elementary. The conversion to Formal Operational requires conceptual understanding which also requires both teaching and learning but of a different sort. Of course, most of us continue to become more learned. Aside from being legally mandated, it seems common sense to realize that there is much more to learn to have a chance at a satisfying life. But do not believe for a minute that every single person agrees with the government on this one. High schools across the country are filled with kids who cannot for the life of them figure out why they are being put through all this mental torture and they actively resist.

Much of the phenomenon lies in the motivation of the Third Grade Brain to go beyond what is essential to survival. Some come from survival-oriented environments wherein this mentality is prevalent. I have witnessed situations in Chicago where high school students are literally persecuted for learning. Good students have been bullied for no reason other than their desire to study and get ahead. There is also a basic laziness which stipulates that anything beyond minimal effort is over-exertion. Some children come from families which mistrust the school system and promote a sort of non-compliance for whatever reason. Rationale for the Third Grade Brain is plentiful. Suffice it to say that plenty of folks do not give a hoot about “book learnin’.”

The United States Department of Education Institute of Educational Sciences tells us that in 2007 a whopping 81% of 4th graders were at or above basic math achievement levels(2). Interestingly, only 70% of 8th graders were at or above basic math achievement levels. My own calculations indicate that only about 50% of U.S. high school graduates meet their states’ math standards. Nationwide, less students are meeting the standards in math and science in the 8th grade than were meeting the standards in the 4th grade. As a percentage, state-by-state, we lose about 10% of our students meeting the standards between the 4th and 8th grades. That relative loss in the percentage meeting the standards grows as children enter high school. This is the phenomenon of the Third Grade Brain.

The effects of the Third Grade Brain are indeed devastating for our nation’s productivity. If one believes that a high school education is important to our nation as a whole, consider that in 2008 we had over 224 million people 18 years of age and older, of which 192 million had graduated from high school(3). That leaves 32 million adults that we know have not graduated from high school. Of these, we know 11 million (more than a third) are walking around with a Third Grade Brain as they never made it out of grade school.

Please don’t fool yourself into believing that the high school dropouts are walking around with eighth grade brains. In fact, a significant proportion of high school graduates have not yet achieved that significant milestone. As we promote children for showing up in class and doing their homework (turning it in is often the same as doing it yourself, regardless of who actually does the homework) we give credit regardless of whether or not the child has a clue. To wit: only about 30% of Chicago high school juniors meet minimal state graduation standards and most dropouts have left by the 9th and 10th grades. If you think that the remaining 70% who have not met state standards by spring of the junior year pick up the pace in their senior year than you are a true optimist. And ask any 9th grade teacher in Chicago Public Schools if the rank and file freshmen are fully prepared for ninth grade work. The answer is cleary, “no.”

But getting back to the 32 million adults without high school diplomas, that’s a few million shy of the total population of Italy and about ten million more than the population of all of Scandinavia. These people, for all intents and purposes, are dropouts. More than a third of them never made it into high school much less graduated from high school. The number of folks who have graduated from high school but have not progressed beyond the Third Grade Brain can only be imagined. We can begin an estimate by examining the data relative to meeting/exceeding the state standards (for whichever state you choose), whether they’re officially published as graduation standards or whether they are NCLB standards established to show whether or not a state has any standards at all (or in the first place).

In Illinois there is the PSAE. This is the state self-imposed assessment metric to determine whether or not high school students are meeting the self-imposed learning standards. The two day test takes place in the spring of the junior year of high school. Statewide, only about 52% of the test takers meet the minimal standards(4). As mentioned earlier, in Chicago the rate is closer to 30%. But even the higher rate is an admission that nearly half of our young adults, our own high school graduates have not met our self-imposed minimal requirements. And of course, this does not include those who have given up already.

Thus, keeping in mind that most high school dropouts have left before they get a chance to take that test, the number of adults voting, driving our highways, owning our firearms and drinking in the bars, all with a third grade brain, is just a little disconcerting. Yet we want them to find increasingly technical problem-solving jobs to be productive citizens. If the Illinois meets/exceeds rate is similar across the country, of the 192 million high school graduates in the nation, about 95 million did not meet state requirements. Add to that the 32 million dropouts and suddenly in a nation with 224 million adults, 127 million of them probably cannot pass minimal state learning standards – an interesting extrapolation. It appears Jay Leno is right; we are a nation of fools.

There seems to be a lot of disinterest in our lack of intelligence. I am quite perplexed that when we are confronted with the results of standardized assessments, our knee-jerk response is to profess outrage at the test. The Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) is a classic tale of institutional obviation when faced with organizational incompetence. The “high-stakes testing” smokescreen, either consciously or subconsciously, is a tool to divert attention from the basic truth: Our current educational system is incapable of educating all children to any type of instructional standard. Those who express contempt or disdain for the standardized testing of NCLB are mere apologists for mediocrity. Feeling good by not confronting our incompetence is an ostrich approach to problem-solving.

(1) See http://www.aces.edu/crd/workforce/publications/9-22-00-new-econ-defined.PDF, http://www.ceonetworkaustin.com/maxproductivity/March_2003.PDF,
and others.
(2) See http://nces.ed.gov/quicktables/result.asp?SrchKeyword=&topic=Elementary%2FSecondary&Year=2007.
(3) See http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/cps2008/Table1-01.csv.
(4) See http://webprod.isbe.net/ereportcard/publicsite/getReport.aspx?year=2009&code=1501629900795_e.pdf.