Debating National Standards, and more

It's debate time at EKU....at least, it is in my classes.

This summer I'm back with grad students and that allows me to push for a deeper exploration of topics that are of concern to the schools. It also means helping students to develop their leadership potential by finding/refining their "voices."

I've always encouraged impromptu debates among students, but over the next two weeks I'm test-driving a formal debate format between two two-member teams.

Our topics:
EMS 850 - Curriculum for Leaders in Education

• Direct instruction v. Student-initiated instruction
• Senate Bill 1
• National Standards (See below)

EGC 820 - Professional Studies I: Teachers, Schools and Society (Special Education Cohort)

• The use of aversive techniques for behavior management
• Direct instruction v. Student-initiated instruction

KSN&C readers may not be aware...but what happens in class sometimes influences which articles get posted. Students regularly scan the news for articles that confirm, confuse, amaze and dismay. We talk about the issues in class. I'm also very pleased to learn that other professors are starting to use the blog to bring current content into their classes. With all that in mind....

This from the Principal's Policy Blog:

Has the Time Come for Voluntary National Standards?

It’s a time-honored tradition in America that states and local districts should have control over our schools. But in the age of global competitiveness and student mobility, is it time to loosen the reigns of local control in favor of something more national?

This was the question addressed in a recent report by the Center for American Progress. The report’s author, Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center, argues that local control of education creates several major problems, including financial inequality, inconsistent standards and inadequate data, and a lack of education research and development. Miller contends that a more national approach to education would help solve many of these problems and calls for the establishment of national standards and increasing the federal government’s share of education funding from approximately 9% to 25 – 30%, with a portion of this increased investment going toward increasing funding for education research.

Miller argues that “it is only by transcending traditional local control, and by getting serious about a new national role in standards and finance, that we can at last create genuine autonomy for local schools.” In creating this “genuine autonomy” Miller also recommends eliminating school boards, which he believes are dominated by teacher unions that heavily influence the election of board members.

Not everyone is convinced this is the correct path to follow, however. At the release of the report, Reginald Felton, director of federal relations for the National School Boards Association, urged the American people to guard against the assumption that doing away with local control of education (and school boards) would remedy decades of neglect, or that a nationalization of education would immediately result in a spike in student achievement.

“One size does not fit all” agreed former Superintendent of Schools for the Los Angeles Unified School District Roy Romer. However, he pointed out that a local school board is not able to create a national math curriculum, and later expressed his support for national standards. Romer indicated that these standards should be
voluntarily adopted by states from the ground-up, instead of forced upon states by the federal government.

Earlier this year, the NASSP Board of Directors proposed a position statement on National Academic Standards in K-12 Education. In the statement, NASSP calls on Congress to “appoint an independent, diverse group of researchers, practitioners, advocates, and experts to develop a set of common national standards and authentic, reliable assessments beginning with Language Arts and mathematics in grades K-12 and examine the feasibility of national standards in other subjects.” NASSP also urges states to actively participate in the development and adoption of those standards, and for the federal government to provide grants to states to assist with the adoption and implementation of those common standards. NASSP invites members’ comments on the proposed statement through April 30, 2008.

There is little doubt that America has, and continues to be going through a period of flux. As Matt Miller concludes in his report, “Once upon a time, a national role in retirement security was anathema. Then suddenly, after the Depression, there was Social Security. Once a federal role in health care would have been damned as
socialism, yet federal spending now accounts for one of every two dollars devoted to health care in the United States, with more certain to come in the years ahead. When it comes to schools, there has likewise always been a tension between the desire to improve the life chances of more children by involving higher levels of authority, and the primordial American distrust of central government. But the truth is we started down this road even on schooling a long time ago. It’s time now to finish the job.”

Now, back to the topic of debate:

In addition to the blog content, students may received support in more traditional ways as shown by this topic outline from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Direct Instruction v Child-initiated instruction

Resolved: Direct Instruction is an educationally and socially justifiable instructional method.

A longstanding curriculum debate in early childhood education centers on whether early childhood education should follow the traditional academic model of education used with older students (that is, large group, teacher-directed, formal instruction) or whether learning experiences for preschool children should be informal and consist largely of child-initiated activities. Both approaches have pros and cons.

For example, when discussing children living in poverty, Schweinhart (1997) states that an approach that is primarily teacher-directed is likely to discourage children's social and emotional development, intellectual dispositions, and creativity, while an approach based exclusively on child-initiated activities may not sufficiently support children's academic development.

What are some differences between direct instruction and child-initiated learning?

Disputes concerning curriculum and teaching methods go back a long way in the field of early childhood education. Over the years, many different terms have been used to capture the opposing positions. In recent years, the term "academic" has come to describe those parts of the early childhood curriculum intended to help children master the basic skills involved in literacy and numeracy (Jacobson, 1996). Katz (1996) suggests that from the academic, or direct instruction, perspective, the young child is seen as dependent on adults' instruction in the academic knowledge and skills necessary for a good start for later academic achievement.

This perspective is in direct contrast with the child-initiated approach, which views young children as active constructors of knowledge who are not dependent on didactic instructional cues from a teacher. Child-initiated curricular techniques may utilize learning centers within a classroom, promote learning from play-based activities, or encourage child interaction and cooperation. Academic learning may certainly occur in child-initiated learning environments. However, this learning results not from teacher-led formal didactic (seat work, lectures, etc.) instruction, but from a variety of child-initiated learning activities (Katz, 1999b).

What does the research say about the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?

Three long-term preschool curriculum comparison studies began in the 1970s: the High/Scope Preschool Curriculum Comparison study (Schweinhart & Weikart, 1997a; Schweinhart & Weikart, 1997b), the Louisville Head Start study (Miller & Bizzell, 1983), and the University of Illinois study (Karnes et al., 1983). All three included the direct instruction model, which offered scripted, teacher-directed, academic instruction, and a nursery school model, in which children initiated their own learning activities with minimal teacher support. Additionally, the High/Scope study included the High/Scope model, in which children initiated learning activities with substantial teacher support. The Louisville and Illinois studies also included several additional teacher-directed models and the Montessori model, which encouraged child-initiated activities with didactic materials.

These three studies found that children in direct instruction programs intellectually outperformed children in child-initiated activities programs during and up to a year after the preschool program, but not thereafter. In the Louisville study, the nursery school children showed higher verbal-social participation and increased more in ambition and aggressiveness than did the direct instruction children, but both groups scored lower than their peers on inventiveness. In the Illinois study, 78% of the nursery school group that engaged in child-initiated activities with minimal teacher support graduated from high school, compared with only 48% of the direct instruction group (Karnes et al., 1983).

SOURCE: Early Childhood and Parenting (ECAP) Collaborative at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.