Thursday, April 28, 2005

More witch hunts in academia

There seems to be no end to the witch hunts in academia. FPM writes about a professor who is being hounded because his reading list includes an article on the Zebra Killings. Here is the link to the offending article itself. What I just did (linking to this article) can be a career-killing offense in academia.

Behind Bean’s sudden fall from admired academic to campus Enemy Number One was a cabal of eight radical academics in the SIUC history department. Bean's offense was to have assigned as optional reading for his history class a 2001 Frontpagemag report titled “Remembering the Zebra Killings” by James Lubinskas. The class topic was “Civil Rights and Civil Disorder.” Bean's required readings for the class included the writings of Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Ella Baker, and Stokely Carmichael.

The offending Frontpagemag article which Bean made optional recounts what have come to be known as the Zebra Killings, a series of murders that took place in the San Francisco Bay area between 1972 and 1974, which left 71 people dead. The crimes shared a distinctive pattern: all the victims were white. The article, which contains facts first exposed in the 1979 book Zebra by crime writer Clark Howard, and subsequent reviews of the book in Time Magazine, reveals that five members the “Death Angels,” a sub-group of the Nation of Islam, carried out the majority of the attacks.

For the offense of making students aware of the existence of this article and these killings, the history department witch-hunters demanded Bean's head. Faced with this vicious, career threatening onslaught, Bean took the same course that Larry Summers had at Harvard, in attempting to defuse similar thought-control attacks by issuing an unwarranted apology to anyone to whom the reference to such an article might give offense.
This is supposed to be a university, a place of free inquiry.

The ferocity of the crusade against Bean was breathtaking. On April 11, an open letter denouncing Bean appeared in the op-ed section of the Daily Egyptian. Normally intra faculty grievances are aired in committee, not in the pages of the school newspaper. Bean was charged with downloading the article “from a site containing links to racially charged and anti-Semitic Web sites” -- two blatant lies -- and abridging it “in a way that disguised its full context.” Signed by professors Kay J. Carr, Germaine Etienne, Mary McGuire, Rachel Stocking, Natasha Zaretsky, and Robbie Lieberman, the letter expressed the professors’ “disgust with the article that was distributed in a core curriculum American history course.” Not satisfied with this auto da fe, the same professors placed an advertisement in the Daily Egyptian repeating their charges that the reference to the article (and the act of referring it) was racism.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

The straw that broke the camel's back

This NYT article discusses the problems test makers face when their questions deal with the "real world."

The problem is exacerbated by educationist insistence on "authenticity" and "real-world" applications. In the math area, so-called "naked math" will no longer do. But the "real world" is messy and introduces complexity, ambiguity and variables that may surpass the level of sophistication reached at a particular grade level.

Beware the perils of ambiguity. It is a mantra that is increasingly pertinent to tests in mathematics and science. The two fields might seem immune from imprecision. But in mathematics, for example, today's tests assess more than a student's ability to do "naked computation," as Cathy Seeley, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, puts it. In many places, calculators have rendered meaningless the testing of basic computational tasks. Instead, more questions test students' comprehension in real-world contexts. A triangle is a corner garden bed. A rectangular object intersected by a line is a juice box, with a straw. A sloped line on a graph represents a year's worth of payments to the power company.

With these scenarios come variables, and mathematicians and scientists from British Columbia to Boston spend much time picking apart the questions, particularly in online discussion groups. If students are asked how many seeds can be planted in the surface area of a triangular garden, do you put seeds in the corners where there isn't room for plants to take root? What about relevant considerations like seasonality of utility bills or position of the planets? Multiple-choice questions, with no place to show your work and thinking, make such realities more vexing.
I love this problem that arises when you move from a line to an "authentic" straw:

Daniel Jaye, an assistant principal at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, served on the panel charged with investigating the troubled exam. He recalls a telling moment during the administration of the test at his school. "One of the kids raised his hand and the proctor called me into the room," Dr. Jaye says. The student was puzzled by a question about a straw that rested diagonally in a rectangular box, 3 by 4 by 8 inches. The question asked for the length of the straw to the nearest 10th of an inch. The answer, according to the Board of Regents, was 9.4 inches.

But, the student asserted, there was not enough information to answer the question correctly. If the question asked about the length of a line, he figured he could solve the problem. But because it asked about the length of a straw, he needed the radius of the straw to determine where it would touch the corner of the juice box.

"How am I expected to come up with an accurate answer?" the student asked.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

63% of Americans think Bible literally true

This is pretty shocking, if true. There must be a failure of science education somewhere. WND reports on a survey.

Poll: 63% of Americans
think Bible literally true
Those believing Scripture is Word of God higher among Republicans than Democrats


At a time when the public display and discourse about matters of faith have been under attack, a new poll indicates most Americans – 63 percent – believe the Bible is literally true and the Word of God.

The survey taken Thursday and Friday by Rasmussen Reports found just 24 percent thinking otherwise.

When broken down into different demographics, the poll showed 77 percent of Republicans believe in the literal truth of the Bible as do 59 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of those not affiliated with either major party.

Among Evangelical Christians, 89 percent believe the Bible is literally true and just 4 percent say it is not. Among other Protestants, 70 percent believe the Bible is literally true. That view is shared by 58 percent of Catholics.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

What lousy schools could learn

If educationists were interested in quality education, they would seek out successful schools and emulate their practices. These practices might then even get taught in ed schools.

Fat chance!

Phonics, Saxon math and Core Knowledge are red flags to educationists.

Here is an account of a charter school that has been incredibly successful with the disadvantaged.

Will the champions of "social justice" and equity champion its curriculum and methods?

At bottom, the reasons for Amistad’s breathtaking success are pretty simple. For starters, it boasts a rigorous academic program. The Amistad curriculum is highly traditional, based on research-based methods. For reading, it’s phonics, phonics, phonics, supplemented with literature when the kids are ready for it. The school uses the old-fashioned—and proven to work—Saxon Math program to teach ‘rithmetic. And Amistad bases its history, science, and arts instruction on E. D. Hirsch’s content-rich Core Knowledge program. What students need to know at every grade level, moreover, isn’t flexible. Every six weeks the school assesses the kids, with the evaluations then used to figure out which students need help in what subjects. With an extended school day, mandatory summer school, and tutoring before and after school, there’s time for students to catch up.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Anti-fuzzy math cornucopia

Here is a terrific site devoted to fighting fuzzy math. The site has a rich collection of links to articles critical of the fuzzy-math plague. It can keep you reading for days on end.

I tutor math after class and see math cripples every day. I am now tutoring eighth graders being taught Connected Math who still don't understand equivalent fractions and can't solve the simplest proportion problems. The "algebra" they are being taught consists of counting little white and black boxes to see if there are more white or black boxes (to teach negative integers). This is EIGHTH GRADE!

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Thought police strikes again

Universities discover and invoke academic freedom and tolerance when controversies like the Ward Churchill affair arise. But, as this article shows, academic freedom and tolerance are invoked and applied selectively.

After all, the university is committed to academic freedom. Its faculty has the "freedom and an obligation … (to) discuss and pursue the faculty member’s subject with candor and integrity, even when the subject requires consideration of topics which may be politically, socially or scientifically controversial. … (a) faculty member…shall not be subjected to censorship or discipline by the University ... on grounds that the faculty member has expressed opinions or views which are controversial, unpopular or contrary to the attitudes of the University…or the community."

None of this applies to professors who dissent from socialist, statist, or culturally left-wing views, however, as I would find out.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Social justice

One of the phrases one hears often in ed schools and one that is constantly on the lips of the letter soup organizations that form the organizational ed complex is "social justice." See NCATE case here.

It's a phrase that sounds good but is rarely examined and debated.

Help is on the way.

There is now a vast database that examines the chief proponents of "social justice" and similar leftist causes.

I found this article that traces the genealogy of the phrase "social justice" back to Marx.

In this rendering, "social justice" is an attack on classical liberalism.
The signature of modern leftist rhetoric is the deployment of terminology that simply cannot fail to command assent. As Orwell himself recognized, even slavery could be sold if labeled "freedom." In this vein, who could ever conscientiously oppose the pursuit of "social justice," -- i.e., a just society?

To understand "social justice," we must contrast it with the earlier view of justice against which it was conceived -- one that arose as a revolt against political absolutism. With a government (e.g., a monarchy) that is granted absolute power, it is impossible to speak of any injustice on its part. If it can do anything, it can't do anything "wrong." Justice as a political/legal term can begin only when limitations are placed upon the sovereign, i.e., when men define what is unjust for government to do. The historical realization traces from the Roman senate to Magna Carta to the U.S. Constitution to the 19th century. It was now a matter of "justice" that government not arrest citizens arbitrarily, sanction their bondage by others, persecute them for their religion or speech, seize their property, or prevent their travel.

This culmination of centuries of ideas and struggles became known as liberalism. And it was precisely in opposition to this liberalism -- not feudalism or theocracy or the ancien regime, much less 20th century fascism -- that Karl Marx formed and detailed the popular concept of "social justice," (which has become a kind of "new and improved" substitute for a storeful of other terms -- Marxism, socialism, collectivism -- that, in the wake of Communism's history and collapse, are now unsellable).
This attack on classical liberalism becomes clearer when one recognizes that there is a tension between freedom and equality. Freedom tends to lead to inequality. Equality cannot be achieved without curtailing freedom.
Give Marx his due: He was absolutely correct in identifying the political freedom of liberalism -- the right of each man to do as he wishes with his own resources -- as the origin of income disparity under capitalism. If Smith is now earning a fortune while Jones is still stuck in that subway, it's not because of the "class" into which each was born, to say nothing of royal patronage. They are where they are because of how the common man spends his money. That's why some writers sell books in the millions, some sell them in the thousands, and still others can't even get published. It is the choices of the masses ("the market") that create the inequalities of fortune and fame -- and the only way to correct those "injustices" is to control those choices.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Social studies lesson

This interview with Bradley K. Martin, the author of the new book Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty could serve as material for a comparative study of political and social systems. Students could be instructed to compare and constrast.

I recently watched news on a Hispanic channel and saw video of hundreds of North Koreans being mowed down. They had tried to escape to China. None of it made into the nightly news of the big three as far as I can tell.

Martin: Let's break it down into types of suffering. During the famine of the '90s, people really were reduced to eating worms and boiled tree bark. The best estimate now is that some two to three million people lost their lives. Those who stayed alive had to learn survival tactics and strategies including, on the positive side, trade and entrepreneurship, and on the negative side, bribery and theft.


Martin: I would be glad too. It is important for us to hear their voices, and my book documents their sufferings in their own words. Ahn Hyuk, one inmate who managed to get out of a prison camp, said he weighed only 84 pounds at the time of his release, even though he's five foot seven. By the time I interviewed him in South Korea he had bulked up to a normal weight of 150. He told me the guards had caught him one day cooking a pig bone he had found on the ground. Eating food thrown away by non-prisoners was forbidden, so "I was tied to a stake and beaten. That's when my lower jaw was smashed. I've invested so much in my teeth since I came to South Korea. Once we were so hungry that about twenty of us went to the pigsty and started eating the pigs' feed." The pig keeper "complained that the pigs would get thinner because we were eating their feed. They sent us to the river and made us put our heads in the water. The first to put his head up would be beaten brutally. We had to do this until we drank enough water to urinate in our pants."

Carnival time

The Education Wonks are doing are marvelous job gathering fresh and enlightening articles from the edusphere. It's a lot of work and the 'Wonks deserve three or more cheers.

An Invitation: All writers and readers of education-related posts are invited to contribute to the ninth edition of The Carnival of Education. Please send your submissions to: owlshome [at] earthlink [dot] net. Send your contributions no later than 10:00 PM (Pacific) Tuesday, April 5, 2005. The Carnival midway will open at
the 'Wonks Wednesday morning.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Academic rigor riles up "patriots"

While perusing Dr. Stat's wonderful site I came across this item I had read about but forgotten.

An immigrant couple wanted to set up a rigorous charter school but met with stiff opposition. It seems that academic rigor is considered unpatriotic by some.

Critics have distributed fliers accusing outsiders of denigrating their schools by saying an American education is inferior to that of Russia, China, and Germany. At a forum last week, assistant superintendent John Petrin demanded to know, "Where's this proposal coming from? Where is the need? It's coming from the outside."

Audience members said Sigalovsky's school would be based on a model that is as discredited and obsolete as Communism. "She talked about Germany, how they teach in . . . China and Japan. I don't want my kids educated like Germans," said Tom Leveillee, 77, a retiree and World War II veteran.
Educationists mount a massive protest against the proposed quality school.

By last week, as Marlborough's city fathers convened yet another meeting on the proposal, Sigalovsky had just learnt that school administrators were emptying classrooms and transporting students to a mass protest.

Friday, April 01, 2005

"Standards" not standards

Standards used to be regarded as one of the fighting words by progressive/constructivist educationists. Then educationists like NCTM had the bright idea to simply appropriate the term in order to neutralize it. Hence, they began to refer to a set of vague (often febrile) visions as "standards".

Here, a major critic of fuzzy math describes the difference between real and bogus standards. Real standards are focused, specific and coherent.

Contrast this with what the visionaries consider "standards":

The NCTM Standards claim to describe K-12 math content. What kind of a description has the NCTM given? Note: The links in this section will take you to sections of chapters 3 and 4.

Not focused
The NCTM recommends a "broad curriculum", not focused math topics.
The 54 NCTM "standards" are broad topic headings, such as "Mathematics as Communication".

Not specific
The NCTM conspicuously avoids being specific about math content. Each of their 54 "standards" is a multiple-page document.
The NCTM does appear to believe that kids should learn how to count during the K-4 years, but they never actually state this explicitly. Amazing.

Not basic
The NCTM doesn't recognize math as a structured knowledge domain with a core foundational subset of basic domain-specific math facts and math skills. They invite open-ended discovery learning, driven by student interests, not a lesson-by-lesson buildup of core math knowledge.

Not teachable
The NCTM rejects the dictionary definition of "teach" ("impart knowledge or skills"). But they still want to call them "teachers". Their roles is to "guide" and create rich enabling environments to excite student interests for discovery learning, with no two students necessarily discovering the same thing..
Even if the NCTM wanted teachers to teach, their version of K-12 math content is often too broad and ill-defined to be teachable.

Not measurable
Because of their fundamental belief in "broad content" and "discovery learning", traditional objective testing must be rejected by the NCTM. All they can do is to attempt to "discover" what each kid has discovered. The NCTM recommends "testing to find success".

Not linked to grade
The NCTM standards are not specific about what should happen in each grade. They just discuss general learning goals for grade levels K-4, 5-8, and 9-12.

Not concise
As far as writing is concerned, the NCTM rejects "less is more". They constantly repeat words and phrases, often hundreds of times. Examples includes: "vision", "problem solving", "real world", "calculator", "computer", "explore", "experience", "power", "construct", "concrete", "estimate", "measure", and "pattern".

The excessive redundancy of the NCTM Standards allows the key ideas to captured in the extracted quotes found in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4.

Not Genuine Math
This is the topic of Chapter 3.

Not brief
The NCTM has produced 59 documents, totaling 258 pages. The NCTM hopes you will be convinced by the weight of the pages.

Not selective
The NCTM is repelled by the very thought of a narrow selection of content. They preach broad exploration, not carefully selected math topics.

Not pedagogically neutral
The NCTM Standards are not about math, and they are not about standards. They are a vehicle for preaching "progressive" teaching methods.

Fuzzy math keeps spreading

This writer is making a nice analogy between reading and math. Just because technology is available, should we stop teaching kids how to read? Fuzzy math promoters seem to believe something similar by encouraging the use of calculators at an early age and by displaying hostility to memorization. The result is another generation of math cripples. Memory is one of those great gifts. It is therefore incomprehensible why educationists would wage war against memory.

To put this into perspective, consider the following analogy: Your first-grader comes home from school and tells you about the new Everyday Reading curriculum. Since there's such a prevalence of "books on tape," and with the latest technology known as text-to-speech, allowing computers to speak any text, the schools have implemented this great new program. It removes the emphasis on memorizing the alphabet and the tedium of learning to read. No more wasting time on the trivial, tedious basic mechanics of reading. No more hours spent on phonics or spelling. The new curriculum spends much more time teaching the children to analyze complex literature from a young age, since they're now freed up from the tedium of actually READING it!