before we implement

I just noticed this editorial comment at the head of McCallum's paper on "encouraging classroom discussion of scientific papers":

The technique proposed by Malcom McCallum to encourage discussion of scientific papers is one of the many creative ideas that ecology teachers have developed to engage our students. While Malcom was able to use some creative assessments as well as his observations of students to support his conclusions, I would encourage everyone to consider how we could measure learning gains before we implement new or novel teaching techniques.
Dr. William Bromer 
editor of Ecology 101

Clearly, this man has never attended ed school.

differentiated instruction : Fordham report

ABOUT THE STUDY METHODS

The study is based upon survey findings from a randomly selected, nationally representative sample of 900 public school teachers in grades 3 to 12, plus qualitative data from five focus groups, conducted in winter-spring 2008.

[snip]


DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION

Heterogeneous grouping of students in a classroom implies that teachers will respond flexibly to the different learning levels among the students in their classroom. But teachers evince serious doubts about how well they are carrying out differentiated instruction in their own lessons.

More than eight in ten (84%) teachers say that, in practice, differentiated instruction is difficult to implement.


OBSERVATIONS

Differentiated instruction-the strategy whereby teachers adjust their material and presentation to the diverse array of academic abilities within a given classroom-is tricky to implement, according to teachers. Education experts and policymakers who believe that this is the optimal alternative to tracking should recognize that, from the perspective of teachers, it is easier said than done.

Survey:
In your judgment, how easy or difficult a mission is it to Implement differentiated instruction on a daily basis in the classroom?

Somewhat difficult: 48%
Very difficult: 35%
Somewhat easy: 12%
Very easy: 4%
Not sure: 1%

The following description of what it took for one teacher to try to make differentiated instruction work sounds like an engineering exercise requiring the most delicate and complex analysis and judgment. It also reveals substantial self-doubt about the execution:

"Language arts, we've really been struggling because we do have so many different levels of kids. They're always in the same classes all mixed together, so I do a lot of differentiated instruction with tiered lessons and flexible grouping. Where kids are really, really strong in writing they're with a particular group of students for writing activities. Then they might be in a different group altogether for reading, just depending on where their levels are. [Moderator: How do you identify that/] Some is teacher observation; some is testing and assessment scores. At the beginning of the year, a lot of it's based on the state standards test scores that they showed the previous year. Sometimes there's teacher observation that follows them [here] as well."

High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB
Tom Loveless, Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett
Thomas B. Fordham Institute
page 65

As far as I can tell, virtually every school district in the country has committed to differentiated instruction as its core principle of instruction and instructional grouping.

Evidence-based decision making is not a hallmark of public schools.

education, not remediation

With my tiny district's per pupil spending now somewhere north of $30K and rising, and a new law requiring Response to Intervention, I'm getting desperate.

So this morning I wrote this plea for adopting programs that work and unadopting programs that don't work:

Response to Intervention wouldn't break the bank if we used evidence-based decision making: if we rigorously evaluated curricula and teaching methods for evidence of effectiveness -- and had a Plan B in place for abandoning curricula and teaching methods that aren't working sooner rather than later.

Example: we use 'balanced literacy' to teach reading.

Scientists who study reading instruction, and the National Reading Panel of 2000, tell us that children should be taught to read using "systematic synthetic phonics instruction." Balanced literacy is far less effective than phonics.

Exactly as the science predicts, here in Irvington we have a very large number of struggling readers. I believe the number is currently 18 or 19%, but I will check my notes. We currently have 5.5 "literacy specialists" remediating all of our struggling readers K-8, and after Response to Intervention kicks in I assume we'll have to hire more.

If we were using the program "Jolly Phonics," a field-tested British (pdf file) synthetic phonics curriculum, we would have only 5% of our students struggling to read. That 5% would include kids like my two children with autism.

We can easily afford to teach the 'bottom' 5% of our students in a 1:5 or 1:3 ratio. We're pretty much doing it now.

Moreover, because fluent reading is the core skill underlying all future academic achievement, we would likely have fewer special education students. That is the goal of Response to Intervention law: to reduce the number of students needing special education.

For me, the most important path out of our financial crisis is to ardently embrace evidence-based decision making: do what works, stop doing what doesn't.

In the run-up to the first fields vote, when people were putting up hand-lettered signs overnight, someone put up a sign that said:

EDUCATION
NOT
REMEDIATION

That should be our principle. Remediation is fantastically expensive: it costs the taxpayer who must fund remedial teachers, and, more importantly, it costs the child who is struggling to learn.

Our district-wide goal should be to reduce to the absolute minimum the number of children needing remediation. We should adopt curricula and teaching methods that give our kids success.


update

I can no longer locate the Johnston & Watson PowerPoint that gave the 5% figure (I can email a copy if you'd like to see it). Palisadesk cites 10%.

go to video

Dr. M,

In regard to your request for Dempsey & McLaren to define themselves. For the purposes of this discussion we can do a reasonable job in 6 minutes:

Seattle excluded all evidence provided by the public in making the decision to adopt "Discovering" for HS math on May 6, 2009

This was a virtual replay of May 30, 2007 when directors decided to trust their hired professionals instead of using evidence in adopting Everyday Math.

The six minutes is our response to the SPS board on May 20th to their decision to adopt "Discovering" on May 6th.

Let this play past the 4 second intro. Then move the slider to find us from minute 22:15 to minute 28:30

SPS Board meeting video of May 20, 2009 part I:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=4538

Now please define traditionalist.

Thanks,

Dan