Great Question

During the follow up discussion regarding the Proposed Technology Plan 2012-2015, Board of Education member Jennifer Dayton posed a very searching and profound question: What can technology do to bring about an extraordinary rise in student achievement?

The response was minimal, but this question should form the basis for any investment in technology going forward. 

Are we investing for the sake of making some investment?  Or to have the "best stuff" in our schools?  The bottom line is results.  Are we raising student achievement significantly with our spending?

Great question.

Homework

At the recent Board of Education meeting, there was a discussion regarding homework policy, as part of the larger discussion around the monitoring report for Effective Learning Environment (E040).  The topic had been raised before, seemingly in the context of ensuring the consistency of the application of the homework policy across the district.  See specifically pages 6-7 and pages 12-13.

http://www.greenwichschools.org/uploaded/district/Board_of_Education/meeting_materials/2011-12_meetings/5-17-12_meeting/5-17-12_E040_FINAL.pdf

Pages 12-13 deal with the “Prior Years” management issue around homework, specifically, "the District will be examining research on homework and its relationship to student achievement."  The monitoring report references a book (Visible Learning) which brings together 800 studies around student achievement.  I reproduce the summary contained in the monitoring report below.  I have not read the book (it is not in the Greenwich Library collection).

The recommendation is that the district form a committee of teachers, parents and administrators to explore the homework issue.  From my reading, the research indicates support for less/no homework at the elementary school level, based on the lack of a significant impact on achievement. 

One comment from a Board member was that parents use homework as a means to understand what is going on.  This may indicate a lack of communication, or a lack of informative reports cards (there's a surprise), or both.

Personal note: looking back, I don't recall having any significant or regular homework until seventh grade.  I still remember the excitement when we got our first homework assignments.  Boy, did that end quickly. 

This begs the question, in relation to learning such things as basic math facts: If the current direction is that math facts are to be practiced at home, what would happen if there was no more homework?  Would that drilling return to the schools/teachers?  Would it fall by the side of the road completely?  Perhaps ending the ridiculous Everyday Math homework and letting parents drill their kids in the math facts in the time saved would be an effective answer (and one which appears to be supported by the research - see the seventh bullet point regarding "Effects are highest....").  But what about the parents who are working, or don't get the importance?  Will the achievement gap widen?  Tough questions.

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Highlights of Research on Homework

Educational researcher John Hattie spent fifteen years reviewing thousands of studies involving millions of students and teachers on the impact of different influences on student achievement. His findings are summarized in the book Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. Effect sizes standardize changes in student achievement allowing us to compare the impact of different factors (an effect size of 1.0 equals one standard deviation). The typical effect size across all the studies Hattie reviewed is d =.40, and the author proposes that this is the level where a strategy or practice begins to noticeably impact student achievement. In Hattie’s words, "The effect size of 0.40 sets a level where the effects of innovation enhance achievement in such a way that we can notice real-world differences and this should be the benchmark of such real-world change."(p. 17) The list below presents highlights from Hattie’s meta-analyses on homework.

• The correlation between time spent on homework and achievement is near zero for elementary students.

• Greater effects for older students vs. younger students.

• Effects of homework are twice as large for high school students as for middle school students. Effects are twice as large for middle school students as for elementary school students.

• Greater effects for high ability students vs. low ability students.

• Higher effects when material was not complex or if it was novel.

• Homework involving higher level conceptual thinking and project based was the least effective.

• Effects are highest when homework involves rote learning, practice, or rehearsal of subject matter.

• Research favored short, frequent homework that was closely monitored by teachers.

• Homework does not help students develop time management skills.

• Direct parental instructional involvement in homework showed a negative relationship with achievement, while parental support for independent homework showed a positive relationship.

• Hattie meta-analyses describes a "Zone of Desired Effects" which ranges from

d= 0.40 to 1.2. The effect for homework is d= 0.29

• Negative impacts of homework:

 Can undermine motivation

 Can cause students to internalize incorrect routines and strategies

 Can reinforce less effective study habits

Hattie, J.A.C. (2009).  Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. New York:

We are Getting There

I was hoping the school district would have posted the video of the Thursday evening Working Session by now, so that I could provide exact quotes.  Since this is good news though, I don’t want to wait any longer, and will rely on my notes to present the sense of the discussion.

The Board of Education has instructed the administration to scope out the work required to conduct a mathematics curriculum review!

Chairman Leslie Moriarty introduced the topic (as a result of an added item on the agenda) by saying she was interested in obtaining a Board consensus on how to move forward with the transition to Common Core Standards for math.

Peter von Braun immediately answered that we should be doing a “full bore” review.

Barbara O’Neill indicated that it would be “short sighted” to focus on Common Core, and that we should be doing a full review.

Jennifer Dayton said that given the date of the last review, a full review was needed. 

Chairman Moriarty pointed out that there were competing priorities, and that the budget process needed to be considered.

Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Learning Stacey Gross said that the current plan was to work this summer to start the transition by developing augmented materials and enabling professional learning, with a focus on the elementary level.  She continued that the next Math Monitoring Report was due in November.  She indicated that the curriculum review schedule was “very flexible” and that currently the Science implementation was on track for 2012-13 (first year), the Social Studies review was being expanded, and the English/Language Arts review (scheduled to start next fall I believe) could push out.

Dr. Lulow indicated that his interest in this topic (i.e., he asked for the agenda item) was a result of wanting to know where the new Math Coordinator (to be hired) should focus.  He asked if we should expedite the math curriculum review, and if so, he would take that into account in the coordinator selection.

Peter Sherr asked whether the introduction of the new testing for the Common Core Standards in 2014-15 school year meant that we should be implementing changes in the math curriculum in the 2013-14 school year.  He went on to refer to a Wall Street Journal article questioning whether the Common Core Standards were really an improvement.  In any case, he indicated that he supported a “deeper, sooner, more complete” review.

Jennifer Dayton said that we could move forward with a curriculum review, irrespective of the timing of the implementation, and that she was supportive of a start to the review sooner, picking up on Peter Sherr’s phrase.

Adriana Ospina, referring back to the presentation made by the current Math Coordinator at the 4 April 2012 Work Session, indicated that she supported option #3, which would entail a full curriculum review.  She specifically mentioned Everyday Math (and not in a complementary way).

Seeing that at least five of the Board members were in favor of accelerating the review, Chairman Moriarty summarized by saying this would not be a small change, and then asked the administration to give an indication of the scope of work for a curriculum review. 

Barbara O’Neill mentioned that the first step would be the Math Monitoring Report, scheduled for November (see my comments below).  Peter Sherr asked if we could get outside help for the review, to which Dr. Lulow responded that it was not unprecedented.

I may have missed some of the nuances being expressed (and apologies for misquotes), but the general feeling appeared to me that the review should be a full review and that it should start sooner rather than later.  The tone I sensed was concern that the proposals (options #1 or #2 from the previous Work Session) for transitioning to the Common Core using Everyday Math as a foundation was not going to produce the improvements in performance desired. 

Barbara O’Neill’s comment that the first step would be the Math Monitoring Report (“MMR”) is correct, given the policy for such reviews (the  policy is currently under revision).  But let’s look at the timing that this would impose.  If the MMR is published and accepted in November 2012, starting the review, the 12-18 months stipulated as a maximum time frame would put the first possible implementation in September 2014, at the beginning of the school year leading up to the first testing under the Common Core Standards. A twelve month review would allow 9-10 months for preparation and professional learning, but the start would still be September 2014.  This path would also require spending resources (time and money) on planning and executing a transition program, as it would be unwise to put all the marbles into a big bang implementation.

If the Board decides that this is not a feasible path, the immediate start of a review (as soon as the new Math Coordinator is named or hired) would allow a 12 month (preferably shorter) review, with the remaining months (June-August 2013) for professional learning prior to a September 2013 implementation.  This implementation could be limited to grades 2-5, giving all grades almost two years of the new curriculum prior to the first test in May 2015.

Needless to say, I am a huge supporter of an expedited review.  While it would be too late to provide a better curriculum for our daughter, the benefit to younger students needs to considered.  Even one year less of Everyday Math would be a tremendous improvement!

Are We Talking About the Same Thing?

“Students Make Gains In Testing On Science” - The New York Times, 11 May 2012

 “American eighth graders have made modest gains in national science testing, with Hispanic and black students narrowing the gap between them and their white and Asian peers…”

“Low Scores on Science Test Revive Concerns” - The Wall Street Journal, 11 May 2012

“U.S. eighth graders made modest gains on the latest national science exam, but more than two-thirds still lacked a solid grasp of science facts, according to figures released Thursday that renewed concerns American schools are inadequately preparing children for college and the workforce.

The two newspapers looked at the results on the Science portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (“NAEP”) from different perspectives. 

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2011/2012465.pdf

The NY Times emphasized the increase from an average of 150 out of 300 (in 2009) to 152 out of 300 (in 2011).  The WSJ focused on the fact that 30% of students earning a Proficient rating in 2009 versus 32% earning that level in 2011. 

Both the headlines and the summary paragraphs are correct, but what really matters?  And what does that have to do with math curriculum in Greenwich Public Schools?

Like it or not, life is not lived in a vacuum, without competition.  We compete not just with our neighbors, but with the whole world now.  And if only one third of our students are Proficient in science, do we really think we are going to be competitive with other states, or with other countries?  Connecticut’s results put us right in the middle of the pack of states.

And think about this: only 2% of the students taking the test (nation-wide and in Connecticut) in 2011 scored at the Advanced level.  This is the most likely pool for the engineers and scientists of the future.  The pool seems rather shallow to me.  Neither the WSJ nor the NYT mentioned this result.

A word on performance levels: A Proficient level result on the NAEP “represents solid academic performance. Students reaching this level have demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter.”  Compare this with Proficient on the CMT’s for math or language arts, which means you are below Proficient (i.e., Basic or even Below Basic) when the results are compared to the NAEP, according to studies.  For long time readers, that is why I have not focused on CMT Proficient percentages, although that is what our state focuses on.

So same results, different interpretations, but same problem: poor results compared to our competitors.  Seems like I have heard this before regarding Greenwich’s CMT math results versus other school districts here in Connecticut.