Competency-based education: No hard evidence

Sent to the Sunshine State News,  March 11.

Re:"Senate Green Lights Competency-Based Education Program"

Missing from the discussion of the Florida Senate bill supporting competency-based education (CBE) is the fact that there is no hard evidence supporting it.   The following statement about CBE is from a National Governor's Association report, a document that aggressively promotes CBE: "Although an emerging research base suggests that CBE is a promising model, it includes only a few rigorous evaluations and analyses of current and ongoing CBE pilots and similar programs" (p. 6).

Competency-based education is very expensive and time-consuming, and will change education drastically. Application without evidence that it will help our children is unacceptable.

Stephen Krashen

Original article: http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/senate-green-lights-competency-based-education-program

Why the push for nonfiction.

Reed Hastings has said that "software was best for teaching 'subjects with correct answers,' but 'it will take 5 to 10 years of hard work to figure out' how to use it to teach an interpretive subject like history or literature. 
Correct. And this, I assume, is why there has been such an emphasis on non-fiction and less encouragement of fiction in recent years, despite overwhelming evidence that fiction is highly beneficial in many ways (see eg http://skrashen.blogspot.com/2015/10/fiction-hottest-topic-of-all.html  for a short review).  More teaching using computers > more profits for technology companies.

Posted as a comment on:
http://www.alternet.org/comments/education/netflix-billionaire-reed-hastings-crusade-replace-public-school-teachers-computers#disqus_thread

It could get worse

Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, March 3

The opt-out movement has had a real impact, with more parents refusing the tests for their children (“As testing increases, so do calls for an end,” Sunday). Even President Obama has spoken out about the negative impact of over-testing.
  But the testing industry is striking back: The new plan is to replace end-of-year standardized tests with what could be daily testing. The core of education will consist of modules of programmed instruction that students will work through online and be tested on, which will drastically diminish the role of teachers and increase profits of technology companies. The new federal K-12 education law that ends No Child Left Behind announced grants for the development of these teach-and-test machines.
  The National Governor’s Association has admitted that there is little evidence supporting this major shift to what they call “competency-based education,” yet has enthusiastically supported it.

Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California

original article: http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20160228_As_protests_rise_over_high-stakes_tests__more_students_likely_to_opt_out.html

Sources:
National Governor's Association: "Although an emerging research base suggests that CBE is a promising model, it includes only a few rigorous evaluations and analyses of current and ongoing CBE pilots and similar programs" (p. 6).  From:  "Expanding Student Success: A Primer on Competency-Based Education from Kindergarten Through Higher Education.  www.nga.org. 

Additional sources:
McDermott, M. 2015a. Reading between The Lines: Obama’s “Testing Action Plan”  http://educationalchemy.com/2015/10/25/reading-between-the-lines-obamas-testing-action-plan/
McDermott, M. 2015b. Common core and corporate colonization: the big picture. http://educationalchemy.com/2015/10/30/common-core-and-corporate-colonization-the-big-picture/
Robertson, P. 2015a. U.S. Dept. of Ed. and Educational Warfare. http://www.pegwithpen.com/2015/10/us-dept-of-ed-and-educational-warfare.html
Robertson, P. 2015b. Opt out revolution: the next wave. http://www.pegwithpen.com/2015/10/opt-out-revolution-next-wave.html
Talmage, E. 2015a. Dear Mark. http://emilytalmage.com/2015/11/14/dear-mark/
Talmage, E. 2015b. What is proficiency-based learning? http://emilytalmage.com/2015/04/26/save-maine-schools/

A decline in reading?

Submitted to the Washington Post, Feb. 27
In my published review of the research, I concluded that there is no evidence that teenagers are reading less than teenagers of the past. ("If you want kids to read more, don't treat reading like a boring obligation," Feb. 25.) They do just as much book reading as teenagers did 65 years ago, and are more involved in reading and writing in general when computer use is included in the analysis.
There have been complaints about American teenagers' low levels of literacy and knowledge for over the last 100 years. Harvard complained about poor writing on entrance exams in 1874 and 1894. Thomas Biggs of Teachers College, in 1930, wrote that high school English classes resulted in written English that was often  "shocking in their evidence of inadequate achievement." Ravitch and Finn, in 1987, asked What Do Our 17-Year Olds Know, and concluded that they didn't know much about history or literature.
If we believe these reports, our high school students were terrible in 1874 and have been getting worse ever since. Another interpretation is that there has been no decline; we have always been expecting too much, and are, for some reason, over-eager to scold teen-agers and their schools.
Stephen Krashen

Krashen, S. 2011. Why We Should Stop Scolding Teenagers and Their Schools: Frequency of Leisure Reading.  Language Magazine 11 (4): 18-21, 2011.  (posted at http://sdkrashen.com/articles.php?cat=2 - scroll down)
original article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/02/25/if-you-want-teens-to-read-more-dont-treat-reading-like-a-boring-obligation/

More micromanagement than ever

Sent to The Hill, Feb. 26.
In " Lawmakers push officials on No Child Left Behind rewrite," Feb. 25) Congressman John Kline praises the new education law, saying that “If we learned anything throughout the process to replace No Child Left Behind, it’s that the American people are tired of Washington micromanaging their classrooms."
It looks like there will be more micromanagement than ever before. The new law, in sections 1201 and 1204, provides grants for the development of "innovative assessments" based on competency-based education.
Competency-based education (CBE) replaces regular instruction with online "modules" that students work through on their own. Students take tests in order to move to the next module. It is supported by the National Governor's Association, Pearson and now federal law without consulting educators and, admittedly, without a proper research base. 
It appears that the huge testing burden of the common core will be replaced with a perpetual cycle of working through packaged programs. It is possible that we will now have testing every day.

Stephen Krashen

original article: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/270795-lawmakers-push-officials-to-implement-education-reform-law

Computer coding fever in Florida

Sent to the Miami Herald, Feb 26.

Sen. Ring thinks that knowledge of computer coding is needed for "everything we are going to do." ("Florida Senate endorses making computer coding a foreign language," Feb. 24).
This is not true. What is needed is knowing how to use a computer. Very few professions require knowing how to program and design software.  Driving a car does not require a deep knowledge of auto mechanics. 
My daughter has pointed out to me that to learn how to use many programs, all you need is a good friend to show you how.

Stephen Krashen

original article: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article62291447.html#storylink=cpy

Is first language use in the foreign language classroom good or bad? It depends.

 International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 2(1): 9. 2006

Stephen Krashen

Contrary to semi-popular opinion, the Comprehension Hypothesis does not forbid the use of the first language in the second language classroom. It does, however, provide guidelines. It predicts that the use of the first language will help second language development if it results in more comprehensible input, and will hurt second language development when it results in less comprehensible input.

Providing Background Knowledge

The first language helps when it provides background knowledge that functions to make second language input more comprehensible. This can happen in several ways:

It happens when the first language is used to provide background knowledge through discussion or reading. When teachers know that a topic
needs to be discussed in class that is unusually complex or unfamiliar, a short presentation or set of readings in the first
language can be of great help. A few minutes or
a page or two on relevant aspects of the history of Mexico, for example, can transform a discussion of Cortez from one that is opaque to one that is transparent. This kind of background is, of course, most useful when teachers know that all or nearly all students will require it.

Bilingual education relies on the same principle: In bilingual programs, students are given background knowledge in the first language in order to make subsequent instruction delivered in the second language more comprehensible (Krashen, 1996).

The first language can also help when it is used during a lesson as a quick explanation. Comprehension difficulties can arise in unpredictable places
and students differ in their need for background knowledge. The first language can be used as needed for quick explanations in the middle of discussions when some students are having trouble, and when it is not easy to paraphrase and use other means of providing context.

There is also nothing wrong with providing a quick translation for a problematic word that is central to a discussion. Providing the translation may or may not contribute very much to the acquisition of the meaning of the translated word, but it can help make the entire discussion more comprehensible.

The first language is misused when teachers provide so much information that there is no reason to continue the discussion in the second language.

It is also misused when teachers provide so many brief explanations and translations that it is difficult to keep track of the message. If this intervention is considered to be necessary, the topic may not be right. It has been hypothesized that the acquirer needs to be so interested in the message (or “lost in the book”) that he or she temporarily “forgets” that the message is in another language. When translations are excessive, the spell is broken.

Krashen, S. 1996. An overview of bilingual education. Bilingual Basics. Winter/Spring: 1-5.