Computer Science for All?

Sent to the New York Times, Jan. 31

President Obama has called for "a Deeper Commitment to Computer Education," (January 30), proposing that $4 billion be invested in computer science education. In the past, these proclamations were based on the assumption that there is a serious shortage of technology-trained workers in the US. This claim has been shown to be false. In fact, there is a surplus.

Now the message is that computer knowledge is needed in many professions. (The president mentioned auto mechanics and nursing.) But this is computer use, and does not require knowing how to program and design software.  It requires knowing how to use specific programs. It is not "computer science," just as driving a car does not require deep knowledge of auto mechanics.  Nevertheless, the president emphasized programming and learning to code, "computer science for all."

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.

I was not surprised to read that the president of Microsoft thought the president's proposal was a good idea.

Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California

Original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/us/politics/obamas-budget-urges-a-deeper-commitment-to-computer-education.html?_r=0
Sources: Salzman, H. & Lowell, B. L. 2007. Into the Eye of the Storm: Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1034801 Salzman, H. and Lowell, L. 2008. Making the grade. Nature 453 (1): 28-30.Salzman, H. 2012. No Shortage of Qualified American STEM Grads (5/25/12) http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-foreign-stem-graduates-get-green-cards/no-shortage-of-qualified-american-stem-grads. Teitelbaum, M. 2014: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-teitelbaum-stem-fears-20140420,0,120851.story#axzz2zYCn7SCA; Weismann, J. 2013. More Ph.D's than the market can absorb:The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists—in 7 Charts. The Atlantic, Feb 20, 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-phd-bust-americas-awful-market-for-young-scientists-in-7-charts/273339/

Billionaires coaltion pleased with Oxfam report, look for more progress in amassing wealth

 Reacting  to the news from Oxfam that the richest 62 billionaires are worth as much as half the world's population, a coalition of the top five billionaires announced today that they were pleased with their progress in cornering so much wealth but "much more needs to be done."

Noting that as recently as 2010, it took 388 billionaires to match the worth of half the world's population, a spokesperson coalition proclaimed that its goal now was to reduce this number from the current 62 to five: "We will renew our efforts to build our fortunes, " the spokesperson explained. "Our experts are constantly searching for new tax havens, and we will continue our efforts to keep wages down and eliminate costly benefits for workers."

"We are particularly pleased with our efforts to divert public funds to our corporations, especially in the area of education.  We are pleased with our plan and the results: A strong public relations campaign to convince the public that teachers are incompetent, and are, in fact, responsible for most economic problems throughout the world, and a parallel campaign informing the public of the wonders of computers.

We have easily convinced the public that computers are the answer to most of their problems, and will magically improve education. We have also convinced nearly everybody that there is a serious shortage of technically-trained computer-savvy workers in all fields, which of course encourages more computer use in schools.  It is then a simple thing to begin to replace teachers with computers: We have had great success doing this with flipped classrooms, and the new trend we began toward competency-based instruction is the next step."

At the same time, we have managed to encourage elimination of due process for teachers, seniority-based payraises, and, of course, with flipped classrooms and competency-based education, we have significantly reduced the need for teachers. This means, of course, that the billions in tax dollars now spent on teacher salaries and benefits will go to our companies, which we think is a much better investment.

Question from a reporter: "Several scholars have said that none of this has any basis in the research: In fact, research comes to opposite conclusions on all these issues: There have been regular reports showing that there is no shortage of technical workers, that teachers are in general quite competent, and that computer-based instruction has not been shown to be effective.  Are you aware of this?"

Coalition spokesperson: "These discouraging conclusions do not disturb us because the public has little chance of finding out about them. By the time they do, we will have achieved our goal of bringing our number down to five:The worth of only five of us will equal the net worth of half the world's population."

(At this Bill Gates whispered to an associate, "only one".)

Oxfam report: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-billionaires-wealthy-half-world-population-combined

Inspired by Andy Borowitz: http://www.newsweek.com/borowitz-report-wealthiest-0001-percent-praise-bush-economic-package-135293

Fixing LAUSD requires addressing child poverty first

Published in the Los Angeles Times, Sunday, January 17, 2016

Fixing LAUSD requires addressing child poverty first

To the editor: Judging by this editorial, it is apparent that neither The Times nor new Supt. Michelle King knows what the Los Angeles Unified School District needs now. ("What new L.A. schools chief Michelle King needs to do now," editorial, Jan. 15)

The biggest problem is poverty, a problem shared by many big-city school districts. About 80% of LAUSD students live in poverty, far above the national average of 25%, already unacceptable and well above that of other industrialized countries.

High poverty means food deprivation, lack of healthcare and little access to books. All of these have devastating effects on school performance. The best teaching in the world will not help if students are hungry or ill and have little to read.

What the LAUSD needs to do now is protect children from the impact of poverty. This means improve school food programs, school nurses and libraries. To paraphrase education expert Susan Ohanian, our goals should be no child left unfed, no child without healthcare, and no child without access to books.

Stephen Krashen, Los Angeles

The writer is a professor emeritus of education at USC.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-le-0117-sunday-poverty-lausd-20160117-story.html

Critic says opt-out needs to come up with alternatives. I respond.

Comments on: Opt-Out Activists Aim to Build on Momentum in States http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/14/opt-out-activists-aim-to-build-on-momentum.html#comments 

mcruz: Unfortunately, the opt out movement has failed to move from its "anti" stance. Instead of just being anti high-stakes testing, its members should partner with unions, sympathetic school boards, and politicians like Governor Kate Brown, and develop specific goals. Rejecting high stakes testing is fine, but what is the alternative? They need to define their goals in a positive, productive way, or risk becoming irrelevant.

     My response, also posted: When the building is on fire, you focus on putting out the fire. Also, there have been several good proposals for doing assessment without smothering students with massive amounts of standardized tests. One of them: Make better use of the means for assessment we have now, eg the NAEP test and more reliance on teachers' evaluation of students; there is good evidence, for example, that high school grades are a better predictor of college success than the SAT. Finally, I am sure that the opt-our movement is more than ready to cooperate with unions, politicians, school boards.   

The testing industrial complex is not giving up easily

Posted as a comment  on "Opt-out activities aim to build on momentum in states,"  Education Week.  http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/14/opt-out-activists-aim-to-build-on-momentum.html

The opt-out movement seems to have worked: the new education law did not increase the amount of required testing (except for adding some science tests), and the president supports limits on the amount of testing done.

But the testing industrial complex is not giving up easily, working eagerly to establish what could mean testing every day. It is called competency-based education.

Competency-based education (CBE) is a radical and expensive innovation that 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 being pushed by computer companies without consulting educators and without a proper research base.  

The new education law specifically encourages competence-based education and testing (sections 1201 and 1204).

Want to read more about it?  Start here:

Steven M. Singer, Standardized Tests Every Day: the Competency Based Education Scam. http://tinyurl.com/j8s2tuh

Emily Talmage,  Warning: Gates is Infiltrating Opt Out. http://emilytalmage.com/2016/01/05/warning-gates-is-infiltrating-opt-out/

Morna McDermott, Reading between the lines. http://educationalchemy.com/2015/10/25/reading-between-the-lines-obamas-testing-action-plan/)

Peggy Robertson, Opt-out revolution, the next wave.   http://www.pegwithpen.com/2015/10/opt-out-revolution-next-wave.html

Education via online modules?

Sent to the Tampa Bay Times, Jan. 13, 2016
Enthusiasm for competency-based education ("No waiting: Bill would let Florida students progress faster through grades,") is premature," January 12).

Competency-based education (CBE) is a radical and expensive innovation that replaces regular instruction with online "modules" that students work through on their own. It is being pushed by computer companies without consulting educators and without a proper research base. A recent report from the National Governor's Association, a report enthusiastic about CBE, includes this statement: "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."


In other words, we have no hard evidence showing that competency-based education "lets students progress faster" or that it even lets students make satisfactory progress.
Stephen Krashen
Original article: http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/brandes-competency-based-education-bill-like-clep-for-kids/2260877




A no-nonsense reponse to "no-nonsense" teaching

From NPR:  “And now we want to take a look at another issue that's making waves in the world of education. Teachers around the country are being told that they need to be tougher on students in the classroom - more scripted directions, less praise. It's a method called No-Nonsense Nurturing, and it is designed to help teachers with classroom management.”
Excerpt:
Any classroom can get out of control from time to time. But one unique teaching method empowers teachers to stop behavior problems before they begin.
You can see No-Nonsense Nurturing, as it's called, firsthand at Druid Hills Academy in Charlotte, N.C.
"Your pencil is in your hand. Your voice is on zero. If you got the problem correct, you're following along and checking off the answer. If you got the problem incorrect, you are erasing it and correcting it on your paper."
Math teacher Jonnecia Alford has it down pat. She then describes to her sixth-graders what their peers are doing.
"Vonetia's looking at me. Denario put her pencil down — good indicator. Monica put hers down and she's looking at me."
In "no-nonsense nurturing," directions are often scripted in advance, and praise is kept to a minimum.
…
Teachers like Kelly McManus, at Druid Hills, go through several weeks of training before implementing no-nonsense nurturing in their own classrooms.
"I would say, 'Students, please, raise your hand on a level zero, if you ...' "
Her coach and colleague Vanetia Howard interrupts, "Stop. 'Please.' You want them to do it; there's no opt-out. Drop the 'please.' "

MY RESPONSE, posted at: http://wfae.org/post/no-nonsense-classroom-where-teachers-dont-say-please
A no-nonsense response to "A 'no-nonsense' classroom in which teachers don't say 'please'." (http://wfae.org/post/no-nonsense-classroom-where-teachers-dont-say-please)

The Center for Transformative Teacher Training and other advocates of no-nonsense teaching will submit a report detailing the short-term and long-term consequences of the "no-nonsense" teaching style, including (1) quantitative studies, both cross-sectional and longitudinal, with appropriate statistical analyses for dealing with potentially confounding variables. 2) qualitative studies, including detailed case histories of students, teachers and parents. Dependent variables must include emotional, psychological and cognitive development. 

This must be submitted and evaluated before your approach is used in the schools. We cannot tolerate unsupported and untested approaches with such a high potential for harm to be used on our children. 

I am not saying "please."

Better late than never: Recess gets some support, 14 years after Ohanian's "What happened to recess?"

Comment posted in response to "Texas School Triples Recess Time And Sees Immediate Positive Results In Kids," at: Posted at: http://www.scarymommy.com/texas-school-triples-recess-time-and-sees-immediate-positive-results-in-kids/

 As Susan Ohanian has chronicled in What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? (published in 2002), recess has been a causality of the standards movements and the preoccupation with test preparation. Now, 14 years later, we are finally beginning to understand that children have more school success when they are allowed generous breaks.

Great thinkers uniformly recognize the value of some kind of "recess": According to biographer Ronald Clark, whenever Einstein "felt that he had come to the end of the road or into a difficult situation in his work … he would take refuge in music, and that would resolve all his difficulties … with relaxation, there would

often come the solution."

I wonder if those opposed to recess could get through the day without their coffee breaks.

Clark, R. 1971. Einstein: The Life and Times. New York: The World Publishing Company. 

Ohanian, S. 2002  What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? New York: McGraw Hill.

Should the Common Core be the law of the land?

Sent to the New York Times, January 7, 2016.

Thomas Friedman ("Up with extremism," January 6) thinks that the Common Core standards should be the law of the land, a view he admits is "extremist."  While advocates are quick to interpret any increase in test scores as support for the Common Core, there is no legitimate scientific evidence that the standards have helped students "meet ... higher level skill levels" nor has any plan been announced to see if the standards help students learn more.

Friedman's view is not only extremist, it is uninformed.

Stephen Krashen

We don't need to test every student every year.

Sent to the New York Times, Dec. 31, 2015

Nobody wants to "get rid of the testing requirement" ("The Counterfeit High School Diploma," December 31). We all agree that assessment is necessary.  The problem is that testing in schools today is excessive and often inappropriate. 

We don't need to test every student every year. Test a sample, and use valid statistical methods to generalize to districts, states, and to the entire country, as is done with the NAEP (National Assessment for Educational Progress).
The NAEP is administered to small groups of students who each take a portion of the test every few years. Results are extrapolated to estimate how larger groups would score.
Let's use the NAEP to determine whether "what if anything children (are) learning from year to year." NAEP scores correlate quite well with other tests, and using NAEP will save a lot of money, as well as make more time available for teaching and learning.

Stephen Krashen

original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/opinion/the-counterfeit-high-school-diploma.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

NAEP scores correlate well: NAEP, 2013. Mapping State Proficiency Standards onto NAEP Scales.

A modest proposal

Sent to the New York Times, Dec. 31, 2015

Nobody wants to "get rid of the testing requirement" ("The Counterfeit High School Diploma," December 31). We all agree that assessment is necessary.  The problem is that testing in schools today is excessive and often inappropriate. 

We don't need to test every student every year. Test a sample, and use valid statistical methods to generalize to districts, states, and to the entire country, as is done with the NAEP (National Assessment for Educational Progress).
The NAEP is administered to small groups of students who each take a portion of the test every few years. Results are extrapolated to estimate how larger groups would score.
Let's use the NAEP to determine whether "what if anything children (are) learning from year to year." NAEP scores correlate quite well with other tests, and using NAEP will save a lot of money, as well as make more time available for teaching and learning.

Stephen Krashen

original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/opinion/the-counterfeit-high-school-diploma.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

NAEP scores correlate well: NAEP, 2013. Mapping State Proficiency Standards onto NAEP Scales.