Wm Spady on NCLB

Well worth reading -

The Paradigm Trap: Getting beyond No Child Left Behind will mean changing our 19th-century, closed-system mind-set.
By William Spady

If you don’t like the federal No Child Left Behind Act, don’t blame President Bush, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Rep. George Miller, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, or her predecessor, Rod Paige. Well, not entirely anyway. And if you’re a supporter of the legislation, which the president signed into law five years ago this week, this is an opportunity to rethink your assumptions about its nature, purpose, and potential impact. As the nation’s premier education law heads toward its scheduled reauthorization this year, here are some thoughts on its history and impact to consider.

Continued at: http://www.edweek.org//ew/articles/2007/01/10/18spady.h26.html

Spady writes about the "Great Regression" that has lead us to NCLB, comprised of four phases:

1. Endorsing A Nation at Risk
2. Encouraging the Standards Bandwagon
3. Endorsing the Testing-and-Accouintability Juggernaut
4. Ignoring the Evidence on the Ground

 And you have to love his conclusion:

From intellectual embarrassment, to operational travesty, to national tragedy in 20 short years—quite remarkable for something we’ve seen as a reform movement. But the ability of the No Child Left Behind law’s chief advocates to ignore all this is even more remarkable. They wrap themselves in the patriotic mantle of educentric excellence and standards; pursue their goal of imposing a narrow, standardized, assembly-line, one-size-fits-all system of testing and accountability on every child, educator, and school in the country; and relentlessly move America and its education system toward the greatest box of all: the total-control box.
And if they succeed, we really will be a nation at risk.

Transparent budgets

It's budget time for 2007-08 in my district and I am making the rounds. This week and next I will be taking my eight page draft budget proposal to the elementary principals' meeting, the secondary principals' meeting, the district media/technology advisory committee, the media specialists' meeting and the district curriculum council - almost every meeting at which stale coffee and  rolls are served and I can get people to listen.

 Actually it is not difficult to get people's attention when money is involved, and as sums go, a fairly hefty amount at that. Add the mystery of technology to intrigue that always surrounds budgeting and  most groups become rapt and often confused.

You also have the players whose motto is: "Never pay for something out of your budget you can get somebody else to pay for." I'm not bad at that game myself. My (unexpressed) belief is that it morally reprehensible to let others spend money I could bettter spend myself.

Though with the support and encouragement of our ex-business manager superintendent, I've always worked for transparency when it comes to technology funding in the district. No secret funds. No special deals. No off-shore bank accounts. I take pride in knowing how every dollar is spent every year in my department, on what and why. If anyone wants to go through all the purchase orders, I have copies and, given half a day or so, I would be happy to explain what each and every expenditure was about. This is a habit I picked up as a school library media specialist. I quickly realized that I was one of the very, very few people in my building who actually had discretionary funds (and discretionary time) and therefore need to be uber-accountable if I was not to be viewed with suspicion.

The transparent budget requires that one listen to others as well. At one meeting this week I heard that there may be a greater need for tech training for new staff than I had been aware of, so a budget adjustment will be in order, mostly likely shifting some money from hardware to staff development.  It's why the proposal clearly says "draft" and shows a committment to shared goal setting, shared planning, and shared decision-making. I don't really expect huge changes in this proposal, but the ones that will be made will make it better. I'm convinced.

Transparent budgts also go a long way in helping people be more understanding when certain tech needs can't be met. "But remember, we shifted money from line x to line y last spring." Oh, yeah, I forgot. 

Too often we in technology use the wizard mentality to get or keep power - knowing those mysterious things no one else does in otder to keep others dependent on us. Problem is that it is sort of lonely in the wizard's cave. Demystifying technology - including technology budgets - is the smarter move - for both the school and the tech director.

Reading statistics (with sources)

Here are some interesting numbers from Harvey Mackay's business column, "Outswimming the Sharks" from last Thursday's Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Source of the statistics was not given, but I've e-mailed a request for it to Mr. Mckay and will add it if/when he replies. [A research assistant to Mr. Mackay returned my email with a couple hours. I'm adding this information at the end of this entry.]

• 51% of Americans never read a book over 400 pages after completing formal education.
• 73% of all books in libraries are never checked out.
•  The average American watches 32 hours of TV every week.
• The average American reads only eight hours (books, newspapers, magazine, Yellow Pages, etc.) each week.
• The average American annually spends 10 times more on what he puts on his head than what [he] puts into his head.

Mckay's observations: (Exclamation points his.)

• If you read one book per month for 12 straight months, you will be in the top 25 percentile of the world's intellectuals!
• If you read five books on one subject, you are one of the world's leading authorities on that subject!
• If you read 15 minutes a day, every day, for one year, you can complete 20 books!
  

I wonder if Mr.Mackay is familiar with DailyLit, books by e-mail? Here is a quote from the site's FAQ:

How long does it take to read a book?
That depends on three factors. First, on how many parts are in the book (shown when you browse for books). Second, on how frequently you choose to receive emails. Third, on how often you read more than one part (by using the "send me the next part immediately" feature). So here is a typical example. I am currently reading Dracula, which has 187 parts and I am receiving parts on weekdays, i.e. 5 days/week. So at most it will take me 187/5 = 37 weeks. But when I am on the train or waiting, I often read more than one part, so I usually wind up reading about 10 parts/week. This means I will finish Dracula in about 19 weeks or 5 months. If that seems long to you, try something shorter!

When did reading become the equivalent of getting enough exercise or eating one's veggies - something that is good to do, but so unappealing that one needs a plan, a new year's resolution, or a trick to actually do it?

My greatest fear in making every child functionally literate is that we will make him/her aliterate as well - having the ability to read but choosing not to. It's why I so appreciate the work the LWW does as an elementary librarian - building not just reading skills, but positive attitudes as well.

On 1/8/07 1:21 PM, "Greg Bailey" <gbailey@mackay.com> wrote:
Harvey received this material from a friend who is a librarian.  Here is the research that I found in Harvey’s column work papers.

The National Endowment for the Arts conducted a survey in 2002 that found that 56.6% of Americans had read a book in 2002, though there was no information as to how large the book was.  This study does show declines in reading, across the board at all age levels.  I would recommend reading the executive summary as their might be some statistics you can use. (http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf)  

A 2004 study showed that literary reading is in dramatic decline, with fewer than half of American adults now reading literature.  The most important factor in literacy reading rates is education, the report shows. Only 14 percent of adults with a grade school education read literature in 2002. By contrast, more than five times as many respondents with a graduate school education - 74 percent - read literary works.
<http://www.nea.gov/news/news04/ReadingAtRisk.html>  

We did find a study from the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois. This study has compiled public library circulation figures for over 50 years. These figures give an index to the total number of items loaned by public libraries in the USA. For example, in 1982, 1.07 billion items were borrowed. Since then the figure has increased steadily every year. In 1992, borrowed items grew to 1.5 billion, and in 2000,1.7 billion items circulated. This marks a 60 percent increase over 18 years.

Only 3% of all people in the United States have a library card.
According to a survey conducted by the American Library Association and KRC Research and Consulting (March 2002) 62% respondents owned a library card. 66% of all respondents reported using the public library at least once in the last year in person, by phone, or by computer.
 (http://www.ala.org/ala/alalibrary/libraryfactsheet/alalibraryfactsheet6.htm)

According to State Library Data 2002-02, U.S. Public Libraries have 148,000,000 card holders. (http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/community/librariesstackup.pdf)

Only 4% of all Americans purchased a book last year.
According to the Simmons Choices 3 Survey of Media and Markets database, 60.1% of the population has purchased a book in the last 12 months (2003 data).

The average American watches 24 hours of TV every week.
The average person watches 1659 hours of TV (broadcast & cable) per year. (2005 data, Veronis Suhler Stevenson Communications Industry Forecast, 2006.) Divided by 52, equals 31.90 hours per week.   

The average American only reads 17 minutes per week.
The average person spends 428 hours per year using print media (books, magazines, newspapers, yellow pages) (2005 data, Veronis Suhler Stevenson Communications Industry Forecast, 2006.)  Divided by 52 equals 8.23 hours per week.
The 2005 American Time Use Survey, done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, says that men spend .29 hours per day reading, while women spend .39 hours per day. This averages to .34 hours per day, or about 20 minutes a day, or about two hours 20 minutes per week. (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf)

OK. So now I am really confused. Does this mean if you look hard enough, you can find the data to come to any conclusion?