In addition to the attitudes and habits of mind you mention, I think there is a set of basic skills with words and numbers that first-year college students need to successfully complete introductory courses. Socializing people into ways of thinking and teaching them methods of inquiry related to specific academic fields and professions is the best short definition I can come up with for the purpose of a college education. Basic skills are required to start that work.
As you say, our system ended up greatly distracted by narrow measures of those skills, easily gamed and warped by Campbell's law and the McNamara fallacy, but evaluating schools based on how effectively they increase the language and mathematics skills of their students in the aggregate is perhaps a better framework than the industrial testing complex we have created. Leaving it to the teachers in each school to determine their methods, promoting a pluralist approach to teaching instead of assuming there is one, best system would ice that reform cake if we can just figure out how to bake it.
Powerful piece, John. CCSS is a huge political compromise that has harmed k12 almost as much as NCLB and Race to the Top. I was so disappointed when Obama came up with this race idea. Iβm curious what your take is on the AACUs VALUE rubrics. Your emphasis on self-regulation and motivation/passion seems to me to be a through line in these rubrics. I realize some of them need to be rethought, and the whole set may be too heavy to stand for long. I do think some of them could form a theoretical framework to address k-16. Schools are in a bad place now, driven there by 25 years of superficial, political thinking. What is the way out of this mess? Take a look if you feel the desire. If so, Iβd love to hear your thoughts
Agree with everything you say. The one thing I believe is missing from your list - teachers! If we don't address the teacher shortage, and nobody with the where-with-all appears remotely interested, changes to the curriculum and approach is just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
In addition to the attitudes and habits of mind you mention, I think there is a set of basic skills with words and numbers that first-year college students need to successfully complete introductory courses. Socializing people into ways of thinking and teaching them methods of inquiry related to specific academic fields and professions is the best short definition I can come up with for the purpose of a college education. Basic skills are required to start that work.
As you say, our system ended up greatly distracted by narrow measures of those skills, easily gamed and warped by Campbell's law and the McNamara fallacy, but evaluating schools based on how effectively they increase the language and mathematics skills of their students in the aggregate is perhaps a better framework than the industrial testing complex we have created. Leaving it to the teachers in each school to determine their methods, promoting a pluralist approach to teaching instead of assuming there is one, best system would ice that reform cake if we can just figure out how to bake it.
Powerful piece, John. CCSS is a huge political compromise that has harmed k12 almost as much as NCLB and Race to the Top. I was so disappointed when Obama came up with this race idea. Iβm curious what your take is on the AACUs VALUE rubrics. Your emphasis on self-regulation and motivation/passion seems to me to be a through line in these rubrics. I realize some of them need to be rethought, and the whole set may be too heavy to stand for long. I do think some of them could form a theoretical framework to address k-16. Schools are in a bad place now, driven there by 25 years of superficial, political thinking. What is the way out of this mess? Take a look if you feel the desire. If so, Iβd love to hear your thoughts
Agree with everything you say. The one thing I believe is missing from your list - teachers! If we don't address the teacher shortage, and nobody with the where-with-all appears remotely interested, changes to the curriculum and approach is just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.