Friday, August 11, 2017

The Squishiness of Writing Instruction

For whatever reason, Judith Hochman's name has been bouncing around the interwebs lately. Most likely it was kicked off by her appearance in a recent Kids These Days article by Dana Goldstein at the New York Times. In it, Hochman lets loose with the sort of pronouncement that guarantees I will disagree with her (which Goldstein underlines by placing it all by itself in a single-sentence paragraph):

“It all starts with a sentence,” Dr. Hochman said.



Hochman has a long education pedigree. She taught in New York starting in 1957 (the year I was born) through 1974. In 1978 she turned up at the Windward School (in New York, not the tony LA private school) where she took on teacher training and leading the whole school.  She still runs their teacher training institute, but since 2014 she has also headed up an organization called the Writing Revolution, where they push The Hochman Method of writing instruction. The claims she makes for her method are not small:

Across the country, students are being held to higher, more rigorous standards. These standards provide a set of goals, but rarely provide a map showing teachers how to reach those goals. The Hochman Method is that map.

The Method boils down to six main principles:

*   Students need explicit instruction in writing, beginning in the early elementary grades.

  • Sentences are the building blocks of all writing.

  • When embedded in the content of the curriculum, writing instruction is a powerful teaching tool.

  • The content of the curriculum drives the rigor of the writing activities.

  • Grammar is best taught in the context of student writing.

  • The two most important phases of the writing process are planning and revising.


  • If you are of a Certain Age, some of this may seem familiar, what you might call How Most of MY Teachers Taught Me (this was pretty much Jack Ferrang at my high school). And that's fine-- I have a certain respect for teachers who pick up techniques that have been lying around loose, put a little spin on them, and use them to launch a consulting career. Hochman's is certainly not the worst that's out there (that would be Collins Writing

    And I get why so many schools and teachers like the idea of a system that provides a detailed map, a solid set of instructions for the teaching of writing. It's an understandable impulse. It's just not a very good way to teach writing.

    The problem with writing is that it's squishy, probably squishier than anything else we teach.

    There is no solid metric for measuring how "good" a writer. Can you quantify how Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Chaucer, Kate Chopin, Carl Sagan, P.J.O'Rourke, Mark Twain, James Thurber, and S. E. Hinton stack up each other by measuring how "good" they are? Of course not-- even the attempt would be absurd. Ditto for trying to give students a cold hard solid empirical writing rating.

    Not only can we not objectively measure good writing, but we cannot describe a single path for producing it. Each writer has their own path (which, yes, means that somewhere out there are probably writers who work well with the Hochman method). Trying to teach the One Correct Method for writing is like teaching One Correct Method for kissing. Teaching a student that they must eschew the method that works for them in order to employ the "correct" method is pedagogical malpractice.

    To make matters worse, many teachers of writing do not write. If you want to be an effective band director, you need to play an instrument. If you want to teach a foreign language, you must speak that foreign language. And if you want to teach writing, you must write. I'm sorry, but there it is-- getting writing instruction from someone who doesn't write is like getting lesson in making love from a eunuch. And if I've hurt  your feelings, I'm sorry-- but this is the easiest problem in the world to fix.

    All of this is so squishy and messy, and we live in world where we have to turn in cold hard grades.

    In desperation, many teachers turn to something-- anything-- that can give them cold, hard objective measures. For generations teachers used to just count up mechanical errors and base the grade on those. Nowadays, teachers look for a rubric or a guide or a system that allows them to assign a grade, somehow, based on something, and there are actually some decent systems out there (I'm a modified six traits guy myself). You can also focus on one particular idea for an assignment ("I'll be looking at X, not Y, on this one"). I can give you exact instructions that will allow almost anyone, step by step, to locate the parts of a sentence. I can't do that for an essay. You have to make your compromises with the system (then subvert it as best you can).

    But we live in the Golden Age of Bad Writing Instruction, driven by the toxic Big Standardized Test movement, which fosters some word-based abomination that pretends to be writing, but is simply sentence-based test-taking.

    Hochman gets some thing right. Despite the fact that folks think students should learn grammar and diagramming (and, God help us, Latin) like We By-God Did Back in the Day, the research is pretty clear that knowing where to hang that adjective clause doesn't do a thing to improve writing. Grammar knowledge is a useful tool-- in the context of writing, just like a basketball is only really useful on a basketball court.

    And her content basis portion leads me to believe that she is not so much teaching writing as laying out how to use writing as an assessment tool, a "full sentence answer" approach. In other words, she's not really teaching writing there-- just sentence-based testing.

    But if we want to actually teach writing, you'll never convince me that "it all starts with a sentence."

    It starts with an idea. It starts with something that you want to say. Bad and mediocre writing starts with the same bad question-- "What can I write to fill in this sentence/paragraph shaped blank that will fulfill the assignment" also known as "What does the teacher want me to say." This is  exactly backwards. So backwards that it often requires the student to set aside what they want to say in order to produce the "correct" response. I did not start this post with a sentence; I started with something I wanted to say.

    A looked at Hochman techniques embedded in classrooms in a mixed bag. As a high school teacher, I would love it if nobody below sixth grade ever taught gramnmar or parts of speech ever again. Just have the students write once a day, minimum, and answer every "How can I...?" question that comes up. The clip that promises to use subordinate conjunction activity to assess Romeo and Juliet comprehension...? No, just no. Assess one thing at a time, please. But workshopping topic sentences for essays that have already been written...? Yes, please. As long as you make sure that students are involved and that you are looking at a variety of alternative solutions, and not One Correct Answer.

    Every piece of writing has to succeed or fail on its own terms. Every writer has to find their own path and their own voice. Some students demand explicit instructions so they know exactly how to get their A. It's all very squishy-- and that's before we even factor in the widlly varying levels of skills your students bring to the table. Sure, you can reduce it to some hard-edged squishless piece of machinery, but you will lose what makes writing worthwhile in the first place, like reducing a kiss to "Step One: Mash your lips together."



    Tuesday, August 8, 2017

    NWEA Thought Police

    Here's an astonishing piece of news from the "You're in the Wrong Line of Work" file.

    NWEA, purveyors of a whole raft of standardized computerized testing, has managed to score a grant, specifically the first annual Social-Emotional Assessment Design Challenge, a competition for assessments that measure social-emotional learning, or SEL.


    I will tell you just how they scored this prize in a minute, but first, a quiz--

    A student, confronted with a standardized computerized test, rips through it quickly with little regard for carefully answering the questions. The student does this because:

    A) The student is bored out of their skull with this stuff and tired of taking stupid tests

    B) The student knows that the test has exactly zero stakes for them

    C) The student is far more concerned about problems at home, a decaying relationship, etc

    D) The student wants to take a nap

    E) The student always fails these stoopid tests so what's the use of wasting time trying

    F) The student has not been sufficiently motivated to create good, rich data sets to benefit government bureaucrats and researchers who depend on these data to shape super-duper policy ideas

    Turns out that, according to NWEA's crack research team, it's none of the above. Here's the line of reasoning, which starts off well enough, and the veers wildly into the weeds:

    Rapid guessing behavior is defined as responding to assessment items too quickly to comprehend the question. Extensive research, conducted by NWEA senior research fellow Steve Wise, links rapid guessing behavior to a lack of student engagement on an assessment. Based on this research, Soland and Jensen studied rapid guessing behavior on NWEA’s MAP Growth assessment and found that it directly correlates to the social-emotional constructs of self-management and self-regulation. Students who demonstrated a pattern of rapid guessing also demonstrated a lower ability to self-manage and self-regulate in school.

    (Emphasis mine). Yes, zipping through a standardized basically shows that you're immature. The test company doesn't have to ask question to police your thoughts-- they can check your brain innards just by how you click the answers.

    This is a classic problem in the testing industry-- these folks are so devoted to and invested in the Big Standardized Tests that they cannot imagine any intelligent response, any display of responsible agency except to take the test slowly, carefully and seriously. If this is the research that won, I cannot even imagine the research that lost. 

    Jacksonian Opportunity

    So here's what much of our vacation looks like from my vantage point:



    You can't see the tiny human sleeping on my chest, but he's there. The book is Take the Cannoli, previously the only Sarah Vowell book I hadn't read. I've corrected that now.

    The book is a collection of short Vowell pieces, including one in which Vowell and her twin sister (who are part Cherokee), take a journey tracing the path and history of the Trail of Tears.

    That, of course, involves confronting the figure of Andrew Jackson himself, who is both the guy who ended the idea of the President as a job belonging to only a Certain Class of American aristocrat, and also the guy who may be one of the most racist, genocidal asshats to ever occupy the office.

    As they contemplate Jackson's grave, Vowell pulls out a letter he wrote about the "relocation" of the Native Americans, giving a glimpse of how he sell such an awful thing to both his people and to himself:

    Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers, but what do they more than our ancestors did nor than our children are doing? To better their condition in an unknown land our forefathers left all that was dear in earthly objects. Our children by thousands yearly leave the lands of their birth to seek new homes in distant regions... Can it be cruel in the government, when, by events which it cannot control, the Indian is made discontent in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode. How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions?

    The Trail of Tears was, of course, a forced march over thousands of miles to a harsh land not of their choosing, with uncounted dead left along the way (including, Vowell points out, chiefs who had previously been Jackson's allies in battle).

    But Jackson (and others) sold it as falsely equivalent to the voluntary immigration to American from foreign lands. He sold it as something that, you know, the Native Americans really wanted. And he sold it as an opportunity.

    Through human history, this has always been the way when one group of people wants to profit by taking something away from another group. It's really just the samed as this other good thing. Besides, these folks really want us to do it, really want the benefits of this. And in the end, this is a great opportunity for them-- golly, I bet any one of Our People would give his eyeteeth to have this same opportunity (and yet nobody ever does).

    It remains the same today. When someone wants to offer this kind of Jacksonian opportunity, watch your back and keep your hands on your valuables.

    ICYMI: Vacation Edition (88)

    My family's vacation, that is.

    But here are some of the worthy reads from last week. Read and share

    The Death of Recess

    People keep writing excellent pieces about why the shift away from r4ecess for littles is a huge mistakes. As the father of two fresh new littles, I'm going to keep passing along those pieces until the message sinks in to the numbskulls who want to stamp out recess to make room for academics.

    What's Wrong with Donald Trump's School Choice Ideas?

    What those critics really mean by "government schools."

    Close Reading Is Child Abuse

    Mind you, what we're calling close reading these days isn't, really. But here's an argument against it.

    KIPP- More Rhetoric in the Absence of Evidence 

    Paul Thomas dismantles some charter claims

    ALEC's Attack on Public Education: A Report From the Front Lines

    From a man who's been to all those ALEC meetings. It's as bad as you think.

    Screens in School a Massive Hoax\

    A fairly brutal attack on the use of computers in school

    Forming the Curriculum

    Food for thought about curriculum and content

    Why Journalists Shouldn't Write about Education

    Paul Thomas again, responding to Dana Goldstein's off-the-mark piece about writing.

    Three Myths About Reading Levels

    Psychology Today takes a shot at those damned reading levels.

    Saturday, August 5, 2017

    Blog Update

    My wife, the twins and I will be heading up into Maine for the week to just sit and chil (while my mother-in-law watches the dog and the house)l. Internet will be spotty, and there may be little or nothing going on here in this space until I get back.

    In the meantime, feel free to search through the library of posts or better stil, work your way through the blogs listed in the right-hand column. I will see you all when we get back.

    Guest Lyricist: Sympathy

    Regular reader NY Teacher offered this set of lyrics in response to the recent post about Arne Duncan's latest shenanigans. I thought it was too much fun to let languish in the comments, so here it is, with their permission:



    Sympathy For The Duncan

    Please allow me to introduce myself
    I’m a man long since disgraced
    I've been around for a long, long year
    Stole many a child’s soul and faith
    And I was 'round when Barack O’
    Had his moment of doubt and pain
    Made damn sure Billy Gates
    Washed his hands and sealed his fate
    Pleased to meet you
    Hope you guess my name
    But what's puzzling you
    Is the nature of my game
    I stuck around Chicago-land
    When I saw it was a time for a change
    Killed the schools and the CTU
    Parents all screamed in vain
    I stacked and yanked
    Held a point guard’s rank
    Helped the charters rage
    Teachers walked the plank
    Pleased to meet you
    Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
    Ah, what's puzzling you
    Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
    I watched with glee
    While young Miss Hell Rhee
    Taught for just ten days
    Using masking tape
    I shouted out,
    "Who’s killin’ Public Schools?"
    When after all
    It is Bill and me
    Let me please introduce myself
    I'm a man long since disgraced
    And I laid traps for Pre-K kids
    Taking tests until they screeched No way
    Pleased to meet you
    Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
    But what's puzzling you
    Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby
    Pleased to meet you
    Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
    But what's confusing you
    Is just the nature of my game
    And every kid is just a data point
    And all us reformers saints
    As heads is tails
    Just call me Arne-D
    Cause I'm in need of some restraint
    So if you meet me
    Have some courtesy
    Have some sympathy, and some taste
    Be sure to use my Common Core
    Or I'll lay your schools to waste
    Pleased to meet you
    Hope you guessed my name, um yeah
    But what's puzzling you
    Is the nature of my game,

    Friday, August 4, 2017

    Charter Real Estate

    This week Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale raised questions about more than $2.5 million dollars in lease reimbursements to nine different PA charter schools ( the Propel Charter School System in Allegheny County, the Chester Community Charter School in Delaware County and School Lane Charter School in Bucks County).



    What we found in some of our audits is that the same people who own and operate charter schools, they themselves create separate legal entities to own the buildings and lease them to charter schools.

    Folks advocating for public education often miss this aspect of the charter industry because it's not really education related. It is, however, big money related. It's why some critics of charters characterize them as more of a real estate scheme than an educational one. In Pennsylvania, what DePasquale found works like this-- Pat McGotbux starts a PM Charter School, a non-profit entity ( so you know it's not one of those evil for profits that everyone condemns). Pat then gets a building and forms PM Realty to lease the building from himself and ka-ching-- a whole lot of taxpayer money goes to make Pat rich with his "non-profit" school.

    In Pennsylvania, part of the problem with these self-profiting arrangements is the same problem with all the other charter misbehavior in the state. DePasquale explains:

    The problem is that we find zero evidence that the Pennsylvania Department of Education makes any effort to verify ownership of the buildings or look for conflicts of interest between the school and related parties. They simply write a check for whatever amount the charter school submits.

    That's how we roll in PA. When charter operators get in trouble, it's likely to be because the feds caught him, not because the state was paying any attention.

    The real estate side of charters is one of several loopholes that make non-profit charters highly profitable. A couple of years ago, the Wall Street Journal noted that the real estate side was attracting many players for a highly profitable bit of business. And states are helping:

    Some states are beginning to make financing tools available to charter schools that had been limited to traditional public schools. For example, the states of Texas, Colorado and Utah now backstop tax exempt bond issues for some charter schools, reducing their capital costs when acquiring facilities, according to Scott Rolfs, managing director of B.C. Ziegler & Co., a niche investment-banking firm that has underwritten more than $600 million in charter school bonds.

    But the growing role of for-profit real-estate developers has added a new dimension to the debate over charters, which are taxpayer funded and independently operated schools that are largely free of union rules. Critics say charter schools are in danger of cutting costly deals with developers who are more concerned with investment return than educating children. The result can lead to failed schools.


    Carl Paladino, the notorious bad boy of the Buffalo school board, has made a mint in charter-related real estate deals. Not only does Paladino build the charters and lease them, but he builds the new apartment buildings near the shiny new school-- a one-man gentrification operation. And he sits on the public school board, where he can vote to approve and support the growth of charters.

    That's not even the most astonishing sort of charter real estate scam. A 2015 report from the National Education Policy Center outlined what might be the worst. Take a public school building, built and paid for with public tax dollars. That building is purchased by a charter school, which is using public tax dollars. At the end of this, you've got a building that the public has paid for twice-- but does not now own.

    In February of this year, researchers Preston Green, Bruce Baker and Joseph Oluwole dropped the provocative notion that charter schools may be the new Enron. It's a lot to take in, but Steven Rosenfeld pulled out five takeaways for Alternet, if you'd like a quicker look. But just some little factoids give you a taste. For instance, Imagine Schools take 40% of the money they collect from taxpayers and put that right back into lease agreements. In Los Angeles, owners of a private school leased room on their campus for a charter school that they were also involved in running-- then jacked that rent up astronomically.

    Certainly not every charter school is involved in some sort of real estate scam. But the examples of such scams aren't all that rare either. A charter in Arizona built nine buildings and then sold them to itself; in the end, only 37% of the charters revenue was spent on students. In Chicago, public schools have been closed and then essentially given away to developers. The charter that Betsy DeVos visited in Florida was part of a cozy lease-to-itself deal. Deion Sanders' ill-fated charter almost ran afoul of real estate self-dealing. And the infamous Gulen chain allegedly uses real estate dealings to help keep the money flowing to its leader.

    In too many cases, a charter school is really just an education-flavored business, a means of driving some real estate profits for the owners of the building, and what goes on inside the building is unimportant and immaterial to the major players in the transaction. In other words, while we may sometimes get preoccupied with the education implications of a charter school, Auditor General Pasquale is right to remind us that sometimes it's not about the education at all.