Re: A Flawed Campaign to Reinvent High School

[aburke5054@aol.com]

If it's true that, for example, the average African-American 12th grader leaves school with the skills of the average White 8th grader and that in some systems around half of minority students don't graduate, we probably ought to be doing lots of things differently.  Gates is more right than wrong.  My own kids have given up on their HS math courses and take math through the community college, so loony is the constructivist math they were getting in the HS.  


 
Art


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 10:23 am
Subject: [arn-l] A Flawed Campaign to Reinvent High School










>****NEWS RELEASE--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**** 

> 

>A FLAWED CAMPAIGN TO REINVENT HIGH SCHOOL 

>New analysis argues that recent attacks on American high schools and proposals 

>for stiffer graduation requirements are 
>simplistic and almost certain to fail 

> 

>Contact: W. Norton Grubb -- (510) 642-3488; wngrubb@berkeley.edu 

>Jeannie Oakes ­- (310) 825-2494; oakes@ucla.edu 

>Kevin Welner -- (303) 492-8370; kevin.welner@gmail.com 

> 

>TEMPE, Ariz. and BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 1, 2007 ­ 
>Several recent high-profile reports calling for 
>the “reinvention” of the American high school 
>are simplistic and seriously flawed, according 
>to a new analysis by two distinguished scholars. 

> 

>W. Norton Grubb, an economist who holds the 
>David Gardner Chair in Higher Education at UC 
>Berkeley, and Jeannie Oakes, who holds the 
>Presidential Chair in Education Equity at UCLA, 
>analyzed a wave of commission reports since 2004 
>that attack the American high school and call, 
>in particular, for higher state graduation requirements and for exit exams. 

> 

>Grubb and Oakes conclude that this current push 
>for “rigor” fails on several levels. The reports 
>don’t adequately consider the likely 
>consequences of the policies intended to enforce 
>higher standards. They also “have little to say 
>about how [the] imposition [of these standards] 
>will enhance student performance.” And most 
>discussions in these reports focus on narrow 
>definitions of rigor—higher test scores, more 
>demanding courses, or both—while ignoring other 
>conceptions of rigor that may be as valid, if 
>not more so, to discussions of how high schools 
>should better fill society’s needs. 

> 

>Rigor, the authors explain, can also be advanced 
>as depth rather than breadth, as more 
>sophisticated levels of understanding including 
>“higher-order skills,” and as the ability to 
>apply learning in unfamiliar settings. These 
>goals are largely neglected in the new “high standards” commission reports. 

> 

>Grubb and Oakes advance their argument in a 
>policy brief titled, “‘Restoring Value’ to the 
>High School Diploma: The Rhetoric and Practice 
>of Higher Standards.” It is one of a series on 
>education policy questions published jointly by 
>the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona 
>State University and the Education and the 
>Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

> 

>The commission reports analyzed by Grubb and 
>Oakes have had a very real policy impact. As 
>they note, “Recent legislation has forced the 
>translation of rhetoric into practice. Most 
>states have increased their graduation 
>requirements, and half the states have adopted exit exams.” 

> 

>Yet the current push to increase rigor and 
>heighten standards is “seriously flawed,” they 
>write, and “any gains come at the expense of 
>other goals for high school reform, including 
>equity, curricular relevance, and student interest.” 

> 

>In place of the current approaches, Grubb and 
>Oakes describe a clear and distinctly different 
>alternative to the nineteenth century model of 
>the traditional high school. They suggest that 
>high schools offer “multiple pathways” 
>structured around themes, some drawn from 
>occupational areas, others drawn from broad, multidisciplinary concepts. 

> 

>Such an approach would “provide room for 
>examining the important occupational, political, 
>and social issues of adult life in the process 
>of teaching disciplinary subjects.” They also 
>explain that focusing “on a single theme 
>nurtures multiple concepts of rigor,” and “the 
>approach distributes responsibility for 
>standards throughout the educational community, 
>and it provides students with the benefits of 
>curricular choice and several routes to graduation.” 

> 

>Find “‘Restoring Value’ to the High School 
>Diploma: The Rhetoric and Practice of Higher 
>Standards,” by W. Norton Grubb and Jeannie 
>Oakes, on the web at http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/documents/EPSL-0710-242-EPRU.pdf ;

> 

>CONTACT: 

> 

>W. Norton Grubb, David Gardner Chair in Higher 
>Education and Faculty Coordinator, Principal Leadership Institute 

>Policy, Organization, Measurement, and Evaluation (POME) 

>School of Education, University of California, Berkeley 

>(510) 642-3488 

>wngrubb@berkeley.edu 

> 

>Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor and Director 

>Institute for Democracy Education and Access 

>University of California, Los Angeles 

>(310) 825-2494 

>oakes@ucla.edu 

> 

>Kevin Welner, Professor and Director 

>Education and the Public Interest Center 

>University of Colorado at Boulder 

>(303) 492-8370 

>kevin.welner@gmail.com 

> 

> 

>********** 



 


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