Archive for the ‘Book Summaries’ Category

On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting ©2015 by Thomas R. Guskey explains to all teachers why their grading practices are probably wrong for many reasons. If you teach or know teachers you need to share this book. Click the icon at the bottom of any page to get this essential book.

Thomas R. Guskey

• Thomas is Professor of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he began his career in education as a middle school teacher, served as an administrator in Chicago Public Schools, and was the first Director of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning. He is the author/editor of 18 books and over 200 articles. Dr. Guskey served on the Policy Research Team of the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, on the Task Force to develop the National Standards for Staff Development, and recently was named a Fellow in the American Educational Research Association. His books include Developing Standards-Based Report Cards (2010), Practical Solutions for Serious Problems in Standards-Based Grading (Ed.) (2009), The Principal as Assessment Leader (Ed.) (2009), The Teacher as Assessment Leader (Ed.) (2009), and Benjamin S. Bloom: Portraits of an Educator (Ed.) (2006).

1. Define the Purpose of Grades

• Guskey finds that there is little in the way of formal teacher preparation that deals with this subject. Teachers, therefore, tend to grade the way they were graded. As for report cards, they are usually cobbled together by a committee that takes what they like from other schools’ work. The process features enough compromise that everyone ends up with report cards that everyone can stand, but that no one really likes.
• If you want to reform your reporting process the first thing you should do is step back and ask what is your purpose. There might be many and it is likely that no single reporting instrument will serve all your purposes well. While schools and policy makers aim for success by all, if that really happened there would be no variation in grades. This doesn’t happen and teachers and test makers set out to sort students and they tend to be very successful. Bottom line is that your reporting process should be aimed at facilitating student learning. Guskey recommends that whatever your purpose is, it should be printed on your report.

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Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count ©2009 by Richard Nisbett shows how intelligence is mostly determined by one’s environment and provides concrete things that parents and teachers can do to make kids smarter. He is convinced that intelligence has nothing to do with race and lots to do with hard work. This is a must read for educators and parents alike.

Richard Nisbett

• Richard is a distinguished professor at the University of Michigan. He has written numerous books on intelligence and cultural psychology, and is a member the National Academy of Sciences. If you like this book you might also like The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why and Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South with Dov Cohen.

10. Raising Your Child’s Intelligence…and Your Own

• Here are Rickard’s tips from the final chapter that you should share with all parents you know. The previous chapters delve into each of these tips and backs them up with research. 1) Talk to your child using high-level vocabulary, and include children in adult conversations. 2) Read to your child and ask questions to look for understanding. 3) Minimize reprimands and maximize comments that will encourage your child to explore the environment. 4) Teach how to categorize objects and events and how to make comparisons among them. 5) Encourage your child to analyze and evaluate interesting aspects of the world. 6) Give your child intellectually stimulating after-school and summertime activities. 7) Steer your child toward peers who will promote intellectual interests. 8) Exercise while you are pregnant and continue exercising into old age. Make sure your children do the same. 9) Brest feed if you can for nine months. More doesn’t seem to help. 10) Model delaying gratification. 11) Teach children that their intelligence is under their control. 12) Praise children for hard work not for being intelligent. 13) Avoid giving rewards for activities that are intrinsically rewarding. Save rewards for things they might not otherwise try. Avoid praise that could make the child feel like they are being evaluated. 14) Do what you can to get the best teachers for your child and avoid rookies. Look for schools that promote cooperative learning.

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Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools (©2014) by Diane Ravitch takes on the private-sector school leaders and the political officials behind our current reform movement. Diane exposes the many myths that have driven reform, and supplies solutions that we should seriously consider. If you want to know what’s wrong with education reform this book is a must. Be sure to click at the bottom of any page to get copies for concerned educators and parents you know.

Diane Ravitch

• Diane is a research professor at New York University. She served as Assistant Secretary of Education for Research for George H. W. Bush, and was appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board by Bill Clinton. She is the author of ten previous books. In 2011, she received the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize from the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She has an excellent blog at DianeRavitch.Net and is active on Twitter @DianeRavitch.

Our School Are at Risk

• Politicians on both sides along with our media seem to agree that public education is broken. This has feed the ideas that we need to close schools and fire a large number of teachers and administrators. It wasn’t until Diane saw the corrosive effects of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation that she recanted her support for high-stakes testing, test-based accountability, competition, and school choice via charter schools and vouchers. NCLB’s unrealistic goals have turned reform into a privatization movement, which was probably the intent of many of the bill’s supporters.
• Diane claims that what works is what well off parents do and expect schools to do. This includes rich programs in the arts, physical education, libraries, well maintained schools, small classes, and after school programs where students can explore their interests. There should be a joyful pursuit of play, time to sing and dance, and draw. Diagnostics should focus on what students know, and what they need to learn next. These same parents supply learning opportunities before and after their kids start school unlike poor parents who generally have less education themselves.

The Context for Corporate Reform

• Diane points out that much of the rational for NCLB was based on a Texas Miracle that never existed. The law’s impossible goals guaranteed failing schools that could be closed so the students could be shifted to charter or private schools, and first among the failing schools were those that served poor and minority children. Charters were supposed to innovate and share success with public schools. Due to the competitive nature of the reform movement, however, sharing between schools doesn’t happen much. It wasn’t long after NCLB passed that teaching to the test, narrowing the curriculum, and outright cheating became common proactices.
• Rather than fix NCLB when it was up for reauthorization in 2007, Congress did nothing, which left an opening for the Obama administration to introduce Race to the Top (RTTT) in a unilateral manner. The only real difference between the two was that RTTT introduced the use of test scores to evaluate teachers. It also put more emphasis on competition as a means of allocating federal funding.

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