Education for the 21st Century

Your Child Left Behind

2011-01-30T14:49:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago the Dallas Morning News ran an article in the Points section: "Your Child Left Behind" by Amanda Ripley. This was a reprint of an article from The Atlantic, the December edition. This was a real eye-opener. It showed America states ranked by academic achievement against other countries. The main point of the article is that no one in American public schools is getting a good education. The schools in Massachusetts, the best in America, rank 17th in the world, just ahead of Slovenia. Canada ranks 12th in the world, Finland, the home of Nokia, ranks 4th, while Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea rank 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively.

On the bright side, the Atlantic provides an interactive school comparison tool that shows Texas schools are better than California schools, but since Texas ranks 48th in the world, that is small consolation.

One reason American schools cannot compete against the rest of the world is because they are deluded by a failed ideology called "discovery learning." The Plano ISD embraces discovery learning and Skip Jenkins, the school board president describes it this way: "We don’t believe the teacher should be a disseminator of facts and information. We believe the teacher should be a facilitator of learning.” (The quote is from the Plano Star Courier).

For years I have contended that the best and brightest in the Plano ISD succeed in spite of the elementary and middle school curriculum, not because of it. Now the Lone Star Crescent has published an article by me, "The Secret to Success in the Suburbs," in its December issue, pages 8 and 11.

Our children must compete against the best and brightest from around the world. The surest way to lose in a competition is to be unaware that you are in a competition. The Lone Star Crescent was kind enough to share "The Secret to Success in the Suburbs" with the community, and now I'll share it with my friends and neighbors so we will all know the secret to success in the suburbs.

Robert Canright

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The Secret to Success in the Suburbs
by
Robert Canright

published in the December 2010 issue of the Lone Star Crescent, pages 8 and 11, all rights reserved by Melanz, LLC.

A good education cannot be taken for granted. It is not enough to buy a home within a school district with a good reputation. You must study the test scores before you buy a home. School district SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) averages are not a good indicator of quality education for several reasons. Some parents will home-school their children or place them in private schools for elementary and middle school, and then place them into the public high schools for AP (Advanced Placement) courses or for the IB (International Baccalaureate) program. This means that high school SAT scores are influenced by private schooling.

A friend of mine in Garland used the combination of a private school and the IB program for his children and his daughter is now at Cornell University. A school district can also steer lower performing children into the ACT test instead of the SAT test and thereby boost the SAT scores. The TAKS test is taken by all the children of Texas and is therefore a better way to evaluate a school district, but even this measure is not the best indication of a quality education. Only close scrutiny by parents can reveal the true quality of education within a school district.

What many concerned parents have discovered is a lack interest by school administrations in teaching academic skills. The schools want to teach critical thinking instead of skills. I have heard one administrator at the Plano ISD use the expressions “drill and kill” and “sage on the stage” to disparage tried and true methods of instruction. I have heard one Plano teacher speak with great excitement about the discovery method she uses in her classroom. The discovery method is where teachers assign problems to students without first instructing them how to solve that type of problem. This technique is also called problem based learning. The discovery method is a proven failure. A book by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them, explains with great thoroughness how school administrators all across America have sacrificed our children’s education for the sake of failed ideologies.

When conscientious parents discover that skills are not being taught to their satisfaction, then many pull their children from public elementary schools and turn to home schooling or private schools. Many parents in Plano, however, turn to private tutors to provide their children with the skills they need for a good education. Go to Craigslist for Dallas and search on “math tutor Plano” and you will find over forty math tutors listed. Google “math tutor Plano” and you will find pages of hits. My neighborhood coffee shop seems to always have a math or SAT tutor working with a student. Mathematics is one of the ultimate skill based courses and math tutoring provides a clear advantage over students not receiving math tutoring.

The administration at the Plano ISD clings to their failed ideology of discovery learning even when they are faced with clear evidence that their ideology is a failure. Here is an example: at the Plano ISD Board of Trustees meeting on November 2, 2010, the board received an update on the Math Rocks program. The presenter said the children in this program are significantly ahead of their peers and most of these children receive math instruction outside the Plano schools. These are children who get either private tutoring or classroom tutoring outside of the Plano schools, being tutored with the traditional approach of classroom instruction and homework for drilling the instruction.

The PISD administration can see that traditional instruction and drill puts children significantly ahead of their peers who are taught with the discovery method or with Connected Math. But instead of abandoning failed methods, the PISD creates the Math Rocks program that provides yet more discovery method for these advanced students who have raced ahead with traditional instruction. The Math Rocks program is discovery learning with more challenging problems. The administrators at the Plano ISD are like the Marxists who cling to their failed ideology in spite of clear evidence that their ideology does not work. The existence of the Math Rocks program is positive proof that the philosophy of instruction at the Plano ISD does not work, but the Plano ISD administration stubbornly refuses to admit failure and correct their mistakes.

There are still more secrets for success in the suburbs. There are schools that provide classroom instruction and homework as an alternative to private tutoring. Two such schools are Ed Gurukul and the Hua Hsing Chinese school. Ed Gurukul (Ed stands for education) focuses on mathematics instruction, K though 12. They have classes in the evenings, on Saturday and Sunday. Students typically have one hour of instruction, they do homework during the week, and are tested on their progress. Most of their students receive commended scores on the TAKS test. Ed Gurukul makes the Math Olympiads part of their program. Ed Gurukul also promotes instruction and competition in chess to aid in mathematical thinking. Ed Gurukul has facilities in Plano and Irving.

The Hua Hsing Chinese school meets in Jasper High School in Plano on Sunday afternoon. Ten years ago my daughter and some of her classmates were enrolled in math classes at Hua Hsing. The school met at J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson back then. Hua Hsing has been in operation for 25 years. I was very relieved that I could find math tutoring for my daughter. I was in shock at what I perceived to be low skill levels for math in the Plano schools. Plano parents are lucky that the Hua Hsing school now meets in Plano. I spoke with the director at Hua Hsing and learned that parents drive to Plano from Sherman, from Denton, and from Irving for math instruction. There are students from Richardson, Frisco, and Allen, but the majority of their students are from Plano.

Hua Hsing provides math instruction K through 7, algebra, and geometry. They teach math for SAT preparation when there is enough demand. Additionally, Hua Hsing teaches phonics, writing, and SAT preparation for the verbal and writing portions of the test. Hua Hsing students have classroom instruction lasting over one hour. Students receive homework that gets graded, they have a mid-term and a final exam. Some of their students are in the Math Rocks program in Plano ISD. Hua Hsing has science classes and, of course, they have classes on the Chinese language. The Hua Hsing Chinese school has a math contest that is open to the public. The contest has 50 problems and is timed.

For the final push towards high SAT scores, many parents send their children to Karen Dillard’s College Prep. When my daughter graduated from Plano Senior High, the class president joked about all the hours they spent at Karen Dillard’s. A significant number of the National Scholarship winners in the Dallas area are graduates of the Karen Dillard program.

Tutoring is the secret to success in the North Dallas suburbs. For years this has all been known only by word of mouth. Now you know the secret. The beauty of life in America is that you have choices. The difficulty of choices in America is that so many choices require money.

Disconnecting from Connected Math

2010-09-06T09:36:00.000-07:00

There is An Alternative to Connected Math

Parents who care about their children's math education despair when their children are stuck in the Connected Math program. In Plano, Texas, astute parents use a variety of methods to save their children's education. Popular options include (1) private schools, (2) home schooling, (3) moving to Fisco or Allen, Texas, (4) private tutoring, and (5) parental tutoring.

A large number of families in Plano are from Asia and the parents enroll their children in Plano public schools, but send their children to private schools on Saturday or Sunday to study math. Some of these children are years ahead of their classmates and their parents have asked for special classes for them in PISD so they don't waste their time with the curriculum PISD offers everyone else.

The PISD administration knows the district's reputation rides on the backs of star students, so PISD developed a special math curriculum called Math Rocks for those children who have been receiving their math education outside the Plano ISD. Some of these parents take pride in their children being years ahead of their classmates and you will see on page 14 of the Math Rocks presentation that some children will be able to take Calculus in 10th grade, Differential Equations and Number Theory in 11th grade, and then Abstract Algebra and Multi-variable Calculus in 12th grade.

Bravo! If you want to study math at Harvard or Princeton, this is a minimum to compete at the highest level. But notice that this is not Connected Math. Obviously Connected Math is not the best math program or these top-flight students would be taking it. So why do your children get stuck with Connected Math? Is it possible the average student is stuck with an inferior curriculum because the Plano ISD administration does not care about the education of the average student? Might it be that the PISD only cares about the stars who give the district it's reputation for excellence?

The best math students in Plano have disconnected from Connected Math. Why are your children stuck with an inferior program? Clearly there are better choices for our students than Connected Math, but the parents have to find a way to provide their children with the quality math education that the Plano ISD refuses to provide.

Discerning Parents Consistently Oppose Connected Math

For years, all across America, discerning parents have investigated Connected Math and found it deficient.
In Plano, Texas
At Prince William County in Manassas, Virginia
and the State College Area School District in State College, Pennsylvania

Most American parents, however, do not have the math skills to perceive the problems with the Connected Math curriculum. This includes the school administrators who have selected the Connected Math curriculum. Connected Math is taking a bad situation and making it worse; it is increasing the mathematics achievement gap in America.

Taking Action

Parents who appeal to their neighbors during school board elections fail to persuade their neighbors to vote against school board members who accept Connected Math. If we are ever to win elections, we first have to persuade the electorate to care about mathematics.

Perhaps what is really needed is a proselytizing effort across communities to persuade parents that math skills are important, that math can be fun, and that their children will benefit from a more rigorous math curriculum. This would go a long way to improving the quality of education in America.

In the mean time, if your child is stuck in a Connected Math curriculum and you do not want to pull your child from his or her school, then you better find a way to provide your child a good math education outside of the school room. Some suggestions can be found in this blog: Surviving Connected Math.

Robert Canright

PS:
(1). The PISD presentation says this about program entry:
Averaged MAP score > 2 standard deviations above the District mean
3rd Graders: > 3 standard deviations above the mean
What is 2 or 3 standard deviations (sigma)? Here's what Wikipedia says about 3 sigma:
>2 sigma means the top 5%
>3 sigma means the top 0.2%
(2). If you have trouble reading the Math Rocks PDF file with one browser, try another. My Firefox had trouble but Google's Chrome has no trouble. I did fix Firefox by installing the latest Adobe plugin.

Poetry, John Dewey, and Connected Mathematics

2009-11-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

Galileo said, "Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe." I have told this to my son a few times, but the last time I told this to my son he replied, "But Dad, I thought poetry was the language of God." Wow! I was pleased with that sentiment.

In the November 7, 2009, Wall Street Journal I saw this wonderful quote from Dusa McDuff, a mathematician at SUNY Stony Brook about the great Russian mathematician Israel Gelfand: "Gelfand amazed me by talking of mathematics as though it were poetry."

There is something special and transcendental about mathematics. Plato knew mathematics was special, including mathematics and philosophy in his plan for the ideal education for leadership.

John Dewey, the atheist whose ideas are the foundation of contemporary American educational theory, did not believe in any transcendental qualities. John Dewey saw no poetry in mathematics. John Dewey had a distinct dislike for mathematics. John Dewey's dislike for mathematics is the poison in the well that has made American mathematics education the sick child of the world.

It is no wonder that Connected Math is a boondoggle: progressive education is anti-math. My son used to love mathematics. Now that he is in the Connected Math curriculum he has come to dislike math. Having experienced Connected Math I think it is fair to describe it as politically correct (PC) math: what was correct last week is wrong this week.

The Plano ISD lags behind all of its neighbors in the percentage of Exemplary and Recognized schools, and I believe that Connected Math is contributing to the academic decline of the Plano ISD. The Allen ISD, Frisco ISD, and the Richardson ISD all have avoided Connected Math and they all show better results than the Plano ISD.

Plano parents sued the district over Connected Math. You can read some of the depositions here. The parents were right, the administrators were wrong, and it is the children who pay for the blunders of stubborn bureaucrats.

There is beauty in mathematics. I hope my son's love for math will be rekindled once he is finished with the Connected Mathematics curriculum.

Robert Canright

The WSJ quote was from "Russia's Conquering Zeros" by Masha Gessen

Recommended reading: "Method, Social Science, and Social Hope", pp. 191 - 210 in Consequences of Pragmatism by Richard Rorty, 1982.
Specifically, see this on page 204: "Dewey and Foucault make exactly the same criticism of the tradition. They agree, right down the line, about the need to abandon traditional notions of rationality, objectivity, method, and truth.... there is no overarching ahistorical structure (the Nature of Man, the laws of human behavior, the Moral Law, the Nature of Society) to be discovered."

What is an Education for the 21st Century?

2009-10-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

Education for the 21st century in America should be the study of wealth and power by the middle-class.

Professionals in middle-class suburbs like ours in North Dallas have a special contribution we can make to America's future: we can educate our children to grow our economy and provide the leadership to safeguard America's future.

Wealth

Americans need jobs. We can best help our fellow Americans, especially those struggling to get out of poverty, by educating our children to start businesses that hire Americans. Children of professionals tend to follow in their parents footsteps. My father was an engineer, and then I became an engineer. If my father had been a lawyer, I probably would have been a lawyer. I never thought about starting a business.

I had a great education, yet I was not taught about starting a business. We prepare our children to be employees, not employers, and that should change. A one year course on business creation and management would be far better for our our society than a 4th year of high school science .

One contributing factor to our recession was the lack of businesses for investment. If there were more businesses for investors to invest in, there would not have been as much money placed in collateralized debt obligations. Our country is hurting badly because we do not have enough businesses hiring Americans, and not enough for businesses for investment. We can and should prepare our children to grow our nation's wealth.

Power

To keep America a great nation, our children must understand what made it great.

The key ingredients that made America successful in the past have their roots far in the past. America's founding fathers were keen students of ancient Greek and Roman history. They were well versed in the progress of liberty in England, from the Magna Carta to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the English Bill of Rights. A keen grasp of history led our founding fathers to the U.S. Constitution and the great debate over its ratification.

Our children need to understand the same history our founding fathers understood. They need to understand the controversies surrounding the U.S. Constitution as debated in the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers. In order to keep the ship of state afloat, our children must know why it floats.

Our children should understand the rise and fall of empires so they can prevent America from falling. To be great leaders, our children should study the great leaders of history.

Education for the 21st century in America should be the study of wealth and power by the middle-class for the benefit of all Americas.

Robert Canright

Education for the 21st Century

2009-07-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

When I first ran for the local school board in 2006 my slogan was to, "prepare our children for future beyond our imagination." By March 2008 the investment bank Bear Stearns had collapsed. By April 2008 there was food rationing at Costco. I could not imagine that happening in America so quickly, but these were the kind of events I was worried about.

What is an education for the 21st century? It is an education to steer through difficult times.

Our technological education has been fine. We can design computer chips and networks. We can put men on the moon if we wish, so our children do not need more math and science.

The education for our leaders must be deficient because most of our problems are created by Washington. (The banking collapse was caused by lax regulation from Washington and by passing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.) I saw a Congressman on C-Span say he had to do as he was told by Hank Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, because he did not understand economics and therefore had to trust Paulson. Obviously, our leaders should have studied economics.

Perhaps if our leaders had studied the lessons of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides we would not stuck in the Middle East.

Did America's founding fathers have computers? No, they had books instead of computers and they still set the standard for wise leadership. Our founding fathers studied history and economics. Alexander Hamilton wrote a report on manufacturing! We can restore America's leadership to greatness by injecting more history and economics into their education.

Good leadership is vital if we are to defeat the dangers facing America, so an eduction for the 21st century should focus on history, economics, and finance.

Robert

College Ready Texas and Eighth Grade Algebra

2009-06-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

Texans need to think for themselves. America's national leadership has steered the ship of state into the rocks on many levels. The economic meltdown of 2008 is prime example. The College Ready movement is another nationwide blunder.

In the Saturday June 20, 2009 Wall Street Journal, Peter McPherson and David Shulenburger published an OpEd piece, "Yes, We Can Expand Access to Higher Ed". They say America needs more college graduates. "Our nation's economic future depends on it," they say. Balderdash, I say.

America's economic future depends on improving the competence of American business leaders and reducing the corruption in our political leaders. America does not have enough jobs now for the college graduates we already have. Increasing the pool of college graduates is a salary busting move by big business. Peter McPherson was chairman of Dow Jones & Company.

Texas leaders are mindlessly following the direction of our national leadership. Governor Perry in 2007 established a Commission for a College Ready Texas. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has saluted the College Ready Texas flag. Texas should not be taking orders like this. Our leaders here in Texas are jumping through hoops for people on the national level. Our leaders need to think for themselves and do what is best for Texas. Big business is planning another round of salary busting and an oversupply of college graduates is a part of their scheme.

The Plano ISD has aligned itself behind the College Ready movement. Plano is a community that already prepares its children to be college ready and we do not need to waste time kowtowing to the higher powers.

Where the Plano ISD is really making a mistake is in joining the push to move parts of 9th grade Algebra 1 down to 8th grade. That's a mistake first made by California. We should not copy other people's mistakes.

America's national leadership is disastrous. Texas leadership must show backbone and quit following the herd of lemmings over the cliff.

Robert

Whitehead: Morality is the Root of Education

2009-06-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

Back in 2007 I pointed out that the Chinese scholar Chu Hsi said morality is the root of education. Now I have found Alfred North Whitehead echoing this message in his work, The Aims of Education.

As found on page 14, from Whitehead:

"The essence of education is that it be religious."

"Pray, what is religious education?"

"A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice. And the foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity."

Today, we would call "moral" this attitude of responsibility that Whitehead calls "religious." The type of attitude Whitehead calls religious could easily be embraced by an atheist because it is not related to any church nor belief in any god.

Even a secular education should be grounded in moral instruction. Studying Dante we can see immoral leadership is the root of the world's ills. Since our safety and prosperity depend upon moral leaders, training our leaders in morality requires we teach them in their youth.

Robert

Teaching Editing by Editing Moby Dick

2009-04-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

Education cannot be aimless, it must have a goal. I have put forth a vision for a better future for the children of Texas: the Texas Ascendant Campaign.

Writing is vital for education and for the future of Texas, as I touch upon in these blog posts:
TBAR and the Texas Journalism Project, Thursday, November 27, 2008
The Texas Publishing Project, Sunday, December 14, 2008
Publishing Business Novels, Thursday, February 12, 2009

Publishing needs editors, and one great way to teach editing and combine it with a literature study for a one-semester course would be to edit Moby Dick by Herman Melville. It is a fabulous book with many powerful sentences, but entire chapters should be cut.

An advanced class could study the book, discuss and vote first on what chapters to cut entirely, next discuss what chapters should be thinned by deleting slow sections or slow paragraphs. So many sentences are masterpieces, it seems dangerous to even consider rewriting sentences, but it could be a topic for discussion.

When the editing of Moby Dick is completed, it would not cost much money to publish it electronically. It could be distributed on Amazon.com as Moby Dick, the Plano Edition. The book could contain a description of the project and perhaps could contain an essay or two from project members. There are not that many abridged versions. That it was abridged by high school students would make it distinctive. Obviously, our kids would do great job and the Plano Edition of Moby Dick would increase the stature of our high schools on the national level.

Art students could submit illustrations for the book. Art students could use computer graphics and create an animated version of the Plano Edition of this work. Theater students could record Moby Dick, the Plano Edition, and the audio version could also be sold.

Done well, an "Editing Moby Dick" project would bring more distinction to our schools. It could raise revenue for the district and give our children an introduction to the business side of publishing. Moby Dick is a classic in American literature. Spending serious time and effort with Moby Dick could be a great joy and a good learning experience. Perhaps a graduate of such an editing project might start a highly successful publishing company in Plano that would sell on the national and international markets.

Notice how a project like this could use technology without being only about technology. This is one way we can prepare our children for the future with skills that can be learned in a highly rewarding manner and that could lead to a career in publishing.

Robert Canright

The Fox, the Hedgehog, and the Arresting Sentence

2009-02-26T19:44:00.000-08:00

While reading "The Coast of Utopia" by Jedediah Purdy [1], I stopped at this sentence describing a book:

"It is a fox dreaming of hedgehogs."

This sentence made me stop and think. It rang a bell, but I could not place the connection. I googled and found a nice blog entry: Hedgehog or Fox: Which Are You? by Norm Pattis that brought forth a connection to Isaiah Berlin, who wrote a famous essay on Tolstoy entitled, "The Hedgehog and the Fox."

The reference is to a quote from the poet Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

I wanted to say the sentence, "It is a fox dreaming of hedgehogs," is a great sentence, but I cannot. There are great sentences in The Aeneid and in Moby Dick, and the sentence by Purdy cannot compare, but it was a very nice, arresting sentence. It was a nice twist on a famous sentence from Archilochus and had the bonus connection to the essay by Isaiah Berlin.

All these connections are examples of cultural literacy. Culture not only transmits civilization, it is effective in improving communication through the short-hand of allusions. Culture is not only enjoyable, it is empowering.

Robert Canright

[1] A review of the book, Beyond the Revolution, A History of American Thought from Paine to Pragmatism by William H. Goetzmann, appearing in the New York Times Book Review, Sunday February 22, 2009.

Math Modeling, Education, and Experience

2009-01-18T20:24:00.000-08:00

"Risk Mismanagement" by Joe Nocera was published in the Sunday January 4, 2009 New York Times Magazine. It is a well written article describing how Wall Street firms misused mathematical modeling. I am a strong believer in education, and education is required to perform the mathematical modeling at the core of what the "quants" did on Wall Street, so it might seem odd to hear me caution management about relying on mathematical modeling.

Having worked professionally in mathematical modeling of systems that are much better behaved than the stock market, I can say that companies can easily make mistakes with mathematical modeling. The biggest mistake companies make is to think computers can replace people in making decisions, which is central to the New York Times Magazine article.

It is important to educate people to make difficult decisions on complex issues based on deep understanding of underlying principles. People need to be educated to understand the world around them. Too often education is aimed at preparing a minimally educated person to drive a computer program that is intended to think for the minimally educated person, which is recipe for disaster.

I've seen this first hand in industry: highly educated engineers being laid off and replaced with minimally competent engineers and a computer program that is supposed to compensate for the ignorance of the cheaper engineer. This does not work.

We must remember to educate people to high standards, and avoid the mistake of producing the lowest quality employee that might possibly accomplish a minimal quality job. You can see the contempt for human qualities in the words of Walter Lippmann: "... men are not good, but good for something; ... men cannot be educated, but educated for something." [1]

To lower costs, corporations have been driving quality into the ground, and now they have driven the entire economy into the ground.

Minimal education is no education.

Robert Canright

[1] "The Phantom Public" by Walter Lippmann, 1927, ISBN 1-56000-677-3, page 140

Scarsdale and AP Tests

2008-12-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

How do you rank high schools? U.S. News & World Report does it by calculating the ratio of students taking AP (Advanced Placement) exams to the number of graduating seniors. U.S. News & World Report has documented their methodology and you can see for yourself. Of course, this allows schools to "game the system" by forcing all seniors to take AP exams. (Newsweek magazine has their own list and they too like AP tests.) But who says taking Advanced Placement courses provides children with the best education? The Advanced Placement tests are a money making project of the College Boards.

It's been reported in the New York Times, "Scarsdale Adjusts to Life Without Advanced Placement Courses," by Winnie Hu (December 6, 2008) that Scarsdale is de-emphasizing Advanced Placement courses because Scarsdale High School believes it can provide a better education for its students without AP courses. They offer "Advanced Topics" classes instead.

Schools cannot allow the College Board to control education. The College Board is a corporation headed by a CEO who is not an educator; he is a former politician. School districts need to provide their students with the best education possible to face a complicated and uncertain future, and that won't happen by taking direction from a corporation.

If the Plano Independent School District wants to offer a superior education to its students, then the Plano ISD needs to identify its own list of the best high schools in America, ignoring U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek, and consider what features of the truly superior schools PISD might duplicate.

Plano could share its list and charge fees for details from the PISD analysis of the best schools. Maybe Plano would not rank in the top 10 or even top 50 of the best high schools in America on its own list, but it could certainly put itself squarely in the national picture of education by thinking independently, by establishing relationships with the very best schools in America, and by liberating schools from the shallow assessments of for-profit magazines.

Plano ISD needs to think for itself.

Robert Canright

Math Rankings and Math Facts

2008-12-24T19:59:00.001-08:00

The Decemeber 10, 2008 Wall Street Journal reported the latest international rankings for math in "U.S. Students Make Gains in Math Scores," by John Hechinger. (The New York Times ran a similar article on December 15.) The international ranking system is called Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

4th Grade:
1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Taiwan
4. Japan
5. Kazakhstan
...
11. USA

8th Grade:
1. Taiwan
2. South Korea
3. Singapore
4. Hong Kong
5. Japan
...
9. USA

These international tests are administered every 4 years. The Journal reports, "Two states, Massachusetts and Minnesota, sought to have their schools' test results broken out separately. Both reported results outpacing the rest of the nation." The WSJ then says, "Massachusetts fourth-graders scored roughly as well as those in high-performing Taiwan and Japan."

Why did these two statess outperform the rest of the nation?

"Alice Seagren, Minnesota commissioner of education, said the state in 2003 revamped its education standards, which include a focus on learning math facts, such as the multiplication tables, in early grades."

"Mitchell Chester, Massachusetts commissioner of education, said the state in the early 1990s developed new assessments and standards that, as in Minnesota, stressed the mastery of math facts..."

A child cannot master math without mastering math facts. When I ran for the Plano ISD school board in 2008 I recommended we pay better attention to teaching math facts.

Education all across America has systemic problems in teaching math. Fixing math instruction is not that hard. Getting rid of bad attitudes towards mathematics within the colleges of education is the challenge. The colleges of education consistently misguide every generation of teachers.

The parents and their elected representatives, the school board trustees, need to clean up the mess in math instruction because the school administrators have been misguided and are unable to correct themselves.

Robert Canright

Economics, Not Science, Finance, Not Math

2008-12-11T17:23:00.000-08:00

Texas is now requiring high school students who started as freshmen in 2007 to take 4 years of math and 4 years of science, which is called 4x4. You will notice that it is Wall Street financiers who are ruining our economy, not scientists, not engineers, and not mathematicians.

You will remember our recent Presidential election had one candidate say he did "not know enough about economics." The economy is in the toilet in part because too many citizens do not know enough about finance to understand when they are getting a loan they cannot afford to pay.

The problems facing America today were not caused by a lack of Math and Science education, but by a lack of education in Economics and Finance. Students of History know the Roman middle-class was driven into bankruptcy before the Republic was over-thrown by the powerful and ambitious. We should study History well enough to avoid losing our republic like the Romans lost theirs.

The Texas 4x4 is a terrible, misguided plan. If we value our future, we need to correct the 4x4 mistake, improve the electives in Economics, and add an elective in Finance.

Robert Canright

Grammar and Writing: What Happened?

2008-12-02T19:29:00.000-08:00

First, a couple of stories. A lady I know handed me a copy of her son's business plan written for a college course. She said she did not understand why the paper got an 87. She saw nothing wrong with it. I took a quick look and handed it back, saying nothing. She prodded me for my opinion and I told her I found multiple grammatical mistakes on the first page and important information missing from the table of contents. I thought an 87 was generous. The lady had a masters degree from a well known Texas university and she could not spot grammatical mistakes.

A young person I know came with a college paper. The student said the college grader told him to rewrite it, saying if she were to correct it she would just pour red ink onto the paper. The student said his mother, college educated, read the paper and could not see anything wrong. I spent 2.5 hours correcting the paper and it was indeed bathed in red ink.

I talked with this student and discovered he had A's in high school English from a Plano high school, commended scores in the English TAKS test, and above average SAT scores in writing. There is something wrong with the way writing is taught in public schools.

There are serious deficiencies in the writing skills of college students, both entering and leaving college. If you are a student at the University of North Texas and you want to major in journalism, you have to pass a test on grammar, spelling, and punctuation before you can take a journalism course. Obviously a high school diploma means nothing in regard to writing.

I have studied numerous books on grammar and writing. I know there are good books and good courses on writing, so what has gone wrong in Texas?

I recently finished a Teaching Company course, "Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writers Craft" by Brooks Landon of the University of Iowa (Ph.D. Univesity of Texas). Dr. Landon said that for all the great books written about crafting good sentences, teaching students how to write good sentences is now unfashionable. In Lecture 24 he quotes from a paper by Dr. Robert J. Connors, "The Erasure of the Sentence," who said that sentence based writing approaches are considered "...scientistic and therefore suspect, mechanistic and therefore destructive."

It seems as though every subject requiring skill is declared boring and dropped from the school curriculum or diminished to the point where students with good grades are at best marginally competent.

What is wrong in Texas is part of a nation-wide corruption of standards. It is a shame because there have been some remarkable works, like "A Lesson from Hemingway" by Francis Christensen in his Notes Toward a New Rhetoric that are very intelligent.

We need to admit the writing program in Texas public schools is flawed and fix it.

Robert Canright

History and David McCullough

2008-10-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

David McCullough, the author of prize winning biographies and histories, had this to say about history at the National Conference of State Legislatures:

David McCullough:
"History is not about dates, and quotes, and obscure provisos. History is about life, about change, about consequences, cause and effect. It's about the mystery of human nature, the mystery of time. And it isn't just about politics, and the military, and social issues, which is almost always the way it's taught. It's about music, and poetry, and drama, and science, and medicine, and money, and love."

History is the story of humanity. Without history we cannot begin to understand what it means to be human. Without history we cannot improve our society, nor protect the progress we have made. Without history we cannot give our children a better life, nor even plan on leaving them at least with the benefits we received from our parents.

We must provide our children with a good grounding in history. And we adults need to maintain a life of learning, constantly adding to our knowledge of the story of humanity, growing in wisdom as an example to our children.

Robert Canright

Math Should be Valued

2008-10-19T19:33:00.001-07:00

The New York Times on Friday, October 10, 2008 on pages A15 & A19, published and article, "Math Skills Suffer in US, Study Finds" by Sara Rimer.

Here is a quote from this article, "'We're living in a culture that is telling girls you can't do math -- that's telling everyone that only Asians and nerds do math,' said the study's lead author, Janet E. Mertz."

This is a well written article that touches on one of the great failings in America education: the poor attitude within our culture towards mathematics. I remember reading an op-ed writer in a national newspaper, the Washington Post I think, writing that he never learned algebra and that did not hurt him, so he felt no one needed to learn algebra.

There are a lot of negative attitudes towards math, even amongst school teachers and college professors in the colleges of education. I have most certainly run across parents who had a poor attitude towards algebra and passed that bad attitude on to their children.

I heartily recommend the article by Ms Sara Rimer and I suggest we need a greater effort to promote valuing mathematics.

Robert Canright

The title of this article in the print edition was "U.S. Failing to Promote Math Skills, Study Finds - Citing Lack of Value for Talent in Culture." Sometimes the print edition and the online editions have different titles.

Economics Should be the New Science

2008-10-13T19:04:00.001-07:00

When the Russians launched Sputnik, the USA increased its commitment to science education because the satellite launch raised fears of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM's).

The recent economic meltdown is a greater threat to America that Sputnik was. We need a national focus on economics and finance. We need to reduce the emphasis on science and start adding the study of economics and finance to public education. Banking deregulation and irresponsible monetary policy is a greater threat to America than Al Queda.

Economics and finance should be the new science.

Robert Canright

Education and V for Vendatta

2008-10-04T15:54:00.001-07:00

A man I respect had this to say about the 700 billion dollar bailout our Congressmen voted on October 4, 2008: "The treason of our politicians had put me in a very sour and depressed mood. To Lift my spirits and regain some inspiration - tonight I am again watching "V For Vendetta". It always seems to lift my spirits and give me hope."

Many Americans are worried by how irresponsible our leadership is in handling money. But I see bigger problems than the money and I see a connection between our problems and education.

The failure of banks in America, year after year, is a symptom of big problems. The problems are (1) our leaders are incompetent, (2) our leaders deceive and manipulate us, and (3) too many people go along with the manipulation and deception.

Regarding Manipulation

Besides the movie V for Vendetta, featuring government deception, there have been movies with a similar theme for many years, like The Parallax View (1974). Even the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had the AI computer, HAL, go crazy because it was forced to lie to its crew.

In the movie, The Matrix, the character Morpheus says, "...there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad." That "something" is the deception and manipulation practiced by our leaders,

On the large scale, our deception has been documented in Manufacturing Consent. On a smaller scale, an article in the Saturday August 30, 2008 Wall Street Journal, "Machiavelli's Daring Gift" by William Amelia says Lee Atwater has read The Prince 23 times.

Karl Rove has been described as a Machiavellian in Machiavelli's Shadow by Paul Alexander. Scott McClellan wrote What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception and was pilloried in the press for being disloyal.

Competence

One critique I have heard of The Prince said that the manipulation and deception encouraged by The Prince is most helpful to mediocre people, so a Machiavellian system is riddled with mediocrity and incompetence. This goes a long way towards explaining the incompetence of the current Bush administration. Lee Atwater was important to George H.W. Bush and this Machiavellian presence in the 1st Bush administration had to influence the 2nd Bush administration.

To Be or Not to Be, a Sheep

The frustration of the American people with our corrupt leaders is finding voice in artistic works besides V for Vendetta. The book Black Friday by James Patterson describes disgruntled veterans blowing up Wall Street and assassinating the Secret Government. The short story, Sergeant Chip by Bradley Denton in Year's Best SF 10 depicts our government murdering its own soldiers in order to give the government an excuse to continue an unpopular war. There is a growing sentiment that our government cannot be trusted.

Cicero said it is dishonorable to be deceived. So it is our responsibility to be well enough informed that we are not easily deceived. Once we perceive the deception, some people think violence is an answer, or at least enjoy fantasies or movies about a heroically violent struggle. Yet, non-violence has been an effective form of resistence.

The Wall Street Journal, Saturday September 13, 2008, ran a story on page 1, American Revolutionary by Philip Shishkin about Gene Sharp. Gene Sharp started The Albert Einstein Institution to promote non-violence in the defense of freedom and democracy.

Gene Sharp wrote a handbook, From Dictatorship to Democracy, that is available as free PDF document. Gene Sharp promotes non-violence and the techniques he describes have been proven to work around the world.

Education is the Real Solution

We must avoid slipping into an outright dictatorship. The key to preserving our freedom is to educate our children for liberty to they can preserve their freedoms.

Ideally, we should educate our children so they can become tomorrow's leaders. We do not need to accept the existing ruling class. We can educate our children to rise to the top and restore competency, rationality, and morality to our nation's leadership. This is one of the goals of the Timeless Way Foundation.

Robert Canright

TLR: the Texas Leadership Revolution

2008-08-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

Texas will experience a revolution in leadership. Texas Congressman Ron Paul is just the beginning of the revolution.

I said back in May 2007 that Texas was going to experience a renaissance in politics. Instead of referring to this political renaissance as the Texas Leadership Renaissance, as I had planned, I will refer to it as the Texas Leadership Revolution (TLR) in honor of Ron Paul's book, The Revolution: a Manifesto.

The struggle to restore America to greatness and secure our liberties will take generations. Forty years after the civil rights movement was in full swing we have an African American running for President. We will succeed in the long run if we don't lose hope.

America needs better leaders and education is the key. We must educate our children for liberty. The citizens of a free society cannot be ignorant of history and remain free. This is why I have run repeatedly for the Board of Trustees of the Plano ISD: to prepare our children for a life of freedom and prosperity, to empower them to meet the difficult challenges awaiting them in a competitive and troubled world.

Robert Canright

TBAR, Rooster Teeth in Austin

2008-07-09T21:14:00.000-07:00

Good education should lead to improvements in the arts and in business. But this is not like the law of gravity. We need to make sure we nurture the arts and support local businesses. Today we will look more at computer animation and its impact on business and the arts in Texas.

The July 2008 issue of IEEE Spectrum ran an article, Machinima's Movie Moguls By David Kushner, describing a company in Austin named Rooster Teeth Productions.

Rooster Teeth publishes a show called Red vs. Blue (RvB). The type of show is called Machinima, a blend of Machine and animation.

This is an example of what Texas needs to cultivate in pursuit of a Texas Business and Arts Renaissance (TBAR).

Robert

PS: here is more about Machination.

TBAR, Venture Capital and Economic Growth

2008-07-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

TBAR, the Texas Business and Arts Renaissance, is not just about the arts. We should expect a renaissance in business as a result of our investments in education. But what we want and what we expect will not fall into our laps, we need to reach out and get it. A renewed focus in venture capital can help the Texas economy grow.

The New York Times, on Sunday June 1, 2008, ran an article, Venture Capital, Before High Tech, by Stephen Kotkin. The article is about a book, Creative Capital by Spencer E. Ante, that is about Georges F. Doriot.

There are books and articles, to be sure, about venture capital, but this quote from Doriot is why I mention this book: "I am building men and companies." Building something that lasts is what is missing in today's economy. If we increase the prosperity of Texas, it should be a lasting achievement, not a fly-by-night boom and bust like Enron.

There are several things we might surmise from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown on Wall Street. (1) There are a lot of investors who have trouble finding good investments for their money. (2) There appears to be a shortage of startups: Texas and America need more growing businesses that can blossom with investment. (3) If there is not a shortage of businesses that could benefit from investment, then perhaps there is a shortage of wise men, like Doriot, who know what businesses and people are worth backing.

Texas needs to work harder at encouraging its citizens to start businesses. Texas needs better ways to connect wealth to promising businesses.

Texas can have a renaissance in business, and a better venture capital infrastructure might be part of our success story.

Robert

PS: I have heard the theory that the lack of good investments was due to the presence of too much money in the system after Alan Greenspan drove the interest rate from the Federal Reserve down to essentially zero. Nevertheless, the money was there, but good investments were not.

Moral Instruction and Story Telling

2008-06-24T20:36:00.000-07:00

Stories are an excellent way to convey moral lessons. Movies are a good way to tell stories. I have shown The Keys of the Kingdom with Gregory Peck and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness with Ingrid Bergman in my home for moral instruction.

Upon a friend's recommendation I bought The Emperors Club in DVD. Because I was not personally familiar with it, I was watching it without requesting my son to join me. He wandered into the room, found the story interesting and stayed to watch it. I'm glad he did because it was a movie that conveyed moral instruction while entertaining us.

A good show or story is captivating and has full bodied, complex characters in challenging circumstances. They make an impression.

When I ran for the local school board I recommended Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans be incorporated into the curriculum, particularly in history. Plutarch's biographies are like stories, bringing to life famous and important people and giving insight into their characters. My 4th grade boy and I are presently going through the life of Alexander the Great. I ran for the school board because I wanted all the children of Plano, Texas, to have the same quality education as the Plano children whose parents provide tutoring.

The philosopher Richard Rorty has said that moral education is best taught by works of fiction that help us understand and sympathize with other people. The philosopher David Hume, in his work, Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, has also said that stories are a good way to provide moral instruction. But if we use stories for moral instruction in the schools we must be very careful.

A friend brought to my attention an article, Little Manchurian Candidates by Matt James, that describes a badly botched attempt by a school to provide moral instruction for the students through stories.

I have for a long time felt that moral education is the purview of the parents and the schools should stay away from that topic. Yet, the staggering amount of corruption in contemporary society indicates a lack of moral instruction in many households.

Education is an important ingredient in the glue that holds society together, so moral instruction should be included in education. Yet, we cannot depend on professional educators to assemble that part of the curriculum. Only the involvement of the parents will provide a system of moral instruction with community support and representative of community standards.

We parents must be more involved in the school curriculum.

Robert

TBAR, Virtual Reality, the Arts, and the Public Schools

2008-06-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

TBAR, the Texas Business and Arts Renaissance, is very much related to the public schools. We have forgotten that education is not all about standardized testing. We forget there are real benefits to education. I believe education can ignite a renaissance in business and in the arts.

Here is a proposal for a project that can tie together education, business, and the arts: multi-media / virtual reality projects for students that are based on the classics of literature.

The epic poems of Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey are fabulous when you hear them spoken. These are crying to be turned into animated films. This is something high school students can do. There are translations old enough to be in the public domain, so students have a script. It is also good for students to learn about copyrights and the public domain. Intellectual property is an important part of business in a knowledge based economy.

Students can plan and manage the production of animated films of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Theater students can do the voices. Orchestra students can write and perform the sound track. The techies and the artists can both work on the animation.

There is a 3D programming tool, free from Carnegie Mellon University, called Alice. It is intended for high school students. They have a program for middle school students called Storytelling Alice. Money for software is not a problem.

Plano (my home town) can teach high quality animation in its public schools. Lack of will power and vision are the only obstacles.

Animation is an important part of the new economy. Texas can have an important part in the business of animated movies, and we can start with our public schools.

The works of Shakespeare are in the public domain. Besides learning animation, our theater students would have more opportunities to perform. The orchestra students would understand soundtracks and see how they can be opportunities for creativity. When the projects are finished, the animated versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey can be used for instruction, along with works by Shakespeare.

Students can learn the classics.

Students can learn hi-tech skills.

Students can learn important business skills.

Our children have great opportunities. Texas needs visionary leadership to enable our children to excel. This is a great opportunity for all the children of Texas, not just Plano.

Robert Canright

TBAR and Summer Festivals

2008-06-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

I mentioned earlier the goal of a Texas Business and Arts Renaissance, TBAR. The New York Times, Sunday May 11, 2008, had a series of articles on arts festivals. Texas was mentioned in "Summer Stages Pop/Jazz" by Ben Sasario. This article mentioned the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

A related article, "Summer Stages" by Vivien Schweitzer, looking at classical music, mentioned the International Festival at Round Top. This is great.

It's great to see the arts in Texas being mentioned in a national newspaper. That series of articles did not mention any dance or theater festivals in Texas, so there is room for improvement, or maybe there are dance and theater festivals this Summer in Texas and the NY Times did not mention them.

We need to support the arts in Texas, so one day the arts in Texas can help support our children!

The arts are ennobling and uplifting, but if done right they can increase prosperity in Texas.

Robert

TBAR, the Texas Business and Arts Renaissance

2008-05-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

Texas needs a renaissance in business and the arts, and the two are related. A renaissance in the arts will be most successful if it is self-sustaining, which makes it a business. I've said this before, both in this blog and when I campaigned for the local school board.

Dallas, in March and April, 2008, had an AFI Dallas International Film Festival. It is important that we have events like this, that we support them, and that we build upon them.

The Texas needs to become a new center for film, publishing, and news production. Texas already has a toe-hold in the film industry. There is nothing magical about New York city or the West coast for publishing. No one really knows how to predict the next best-seller. Texans have the same capabilities as New Yorkers or Californians, but we lack the interest.

If you go a book fair in Texas, the books people buy most frequently are about Texas or the Old West. As Texans become better educated, there will be a natural progression to better quality books and films, but we can hasten the pace of progress. The Texas Film Commission, a government office, already promotes films. We also need to promote book publishing, script writing, and play writing.

There is money to be made in publishing, not just in film making. This is part of the business renaissance in Texas (yes, there is much more, but that is for another day).

I'm using the name "TBAR, the Texas Business and Arts Renaissance," because if you google "Texas Renaissance" you will flooded with hits related to the renaissance festival. There are a number of organizations and websites with "TBAR", but not too many to hide this idea.

I've also said that Texas needs a renaissance in politics, and I still believe that, but will have to be a separate thread, which I plan to call the "Texas Leadership Revolution."

Let's aim high for our children's sake. They deserve the best we can do for them.

Robert Canright

Here are subsequent posts on this topic
Summer Festivals
Virtual Reality, the Arts, and the Public Schools
Venture Capital and Economic Growth
Rooster Teeth in Austin, Machinima

Character Education, the Love of Learning, and the Five Virtues

2008-03-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

A lot has been said about character education. Schools and parents need to work together to teach good character. Here is a link to a nice article from the Mercury News in San Jose, "For success in schools, teach character first, then content," by Robert Freeman, March 3, 2008.

One thing missed in contemporary efforts to teach character in the schools is identifying the love of learning as a virtue. This is a Confucian virtue, which helps explain why the Chinese are so successful in scholarship.

Here is how James Legge translated Book XVII, Chapter VIII, of the Analects of Confucius:

1. The Master said, 'Yu, have you heard the six words to which are attached six becloudings?' Yu replied, 'I have not.'
2. 'Sit down, and I will tell them to you.
3. 'There is the love of being benevolent without the love of learning;-- the beclouding here leads to a foolish simplicity. There is the love of knowing without the love of learning;-- the beclouding here leads to dissipation of mind. There is the love of being sincere without the love of learning;-- the beclouding here leads to an injurious disregard of consequences. There is the love of straightforwardness without the love of learning;-- the beclouding here leads to rudeness. There is the love of boldness without the love of learning;-- the beclouding here leads to insubordination. There is the love of firmness without the love of learning;-- the
beclouding here leads to extravagant conduct.'

Obviously, newer translations read more smoothly, but you can see that the love of learning is important in Confucianism, yet missing from the lists of virtues used to teach character.

This link will lead you to the Six Pillars of Character. See how the Six Pillars compare to the Five Virtues of Confucianism.
Confucius -> 6 Pillars
---------------------------
Respectfulness -> Respect
Generosity -> Fairness
Sincerity -> Trustworthiness
Earnestness -> Responsibility
Kindness -> Caring

The 6 Pillars of Character includes Citizenship, but that is such a big deal to Confucians that they have lists of relationships and principles relating the individual to society.

The love of learning was not in Confucius' short list of virtues, but he spoke often about learning. To better understand the importance of learning in the Confucian tradition, contrast how the Christian Bible starts to how the Analects of Confucius starts.

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Analect 1:1 "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?"

If our children are to become successful students, it would help to inculcate the love of learning.

Robert

The Parents Duty to Teach Phonics

2008-01-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

I believe it is the parents' responsibility to ensure their child is getting a good education. That means the parents need to know if the schools are falling short and to make up for the failure. Phonics is a perfect example. Many schools are stuck with the "look-say" approach, which is now called "whole language". It is the parents' responsibility to teach their child phonics. I've mentioned elsewhere how I taught my son phonics. Now I want to give an example of parents who did not teach their child phonics.

A bunch of families were together for a Bible study. A 12 year old boy (a sixth grader) is reading a section but stops when he gets to the word "gentiles". He comes to a dead stop, sits in silence for a long time, then says he does not know the word. He did not try to sound out the word, which means his school, like so many, did not teach him phonics. After he says he does not know the word, his mother tells him to skip it and move on. She did not tell him to sound it out, which means neither she nor her husband taught their child phonics.

My children can sound out words they do not know because I taught them. They have an advantage over kids whose parents blindly trusted the schools.

If you want your child to have a good education, you must be involved and fill in the gaps the schools leave.

Robert

Maslow and the Good Society

2007-12-30T20:17:00.000-08:00

Educators love Abraham Maslow for his hierarchy of needs. Maslow wrote a book, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences, that has this line in it:

"Education must be seen as at least partially an effort to produce the good human being, to foster the good life and the good society."

I've said earlier that morality is the root of education, according to Chu Hsi. Maslow in the 20th century echoed what Chu said in the 12th century.

We can learn much about education from the ancient Chinese.

Robert

Education and the Arts

2007-12-24T12:28:00.000-08:00

Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, delivered this commencement speech at Stanford on June 17, 2007: "Trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones."

Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

"What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility."

"Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions."

and

"Art awakens, enlarges, refines, and restores our humanity."

I highly recommend you read his entire speech. It is relatively short and and very thoughtful. You cannot be interested in education without being interested in culture: both nurture our humanity.

Robert

Educational Philosophy

2007-12-12T18:48:00.000-08:00

At a political meeting when I ran for school board last year I was asked to describe my educational philosophy in 2 minutes or less. I have a very detailed description of my educational philosophy at my website dedicated to education.

Two minutes? That's just a bullet. I had not thought to boil down my educational philosophy to a bullet or two. What I said extemporaneously at the meeting was, "morality is the root of education." That is a quote from Chu Hsi.

Lately I've thought of elaborating the plant analogy. Confucius said we should study for our own sake, which means to fulfill our potential. I've also thought about the qualities in society that are valued by Confucianism. Here is a fuller bulletized version of my educational philosophy:

Morality is the root of education.
Developing citizens to their full potential is the body of education.
And the fruits of education are culture, justice, peace, and prosperity.

Education is less about skills and knowledge than about people and society. Skills and knowledge are indispensible. They might be milestones on the journey of life, but a milestone is not a destination.

With this as an educational philosophy we can see our education is never finished.

Robert

When Will the Experts Learn?

2007-11-23T22:34:00.000-08:00

The New York Times Magazine ran an article by Ann Hulbert, "What Every Child Needs." The article presents another way to spend money on education: universal pre-kindergarten education.

The idea is not new. Rob Reiner has pushed it for years. Here's a link to an article about how he was in Pennsylvania back in 2001 promoting it.

I keep hoping that the so-called experts will one day stumble across the solution to the education problem. Here is the solution, in a simple 3 point plan: family, family, and family.

1. The family needs to make it clear to the children that their education is important.

2. The family needs to actively help the children with school work and scholastic activities: helping them learn math facts and reading, for example.

3. The family needs to work with the teachers in a team effort to help their children succeed in school. Parents must be supportive of the teachers.

You could spend a million dollars in one year to educate a child, but if that child knows the parents do not believe in education, that money will accomplish nothing.

I keep hoping that some day the experts will wise up.

Robert
the article was in the Oct. 28, 2007 issue, page 11

How Do We Measure Progress in Education?

2007-11-10T12:58:00.000-08:00

The Wall Street Journal, 11/7/07, ran an Op-Ed piece entitled, "Educational Rewards." I was surprised and disturbed. The authors were declaring a for-profit school superior to non-profit schools by saying the students were 6 months ahead of the public schools in Math and 2 months ahead in Reading. Interpreting these numbers as a success is over reaching.

What if the public schools are 2 years behind of where they ought to be? Then the for-profit schools are 18 months behind. And how do you measure exactly where students should be on a month by month basis? Do they all work from the exact same curriculum? And who says the curriculum is any good anyway? The conclusions endorsed by these alleged experts are highly suspect.

The attitude of the authors makes them appear to have started with a conclusion, for-profit schools produce the best results, and then to have sifted data until they found some data, any data, to support their opinion.

The authors wrote, "...for-profit management will work anytime, and anywhere." The authors are biased. Who are they? Paul E. Peterson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, and Matthew M. Chingos, a research fellow at the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance. They sound like paid spokesmen for big business. I would say we cannot trust people from the Hoover Institute and from Harvard.

When I ran for school board I was disappointed that the people most interested in the election were people who hoped to get money from the school district (jobs or higher pay). American business is staggering from unbridled corruption that is costing the country untold billions in bankruptcies and losses from swindles. The last thing we all need is for crooks to get their hooks into the money intended for education.

We must be careful on how alleged experts measure progress in education. We must have the right goals for education. Making great progress in something meaningless is not real progress.

Robert

Bill Cosby's Book

2007-10-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

Here's an article by Nancy Kruh in the Dallas Morning News: Kudos for Cosby. Cosby has a book out, "Come on People, on the Path from Victims to Victors". Ms. Kruh describes the book in her article.

There is a strong link between education and community support. I haven't read the book yet, but I have ordered it.

If you wonder why I have not posted in a while, that is because I've been going to a lot of base ball games and practices during my son's Fall base ball.

Robert

Educating our Children to be Better Leaders

2007-07-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

Better leadership will be a by-product of the Winding Spring Process of Education. We have so many bad leaders now that America is in a Leadership Crisis. We do have some examples of good leaders: Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling and Lynn Turner, and they exhibit Confucian leadership principles. Read more in this blog posting: "Paul Yingling, Lynn Turner, and Confucian Leadership"

Robert

Texas Renaissance, Part 2

2007-07-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

I mentioned earlier that we should expect a Texas Renaissance. There is power in education. We need to channel that power into our economy, our political discourse, and into our culture.

We must promote the arts, and we can expect the arts to add vibrancy and profit to Texas. The Dallas Morning News ran an article on April 16, 2007, Centralizing Creative Talent by Karen Brooks. This article described a community, Villa Muse, being constructed in Austin for artists: musicians, filmmakers, producers, and gamers.

Supporters of education talk too much about producing skilled workers. We can set our sights higher. Education will create many opportunities. Improved education will revitalize Texas.

Villa Muse, in Austin, is one example of how Texas can promote the arts and business simultaneously.

When we think about the arts or about business, we must remember that education is he key to our future.

Robert

Parental Leadership is Key to Success in Education

2007-07-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have said in the Timeless Way blog and in the Hispanic Vision blog that fathers must be leaders in the family.

It is important that children know their parents believe in education. Fathers show leadership in the family by being actively involved in their children's education. The No Child Left Behind act of Congress dictates schools provide tutoring for children in academic trouble. Yet many of these children are in academic trouble because they know their parents do not believe in education. A bad attitude in the family towards education will ruin the efforts of tutoring just as that bad attitude put the children in the need for tutoring.

A father who does not lead his children towards success is leading them towards failure.

Robert

Why are we still hundreds of years behind in education?

2007-06-19T20:40:00.000-07:00

The Chinese, during the time of Chu Hsi in 1200, were debating "teaching to the test." We are only now having this debate in America. This means we are 800 years behind the Chinese in the theory and practice of education.

When Horace Mann was promoting public education about 1840, he was promoting the Prussian education system. We are only now close to achieving the key elements of what the Germans had 200 years ago. We still do not have a national curriculum and we are still working to get qualified teachers in the classrooms.

How can it be that America is 800 years behind the Chinese and 200 years behind the Germans? Horace Mann could see we needed to emulate the Germans almost 200 years ago, but America did not completely embrace his vision.

If you have ever taught in the classroom, you would have met parents who truly did not care about education. Many parents do not really believe in it. That is a failing in America.

American leaders -- political leaders, leaders in education, and community leaders -- have never managed to get America to truly embrace education. The real reason children fail the TAKS test in Texas is that their parents do not care, and our leaders have not persuaded them to care.

Changing tests will not fix the problem of failing schools, but this is what the Texas state legislature is doing. This is proof that our leaders are still failing to persuade parents.

Will they still be failing a hundred years from now? Will they ever get it right? I do not think they will ever get it right until we the people provide the leadership our politicians cannot provide.

I encourage you to get involved!

Robert

America, Where is Our Plutarch, Our Seneca?

2007-06-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

Seneca the Younger was a very wealthy citizen of ancient Rome known as much for his writings in philosophy and drama as his political career. He moved in the highest circles in Rome and manifested the highest achievements of a well educated man in his writings.

Since the days of our founding fathers, where is there an American Seneca? We have plenty of wealthy people. The richest people go the the most famous schools, but where is the evidence of their successful education? Where is there a rich man since our American Revolution who has manifested a great mind by writing anything of value?

Plutarch was a wealthy man in ancient Greece and one of the greatest minds in Western Civilization. Where is our Plutarch? With all the science and wealth at our disposal, why have we never had a rich American with a superior mind? The wealthy have access to our most famous schools, but they amount to nothing.

Is there something wrong with our rich that they are only good at making money? Is there something wrong with Harvard, Yale, and the rest of the Ivy League that the education they provide seems to make no positive impression on the wealthy?

Or is there something wrong with American culture that cannot see any merit beyond wealth?

I say it is time to demand better performance from the wealthy people that run America. They take over our politics with their money and give us shamelessly incompenent leaders, but we do not have to continue going down this road of failure.

We can turn off our TVs during the elections and ignore the political advertisements.

We can demand competence in our leaders.

And most importantly, we can better educate our children so we might yet have a Seneca or a Plutarch in America.

Robert

Texas Renaissance

2007-05-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

Texas has made a conscientious effort to improve education, but the tone has been largely negative. There has been too much harping on the negative. We need to set a more positive tone. We need to start imagining the benefits Texas will derive from a better educated population.

I believe Texas can expect a renaissance in business, the arts, and politics.

We need to expect good results from good education, then we must make those good results come true!

Robert

Writing Style

2007-05-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

We have all seen "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White, which promoted simple and direct prose. The famous educator, Jacques Barzun, penned a book on writing titled, "Simple and Direct."

A Chinese scholar made the same point long ago. Han Yu, 768 - 824 A.D., recommened this same type of writing style. He called it "guwen", where he recommended simple prose, unencumbered by elaborate style or affectation. "Guwen" translates as "classical prose", referring to the style of the ancient philosophers, like Confucius.

The Chinese have much to contribute to education.

Robert

Morality and Education

2007-04-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

The great Chinese scholar, Chu Hsi (Zhu Xi), said repeatedly moral principle is the root or foundation of learning.

Schools that avoid discussion of morality cannot produce well educated people when the graduates have no common understanding of morality.

Let's put Chu Hsi in perspective. He was born in 1130 A.D., the 12th Century, which was the High Middle Ages in Europe. Civil War broke out in England in 1135. The Second Crusade was launched in 1145. Thomas Becket was murdered in 1170 and Chu Hsi died in 1200.

Chu Hsi wrote extensively on learning. When he says moral principle is the root of learning, we should listen.

Also notice that he did not write about education. His perspective was on the responsibility of the student: learning. After all, education is the combination of teaching and learning.

American pedagogy focuses on teaching, while the culture most succesful in schooling focuses on learning.

There is a lot we can learn from the Chinese.

Robert

The Best of East and West

2007-04-04T20:24:00.000-07:00

Re-Education by Ann Hulbert was in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday, April 1, 2007. The article describes how China is working to introduce an American style liberal arts approach to college education with more emphasis on critical thinking and originality and less emphasis on memorization. China wants to increase its competitiveness and seeks "a creative mix of the best of East and West."

This is in line with what I have been saying: we need to borrow the best China has to offer in education to better compete against China. Each side, East and West, has gone too far into its favorite approach and neglected the less favored approach. The West has gone over-board with critical thinking and has neglected teaching basic knowledge and skills.

In the Winding Spring Process of Education, acquiring knowledge and skills is the extension of knowledge in the learning phase of the process.

Robert

Teaching Reading and Putting a Man on the Moon

2007-03-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the New York Times (March 11, 2007, p. 3 in the Business Section) by Denise Caruso talks about how we can put a man on the moon but we cannot teach children how to read. Her article, "Knowledge is Power Only if You Know How to Use It," says "reading creates conflict," but if we "study enough examples of effective human know-how" then we will be able to "come up with a process that spurs solutions to problems as predictably as technological know-how does today."

We should decline gifts from the Trojans. Many of the problems we have in education today were created by so-called experts who have taken simple tasks like teaching reading and botched the job. Then they want to be paid in perpetuity to continue botching the problem until doomsday.

The public schools need to protect themselves from charlatans, especially the ones with Ph.D.s or Ed.D.s

John Dewey's Ideas Reflect Confucianism

2007-03-08T14:20:00.000-08:00

If you study John Dewey's ideas on education and then study Confucianism, you will see that Confucius was expressing some of the same ideas 2,500 years ago that John Dewey expressed in the 20th century.

Check this link for more details

Education for Wisdom

2007-01-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

The January 18, 2007, issue of the Wall Street Journal had an editorial by Charles Murray entitled, "Aztecs vs. Greeks." There he said the most important aim of education is wisdom. Then he says,

"The encouragement of wisdom requires being steeped in the study of ethics, starting with Aristotle and Confucius. It is not enough that gifted children learn to be nice. They must know what it means to be good."

"The encouragement of wisdom requires an advanced knowledge of history. Never has the aphorism about the fate of those who ignore history been more true."

"In short, I am calling for a revival of the classical definition of a liberal education..."

These are exactly my sentiments and this explains why the Winding Spring Process of Education has such a strong emphasis on history during the high school years.

Robert

The Five Steps of Studying

2007-01-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

The Doctrine of the Mean identifies five steps in studying
1. Study extensively
2. Inquire accurately
3. Reflect carefully
4. See clearly
5. Practice earnestly

I showed my son how to apply these 5 steps to his 3rd grade science project.
You can go here to read more about the 5 steps.

Confucianism is the key to education for the 21st Century.

Attitude is Everything, Chu Hsi Tells Texas How to Succeed with TAKS

2007-01-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

The state of Texas uses a test called TAKS, Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, to check the progress of its students. Some schools and some segments within schools have been failing consistently for years. Some people now want to abandon the TAKS test rather than fix the underlying problem.

One such person is Texas State Senator Florence Shapiro. On page 5 of her last newsletter of 2006, under the section on student assesments, she talks about beginning to abandon the TAKS test. She wants to use end of course exams, but does not tell you that end of course exams were used before the TAAS tests, which preceded the TAKS. In other words, she wants to return to the failed system that led to the TAAS and TAKS tests in the first place.

There are many students in Texas that fail the TAKS because they do not want to pass it. They do not care. No matter what test you give them, no matter what curriculum you use, no matter how many teachers or administrators you fire, you cannot force students to learn who do not want to learn. This is the most stubborn problem in education.

Changing the test again is just a way to avoid the problem and perpetuate failure. What can we do? One approach is too see what one of the most important educators in history had to say. Chu Hsi lived in China from 1130 to 1200 AD. Here is what he said about a student's attitude:

"Students must firmly establish their wills, the desire to learn....The students' great failing is their wills are incapable of pressing on....Where the mind is headed is what is meant by will....the mind must have the will to learn if the student is ever to advance."

We must address the attitudes of failing students if we are to make continuing progress in education. Sometimes a student's bad attitude is a reflection of bad attitudes from the parents, so parental support is also important to improving student performance. This is the hardest problem within education, but we will never succeed unless we tackle it.

Abandoning the TAKS test is a huge mistake, even if it is done incrementally by dropping it first in the high schools. No test, no curriculum, no staff changes can compensate for an attitude that despises education.

Robert

ps:
The quote I gave from Chu Hsi comes from page 104 of "Learning to be a Sage" by Chu Hsi, translated by Daniel K. Gardner

The Timeless Way Foundation

2007-01-05T19:22:00.000-08:00

The Timeless Way Foundation works to improve communities through the Winding Spring Process of Education, which is a contemporary application of The Great Learning (the Ta-hsüeh or Da xue). The Great Learning is an ancient masterpiece. The Winding Spring Process of Education is an integrated approach to education. This process integrates the community, the families, the schools, and provides a roadmap for creating healthy, prosperous communities.

There are four documents at this website describing the Winding Spring Process of Education.

Education for the 21st Century

2006-12-31T19:06:00.000-08:00

I am starting this blog to discuss educational reform. The world around us is changing so rapidly that current efforts for educational reform are doomed because they strive to prepare our children for a world that no longer exists.

We need to prepare our children for a future that does not yet exist.

We must prepare our children for a future beyond our imagination!

Robert