Newt's Ideas for More Newtons

This past weekend the Charlotte Observer published an excerpt of an article by Newt Gingrich. I shook my head as I read things like:

A more radical idea is to pay students directly for getting a B or better in their math and science classes. The idea offends many who either believe learning should be its own reward or don't think we should place special value on math and science over the arts, humanities and social sciences.

The idea doesn’t “offend” me – nor do I imagine that others are questioning the wisdom of the idea because of some sort of purist perspective. It’s fraught with impracticalities. Just the subjectivity of grades (which I think is a good thing on balance) poses a huge problem on systematically incentivizing students with monetary rewards.

But … before completely dismissing his ideas, I thought it was important to examine his whole piece [probably a better way to word that, eh?!] Moving on ...

In the context of the entire essay, it’s a little easier to stomach. Like the excerpt, it sounds the alarm on the state of students’ math and science performance.

The United States continually ranks near the bottom in OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] rankings of student mathematical achievement. The National Science Foundation found that in 2005 only 35% of U.S. eighth graders were deemed to be proficient in math. China and India graduate five times as many engineers as the United States.

No argument here. We could and should be doing better. But he sets up his diagnosis with this gem:

The facts show that money alone is not the answer.

Is there ANYONE who says that money alone will solve this education issue – or any other education issues, for that matter? Okay. Okay. I’m starting to nitpick. Let’s get to his ideas for addressing the issue of science and math performance.

No surprise that he frames it up in the school choice silver bullet.

School choice must be included in our set of solutions. In addition to the urgent national security need for improving our educational system, there is also the moral imperative of liberating students in poor neighborhoods from an environment that will cripple their lives. School choice will provide immediate relief to those trapped in failing schools. Furthermore, introducing market forces to our education system by forcing schools to compete for students will inspire improvement faster than the slow, cumbersome movement of the education bureaucracy.

Yes, yes … this issue deserves multiple posts. And there’s a lot about offering more choice that is good for students and families. HOWEVER, I will say that “moral imperatives” and “market forces” don’t often play well together – particularly when market forces focus on the short term (which they tend to do). What’s the financial incentive to take on a student with severe learning disabilities and answer the moral imperative to educate every child? When seats are limited at a school, what’s the financial incentive to liberate students in poor neighborhoods who require transportation, two meals, and after-school care when the seats could easily be filled by students without these higher-cost needs?

I debated whether to include this because it is an issue that warrants a much deeper exploration. But I think Mr. Gingrich’s view of school choice as “immediate relief” for suffering students and as an elixir to breaking through the education bureaucracy is grossly oversimplified and illustrative of his ideas for fixing our math and science woes.

We’ll start with:

We should also experiment with offering direct incentives to students to accelerate their pace of learning beyond what is expected of them by school curricula. Imagine if students who finish high school early were given the cost of their remaining years in the form of scholarships. This would cost the taxpayers nothing and motivate students--especially those in poorer neighborhoods--to learn as rapidly as possible.

I’m all for pushing students to accelerate learning, providing them with opportunities and encouragement to do so. I’m not sure how his idea, though, “would cost taxpayers nothing.” Okay, maybe there’s some proficiency test that could demonstrate mastery of chemistry or trig. And because he’s talking about finishing high school early, those tests would have to extend to English and history, et al. Having taught both English and history, I can tell you that a test to show mastery of those subjects would invariably boil down to regurgitation of dates and events in history, and English/language arts would be more like the verbal section of the SAT. And as a student, I bet I could’ve “passed” a history test without benefit of the class, but I wouldn’t have learned what I did, nor would I have been as prepared for college. In fact, I bet I could have passed the GED in 10th grade, but there’s no way I would’ve been ready for college or would’ve been accepted to Davidson College.

Of course, there are ways to actually take the classes and finish early through summer school, but that costs taxpayers money. And what often happens with students who are really advanced in math is that they take advanced math classes while still in high school – either at their school or through a nearby college/university. We should certainly encourage more of that, but it ain’t free.

He continues:

Of course, an essential part of allowing students to learn on their own, independent of the set patch of the school curriculum is developing a clearinghouse of knowledge that is accessible to everyone for free. The federal government can play a role by contributing to the Library of Congress online learning programs that teach basic math through trigonometry and calculus as well as the physical sciences.

I’m all for the federal government increasing its contribution to education, and this is one way that would be effective. I also think that such a clearinghouse would benefit adults who would like to expand their understanding of math and science. However, if these online learning programs are going to count toward high school graduation, Mr. Gingrich will need to convince many people in his party that we need to cede some of that the local control of curriculum to the federal government. Moreover, the bigger challenge for science is how to replicate labs, how to replace the human interaction that’s so crucial in developing and testing a hypothesis, and how to foster the skills of scientific reasoning and representation of ideas. Any science educator will tell you that science isn’t just knowledge (as Mr. Gingrich implies) – it’s a combination of knowledge and skills.

So … the clearinghouse idea is a good one, but I think it’s more of a supplement to class time. His idea that came on the heels of the clearinghouse is a really good idea.

This initiative would be especially powerful combined with initiatives like Nicolas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child, which has produced a durable, $189 laptop specifically designed for young children. These laptops operate on an innovative peer-to-peer networking system that allows near-universal internet access over large areas despite a lack of traditional wireless coverage. Much focus has been paid in recent years to putting computers in the classroom. Instead, we should focus on putting the classroom in the computer. Compare the cost of these laptops to what most schools spend on textbooks, and you begin to see how such an investment would pay immediate dividends. Furthermore, immersing all students from a very early age in an interactive, dynamic learning environment--accessible from anywhere where students are allowed to learn at their own pace on the paths of their choice--will do more to build a culture of independent, life-long learning in America than any of the normal, bureaucratic, curriculum-based education models we have in America today.

As one who has his hands in the creation of a lot of interactive learning experiences, I strongly agree that we could and should do so much more to harness the capabilities of the Internet and technology, in general. Outfitting students with laptops and improving learning resources can go a long way toward increasing student engagement and fostering life-long learning mindsets and skills.

Our current emphasis on testing as the sole means of stressing and measuring accountability is a key inhibitor to fostering life-long learning mindsets and skills. There are, of course, many many exceptions, but educators are going to teach to the test. The standardized tests largely center on surface-level understanding – on the regurgitation of information. Again, I’m treading into an area that warrants a much deeper exploration, which I will do in the future. But suffice it to say now that testing has done a great disservice by squashing creativity and personalized learning in the classroom.

Which brings me to my closing idea on what I think we should do to improve science and math. I find it interesting that Mr. Gingrich never mentions teachers in his essay. Not once. They are the common denominator [pun intended, I guess] among all students. I’m guessing that he views teachers as part of the problem – part of the education bureaucracy. And they are part of the bureaucracy, and they are part of the problem. But they HAVE TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION.

I’ll state something broad that requires “bold action” (in Mr. Gingrich’s words), and leave it there, but then I’ll give a specific idea. We need bold action to cultivate a society that rewards teaching and encourages teachers to continually improve their craft – to have a much larger level of control over their instruction so that it matches their strengths with the interests and strengths of their students. It’s different from year to year and class to class, so teachers must constantly assess, reflect, react, and experiment. [Sounds rather scientific, doesn’t it?!]

Now for the specific idea that relates to this one. I’m convinced that the majority of younger kids love science. It’s hands-on, it’s observational – it taps into their natural curiosity. Something happens, though, to stifle that interest, so by middle school and high school, science is primarily the domain of the “dorky.” What I think happens is that science is given short shrift in elementary schools because many elementary school teachers avoid it and are even afraid of it. They didn’t study it in college. And they got into teaching because they love kids, they love teaching reading, etc. [I’m generalizing, of course.]

So here’s my simple, bold solution: Dramatically increase the level and emphasis on professional development for elementary school teachers around science. Help them experience the thrill and help them translate that to their classroom instruction. Help them teach reading and math in the context of science experimentation and observation. Help them feel comfortable introducing ambiguity and problem solving in age-appropriate ways.

We won’t see the impact immediately on the numbers of engineers we produce, but we will quickly see an impact on student engagement, which can go a long way in impacting learning.