What Should All Maine Students Know?
I attended the first of our four meetings Monday, March 27th. A week before I received a packet of articles and research briefings to read to prepare for the meeting. I have included a list of these articles and links to them in a separate blog.
The meeting began with some presentations. Themes included:
- Technology will and must change the way our students learn. Bette Manchester of MLTI shared findings of Maine’s MLTI iniative and her observations on how technology is changing learning.
- “The Flat World” Thomas Friedman’s ideas about how technology is creating a more integrated world where corporations can have people working on projects together from far-flung places. This makes readiness for post-secondary (and life-long) education critical. This part of the presentation included some interesting facts about Maine, including that we rank 8th in the U. S. in both export growth and percentage of employees working for foreign corporations.
- “Gateway courses” help students succeed in post-secondary education. 8th graders taking algebra and high school students completing math beyond algebra II have much higher completion rates in college. We get many students into post-secondary education, but 28% require remediation. 70% of students in remediation do not graduate! The completion rates at our U of Maine system schools after 6 years ranges from a high of 60% (UM) to a low of 23% (UMA). It seems that many of our students are not prepared for success in post-secondary education.
- “High Expectations = High Achievement” Several of the readings showed evidence that students learn more in higher level classes. In fact, the failure rate of students GOES UP when they are placed in lower level classes. Even the bottom quartile of students have higher passing rates in college-prep English classes. The failure rate is about the same for this group in college-prep vs. lower level math classes.
- Rigorous core curriculum for all students. This should include:
- Four years of Mathematics – including at least Algebra I & II, geometry, and a 12th grade college-prep math course
- At least 3 years of laboratory science – Chemistry, Biology and Physics
- At least three years of Social Studies.
- At least two years of study in another language.
After the presentations, we broke into groups to discuss the articles we read. We used the “Save the Last Word For Me” strategy in this discussion. It was a good strategy for us!
We finally worked in our groups to develop and share recommendations for the core curriculum for Maine students.
Some of the recommendations our group discussed included:
1. Flexible scheduling to allow planning time within school day; flexibility w/teacher and student schedules, start earlier, go later)
2. The “Core Curriculum” needs to be more than a number of credits. The content must be defined. This is what the Learning Results should do.
3. Let go of credits. There must be flexibility in how school structure curriculum. Work should be standards based. Since different students will need more or less time to master material, we need to allow for continuous progress.
4. Equity of resources (technology, etc.) between schools.
5. Equity of access to rigorous courses for all students.
6. An exhibition or presentation of learning should be a graduation requirement.
7. Core curric allows more flexibility in scheduling
8. We need a strong support systems for student success. Some of us believe this will cost money!
9. Reprioritize existing resources (time/personnel). Rethink and eliminate “pet” electives, family and consumer science, industrial arts, etc. Some felt that this could free up the resources necessary to make these changes in our schools
10. Staff development time and resources. If we expect all students to participate in a rigorous core curriculum, professional staff will need to have time to develop skills, knowledge, and instructional strategies.
My parting thoughts and questions:
Why do we offer Algebra I as a two year course in Buckfield (and many other Maine Schools)? According to what I learned our kids would learn more in a one-year Algebra I. This should probably include every-day 80-minute classes for students who need support.
Is Algebra II really necessary for all students? Why is it more important than Probability and Statistics? For that matter, how many of us made poor financial decisions in our early lives because we didn’t have the knowledge we needed about credit cards, compound interest, and investing for retirement? How much more of a problem is this now with the pushing of credit cards onto our young adults?
Biology, Chemistry, and Physics are foundational courses in science. I agree that a strong background in these makes it easier to learn other sciences. But what about other sciences? Why not Earth Science? How about Environmental Science and other classes which can help students become good stewards of the earth?
How will the state see that schools have the necessary resources to meet these goals? Will schools be able to have sufficient financial resources by simply redirecting resources? One of the criteria of “high performing” secondar schools in one of the studies we read was required academic support for students with grades of C or lower. I can’t imagine this wouldn’t cost some money.
Will this focus on the core make schools more narrow? How will we be able to narrow and refine our offerings and simultaneously hold onto our disaffected youth more successfully? I thought the article in the New York Times last week, “Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math” By Sam Dillon about schools where students are participating in reading, writing, and math classes to the exclusion of science and social sciences (not to mention other electives) was very interesting. Is this the best way we can serve our students??
