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By Timothy D. Snyder

As a long-time educator, I am hearing resonant echoes in Rocky Mountain News editor John Temple’s comments on the metamorphosis of the newspaper industry in reaction to new Internet-based media (“Reading future of newspapers,” Aug. 18). He uses the terms wrenching change, hyper-local, providers of news, platform agnostic and multidimensional. He says that the future will see a few best-seller newspapers, but mostly more and smaller ones with more specialization. “Instead of producing one paper for everybody, a newsroom might produce 10 newspapers for 10 different audience types, or maybe more.”

Is it any different for public schools?

There are a huge number of variables involved in teaching (and testing) children — diversity of culture, differences of income, language and vocabulary, family values, and so forth. Although schools can’t control the variables brought through the schoolhouse door by children, schools can control how they adapt to these variables.

Moving from universal opportunity to universal proficiency does, indeed, involve wrenching change for schools. With the advancement of 21st century learning tools, schools are moving toward hyper-locality, and to personalizing curricula for all children, with an intriguing bonus of student engagement as they direct their own learning via self-paced online courses.

Schools are becoming even more multidimensional than in the past. The blurring of lines between secondary and post-secondary is a positive sign. Important questions relate to the speed at which Colorado can move its graduation paradigms from seat-time to proficiency, and to providing meaningful career and technical learning as part of the high school experience.

Public education must also become, if not platform agnostic, at least platform diverse. The means by which students are educated could be as varied as the students themselves. For many, this might mean traditional classrooms. For others, it might mean online classes. For still others, money-earning apprenticeships or other career opportunities. And for others, combinations of these methods ... and more.

Educators will move from single delivery models to being “providers” willing to bring to bear all tools and platforms in behalf of reaching and teaching every student.

Young people who have hope for the future are more likely to strive for success. They will engage themselves in ways that overcome their obstacles. Schools can change to offer more hope; they can adapt to meet the needs of the times — and the future.

Timothy D. Snyder is a member of the governor’s P-20 Council and Council on 21st Century Learning. He is the retired superintendent and executive director emeritus of Colorado Online Learning.

READER COMMENTS

Thanks for the kind words. See Romans 12:20 to glimpse my feelings.

I'm still mulling over your overarching question, but I do have two points. First, you might have had a "curriculum packed with languages," but, if yours was like the overwhelming majority of American middle schools, the language courses were introductory; and, emphasizing basic grammar, basic vocabulary, and basic phonetics -- as any good introduction to a language must -- these courses were rather tedious, especially compared to fifth and sixth year foreign language, when kids can read stories, maintain engaging conversations, watch movies to improve their pronunciation, etc. Sixth graders should have four or five years of one foreign language under their belt (and ideally, two or three years of a second). Then they wouldn't have to embark on the tough, relatively uninteresting stuff just as they're starting to feel rebellious.

Likewise, I doubt your kids had access to the best books. At this point, 21st century elementary schools simply don't prepare kids to read memorable literature in middle school. I doubt there are many college students who could name five books they read during those middle years; and if they can't remember them now, they couldn't have been terribly excited about them back then. And who can blame them? Middle school literature isn't terribly exciting. There isn't much great literature geared toward a "sixth-grade reading level."

Secondly, while many troubled teens might have been "solid" performers in elementary school, surely the 30% of middle school kids who can't read well enough to enjoy it are thereby at a much greater risk of looking for entertainment -- and a sense of belonging -- outside of school, i.e. drugs, sex, gangs. It's hard to believe that, with 90-100% reading proficiency, even the roughest schools would lose as many kids as they do right now.

DC writes very well. It is a pleasure to follow the logic presented.

To continue the conversation illustrated by the sleeping student. . . .

Johnny was literate, our middle school staff was excellent, and our curriculum packed with languages, performing arts and literature; albeit not containing all the emphases espoused by DC.

Johnny had other life issues. The issue-of-the-moment was a battle with his mother typical of many hormonal-charged pre-teens: "I don't have to do what you want me to do, and you can't make me." Since she wanted him to go to school, that became his line in the sand.

Even though the life issues of most teens are actually resolved via school, there are many cases wherein their issues transcend school; the most publicized of which are peer/gang pressures, addictions, pregnancy, serious neglect/abuse, etc. Anecdotally, many of these youth were solid performers in elementary school.

Our challenge, and my question, is how to help the 25% of youth that are headed this year to dropping out of school for any of the reasons listed above?

It’s interesting that the percentage of kids lost correlates roughly to the percentage of elementary school students who score “unsatisfactory” or “partly proficient” in reading, writing, and math. I wouldn’t be surprised if “Johnny” was one of these struggling children, and decided, after years of feeling stupid, that he’d finally had enough.

There are, of course, multiple possibilities, so let’s consider them. If Johnny did have trouble reading – if he’d been passed on from grade to grade, illiterate, for five or six years before landing in your school – then his decision to stay in bed was understandable, indeed almost rational. What’s the point of going to school if you don’t know how to read, and your teachers have never succeeded in teaching you?

Let’s consider the alternative: a literate Johnny. In a sense, it’s ironic that we start losing kids during the middle school years, because that’s precisely the time when education should finally become exciting.

I know a charter school teacher teaching Latin to grades 3, 4, and 5. Her students constantly ask her, “What’s the point of this?” and “Why do we have to learn Latin?” She says she can only respond, “You’ll thank me later.” C.S. Lewis makes a similar point in regard to Greek: the seven-year-old never knows why he should study his lessons, but after a few years of relative drudgery, he gets to enter a world of mythology, battles, and romance. The studious early years turn out to have been worthwhile. Their intellectual labor (when such exists) starts bearing fruit when kids enter sixth or seventh grade.

Granted, the state – meaning voters and CSAP requirements – probably isn’t ready for a mandatory classical curriculum. But we could make the same point apropos of living literatures: sixth graders with a solid foundation are finally ready to read exciting books like Ivanhoe, as sixth graders were doing just a few decades ago; and, if elementary school students were required to study a foreign language (or two), the beginning of middle school would signal a transition from vocabulary memorization to lively debates, Mexican movies, and Spanish stories. It seems to me that, with the right elementary curriculum, the middle years would have marked the first time in Johnny’s life that he hadn’t felt like skipping school.

The reality, as you, Mr. Snyder, suggest, is just the reverse. Elementary school is generally pretty fun; school becomes a serious drag after fifth or sixth grade. But if school sometimes has to be drag – I think we can admit this to be the case without sounding like Philistines – it should be a drag in the early years, before kids can cow their mothers into submission. This makes sense from a purely disciplinary perspective, but more importantly, it offers the intriguing prospect of engaged, excited, educated middle schoolers.

So we trace the later failures back to the early years. Thus far I’ve focused mainly on content: foreign language, a relative absence of “fun” in the elementary school classroom, etc. But even, or perhaps especially, the highest quality primary education requires sound methods to convey it. We don’t, however, have to go groping in the dark to find them. Look at the “value-added” schools in this state and around the country, and I bet you find a strikingly high incidence of Direct Instruction (the method that Project Follow Through discovered to be so exceptionally successful with underprivileged kids). If Direct Instruction can take 4 out of 5 partly proficient readers (I’m in the process of finding good statistics, although any article about Direct Instruction is a good place to start) and make them proficient or advanced, Colorado shouldn’t settle for methods that, according to CSAP results, accomplish virtually nothing.

On a separate note, I could embrace your diverse platform if the diversity related to content (i.e., intensified vocabulary training for struggling kids) rather than method. That’s the subject for another post.

I heartily agree with DC's observations about high expectations. The best teachers I have known, and nurtured, have had levels of uncommon intensity with children. Not only did they expect the best from them, but they expended huge amounts of effort in ensuring students met their expectations.

The real challenge was how to help (older) students who had no desire to be in school, and whose circumstances in no way supported school as something needed in their lives. As a middle school principal, I found myself going to a particular student's home in the mornings to try to get "Johnny" out of bed and in school. His mother was very kind, even cooked breakfast for me, but she had no control over her child.

This was not an isolated scenario, and I found that the percentage of students in similar categories directly correlated to their increase in age. Those are the kids that schools lose.

I would like to speak more to the diverse platform issue, but would like counsel, first, on how schools can help the 25% of students who will not engage in schooling, no matter what the quality.

That is a main thrust of the P-20 Council charge, and I could really use some new thinking in this regard.

Diversity of purpose is like taking a group of people to a climbing wall and letting them climb so long as they only use the equipment you brought. Unfortunately, only a few leaders bring the right equipment or enough of it. Those who don't need the equipment to climb are forbidden try. Those who are given a box of chalk will draw on the wall not climb it.

A better model of learning allows each person to bring equipment, share equipment and try until they are at least moving up the wall. Those still climbing are encouraged by those at the top and all have the opportunity to succeed and achieve a real goal.

Teach basics by pedagogic methods and employ rote memorization and high standards for all students. Students who learn quickly will have higher goals to strive for sooner. All will learn and progress if it is expected of them.

I think that your emphasis on proficiency is certainly a step in the right direction, and I appreciate your concern for the 25% of the students left behind. In my view, seat-time should be coupled with proficiency requirements. Kids should definitely have to meet certain standards before their school district awards them a diploma -- no disagreement there -- but the bar would have to be set very high to keep smart, industrious fourteen year olds from graduating before they're old enough to work.

The most important question relates to results, and it's in that arena that I really take issue with your analysis. I think that certain methods effectively impose themselves on students, engaging them, as it were, against their will, and that others -- like the creativity craze -- are so inherently insubstantial that a group of particularly undisciplined students find themselves reflected in the classroom. In other words, success and failure can always be traced to the "school side." In the one case, schools force their students to succeed, and in the other, students dictate failure to their English teachers, who in turn encourage them to express themselves through painting, since they don't how to write.

Two quick examples might help to illustrate my point. My uncle attended high school in D.C. in the early 1970's, and according to him, student culture changed practically overnight; he actually describes it as a social revolution. His principal, like you yourself, Mr. Snyder, would be right to point out that the dramatic drop in performance was due to social factors, but it would be even more accurate to say "social factors that the teachers didn't know how to control." Most of Jonny's teachers let him and his classmates run wild. One teacher stood out from the crowd, however, because she "didn't put up with any crap." If a student wanted to pass her class, he didn't just have to know the lesson; he had to have it memorized. Her students, as it turned out, respected that.

That story, you might say to yourself, is an object lesson in discipline, but not necessarily in pedagogy. So I couple it with the one that follows. I know a high school senior whose AP English teacher just assigned the class Dante's Inferno. "Excellent!" I thought. "A master artist! Virgils' disciple! The crown jewel of the middle ages!" But then I heard about their first assignment: their teacher has them designing their own hells, complete with guides, the various "sins" they would like to see punished, etc. In other words, the teacher is catering to the creativity fad: kids walk into a classroom expecting to "express their creativity"; the majority of op-ed pieces on education stress creativity; and, because partly becuase teacher has been taught that pure, unadulterated learning is bad and reactionary, partly because she thinks that her students would never stand for it, her students lose time they could spend experiencing one of the greatest poems ever written. The kids, once again, run riot, but this time their teachers feel more secure, because at least they're quiet at their desks, with a colorful piece of paper in front of them.

What ever happened to rote learning? It worked for disadvantaged kids in Project Follow Through; it worked for Dante, who had all 10000 lines of the Aeneid memorized before he sat down to "express his creativity"; why can't it work in the 21st century? Rote learning expands the memory, it enhances critical thinking (incomparably more than a seveneteen-year-old designing her own crummy hell ever could), and it reassures students that they too are capable of achieving something wonderful -- like getting "Paul Revere's Ride" by heart, and reciting it to their peers.

I'm therefore skeptical about your "diverse teaching platform" on two fronts. First, I see no reason to think that a kid learns better over the internet than he does with a book on his desk (although the internet might be more exciting); second, I think it distracts from the central issue: we have good models for education, but they're not being employed, because they don't leave sufficient room for "creative teaching" and the demands of indignant teachers. I could hardly disagree more heartily with your colleague, Mr. Kalmon: 21st century education, at least in K-12, does not need to change to meet the demands of the modern economy. A kid who can get Henry V by heart will have no trouble learning to navigate the digital highway. The leisure for a liberal education comes and goes, but the digital highway, to all appearances, is forever.

In response to those who took the time to send their comments: I wish the RMN had printed the two paragraphs that gave some background for my observation on variables. That may have helped in the explanation.

The short version is--As a teacher, I've had the experience of using basically the same methods from one year to the next, only to find that year-end academic growth rates were significantly different. This suggests to me that there's a whole lot more to the story of student achievement than just the school side. Be that as it may, schools have to accept responsibility for student success. In my view, we've seriusly damaged lives by hanging our hats on the mantra of opportunity and Coleman's findings in the early '60s.

The greatest regret of most high school principals, including me, is that we've left behind at least 25% of our students.

It's unfortunate that space limitations restrict a more adequate explanation of the ideas I present. To focus on one of them, what did you think of the idea about changing promotion/graduation criteria from seat-time to proficiency? That would allow students to test out of courses at the point they felt ready, and gain the "credit" for their knowledge. It seems that a model like that would reward students for their personal pursuit of learning, and allow them to move forward at the rates they wished. Of course, that would radically alter school funding models, but a change I think worth discussion.

Your thoughts?

Mr. Snyder,
You must have attended the Ross Perot School of bureaucratic babble. You said a lot without really saying anything. Yes, on the surface it sounds really good, but it forces the reader to ask one simple question that your rambling fails to answer.....based upon what model or proven research do you make your assessment.
I agree with many people that our schools have become a bureaucratic mess and it's because of people just like you. You make these fancy "cliché" statements that in the end have no substance...and worse yet, fail to provide a real solution to the problem of our public schools.
Mr. Snyder, next time give us a well thought out plan, not just ramblings and clichés.

I came looking for hope and substance, but this article offers neither. I feel sick to my stomach.

What does it mean for schools to adapt to all Mr. Snyder's variables --"diversity of culture, differences of income, language and vocabulary, family values, and so forth"? Should poor, uneducated kids from families that don't value learning be treated as if they're incapable of working through difficult texts? What kind of message would it send if we inquired into a kids' parents' income before deciding what books they should read? Don't you think they'd start thinking of themselves as the products of a degenerate culture, rather than as vessels of potential, capable of meeting and exceeding any standards?

Why does the author think that online classes and self-directed learning provide "the intriguing bonus of student engagement"? Is there an iota of evidence that struggling kids learn better online than in the rigorous, old-fashioned settings Mr. Snyder completely ignores?

Mr. Snyder might mean well, or he might be a typical, self-promoting bureaucrat: I don't know the man, and I certainly wouldn't presume to guess. But this article, like the article his colleague, Mr. Kalmon (?) published some weeks ago, is virtually devoid of substance. No meat, no concrete suggestions -- just more of the "everybody's different, so let's treat them like they're different" and "technology's wonderful: kids should learn over the internet" and a series of meaningless paragraphs. Go through them one by one, and try to find sentences that aren't either profoundly misguided, or else so vague and indefinite as to be worthless.

I can't believe that RMN publishes this stuff.

The "dumbing down" of America has no place in America. Public education is a public failure that is under perpetual re-examination, study, analysis and repair. The same old jerks run the same old schools and continue to make the same old makes. They are the problem, not the solution.

Today we have a Blue Ribbon Commission to study what we all already know--The 3 R's are a minimum standard. Let's have a Commission to ban all future Commisions. Vouchers, choice and competition are the onlty real solutions. Monopolies (public education) are always hostile to the consumer.

Mr. Snyder,
I agree with your your assessment that the schools need to individualize the curricula for many students.It is an uphill battle and parents have got to stop being complaisant when it comes to educating their children on their level not what the school is teaching from a book.

If parents that have children ahead of their peers,than the parent must be diligent to make sure their child is being taught on their individual level.

I have been fighting for 3 years to get my now 2nd grader to be taught on her level. I have been persistent and finally the school has stepped up and are in the process of setting up an individualized plan for my daughter.

After many confrontations with the schooland school board,they have finally realized, my husband and I are not backing down from them.At times they have worn me down,but I refused to give up. My daughter is a great student,well mannered,well behaved,has two parents that support and teach her at home,is very bright and learns things quicker than others.

Since kindergarten the school system has tried to dumb her down to their level.She has always been a full grade ahead.

This year the school has put together a panel of educators to make sure she is challenged in every subject. It seems like all my persistance has paid off. We will see.

As of now her future looks bright.

To the parents out there who have a bright child not being taught on their level,be an advocate for your child and do not take no for an answer.The same goes for parents who have children behind. Do not give up and let your child be left behind.Keep fighting to get the education your child needs.

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