Maria Dixon and Nicole Miller
Education 310
February 10th, 2009
Governor’s Education Plan
“It is absolutely clear to me that simply tinkering with centuries-old education practices will not prepare Ohio’s children for success in college, in the workplace, or in life.” This strong statement was stated on Thursday January 29th from the governor of Ohio; Ted Strickland gave a State of the State address which proposed a plan to revoke Ohio’s educational system. Strickland offered a six-point plan for education, to be phased in over an eight year period. This plan would change the whole face of the educational system from how schools are funded, the length of the school year and how students are taught and tested. The execution of this plan would dramatically change the lives of school boards, teachers and students.
One of the most obvious and immediate changes that Strickland hopes to impose is the lengthening of the time that students attend school. The actual changing of the school schedule would be the first of many steps that the governor hopes to implement. The plan would establish universal all-day kindergarten as well as the phasing in of twenty additional days to the school calendar each year over a ten-year period bringing the state’s school year up to the international average of 200 days. The governor also hopes to lengthen the school day with additional activities, such as community service and tutoring, as well as health programs.
The second step to this process would be the way in which we as teachers are educating the children in Ohio’s school system. Gov. Strickland hopes to get rid of the Ohio Graduation Test that all students must pass in order to receive their diploma. Students would instead be required to take the ACT college entrance exam, along with the passing of a statewide “end of course” exam, and the completion of a service learning project and a submission of a senior project. He would also like to get the students who do not partake in school athletics to get involved in extracurricular activities, such as a debate team. An “Ohio Academic Olympics” is something he hopes will be created for students to compete in science, math, writing, debate, the arts and technology, in the same fashion as they would any athletic competition. Students would not be the only group that would be judged and critiqued for their performance.
Teachers would be judged based on their performance to the highest degree of professionalism. Gov. Strickland describes it best when he stated, “In short, if a school district fails, we will shut it down.” He plans on establishing a four-year residency program for new teachers working with senior teachers, while strengthening licensing standards and principles. He hopes to incorporate the community into his plan, by requiring performance audits for school districts to account for taxpayers spending with an annual report card for every district. Strickland’s proposal will without a doubt strengthen Ohio’s school system, but, to what extent will teachers have to change their teaching regiment? The governor’s proposal consists of many pros and cons that will effect generations to come.
The most beneficial component to this plan would be the fact that it would without a doubt prepare students with the opportunities needed to help them succeed in the competitive modern workplace. The fact that the Ohio Graduation Test would be eliminated from the equation and replaced with an end of course exam as well as a service project would not only benefit the student, but would make a profound impact on the community as well. The governor wants to dramatically alter the way in which classrooms are managed. He would like to see the principal take more responsibility and gain more authority in order for schools to strengthen accountability. The Governors plan would not be cheap; he hopes to boost basic education subsidies by 321.5 million dollars in the first year and 603.5 million dollars in the second year. His budget proposal would place a freeze on the cost of tuition at all public universities. The Governor proposed a “Senior to Sophomore” plan, which would allow every twelfth grader who meets academic requirements to earn college credits on one of the state’s public campuses with no cost to the student. This would be excellent for students who qualify for this program because they would be able to attend two years of college tuition free. His proposal would benefit students substantially, but what impact would it have on teachers?
Strickland’s proposal for a longer school year could push teachers away from the profession. The biggest argument would be the fact that if teachers are working a longer school year, then there needs to be compensation for their time. Teachers simply need to be paid more because of the extra time they will be spending in the classroom. The complexity of the mater is that school districts are going to have to vastly expand to accommodate for the governor’s idea of all day kindergarten. In Dublin alone, more than twenty teachers are going to have to be hired in order to accommodate all day kindergarten. Strickland’s proposal would significantly diminish the power of the state superintendent and school board. In theory the uniformity of all school districts would be ideal, but fairly unrealistic. People locate in a district that would most benefit their children, and if all the school systems are the same, then some neighborhoods would lose credibility.
I believe in theory that this plan would be magnificent, because it would give the children of Ohio greater opportunities to succeed in life through strengthening of their education. There are much higher standards that would be implemented for students, teachers, parents, and communities. There needs to be strict standards for teachers, but my question is, when do school systems cross the line? As America we need to be able to compete with other nations throughout the world, and I believe that Strickland’s plan will take Ohio in the direction that soon, the nation will follow.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
More than Just a Piece of Paper
More than Just a Piece of Paper
In the article For Most People, College is a Waste of Time; Charlie Murrey expresses his thoughts about the continuum of testing throughout a professional’s career. He feels as though a bachelor’s degree does not explain anything about a student’s ability, but rather is a piece of paper that explains your time at a college or university. Murrey states that the solution to this dilemma is to have no degree at all. He shares that the only way to see the students’ actual ability is through a series of tests. Some students may just coast through college without actually obtaining important and useful information.
I agree with Murrey in the fact that some students’ may just do the work that is needed to skim by in class with a C or even a D. This student will not be useful in a work setting, because if he is not willing to put the effort into his school work than where is the motivation needed to excel in the workplace. I know that when I initially started college I was one of those students that did the bare minimum to just pass the class. I would have been close to worthless in a business setting. For the students like me, in my past experience would fall through the cracks if there were certification tests. Murrey expresses that more than two-thirds of students with a bachelor’s degrees are not getting tested before entering the work place.
Murrey explains the benefits from a non traditional college experience through the use of online type classes. Students’ from a traditional four year college would do better than students from an online class due to the personal interaction with the professor. He expresses how certification testing would create an equal playing field for everyone, because the people who are unable to attend a traditional college would have the same opportunities. I do not agree with his idea of only using certified testing to determine the student’s intellectual capabilities.
A four year college like Capital University does not only pump individuals full of information, but rather provides students with valuable experience that will better them down the line. Another aspect about this system is the fact that some students are simply not good at taking tests. I believe that just by simply taking a test the employer is not able to see all if the abilities that a person may posses. A test will not show the personality of an individual or the creativity that they have. A certification test may turn a bright colorful person to a dull shade of grey.
A person who simply studies for a test may learn information but may not gain knowledge. When a student studies for a test they simply learn the information needed to pass the test, they are not worried about how that information could be implemented. Murrey says that an educational world based on certification tests would be a better place in many ways, because it would provide the people without a bachelor’s degree the same opportunities as those who hold that piece of paper. I think that this statement is simply worthless. If a student did not have to go to college to get the same type of job they wanted than why would anyone attend a four year university?
There is a reason why Capital Students pay 32,000 dollars a year to attend college. When we graduate from college we hope to have gained the knowledge and experience that will help us throughout our careers. If this notion of degrees is taken away than how or why would colleges exist. The world in general would not benefit from such tests. I would not want to have surgery performed by a doctor who throughout college never touched a scalpel. Murrey talks about the whole notion of creating an equal bond between everyone. I think that this notion is nonsense and will never happen. Getting rid of the traditional way of schooling is something that I consider to be barbaric and hope to never see in my lifetime.
In the article For Most People, College is a Waste of Time; Charlie Murrey expresses his thoughts about the continuum of testing throughout a professional’s career. He feels as though a bachelor’s degree does not explain anything about a student’s ability, but rather is a piece of paper that explains your time at a college or university. Murrey states that the solution to this dilemma is to have no degree at all. He shares that the only way to see the students’ actual ability is through a series of tests. Some students may just coast through college without actually obtaining important and useful information.
I agree with Murrey in the fact that some students’ may just do the work that is needed to skim by in class with a C or even a D. This student will not be useful in a work setting, because if he is not willing to put the effort into his school work than where is the motivation needed to excel in the workplace. I know that when I initially started college I was one of those students that did the bare minimum to just pass the class. I would have been close to worthless in a business setting. For the students like me, in my past experience would fall through the cracks if there were certification tests. Murrey expresses that more than two-thirds of students with a bachelor’s degrees are not getting tested before entering the work place.
Murrey explains the benefits from a non traditional college experience through the use of online type classes. Students’ from a traditional four year college would do better than students from an online class due to the personal interaction with the professor. He expresses how certification testing would create an equal playing field for everyone, because the people who are unable to attend a traditional college would have the same opportunities. I do not agree with his idea of only using certified testing to determine the student’s intellectual capabilities.
A four year college like Capital University does not only pump individuals full of information, but rather provides students with valuable experience that will better them down the line. Another aspect about this system is the fact that some students are simply not good at taking tests. I believe that just by simply taking a test the employer is not able to see all if the abilities that a person may posses. A test will not show the personality of an individual or the creativity that they have. A certification test may turn a bright colorful person to a dull shade of grey.
A person who simply studies for a test may learn information but may not gain knowledge. When a student studies for a test they simply learn the information needed to pass the test, they are not worried about how that information could be implemented. Murrey says that an educational world based on certification tests would be a better place in many ways, because it would provide the people without a bachelor’s degree the same opportunities as those who hold that piece of paper. I think that this statement is simply worthless. If a student did not have to go to college to get the same type of job they wanted than why would anyone attend a four year university?
There is a reason why Capital Students pay 32,000 dollars a year to attend college. When we graduate from college we hope to have gained the knowledge and experience that will help us throughout our careers. If this notion of degrees is taken away than how or why would colleges exist. The world in general would not benefit from such tests. I would not want to have surgery performed by a doctor who throughout college never touched a scalpel. Murrey talks about the whole notion of creating an equal bond between everyone. I think that this notion is nonsense and will never happen. Getting rid of the traditional way of schooling is something that I consider to be barbaric and hope to never see in my lifetime.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Standards and curriculum
Making the Curriculum Exciting
The book Curriculum and Imagination, James McKernan expresses his thoughts on how a curriculum should be laid out and implemented. The most important aspect to think about when creating a curriculum is the audience in which you are teaching. The students’ thoughts and interest should be taken into account before the final curriculum layout is made. The problem with a curriculum is the fact that the school districts are not able to make their own curriculum; this is where the challenge appears. Teachers can think of a curriculum as molding clay; where as you are given a block to work with, but what you make of it is your own choice.
There are three major curriculum orientations, with one of them being the scientific curriculum, which includes social sciences. In the Ohio Department Standards for Social Studies students should be able to use knowledge of perspectives and products of cultural, ethic, and social groups to analyze the impact of their communality and diversity within local, national, regional and global settings. This is known as people in societies. McKernan stressed in the book that a curriculum is a powerful selection of values from contemporary culture. I think that in this always changing world that students need to be exposed or at least learn about various groups of individuals. The book explains unity versus diversity through the Social Market Model (SMM) perspective which advocates unity at the expense of diversity. This perspective stresses the notion of multiculturalism of values and cultures. Although people in Midwest Nebraska may not experience the same type of diversity as the individuals in Compton, both should still learn about different cultures throughout the world.
McKernan expresses that individuals should not only meet a pre-fixed standard, but rather expand the individual thought process and creativity. He also suggests that the idea of standards and performance levels and goals could be universally applied to all subjects across a curriculum. Education should not be measured by preset notions, but rather should be evaluated on how the information is implemented and evaluated. Through the social studies skills and methods benchmark students collect, organize, evaluate and synthesize information from multiple sources to draw logical conclusions. Students communicate this information using appropriate social studies terminology in oral, written or multimedia form and apply what they have learned to societal issues in simulated or real-world settings.
This will be different throughout various school settings, because this standard is very much socially based. Through this standard students will be able to engage in open discussion of the issues brought up though their research. By allowing the students to be involved in independent research the teacher is emerging the students into different cultures and enabling them to form their own opinions. A curriculum learning objective is to apply both theoretical and practical knowledge in the classroom. Students not only need to apply what they learn in the school setting, but rather be able to apply their knowledge in everyday situations.
Through the geography standard students use knowledge of geographic locations, patterns and processes to show the interrelationship between the physical environment and human activity, and to explain the interactions that occur in an increasingly interdependent world. The key word in this phrase is interdependent, all cultures and societies depend on each other for services and resources. I believe that there are multiple ways for teachers to address this standard along with a multitude of other standards. Teachers could either take on the traditional or epistemological form of teaching, learner-based, objective-based, or society and problem-centered curriculum in the classroom.
The traditional curriculum is approached in two separate forms which are the disciplines forms of knowledge approach and fields of knowledge, which are defined by their subject knowledge, rather than their distinctive forms. The learner-based curriculum is centered on the students’ strengths and interests. This curriculum is focused on the development of the individual rather than the subject, as a source of planning. The personal-progressive perspective is based on this curriculum where the focus is completely on the student.
The objectives model derives from a view that efficient technology, teaching and resources aid in the specific outcome. Ideas are based upon the behavioral change in students in both their educational and personal development. The society and problem-centered curriculum is based on the difficulties of living, this curriculum attempts to form a life-adjustment education using personal, group and institutional issues and problems. This curriculum I believe is most important when teaching social sciences, because it addresses issues such as racism, inequality, terrorism and a variety of other problems. I believe that no matter which curriculum path you choice to follow you need to make sure that the path is clear and adventurous. Children are more adapt to remember the classes that are interesting and innovative, as opposed to the classes where students just sit in their seats while the teacher lectures for an hour. I hope that my future classroom is a place where children cannot wait to escape to and completely dive head first into the learning process.
The book Curriculum and Imagination, James McKernan expresses his thoughts on how a curriculum should be laid out and implemented. The most important aspect to think about when creating a curriculum is the audience in which you are teaching. The students’ thoughts and interest should be taken into account before the final curriculum layout is made. The problem with a curriculum is the fact that the school districts are not able to make their own curriculum; this is where the challenge appears. Teachers can think of a curriculum as molding clay; where as you are given a block to work with, but what you make of it is your own choice.
There are three major curriculum orientations, with one of them being the scientific curriculum, which includes social sciences. In the Ohio Department Standards for Social Studies students should be able to use knowledge of perspectives and products of cultural, ethic, and social groups to analyze the impact of their communality and diversity within local, national, regional and global settings. This is known as people in societies. McKernan stressed in the book that a curriculum is a powerful selection of values from contemporary culture. I think that in this always changing world that students need to be exposed or at least learn about various groups of individuals. The book explains unity versus diversity through the Social Market Model (SMM) perspective which advocates unity at the expense of diversity. This perspective stresses the notion of multiculturalism of values and cultures. Although people in Midwest Nebraska may not experience the same type of diversity as the individuals in Compton, both should still learn about different cultures throughout the world.
McKernan expresses that individuals should not only meet a pre-fixed standard, but rather expand the individual thought process and creativity. He also suggests that the idea of standards and performance levels and goals could be universally applied to all subjects across a curriculum. Education should not be measured by preset notions, but rather should be evaluated on how the information is implemented and evaluated. Through the social studies skills and methods benchmark students collect, organize, evaluate and synthesize information from multiple sources to draw logical conclusions. Students communicate this information using appropriate social studies terminology in oral, written or multimedia form and apply what they have learned to societal issues in simulated or real-world settings.
This will be different throughout various school settings, because this standard is very much socially based. Through this standard students will be able to engage in open discussion of the issues brought up though their research. By allowing the students to be involved in independent research the teacher is emerging the students into different cultures and enabling them to form their own opinions. A curriculum learning objective is to apply both theoretical and practical knowledge in the classroom. Students not only need to apply what they learn in the school setting, but rather be able to apply their knowledge in everyday situations.
Through the geography standard students use knowledge of geographic locations, patterns and processes to show the interrelationship between the physical environment and human activity, and to explain the interactions that occur in an increasingly interdependent world. The key word in this phrase is interdependent, all cultures and societies depend on each other for services and resources. I believe that there are multiple ways for teachers to address this standard along with a multitude of other standards. Teachers could either take on the traditional or epistemological form of teaching, learner-based, objective-based, or society and problem-centered curriculum in the classroom.
The traditional curriculum is approached in two separate forms which are the disciplines forms of knowledge approach and fields of knowledge, which are defined by their subject knowledge, rather than their distinctive forms. The learner-based curriculum is centered on the students’ strengths and interests. This curriculum is focused on the development of the individual rather than the subject, as a source of planning. The personal-progressive perspective is based on this curriculum where the focus is completely on the student.
The objectives model derives from a view that efficient technology, teaching and resources aid in the specific outcome. Ideas are based upon the behavioral change in students in both their educational and personal development. The society and problem-centered curriculum is based on the difficulties of living, this curriculum attempts to form a life-adjustment education using personal, group and institutional issues and problems. This curriculum I believe is most important when teaching social sciences, because it addresses issues such as racism, inequality, terrorism and a variety of other problems. I believe that no matter which curriculum path you choice to follow you need to make sure that the path is clear and adventurous. Children are more adapt to remember the classes that are interesting and innovative, as opposed to the classes where students just sit in their seats while the teacher lectures for an hour. I hope that my future classroom is a place where children cannot wait to escape to and completely dive head first into the learning process.
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