[Vision2020] Reading, Math and Grit

lfalen lfalen at turbonet.com
Sun Sep 9 19:12:48 PDT 2012


Sounds like it is worth reading
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:42:41 -0700
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Reading, Math and Grit

>   [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>
> 
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> 
> ------------------------------
> September 7, 2012
> Reading, Math and Grit By JOE NOCERA
> 
> Early in his acceptance
> speech<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/president-obama-dnc-speech-full-transcript-article-1.1153851>Thursday
> night, President Obama gave a nod to his administration’s backing
> of education reform. “Some of the worst schools in the country have made
> real gains in math and reading,” he said, calling on the country to add
> 100,000 math and science teachers in the next decade. Then he moved on to
> other topics, like foreign policy and
> Medicare<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>,
> that he clearly views as more vital to the campaign as it enters the home
> stretch.
> 
> It is hardly a surprise that education isn’t a heated subject in the
> presidential race. Not when the economy is still sluggish, and the fight
> over the role of government so central. Besides, Republicans and Democrats
> alike have tried to fix education: George W. Bush with “No Child Left
> Behind<http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/no-child-left-behind/>,”
> and Obama with his administration’s “Race to the
> Top<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/fact-sheet-race-top>.”
> Those “real gains” notwithstanding, progress remains fitful and
> frustrating. Too many disadvantaged children remain poorly educated. Too
> many high school graduates don’t attend — or drop
> out<http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/why-do-so-many-americans-drop-out-of-college/255226/>—
> of college, which has become the prerequisite for a middle-class
> existence.
> 
> Which is why the publication of a new book, entitled “How Children
> Succeed<http://www.hmhbooks.com/howchildrensucceed/index.html>,”
> written by Paul Tough, a former editor of the Times Magazine, is such a
> timely reminder that education remains the country’s most critical issue.
> In “How Children Succeed,” Tough argues that simply teaching math and
> reading — the so-called cognitive skills — isn’t nearly enough, especially
> for children who have grown up enduring the stresses of poverty. In fact,
> it might not even be the most important thing.
> 
> Rather, tapping into a great deal of recent research, Tough writes that the
> most important things to develop in students are “noncognitive skills,”
> which Tough labels as “character.” Many of the people who have done the
> research or are running the programs that Tough admires have different ways
> of expressing those skills. But they are essentially character traits that
> are necessary to succeed not just in school, but in life. Jeff Nelson, who
> runs a program in partnership with 23 Chicago high schools called
> OneGoal<http://www.onegoalgraduation.org/formerly-us-empowered/>,
> which works to improve student achievement and helps students get into
> college, describes these traits as “resilience, integrity, resourcefulness,
> professionalism and ambition.” “They are the linchpin of what we do,”
> Nelson told me. Nelson calls them “leadership skills.” Tough uses the word
> “grit” a lot.
> 
> On some level, these are traits we all try to instill in our children.
> (Indeed, Tough devotes a section of his book to the anxiety of many
> upper-middle-class parents that they are failing in this regard.) But poor
> children too often don’t have parents who can serve that role. They develop
> habits that impede their ability to learn. Often they can’t even see what
> the point of learning is. They act indifferently or hostile in school,
> though that often masks feelings of hopelessness and anxiety.
> 
> What was most surprising to me was Tough’s insistence, bolstered by his
> reporting, that character is not something you have to learn as a small
> child, or are born with, but can be instilled even in teenagers who have
> had extraordinarily difficult lives and had no previous grounding in these
> traits. We get to meet a number of children who, with the help of a program
> or a mentor who stresses character, have turned their lives around
> remarkably. We meet Dave Levin, the founder of KIPP <http://www.kipp.org/>,
> perhaps the best charter
> school<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/charter_schools/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>chain
> in the country, whose earliest graduates run into problems when they
> get to college — only 21 percent of them had graduated after six years,
> according to Tough — and then begins stressing character traits to turn
> things around.
> 
> And we also meet Nelson, the founder of OneGoal, which takes disadvantaged
> students when they are juniors in high school — most of whom believe that
> college is an unattainable goal — and transforms them into responsible
> young adults who can succeed in good universities. OneGoal has a “persistence
> rate <http://www.onegoalgraduation.org/onegoal-results/>,” as Nelson calls
> it, of 85 percent, meaning that that’s the percentage of students from
> OneGoal who are making their way through college. (The program hasn’t been
> around long enough to have a graduation rate.) By comparison, nationally,
> around only 8 percent of the poorest students ever graduate from college.
> Nelson told me that OneGoal is expanding to Houston next year, and it hopes
> to be in five cities by 2017.
> 
> I hope it happens. Tough’s book is utterly convincing that if disadvantaged
> students can learn the noncognitive skills that will allow them to persist
> in the face of difficulties — to reach for a goal even though it may off in
> the distance, to strive for something — they can achieve a better life.
> 
> It is easy to get discouraged about the state of education in America.
> Maybe that’s why the presidential candidates aren’t stressing it. Which is
> the other thing about “How Children Succeed.” It’s a source of optimism.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
> 
> 



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