Some states preserve penmanship despite technology gains
By ASSOCIATED PRESS | 11/24/12 4:16 PM EST
LOS ANGELES — The pen may not be as mighty as the keyboard these days, but California and a handful of states are not giving up on handwriting entirely.
Bucking a growing trend of eliminating cursive from elementary school curriculums or making it optional, California is among the states keeping longhand as a third-grade staple.
The state's posture on penmanship is not likely to undercut its place at the leading edge of technology, but it has teachers and students divided over the value of learning flowing script and looping signatures in an age of touchpads and mobile devices.
Some see it as a waste of time, an anachronism in a digitized society where even signatures are electronic, but others see it as necessary so kids can hone fine motor skills, reinforce literacy and develop their own unique stamp of identity.
The debate comes as 45 states move toward adopting national curriculum guidelines in 2014 for English and math that don't include cursive handwriting, but require proficiency in computer keyboarding by the time pupils exit elementary school.
Several states, including California, Georgia and Massachusetts, have added a cursive requirement to the national standards, while most others, such as Indiana, Illinois and Hawaii have left it as optional for school districts. Some states, like Utah, are still studying the issue.
Whether it's required or not, cursive is fast becoming a lost art as schools increasingly replace pen and paper with classroom computers and instruction is increasingly geared to academic subjects that are tested on standardized exams. Even the standardized tests are on track to be administered via computer within three years.
Experts say manuscript, or printing, may be sufficient when it comes to handwriting in the future.
"Do you really need to learn two different scripts?" said Steve Graham, education professor at Arizona State University who has studied handwriting instruction. "There will be plenty of kids who don't learn cursive. The more important skill now is typing."
Cursive still has many proponents who say it benefits youngsters' brains, coordination and motor skills, as well as connects them to the past, whether to handwritten historical documents like the Constitution or to their parents' and grandparents' letters.
Longhand is also a symbol of personality, even more so in an era of uniform emails and texting, they say.
"I think it's part of your identity and part of your self-esteem," said Eldra Avery, who teaches language and composition at San Luis Obispo High School. "There's something really special and personal about a cursive letter."
Avery also has a practical reason for pushing cursive — speed. She makes her 11th grade students relearn longhand simply so they'll be able to complete their advancement placement exams. Most students print.
"They have to write three essays in two hours. They need that speed," she said. "Most of them learned cursive in second grade and forgot about it. Their penmanship is deplorable."
For many elementary school teachers, having children spend hours copying flowing letters just isn't practical in an era of high-stakes standardized testing.
Third-graders may get 15 minutes of cursive practice a couple times a week, and after the fourth grade, it often falls off completely because teachers don't require assignments to be written in cursive. When children write by hand, many choose to print because they've practiced it more.
Dustin Ellis, fourth-grade teacher at Big Springs Elementary School in Simi Valley, said he assigns a cursive practice packet as homework, but if he had his druthers, he'd limit cursive instruction to learning to read it, instead of writing it. Out of his 32 students, just three write in cursive, he noted.
"Students can be just as successful with printing," he said. "When a kid can text 60 words a minute, that means we're heading in a different direction. Cursive is becoming less and less important."
It also depends on the teacher. Many younger teachers aren't prepared to teach cursive or manuscript, said Kathleen S. Wright, national handwriting product manager for Zaner-Bloser Publishing, which develops instructional tools.
To remedy that, the company has developed a computer program that shows kids how to form letters.
Students say virtually nobody writes in cursive except teachers and parents. School assignments are required to be typed, and any personal note, such as thank yous and birthday cards, are emails, said Monica Baerg, a 16-year-old junior at Arcadia High School.
Baerg said she learned cursive in third grade, but has never used it and has difficulty deciphering her parents' handwriting. When she has to write by hand, she prints and never has a problem with speed.
"It was kind of a waste. No one ever forced us to use cursive so it was a hassle to remember the letters," she said. "It's not necessary to write in cursive. Whatever you write in, you say the same thing."
At St. Mark's Lutheran School in Hacienda Heights, cursive remains a core subject. Students are required to write in cursive through middle school so they become fluent at it, as well as work on computers, but increasingly transfer students arrive without longhand skills, said Linda Merchant, director of curriculum and instruction. They're given a book to study and practice at home.
"We're pretty committed to keeping it," Merchant said. "There's always going to be situations when you're going to have to present your own writing."
Graham, the professor, noted that the case for cursive is becoming harder to make, due to the benefits word processing offers such as spellcheck and cutting and pasting text, but he noted there are benefits to ensuring good handwriting. "People form judgments about the quality of your ideas based on the neatness of your text," he said.
For kids, the only practical purpose for learning cursive is to sign their names.
"They should teach it just for that purpose," said student Baerg. "Everybody wants a cool signature with all the fancy loops."
This summer's English GCSE grading fiasco will render this year's school league tables invalid, and leave many schools unjustly labelled "failing", head teachers' leaders say.
ASCL general secretary Brian Lightman said a quarter of schools saw dramatic falls in the headline GCSE scores used to measure success.
It comes after grade boundaries were changed part way through the year.
Exam regulator Ofqual has refused to order regrades.
In an open letter to the chairman of the Commons Education Committee Graham Stuart, Mr Lightman said a "gross injustice" had been done to many young people.
'Profound crisis'
He said his union, the Association of School and College Leaders, which is part of a group threatening a judicial review of the grading decisions, had amassed a vast amount of feedback from schools over the past few weeks.
He warned that the series of events had led to "a profound crisis of confidence amongst school and college leaders, teachers, parents and students in our current examinations system".
He said his union's own research suggested about a quarter of secondary schools nationally saw a drop of at least 10 percentage points in the number of pupils gaining five GCSEs A* to C including English and maths.
And a further fifth saw drops of 15 percentage points.
~~~~~~~~ GCSE GRADING ROW
* Issues with GCSE English grading emerged as results reached schools in August * Heads suggested the exams had been marked over-harshly after Ofqual told exam boards to keep an eye on grade inflation * Exam boards told reporters grade boundaries had changed significantly mid-way through the year * Alterations were as much as 10 marks * Heads complained pupils who sat GCSE English in the winter would have got a higher mark than if they had sat it in the summer * Their unions called for an investigation and some mentioned legal action * Ofqual held a brief inquiry, and stood by the June boundaries * Heads, teachers and local authorities are threatening a judicial review ~~~~~~~~
He added: "The schools involved are a complete cross-section including academies, 'outstanding schools', rural, inner city etc.
"The key overt distinguishing factor" was the time pupils sat certain parts of the English exam.
He told the BBC the results were "causing havoc", adding: "It's completely skewing the results of many different schools."
He said: "It renders invalid this year's performance league tables and the data that's used for the basis of the whole accountability system because they are not results that reflect trends within schools.
"It has pushed lots of schools below the floor standards."
This means that they will effectively be classed as failing by official standards.
He said that an early survey of members suggested at least 160 extra schools would fall below the target of getting 40% of pupils getting five good GCSEs including English and maths.
The Department for Education would not comment on the claims, saying the issue was a matter for exams regulator Ofqual and the exam boards.
Ofqual has already said in an interim report on the issue that the January grading was too lenient, and is standing by the harsher June grades. It is due to report more fully on the issue shortly.
======== .. the battle for public education and against the grading of schools goes on ..
downunder .. Gillard and Abbott’s ‘race to the top’ to support private schools
[ can't copy the image here ] The debate on schools funding has taken a strange turn with both sides racing to increase funding to private schools. AAP Image/Alan Porritt
David Zyngier - Senior Lecturer Faculty of Education at Monash University -22 August 2012, 6.08am AEST
In a political echo of the unseemly bi-partisan “race to the bottom” over asylum seekers, we now have a “race to the top” with the prime minister and opposition leader vying to offer the most support to non-government schools.
Abbott on the other hand told the forum .. ttp://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/private-schools-hard-done-by-says-abbott-20120820-24ita.html .. that because 66% of Australian school students who attend public schools get 79% of government funding “there is no question of injustice to public schools here. If anything, the injustice is the other way.” Abbott reached this conclusion because the 34% of students who attend independent schools get 21% of government funding.
Pyne also stated publicly .. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3547117.htm .. last month that there isn’t an equity issue in Australian schools and that the problem was with student outcomes. He has also declared that any government changes to the funding model of schools would be repealed under a coalition government.
Extending privileges for the privileged
This latest unedifying part of the debate comes after 10 years of public critique of the iniquitous funding formula. A system developed by the Howard government and continued under the Rudd and Gillard governments that is blind to the real needs of students, as well as schools and teachers and sees the most disadvantaged students in our community receiving the least amount of funding.
The results of this 12 year program have only extended the privileges of the already privileged.
The fact is that the fundamental pattern for the last 12 years of Australian Government funding for schools is that while most additional funding goes to non-government schools this has never prevented private schools raising their annual fees more than 10% per annum.
Those most concerned with public education today in Australia were, until now, quietly optimistic that the unfair education funding system would be changed.
The Gonski Review sought to change an unfair system into one that was more transparent, financially sustainable and effective in promoting excellent outcomes for all students.
When the Gonski Review was released .. https://theconversation.edu.au/gonski-review-experts-respond-5452 .. earlier this year, it a was watershed moment in the debate on schools funding. It embraced the OECD definition of equity in education as its starting point; that every child should be able to achieve her potential regardless of social, cultural or economic background or their relationship to property, power or possession.
Gonski also gave overdue recognition to the fact that disadvantage has been “rusted on” to our education system. And he finally acknowledged our private schools whether independent or Catholic are not looking after our most vulnerable students.
Disadvantaging the disadvantaged
But there were weaknesses in the report. Gonski in fact understated the great weight of disadvantage shouldered by our public schools, the same who are least equipped and able to deal with this disadvantage: 85% of indigenous students, 78% of disabled students, 79% of low SES students attend our public schools.
While the rhetoric around social justice is espoused by both independent and especially Catholic school sectors that they are looking after the poor, in reality they are not.
The Gonski Review does not have the depth of analysis about this disadvantage but politically it may have been impossible.
False premises … flawed data
The review’s resource based funding model starts with a false premise. Since the Karmel Report 40 years ago, we have witnessed a slow but ever-increasing movement of taxpayer’s dollars from public schools to the private sector, all apparently on the basis of Commonwealth provision for school education on the principle of “need”.
The Gonski Review has accepted as holy writ the “unique Australian tradition” that if parents decide not to send their child to the local public school, then the rest of the country is required to subsidise that choice. No other OECD country has such a tradition yet Gonski said these examples don’t count.
Statistics or lies
Abbott’s claims in this debate could be a case of lies, damn lies and statistics. Just because private schools gain 21% of the education budget and represent 34% of all school students is irrelevant.
What is relevant is the total funding per student including what parents voluntarily contribute to the private school. What has happened to the “user pays” theory of liberal philosophy?
Did it go out the door for the wealthy, and only apply to those who can least afford to pay in society?
What are the facts?
Recent pronouncements .. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3547117.htm .. by opposition education spokesperson Christopher Pyne, are replete with false assumptions based on flawed data. The claim that Australian school education funding has increased by 44% since 2009 has been repeated so often that it is now accepted as truth.
The fact is that the fundamental pattern of Australian government funding for schools is that most additional funding goes to non-government schools. OECD figures tell another story.
In 2001 Australia’s education expenditure was 4.9% of GDP falling to 4.4% in 2008 before rising to 5.1% in 2009 as a result of the BER capital investment in all schools. Over the same period government education expenditure as a percentage of total government expenditure in Australia fell from 14.2% to 12.9%.
Annual government expenditure on Australian government schools was $US6980 per student, compared to the OECD average of $US7262. Australia ranked 15th of the 22 OECD countries. The difference in spending on secondary students is even lower.
Finland’s government expenditure on schools was $US7178 per student. In Finland government expenditure on education was 6.1% of GDP in 2001 rising to 6.8% in 2009.
Why $5 billion (or more) is needed …
The reason for the $5 billion price tag is because the Gillard government pledged that no school would be worse of as a result of any reform to funding schedules. But in actual fact even the $5 billion is less than one half of 1 % of GDP.
OECD research explains that any increase in student outcomes has a correlative increase in productivity – so in effect this extra funding will return as additional taxes and productivity for Australia.
But despite its weakness, the recommendations of the Gonski review remain a strong step in the right direction and should be implemented in full and as soon as possible.
Gillard and Abbott need to take the recommendations on balance, look at the facts and elevate the debate around this important policy issue.
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