They teach using proven methods, like phonics.
They actually teach math.
They test and use that as real information.
They focus on results not on ideology.
They do NOT encurage using Paulo Freire's "methods".
They do NOT encurage using Paulo Freire's "methods".
If the Maine Secretary of Education overcame his or her reluctance and did in fact ask Mississippi for advice, imagine their disappointment if the response was "we actually teach math".
Do you have a source for your response? I'm genuinely curious about what they changed to achieve this level of success. I'd be interested first for the actual educational methods, and secondarily I'd be interested in relating it to the idea of organizational changes that can produce relatively rapid reversals of a long term trend.
[1] https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/mississippi-student...
[2] https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/a-full-breakdown-of-the-s...
And yet, looking at the chart in the article, that appears to be pretty much all there is to say.
Judging by results (based on the limited evidence in the article) Mississippi doesn't seem to be doing anything revolutionary. Their scores today are still significantly worse than Maine was in 2013.
The question we should be asking is "What is Maine doing wrong?" What caused their scores to decline precipitously since 2013?
The problem is, the Maine Secretary of Education would then reply “We actually teach math, also.”
What I've seen of Common Core math is very different from how it's traditionally taught, to the point that parents don't understand it. I think I can see a thread in there, that it's attempting to teach what those of us good at math end up figuring out ourselves with numbers, but the examples online are bad and lead to further misunderstandings. So I could see teachers having similar issues, and students not learning very well because of it.
To put it in more techy terms, Common Core math is like learning computer science before learning your first programming language: probably possible, but it won't work well for most people.
[1] https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/mississippi-student...
There is more to live and success than standardised tests. Steve Jobs wasn't a brilliant student with top marks everywhere.
[1]https://www.sciencenews.org/article/balanced-literacy-phonic...
English is wild language with plenty examples of phonetic rules being broken.
Take a simple word like 'rough'. Learning the phonetics doesn't help with the word 'cough'. Neither help with words like 'though' and 'through'.
Words like 'read' and 'lead' cannot be properly pronounced without context clues. Not to mention all the odd-ball words in English like 'colonel'.
I also think location plays a role too. Where I am from, words like 'tin' and 'ten' are not pronounced differently at all [1]. In other parts of the US, that is not the case.
I do not doubt phonics is the best method method for learning to read. All I am saying is that the other methods must truly be abysmal for phonics to be the best.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Englis...
You're right, English is kind of wacky, but this exists in other languages as well. For example there's significant Gaulish influence in French[2] and the written and spoken language offer a number of surprises for learners.
[1]https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/a-full-breakdown-of-the-s...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_words_of_Gaulis...
"Phonics" the term is mostly something that comes up in American context because there is a controversy on how to teach reading and writing English to begin with. In many other countries, the equivalent of phonics is simply the standard methodology that has been in use for so long that most people can't think of anything else, so it doesn't need a special term to describe it.
> Proven methods... For what? Acing standardised tests?
Phonics is the proven method for learning how to read English. Quite controversially, a lot of states ditched or de-emphasized phonics in favor of some faddish "balanced literacy" idea that took the education establishment by storm, but doesn't actually work as well and led to bad outcomes, like poor literacy. Now that the damage has been done and is visible, a lot of states are now mandating phonics again.
I think there have been similar cycles with math.
Education is probably one of the areas where our cultural obsession with innovation and change leads to bad outcomes. It's not like reading is a new technology or prior generations were full of stupid people (though there are a lot of chauvinists who assume they were). At a certain point, new educational ideas are very likely to be worse ideas, but they're pushed and adopted because people are required to be "innovators."