Referring Governor Daugaard's destructive K-12 education plan to a public vote can't be primarily about counterplans. A referendum can only repeal HB 1234, not replace it with something better. We'll have to count on the new legislators we elect in November (like Pam Merchant and Mike Knudson) to do that.
But when the time comes for counterplans, let me recommend proficiency in one foreign language as a high school graduation requirement. I recommended this idea among my six counterplans to HB 1234 back in January, because I can find more data that foreign language instruction improves student achievement than any legislator was able to offer that anything in HB 1234 would boost student scores.
Add to support for foreign language requirements this essay on how bilingualism makes kids smarter:
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain's so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving [Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter," New York Times: Sunday Review, 2012.03.17].
Planning, problem-solving... we're not talking filling in bubbles. We're talking serious brain power that will help students who study foreign languages and use them regularly perform better in any class and any job. Plus, they'll stave off Alzheimer's.
We have a spectacular, value-adding education reform staring us right in the face: rigorous K-12 foreign language education. Take that $15,000,000 Governor Daugaard wants to throw away on ineffective merit pay, hire two new foreign language teachers for every school district in South Dakota, and start teaching every kindergartner how to communicate in something other than English. Teach that language and use it in the classroom every year until that child graduates, and I will show you higher test scores and much, much more.
Geez my wife already likes your blog better than she likes my blog; now you post thethe bi-lingual makes us smarter post before I do.
Damn, man you're one hell of a blogger.
I suspect other kinds of learning..perhaps even working crossword puzzles.. might be more useful and produce as much interesting brain development as learning a second language which will most likely never be used for any useful purpose.
Something to think about: Require foreign language as a condition for participating in a sport?
Dominus vobiscum, Terra.
Requiring foreign language smacks of New Age Theocracy.
When are you going to have the kids study foreign language?
Let me rephrase the question: What are you willing to give up in order to teach foreign language?
Since everyone is demanding greater achievement on standardized tests, classroom time shall be allocated to improve those scores as the top priority, leaving subjects like art and foreign language in last place.
Statehood for Quebec.
Michael the answer is to cut back the demands for more standardized tests which do little except keep text book compainies and the makers of number 2 pencils profitible.
Second, I would not oppose a longer school year with more short breaks instead of the long summer break.
Demands for improved test results will only increase the pressure for schools to spend more time on math, English and science.
If you extend the school year, someone will have to pay more in taxes or teachers will have to be willing to work more days for the same salary they are getting now. Both of these options are unlikely.
It's not a bad idea but it's not going to become a reality. Programs are going to be cut, not added.
No, it does not, Steve. It builds brain power, just like algebra.
Michael, I won't give up anything. We start teaching foreign language in elementary, right alongside English. By the time we get to upper grades, we teach some required curriculum in the foreign language.
I'll take the time savings from getting rid of the standardized tests. But LK, I remain pigheadedly dedicated to a long summer break.
Summer is hot, humid, and miserable. Besides baseball's pennant races don't start until September
Hey Cory, Don't like to mess up your french but if you are going to have a foreign language let's have one the kids can use while working with or in the next super power of the world,CHINA!!! Look at all the opportunities available
with a Chinese vocabulary compared to a french vocabulary!!!! All the french think of is love!!!! The dakota hill billy!!!!
Doug, regarding your comment that a foreign language is not useful:
Most SD kids these days leave SD for a more urban place where the jobs are, among other things. I live in St. Paul, MN. If I spoke more than tourist-level Spanish, or Hmong or Somali or German or Mandarin or just about any other language, employers would be falling all over themselves offering me good jobs with great benefits and high pay!
The same would be true if I lived in Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, or anywhere else. We have a global economy. Employers want people who can talk to those Chinese, European, and African people that we want to sell our products too. If you want paid travel for your work, a foreign language is golden.
Besides, I think if all those "foreigners" can learn English, I ought to be able to manage at least one other language. I'm not that dumb.
I've been hearing servers in Santa Fe speaking at least three different languages with ease as they move from table to table.
China needn't be the next superpower of the world.
Statehood for...well, you know the rest.
Why don't we keep the language system in tact (for now, at least), make school attendance voluntary, then wise up and do something with the International Baccalaureate, in one form or another?
A little more ammo for gender-segregated classrooms:
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/freakonomics-radio/closing-gender-gap-patent-filing
Sign my kids up for learning a foreign language in elementary school!
An interesting thing happened to me while studying a foreign language as a young adult. Upon reaching some of the advanced vocabulary lessons, I was exposed to a fair amount of upper-level English vocabulary words for the first time. Though the instructor was not a native English speaker, he taught us about another culture, customs and much more. In some instances, he also taught English vocab. The man was incredibly intelligent, kind and patient.
I'd support an early start foreign language program!
Forin language, my ass. This is America, and we speak English. Not the Kings English, American English.
The Chinese may be the future economic power of the world and are teaching their 2 year olds to speak English. So why should we teach our kids to speak Chinese? They already speak English.
And as for french. Get real. Back in my day, nobody respected the french.
French Fries are OK, and French Dip, but so what.
High praise at the top there, LK; please pass my thanks to your admirable wife. And hey: you beat me to the punch some good ed stuff, too!
I will say this: summer is hot and humid, but I have never found it miserable. Never. Plus, out here in the Hills, the humidity is noticeably lower.
Rollin, I see merit in Chinese language courses. But I make no excuses for teaching the language of love... and if my students think about love more than they would otherwise, then I consider my job well done. Vive l'amour!
Bob, I've encouraged my student-athletes to start calling plays in French. They haven't taken me up on it yet. I also encourage my kids to shout random cheers in French just to confuse the opposition. Imagine "Voulez-vous une banane?!" as a battle cry. We'd totally win! (This is why I don't coach sports.)
D.E., you're totally on point. The world is big; the kids need to be ready for more opportunities in it. And even the kids who never leave the county, who never log onto the Web and browse some foreign language content, will still be smarter problem-solvers if they get some hard bilingual drill throughout their education.
Elliot: IB advantages? I feel another blog comment coming on! What can IB do for us?
Sam: we need to get the bunch of us together and form our own academy. I think we can get Steve to enroll his kids! :-)
O.K., Grudz, you've had enough. Put that last beer down, let's get you to bed.
Rather than any foreign language, a study of languages might make sense. Idiomatic expressions are interesting. I have perhaps mentioned this before here, but anyway... My mother used to say when my brother or I were between her and the TV, " You make a better door than a window."
A college friend of mine had a mining engineer for a father. They had spent time speaking Portuguese. His younger son got between him and CBS news. He said something and the son moved. I asked what was the translation. "Donkey flesh is not transparent."
More than one way to skin a cat.
Russian was the hot language when I was in college. Selecting a language 12 years in advance of world crises or power struggles, or technical or economic advances or religious fanaticism and terrorism produces a particular language ability seems incredibly difficult.
India is probably likely to be as important as China as market or power. India would be totally fragmented by language as well as culture were it not for English-- the one gift of colonialism that keeps on giving in a good way.
Right now, I would guess French is about as important to know as Lakota.
I am not sure, but I suspect almost all scientific journals of consequence are now translated into English.
We might best study logic, diplomacy, science, math, chemistry, and history and do what is possible to stimulate the kind of creativity that keeps the USA a world influence and English the common language....and vote Democratic in hopes retrograde Republicanism does not destroy everything of value in this land of opportunity.
French has the potential to be important, but not because France uses it... I see all of these up-and-coming African nations that speak French (albeit a very different dialect than my Standard French) and realize that I'll have that much of an advantage dealing with that region as it develops. However, I would agree that I'd prefer the U.S. to focus on staying the dominant economic and cultural force that it is before teaching any specific subject.
As for the IB, I was initially cold to it, but after seeing how it works over the course of a school year (in France, it's seemingly treated five times more important than the SAT and ACT are in America.) It focuses on students using critical thinking much more, and it, along with AP courses, will increase that innovation which everyone knows we need, in order to continue success.
Well, sounds pretty good ... but how would we define "proficiency"? I suppose we could test the students in their foreign language skills before they could graduate ... I'll bet that would raise a few eyebrows.
The plot in regards to education as a whole in this great nation of ours thickens by the day ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/22/us-economy-pta-idUSBRE82L16V20120322
And this ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/20/us-usa-schools-reform-idUSBRE82I10920120320
Let's get the proficiencies up in the basics.
There you go again Troy; (I love using that Reagan line.)
You haven't even shown that proficiencies are low in the basics in SD or that raising proficiencies only in the basics will have salutary results.
(I used the word salutary for two reasons: it has a cool sound when said aloud and it's a word that everyone should know but it's not one of the basics)
I would add that proficiencies as recorded by DSTEP should drop over the next few years. Students who formerly dropped out and did not take the test will now be taking it. That change will make schools look bad even though they are educating more kids, including those who don't want to be there.
Cory,
In regards to student athletes speaking in French:
A little bit of Jean-Paul Sartre might do the trick when it comes to confusing the opposition, though you could go retro with Descartes' "Je pense, donc, je suis," as well, which only he, I think, can ever completely grasp.
The French don't have a great reputation using their battle cries, sadly. The only French leader since Charlemagne to really dominate was Napoleon, but he was so small I could only see him on the soccer team. De Gaulle was 6'5", though; I'd like to see him shoot some hoops.
From experience, I can tell you that "Allez! Allez!" gets a little annoying after the first ten minutes, though it does sound a lot cooler than "Go team!"
I would suggest Russian for intimidation/confusion purposes, only because anyone who speaks Russian can, and probably will kill you. You should teach your student-athletes that, instead. Nothing scares the other team like hearing them call "Stalin," "Kalashnikov," "Molotov," or plain old "Lenin."
Stan, the parent-trigger things strikes me as odd. Don't parents already have the power to take control of their school by winning seats on the school board?
Defining proficiency isn't too tough. Give me one week to conduct oral interview with each senior. We'll have a 20-minute conversation. If the student can keep up, talk about the weather, homework, the big game last night, college plans, and a couple current events, that's a pretty good sign of proficiency. We could also do a reading test: I hand the student three short news articles from Le Monde and ask for translations.
Elliot, point ceded on Russian versus French. Much scarier names!
LK: boom! Perfect response to Troy. We must not fall into the vague generalizations that characterize national-level education bashing. Show me the failures in South Dakota. And if you can, I'll still say that we can bring up those basic skills by making all kids smarter through foreign language education.
Switch to Le Fig! Le Monde spread pro-Soviet, Anti-American misinformation during the Cold War, and admittedly played down the war crimes committed by the Boys in Red during said period!
"No, it does not, Steve. It builds brain power, just like algebra."
I took two years of spanish and it was a total waste of time and money. This is all just a bunch of propaganda that supports the globalists' New World Order.
Steve, what is so hard to understand about the idea that language training is good mental exercise? You refute none of the points of the original article and the research behind it. You just try to draw us into a pointless discuss of your one-note obsession. Not gonna happen. My work is not propaganda: it is constant mental calisthenics for kids.
That said, Elliot, it might be fascinating for the students to get some exposure to some classic Le Fig and do some critical analysis of the paper's excesses and errors.
"I took two years of spanish and it was a total waste of time and money."
Steve,
As a true conservative, I thought you were valued personal responsibility. If a student didin't learn anything and, therefore, wasted money, isn't that the student's fault?
Wouldn't the New World Order just insert a chip and force people to learn the language?
Which excesses in Le Figaro are you referring to?
"My work is not propaganda: it is constant mental calisthenics for kids."
Cory, one can get excersize by jumping around in one spot or get it by doing physical work that is constructive. Your "mental calisthenics" proves my point. Their are more constructive ways to increase ones intellectual abilities. Sad that we have many who graduate without the ability to read and write in english.
"There" instead of "Their", and I have a masters degree.
When will you expect to become literate, Steve?
I think learning foreign language makes much more sense then learning to play an musical instrument. I took trombone for two years and it was complete waste of time.
I have been learning to roll joints for 49 years...practice, practice, practice.
"When will you expect to become literate, Steve?"
Never Larry, too much Spanish when I was young.
Three and a half years in Spain with a Spanish maid, a mother and a sister who taught Spanish leave my language skills inadequate to work in a dairy or run a drywall crew in the chemical toilet.
Sign my kids up! I would also like to see more support of scholastic chess for its mental benefits. Better yet, combine the two!
I spent two years in high school and three years in college learning German (not the most romantic language) and don't regret it at all. I do regret not learning Spanish because I think it would increase my marketability as a free-lance writer.
And speaking of foreign language and standardized tests, my sister, who teaches for Department of Defense Schools overseas, is taking a class to learn Italian and shared this with me this week:
"I am the classic example of how a kid can graduate high school with good grades and NOT know how to read! We had to take a test last Thursday to pass to the next level class (basically preK). I got an 88% but I only understood about 5 words in the whole test. I'm a good test-taker and a lucky guesser. My friend who is speaking and using Italian 10 times better than I am got a 60%...proof that multiple choice tests should not be the only way of gathering information on a student’s knowledge level. Taking this class has been a very good refresher course on how kids can easily 'hide' what they don’t know and how bad the traditional way of teaching/testing really is! "
Obviously the only fair thing is to make foreign language a fee based offering like drivers ed and daycare will soon be.
Foreign to whom, Steve? English is a second language for many Navajo and Inupiat born in the US.
Board of Regents again reported record numbers of incoming freshman needed remedial math or English classes. And these are already the top hs grads.
And Common Core Standards will not fix that problem Troy.
According to this site, 72% of high school seniors from SD went straight to college in 2008 (the last year they had numbers for) That's up from 69% in 2004. I suspect that the numbers have not decreased since 2008.
http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/?year=2004&level=nation&mode=data&state=0&submeasure=63
The contention that the top students are not ready doesn't quite hold up unless 75% of the students are "top." Colleges have more people in remedial courses because they are taking students that they would not have taken 20 years ago.
Gender-segregated classrooms, dress codes, and respect for instructors: all essential for success.
"Board of Regents again reported record numbers of incoming freshman needed remedial math or English classes. And these are already the top hs grads."
Troy, do you have a link for that? The BOR press release about the Opportunity Scholarship released today says the opposite:
"Since the scholarship program began, public university students needing math remediation has dropped by 5 percent and English remediation declined by 3.8 percent. The number of South Dakota school districts reporting no students who require remediation support has also increased, from 12 percent to 15 percent, since 2003. Prior to the scholarship, 22 percent of South Dakota high school graduates received a 24 or higher on the ACT college entrance exam. That percentage inched up to 23 percent in the first year the scholarship was offered. Last year, the state reported a marked increase to 28 percent of students earning a 24 or higher on the ACT."
http://www.sdbor.edu/mediapubs/pressreleases/documents/032312SDOS.pdf
Cory says: Stan, the parent-trigger things strikes me as odd. Don’t parents already have the power to take control of their school by winning seats on the school board?
Stan responds: Cory, it's California.
Larry says: I have been learning to roll joints for 49 years…practice, practice, practice.
Stan says: In college my bong was legendary. I mastered it in about 49 seconds.
It may make sense to determine which students have "photographic" or eidetic memory and thus find the rote memorization required for language learning very easy. Give them the opportunity to learn extra languages. Super polyglots may be very useful to society.
For those of us without such memory skills, foreign language study is a complete waste of time as Steve has indicated.
Did the regents allow a computer programming language to replace a traditional language as part of minimum requirements?
Doug, you're wrong.
Sibson, you're nuts, but frequently entertaining.
Seriously Doug, the fact is that multiple studies over multiple decades have shown that learning a new language does increase grades for that student in all subjects. Yes, indeed, there are some exceptions, and you and Steve may be examples of that. But it doesn't change the facts.
When I was a teacher in the 1970s - 80s we had that information. It's not a new thing, just way under-utilized.
Erika, your sister rocks! And indeed, why haven't the schools done more with chess?
Steve, there is nothing fair about offering a class that makes every kid smarter only for a fee. And whatever the remedial numbers, the original post makes clear that teaching more foreign language earlier to more students would likely bring those numbers down. Foreign language education is a valuable learning tool for every student.
Doug, computer programming won't count toward the language requirement, but the Legislature did require that students be allowed to substitute vocational/technical classes for one or both years of their HS foreign language.
Whoops—sorry, Elliot! I totally misread your comment. I should have said an analysis of the excesses you cite in Le Monde.
D.E. Bishop, I guess we can disagree on this. I think if we look a little harder we can find better brain improvement and learning tools than learning a foreign language. It seems to me to be a terribly personally expensive way to get a little improvement. I suspect we might agree however that if it is a choice between a foreign language and another team sport, the language course is likely much more useful...but from me that is faint praise.
No, Douglas, foreign language training is no more expensive than any other subject in the curriculum. I use the same kind of online textbooks and supplementary materials that my Spearfish colleagues in other disciplines are using—probably little cost difference. I'm not paid extra just because I'm a French teacher. We're organizing a trip to France next school year, but that's not on the school budget.
We wouldn't even spend much if any more for a solid K-12 foreign language immersion program. Ask Supt. Pam Homan in Sioux Falls about the Rosa Parks Elementary Spanish immersion program: it didn't add any more to the budget than the necessary school expansion for growing population would have: it's just that when they went out to hire the new teachers they needed, they made a point of hiring teachers who could also speak Spanish. No added cost, but smarter kids. What more magic bargain can we ask for?
Cory, I did not say the teaching of a foreign language was more expensive to the school and taxpayers. I noted it was PERSONALLY expensive. I put more time into foreign language study than any other courses (college level-- grade school might have been different) and got less return for my time than any other courses I ever took. The time required to merely pass the foreign language course took time from other more relevant courses.
Morning exercise classes in schools prior to academic courses might do more good.
Brain plasticity may be improved in some way with foreign language study, but despite your evidence, I am not persuaded that there may be better ways to stimulate brain development and creativity, measured IQ, etc.
Cory, what does give the best return for our taxpayers' investment to education? Is it smarter to spend money on foreign languages, breakfast, more teachers, more computers, project based learning or higher salaries?
Very few people speak French in SD or even the US. Spanish is the common sense choice for this area: students will at least have a chance at using Spanish in their daily lives. Small schools are using the DDN to teach foreign languages to their students. While it saves a great deal of money, I don't think the kids are learning as much as they would in person.
Disclaimer: I do have French, Spanish and English minors from Dakota State. My time in Lynn Ryan's classroom greatly helped my performance in English classes.
Michael: foreign language gives a great return on investment. Give me the $15M Gov. Daugaard wants to waste on merit pay, and I'll hire those foreign language teachers and produce real results. Doug, now you're sounding like some of my students, wanting the easy way to a degree. Who said education didn't demand personal effort? But feel free to show me research that shows some other sensible addition to the curriculum beating foreign language for brain boost. Until then, we have a perfectly sensible case for K-12 foreign language education, a case at least as sensible as teaching kids literature, civics, and calculus (fewer kids will use calculus than will use French).