Jay Matthews has an interesting debate with Chris Peters, a high school teacher from CA, in his latest column (well worth reading).
Matthews and Peters apparently have debated in the past over the role of vocational education in high schools (Peters likes it and Matthews doesn't, to over-simplify). In this edition, Peters presents his plan for incorporating vocational education into high schools. It goes something like this: all students take a rigorous, college-prep track for two years and then must pass a number of subject exams. After passing the exams (he allows two years for tutoring and re-takes for those who don't) students can either continue on the college prep track, switch to a vocational track, attend community college, or drop out.
All in all, it's not the worst idea I've heard -- though I don't see it being widely implemented any time soon. The debate goes back and forth, but the essence seems to be that Peters believes that high schools need to do something other than push college prep on the 70% of students that won't graduate from a 4-year college while Matthews believes that more students can be pushed to go to college, citing the paternalistic schools I've blathered on about the last couple weeks.
In the end, I think both make good points. I'm all for preparing more people for college, but at some point we have to realize that not everybody is going to go to college and high schools, or some institution somewhere, need to be prepared for that reality. In other words:
college prep > vocational ed > nothing
Showing posts with label dropouts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dropouts. Show all posts
Monday, September 1, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
ASA Day 2
The stream of interesting papers continues here in Boston. Here are some tidbits from today:
-In a paper on racial inequalities in learning, Priyank Shah found that higher expectations of a child's future educational attainment was much more strongly related to higher achievement among White and Asian students than among Black and Hispanic students. Additionally, Parents of Blacks and Hispanics expected higher educational attainment than did Whites.
-In a paper on the roles of class and race on achievement, Dennis Condron found that school exacerbates the achievement between black and white first graders -- i.e. it was larger at the end of the year than at the beginning of the year -- but shrinks the gap between upper and lower class students. He attributes the effect to the segregation currently present in schools, as students in schools with high-minority populations performed the worst.
-In a paper on Desegregation, Argun Saatcioglu found that desegregation improved the odds of graduation among Cleveland students despite the fact that overall graduation rates didn't rise. Cohorts that went through high school before and after desegregation were harmed by their schools while a cohort that attended during the desegregation era was actually helped by their schools -- especially Black students. Using fixed-effects he found that about 20% of the variation in graduation rates was attributable to school factors and about 80% were due to home factors.
-In a paper on Charter Schools and Segregation, Deborah Marie Warnock found that increasing numbers of charter schools in Ohio caused the traditional public schools in those districts to be more economically segregated. She used a measure called the dissimilarity index to arrive at her conclusion.
-In another paper on school choice and segregation, Kristie Phillips, Charles Hausman, and Elisabeth Stuart looked at who transferred schools in a district with open enrollment. In other words, any kid in the district could enroll in any school in the district (though none of the schools were charter). They found that students were less likely to transfer to another school if they were an English Language Learner, had a single parent, or were eligible for free/reduced price lunch but that students were more likely to transfer when they were zoned for schools with over 50% free/reduced price lunch eligible students. Additionally, wealthier students were zoned for better schools than poorer students but also transferred into better schools than the ones to which poorer students transferred.
One more day to go and I hear there's going to be a stellar presentation tomorrow.
-In a paper on racial inequalities in learning, Priyank Shah found that higher expectations of a child's future educational attainment was much more strongly related to higher achievement among White and Asian students than among Black and Hispanic students. Additionally, Parents of Blacks and Hispanics expected higher educational attainment than did Whites.
-In a paper on the roles of class and race on achievement, Dennis Condron found that school exacerbates the achievement between black and white first graders -- i.e. it was larger at the end of the year than at the beginning of the year -- but shrinks the gap between upper and lower class students. He attributes the effect to the segregation currently present in schools, as students in schools with high-minority populations performed the worst.
-In a paper on Desegregation, Argun Saatcioglu found that desegregation improved the odds of graduation among Cleveland students despite the fact that overall graduation rates didn't rise. Cohorts that went through high school before and after desegregation were harmed by their schools while a cohort that attended during the desegregation era was actually helped by their schools -- especially Black students. Using fixed-effects he found that about 20% of the variation in graduation rates was attributable to school factors and about 80% were due to home factors.
-In a paper on Charter Schools and Segregation, Deborah Marie Warnock found that increasing numbers of charter schools in Ohio caused the traditional public schools in those districts to be more economically segregated. She used a measure called the dissimilarity index to arrive at her conclusion.
-In another paper on school choice and segregation, Kristie Phillips, Charles Hausman, and Elisabeth Stuart looked at who transferred schools in a district with open enrollment. In other words, any kid in the district could enroll in any school in the district (though none of the schools were charter). They found that students were less likely to transfer to another school if they were an English Language Learner, had a single parent, or were eligible for free/reduced price lunch but that students were more likely to transfer when they were zoned for schools with over 50% free/reduced price lunch eligible students. Additionally, wealthier students were zoned for better schools than poorer students but also transferred into better schools than the ones to which poorer students transferred.
One more day to go and I hear there's going to be a stellar presentation tomorrow.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Is High School Too Late?
Bob Herbert has another woe are our schools piece in the Times today. In it he decries the performance of our high schools -- particularly our low graduation rates. He argues that we need to intervene in order to ensure that our high schools are on par with the rest of the world's. The most interesting statistic he cites (and I'd like to see the source for this) is that the U.S. ranked second in the world in four-year college graduation rate in 1995 while we now rank 15th.
I buy the premise of the op-ed: too many students are leaving our schools unprepared for college and/or the workforce, and change is needed. But I have on question: is high school too late?
In other words, are high schools really creating the problems, or are they just where we're noticing them. High school teachers I've talked with tell me that students come to school woefully underprepared and far behind in their abilities. In these cases, is high school really the right point of intervention?
I'm under the impression that most problems take root much earlier than high school. For example: one research article found that, in Baltimore, each absence in first grade was related to an increased likelihood of about 5% that the student would drop out of high school. Does this mean that intervening in first grade might be more fruitful than intervening in high school?
I buy the premise of the op-ed: too many students are leaving our schools unprepared for college and/or the workforce, and change is needed. But I have on question: is high school too late?
In other words, are high schools really creating the problems, or are they just where we're noticing them. High school teachers I've talked with tell me that students come to school woefully underprepared and far behind in their abilities. In these cases, is high school really the right point of intervention?
I'm under the impression that most problems take root much earlier than high school. For example: one research article found that, in Baltimore, each absence in first grade was related to an increased likelihood of about 5% that the student would drop out of high school. Does this mean that intervening in first grade might be more fruitful than intervening in high school?
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Measuring Graduation Rates
High school graduation rates always come up in the news. People are worried about them. People decry how low they are. People celebrate when they improve. Short of test scores, graduation rates are probably the most used indicator of educational success/failure in this country.
It makes sense to worry about graduation rates, but they're far from perfect. Two of the biggest problems are that it's almost impossible to calculate an exact rate for a school and that everybody calculates graduation rates differently.
I first learned about this a couple years ago when some folks from RAND did a study for Pittsburgh on their graduation rates. All calculations of graduation rates start with the same statistic: the number of new freshman who enroll in a given year. But how do we determine how many of these people have graduated and what the graduation rate should be? Do we check on them after four years? 5? 6? What about students who move out of the district? What about students who move into the district or otherwise enroll after the start of 9th grade? What about people who just stop showing up -- how do we know if they dropped out, moved away, or something else? Can we tell which students are in the 9th grade for the first time and which ones are repeating?
A large part of the difficulty is that there is no national database of students. If a student leaves and enrolls in a different city or state, there's no firm way of knowing that they're still enrolled. Similarly, if a student simply stops showing up at school rather than declaring themselves a dropout it's hard to tell if they've dropped out or enrolled in another district.
Anyway, the point is that it's not possible to compute an exact graduation rate. And the fact that every state and district seem to use different formulas means that it's hard to compare these inexact numbers. But, apparently, the Dept. of Ed. is going to step in and standardize the way that graduation rates are calculated. An article in the NY Times today says that the details of the new formula have not been released, but that all states will be required to use the same one.
The technicalities of which formula a state uses seems so trivial and boring that most people probably don't really give it much thought. But the article details people reacting quite strongly to the announcement. This makes sense because although the change is small, the effects of the change might be huge. The federal govt. is ostensibly holding states accountable for graduation rates, but they all calculate them differently (a recent change in North Carolina's formula led the official rate to drop from 95% to 68%). Sometimes the smallest changes are the ones that matter most.
It makes sense to worry about graduation rates, but they're far from perfect. Two of the biggest problems are that it's almost impossible to calculate an exact rate for a school and that everybody calculates graduation rates differently.
I first learned about this a couple years ago when some folks from RAND did a study for Pittsburgh on their graduation rates. All calculations of graduation rates start with the same statistic: the number of new freshman who enroll in a given year. But how do we determine how many of these people have graduated and what the graduation rate should be? Do we check on them after four years? 5? 6? What about students who move out of the district? What about students who move into the district or otherwise enroll after the start of 9th grade? What about people who just stop showing up -- how do we know if they dropped out, moved away, or something else? Can we tell which students are in the 9th grade for the first time and which ones are repeating?
A large part of the difficulty is that there is no national database of students. If a student leaves and enrolls in a different city or state, there's no firm way of knowing that they're still enrolled. Similarly, if a student simply stops showing up at school rather than declaring themselves a dropout it's hard to tell if they've dropped out or enrolled in another district.
Anyway, the point is that it's not possible to compute an exact graduation rate. And the fact that every state and district seem to use different formulas means that it's hard to compare these inexact numbers. But, apparently, the Dept. of Ed. is going to step in and standardize the way that graduation rates are calculated. An article in the NY Times today says that the details of the new formula have not been released, but that all states will be required to use the same one.
The technicalities of which formula a state uses seems so trivial and boring that most people probably don't really give it much thought. But the article details people reacting quite strongly to the announcement. This makes sense because although the change is small, the effects of the change might be huge. The federal govt. is ostensibly holding states accountable for graduation rates, but they all calculate them differently (a recent change in North Carolina's formula led the official rate to drop from 95% to 68%). Sometimes the smallest changes are the ones that matter most.
Monday, March 24, 2008
More on Alternative Schools
The final session that I attended was a symposium of researchers from CA that investigated alternative schools (previous post), which Milbrey McLaughlin said were essentially "invisible."
Alternative schools in CA started around 1917 when the Smith-Hughes Act established federal funding for continuation high schools which, at that time, were designed to provide vocational training to people with other jobs. They eventually morphed into places for "over-aged, under-credited" students to go in a last ditch attempt to avoid dropping out. Today, the 520 continuation high schools in CA vary widely in every way; from pedagogy to the students they enroll.
Among the largest challenges these schools face (other than that most people are unaware of them) are that about half of students enroll for less than 90 days, that they often serve as dumping grounds for both unwanted students and teachers, and that they are often last in line for funding. Indeed, one superintendent told the researchers that it was acceptable for 10% of the students to fail and end up at the local alternative school b/c nobody would notice.
It is my perception that alternative schools are usually started to remove "problem" kids from classrooms in order to better facilitate learning for the rest and/or to "fix" these problem kids. According to the panel, the most successful schools were ones who tried to fix the school environment to suit the kids instead of fixing the kids so that they could fit in a typical school environment.
McLaughlin said that the system was basically "Balkanized" -- there was little communication with other county services, everybody seemed to envision different missions for the schools, etc. What they did find, however, was that the most successful schools were led by "supermen/women" who treated their job as a calling and worked tirelessly to make their school the best place possible.
The work of some of those individuals impresses me, but I do wonder if that is really replicable or scalable -- in other words, if there are enough people willing to sacrifice their lives to these schools in order to run all alternative schools in the country. It's the same question confronting KIPP and other successful schools. Many of them are built on the backs of supermen/women who work tirelessly for their schools and essentially sacrifice years of their life to make their school successful. I am in awe of what these people do, but is it really a solution for the nation? Can we find enough qualified people to treat schools as missionary work to make all schools uber-successful?
Alternative schools in CA started around 1917 when the Smith-Hughes Act established federal funding for continuation high schools which, at that time, were designed to provide vocational training to people with other jobs. They eventually morphed into places for "over-aged, under-credited" students to go in a last ditch attempt to avoid dropping out. Today, the 520 continuation high schools in CA vary widely in every way; from pedagogy to the students they enroll.
Among the largest challenges these schools face (other than that most people are unaware of them) are that about half of students enroll for less than 90 days, that they often serve as dumping grounds for both unwanted students and teachers, and that they are often last in line for funding. Indeed, one superintendent told the researchers that it was acceptable for 10% of the students to fail and end up at the local alternative school b/c nobody would notice.
It is my perception that alternative schools are usually started to remove "problem" kids from classrooms in order to better facilitate learning for the rest and/or to "fix" these problem kids. According to the panel, the most successful schools were ones who tried to fix the school environment to suit the kids instead of fixing the kids so that they could fit in a typical school environment.
McLaughlin said that the system was basically "Balkanized" -- there was little communication with other county services, everybody seemed to envision different missions for the schools, etc. What they did find, however, was that the most successful schools were led by "supermen/women" who treated their job as a calling and worked tirelessly to make their school the best place possible.
The work of some of those individuals impresses me, but I do wonder if that is really replicable or scalable -- in other words, if there are enough people willing to sacrifice their lives to these schools in order to run all alternative schools in the country. It's the same question confronting KIPP and other successful schools. Many of them are built on the backs of supermen/women who work tirelessly for their schools and essentially sacrifice years of their life to make their school successful. I am in awe of what these people do, but is it really a solution for the nation? Can we find enough qualified people to treat schools as missionary work to make all schools uber-successful?
The Costs and Benefits of Schooling
The first session I attended at AERA was an overview of a recent book, The Price We Pay. The book was published by a team of noted economists as an attempt to quantify the benefits of schooling to society and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of some education reforms with proven track records.
They concluded that a person who drops out of high school pays about $100,000 less in taxes (in today's dollars) over the course of their lifetime than does a person who completes high school (only high school, not college) and that, overall, each high school dropout costs the country about $209,000 in lost taxes, welfare, court costs, etc.
Given this figure, they look at how much various interventions cost per additional student that graduates from high school and find that most cost about 1/3 of the amount that society benefits from their graduation. I didn't read the book -- I only heard a 90 minute summary of it -- so I'm not sure exactly what they take into account, but two things that would bias these estimates jumped into my head.
1.) They only look at the additional benefits from the students who graduate from high school that otherwise would not have. What about the students who attended college or graduated from college that otherwise would not have? Taking this into account might mean that their estimates were biased downward -- that there are more benefits than they thought to the interventions.
2.) A shift of a couple percentage points probably wouldn't affect the benefits of a high school education much, but a large increase likely would. If, say, half as many students dropped out each year then it's likely that the benefits of graduating from high school would be smaller. This would mean that their estimates were biased upward -- that the benefits of the interventions were not as large as they thought.
Henry Levin assured a questioner who raised a similar issue that they had taken a lot of things into account and that their estimates were very complex, so it's quite likely that these concerns are addressed in the book. Especially without having read the book I hesitate to believe that these estimates can possibly be very precise, but I think there is some value to them nonetheless. I think a financial analysis of the costs and benefits of school interventions is valuable information to have before making a decision. That said, Henry Levin made sure to emphasize at the very beginning that the primary reason for helping the poorest children is a moral one rather than a financial one.
Also: perhaps the most notable tidbit I gathered from the session was the projection that in 2020 the workforce will be less educated than the workforce in 2000. I had always assumed that the number of people attending college was and will continue to steadily increase, but I had noticed in previous research that the % of 25-29 year olds with a bachelor's degree in 2006 is actually lower than it was in 2000. Given the changing demographics of the country, Marta Tienda concludes that this trend will continue into the future.
They concluded that a person who drops out of high school pays about $100,000 less in taxes (in today's dollars) over the course of their lifetime than does a person who completes high school (only high school, not college) and that, overall, each high school dropout costs the country about $209,000 in lost taxes, welfare, court costs, etc.
Given this figure, they look at how much various interventions cost per additional student that graduates from high school and find that most cost about 1/3 of the amount that society benefits from their graduation. I didn't read the book -- I only heard a 90 minute summary of it -- so I'm not sure exactly what they take into account, but two things that would bias these estimates jumped into my head.
1.) They only look at the additional benefits from the students who graduate from high school that otherwise would not have. What about the students who attended college or graduated from college that otherwise would not have? Taking this into account might mean that their estimates were biased downward -- that there are more benefits than they thought to the interventions.
2.) A shift of a couple percentage points probably wouldn't affect the benefits of a high school education much, but a large increase likely would. If, say, half as many students dropped out each year then it's likely that the benefits of graduating from high school would be smaller. This would mean that their estimates were biased upward -- that the benefits of the interventions were not as large as they thought.
Henry Levin assured a questioner who raised a similar issue that they had taken a lot of things into account and that their estimates were very complex, so it's quite likely that these concerns are addressed in the book. Especially without having read the book I hesitate to believe that these estimates can possibly be very precise, but I think there is some value to them nonetheless. I think a financial analysis of the costs and benefits of school interventions is valuable information to have before making a decision. That said, Henry Levin made sure to emphasize at the very beginning that the primary reason for helping the poorest children is a moral one rather than a financial one.
Also: perhaps the most notable tidbit I gathered from the session was the projection that in 2020 the workforce will be less educated than the workforce in 2000. I had always assumed that the number of people attending college was and will continue to steadily increase, but I had noticed in previous research that the % of 25-29 year olds with a bachelor's degree in 2006 is actually lower than it was in 2000. Given the changing demographics of the country, Marta Tienda concludes that this trend will continue into the future.
Friday, March 7, 2008
How to fix the dropout problem?
I try to be open-minded and unbiased when I read a new policy proposal, but I can't help but be excited when I read something that's "outside the box" -- something about new ideas just appeals to my creative side regardless of how good they are.
This blog post and this blog post both pointed me to this article in the Washington Post from Monday that is nothing not "outside the box" (the two blog entries seemed to take opposite sides on the article).
In short, his idea is this: let kids drop-out of high school instead of trying to keep them in, but take the money that would've been spent on their education and put it in an education trust fund that they can access at a later date. Then, at some point in time they realize that dropping out was a dumb idea and they have the resources to finish their education.
The fact that idea, at least in its current form, is politically infeasible makes me hesitate to spend much time analyzing it. One of the biggest problems is that schools don't currently spend the x dollars that it takes to educate one kid when they drop out, so they'd have to raise spending in order to put that amount in a savings account each year. Secondly, they don't save x dollars when a kid drops out -- there are too many fixed costs. Lack of economic feasibility aside, I like the effect such a plan would have on the environment in high schools (all the kids who don't want to be there would be gone) but am doubtful that the later-in-life education would be a panacea or that all problems can be solved simply by giving somebody more options. That said, I do find the idea absolutely fascinating simply because it is so different.
This blog post and this blog post both pointed me to this article in the Washington Post from Monday that is nothing not "outside the box" (the two blog entries seemed to take opposite sides on the article).
In short, his idea is this: let kids drop-out of high school instead of trying to keep them in, but take the money that would've been spent on their education and put it in an education trust fund that they can access at a later date. Then, at some point in time they realize that dropping out was a dumb idea and they have the resources to finish their education.
The fact that idea, at least in its current form, is politically infeasible makes me hesitate to spend much time analyzing it. One of the biggest problems is that schools don't currently spend the x dollars that it takes to educate one kid when they drop out, so they'd have to raise spending in order to put that amount in a savings account each year. Secondly, they don't save x dollars when a kid drops out -- there are too many fixed costs. Lack of economic feasibility aside, I like the effect such a plan would have on the environment in high schools (all the kids who don't want to be there would be gone) but am doubtful that the later-in-life education would be a panacea or that all problems can be solved simply by giving somebody more options. That said, I do find the idea absolutely fascinating simply because it is so different.
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