tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54581728930161864792024-03-09T03:28:46.976-05:00Thoughts on Education PolicyCorey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.comBlogger451125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-13328762865390000332017-04-11T01:09:00.000-04:002017-10-20T09:27:20.118-04:00When "Free Tuition" Really Means 15% off for 15%The New York State legislatures agreed on the final 2018 state budget over the weekend, which includes a new "free tuition" program dubbed the "<a href="https://www.ny.gov/programs/tuition-free-degree-program-excelsior-scholarship">Excelsior Scholarship</a>" for New York State students attending public colleges and universities in-state.<br />
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Reactions have poured in from all over the state and country, but most are based on a lack of understanding of what the bill actually entails. No, the bill does <i>not</i> mean all students are going to get free or even debt-free college next year. By my calculations, what it actually means is that roughly 15% of students will have their costs reduced by roughly 15% of the actual annual price of college.<br />
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While the "free tuition" headline flashing in bright lights is incredibly misleading, the official slogan on the state information page is actually quite accurate: "making college tuition-free for middle class New Yorkers".<br />
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<b>The Basics</b><br />
In case you're unaware, here are the basics of what the program entails:<br />
-New York resident students from families making under $100,000 (2017), $110K (2018), and eventually $125K (starting in 2019) will not have to pay tuition at in-state public colleges and universities.<br />
-These students are required to earn 30 credits per year and maintain eligibility to graduate (e.g., meet program minimum GPA's).<br />
-In exchange for tuition assistance, students will be required to remain in NYS for as many years as they received that assistance (typically two or four years). If they move out-of-state, the scholarship assistance they received converts into a loan.<br />
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The program is novel in that it covers both community colleges <i>and </i>four-year schools, taking a step beyond what programs in Tennessee and Oregon have done (both cover only community colleges). But it does not go nearly as far as most people reading the headlines assume. Why? Three main reasons:<br />
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1.) It doesn't do much to help students from low-income families. Most students from families earning under $80K/year already pay no tuition and most students from families earning under $50K <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/gov-cuomos-free-tuition-plan-wont-help-new-yorks-state-mind/">pay no tuition or fees</a> because of TAP and Pell grants and other financial assistance.<br />
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2.) It doesn't do anything to help students from upper-income families. There's no plan to help students from families that earn over $125K, which the state <a href="https://www.ny.gov/tuition-free-degree-program-excelsior-scholarship/regional-breakdown">indicates constitute the top 24% of earners with college-age students</a>. With most of the bottom half (see footnote 1) and top quarter of families (by income) excluded, that leaves mostly the third quartile eligible for the scholarship.<br />
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3.) While some students will indeed pay zero for tuition next year instead of up to $6,770, the total cost of attendance at state university centers is around four times that figure. At the University at Buffalo (aka SUNY-Buffalo for out-of-staters or just "UB" for locals) where I work, for example, the <a href="http://financialaid.buffalo.edu/costs/undergraduate/">total cost of attendance is pegged at $26,230</a> for students not living at home -- meaning that tuition comprises 25.8% of the total cost of attendance.<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Why is it really "15 for 15"?</b><br />
There are lot of assumptions to be made here and I don't have enough information to do <i>all</i> of the math precisely, but "15 for 15" is both catchy and seems like a reasonable estimate. Here's how I arrived at this:<br />
<br />
1.) Nancy Zimpher, the SUNY Chancellor, has testified that SUNY expects about <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2017/02/06/college-free-no-student-loan/2/#7e07f8bb3703">80,000 students to enroll in the program</a> plus <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/nyregion/new-yorks-free-tuition-program-will-help-traditional-but-not-typical-students.html">3-5K CUNY students</a>, bringing the total to maybe 85K students. There appear to be about 500,000 potentially eligible students (see footnote 2), meaning roughly 17% would participate. (<b>corrected, 4/13/17)</b><br />
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2.) Expenditures for the program have been estimated at <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-kicks-excelsior-scholarship-campaign-make-college-tuition-free-new-york-s-middle">$163 million per year</a>. Divided by ~85K students, that means the average award would be around $2,000.<br />
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3.) $2,000 is only ~7% of the total cost of attendance at the university centers, but very few students actually pay the full cost of attendance. At UB, for example, <a href="https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?196088-University-at-Buffalo">the average annual cost for in-state students is $16,293</a>. An award of $2,000 would reduce this cost by ~13%. This would vary widely by campus, of course (see footnote 3).<br />
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I rounded both numbers to 15% both because I like round numbers and because there's a high degree of uncertainty in each. Both could easily be 10% or 20%.<br />
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<b>Effects on Student Debt</b><br />
Here's the good news, though. While 15% of students receiving a 15% discount off the price they pay doesn't sound like a whole heck of a lot, it could actually put a much larger dent in student debt in three different ways:<br />
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1.) The average student who takes out loans and graduates from UB, for example, graduates with $19,900 in debt in federal loans. If a student receives $8,000 in additional aid over four years, that total could be reduced by about 40% to ~12K (see footnote 4).<br />
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2.) The requirement that students take 30 credits per year and graduate in four years could also mean that more students will finish faster and take out less debt than they would in five or six years (though it could also backfire and result in more students dropping out in frustration when they fail to accrue 30 credits . . . this is TBD).<br />
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3.) For students with lower loan amounts, the award could nudge them toward taking out zero loans. Imagine, for example, that you're taking out $3,000 each year in loans and planning to graduate with $12K in debt, but now receive an additional $2,000 discount. Maybe the student will now be so close to debt-free graduation that (s)he will look a little harder for ways to chip in that last $1,000 (maybe their family passes on a vacation or the student spends some summer earnings on their college bill instead of a larger apartment or eats in the dining hall more often and take-out less often). (Of course, there's also the possibility that the student would think $4K was such a small amount that they'd feel comfortable taking out more loans to cover living expenses . . . this is also TBD).<br />
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<b>Looking Forward</b><br />
We'll know more in the coming years about program enrollment, costs, reduction in costs of college, and potential reduction in student debt.<br />
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Private colleges are <a href="http://buffalonews.com/2017/04/10/tuition-free-scholarship-program-changes-higher-ed-landscape/">very worried</a> that the program will drive students away from private schools and toward public schools. The state threw in <a href="http://buffalonews.com/2017/04/10/tuition-free-scholarship-program-changes-higher-ed-landscape/">additional scholarship funding for private colleges</a> (also with many stipulations) in last-minute negotiations, so we'll see if this actually comes to pass or not.<br />
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By my calculation, most students won't benefit at all from the program and the few who do mostly won't benefit all that much. For those reasons, we might not expect massive enrollment shifts. But decisions often aren't made in a calculated fashion. There's widespread misunderstanding of student debt already out there, for example (which <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-a-student-loan-crisis-on-the-horizon/">hasn't increased as much</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/upshot/the-rise-of-student-debt-for-those-who-get-degrees.html">doesn't affect as many students</a> as most seem to think), so "free tuition" might sound very enticing to those panicking about potential debt issues even (and maybe especially) if they're overestimating their future debt burden.<br />
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If we've learned anything from current events the past year, it's that people often don't make decisions for the reasons they say (or think) they do. Even though the program shouldn't save very many families very much money, it's not entirely unlikely that it nonetheless drives a disproportionate increase in applications and enrollment to NYS public colleges and universities.<br />
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I also wonder to what extent schools and private funders will react in order to game the system. Since the program is "last dollar" and pays for only tuition that's not covered by other sources, I wonder whether schools and scholarship programs will try to provide grants designated for fees, room, board, books, etc. instead of tuition. If institutions and foundations successfully did this, they could potentially raise the average award significantly (though funding rules would also likely be changed if the scholarship budget was shot).<br />
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Lastly, I wonder whether the residency requirement will stick around. I see why it was politically attractive to wary legislators (if the state is going to spend money on students, we might as well make sure they benefit the state), but it could be administratively onerous to track and monitor all these students and convert benefits to loans when necessary and could significantly dampen the program's impact if students shy away from signing up in order to avoid committing to remaining in-state after graduation.<br />
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All in all, I don't expect the program to make the type of impact many believe it will. But it should be an interesting experiment. And a small step toward debt-free college.<br />
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<i>Footnote 1: At SUNY schools, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2017/02/06/college-free-no-student-loan/2/#7e07f8bb3703">58% of resident students receive a TAP award, and 39% receive the maximum amount ($5,165)</a>. I'd be willing to bet that virtually all of those 39% are paying zero tuition after we include other sources of financial aid. I'll guess that's true for about half of the other students receiving partial TAP funding, meaning that around 50% of students aren't paying any tuition currently. This may be a conservative estimate.</i><br />
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<div>
<i>Footnote 2: I'm unsure exactly who will be eligible for the scholarship, but here's how I arrived at a ballpark of 500K.</i><br />
<i>-SUNY reports enrollment of ~400K undergraduate students in their <a href="http://www.suny.edu/media/suny/content-assets/documents/FastFacts2016.pdf">most recent report</a>, which isn't broken down by full-time vs. part-time, age, year in school, etc.</i><br />
<i>-CUNY reports enrollment of ~245K undergraduate students <a href="http://www.cuny.edu/irdatabook/rpts2_AY_current/ENRL_0001_UGGR_FTPT.rpt.pdf">on their website</a>, which is broken down into ~161K full-time and ~84K part-time.</i><br />
<i>-Slightly under 2/3 of CUNY students are full-time, and I'm guessing that number is a bit higher for SUNY. If we assume it's about 75%, that gives ~300K full-time SUNY students + ~161K full-time CUNY students, that gives us ~461K total full-time students. I'm guessing the vast majority of these students will be eligible but a much smaller portion of part-time students will be, so I'm rounding up to 500K. This could be a bit high if fewer students are eligible than I think, but could be conservative if more than 80% of undergraduate students are eligible or if enrollment patterns change in response to the incentive. For example, more students might enroll in public schools or enroll full-time. In which case, the actual number could be closer to 600K or even 700K.</i><br />
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<i>Footnote 3: One glaring exception here is that the average annual cost of attendance is much lower at community colleges (<a href="https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?193946-Niagara-County-Community-College">Niagara County Community College is $6,154</a>, for example). A $2,000 award here would pay for roughly one-third the costs of attendance. I'm assuming awards will be smaller at community colleges, though, both because tuition is less ($4,370 instead of $6,470 in 2016-17) and because student bodies at community colleges come from lower-income families and more will already eligible for Pell and TAP grants. Students living at home would also have a higher portion of their costs covered (at UB, total costs for commuter students are pegged at $15,322 next year, which means that tuition ($6,770) comprises 44.2% of their costs). Even as community college and commuter students stand to cover more than 15% of net costs, though, resident students may often cover much less. Most of the scholarship recipients will hail from families earning between $75K and $110K, and students from that bracket <a href="https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?196088-University-at-Buffalo">paid an average of $20,278</a> at UB according to the College Scorecard -- meaning a $2,000 scholarship would cover less than 10% of costs for these students.</i><br />
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<i>Footnote 4: I don't know what the average loan level of scholarship recipient students will be, but I'm guessing it should be near the average for the school since the lowest- and highest-income students won't receive the scholarship. For UB, <a href="https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?196088-University-at-Buffalo">47% of graduates have federal loans</a> but I'm guessing a somewhat higher percentage have any type of loans (possibly not much higher, since College Navigator reports only <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?s=NY&zc=14214&zd=10&of=3&l=93&ct=1&ic=1&id=196088">7% receive other loans</a>). Of course, this also means that when we include all loans that the average will be higher than the ~$20K reported and an $8K reduction would make less than a 40% dent in loans owed.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b>4/11/17: Corrected to use 2017-18 figures for both tuition and cost of attendance for calculations rather than 2016-17.</b><br />
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<b>4/13/17: Corrected to amend the original estimate of 80K students to include an additional 3-5K CUNY students who weren't included in the SUNY estimate. This raises my estimate of potentially eligible students who will actually receive monies from 16% to 17%.</b></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-13163483635659888682017-01-31T11:49:00.000-05:002017-01-31T11:49:05.037-05:00Why I Oppose Betsy DeVos's NominationIf you haven't yet, you should read <a href="http://tinyurl.com/lettertoSenHELP">this letter</a> from hundreds of educational researchers opposing Betsy DeVos's nomination as Secretary of Education.<br />
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I strongly believe that Professors should largely refrain from political advocacy because I believe it interferes with our ability to teach -- I want my students to make up their own mind about policy based on research evidence without knowing whether I have a personal preference or what it is.<br />
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I signed (and played an exceedingly small role in writing) the letter, though, because I don't think this is truly a matter of politics or policy. I don't oppose Betsy DeVos on ideological grounds. Our new President is going to nominate somebody with a similar ideology regardless of whether she's approved anyway. I signed the letter largely because she's proven that she's not qualified. Her knowledge (or lack thereof) of federal education policy in her Senate hearing was, frankly, embarrassing.<br />
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We will never agree on ideology, but we should all agree that we want the best and brightest leading our schools. The current administration can find many better options than Betsy DeVos.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-74020320743964118952014-03-18T11:43:00.000-04:002014-03-18T11:43:29.908-04:00Face Validity and the New Ed School RankingsFor those of you outside academia, "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_validity">face validity</a>" is a fancy term academics use that simply means that something makes sense upon first glance (or "on face"). US News and World Report released their latest <a href="http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools">grad school rankings</a> last week, and one thing I notice is the lack of face validity.<br />
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First, I should note that I'm a Vanderbilt alum and Vanderbilt dropped to #2 in the education school rankings after ranking #1 for five consecutive years. I hesitated to write this post lest anybody think it's simply sour grapes. Or maybe an attempt to draw attention to the fact that Vanderbilt dropped in the rankings as soon as I left . . .<br />
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In all seriousness, I really don't care all that much where Vanderbilt ranks. I don't even know what it actually means to be the top-ranked school of education. What matters most? Outcomes of students? Research of faculty? Selectivity? The current rankings measure the latter two but not the first (my biggest criticism of them would be that they make virtually no attempt to measure the education students actually receive). We could construct the rankings 100 different ways that would all make some amount of sense, so it's a bit ridiculous that the <a href="http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-education-schools">USNWR rankings</a> draw so much attention (and yet, here I am, helping them draw even more attention).<br />
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Despite the fact that I claim I have no idea what it means to be the top-ranked school of education, if pressed I'd have to posit that the top four, in some order, are Vanderbilt (Peabody), Columbia (Teacher's College), Stanford, and Harvard. I think those four have the most history and prestige, but I could be wrong. By one measure, they <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2014/01/the_2014_rhsu_edu-scholar_public_influence_rankings.html">have the most recognizable scholars</a> (Stanford has 21; Harvard 19; Columbia 12; and Vanderbilt 11 of the 200 scholars ranked) -- so I don't think I'm totally off-base here. So it's interesting to me that those schools rank second, third, fourth, and eighth.<br />
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Another measure would be to look at which schools have the top-ranked programs. USNWR ranks the top 20 or so programs in 10 different fields, though they do so <a href="http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/2014/03/10/methodology-2015-best-education-schools-rankings">solely based on nominations by Deans</a>. I'd consider these rankings "face validity" because they're simply asking knowledgeable people what looks like it would make sense to them rather than doing any sort of comprehensive multivariate analysis. By clicking on each school's profile, one can see how many programs that school has that made the cut. Below are the top 25 ranked schools of education and the number of fields in which they were ranked:<br />
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2.) Vanderbilt: 9<br />
5.) Wisconsin: 9<br />
8.) Columbia: 9<br />
15.) Michigan St.: 8
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16.) Ohio St.: 8
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4.) Stanford: 7<br />
8.) Columbia: 7<br />
8.) Michigan: 7
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11.) UCLA: 7
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7.) Washington: 6
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10.) Texas: 6
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22.) Virginia: 6
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25.) Indiana: 6
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3.) Harvard: 5<br />
14.) UC-Berkeley: 5
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5.) Penn: 4
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20.) NYU: 4
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20.) Minnesota: 4
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18.) USC: 3
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13.) Oregon: 1
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17.) Kansas: 1
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22.) Pitt: 1
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24.) BC: 1
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1.) Johns Hopkins: 0<br />
11.) Northwestern: 0
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18.) Arizona St.: 0<br />
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A few things stick out here:<br />
<br />
-There looks to be only a mild correlation between a school's overall rank and the number of top programs it has.<br />
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-A number of schools have quite a few top-ranked programs but are outside the top 10 -- Michigan State, Ohio State, Virginia, and Indiana are particularly notable.<br />
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-Meanwhile, Northwestern and Johns Hopkins have exactly zero top-ranked programs and yet rank above all of those programs.<br />
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-Yes, you read that right: Johns Hopkins -- the new #1 School of Education -- has exactly zero programs ranked among the top 20 or so in the country. Now, I freely admit that I have absolutely no idea whether or not Johns Hopkins has the best faculty, students, research, or anything else we try to measure, but that's pretty striking.<br />
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<br />
So, something doesn't make sense here. How could Deans perceive that schools have a slew or dearth of top programs while the overall rankings indicate that the school as a whole is actually merely really good or the cream of the crop?<br />
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One possibility is that the Deans' perceptions are wrong and that the data collected by USNWR are a better indicator of quality. Another possibility is the opposite -- that the rankings are a sham and that we should listen to the Deans. A third possibility is that the program rankings are misleading in some way (e.g. some fields are more important than others, important fields are missed, the narrow margins are insignificant, or that a few top-5 programs is better than a bunch of top-20 programs).<br />
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If it's number one or two then I'd argue that either the overall rankings or the program rankings are lacking in face validity. In reality, it's probably some mixture of all of the above. But if memory serves, I believe that Texas, Oregon, and Johns Hopkins have been second one year and 10th or lower another year just in the past five years. It's possible that school quality changes that fast, but it seems rather unlikely.<br />
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Another way of looking at the rankings would be to look at programs that rank at the very top of their fields. If we look at the number of programs that rank in the top 10/top 5/#1 in their field, we get a different picture for each one and from above:<br />
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Wisconsin: 8/7/1<br />
Vanderbilt: 8/5/2<br />
Michigan State: 7/4/2<br />
Columbia: 6/5/0<br />
Michigan: 6/5/0<br />
Ohio State: 6/1/0<br />
Stanford: 5/5/2<br />
Virginia: 4/1/0<br />
Harvard: 3/2/0<br />
UCLA: 3/1/1<br />
Texas: 3/0/0<br />
Indiana: 3/0/0<br />
UC-Berkeley: 2/0/0<br />
Washington: 2/0/0<br />
Penn: 2/0/0<br />
Minnesota: 2/0/0<br />
Oregon: 1/1/0<br />
Kansas: 1/1/0<br />
USC: 1/1/0<br />
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When we look at this way, we notice that four schools ranked in the top 10 didn't have a single program ranked in the top five in its field (#1 Johns Hopkins, #5 Penn, #7 Washington, and #10 Texas).<br />
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Another thing you may notice is that there are only eight #1 rankings in 10 fields. That's because the schools ranked first in student counseling and personnel services (Maryland) and technical/vocation education (Penn State) didn't make the top 25. Which may confirm my earlier hypothesis that some fields are viewed as more important than others. Or not. If we look at the number of programs ranked among the best in their field or the top 10/5/#1 in their field, we find a few schools outside the top top 25 that dwarf most of the top 25 schools:<br />
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33.) Penn State: 9/4/2/1<br />
33.) Georgia: 9/6/3/0<br />
26.) Maryland: 7/2/1/1<br />
26.) Illinois: 6/2/1/0<br />
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All of which leads to a whole lot of confusion. I'm not really sure what the rankings are measuring to begin with, but it sure seems odd that their specialty rankings would be so misaligned with their comprehensive rankings. I'd bet that a lot of the Deans polled for the specialty rankings (and academics who think like they do) probably think the overall rankings are lacking in face validity.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-13096113802575595422014-03-13T11:33:00.000-04:002014-03-13T11:33:57.616-04:00How Does Poverty Affect Academic Performance? Part 2: TheoryToday I continue the series examining the ways in which poverty influences academic performance. <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2014/03/how-does-poverty-influence-academic_10.html">Part 1</a> explored the achievement gap and some trends and causes and future parts will discuss social factors and environmental conditions experienced by families living in poverty that may also impact academic performance. In other words, what, exactly, is it about living in poverty that results in dramatically lower achievement and attainment?<br />
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Before we can answer that, we need to first understand <i>why</i> poverty would matter. Below, I briefly discuss some theory and literature that points us toward some possibilities.<br />
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<b>Neighborhood Effects</b><br />
Though a wide array of social conditions influence children’s academic performance, researchers and policymakers have focused more on the links between housing and neighborhoods and educational outcomes; from the Gautreaux decision to the MTO experiment and beyond. The results of this strand of policy and research have run a wide gamut. A recent review of the literature [1] concludes that:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Housing programs have successfully helped poor parents move to safer and less disadvantaged communities and, in some cases, less segregated neighborhoods . . . Despite the ability for some of these programs to bring about context changes, it appears much more difficult to improve the educational outcomes of children. Early Gautreaux results suggested large benefits for children moving to the suburbs, but . . . more recent MTO research concludes that neighborhood change is not enough to substantially improve schooling quality or educational outcomes (p. 478).</blockquote>
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In short, while there may be sufficient reason to believe that housing policy <i>can </i>positively and significantly impact the academic performance of some of the poorest Americans, there is as of yet no conclusive evidence that we know how to do this on a consistent basis.<br />
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One reason behind the contradicting findings may be the lack of a clear consensus on a theoretical framework outlining the relationships between potential levers of housing policy and academic performance. In their introduction to the <i>Neighborhood Poverty</i> series, Gephart and Brooks-Gunn [2] write that<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Multiple theoretical perspectives, fragmented by discipline and often by method, provide partial, potentially complementary (but sometimes conflicting) guidance about the characteristics of neighborhoods that may affect the development of children, youth, and families, and about the mechanisms through which such characteristics affect families and individuals. (p. xvii)</blockquote>
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Although the field has come a long way in the 17 years since, the problem they identify has never been fully resolved.
Why would these policies have led to changes in children’s educational performance? While the theory supporting such a relationship has been well-developed in some areas, it remains highly fragmented – particularly across different disciplines. In other words, while theoretical models regarding parts of the story abound, we do not yet have an all-encompassing theoretical framework. Jencks and Mayer [3] divide theories relating neighborhoods to child development into three groups: epidemic models, collective socialization models, and institutional models.<br />
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<i>Epidemic models</i><br />
Epidemic models theorize that neighborhood characteristics spread much like disease spreads – from person to person. For example, one person decides to use drugs, then another, then another, and so forth (or, perhaps, read Shakespeare). In this way, peer norms are the main driver of individual behavior; those raised in neighborhoods where going to college is the norm are more likely to attend college, and those raised in neighborhoods where dropping out of high school is the norm are more likely to drop out.<br />
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<i>Collective socialization models</i><br />
Collective socialization models hold that values are derived from adults who live in the neighborhood. Adults both serve as examples to which children should aspire and enforce rules within the neighborhood. These models would theorize that people who grow up in neighborhoods where drug dealers are idolized would be more likely to deal drugs when they come of age while those who grow up in neighborhoods full of shopkeepers would be more likely to open their own store and people who grow up around college graduates would be more likely to attend college themselves.<br />
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<i>Institutional Models</i><br />
Institutional models underline the importance of adults from outside of the neighborhood; particularly those in positions of authority (teachers, police, etc.). Theories under this umbrella posit that children from poorer neighborhoods interact with different outside authority figures and/or are treated differently by outside authority figures. Children treated with more respect and concern by these authority figures would then stand a better chance of graduating from high school or avoiding jail.<br />
<br />
<i>Discussion</i><br />
Theories under all these umbrellas overlap with one another and often predict similar outcomes (for example, that students in poorer neighborhoods will be less likely to graduate). Both because of that fact and because they all have empirical backing, we should consider all three when predicting and studying how social policy might impact academic performance.
That those in lower classes live in worse housing is not seriously questioned. Indeed, the local home values seem to explain differences in school-wide achievement that other background variables do not [4]. This may be due in part to those with means opting to move into neighborhoods zoned for better schools, but is also likely the result of a more complicated relationship between homes and neighborhoods and various behaviors and actions. For example, it has been theorized that perception of disorder in one’s surroundings leads to other negative behaviors [5, 6]. Hastings [7] posits that neighborhood effects are compounded by a vicious cycle wherein poorer neighborhoods need more services and the situation is exacerbated when government officials fail to recognize, and subsequently act on, this condition.<br />
<br />
<b>Stress Theory</b><br />
Based on developmental research, Shonkoff and Phillips [8] add stress theory as a fourth group of neighborhood effects theories, though it is more often cited by health researchers. Stress Theory posits that stressors more common in poorer neighborhoods (which might range from crime to lead paint) have deleterious effects on children. These negative effects add up to create stress and inhibit development. A recent advance in the study of stress was the creation of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) survey [9], which measures accumulated stress through exposure to various stressors in childhood and strongly predicts later health and academic outcomes. Stress theory would predict that children exposed to more negative experiences would be more distracted, less focused, more stressed, and lower achieving in school.<br />
<br />
<b>Ecological Systems Theory</b><br />
Widely used by those who research both neighborhoods and family/home conditions and their effect on child development, ecological systems theory [10] and the bioecological model [11] theorize that children are affected by people and institutions in five different nested levels: immediate friends, family and surroundings (the microsystem); the relationships between these immediate surroundings (the mesosystem); the outside experiences of immediate friends and family (the exosystem); the cultural context in which one lives (the macrosystem); and the historical context in which one lives (the chronosystem). Each system influences each child differently and to different extents depending on both the degree of exposure to, and context of, each.
Students who experience problems in their immediate surroundings (e.g. family conflict), relationships between these different groups (e.g. a poor relationship between their church and parents), extended social systems (e.g. a parent working in a stressful job), cultural context (e.g. high rates of poverty and unemployment), and/or historical context (e.g. racial discrimination) would be expected to perform worse in school.<br />
<br />
<b>Resources</b><br />
Resources likely matter both directly and indirectly. In the most direct sense, more money enables families to purchase more goods to aid their children’s learning. For example, a recent study using two national databases found that families who earn more money or begin earning more money spend more on physical items like books and toys in addition to enrichment activities like sports and art classes [12].
More indirectly, economists and psychologists argue that a lack of resources diverts attention away from other tasks. For example, focusing attention on finding adequate food or water decreases the amount of attention a parent can focus on their child’s physical health or the homework due the next day [13].
The former predicts that a child with more stimulation at home and more activities outside the home will perform better in school because he/she had more learning experiences; the latter predicts that a child whose parents have to spend less time and energy ensuring basic needs are met will perform better in school because he/she received more attention and care.<br />
<br />
<b>Non-Cognitive Factors</b><br />
Recent writings have focused the attention of researchers [14] and the public [15] on the non-cognitive skills of students, with some evidence that they may be stronger predictors of school success than cognitive skills [see, for example: 16].
Some researchers group self-control together with attention as psychological effects of poverty [17] since the stresses encountered by those living in poverty can deplete both over time [18], but I instead include self-control with non-cognitive factors.
Tough lists grit, self-control, zest, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism, and curiosity as the seven factors “especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement” (p. 76). Students whose environments foster development of these skills and traits would be more likely to earn higher grades, score higher on tests, and graduate from high school and college.<br />
<br />
<b>Culture of Poverty</b><br />
Popularized by Oscar Lewis [19] and “The Moynihan Report” [20], the “culture of poverty” theory essentially argued that people living in poverty had developed a destructive culture that perpetuated the cycle of poverty. Lewis later clarified [21] that he believed that:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The people in the culture of poverty have a strong feeling of marginality, of helplessness, of dependency, of not belonging. They are like aliens in their own country, convinced that the existing institutions do not serve their interests and needs. Along with this feeling of powerlessness is a widespread feeling of inferiority, of personal unworthiness . . . People with a culture of poverty have very little sense of history. They are a marginal people who know only their own troubles, their own local conditions, their own neighborhood, their own way of life. Usually, they have neither the knowledge, the vision nor the ideology to see the similarities between their problems and those of others like themselves else in the world (p. 21).</blockquote>
<br />
Lewis continues on to argue that although he believes those living in poverty had changed their culture, that these changes were not all negative. He argues, for example, that a focus on the more immediate present rather than long-term planning could lead to a more joyful and carefree life.<br />
<br />
Though largely discredited and ignored in recent decades [22], the “culture of poverty” hypothesis has made a recent comeback among scholars [23] – but this time with a different meaning. Rather than focusing on the shortcomings of those living in poverty, the focus has shifted to examining how living in poverty affects the culture of families and neighborhoods. In this sense, Lewis may have been right that those living in poverty often feel outcast, isolated, and hopeless – but scholars now see these as an <i>outcome </i>rather than <i>cause </i>of poverty. Scholars investigating the relationship between culture and poverty would expect students who are more isolated, feel less hope for the future, and engage in less long-run planning to perform worse in school.<br />
<br />
<b>Conclusion</b><br />
The theories discussed above all influence the research that I'll discuss in future posts and make appearances in a wide range of articles and topics. Indeed, researchers from different fields and disciplines often cite different theories in order to support similar arguments. Collectively, they predict that children with more stress, fewer resources, strained relationships, more chaotic surroundings, and worse role models will earn lower grades, perform worse on tests, drop out more frequently, and earn fewer degrees. The next posts will explore some more specific and tangible ways in which students living in poverty experience these types of factors and conditions and how those experiences subsequently affect academic performance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">References</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">DeLuca, S. and E. Dayton, Switching Social Contexts: The Effects of Housing Mobility and School Choice Programs on Youth Outcomes. Annual Review of Sociology, 2009. 35(1): p. 457-491.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gephart, M.A. and J. Brooks-Gunn, Introduction, in Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children, J. Brooks-Gunn, G.J. Duncan, and J.L. Aber, Editors. 1997, Russell Sage: New York. p. xiii-xxii.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jencks, C. and S.E. Mayer, The Social Consequences of Growing Up in a Poor Neighborhood, in Inner-City Poverty in the United States, Committee on National Urban Policy and National Research Council, Editors. 1990, National Academies Press: Washington, DC.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kane, T.J., D.O. Staiger, and G. Samms, School Accountability Ratings and Housing Values. Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, 2003(4): p. 83-137.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Franzini, L., et al., Perceptions of disorder: Contributions of neighborhood characteristics to subjective perceptions of disorder. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2008. 28(1): p. 83-93</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sampson, R.J. and S.W. Raudenbush, Seeing Disorder: Neighborhood Stigma and the Social Construction of "Broken Windows". Social Psychology Quarterly, 2004. 67(4): p. 319-342.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hastings, A., Neighbourhood Environmental Services and Neighbourhood 'Effects': Exploring the Role of Urban Services in Intensifying Neighbourhood Problems. Housing Studies, 2009. 24(4): p. 503-524.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Shonkoff, J.P. and D.A. Phillips, From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. 2000, Washington, DC: National Academy Press.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Felitti, V.J., The relationship of adverse childhood experiences to adult health: Turning gold into lead. Zeitschrift fur Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie, 2002. 48(4): p. 359-369.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bronfenbrenner, U., The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. 1979: Harvard Univ Press.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bronfenbrenner, U. and P.A. Morris, The ecology of developmental processes, in Handbook of Child Psychology: Volume 1: Theoretical Models of Human Development, R.M. Lerner, Editor. 1998, John Wiley & Sons Inc: Hoboken, NJ. p. 993-1028.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kaushal, N., K. Magnuson, and J. Waldfogel, How Is Family Income Related to Investments in Children's Learning?, in Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances, G.J. Duncan and R.J. Murnane, Editors. 2011, Russell Sage Foundation: New York. p. 187-205.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Banerjee, A.V. and S. Mullainathan, Limited Attention and Income Distribution. The American Economic Review, 2008. 98(2): p. 489-493.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Heckman, J.J., Policies to foster human capital. Research in Economics, 2000. 54(1): p. 3-56.
</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Tough, P., How children succeed: Grit, curiosity, and the hidden power of character. 2012, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Duckworth, A.L. and M.E. Seligman, Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological Science, 2005. 16(12): p. 939-944.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mullainathan, S., The Psychology of Poverty. Focus, 2011. 28(1): p. 19-22.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Spears, D., Economic Decision-Making in Poverty Depletes Behavioral Control. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2011. 11(1).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lewis, O., The culture of poverty. Scientific American, 1966. 215(4): p. 19 - 25.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Office of Policy Planning and Research, The Negro family: The case for national action. 1965, United States Department of Labor: Washington, DC.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lewis, O., The culture of poverty, in Poor Americans: How The White Poor Live, M. Pilisuk and P. Pilisuk, Editors. 1971, Transaction, Inc.: New York. p. 20-26.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Small, M.L., D.J. Harding, and M. Lamont, Reconsidering Culture and Poverty. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2010. 629(1): p. 6-27.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cohen, P., ‘Culture of Poverty’ Makes a Comeback, in New York Times. 2010.</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-15951180234461425842014-03-10T12:29:00.001-04:002014-03-10T12:29:13.944-04:00How Does Poverty Influence Academic Performance? Part 1 in a SeriesToday marks the start of a new multi-part series on poverty and academic performance. I expect to post two or three new parts most weeks in the coming months (there will be at least 20 parts). As I <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2014/03/how-does-poverty-influence-academic.html">explained last week</a>, the goal of the series is to start to figure out exactly what it is about living in poverty that so dramatically affects students' achievement and attainment and to explore possible policy interventions that could mitigate poverty's impacts.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Background</b><br />
<br />
Almost twenty years ago, researchers first focused on a large (as much as one standard deviation) gap between Black and White students, which they termed the "Black-White Test Score Gap" (Jencks and Phillips, 1998). The consensus term soon became “achievement gap” (Meyers, 2012), which has been used more widely to refer to both the gaps in achievement and attainment between different races and ethnicities and between those of different classes or socioeconomic backgrounds (Murphy, 2009). This series will focus on the gaps between different classes. I'll also explore "academic performance" broadly defined rather than just test scores.<br />
<br />
Academic performance differs widely between students of different social classes across a long list of indicators, including (but not limited to): standardized test scores, grades, graduation rates, college entrance exams, college matriculation, college graduation, and completion of a graduate degree (Meyers, 2009).<br />
<br />
Though I'll be focusing on the gaps between classes, it's worth nothing that while the Black-White test-score gap narrowed steadily during the 1970s and 1980s . . . but that progress has essentially stalled during the past quarter-century. Why? Potential explanations include changes in families (Berends, Lucas, and Peñaloza, 2008), the re-segregation of schools (Condron, 2009) and/or a myriad of other factors (Covay, 2010). Neal (2005) argues that we do not really know why progress stalled, but notes that most of the narrowing during the previous two decades occurred because of gains by Blacks in the middle and at the top of the distribution while those at the bottom largely remained at the same level. The timing of the halt in progress corresponds roughly with both the reversal of the desegregation movement over the past 40 years (Berends and Penaloza, 2010; Vigdor and Ludwig, 2008) and with widening economic inequality between both Blacks and Whites and rich and poor (Magnuson and Waldfogel, 2008; Mayer, 2001).<br />
<br />
Given the recent growth in wealth and income inequality, perhaps it should not surprise us that recent evidence indicates that socioeconomic gaps have actually widened during that time. Reardon (2011) finds that the test-score gap between students from high- and low-income families (90th vs. 10th percentile) has grown by 30-40% over the past 25 years and is now approximately twice as large as the black-white achievement gap, the opposite of 50 years ago (see first image below). In a working paper, Bailey and Dynarski (2011) find that the gap in college completion between students from families in the top and bottom income quartile grew by 14 percentage points between children born in the early 1960s and around 1980 (see second image below). And another current working paper finds that the gap in educational attainment between children from high- and low-income households grew by a full half-year between the 1954 and 1987 birth cohorts (Duncan, Kalil, and Ziol-Guest, 2013 -- see third image below). The stalling out of progress on the Black-White achievement gap and growth in gaps between classes signals massive problems with our current efforts. But what else could we do?<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwpiuXypjcZesN6t9mjl4kW0WIZRUiKWx7rdxH_HlezOQVDtONULerwOmABqPFJuqYo_gsnAEc4FzqBUpwHjneE0ll9ImL8vzk6v29PZkfdZFD5_UmKpfJ5E784wNc4Bt4TjtwyFhmdLie/s1600/ReardonIncomeAchGap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwpiuXypjcZesN6t9mjl4kW0WIZRUiKWx7rdxH_HlezOQVDtONULerwOmABqPFJuqYo_gsnAEc4FzqBUpwHjneE0ll9ImL8vzk6v29PZkfdZFD5_UmKpfJ5E784wNc4Bt4TjtwyFhmdLie/s1600/ReardonIncomeAchGap.jpg" height="278" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Reardon11.pdf">Reardon (2011)</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVcGOiwjxAsZUtFJWx8qWKj-mpK_fMn_9u1uZ6xLBo_9LJSQJj-s79B50NE9JbqGb0623nrfNsZpfaD4E4AnnJ-o3WROp9Jvo9fFVyOzXz7cGr-5i3A2IKy5Ho8gOr_JHEvA1_SA72WnyR/s1600/BaileyDynarskiCollegeCompletionByQuartile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVcGOiwjxAsZUtFJWx8qWKj-mpK_fMn_9u1uZ6xLBo_9LJSQJj-s79B50NE9JbqGb0623nrfNsZpfaD4E4AnnJ-o3WROp9Jvo9fFVyOzXz7cGr-5i3A2IKy5Ho8gOr_JHEvA1_SA72WnyR/s1600/BaileyDynarskiCollegeCompletionByQuartile.jpg" height="278" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w17633">Bailey & Dynarski (2011)</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoDtGlzR1ODary72y5RSnyfrMPCp86vKZkF7NIF0-DPuMVnjEBwcKyFj1bq7WKVmPxrWuhvniABbIw1fxRrmJSQacGQ-qppfnMQ4cFF8BmqfoD0gUCmYEmqS_f72IEn4ZwMdOS7HWrU5IJ/s1600/DuncanEtAlCollegeCompletionByIncome.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoDtGlzR1ODary72y5RSnyfrMPCp86vKZkF7NIF0-DPuMVnjEBwcKyFj1bq7WKVmPxrWuhvniABbIw1fxRrmJSQacGQ-qppfnMQ4cFF8BmqfoD0gUCmYEmqS_f72IEn4ZwMdOS7HWrU5IJ/s1600/DuncanEtAlCollegeCompletionByIncome.JPG" height="307" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Duncan13.pdf">Duncan, Kalil, & Ziol-Guest (2013)</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<b>Causes of the Achievement Gap</b><br />
<br />
Before we can decide what to change, we need to understand why these gaps exist in the first place. While study after study finds that family income (see, for example: Blau, 1999; Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, and Klebanov, 1994; Sirin, 2005) and wealth are significant predictors of academic achievement (see, for example: Orr, 2003; Shanks, 2007; Yeung and Conley, 2008), the causes of these differences are less clear.<br />
<br />
What<i> is</i> clear, however, is that these differences in achievement are driven largely by differences <i>outside of school</i>. Consensus on this point has grown since the “Coleman Report” (Coleman et al., 1966) found that non-school factors are stronger predictors of the achievement of a given student than in-school factors, a finding that has been replicated countless times over the past forty plus years (see, for example: Alexander, Riordan, Fennessey, and Pallas, 1982; Hauser, 1972; Sirin, 2005). The current consensus is that home background factors predict about two-thirds of achievement and school factors predict about one-third (Rothstein, 2004). Indeed, if there is anything upon which education researchers agree it is that student achievement is influenced more by non-school factors than in-school factors – and the evidence is <i>overwhelming</i>.<br />
<br />
The relative importance of non-school factors can be seen early on; when students begin school, a large gap in achievement already exists (Lee and Burkam, 2002). Racial gaps are non-existent in infants, but observable in toddlers (Fryer and Levitt, 2013), so the causes are almost certainly environmental rather than genetic.<br />
<br />
Not only is the achievement gap present when students begin school, it grows during summer breaks (Borman and Benson, 2010; Downey, von Hippel, and Broh, 2004; Entwisle and Alexander, 1992; Heyns, 1978). The growing gap between high- and low-SES kids during summer months eventually results in high schoolers who are more likely to be assigned to different tracks despite similar ability earlier in life and decreases the odds of low-SES students both graduating from high school and enrolling in four-year colleges (Alexander, Entwisle, and Olson, 2007).<br />
<br />
Given that the gap forms before school and widens during breaks from school, our best estimate is that about three-quarters of the gap is formed outside of school and about one-quarter is formed while students are in school (Murphy, 2009). This makes sense when we consider that kids spend only about 14-15% of their waking hours actually inside of schools from birth through high school*.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next Steps</b><br />
<br />
If we know that achievement gaps form before school and widen during summers, the next thing we need to know is how students' lives differ during these times. And which of these differences affect academic performance?<br />
<br />
In the next parts, I'll explore why differences in housing and neighborhoods, health and health care, and family and home environment exist, assess the evidence that they affect academic performance, review the theory as to <i>why</i> they would affect academic performance, and discuss the potential of policy to address the problem.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*If a student spends 7 hours per day in school and attends 180 days of school for 13 years, they spend 16,380 total hours in school. Assuming 16 waking hours per day for 18.5 years, the average child would spend 108,114 hours awake from birth through high school. 16,380/108,114 = 15.15%. A more realistic estimate is probably to assume that students attend 12.5 years of school on average for 6.5 hours/day 170 days per year, but sleep 9 hours per day, which would yield an estimate of 13.97%. Some students would spend far more time in school if they sleep longer hours and/or attend schools with longer days/years, while others would spend far fewer hours if they sleep less, attend school less regularly, and/or drop out of school before graduating.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">References:</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R., and Olson, L. S. (2007). Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap. American Sociological Review, 72, 167-180.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alexander, K. L., Riordan, C., Fennessey, J., and Pallas, A. M. (1982). Social Background, Academic Resources, and College Graduation: Recent Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey. American Journal of Education, 90(4), 315-333.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bailey, M. J., and Dynarski, S. M. (2011). Gains and gaps: Changing inequality in US college entry and completion (Vol. No. 17633): National Bureau of Economic Research. <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w17633">http://www.nber.org/papers/w17633</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Berends, M., Lucas, S. R., and Peñaloza, R. V. (2008). How Changes in Families and Schools Are Related to Trends in Black-White Test Scores. Sociology of Education, 81(4), 313-344. doi: 10.1177/003804070808100401</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Berends, M., and Penaloza, R. V. (2010). Increasing Racial Isolation and Test Score Gaps in Mathematics: A 30-Year Perspective. Teachers College Record, 112(4), 978-1007.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Blau, D. M. (1999). The Effect of Income on Child Development. Review of Economics and Statistics, 81(2), 261-276. doi: doi:10.1162/003465399558067</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Borman, G., and Benson, J. (2010). Family, Neighborhood, and School Settings Across Seasons: When Do Socioeconomic Context and Racial Composition Matter for the Reading Achievement Growth of Young Children? The Teachers College Record, 112(5), 5-6.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Coleman, J. S., Campbell, E. Q., Hobson, C. J., McPartland, F., Mood, A. M., Weinfeld, F. D., and York, R. L. (1966). The Equality of Educational Opportunity Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Condron, D. J. (2009). Social Class, School and Non-School Environments, and Black/White Inequalities in Children's Learning. American Sociological Review, 74(5), 685-708. doi: 10.1177/000312240907400501</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Covay, E. A. (2010). The Emergence and Persistence of the Black-White Achievement Gap. (Doctoral Thesis), University of Notre Dame.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Downey, D. B., von Hippel, P. T., and Broh, B. A. (2004). Are schools the great equalizer? Cognitive inequality during the summer months and the school year. American Sociological Review, 69, 613 - 635.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Duncan, G. J., Brooks-Gunn, J., and Klebanov, P. K. (1994). Economic Deprivation and Early Childhood Development. Child Development, 65(2), 296-318.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Duncan, G. J., Kalil, A., and Ziol-Guest, K. M. (2013). Increasing Inequality in Parent Incomes and Children’s Completed Schooling. <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Duncan13.pdf">http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Duncan13.pdf</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Entwisle, D. R., and Alexander, K. L. (1992). Summer Setback: Race, Poverty, School Composition, and Mathematics Achievement in the First Two Years of School. American Sociological Review, 57(1), 72-84.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fryer, R. G., and Levitt, S. D. (2013). Testing for Racial Differences in the Mental Ability of Young Children. The American Economic Review, 103(2), 981-1005. doi: 10.1257/aer.103.2.981</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hauser, R. M. (1972). Socioeconomic Background and Educational Performance. Washington, D.C.: American Sociological Association.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Heyns, B. (1978). Summer learning and the effects of schooling. New York: Academic Press.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jencks, C., and Phillips, M. (1998). The Black-White Test Score Gap: An Introduction. In C. Jencks and M. Phillips (Eds.), The Black-White Test Score Gap (pp. 1-51). Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute Press.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lee, V. E., and Burkam, D. T. (2002). Inequality at the starting gate. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. Magnuson, K., and Waldfogel, J. (2008). Steady Gains and Stalled Progress: Inequality and the Black-White Test Score Gap: Russell Sage Foundation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mayer, S. E. (2001). How Did the Increase in Economic Inequality between 1970 and 1990 Affect Children's Educational Attainment? American Journal of Sociology, 107(1), 1-32.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Meyers, C. V. (2009). Tracking the Gaps. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The Educator's Handbook for Understanding and Closing Achievement Gaps. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Meyers, C. V. (2012). The Centralizing Role of Terminology: A Consideration of Achievement Gap, NCLB, and School Turnaround. Peabody Journal of Education, 87(4), 468-484. doi: 10.1080/0161956x.2012.705149</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Murphy, J. (2009). The Educator's Handbook for Understanding and Closing Achievement Gaps. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Neal, D. (2005). Why Has Black-White Skill Convergence Stopped? National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series, No. 11090.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Orr, A. J. (2003). Black-White Differences in Achievement: The Importance of Wealth. Sociology of Education, 76(4), 281-304.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reardon, S. F. (2011). The Widening Academic Achievement Gap between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations. In R. Murnane and G. Duncan (Eds.), Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality and the Uncertain Life Chances of Low-Income Children (pp. 91-115). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rothstein, R. (2004). Class and schools: Economic Policy Institute Washington, DC.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Shanks, T. R. W. (2007). The impacts of household wealth on child development. Journal of Poverty, 11(2), 93-116.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sirin, S. R. (2005). Socioeconomic Status and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review of Research. Review of Educational Research, 75(3), 417-453.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Vigdor, J. L., and Ludwig, J. (2008). Segregation and the Test Score Gap. In K. Magnuson and J. Waldfogel (Eds.), Steady Gains and Stalled Progress: Inequality and the Black-White Test Score Gap (pp. 181-211). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Yeung, W. J., and Conley, D. (2008). Black-White Achievement Gap and Family Wealth. Child Development, 79(2), 303-324. doi: doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01127.x</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-69670015351453435782014-03-07T00:04:00.000-05:002014-03-07T00:04:27.882-05:00Friday NotesA few thoughts that occurred to me this week:<br />
<br />
-Here's an interesting piece on <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/low-income-students-combat-stress-mindfulness/">Teaching students how to combat traumas of poverty on the yoga mat</a> (h/t: <a href="http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2014/03/morning-video-schools-using-yoga-to-help-destress-students.html">Alexander Russo</a>) by PBS earlier this week that relates to my research on stress, poverty, and academics. I'm certainly not going to stand here and insist that every student learn yoga, but the piece raises a whole lot of interesting questions and important issues.<br />
<br />
-Really interesting <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2014/03/tfa_to_pilot_yearlong_training.html">move by TFA</a> to pilot two programs in which corps members are trained for a year prior to graduation and, separately, supported during years 3-5 of teaching. I'm not surprised by the move to support current corps members for longer, since they've always been touchy about the attrition rate, but I'm very surprised by the move to train future corps members for longer. It will be interesting to see whether the additional training improves performance, but perhaps more interesting to see if it improves retention. I could see it going either way -- teachers feeling like they need to serve longer because they put forth more effort up front to gain the position, or teachers feeling more burnt out after two years (which would now be three) because they've put in more time and effort at that point.<br />
<br />
-One misconception I've seen in a few posts lately is that if we start focusing on non-cognitive skills it will mean we can teach fewer cognitive skills and, therefore, math and reading achievement (etc.) will suffer. This seems shortsighted to me since a large part of the reason non-cognitive skills are so compelling is that they lead directly to better academic performance. One of the first studies to draw attention to this notion, for example, found that <a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/PsychologicalScienceDec2005.pdf">"grit" had a stronger effect on GPA than did IQ</a> (more on "grit" <a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/">here</a>). Now, a rigorous new 3-year randomized controlled trial finds that <a href="http://www.aera.net/Newsroom/NewsReleasesandStatements/StudyClassroomFocusonSocialandEmotionalSkillsCanLeadtoAcademicGains/tabid/15408/Default.aspx">teaching social and emotional skills resulted in students posting larger gains in reading and math achievement than those in the control group</a>. So, I think that's a pretty clear "no" in response to the theory that teaching more non-cognitive skills will harm achievement.<br />
<br />
-I doubt we'll ever stop debating the merits of pre-school, and here's <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/28/why-preschool-critics-are-wrong/">some pushback</a> against Russ Whitehurst's <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center-chalkboard/posts/2014/02/26-does-prek-work-whitehurst">recent skeptical review</a> of the evidence. I don't think there's any question that the evidence here is mixed, but what I find compelling is that more than a couple studies have found large effects decades past the intervention. The vast majority of interventions in education yield small effects that fade out quickly, so even if it's only a few of the very best pre-school programs that are having these effects it seems worth trying again.<br />
<br />
-Starting Monday, I'll be running a multi-part series on how poverty impacts academic performance. I'm looking forward to some great dialogue around the series . . .<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-55338378897756978092014-03-06T16:46:00.004-05:002014-03-06T16:46:45.695-05:00How Does Poverty Influence Academic Performance? Find out starting next week . . .I read, seemingly everywhere about how poverty does or doesn't influence students' performance in schools (including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/02/09/blaming-parents-for-poor-schools/poverty-isnt-an-insurmountable-obstacle-to-education">NY Times on poverty</a>, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/12/10/education-poverty-international-student-assessment-column/3964529/">USA Today on assessments </a> <a href="http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/10/12/the-correlation-between-income-and-sat-scores/">Sociological Images on SAT scores</a>, <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/independent_schools/2014/03/whats_dangerous_about_the_grit_narrative_and_how_to_fix_it.html">Ed Week on grit</a>, <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-memos/posts/2014/02/13-inequality-in-postsecondary-education">and Brookings on college enrollment/graduation</a>).<br />
<br />
But I notice one thing in common among these pieces -- nobody actually seems to know exactly <i>why</i> living in poverty would or wouldn't lead to a change in achievement or attainment. In other words, what is it about living in poverty that drives students' poor performance in schools?<br />
<br />
We know students from wealthier families far outperform students from lower-income families in schools, but there's no consensus among researchers and very little knowledge among the general public as to why that's the case. Heck, significant numbers of people still seem to think the relationship isn't even causal.<br />
<br />
So, next Monday I'm going to begin a series that draws on my dissertation research to start to answer that question. Expect 2-3 posts per week over the course of the spring as I explore 19 different ways in which living in poverty negatively impacts students' performance in school and what we can do about this.<br />
<br />
I look forward to what should be a vigorous discussion . . .<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-69649081408853949492014-02-28T00:01:00.000-05:002014-02-28T00:01:01.094-05:00Friday NotesNotes on a few smaller stories this week:<br />
<br />
-A new <a href="http://cpre.org/sites/default/files/researchreport/1446_taskreport.pdf">CPRE report</a> find that most "teachers focused on what students do (procedural) rather than what they understand (conceptual)" (p. 27). If I were to criticize teachers, my one criticism would be that they tend to focus more on what's happening at a given moment and how it's happening than the big picture. And that has little to do with any personal quality of the individual teacher, it's just a fact of life when one tries to manage 20-30 kids at the same time -- if procedures aren't followed, chaos ensues. Every time somebody came into my classroom, they were checking to see what procedures I was using and whether kids were following them and not whether kids were deeply understanding the material I as presenting. I think one could argue that math instruction with following rules rather than teaching understanding, which is the position of these two math teachers when asked "<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/02/25/math_education_in_the_u_s_what_we_re_doing_wrong.html">what's wrong with math education in the U.S.?</a>"<br />
<br />
-AERA, the largest educational research group, has started a new website, called "Trending Research Topic," that includes free links to journal articles relevant to current debates. The first topic posted is the <a href="http://www.aera.net/Newsroom/TrendingResearchTopics/TrendingTopicResearchFileCommonCoreStateStandards/tabid/15329/Default.aspx">common core</a> (hat tip: <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2014/02/common_core_research.html">EdWeek's Inside School Research blog</a>). I'm not sure where they'll go from here, but it's a fantastic idea with a lot of potential.<br />
<br />
-A <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2014/02/wrapround_services.html">new report on "integrated student supports"</a> finds that schools utilizing wraparound services had some limited positive impacts on students across seven evaluations. Expect to hear much more from researchers on this topic in coming years.<br />
<br />
-A new report finds that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/26/chicago-charter-schools-expel-many-more-kids-than-district-schools-new-data/">charter schools in Chicago expel kids far more frequently than do traditional public schools</a> (61 per 10,000 vs. 5 per 10,000 students). And they're not the only charters to do this. What's left to figure out is whether we should be more aggressive with expulsions or other similar actions in traditional public schools or whether this says something negative about charter schools.<br />
<br />
-Here's a pretty impressive <a href="https://twitter.com/DerekNichols0/status/438737917628796928/photo/1">poem by an 8th grader</a> that's worth 90 seconds of your time (you'll see why when you reach the bottom). And here's the <a href="http://elitedaily.com/news/world/14-year-old-boy-just-wrote-important-poem-21st-century/">transcribed text</a> if you can't read the image. I'd add that <a href="https://twitter.com/Manziel9402/status/438817797196767232/photo/1">this poem</a> posted by another twitter user from 10 years prior is quite similar and, in some ways, better . . . but let's hope this kid didn't see that until now.<br />
<br />
<img alt="Embedded image permalink" height="640" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bha1z7UCAAEzKGK.jpg" width="476" /><br />
<br />
-I wrote last year that <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2012/09/the-two-types-of-tfa-alums.html">TFA seems to make people either hubristic or humbled</a>. Here's <a href="http://nashvillepublicradio.org/blog/2014/02/25/vanderbilts-lovehate-relationship-with-teach-for-america/">a case</a> that sounds like it will be the former:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Bell has been deemed a “model teacher” even though this is her first year in the classroom and instead of studying four years to be an educator, she went through TFA’s seven-week crash course.<br />
“Yeah, isn’t that interesting,” she says. “I’m not saying teaching is easy. Teaching is a craft. And I’m only going to get better every day at it.”<br />
But Bell says she was “more-than prepared” and encountered “no surprises.”</blockquote>
<br />
Coming next week is the start of a multi-part series on the ways in which urban poverty affects academic performance. I'm excited for this, so I hope you're ready . . .<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-77056302369677341642014-02-27T14:08:00.000-05:002014-02-27T14:42:45.831-05:00The Evolution of the Two CampsI haven't written much the past couple years, so I'd like to write a bit about the biggest change I've seen in the education debate during that time.<br />
<br />
I wrote last week about the <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2014/02/the-two-camps-in-education-reform.html">two camps in education reform</a>. It's an imperfect division, but I think it's fair to split education reform into one camp that supports more markets, measurement, and metrics versus another camp that opposes most of these reforms.<br />
<br />
What I've noticed over the past decade, and particularly in the past couple years, is that the two groups -- let's call them the MMMs and the Yucks -- have switched roles rhetorically.<br />
<br />
In my first blog post (<a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2008/02/vouchers-and-accountability.html">coincidentally, exactly six years ago today</a>) I discussed a potential conflict within the ideas and rhetoric of the MMMs, which became kind of a theme over the next few years.<br />
<br />
Many readers of this blog doubtless assumed that I opposed everything for which the MMMs stood and that I was a dyed-in-the-wool Yuck. But that was never really true. What I oppose is people who are <i>really</i> certain that something will work regardless of the evidence; people who are really just wildly advocating solutions in search of a problem. And in those years, the MMMs did that consistently.<br />
<br />
From my vantage point, the posts and press I read advocating for the MMM solutions were frequently frantic, caustic, and accusatory. You don't support charter schools? You are a BAD PERSON! (A slight exaggeration, but you get the point). I found this style of argument more distasteful than the actual solutions being proposed.<br />
<br />
The Yucks, on the other hand, tended to be more measured in their writing. They knew the evidence was mostly on their side since charters, vouchers, merit pay, testing, and so forth hadn't really produced many measurable results at that point. They preached patience and caution and pointed out flaws in overly zealous arguments. Or at least that's how it seemed to me.<br />
<br />
But something's changed in recent years. Maybe it's my point of view. Maybe it's my geographic location. Maybe it's my reading list. Maybe it's my daily context. Those are all possibilities. But I think it's the rhetoric.<br />
<br />
I often find myself more frustrated now by the pieces written by the Yucks than the MMMs for the same reasons I listed above. The MMMs seem more calm and reasoned while the Yucks seem more frantic and aggressive.<br />
<br />
I could list a thousand examples, but I'll spare you all the details in this post. Many exceptions obviously exist, but I've generally been dismayed by the rhetoric of those advocating against testing, the common core, school closures, and the like in recent years.<br />
<br />
Since most of the same people are on the same sides (other than Diane Ravitch, of course), it seems almost impossible that the debate could really have changed that much. But I think there's one very good reason why it would: the MMMs are now winning.<br />
<br />
A decade ago, most of their ideas were outside the mainstream (other than NCLB) and they were advocating for radical reform while the Yucks were telling them to be reasonable. Now, the majority of Americans (and even the NY Times editorial board) support a lot of the MMM ideas and the Yucks are on the defensive. It seems only natural that the side with momentum and power can be more patient while the side that finds itself on the outside looking in feels the need to frantically scream for attention.<br />
<br />
The problem with this strategy is that the Yucks are only making it worse for themselves. Here's one of the responses to my last post on the two camps:<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/mpolikoff">@mpolikoff</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/EdPolThoughts">@EdPolThoughts</a> what I think is broadly correct is those in “latter camp” have few particularly new ideas about what should change<br />
— Jason Becker (@jasonpbecker) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonpbecker/statuses/435864277044707329">February 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
Based on what I've written above, I can understand why Jason feels this way. The Yucks are so busy frantically screaming that the MMMs are wrong that it's hard to hear the Yucks who are trying to advance different ideas.<br />
<br />
I do think it's important to point out, though, that what Jason said is <i>demonstrably false:</i> thousands of Yucks are working on major new initiatives and ideas (Promise Neighborhoods being the prominent example). But, in some ways, that doesn't matter. Perception is reality. And it's perfectly understandable that one would perceive the MMMs as the reasonable adults and the Yucks as the crying babies in the room at the moment.<br />
<br />
Granted, it's also understandable that the Yucks would be crying foul. Most empires topple due to overreach and hubris, and this outcome seems perfectly plausible here. The current outrage against the Common Core might signal the beginning of another transition in power.<br />
<br />
While the Common Core is backed by solid research and makes tons of sense on paper, it's been rammed down teachers' and parents' throats in some places -- so we shouldn't be surprised by the gagging we're seeing from those groups. Indeed, in a recent survey, teachers cite constantly changing demands as the <a href="http://www.ewa.org/blog-educated-reporter/new-survey-teachers-say-their-voices-arent-being-heard">most significant challenge they face as a teacher by a large margin</a> and almost none thought their voices were being heard on a state or national level. So even if they're objectively wrong about the Common Core, their frustration is understandable.<br />
<br />
When each group has been in power, they have been openly hostile toward and dismissive of the other group's proposals. And when each group has been in the minority they've screamed bloody murder about every little thing. And I don't think we'll ever get anywhere as long as this continues.<br />
<br />
So, for now, my advice to the MMMs is to stop treating everybody who disagrees with you as an obstacle to your inevitable success. And my advice to the Yucks is to stop yowling about everything the MMMs have done or are thinking of doing. Very little of what's happening today is likely to signal the end of the world.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-88751663754653754842014-02-24T11:57:00.000-05:002014-02-24T12:02:44.577-05:00Trouble for the Teaching Fellows?A <a href="http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/02/24/uft-wants-city-to-reconsider-teaching-fellows-program/">new survey by the UFT</a> finds pretty big discrepancies between the perception of training by NYC Teaching Fellows versus traditionally trained teachers.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Just 5 percent of teachers who answered the union’s survey said their training through the city’s Teaching Fellows program was “excellent,” compared to 21 percent of graduates of education schools. And while 18 percent of education school graduates called their training “poor” or “fair,” that figure was nearly 50 percent for Teaching Fellows.
</blockquote>
<br />
As a former Teaching Fellow, I never thought the training was particularly bad. Like everything, it could have been better -- but it always seemed to me that there were dozens of <i>much</i> larger issues. So, I wonder how much of this is driven by the fact that Teaching Fellows were more extensively trained in another field before getting a crash course in education and rushing into difficult positions in troubled schools. Those people in those circumstances might feel very differently about equally good training than would an ed school graduate who'd been preparing for his/her position for years and landed a less stressful job.<br />
<br />
Assuming the survey is representative, though, these stats really don't look good for the program. Of course, since only 81 out of over 9,000 active Teaching Fellows took part in the survey we can' be sure about this (which doesn't necessarily mean it's <i>not</i> representative, just that we're less confident about its representativeness than if, say, 900 teachers had taken part). The initial response of the Fellows was to point out the small sample size, but that could backfire if a larger sample size eventually responds similarly.<br />
<br />
What I think is even more interesting, though, is the larger context of this survey for the Teaching Fellows. The article describes The New Teacher Project (TNTP), the fellows' parent organization as "a nonprofit group <i>that also lobbies on teacher quality issues including in favor of evaluations that consider student test scores</i>" (emphasis added) . . . which I think says a lot.<br />
<br />
I <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2008/05/is-this-what-i-signed-up-for.html">first wrote about this</a> almost five years ago, but TNTP and TFA seem to keep branching out into areas well beyond filling openings in troubled schools. TFA has started getting a lot of push-back, and I think that's due more to their policy positions, lobbying, support of school board candidates, etc. than it is their actual day-to-day operations. If this survey is any indicator, TNTP may soon find itself in a similar position.<br />
<br />
In other words, while I'm sure many are concerned about the actual recruitment and training of teachers, I'd wager that fewer people would be <i>as</i> concerned if TNTP weren't <i>also</i> lobbying for all sorts of unpopular changes.<br />
<br />
On the one hand, I blame TNTP for branching out too far. If they'd just focus on recruiting and training teachers, they could do their job a lot better and with less risk of interference. On the other hand, it would be a shame if TNTP's work mattered less than its lobbying when reviewing its performance.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-78730100536961389992014-02-21T00:01:00.000-05:002014-02-27T01:42:40.441-05:00Friday NotesA few brief notes on some smaller stories this week:<br />
<br />
-A lot of people seem to be discussing the <a href="http://www.nacacnet.org/research/research-data/nacac-research/Documents/DefiningPromise.pdf">new report</a> released yesterday finding that students who didn't submit test scores to colleges performed virtually the same as students with similar GPAs who did. It seems like most people and most of the coverage (e.g. <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/nail-biting-standardized-testing-may-miss-mark-college-students/">NPR</a>, <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/at-test-optional-colleges-students-surpass-the-scores-they-didnt-submit/37633">The Chronicle</a>, and <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2014/02/report_explores_use_of_standardize_test_scores_in_predicting_student_success.html">EdWeek</a>) are interpreting this to mean that SAT/ACT test scores don't predict performance in college beyond what we know from test scores. But, as many have pointed out on Twitter, one glance at the tables on pages 47 (below) and 56 show the error in this interpretation. In reality, in a number of the groups examined, students with higher test scores earn higher grades in college and are far more likely to graduate than than those with lower test scores and identical high school GPAs. Somehow, though, students who don't submit test scores to test-optional schools do about as well as those who do despite having earned significantly lower scores. What this says to me isn't that test scores don't matter but, rather, that non-submitters are savvy and that the act of choosing not to submit their test scores tells us something about their abilities and future chances of success.<br />
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-Another day, another <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/firing-teachers-mission-impossible-article-1.1615003">wild-eyed report about how it's impossible to fire teachers</a>. <i>Yawn</i>. Not only do I not buy that administrators <i>can't</i> fire a teacher if they really try, but I'd bet my life savings that at least 90% of teachers who are fired aren't officially "fired". Looking for a dissertation topic? Go figure out how Principals go about dismissing teachers . . . most non-educators don't understand how much soft power administrators wield and how persuasive they can be when they suggest that a certain teacher look elsewhere for work.<br />
<br />
-A new <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2014/02/SDT-higher-ed-FINAL-02-11-2014.pdf">Pew report</a> illustrates why it worries me so much when people argue that X person/people shouldn't go to college: the widening gap in college v. non-college outcomes (and keep in mind that is despite dramatic increases in college enrollment over this time that have made colleges far less exclusive than they were decades ago). And income isn't the only thing that's changed, a wide range of social outcomes have as well -- take a look at how the relationship between income and marriage has reversed in the second picture.<br />
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-Here's <a href="http://digital.hechingerreport.org/content/measures-of-the-heart-non-cognitive-skills-tests_1278/">the story</a> on a fascinating chart (below) that makes us all look foolish for debating whether we want our system to be more like Korea's or Finland's<br />
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<br />
<br />
-Morgan Polikoff discusses some studies that found some <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2014/02/why_im_optimistic_about_standards-based_reform.html">positive impacts of standards-based reform</a>. On the one hand, I'm not sure how one could read the research and <i>not</i> conclude that the U.S. needs more coherent standards like the rest of the developed world. On the other hand, I remain deeply skeptical that standards matter all that much. They seem like step 1 in a 10,000 mile journey.<br />
<br />
Next week, I'll offer some thoughts on the biggest changes I've seen in the education debate and the following week I'll start a multi-part series examining the ways in which urban poverty impacts students' performance in school . . .<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-67423856983832182682014-02-19T15:54:00.000-05:002014-02-19T16:13:13.856-05:00Is It OK to be a Public Intellectual?Nick Kristof's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-professors-we-need-you.html">column</a> the other day about the lack of interaction between Academia and the public sure ruffled some feathers. That's probably partly due to long list of provocative quotes in the column, including the following:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A basic challenge is that Ph.D. programs have fostered a culture that glorifies arcane unintelligibility while disdaining impact and audience. This culture of exclusivity is then transmitted to the next generation through the publish-or-perish tenure process. Rebels are too often crushed or driven away.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Many academics frown on public pontificating as a frivolous distraction from real research,” said Will McCants, a Middle East specialist at the Brookings Institution. “This attitude affects tenure decisions. If the sine qua non for academic success is peer-reviewed publications, then academics who ‘waste their time’ writing for the masses will be penalized.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
All the disciplines have become more and more specialized and more and more quantitative, making them less and less accessible to the general public</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Political science Ph.D.’s often aren’t prepared to do real-world analysis</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Many academic disciplines also reduce their influence by neglecting political diversity. Sociology, for example, should be central to so many national issues, but it is so dominated by the left that it is instinctively dismissed by the right.</blockquote>
On the whole, I agree with Kristof. Faculty aren't expected, encouraged, or rewarded for communicating with the public. Which, I think, is a big problem (as you could probably guess given that I'm spending my time writing here). I've written in the past that about the <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2009/08/contributing-to-society-vs-earning.html">personal experience</a> I've had with this, and I continue to dislike the degree to which academics are <i>discouraged</i> from interacting with the public.<br />
<br />
It's easy to go off on tangential arguments here about who should write what when and for how long, but let's not miss what I think is the largest problem here: the active discouragement. There are plenty of good reasons that <a href="http://www.aaup.org/article/case-academics-public-intellectuals#.UwUTkWJdXwg">academics should strive to be "public intellectuals,"</a> but I don't think we should expect every Professor out there to spend oodles of time reaching out to the public, nor do I think it should be a tenure requirement to do so. But I do think academics should be rewarded for doing so. At the very least, it shouldn't be seen as a <i>negative</i> for one to use his/her time this way. I cringe every time I hear somebody gasp at the time an academic is wasting writing for a popular audience.<br />
<br />
One of the few counter-examples to this trend is is Rick Hess's <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2014/01/the_2014_rhsu_edu-scholar_public_influence_rankings.html">edu-scholar rankings</a>, which seem to receive more attention each year -- this year I noticed press releases from quite a few schools touting the number of Professors in their college who'd made the list. Overall, though, interaction with the public is still largely discouraged.<br />
<br />
I do think the responses from academics were interesting, though. These include Daniel Willingham, who <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/16/do-college-professors-marginalize-themselves/">writes</a> that communicating applications of research isn't the job of most professors and should often be left to others with different skill sets; Corey Robin, who <a href="http://coreyrobin.com/2014/02/16/look-who-nick-kristofs-saving-now/">writes</a> that quite a few Professors blog and write in the popular press and that many grad students aspire to do so, echoing Erik Voeten, who <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/02/15/dear-nicholas-kristof-we-are-right-here/">runs down</a> a list of ways in which different Professors communicate with the public.<br />
<br />
I think these are all fair points. Not all faculty need to be out in the public sphere, and pure academic research certainly has value. But, again, none address the degree to which faculty are actively <i>discouraged</i> from communicating with the public. The fact that some people do so anyway doesn't change that fact. Nor does the fact that many grad students want to communicate with the public, since the problem here isn't lack of desire but, rather, lack of opportunity.<br />
<br />
And I think the argument that there <i>are</i> outlets within academia to communicate is rather shaky. Voeten, for example, points to the journal <a href="https://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=PPS">Perspectives on Politics</a> as the new vehicle for Political scientists to communicate with the public (which Kristof omits), so I decided to check it out. Here's an excerpt from the first abstract I read from the current issue:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In an effort to bring empirical clarity and epistemological standards to what has been a deeply-charged, partisan, and frequently anecdotal debate, we use multiple specialized regression approaches to examine factors associated with both the proposal and adoption of restrictive voter access legislation from 2006–2011 . . . Further, we situate these policies within developments in social welfare and criminal justice policy that collectively reduce electoral access among the socially marginalized.</blockquote>
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Sorry, but that's academic-speak. That is <i>not </i>how one communicates with the public. People don't say "empirical clarity" or "multiple specialized regression approaches" or "situate these policies within" in everyday life. So I remain unconvinced that many journals speak directly to the public.<br />
<br />
Or maybe this just proves Willingham right: many Profs simply don't have the skills to communicate with the public. I have to admit, though, that his argument just brings to mind the scene in <i>Office Space</i> where Tom Smykowski explains that the company needs his people skills to communicate between the engineers and the customers:<br />
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<br />
All kidding aside, though, I think the issue merits serious consideration by everybody involved in academia. All can (I hope) agree that more research needs to be translated to practice, but this could happen in any number of ways. Maybe academic journals should publish more readable (i.e. ~10 page jargon-free) essays for the public to read. Maybe public outreach should count in tenure reviews. Maybe some Professors should be classified as "public intellectuals" and have different expectations. Or we could try any number of other ideas. But I don't think that denying the problem exists will get us anywhere.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, we need to find a way to make it okay for people to be public intellectuals if they wish to do so.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-89733582500066048342014-02-18T13:28:00.001-05:002014-02-18T13:28:16.655-05:00The Two Camps in Education ReformMy one-time classmate, Morgan Polikoff -- now an Assistant Professor at USC -- weighs in today with <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2014/02/why_im_optimistic_about_the_performance_of_us_students.html">his first blog post on why he's optimistic about American students' performance</a>. All in all, it's a good start -- I think he makes a lot of good points and I'm definitely intrigued to see where he goes from here.<br />
<br />
But . . .<br />
<br />
There's just one little thing that really bothers me about the post.<br />
<br />
Morgan divides the education world into two camps: those who dislike our current system and want to change things and those who don't. I agree that, for the most part, those two camps exist. But Morgan misunderstands and/or misstates the fundamental difference between these two.<br />
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Personally, I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with both at different times (the subject of another forthcoming post), but I'm guessing most people who've regularly read my blog over the years think I'm in the latter because I've spent more time criticizing the former.
So, today, I'll put on my hat as a critic of advocates of charter schools, merit pay, vouchers, more testing, etc. and explain why I don't feel the way Morgan thinks I do.<br />
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Why do I get frustrated with the arguments of these folks at times? According to Morgan, it's because I like things the way they are and don't want them to change.<br />
<br />
False.<br />
<br />
And I mean <i>really </i>false.<br />
<br />
In reality, I like very little about the American education system. The last thing on Earth I want to see is no change. Not only do I believe we pale in comparison to many other nations, I believe those countries fall <i>far </i>short of what an education system could and should be.<br />
<br />
In other words, I dislike our system. I loathe our system. I <i>abhor </i>our system. I wish we could (figuratively) blow it up and start from scratch.<br />
<br />
I suspect that I feel more strongly about that than a lot of people in the second camp, but I think you get the point: I don't like things the way they are, and I certainly don't want things to stay the same. At the same time, though, I'm not sold on all the recent reforms advocated by the former group.<br />
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In other words, the difference between the two camps is not that one wants to change things and the other doesn't, it's that they want to change things differently.<br />
<br />
I think it often appears that one side is advocating for change and the other resisting it because only one side's ideas are getting widespread traction right now. Everybody is familiar with the changes proposed by the former camp because there are a few big ones that have been debated and implemented (and debated again) all over the country. It's far tougher, meanwhile, to pinpoint the preferred reforms of the latter camp. I think that's true for two reasons: 1.) there aren't a handful of reforms on which everybody in the latter camp agrees and for which they strongly advocate, and 2.) they've found themselves constantly on the defensive the past decade or more (arguably ever since the passage of NCLB).<br />
<br />
Some have characterized the former as "reformers" and the latter as "defenders of the status quo" or even "defeatists" (to which the retort has been that it's actually "deformers" vs. realists). That's a simple dichotomy to understand. But it's false.<br />
<br />
The question at hand isn't why one camp wants to change our system and the other doesn't, it's in which directions each camps envisions us heading.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-45736371678563509272014-02-18T12:52:00.003-05:002014-02-18T12:52:56.076-05:00I'm BackHi Everybody,<br />
<br />
Long time, no see. I've written just one post in the past 11 months, and not a whole lot the previous year, so I'll forgive you if you thought I'd disappeared.<br />
<br />
The last couple years have been a whirlwind of activity between the job search, moving to a new state, starting a new job, and finishing my dissertation (finally!), and I've been trying to figure out how blogging fits into all that. I've finally found the answer: I have to make it fit.<br />
<br />
I've constantly waited for the right moment to start blogging again only to wait another day, week, month, or semester, and I'm now tired of waiting. I'm going to start blogging again today.<br />
<br />
Why? I'm not sure there's a great reason, though pieces I've read recently about poverty and education, the Professoriat, and the two camps in education have certainly gotten the juices in my brain flowing again. So I'll plan to start with those topics.<br />
<br />
As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments . . .<br />
<br />
Corey<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-77341902226590622502013-04-02T01:24:00.001-04:002013-04-02T01:24:20.136-04:00A Brief Note on the Misapplication of Campbell's LawI'll make this brief, but I felt compelled to point out the flaw in the way people are applying Campbell's Law to education when I saw Andy Rotherham's latest post on Eduwonk.<br />
<br />
Here's what <a href="http://www.eduwonk.com/2013/04/hotlanta-five-things-to-keep-in-mind-about-the-atlanta-scandal.html">he wrote</a> about Campbell's Law:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
if you don’t think public educators can handle real accountability without resorting to cheating (e.g. the constant refrain of “Campbell’s Law) then you have a pretty low opinion of public school educators. In most walks of life there are high-stakes consequences attached to professional and behavioral decisions. And yet most people are able to play by the rules.</blockquote>
<br />
Here's what Campbell's Law <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell's_law">actually says</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.</blockquote>
<br />
I don't know to whom he's referring and what others are actually saying about Campbell's Law, but if he's accurately representing their sentiment then a lot of people are misapplying the lessons of Campbell's Law. <br />
<br />
The central insight of Campbell's Law is that it's a really bad idea to make all of our decisions based on any single measure, <i>not</i> that people will always cheat in high-stakes situations (or, for that matter, that tests are inherently bad). It's not about high-stakes versus low-stakes or accountability versus trust, it's about relying on one measure versus utilizing multiple (or no) measures.<br />
<br />
So, in short, what we should learn from Campbell's Law is that we shouldn't use <i>only</i> testing data to make decisions in education.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-33906029963161606482013-02-26T11:44:00.000-05:002013-02-26T11:44:01.226-05:00A Clarification on Respecting TeachersLast week, I wrote about the <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2013/02/just-kindergarten-teacher.html">dismissive attitude toward teaching Kindergarten on How I Met Your Mother</a>, and I wanted to offer one short clarification based on a personal conversation I had.<br />
<br />
In that piece I wrote two things that were meant to make the same argument but may sound like different arguments.<br />
<br />
First, I wrote that "Virtually all the reform efforts of the past few years have focused on teacher quality because everybody agrees it's so important; but nobody's willing to actually treat teachers like they're important."<br />
<br />
I then concluded by arguing that we couldn't possibly get the school system we want "if quitting is the only way for teachers to reach their potential".<br />
<br />
Upon reading the piece, a friend contacted me to point out that he didn't think bad teachers deserved respect, which led to a discussion differentiating respecting <i>teachers </i>from respecting <i>teaching</i>.<br />
<br />
The former would mean that people who are currently teaching aren't receiving enough respect from society. While I think this is true in many cases (there are obviously some who don't do much to earn our respect -- though they should still be respected as human beings), it was <i>not</i> the intent of my last piece to argue that being nicer to current teachers would solve our problems (though it wouldn't hurt).<br />
<br />
Rather, my intent was to focus on the latter construct -- respect for the act of teaching itself. The largest policy problem I saw evidenced in the dialogue of the show was that multiple people were dismissing the job of kindergarten teacher as beneath that of any elite person. Lily leaves her job to work in the art world; Marshall is a lawyer; Ted is an architect/professor; Barney does something vague in finance; and Robin is a newscaster. And the job of kindergarten teacher simply isn't worthy of any of them.<br />
<br />
In the long-run, we flat-out will <i>not </i>be able to recruit or retain the best and the brightest if the status of teaching remains so low. The billions of dollars, oodles of effort, and reams of policy papers we've recently expended on improving teacher quality will all be for naught if teaching is beneath the elite.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-88481384377757617492013-02-19T00:07:00.001-05:002016-02-12T01:12:00.195-05:00*Just* A Kindergarten TeacherTonight's episode of <i>How I Met Your Mother</i> features an argument between Marshall and Lily about her career that speaks volumes about the current state of America's educational system. (In case you don't watch the show, Marshall and Lily are college sweethearts who are now married thirty-somethings with a baby -- Marshall is a lawyer and Lily is a kindergarten teacher).<br />
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Lily is upset because she's told by an acquaintance that she's "just a kindergarten teacher" and the following exchange ensues (video at the bottom):<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Marshall</b>: Oh my God! Lily! What is the big deal? Ok, so <i>what</i>? So he said you were <i>just </i>a kindergarten teacher. Why do you let that bother you?<br />
<b>Lily</b>: Because he was right; I am <i>just </i>a kindergarten teacher. And, yes, I have a degree in art history, and I was meant to do something with it -- but I didn't. Somewhere along the line I forgot to pursue my dream and, and now I'm old, and I'm a Mom, and it's just too late for me.</blockquote>
At this point -- particularly knowing the cutesy relationship they have and how much Marshall adores Lily -- I expected Marshall to respond by saying something like "Lily, that's one of my favorite things about you: few people are more important or incredible than kindergarten teachers"<br />
<br />
Marshall instead responds by emphatically saying "No, it's not too late. You're going to quit your job, tomorrow, and you're gonna go back and pick up right where you left off with that art stuff . . ."<br />
<br />
Maybe I'm overreacting to a few moments in a sitcom, but this seems indicative of one of the largest problems with our efforts to improve our educational system. Virtually all the reform efforts of the past few years have focused on teacher quality because everybody agrees it's <i>so</i> important; but nobody's willing to actually <i>treat</i> teachers like they're important.<br />
<br />
After all, who's going to want to be <i>just</i> a teacher? Certainly not the best and the brightest. And what teacher is going to be empowered or respected enough to change the system if teachers are viewed as second-class citizens? If we want to recruit, retain, and develop the best teaching corps in the world (like we say we do), we can't keep demeaning and demoralizing them. If we're going to justify every new pet policy (which always seem to place teachers under even more scrutiny) by talking of teachers' vast importance, we can't then act like they aren't worthy of our attention.<br />
<br />
Our teachers deserve better. Our kids deserve better. And our country deserves better. And we won't get it if quitting is the only way for teachers to reach their potential.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.tcf.org/blog/detail/just-a-kindergarten-teacher">Cross-Posted at Blog of the Century</a><br />
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Here's the clip, but the quality is poor -- you'll probably have to turn up your volume to hear anything.<br />
<br />
UPDATE: The video has been blocked by FOX, who made a copyright claim. A 36-second clip sure seems like fair use to me, so this distresses me (and I'm not sure why FOX would claim a show that aired on CBS). YouTube says I get a "copyright strike" if I challenge and lose, so I'm going to let this one go unless somebody knows a copyright lawyer who can advise me whether I'm in the right or not.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qEb8RMoQBE8" width="560"></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-57471457231048700252012-10-10T05:18:00.000-04:002012-10-10T11:48:08.172-04:00Why Does Massachusetts Rank Highly?In last week's debate, Mitt Romney took credit for Massachusetts' position atop some education rankings. And, yes, it's <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2012/10/battleground_of_states_is_romney_right_about_top_ranking_for_mass.html" target="_blank">generally true</a> that Massachusetts ranks at or near the top. More specifically, the state has frequently had the highest average score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).<br />
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<br /></div>
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But the more important question is <i>why</i> Massachusetts ranks so highly. Was it something that Romney did while Governor, or are there other factors at play?<br />
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<br /></div>
<div>
The second question is really quite easy to answer. It's almost certainly something other than Romney's actions. For two reasons:</div>
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<br /></div>
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1.) Children in Massachusetts earned really high test scores both before and after Romney was Governor:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 305px;">
<colgroup><col style="mso-width-alt: 877; mso-width-source: userset; width: 18pt;" width="24"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 5083; mso-width-source: userset; width: 104pt;" width="139"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 5193; mso-width-source: userset; width: 107pt;" width="142"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="height: 15.0pt; width: 18pt;" width="24"></td>
<td class="xl66" style="width: 104pt;" width="139"><b>2002</b></td>
<td class="xl70" style="width: 107pt;" width="142"><b>2011</b></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">1.)</td>
<td>Vermont (272)</td>
<td class="xl71">Massachusetts (275)</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">2.)</td>
<td>Massachusetts (271)</td>
<td class="xl71">New Jersey (275)</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">3.)</td>
<td>Montana (270)</td>
<td class="xl71">Connecticut (275)</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">4.)</td>
<td>Nebraska (270)</td>
<td class="xl71">Vermont (274)</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">5.)</td>
<td class="xl69">Maine (270)</td>
<td class="xl72">Montana (273)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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2.) We know from decades of research that <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2009/01/sunday-commentary-excuses-defeatists.html" target="_blank">non-school factors influence achievement <i>far</i> more than in-school factors</a>. So it's exceedingly unlikely that a few state-level policy tweaks, implemented for a mere four years, could impact student performance dramatically enough to boost Massachusetts to the top of the nation.</div>
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<div>
We can also argue to what extent the high test scores mean the state's schools are a success. We could certainly measure student and school performance in myriad other ways. And even if we look only at test scores, we can go beyond the averages. Massachusetts has one of the largest gaps in achievement between upper- and lower-income students, for example. Though, again, that likely has little to do with Romney -- the state ranked 5th in 2002 and 6th in 2011 (measured as the average 8th grade reading score of those not eligible for free/reduced price lunch minus the average score of eligible students).</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
That said, I wanted to explore this a little more in-depth, so I went to the <a href="http://nationsreportcard.gov/" target="_blank">NAEP website</a> and delved into the <a href="http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2011/state_g8.asp" target="_blank">8th grade reading scores</a>. The first thing you'll notice on the site is the map of state results (below) which shows striking regional disparities in test scores. If we assume that Governors are almost solely responsible for the average test scores in their states, we could only conclude that virtually all Northern governors are education geniuses and almost all Southern Governors education dunces. Which, of course, is preposterous -- there are clearly larger issues at play here (issues out of the hands of the various Governors).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCEYjQl0VAdbcrLqMaVJmMeGHpDnfctYoiM7NCdnm_edjy7_mA-SO0McPinuNndtkk8gRDtOex4xoFYO3HdQELncntTIUjUuXB895LhD4FSENTGpG-qHy1XgwKFWhq_G7xQqxbN5kRHmVh/s1600/NAEPScoreMap.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCEYjQl0VAdbcrLqMaVJmMeGHpDnfctYoiM7NCdnm_edjy7_mA-SO0McPinuNndtkk8gRDtOex4xoFYO3HdQELncntTIUjUuXB895LhD4FSENTGpG-qHy1XgwKFWhq_G7xQqxbN5kRHmVh/s400/NAEPScoreMap.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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What are these issues? The socio-economic status of the states' residents would be at the top of the list (certainly, a Governor would have some power to influence that over the course of one or more terms -- but that change would be both slight and slow). To examine this, I downloaded the state NAEP scores from the <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/statecomparisons/Default.aspx" target="_blank">NAEP data webpage</a> and demographic data from <a href="http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/rankings.html" target="_blank">census website</a> so that I could compare the two.</div>
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Unsurprisingly, a fairly strong correlation exists between a state's average 8th grade reading score and a state's median household income (r = .43). When we plot all the states' average test scores and median household incomes on the graph below, we see a few outliers -- Montana, Kentucky, and Vermont score much higher than we'd expect given their average incomes while California, Hawaii, Nevada, and Alaska score much lower -- but Massachusetts is right about where we'd expect it to be (note that the best fit line would run right through Massachusetts if we deleted the outliers). Massachusetts has relatively wealthy residents and high-scoring students. Not a surprise.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh69pzSIvRtOXtOXFXgc4c8XlsPaWGAooyPXAfSy_saPEkSj7AqMKjbFTAJME6nLkyA-pLCgvK9n0BUAc5IEvb2YqKWt08cV6AWswCyihVQHvXrRTF5BTG4jZfefAHYmeDlBRbLOkKl0pts/s1600/NAEPvIncome.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh69pzSIvRtOXtOXFXgc4c8XlsPaWGAooyPXAfSy_saPEkSj7AqMKjbFTAJME6nLkyA-pLCgvK9n0BUAc5IEvb2YqKWt08cV6AWswCyihVQHvXrRTF5BTG4jZfefAHYmeDlBRbLOkKl0pts/s400/NAEPvIncome.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div>
Massachusetts stands out even more if we look at the education levels of the population. The percentage of adults with a bachelor's degree in a state is <i>very</i> strongly correlated (r = .65) with the average NAEP score in that state, and Massachusetts ranks at the top of both categories. Once again, we see some outliers -- both positive (Kentucky, Wyoming, and Montana stick out) and negative (Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, California, and Hawaii don't look too good), but find Massachusetts right about where we'd expect.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5As8_5fdvoszrR1x4B4qem-CMtRkw-PiJXPBsyvy4Ol0WgfiHTjVWaBV2nrB9JapV721syiCXXwLGbtLytGPJJnRHAoI4CgnMI3SqKaHBz47O8GY0vNxBxPLtX1jE1iLY4dd-4qlnTraR/s1600/NAEPvDegrees.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5As8_5fdvoszrR1x4B4qem-CMtRkw-PiJXPBsyvy4Ol0WgfiHTjVWaBV2nrB9JapV721syiCXXwLGbtLytGPJJnRHAoI4CgnMI3SqKaHBz47O8GY0vNxBxPLtX1jE1iLY4dd-4qlnTraR/s400/NAEPvDegrees.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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So, yes, Romney was correct when he said that Massachusetts ranks at the top. But it's exceedingly unlikely he had much to do with that. Massachusetts' residents were and are wealthy and highly educated relative to the residents of other states, and that mostly explains why their children perform so well on tests.<br />
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<a href="http://tcf.org/blogs/botc/2012/10/why-romney-shouldnt-take-credit-for-massachusetts-high-education-ranks/">cross-posted on Blog of the Century</a></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-66783725325010460512012-10-09T02:45:00.000-04:002012-10-09T02:45:00.745-04:00It's All About Vocabulary?<br />
The edusphere is abuzz about this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/nyregion/for-poor-schoolchildren-a-poverty-of-words.html" target="_blank">NY Times piece on early vocabulary growth</a> that ran over the weekend. Though the piece focuses on the current controversy surrounding test-based admissions to the top high schools in NYC, it's mostly based on the famous <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=I2pHAAAAMAAJ&q" target="_blank">Hart and Risley book</a> in which the authors conclude that children from families on welfare hear 32 million fewer words and 560,000 fewer encouragements than children of professional families between birth and age 4 -- and that these differences lead to subsequent differences in vocabulary and achievement.<br />
<br />
To reinforce the importance of this early vocabulary growth, the article quotes a charter school principal saying that the "word deficit" is the greatest challenge the school faces and <a href="http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2012/09/26/e-d-hirsch-on-paul-toughs-how-children-succeed/" target="_blank">quotes E.D. Hirsch</a> saying that "there is strong evidence that increasing the general knowledge and vocabulary of a child before age six is the single highest correlate with later success".<br />
<br />
This all leads Robert Pondiscio to <a href="http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2012/10/08/demographics-isnt-destiny-vocabulary-is-destiny/" target="_blank">write</a> that "Demography isn't destiny. Vocabulary is destiny".<br />
<br />
Ok, stop. Just stop.<br />
<br />
Yes. Vocabulary is important. And vocabulary growth in the early years is <i>crucially</i> important. Every person or organization responsible for raising young kids should aim to use and explain as many words words and concepts as possible.<br />
<br />
But, c'mon. Let's not get carried away.<br />
<br />
The second we identify something -- anything -- as the "single" most important, we do ourselves and our nation's children a disservice. I understand the allure of boiling everything down to the simplest solution possible, but life just doesn't work that way.<br />
<br />
And arguing that vocabulary -- rather than demography -- is destiny? That's just silly.<br />
<br />
For starters, we have what economists would call an "endogeneity problem" in that statement. An awful lot of what's driving the vocabulary of a child entering kindergarten is <i>also </i>driving the success of that kid later in school: parenting, myriad environmental conditions and social factors in the child's home and neighborhood, health, peers, genetics, and a thousand other things. In other words: a child with a large vocabulary at age 4 is likely to succeed in school partly b/c of that vocabulary, but more so because the conditions that created that vocabulary will almost certainly continue to foster intellectual growth and social development throughout his/her school years.<br />
<br />
Second, an awful lot of what drives vocabulary growth <i>is</i> demography. The education level of one's parent(s) and other adult supervisors, the amount of stimulation available in one's surroundings (including the number of different objects one can learn about), the noise level inside and outside of one's home, the levels of stress to which a child and his/her family are exposed, the number of books available, and hundreds of other home, neighborhood, and family factors correlated with socio-economic status all result in a child learning more or fewer words. So arguing that vocabulary is more important than demography in school is like arguing that strength is more important than weightlifting in football.<br />
<br />
So, please, let's stop trying to reduce everything to the one, most important factor (which is <i>surely</i> more important than the factor the last person discussed). The fewer things we focus on, the more distorted those measures become. And the simpler we make the problem seem, the more simplistic our solutions. Vocabulary certainly deserves <i>some</i> of our attention. Now let's discuss what else deserves our attention instead of how much less they deserve it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-30337936404318167892012-10-08T03:49:00.003-04:002012-10-08T03:49:57.832-04:00The Differences Between High- and Low-Performing Schools: Not What You Might ExpectLast Thursday, the <a href="http://www.scalingupcenter.org/" target="_blank">National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools</a> (a research center led by Vanderbilt's Peabody College with partners at UNC-Chapel Hill, Florida State, Wisconsin-Madison, Georgia State, and the Educational Development Center, funded by a five-year, $13.6 million federal grant, which aims to identify and then explore ways to scale up, characteristics of effective high schools) released a new <a href="http://www.scalingupcenter.org/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/NCSU_Identifying_the_Characteristics_of_Effective_High_Schools_Sept_2012_Final.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> examining the differences between high-and low-performing high schools in Broward County, Florida.<br />
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As only one small piece of the puzzle, we shouldn't get carried away with the findings. But I was struck with what was -- and was not -- included in their list of differences between the schools. Below is the Executive Summary's list of differences:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We identified one major theme that cut across all ten components: personalization for academic
and social learning. In the area of personalization, our findings show that the higher value-added
(VA) schools made deliberate efforts through systematic structures to promote strong
relationships between adults and students as well as to personalize the learning experience of
students. In addition, the higher VA schools maintained strong and reliable disciplinary systems
that, in turn, engendered feelings of caring and, implicitly, trust among both students and
teachers. Leaders at the higher VA schools talked explicitly about looking for student
engagement in classroom walkthroughs as well as in their interactions with students. Teachers at
the higher VA schools were more likely to discuss instructional activities that drew on students’
experiences and interests. The higher VA schools also encouraged stronger linkages with
parents (p. 5).</blockquote>
Included: "soft" factors like trust and relationships.<br />
<br />
Not included: virtually everything currently discussed in ed policy circles (school choice, teacher evaluations, merit pay, data-driven decision-making, etc.)<br />
<br />
Now, to be fair, many of factors were off the table because the study examined four schools located in the same county which had much in common (no differences in merit pay or district leadership, for example). And there's always the possibility that implementing some of these reforms could change the factors included in the list even if they're not currently present in the schools.<br />
<br />
Nonetheless, even when the measuring stick is value-added scores -- the latest, greatest measure being pushed on schools -- many of the factors emphasized by those pushing for its use don't seem to be drivers of the differences.<br />
<br />
Most interestingly, the two low-scoring schools had higher scores on some measures of teaching practices and instructional quality than the two high-scoring schools. Here's the summary from the research team on this topic:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Taken together, our indicators of the quality and nature of instruction across the schools -- CLASS-S*, course matrices, student shadowing, and interviews with multiple school stakeholders -- reveals no major differences in instructional quality across the four schools. We cannot turn to evidence in the area of Quality Instruction to explain the differences in value-added achievement between our high- and low-VA schools" (p. 32).</blockquote>
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While we certainly shouldn't base our policy decisions on one study examining four schools in one county, I do think it's fair to say that this confirms what we should've known all along -- that high-quality instruction (like every aspect of schools) is <i>not sufficient</i> when trying to create high-performing schools. I should also note that, in many areas, larger differences existed between the honors and regular tracks within the schools than between the high- and low-scoring schools themselves.<br />
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Again, I don't want to get carried away with the results of one small-scale study (and I'll refrain from addressing the other 50 or so topics covered by the report at the moment), but I do think that, at this point, we can take two important lessons from this ongoing research:<br />
<br />
1.) Regardless of the amount of press coverage, foundation money, or policy directed toward a particular aspect of school reform, not a single factor is sufficient to create a high-quality school.<br />
<br />
2.) Even though it's easy (and, arguably, practical) to focus on the simplest, starkest issues, the most subtle, nuanced, and complicated ones are often at least as important.<br />
<br />
From a 10,000 foot vantage point, the potential benefits of creating more charter schools, or implementing a merit pay plan or new curriculum are easy to see. But, on the ground, it probably matters more <i>how</i> than <i>whether </i>those things are implemented -- without strong relationships, trust, and commitment, it's unlikely any reform will turn around a school or district.<br />
<br />
That fact is <i>really difficult</i> for policymakers to swallow because there's no easy way to change those types of things: what is Congress supposed to do in order to make make teachers at the local elementary school get along better with their students? The relationship between policy and the factors discussed in the report is so indirect that it's easy to just ignore them and focus on simpler solutions. We should all try to resist that temptation.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
*"the Classroom Assessment Scoring System for Secondary classrooms (CLASS-S), [is] an
observational tool developed by researchers at the University of Virginia, to observe and assess
the quality of teacher-student interactions in classrooms. Based on development theory and
research suggesting that interactions between students and adults are the primary mechanism of
student development and learning (Greenberg, Domitrovich, & Bumbarger, 2001; Hamre &
Pianta, 2006; Morrison & Connor, 2002; Pianta, 2006; Rutter & Maughan, 2002), the CLASS-S
focuses not on the presence of materials, the physical environment, or the adoption of a specific
curriculum but on what teachers do with the materials they have and on the interactions teachers
have with their students. The observation tool looks specifically at interactions between teachers
and students across four domains: Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, Instructional
Support, and Student Engagement" (p. 12).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-81792744958736575722012-10-05T01:04:00.001-04:002012-10-05T01:04:42.514-04:00Schools Rallying CommunitiesI have strongly mixed feelings about charter schools, but my biggest concern is one I almost never see mentioned by charter proponents, detractors, or neutral observers. We hear a lot about how communities affect schools, but almost nothing about the reverse.<br />
<br />
I grew up in a suburban district where people routinely headed to the local high school for football games, basketball games, school plays, and scads of other events. And, to a lesser extent, the elementary and junior high schools brought in community members for fairs, concerts, etc. All in all, the schools brought the community together quite often for various reasons. And that's not uncommon. Or at least, historically, it hasn't been uncommon.<br />
<br />
But that might be changing. If we imagine a world where schools and neighborhoods are completely decoupled and people from one town go to scads of different schools all over the place, that relationship almost ceases to exist. We won't read stories like <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/sports/avella-high-school-in-pennsylvania-regains-football-pride.html" target="_blank">this piece in the NY Times</a> about a small-town HS football team that's rallying the community.<br />
<br />
Granted, it might be worth the trade-off if the new non-neighborhood schools dramatically outperformed our traditional school system, but it's important to recognize that <i>there is a trade-off</i> involved here. And that schools have larger ripple effects on society beyond the academic performance of their current students.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-92037331255293735832012-10-04T02:12:00.004-04:002012-10-04T02:12:55.542-04:00Frustrating Work Conditions and SchoolsIt seems like a growing number of people give lip service to working conditions in school, but without many specifics. If teachers are frustrated by the working conditions in their schools, how would we expect their behavior to change?<br />
<br />
We're using <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=O-B_8D03GHoC" target="_blank">Bolman and Deal's textbook</a> in the Organizational Theory course I'm teaching this semester, which includes a large section on human resources in organizations. Part of that section discusses Chris Argyris' work on the differences between human personality and management practices. Argyris contends that workers have six options when trying to escape frustrating working conditions (pp. 128-130). See how many of these seem familiar to you when thinking about schools:<br />
<br />
<i>They withdraw -- through chronic absenteeism or simply by quitting</i><br />
This certainly happened at my school -- working conditions were so bad that the vast majority of teachers took all 10 of their sick/personal days each year (which compounded the problem, since we usually couldn't find any subs to come into the building). I'm not sure what's been published on the topic, but I do know that if one looks through the <a href="http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/tools/report/FindAProgressReport/default.htm" target="_blank">NYC School Report cards</a> that a lot of schools average a lot fewer teacher absences.<br />
<br />
<i>They stay on the job but withdraw psychologically, becoming indifferent, passive, and apathetic</i><br />
This is the quintessential "bad teacher" right here. The tenured burn-out who can't be bothered to do much of anything anymore.<br />
<br />
<i>They resist by restricting output, deception, featherbedding*, or sabotage</i><br />
Sounds just like the legion of obstinate teachers who refuse to implement the latest, greatest curriculum or other reform handed down to them from above.<br />
<br />
<i>They try to climb the hierarchy to better jobs</i><br />
As teachers in my school used to say: "those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, become principals" (I should note that there's some emerging evidence that many principals had above-average VAM scores when they were teaching). Either way, it's pretty clear that a lot of teachers try to escape the classroom to become coaches, coordinators, and administrators of all types. In my school, the most veteran teachers who hadn't moved into one of those types of positions all taught in positions that got them out of the classroom (e.g. "resource room," in which they'd pull out a couple kids at a time).<br />
<br />
<i>They form alliances (such as labor unions) to redress the power imbalance</i><br />
Unions certainly play a large role in many schools. What we often forget, though, is <i>why</i> the unions came about. If teachers aren't frustrated and don't distrust their supervisors, they don't usually form (or utilize) unions.<br />
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<i>They teach their children to believe that work is unrewarding and hopes for advancement are slim</i><br />
I haven't seen any evidence of this happening with teachers . . . hopefully it doesn't get <i>that</i> bad.<br />
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I definitely see evidence of five out of these six behaviors, though it's unclear whether any of these are currently increasing. I'd argue, though, that ameliorating the conditions that lead to these types of behavior should be one important goal in our quest to raise teacher quality and turn around low-performing schools.<br />
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If we instead go the opposite direction (sterner management, scripted curricula, etc.), we risk turning our schools into highly organized, poorly performing factories. Taken to the extreme, teachers essentially become mindless drones. The authors quote Ben Hamper (a former factory worker who then wrote about his experiences) saying that "Working the Rivet Line was like being paid to flunk high school the rest of your life" (p. 131). Work like that certainly won't inspire anybody to become the high-quality teachers we all agree we need.<br />
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<br />
*"Featherbedding is a colloquial term for giving people jobs that involve little or no work" (p. 138).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-5799271042522514282012-09-26T16:27:00.000-04:002012-09-27T12:32:08.420-04:00Guest Post: Teacher Opposition to VAMby Kerri Tobin, PhD<br />
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Teacher opposition to value-added modeling gets portrayed in the media
as teachers refusing to take any kind of responsibility for student
learning or academic growth. But most teachers do not balk at the
idea that they should be accountable for advancing their students’
knowledge. What they oppose is value-added modeling, or VAM, the
highly-imprecise tool that is being used to measure teachers' impact
on students' learning.. When the New York Times <a href="http://www.blogger.com/(http://www.schoolbook.org/2012/02/24/the-teacher-data-reports-on-schoolbook-an-explanation/" target="_blank">won the right to publishteacher VAM scores this spring</a>,
only the tiny print noted the inaccuracy of the data, including some
standard errors larger than the purported effect sizes. Researchers
familiar with value-added modeling have repeatedly voiced their
concern about its use in high-stakes decisions like teacher
evaluations (for example: <a href="http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9050/index1.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/notebook/2012/03/26/19951/professors-caution-cps-using-tests-evaluate-teachers" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/06/assessing-a-teachers-value/value-added-assessment-is-too-unreliable-to-be-useful" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
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Often, opponents of current uses of standardized testing fall back on
attempts to draw parallels between teaching and medicine: “It’s like
grading doctors on how many of their patients die!” But these
analogies are imprecise; they do not do the problem justice. John
Ewing’s <a href="http://www.ams.org/notices/201105/rtx110500667p.pdf" target="_blank">fertilizer analogy</a> is fascinating but perhaps too
long for the common person. What we need is an “elevator speech” –
one that can be delivered in the time it takes to get from the ground
to the 3rd floor – to explain why teachers oppose VAM. A better
analogy is this: using VAM to evaluate teachers is akin to evaluating
chemotherapists based on how much their patients’ tumors shrink every year.
The expected rate of tumor shrinkage is calculated based on patients’
race and socioeconomic status. So if a patient’s tumor shrinks more,
over that year, than expected, the doctor gets a positive score. If
it shrinks less than it “should,” the doctor gets a negative score.
The average of these patients’ scores becomes the doctor’s overall VAM
score. Sound reasonable? Maybe, until you consider that a) different
kinds of tumors respond differently to chemotherapy; b) the doctor has
no control over what patients do outside the office (for example, lung
cancer sufferers who continue to smoke); c) his patients saw a
different chemotherapist last year and will see another one next year;
and, perhaps most importantly, d) the doctor is not allowed to treat
any co-morbid conditions (for example, a cancer patient with diabetes
gets no treatment to manage his blood sugar) – even if he wanted to,
and even in cases where the patient or his family might prefer that
other conditions be treated instead of the cancer (e.g., when parents
value social or self-confidence issues more than test scores), there
simply aren’t enough hours in his day. Factors like the overall
health of the patient, his lifestyle, eating habits, substance use,
weight, and blood pressure might impact the effectiveness of the
chemo. But the doctor cannot control these, in much the same way
teachers cannot control where students live, if they have enough to
eat and get regular medical care, whether anyone reads to them at
home, how much TV they watch, or what time they go to bed at night.
And in the same way our VAM-assessed doctor would be powerless to
decide that a patient dying of AIDS needs antiretroviral therapy
before he can tolerate chemo for a concurrent cancer, teachers have
neither the time, resources, nor training to solve the problems in
their students’ lives – emotional problems, health challenges, family
issues, etc. – that impact their academic growth. This is how VAM
works, and why teachers oppose it.<br />
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<i>Kerri Tobin is Assistant Professor of Education at Marywood University in Scranton, PA, where she researches the educational needs of students living in poverty and prepares teachers and school leaders to meet those needs.</i><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-10022954223104512952012-09-19T11:16:00.000-04:002012-09-19T12:04:05.661-04:00The Two Types of TFA AlumsAlmost ten years ago now (where has the time gone?), I figured out what I wanted to do after college: I wanted to join Teach For America. Eight years ago, I began teaching in The Bronx through a sister program, the NYC Teaching Fellows (one of many organizations under the umbrella of The New Teacher Project, started by a TFA alum -- the interviews for TFA and the three TNTP programs I applied to were almost exactly identical). While in NYC, many of my closest friends were NYCTF or TFA members and I left for grad school with a rosy picture in my mind of how we would change the world.<br />
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I think it's precisely because these types of programs are so near and dear to my heart that I've grown so frustrated with TFA. For over 20 years now, they've done a world of good in countless ways. But I've always believed that their greatest impact would be the actions of their alumni. The recruitment materials I pored over my junior year in college told us that we could see how the system was failing from the inside and then go out and fix it -- whether that be by remaining in the field of education or as a lawyer, politician, school board member, concerned citizen, or whatever other route we chose. The idea was that, over time, an army of active citizens with elite credentials and experience in our failing inner-city and rural schools would wield enough influence to finally fix what ails our educational system.</div>
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That's starting to come true. Countless TFA alums have become principals, begun charter schools, and so on. One became the head of the whole DC school system. And now we're beginning to see TFA alums entering politics (my local school board race in Nashville, for example, featured two TFA alums both vying to unseat the chair of the board).</div>
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For most of the past decade I've waited for this day with bated breath. Finally, I thought, we'd start to see some change. The conditions that I couldn't believe our society would tolerate while I was teaching would finally start to be addressed. But now I'm worried.</div>
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While I don't doubt that TFA alums will have an outsized influence on our educational policy in the coming decades, I'm no longer convinced that the results of this influence will be all good.</div>
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Why? Because too many TFA alums took the wrong lesson from their experiences in the classroom. I've interacted with (both personally and professionally), heard, and read countless TFA alums over the past decade, and I now generally lump them into one of two groups: the humbled and the hubristic. It's a crass generalization, and many alums I know don't neatly fall into one group or the other, but I still think it's helpful in thinking through what changes we should expect as TFAers gain clout. So, without further ado, here are the two types of TFA alums:</div>
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1.) <i>The Humbled</i> - If I chose one word to describe my classroom experience, it would be "humbling" ("frustrating" would be a close second). I went in believing that I could change the world in one fell swoop, that I would surely be the world's greatest teacher, and that we could easily fix most of our problems if only we could find more miracle workers like myself. By day two I realized that I wasn't the world's greatest teacher on that day. And by day five I started to think it might not happen for at least a couple more weeks. What followed was two years in which I valiantly fought losing battle after losing battle until I was utterly exhausted. During those two years, I saw the underbelly of one of the lowest performing middle schools in NYC (its closure was announced the spring of my second year), and formed quite a few opinions regarding its failure.</div>
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But one notable item missing from my list was the quality of the veteran teachers in the building. I knew I was smarter than some of them. I knew I worked harder than all of them. But I'll be damned if most didn't teach circles around me -- and many found a way to do it for decades while I lasted all of two years before I became a statistic.</div>
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My major takeaway from that experience was that fixing the problems that look so simple from the outside is <i>really hard</i>.</div>
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And I know a lot of TFA and TNTP alums who will tell you something similar. Some are disillusioned. Some are frustrated. Some are neither. But all came to realize that they can't do this on their own, and that it's not going to be easy.</div>
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This group of humbled alums are more likely to push for educational and societal reforms and policies that change the context in which schools operate. They know that if you can address poverty at the family and neighborhood level, then school will go a lot smoother; that if you can change the attitudes and outlooks of students they'll learn a heck of a lot more regardless of the teacher; that if teachers are treated as professionals they'll rise to the occasion; that if teachers are given resources and support they'll both stick around longer and teach more effectively while they're there; and that schools, in general, need our help.</div>
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2.) <i>The Hubristic</i> - Many TFAers had very different experiences than I. Research on TFA generally finds that their teachers' students make gains equivalent to or slightly higher than other teachers (sometimes even higher than veteran teachers). Which means that a lot of corps members receive results each year telling them that they <i>are</i> the world's greatest teacher (or at least one of the best in their school). Some of these are flat-out better teachers than I, some simply found the right fit, landed a position at a top-performing school, or received oodles of support.</div>
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Some, though not all, of these teachers see their school -- and its veteran teachers -- very differently from how I saw mine (or, in the case of TFA members who teach at high-flying charters, see other schools and their veteran teachers differently). They think to themselves "this isn't so hard; if we could find more people like me, we could lick this problem in no time". I hear stories from them of how mind blowingly lazy, stupid, and/or incompetent the veteran teachers at their school were. And they leave their school with a distinct sense that they could fix our schools if somebody would let them -- and if everybody would listen to them.</div>
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As a result, hubristic alums are more likely to push for educational reforms and policies that aim to separate the wheat from the chaff. They know that if we can recruit better people into teaching, get rid of the dead weight (or at least get them to fall in line), stop making excuses, and give the superstars the reins that our schools will shine in no time; in short, that schools need to be shaken up.</div>
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It's good that different people bring different perspectives and ideas to the table, but I get the distinct sense right now that the latter group is winning in a rout. And I'm not sure that's going to be good for our schools down the road. I don't doubt that improving teacher quality would yield positive results, but I <i>do</i> worry that our narrow focus on such a nebulous trait will prevent us from addressing other, more serious problems.</div>
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If we focus solely on the human capital of our teaching force, we will fail to address the home lives or emotions of our students, the competence of our school leaders, the quality of our curriculum, or any number of other challenges our system faces on any given day.</div>
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Where will that leave us? Best case scenario, we're left with a whole bunch of superteachers who miraculously and dramatically raise achievement regardless of any outside challenges or distractions. Worst-case scenario, we're left with a crumbling system full of disenfranchised teachers who are unable to overcome the shortcomings of their school context, school leaders, curriculum, and other factors and either give up or leave rather than take the blame (or just get fired).</div>
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I don't doubt that TFA alums are well intentioned, earnest, and sincere, but right now we're closer to the latter than the former. And they're not helping.<br />
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<a href="http://tcf.org/blogs/botc/2012/09/the-two-types-of-teach-for-america-alums" target="_blank">cross-posted on Blog of the Century</a></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458172893016186479.post-9941495901697999752012-09-18T16:34:00.000-04:002012-09-18T16:34:07.895-04:00More Liberal Arts for the Least AffluentI've disagreed with Peter Meyer multiple times in the past, bot in posts (<a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2010/09/oh-mayer-goodness-what-was-he-thinking.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2010/09/oh-mayer-goodness-redux.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2011/06/family-values-dont-matter-anymore.html" target="_blank">here</a>), and in comments on his blog posts (which I'm not going to take the time to dredge up). So I think it's fair that I point out that he recently wrote what I think is <a href="http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/boards-eye-view/2012/the-best-education-for-the-best-is-the-best-education-for-all.html" target="_blank">an outstanding post</a> last week on college attendance and poverty. Also, digging up those old posts just made me realize I've been misspelling his name; my sincere apologies.<br />
<br />
Anyway, Meyer makes a strong case regarding why, in an ideal world, we should want everybody to attend college -- and how obtaining a broad, liberal education particularly advantages the most disadvantaged. Among other things, he points out that:<br />
<br />
-exposure to new ideas, new institutions, and new styles of thinking is particularly beneficial for those who were exposed to the fewest of these in their childhood<br />
<br />
-a college education opens more options for students compared to limitations placed on them by hyper-specific vocational training<br />
<br />
-underemployed college grads still make far more than non-college grads in the same field (a college educated dishwasher makes 83% more, for example)<br />
<br />
-increasing college attainment hardly solves our problems but <i>not </i>sending more kids to college creates more<br />
<br />
While zillions of logistical hurdles stand in the way of all students procuring a top-notch liberal college education, Meyer concludes by arguing that:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I personally don’t care if a kid decides not to go to college. I would, however, demand that every high school graduate at least be capable of reading (and understanding) David Leonhardt’s story—i.e., your options are probably pretty constrained if you don’t go to college—and that every district superintendent be judged by the number of his or her truly college-ready graduates. If a student decides not to go to college, fine. But at least he or she would have, I would hope, the option of going if he or she wanted to—which is better, I would assume, than not having that option after twelve years of schooling.
</blockquote>
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I can only find two small points of contention in the post:<br />
<br />
1.) the argument that teaching poor kids "a new kind of thinking -- reflection" is the key to getting them out of poverty is either inartfully expressed or demonstrates a lack of understanding. I'm leaning toward the former, since he also wrote a <a href="http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/boards-eye-view/2012/twenty-first-century-skills.html" target="_blank">pretty good piece</a> explaining the genesis of that quote. At first glance, it might look like Meyer is arguing that kids are poor because they think wrong. I <i>think</i>, though I could be mistaken, that this was actually was a way of saying that exposing kids to more culture, society, and ideas (e.g. plays, museums, concerts, lectures, etc.) will benefit those who previously had the least exposure. Indeed, the program driven by this notion was the result of the suggestion of an impoverished prisoner who said that kids needed to get more involved with the what was happening downtown in order to interact in new ways with government, society, etc.<br />
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2.) While I agree with Meyer that, ultimately, we shouldn't <i>force</i> every kid to get a high-quality college education: that giving every kid both the option to obtain it and the understanding of how it will benefit them is a better policy goal, I do hope that he personally <i>does</i> care which path any given student chooses. Given that he argues that more students obtaining high-quality educations improves the lot of our entire society, I'd certainly hope he would then wish that all students chose to obtain that type of education.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>Corey Bunje Bowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09764159604965707919noreply@blogger.com0