"So calls for students to go to schools in their own neighborhoods really do put kids from minority, low-income households into schools with less opportunity."See my earlier related blog post, "We Do Not Know How to Improve Student Education Levels And High School Graduation Rates."
My impression is that the issue is not so clear-cut. When you compare schools that have a mix of low income kids and high income kids with schools that are predominately high income, the predominately high income schools look better than the mix income schools on school wide statistics; higher average reading and math scores, higher percentage graduation rates, higher enrollment in colleges and higher enrollment in elite four year colleges. When the high-income group in the mix income school is compared by itself with the kids in the high-income schools, the results are equal.
Higher household income students do well independently of the school they attend. That is not to say they received identical educations. Certainly, schools in richer areas have more resources, smaller class size, more advance courses, etc., but reading and math scores and college enrollment are more predictable from parent's income and parent's education levels than they are from the amount of money spent per student in a school district, class size, age of the buildings, number of advanced classes, etc.
Schools in lower income areas often have minority kids but there are poor areas, such as Appalachia, and other parts of the US, where the kids are poor and not minorities. In low income areas, the structural aspect of schools, the buildings, the labs, the fields, etc, are in much poorer condition than in richer areas, but it is not clear any of that affects graduation rates or reading and math scores.
Years ago, it was noticed that despite extreme poverty in Appalachia, there were kids that went on to college. It was found that the most significant determinate was household expectation. Parents' expectations that their kids would graduate from high school and go to college were the important factors that determine which kids went on to college.
High-income parents expect their kids to go to good colleges. Kids accepted to charter schools or special magnet schools are expected by their parents to take advantage of that extra benefit and graduate and go to college.
A large percentage of Asian kids (and Asians are a minority in the US) go to college because their parents expect it.
Are there any studies that control for parents' expectations that show that a better school improves outcomes, controlling for the fact that any lower income parents who move or get their children into better schools are parents with higher educational expectations for their children? Parents who kids are rejected from enrollment into some 'special' better school (charter, magnet, etc.) due to some lottery or other mechanism will lower their expectations because their kids will continue to go to an 'inferior' school with worse education outcomes.
One of the big educational mistakes of the last few decades is the switch to the school centric, as opposed to the household centric, model for improvement of educational outcomes. The school centric model showed us that no matter how much money you throw at it, no matter what variables within the school you improve, such as teacher qualifications, class size, technology, etc., student education outcomes do not change. The average US reading and math scores on standardized tests has not improved in 40 years, despite more money, better teachers and smaller class size.
The extra money, in excess of inflation and student population growth, spent on education over the last few decades has not provided a positive return on the investment. We need to stop kidding ourselves that a poor education outcome in the US is a money problem.
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Need To Stop Kidding Ourselves That A Poor Education Outcome In The US Is A Money Problem
A comment I post on Capital Gains and Games blog, "The Problems of Local Governments -- In One Not So Easy Lesson" by Andrew Samwick:
Friday, November 19, 2010
Bill Gates Chides Teachers Unions And Education Establishment
From "Gates Urges School Budget Overhauls" by Sam Dillon in The New York Times, November 19, 2010:
Unfortunately, the existing education establishment is part of the problem, but not the whole problem. Cultural changes have to be made in low performing education student groups and families to raise educational expectations, so success, graduation and learning are looked upon favorably, become the norm and are not considered inappropriate and selling out.
Mr. Gates — who is gaining considerable clout in education circles — plans to urge the 50 state superintendents of education to take difficult steps to restructure the nation’s public education budgets, which have come under severe pressure in the economic downturn.Bill Gates understands that educational success requires focusing on results and not process, that teachers are overpaid for what their students' learn and that increases in pay without student results are undeserved.
He suggests they end teacher pay increases based on seniority and on master’s degrees, which he says are unrelated to teachers’ ability to raise student achievement. He also urges an end to efforts to reduce class sizes. Instead, he suggests rewarding the most effective teachers with higher pay for taking on larger classes or teaching in needy schools.
Unfortunately, the existing education establishment is part of the problem, but not the whole problem. Cultural changes have to be made in low performing education student groups and families to raise educational expectations, so success, graduation and learning are looked upon favorably, become the norm and are not considered inappropriate and selling out.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Improving Mother's Literacy Improves Disadvantaged Child's Academic Performance
From NIH news release, "Improving mothers' literacy skills may be best way to boost children's achievement" about an NIH funded study, "Family and Neighborhood Sources of Socioeconomic Inequality in Children’s Achievement" appearing in Demography by Narayan Sastry, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, and Anne R. Pebley, Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles.
The full abstract of the paper states:
"The findings indicate that programs to improve maternal literacy skills may provide an effective means to overcome the disparity in academic achievement between children in poor and affluent neighborhoods," said Rebecca Clark, Ph.D., chief of the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).Ungated copy of the research paper is available here and here.
The full abstract of the paper states:
We examined family and neighborhood sources of socioeconomic inequality in children’s reading and mathematics achievement using data from the 2000–2001 Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study. To describe inequality in achievement test scores, we used Gini coefficients and concentration indices and multilevel regression models. There was no inequality in children’s achievement by family income once other variables in the model were held constant. Mothers’ reading scores and average neighborhood levels of income accounted for the largest proportion of inequality in children’s achievement. Neighborhood economic status appears to be strongly associated with children’s skills acquisition.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
DC School Head, Rhee, To Resign
From New York Times article, "Rhee, Washington Schools Chancellor, to Resign" by Ian Urbina and Sarah Wheaton:
Ms. Rhee quickly clashed with the teachers’ union, shuttering schools and firing hundreds of employees, from central office workers to principals. Acrimonious talks resulted in a contract with the Washington Teachers’ Union that weakened the tenure system while offering generous raises to educators who cultivated high test scores and met other standards. Tensions reignited in July when, citing the budget, Ms. Rhee fired 241 teachers, most of whom had the lowest rating under the new evaluation system.Read the complete New York Times article here.
Friday, October 8, 2010
15% Of High Schools Produce Half The High School Dropouts: 2/3 of Hispanic, 3/4 of African-American, 4/5 of Native American Dropouts
From "If Schools Were Like 'American Idol' . . . Unless we measure success by how children perform, we'll have higher standards for pop stars than public schools." by Robert Murdoch:
...the United States is home to more than 2,000 dysfunctional high schools. They represent less than 15% of American high schools yet account for about half of our dropouts. When you break this down, you find that these institutions produce 81% of all Native American dropouts, 73% of all African-American dropouts, and 66% of all Hispanic dropouts.Read the complete Wall Street Journal article here.
At our grade schools, two-thirds of all eighth-graders score below proficient in math and reading. The average African-American or Latino 9-year-old is three grades behind in these subjects. Behind the grim statistics is the real story: lost opportunities, crushed dreams, and shattered lives. In plain English, we trap the children who need an education most in failure factories.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
High School Dropout Signaling Model
A comment I posted on EconLog, "Educational Signaling and Statistical Discrimination" by Bryan Caplan:
Any signaling model of education has to explain the very low comparative unemployment rate for Asian high school dropouts.Also see my earlier post, "The Unemployment Rate For Asian High School Dropouts Is 40 To 60 Percent Lower Than Other Racial Groups."
Blacks, Hispanics and Whites all show downward sloping unemployment rates as education levels increase. Asians show a relatively flat, low unemployment rate for all educational levels.
Asian high school dropouts have an unemployment rate that is 40 percent of Blacks and 60 percent of Hispanics and Whites' high school dropout unemployment rates.
See unemployment chart towards end of article on the Chronicle of Education, "Education Pays, but How Much?" by Beckie Supiano at the following web link:
http://chronicle.com/article/Education-Pays-But-How/124552/Furthermore, there are two types of high school dropouts. Those that upon entering high school are expected to graduate and those that upon entering are expected to dropout.
The expected to dropout group obviously have predictive negative characteristics of a high school dropout, alcohol and drug abuse and/or behavioral problems, which make them potentially and likely poor workers.
The expected to graduate group dropouts for non-predictive reasons, such as an unexpected loss of emotional or economic parental support, would make good, cheap workers. One would think the employment market would find a way to identify this subgroup. Whether Asians are the market response to signaling, I do not know since I have not seen data on Asian high school dropout characteristics. Asians generally have the lowest dropout rate of the ethnic groups.
Also, although I cannot find a link, European dropouts who come to the US do very well finding jobs that pay well. The reason often stated for the success of European high school dropouts is that in Europe they do not dropout due to drug use, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy or behavioral problems as is common in the US for high school dropouts.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
We Do Not Know How to Improve Student Education Levels And High School Graduation Rates
A comment I posted to the Wall Street Journal opinion piece, "A Teacher Quality Manifesto" by Deborah Kenny:
In k-12 education, just about every variable, class size, teacher subject matter education level, dollars spent per pupil, availability of classroom technology, years of teacher experience, etc., unbiased controlled studies find either no effect or a minimal effect on student educational performance in the major subject matters tested, reading and arithmetic and dropout rates.
Even things like parent participation in the schools do not matter. For example, Asians on average outperform in school yet have low levels of parent school participation.
Everybody has a fix for the high US high school dropout rate and the low student performance on standardized math and reading tests. One year it is a nutritional breakfast, another year, it is increased parent involvement in schools. There is always some idea that seems to generate a lot of buzz as the solution to our education problems. Currently, it is charter schools.
Just about everything has been tried and while there are always isolated examples of where 'something' seems to work, that 'something' does not work when applied broadly to a large number of schools with a diverse student population.
There are many things that different parent groups do not like about the education system, such as unions, tenure, teacher pay (too high, too low), too bureaucratic, teacher skill level, length of school day, etc., but in many ways these things are like a surgeon's bedside manner. We may or may not like things about our teachers and our school systems, but like a great surgeon's bad bedside manner, it does not mean anything about results.
The fact of the matter is that despite years of throwing billions of dollars at schools, teachers and studies of student performance, we are clueless as to what will significantly increase the learning and graduation rates of our students. Most studies or education experiments produce small, if any, improvements. The magic cure to fix our educational system is undiscovered.
There are obviously broad differences in test results, high graduation rates and college attendance rates among different school systems in the US. We know from experience that whatever we do at the teacher, school and school system levels will not make poorly performing schools perform substantially better, as measured by graduation rates, or standardized test results.
If any method used in the US were a clear-cut success, a large number of our nation's schools would adopt it with very visible positive student results. It does not exist. Given how much money we spent on schools and education research, the magic fix probably does not exist.
Yes, it would be nice to increase the high school graduation rates and increase the levels of student performance on standardized tests. The problem we face is that we truly do not know how.
Friday, September 10, 2010
NJ Gov Christie Explains: Teacher Union Caused Teacher Layoffs
Governor Chris Christie response to a teacher about teacher layoffs at a town hall meeting in Raritan Township, September 8, 2010.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Our Public Schools And Teachers Are Not Using Proven Teaching Methods
From The New York Times article, "Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits" by Benedict Carey:
No wonder our students are dropping out of school at alarming rates and do poorly on reading and mathematics evaluation tests.
Read the complete NY Times article here.
Such [study and learning] theories have developed in part because of sketchy education research that doesn’t offer clear guidance. Student traits and teaching styles surely interact; so do personalities and at-home rules. The trouble is, no one can predict how.Unfortunately, public schools and teachers employ and perpetuate the falsehood of the common wisdom for studying and learning instead of using techniques and teaching methods that have been scientifically proven to improve student learning.
Yet there are effective approaches to learning, at least for those who are motivated. In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying.
The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.
No wonder our students are dropping out of school at alarming rates and do poorly on reading and mathematics evaluation tests.
Read the complete NY Times article here.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Time To Let More Foreign Born, Foreign Trained Doctors Into The US
Foreign-born doctors practicing in the United States who earned their medical degrees abroad performed as well or better than their U.S.-born counterparts, a new study finds.Read the complete Bloomberg Businessweek article, "Foreign-Trained Doctors As Good As U.S.-Trained Counterparts" by Jenifer Goodwin here.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Erica Goldson's Inspiring Valedictorian Speech
From Erica Goldson's excellent 2010 valedictorian speech at Coxsackie-Athens High School:
We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.Read Erica's complete valedictorian speech here.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Do Teachers Have The Voting Power To Give Themselves Raises?
Teachers are the largest professional group in the US workforce today. There are more elementary and secondary teachers than doctors, lawyers, and engineers, etc.
"During the 1999–2000 school year, a total of about 3,450,000 teachers worked in public and private elementary and secondary schools across the country—representing about 2.7 percent of the overall U.S. workforce that year. Elementary and secondary school teachers constituted a greater percentage of the workforce than physicians (0.5 percent), legal professionals (0.8 percent), postsecondary faculty (0.9 percent), engineers (1.0 percent), firemen and law enforcement workers (1.0 percent), registered nurses (1.5 percent), or any other professional group that year. Elementary and secondary school teachers constituted about the same percentage of the workforce as all secretaries and administrative assistants (2.7 percent) and slightly less than retail workers (2.8 percent) (U.S. Department of Labor 2002)." From National Center For Education Statistics, Special Analysis 2005.
Many teachers also live in communities where there is school budget voting. I suspect teachers are more likely to go to the polls to vote to approve larger school budgets and teacher salary increases..
When you add together the budget votes of spouses and close relatives of teachers, it is not surprising that salaries of teachers are rising.
They have the voting power to give themselves and other teachers raises, under the guise of improving children education.
The above was also posted on The Beacon, "Why More Spending Doesn’t Produce Better Schools."
"During the 1999–2000 school year, a total of about 3,450,000 teachers worked in public and private elementary and secondary schools across the country—representing about 2.7 percent of the overall U.S. workforce that year. Elementary and secondary school teachers constituted a greater percentage of the workforce than physicians (0.5 percent), legal professionals (0.8 percent), postsecondary faculty (0.9 percent), engineers (1.0 percent), firemen and law enforcement workers (1.0 percent), registered nurses (1.5 percent), or any other professional group that year. Elementary and secondary school teachers constituted about the same percentage of the workforce as all secretaries and administrative assistants (2.7 percent) and slightly less than retail workers (2.8 percent) (U.S. Department of Labor 2002)." From National Center For Education Statistics, Special Analysis 2005.
Many teachers also live in communities where there is school budget voting. I suspect teachers are more likely to go to the polls to vote to approve larger school budgets and teacher salary increases..
When you add together the budget votes of spouses and close relatives of teachers, it is not surprising that salaries of teachers are rising.
They have the voting power to give themselves and other teachers raises, under the guise of improving children education.
The above was also posted on The Beacon, "Why More Spending Doesn’t Produce Better Schools."
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