An interesting post for your review... Speed Gibson Happy Hour
Some comments to discuss:
I have to agree with Speed on this one. The unlucky kids come into Kindergarten behind in academic and behavioral skills. And with a lower level of support and/or discipline at home. And it logically only gets worse from there. Here are some of the root causes I see based on watching some neighbor kids.
- The number of in-school hours are about the same for all the kids. The Lucky kids get additional learning hours via their Parents after school. (ie that homework diligence that kids dread, that effort makes a huge difference) The same Parental behaviors that made the Pre-K difference just continue to magnify for both the Lucky and Unlucky kids. (ie spread widens)
- The Lucky kids are often more academically gifted and capable. It is not fair, but genetics plays a role.
- Reading and Math are definitely subjects where future gains are highly dependent on past proficieny. If you can not understand basic math, you will be ever so screwed in advanced math. Similar for reading.
- Parents of Unlucky kids see failing grades, extra homework and Summer school as bad or proof that their kid truly is stupid. (confirms their beliefs, demotivates) Parents of Lucky kids see these as an opportunity to dig in and help their kids overcome the difficulty. (conflicts with their beliefs, motivates)
With these and Speed's note that holding kid's back until they are truly proficient in a subject is socially and financially unacceptable. It is no wonder the gap persists.
I once had a school Administrator tell me that they wished the school year was longer. They felt this would help close the gap, but were frustrated that constrained budgets and union inflexibility made this impossible. I then raised the point that this would actually increase the gap, which surprised the Administrator.
Then I explained that only the Unlucky kids need much longer school years, and that the Lucky kids really do not need any more time in school. It seemed that a light kicked on for them at this Brilliant Glimpse of the Obvious.(BGO)
What do you think Parents, Teachers, Citizens, Lawyers, ACLU, Politicians, etc would say if we went to mandatory 12 month school years for every child that was not meeting the proficiency requirements. Seems like common sense to me. (who has the money to fund this?)
Ironically, from what I have seen it is the Unlucky kids (ie losers...)that sign up for study hall... This is unfortunate since they need the most class time. Also, the Schools seem to use the Study Halls as part of the Teacher prep time... Therefore if there are fewer study halls, they need to hire a few more Teachers to cover the additional class hours... So they seem to actually try to encourage/force kids to take study hall if they are not in band, choir or orchestra... Supt Sicoli's statement seems at odds with the District practice.
Kathy's Hint
RAS Agenda with Links to Gap Closure report outs
Secondary Math Science - New Reqts 7Mar11
Thoughts?
23 comments:
I agree with most of what your saying John, but I don't always accept the "poverty/lucky kid argument." I'm the son of a truck driver and a secretary and I had no early childhood ed but that didn't prevent my mom and dad from making sure my homework was done. It didn't stop them from attending conferences. I also don't agree with how poverty is defined. Free/reduced lunch is not a good measurement at all in my opinion.....I have friends who have kids with every little toy including one whose 8 year old has a cell phone and....they are on free/reduced lunch! They hardly live in poverty...lower middle class maybe at the most but why does that prevent their kids from attending study hall? Ultimately the achievement gap will be solved by a combination of parenting, teaching, social change, and policy making. Still for 281 to go backwards is embarrassing!
That is why I coined the terms Lucky and Unlucky. Though most Unlucky kids reside in the Poverty and/or Minority groups, they certainly have no monopoly on it. There are some very Unlucky kids in the Better Off and/or White groups. And Lord knows there are some very Lucky kids in the Poverty and/or Minority groups.
Lucky to me means that the Parents take their Parental responsibilities very seriously, and are actively engaged in the behavioral and academic development of their children. It helps if they can help the kids with homework at least through middle school, or get them tutors when needed. It also helps if they can afford the necessary equipment and/or services if the student needs them. As such the Parents truly believe and hope their child is able to have a better future than their own. That faith, encouragement, discipline and time then works wonders in the kids.
Unfortunately, the lucky kids get a steady diet of despair, disinterest, threats and sometimes violence... And nothing good can come from that...
By the way, some of my best and most successful friends came from truly poor homes... That is part of why they were poor. Their parents were focused on the kids!!! And the houses, adult toys, decor, clothes, trips, hobbies, etc came after making sure their kids were raised right. And they did not hesitate to kick the kid's butts when they wandered off track. (figuratively for my pacificist readers) Finally, they were taught to work hard and respect the Adults in their lives... They would dread if the Teacher or Principal had to call their home...
By the way, being the Parent of a Lucky kid is really hard and requires a lot of time... But it is sure worth it.
As I just posted over at Speed's--I'm not really bent out of shape about a study hall. I think it could be useful and it could be abused, but in and of itself it's not a problem.
I'm actually pro longer school days and pro year round school. More frequent 3 week breaks makes much more sense than one 12 week break. It's a relic from an agrarian heritage and really kind of weird, when you think about it.
@Ritka--Kudos to your working-class parents for their great parenting, but I'm sure you know that while not all poor parents are uninvolved, most uninvolved parents are poor. Wealth is the single biggest indicator for academic success.
I know nothing about your friend's particulars, but a cell phone for an 8 year old who has to walk home from school to an empty house isn't that unusal these days, nor expensive. I, too, have friends in that situation, and they tell me that $20 buys you a year's worth of peace of mind.
--Annie
I forgot to mention...
If the gap gets bigger because the Smart got Smarter, that is not going backwards...
If the gap gets smaller because the Smart got Dumber, now that would truly be going backwards...
Hopefully we can ensure the top stays the same or gets higher, while pulling the bottom towards it at a much faster rate. Now that is true success.
Back a few years ago before my kids hit middle school many of the students there had two study halls out of a 7 period day. Adding electives/eliminating study hall was a major selling pt in passing our levy at that time. More recently the district switched the middle school to a 6 period day and eliminated study hall. The teachers weren't in favor, as study hall supervision was a second prep period for them. The kids say it has worked out sort of the same, because with the longer class periods they are getting more in time class to complete assignments.
John,
I agree with most of what you have written, except some of the part about the Unlucky losers. As a spec. ed. teacher I work with students who are behavior and learning challenged losers and most of these parents are motivated to support the school and help their child as best they can.
I am most familiar with urban education where the achievement gap is the largest and what is needed are extraordinary schools. I think there a few out there, and I wish I worked at one of them. I have read about KIPP schools and it seems like they would be hard to replicate on a large scale.
I don't know as much about the learning gap at suburban schools and how to reduce it, though I have at times considered starting a tutoring business, as there are no Sylvan type learning centers in my area.
I agree with you. Maybe we will have to have a discussion about Lucky and Unlucky Parents someday. I am blessed to have just normally challenging kids.
Once you enter into autism, EBD, ADD, ADHD, etc... LINK to Common Terms Even the most responsible parent will be sorely tested.
Note to self... Make sure linked site's links work before sending hundreds of readers there...
Try this one... Special Education Terms
I am just concerned that we're trying to cut down the forest using a ham and swiss sandwich. If the problems of the education gap can be laid entirely at the feet of poor parents (of whatever income level), then we should just test these kids when they come into kindergarten and kill any that can't pass, since the schools admit they cannot possibly erase that "gap." Yep, no point to even try. Blaming parents is a HUGE cop-out and an excuse that the public schools don't need, and in fact what needs to be done is to hold the public schools fully responsible for teaching every child "to their full potential." That doesn't mean the gap will be closed, but it does mean that the public schools won't make it worse than it would otherwise be. Personally, I suspect "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
Public schools still need to explain why the gap gets WIDER with grade level and, even worse, why American kids fall behind foreign competition further the longer they are in school. Something about our school systems is not keeping up with competition, perhaps because our public schools face no effective competition?
I don't know if 281's plan will work, or if it can work, but if it does it will be highly unusual for having done so and highly worthy of emulation. Just talking about it won't get it done.
J. Ewing
I'll try again, using fewer words...
Parent supported child starts ahead and progresses faster...
Unsupported child starts behind and progresses slower...
As years pass, the gap gets bigger.
Best way to fix, start kids at same level. (ie parent and early childhood education) And make slower kids increase their learning rate via extra work/hours. (more class time and extra support at school)
And here it is in math terms:
5 + 12(1)= 17
3 + 12(.75)= 12
The difference at the start is 5-3=2. The difference grows each year by 1-.75=.25, until it reaches 17-12=5... (ie gap grows with time)
The only way to make the sums equal is to change the starting point and/or rate. Preferably to 5 + 12(1) =17.
Because changing the formula to 3+12(1.167)=17 is asking a lot from some kids with little support at home.
When the kids with support are only at a learning rate of 1.0. How would we expected the unsupported kids to perform at 1.167)?
Now this is not any kind of bigotry, this is simple math... Just like physics...
Starting point + Years(Learning rate) = Ending point.
Please at least acknowledge this simple formula. Or my next post will be trying to explain it in pictures. I have markers and am not afraid to use them....
While it seems current focus on reducing achievement gap ia aimed at K-12, the smart money would be spent on ECFE, pre K, and K-3.
about ECFE:
"According to research, the average child in a welfare home heard about 600 words an hour while a child in a professional home heard 2,100.
Children in professional families are talked to three times as much as the average child in a welfare family," Hart says.
And that adds up. Hart and Risley estimated that by the age of 4, children of professional parents had heard on average 48 million words addressed to them while children in poor welfare families had heard only 13 million." (NPR)
about K-3:
By the first grade, the vocabulary of a disadvantaged student is half that of the advantaged student (2500 words compared to 5000), and over time, that gap widens.
Researchers have noted repeatedly that some children come to school somewhat "wealthier" than their peers when it comes to early reading skills. As time goes by, those students who start out with some literacy advantages tend to thrive and grow academically, while their less fortunate peers tend to get left behind.
Simple assessments such as letter knowledge, phoneme awareness and vocabulary can identify the students who are at greatest risk of developing life-long reading difficulties. The gap that separates the "haves" from the "have nots" is small but detectable in the early grades. Without intervention, that gap widens over time, until, by the 4th grade, it is nearly insurmountable. Research indicates that past the 4th grade, literacy intervention and remediation programs are only successful with about 13% of struggling readers. (Matthew effect- balanced reading.com)
about pre K:
Due to concerns about the effect the achievement gap was having on their potential workforce, Minnesota Early Learning Foundation's private-sector boosters put up $20 million to create a rating system to identify high-quality early-ed programs, steer the families that rely on public child-care subsidies toward them and reward providers that deliver top results.
Evaluations of the program’s initial phases have only confirmed that quality is crucial. Test scores rose and mobility virtually disappeared among children enrolled in St. Paul programs that participated in the pilot phase of “Parent Aware,”
As a result of lobbying by the religious right:
House quietly drops popular plan to launch statewide pre-K rating system
my apologies for my late night laziness and somewhat confusing cut and paste comment.
J, as we've discussed around these parts before, the biggest reason our internatinal counterparts are eating our lunch is we have a ridiculously high level of poverty/disparity of income compared to our peer nations. In the Grade 12 TIMMS test, for instance, the top nations are Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway. It appears that a social safety net--not "effective competition"--buys you pretty good test scores.
I'm not saying at all that we can't and shouldn't improve, because frankly our scores are crap. What I'm saying is that you seem to care way too much about how the poor kids are doing during the 6 hours they're in school and way too little about them the rest of the time.
@Laurie--I'm with you on the KIPP schools. They really intrigue me, but I can't imagine that they're the long-term fix. It seems like trying to address widespread obesity with a univeral boot camp instead of sensible lifestyle changes. You'll get quick results in some cases, but they're not replicatable or sustainable, I fear.
--Annie
I care about the kids when they are in school because that is where we are being asked to pour our money and, having done so for decades, have only the "crap" to show for it. If we want to pour money into poverty instead, in hopes of ridding ourselves of poor parenting and "unluckiness" in their kids, I point out that we have already poured trillions of dollars into THAT, only to have exactly the same problem.
The reason other countries eat our lunch educationally is because of their more homogeneous populations-- i.e. less economic diversity-- and because they have competitive school systems. Sweden and Norway and Belgium are fully voucherized, Switzerland competes among its cantons, the Dutch compete between public, private and religious, all funded by the state. The U.S. has a NON-competitive school system, but our economic diversity is our strength. We're economic wizards and competitive in business but cannot seem to figure out that competition in education would work as well.
OK, so these unlucky kids start out behind and, depending on their particular brand of unlucky, cannot progress as fast as the lucky ones. So tell me, why will you not allow these unlucky kids to choose a school that might work better for them, or force the school they are already in to work better for them? We keep spending money to reduce class size so every kid can get the individual attention they need. Where is it and what good has it done?
I'll repeat myself for those new here. Down in Mississippi we got kids of all degrees of "luck." No public K, so some lucky kids came in with private preschool, others did not. BIG "gap." All the kids were tested and divided into A,B,C and D classes for first grade. These classes were further divided into 1,2,3 and 4 sub-classes based on the testing. The "best" (don't tell me we can't "grade" teachers) teachers got the "D" students, and the (usually new) teacher got the A students. Most of the class time in each class went to the "4" sub-class, while the others worked with less teacher attention. At the end of first grade another test and a reshuffling. BY THIRD GRADE, kids were divided up randomly because the "gap" was mostly gone, leaving only the natural difference between learning abilities. WHY can we not do that hereabouts?
I'll also talk about a public school in Wisconsin, where they take all comers, and where they, too, have a wide diversity of "luckiness." By third grade, I can't tell which ones are lucky and which aren't, except for the obvious special ed types and even they seem to be fitting in pretty well. On top of that, these kids seem to know some things that most of the third graders in our urban schools won't get until 5th or 6th, if at all.
That's my complaint. If we're going to have "a uniform system of public schooling," then lets have it uniform at a high level of achievement for everybody, and not be deciding that our failure to educate everybody is because some kids have poor parents. Yes, if the kid needs an extra (or effective) study hall, or tutoring, I'll help pay for it, but give her a teacher that can at least pass the test she's administering.
When we get to the point where no kid can learn any better in another school or with a different teacher or curriculum or instructional approach, THEN it is time to start looking at the parents and try to improve that part of the equation. MY belief is that if the schools would educate the kids, parents would leave their hopelessness and despair and start helping the education process. What's the point of being involved in your kid's education if they cannot leave the crap school they're forced to attend?
J. Ewing
John,
I would say that the results went BACKWARDS.
Fall (reading) 84 - 59
Winter (reading) 82 - 53
BOTH are worst!!
Fall (math) 80 - 50
Winter (math) 79 - 46
BOTH are worst!!
I agree with the discussion that POOR PERFORMING students should be given a choice of spending more time in school OR spending extra time in the same grade (no social promotion).
We are doing nothing to help students by promoting FAILURE!!!!!
Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a closer look this weekend.
John,
I love your mathematical explanation. It seems spot on (though I don't have time to analyze specific equations, they appear to be about right.)
As a special ed teacher I am supposed to be achieving that accelerated growth with my students, which has been hard (impossible) to achieve in practice. I'd rather being doing early intervention (my dream job) than trying to remediate kids 2 or more years behind grade level.
I also agree with Annie that schools can't do it all. It's s crazy that they are being held more accountable for greater achievement at the same time outside factors such as poverty and decreasing socil supports are having a larger negative impact on education.
"It's s crazy that they are being held more accountable for greater achievement..." -- Laurie
I would like to hear more about that, because I simply haven't seen any news about it, and it WOULD be news. It seems like every year, for at least the last generation, the State spends more and more on K-12 schools-- ALL schools but especially those with the most "unlucky" kids. It seems to me that accountability measures would either reduce funding for failing schools or increase funding for successful schools, or both. AFAIK, we don't even "grade" schools anymore, and the comparative testing is so over-analyzed mathematically that it is difficult to see which schools are failing. I've done the math, and funding is almost irrelevant to performance.
J. Ewing
Apropos of this conversation:
I listened to a fascinating in-depth documentary today on quality teachers. It's an American Radio Works doc that played on Midday on MPR, and before all you conservatives dismiss it out of hand, you should know that a lot of it is about Michelle Rhee's work in DC and an innovative project in Chattanooga, TN where the superintendent fired all the teachers and let the principals hire back only the ones they chose.
It's a great look how vital it is to have talented, engaged, accountable teachers AND, how we get there, how we train them, how we fund it, and what other elements are involved. Load it on your ipod or listen online. It's time well spent.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/04/08/midday2/
--Annie
I hate to even engage in this conversation, but J, your info is just simply wrong. I'm not going to research all your claims, but for the Scandinavian countries, they don't have vouchers--at least, nothing that resembles whatsoever the voucher system you advocate.
At best, Sweden has something similar to our own Minnesota charter schools, and fewer than 10% of all students enroll in them. I'm unaware--nor could I find any supporting documents--that Norway has vouchers at all.
I won't argue with you about clustering students of like ability, because I agree that sometimes it best serves their academic needs (NCLB has encouraged classrooms to teach to the low-average student and woe to all the others). But it won't fix the gap. And I roll my eyes every time you cite Louisiana as a bright shining star of educational achievement--in fact, it bounces around between 45 and 47 out of 50 states. I have no interest in replicating their programs, and if you review the outcomes, neither will you.
--Annie
J,
What I meant by crazy is that under current law, by the 2013-2014 school year, all schools will be failing as NCLB requires that all children will be at the proficient level on state testing. A high number of MN schools are currently under some level of sanctions (Wrights Law.) 34 schools were identified as "turnaround schools and have under gone major restructuring already. Obama school turnaround effort includes 34 Minnesota schools (NPR)
If the law doesn't change there may be a few schools that meet this 100% proficiency expectation, such as the gifted school in my district, but I think they may have rolled those score into the school that houses the program, to help that school try to make AYP.
Apologies, to J, I said Louisiana when you referenced Mississippi.
The logic remains, though; Mississippi is pretty steady at 49th.
--Annie
Yes, overall, Mississippi fares poorly, but the spend the least of any state, having the fewest resources. Remember, too, that this conversation is about the GAP, and on that score, Mississippi shines. Part of that is that all do poorly but when I was there, all did better because of the intentional matching of the best teachers to the students that needed it the most. (BTW, the federal government forced this policy to be abandoned years ago.)
That matches with your other comment, that good teachers are important-- a multiple regression analysis of all education studies reveals it is the MOST important factor (which makes sense)-- and points to the fact that we do not, even in the best schools, manage for that factor. Also curious that you mentioned Louisiana, because years ago the State Assembly there passed a law requiring new, graduating teachers to pass a test in the subject they were to teach. Over half of them failed (I think it was more like 80%, not sure) and the law had to be modified. Perhaps that is one reason these states lag in comparative achievement?
My point is this: closing the achievement gap has to do with quality teaching, with high expectations and effective discipline. We are not doing that in our poorest public schools, and even our best public schools are prohibited from even considering parts of it (e.g. merit pay).
J. Ewing
A few thoughts about teacher quality. I agree with J. (and the NPR program commentators) that the students that need to make the most progress due to outside factors (poverty, lack of school readiness etc) should get the best teachers. And here is one more piece of evidence that smart schools would put them in the primary grades Study: Third Grade Reading Predicts Later High School Graduation The article saays struggling readers are at greater risk for dropping out than kids in poverty.
I think John's equation for at risk students should go more like this 4 + 4(1.25)= 9
(compared to 5 + 4(1)=9 , for school ready, supportive home students).
this translates into narrow the school readiness gap with quality preschool and keep class sizes low and spend more $ for intervention services K-3 to have nearly all kids on level at this time. These students will still need additional resources as they progress through grades 4-12, but not as many and they will be much more successful, perhaps keep meeting grade level standards.
Again, my Mississippi example was intended to show that teacher quality can essentially eliminate the gap by third grade, and by the way, the average class size was 28. I am willing to pay for smaller class sizes in K-2, because it's been proven to work. Head Start has mostly been a failure, so I'm not willing to talk about E-2 funding here.
But we know and agree on what works-- getting good teachers and paying them accordingly-- and yet the "education establishment" doesn't want to talk about doing that. If we could reward good teachers, keep some mediocre ones where they do the least damage (like study halls or library duty), while replacing the bad ones with better, we could probably REDUCE total school spending with vastly better results. We /might/ not even need to voucher every student, though that is still the quickest way to get the unions out of the way.
J.
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