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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Concourse Express on Fri Jul 8 15:07:42 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SelkirkTMO on Fri Jul 8 01:07:55 2011. Electrical Engineering. Concentration in systems engineering (although I had to take quite a few communications courses in order to satisfy the 30-credit requirement; CCNY offers far more communications courses than systems courses). In any case, 'twas worth it; the communication aspect was more relevant, given that I was interning with MTA NYCT's Data Provisioning Dept. at the time. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:29:34 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Fri Jul 8 15:06:59 2011. Here's a summary of average IQ's of different populations in the world as well as evidence for race differences in intelligence.As for the U.S., taking into account the four major racial groups (white, μ=100; black, μ=85; "Hispanic", μ=90; Asian, μ=106) and doing a weighted average of their IQ's, gives an IQ of 94 for the U.S. as a whole. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:32:38 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by The Flxible Neofan on Fri Jul 8 14:45:56 2011. Considering that the average IQ of Jamaica is in the 70s, not at all surprising.It may be the country of my ancestry, but I have no illusions about how things are out there... |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:35:08 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by LuchAAA on Fri Jul 8 14:56:57 2011. Did you see the latest article I've posted in this thread (here)? IQ and racial differences in such is more like the elephant in the room, really. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:37:21 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by The Flxible Neofan on Fri Jul 8 14:54:22 2011. The best way to think of it, and the major problem that we have in today's world when we think about education, is that education doesn't make people smart; it makes them knowledgeable. Big difference, and it's one that's poor appreciated. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Fri Jul 8 15:51:21 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:29:34 2011. "As for the U.S., taking into account the four major racial groups (white, μ=100; black, μ=85; "Hispanic", μ=90; Asian, μ=106) and doing a weighted average of their IQ's, gives an IQ of 94 for the U.S. as a whole. "Ah, so you just made up the number for the U.S. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by The Flxible Neofan on Fri Jul 8 15:53:52 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:32:38 2011. Wait, I meant in regards that they felt the education system in Jamaica was more challenging and of higher caliber than the education system in the U.S.A.**Of course, not everyone gets to make their way to and through high school in that country. They apparently take standardized exams that come from and are graded in England according to my family. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Fri Jul 8 15:55:44 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:29:34 2011. doing a weighted average of their IQ's, gives an IQ of 94 for the U.S. as a whole0.65 x 100 = 65 0.16 x 90 = 14.4 0.13 x 85 = 11.05 0.05 x 106 = 5.3 65 + 14.4 + 11.05 + 5.3 = 95.75 0.65 + 0.16 + 0.13 + 0.05 = 0.99 95.75/0.99 = 96.7 weighted IQ |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by The Flxible Neofan on Fri Jul 8 15:57:13 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:37:21 2011. Ah, I can certainly agree with this post. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Fri Jul 8 16:34:41 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Charles G on Fri Jul 8 06:35:56 2011. While that's true, at least the students will have to hit the books ... osmosis was a form of higher ed in my day. :) |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 00:52:06 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Fri Jul 8 15:51:21 2011. Read my sources and you do the math... |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 03:26:12 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 00:52:06 2011. I read your resources. You take the average of each group, WORLDWIDE, assume it's identical for the U.S., throw in your 'race' percentages (which are rounded off), completely ignore mixed-race people or the fact that these IQ scores are, again, rounded off, and assume that must be the real number. Awful lot of assumptions there, mixed with rounding errors...And even there, you already have conflicting calculations from Easy. Meanwhile, actual test scores of Americans say the number is 98. I think I'm going to go with the actual test scores. So, once again, the tiny difference of two points between Belgians and Americans does NOT explain the large difference in high school education standards. Blaming it on Blacks is simply scapegoating. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 05:09:17 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Fri Jul 8 15:55:44 2011. Yeah, I goofed. That's what happens when I use the Windows calculator instead of my TI-89... |
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Posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 06:11:03 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 03:26:12 2011. You take the average of each group, WORLDWIDE, assume it's identical for the U.S.Within each race, the average IQ is roughly the same, worldwide. Nonetheless, the averages I've used were the American averages. The Black American average (85) and the Hispanic American average (89) is higher than the average of those groups in other places (70 for Africans and 85 for Hispanics in Latin America). And even there, you already have conflicting calculations from Easy. That was a math error on my part. I think I'm going to go with the actual test scores. The score you cite is from Richard Lynn's 2002 book. In his 2008 book The Global Bell Curve, Richard Lynn cites scores for the U.S. populations from one of his papers that was published in 2006. The scores are essentially identical to the ones I cited. So, to calculate. The population percentages are based on the 2010 Census. "White" refers to the non-Hispanic European American population, and as per Lynn I've subtracted 2% from the white percentage for the Jewish population.
The remainder consists of those listing two or more races, who I'll ignore. So we have: 100*.617+89*.163+85*.126+105*.02+92*.02+113*.02+86*.006=93.6 93.6/.972=96.3 So, once again, the tiny difference of two points between Belgians and Americans does NOT explain the large difference in high school education standards. Blaming it on Blacks is simply scapegoating. But country's average in toto is slightly tangential to the difference in standard, because the minority groups are several grade levels behind whites. Any curriculum that has to take into account the 30% of the population that will be 3 years behind the majority is going to be different from a country that doesn't have these large percentages of people of color. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 07:02:26 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 06:11:03 2011. "who I'll ignore"'nuff said. Once again: your calculation has rounding errors in the numbers used to make the calculation, meaning this is amplified in the final result. Using rounded percentages per race, rounded IQ numbers per race, and ignoring almost 3% of the population is a completely useless way to come to a reliable number, especially when what we're arguing about is a two point difference. And you are STILL looking for scapegoats to explain the difference in high school education levels. It's getting rather ridiculous now. BTW, even IF your numbers were reliable, and the 98% was not, that would mean the Belgian number of 100 is too high as well: the number of people from races with higher IQs here is very small, and there are far more from 'darker' races, so our average, using YOUR method, would also be lower than 100. ...meaning we're back to square one: a small difference, not nearly big enough to explain the difference in levels. Take the blinders off, look around, and realise that you can't just explain this by blaming the darkies. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 09:45:21 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 07:02:26 2011. Do you teach English in Belgium? Or did you live in the US or UK? Your English is like that of a native speaker, only better. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 09:52:01 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 05:09:17 2011. Well your bigger error was in choosing the overall population percentages instead of school age percentages which are much higher for minorities. Minorities (mostly black and Hispanic) are now very close to 50% of the kids in school. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 09:52:48 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 09:52:01 2011. Oops. That was my mistake, not yours. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 09:57:11 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 09:45:21 2011. I do indeed teach English, but I've never lived in either the US or UK. But thank you for the compliment! |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sat Jul 9 10:00:31 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 09:45:21 2011. I have to absolutely agree. His English is perfect. If he didn't say he was from another country, you would never know it. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 10:43:57 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 09:57:11 2011. Cool. Here kids usually only study a foreign language in high school and since it's usually only for 2 years we are rarely proficient and forget a few years later. Most have a choice of French, Spanish, or German. When I went to school it was also Latin, but perhaps that's been replaced by Mandarin or Japanese for kids today.How does it work in Belgium? Does most everyone speak at least two languages to begin with and learn a third? |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 11:43:59 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 10:43:57 2011. In Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part), most people (at least the younger generations) speak English and / or French as a second and third language. Flemish people are usually quite a bit more fluent in English than they are in French, though most manage to at least get by in French.French is taught in school starting from the last two years of primary school, English is taught from what you would call middle school. So most high school kids have both French and English. Those interested in foreign languages can also study languages like German and Spanish. At my school, for example, students going for the languages package thus get all 4 foreign languages, or even five for those combining modern languages with Latin. In Wallonia (the French-speaking part of the country) the situation is different: most of them don't speak any Dutch at all, or very little. Their English is usually a bit better, but nowhere near the average level of the Flemish. Less time is spent on language education, and students get to choose whether they want to learn Dutch or English. Most choose English. Hopefully this will change in the future. Many Wallonian school are experimenting with so-called immersion education, where several courses (e.g. history or geography) are taught in Dutch, in an attempt to increase the students' exposure to the language. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 12:02:16 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 11:43:59 2011. Thanks for the info. I honestly know very little about Belgium other than your waffles and Jean-Claude Van Damme. I doubt that I could have found it on a map except that I just looked it up. Is there a rivalry between the French and Flemish speaking regions over language supremacy as there is in Canada with French and English?We also have immersion schools. My nieces attended a Spanish immersion school where about half their day was taught in Spanish. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 12:37:00 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 12:02:16 2011. "Is there a rivalry between the French and Flemish speaking regions over language supremacy as there is in Canada with French and English?"You have no idea. I don't know the Canadian situation in detail, but it's pretty bad over here. Best illustration: we had federal elections in June 2010. Normal procedure then is that it takes a few weeks, at most a month or two, before a coalition is formed, and the new government is sworn in. We are now July 2011. We STILL don't have a new government, and the whole Flanders vs. Wallonia thing is the single most important reason for that. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 12:43:38 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 12:37:00 2011. Woah! 13 months and no new government is insane! |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by AMoreira81 on Sat Jul 9 13:35:39 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Charles G on Fri Jul 8 03:44:40 2011. Perhaps the tests should also be examining critical thinking much more effectively. It is easy to just memorize facts...and harder to think critically. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 14:12:00 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 07:02:26 2011. Once again: your calculation has rounding errors in the numbers used to make the calculation, meaning this is amplified in the final result.Dude, even if the multiracial population had a mean IQ of 200 (which it clearly doesn't—but it may be somewhat higher than average since I suspect that higher-IQ individuals are likelier to identify as multiracial) it's not going to significantly affect the average. But again, that's besides the point. Using rounded percentages per race, rounded IQ numbers per race, and ignoring almost 3% of the population is a completely useless way to come to a reliable number, especially when what we're arguing about is a two point difference. YOU are the one arguing about a two point difference. My contention is that the country's mean IQ with all races combined is not significant to the sophistication of the curriculum. And as Easy point out, people of color make up a much larger share of school age population, further tilting the intellectual abilities of American students overall. One could say that the country's mean IQ is significant to the curriculum, but the mean IQ of the school-aged population. BTW, even IF your numbers were reliable, and the 98% was not, that would mean the Belgian number of 100 is too high as well: the number of people from races with higher IQs here is very small, and there are far more from 'darker' races, so our average, using YOUR method, would also be lower than 100. Were these people included in the samples that the reported score was based on? We'd have to track down Lynn's source to see. In the spirit of full disclosure (since you might not be aware), I myself am a "darky" (a term I haven't heard outside of New Hampshire), being one of those 2.6% that is multiracial (black, white, E. Asian). In any case, I will also add that if what The Flxible Neofan says is correct and education is rigorous on the black island of Jamaica (vs the States), then average IQ of the population is only partly responsible for the rigorousness of the curriculum. More at play are expectations. Changing the difficulty of the curriculum without changing the people only affects the pass/fail rate. In Jamaica, perhaps they accept that the vast majority of students will not graduate high school, whereas in the States, we want everyone to pass (and go on to college, etc...). The only way to do that is to modulate the difficulty of the material. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 14:12:29 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 09:52:01 2011. Very good point... |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 14:17:13 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by AMoreira81 on Sat Jul 9 13:35:39 2011. Doing so will only result in a higher failure rate. While critical thinking is to some degree a set of learnable skills, the capacity to do so depends on one's cognitive ability. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 15:07:20 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 12:43:38 2011. Yup! We broke Iraq's world record on that a while back! |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 15:31:29 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 14:12:00 2011. "My contention is that the country's mean IQ with all races combined is not significant to the sophistication of the curriculum."Um, I'm not the one trying to claim that the reason for the difference in standards is because you have more dark people, and thus a lower average IQ. That's YOU. "...then average IQ of the population is only partly responsible for the rigorousness of the curriculum." Finally, we're getting somewhere. Glad you agree with me. "The only way to do that is to modulate the difficulty of the material." Incorrect. Better teaching can do an awful lot. The American school system is made up in such a way that decent teaching is not encouraged: standards are too low, there is no competition between schools for students (and thus no incentive for schools or teachers to innovate), class groups are way too large (groups of 30 students or more per class is simply too much if you want to do your job well), etc. THAT is the main problem with American high schools, IMHO. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 16:24:01 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 15:31:29 2011. Let us fully split this hair:"My contention is that the country's mean IQ with all races combined is not significant to the sophistication of the curriculum." Um, I'm not the one trying to claim that the reason for the difference in standards is because you have more dark people, and thus a lower average IQ. That's YOU. Yes, but what's relevant is the average of IQ of each race and their proportion in the population. This value loses its meaning to a degree if you combine all the different major groups to take an average because each has a distinct mean, i.e., America's total 96 is very different from, say Portugal's 95. "...then average IQ of the population is only partly responsible for the rigorousness of the curriculum." Finally, we're getting somewhere. Glad you agree with me. Next time, try not quoting me so flagrantly out-of-context. "The only way to do that is to modulate the difficulty of the material." Incorrect. Better teaching can do an awful lot. The American school system is made up in such a way that decent teaching is not encouraged: standards are too low, there is no competition between schools for students (and thus no incentive for schools or teachers to innovate), class groups are way too large (groups of 30 students or more per class is simply too much if you want to do your job well), etc. THAT is the main problem with American high schools, IMHO. Now we get to the crux of the issue, the fundamental error that in your beliefs that underlies your reasoning. Apparently you missed this article: http://www.subchat.com/otchat/read.asp?Id=806178 Indeed, all those things you mentioned have been studied and have found to not be effective in improving student performance. Nor should they, because the secret is, said succinctly, that education cannot make people smarter, it can only make people more knowledgeable. Student performance is directly related to heritable traits, including IQ, which is highly heritable (~80% heritable), and personality traits such as conscientiousness. Adjusting standards up or down has the sole effect of changing the pass/fail rate on any given population. Indeed, as Charlton argues, we could do away with much of the educational apparatus and still have much the same results. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 17:36:13 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 16:24:01 2011. "Let us fully split this hair:"No, let's not. It's a useless discussion, and comes down simply to you trying to calculate your way out of having to acknowledge the real problems. "Apparently you missed this article:" One man's opinion, and I disagree. Being a teacher myself, I personally see how the level of teaching, and the way in which students are guided affects their performance. IQ and personality tells you what their POTENTIAL is, not how they will actually perform. There are too many outside factors that can stop or hinder students from reaching that potential. The way a school and school system deal with that can be VERY important, and greatly influence the student's actual performance. I say this from experience. "education cannot make people smarter, it can only make people more knowledgeable." I don't think anybody has claimed otherwise, though I would like to add 'and skilled' to the end of that statement. And being knowledgeable and skilled are important things. How much knowledge and skills a student has at the end of his or her education determines how high the level of education is. "Adjusting standards up or down has the sole effect of changing the pass/fail rate on any given population" Incorrect. If it is accompanied by thorough changes in the way classes are organised and taught, that does not need to be the case. Pass / fail rates, at least over here, are determined based not on smarts, but on knowledge and skills. The things that are learned in school. "we could do away with much of the educational apparatus and still have much the same results." And yet, we haven't. Anywhere. Could that possibly be because things aren't as simple as you're trying to present them? |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by SMAZ on Sat Jul 9 17:55:14 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 11:43:59 2011. Are your English-language movies and TV shows dubbed or subtitled in Flanders?I remember them being in original language (and subtitled) in the Netherlands. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 9 18:30:24 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sat Jul 9 17:55:14 2011. Have you ever had Nachos Flanders-style? That's cucumbers with cottage cheese. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by SMAZ on Sat Jul 9 18:30:31 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Fri Jul 8 15:29:34 2011. In the last 10 years, as our school population has become even more minority dominated, average test scores have risen.You analysis is off the mark. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by SMAZ on Sat Jul 9 18:55:05 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 9 18:30:24 2011. I got the recipe for this great publication.
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 18:58:19 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sat Jul 9 18:30:31 2011. Source please?If true, remember the Flynn effect. IQ's are also rising... |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 19:01:12 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sat Jul 9 17:55:14 2011. Good question, and another reason (IMO one of the most important) to explain the difference in English skills between Flanders and Wallonia:Flanders subtitles everything (except for some children's cartoons, and even there many are subtitled), Wallonia dubs everything. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Sat Jul 9 19:03:50 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sat Jul 9 18:58:19 2011. They've been rising in Atlanta! ;) |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Sat Jul 9 22:05:01 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 15:31:29 2011. class groups are way too large (groups of 30 students or more per class is simply too much if you want to do your job well)IIRC, the Europeans cheat by paying their teachers (along with their other civil servants like train operators and firemen) less than their American counterparts. So the Europeans can get away with smaller class sizes because they spend less on salaries and benefits when compared to the well-funded districts here in the US. Plus, I suspect that the Europeans get higher quality teachers given the bias against female career work in certain countries. Is Belgian schooling all day from say 7AM to 3PM or is it basically a half day programme where the children go home around noon or so? |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by SMAZ on Sat Jul 9 22:56:15 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Sat Jul 9 22:05:01 2011. European teachers work less hours.It works out the same. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 00:20:50 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sat Jul 9 17:36:13 2011. As a teacher, I don't expect you to warm up to this right away, since after all I am saying you play a significantly smaller role in the development of your students than you probably think you do. I will note that I have nothing against educators. Indeed, my girlfriend just got her Ph. D. in education. But our preconceived notions have no effect on the facts, which are true regardless what we want to believe. Indeed, as conveyors of knowledge and skills, teachers are phenomenally important, even if they aren't creating some sort of gift in their students' minds; they are merely feeding it."education cannot make people smarter, it can only make people more knowledgeable." I don't think anybody has claimed otherwise, Yet that's exactly what you're saying. You're saying the way education is structured can improve or degrade the performance of students en masse. While this is technically true, this is true only because course work can be made easier or harder. The less conceptually challenging and less laborious the work is (not to mention the less lifestyle concessions it demands), the better students do. You can't change how much students actually learn (beyond their optimal pace, anyway) and certainly not what they can understand. That said, I will note that some studies have noted tiny effects of intervention on school performance, so I'm not completely discounting small variances one way or the other in terms of student performance that is affected by teachers. No doubt some of that is a factor in the non-genetic component of performance. But let us not fool ourselves into thinking we can lift any classroom of students far beyond their grade level relative to their peers (without compromising the material). How much knowledge and skills a student has at the end of his or her education determines how high the level of education is. And that is determined by the person's IQ, determination, and chance. Mostly by IQ. Being a teacher myself, I personally see how the level of teaching, and the way in which students are guided affects their performance. IQ and personality tells you what their POTENTIAL is, not how they will actually perform. What you're probably seeing is the effect of IQ and the struggle schools ask student to make at play. School demands a certain level of effort and commitment (i.e., it is a test of conscientiousness and other personality traits). People vary in their ability to submit to such demands. The external difficulties one experiences (which, itself, is related to IQ) affect people accordingly; more conscientious (and less neurotic) individuals are better able to overcome such things. Chance affects the size and severity of such hurdles, and to the extent that the educational apparatus affects such things, we see the results on individual students. To illustrate the effect of cognitive ability, some people can understand a concept easily and without much effort. Some people can understand a concept if they put in enough effort. Others will never understand a concept no matter how hard they work at it. It is IQ that distinguishes these types of people. You have no doubt encountered all these types of students, and have been with them as this process played out (technically every day in class). "Adjusting standards up or down has the sole effect of changing the pass/fail rate on any given population" Incorrect. If it is accompanied by thorough changes in the way classes are organised and taught, that does not need to be the case. Pass / fail rates, at least over here, are determined based not on smarts, but on knowledge and skills. The things that are learned in school. But knowledge and skills are determined in large part by smarts. That's the key point you're missing. Any measure of academic performance is affected by IQ. Indeed, IQ is to education very much like evolution is to biology; nothing makes sense without it. "we could do away with much of the educational apparatus and still have much the same results." And yet, we haven't. Anywhere. Could that possibly be because things aren't as simple as you're trying to present them? We could curb global warming by not emitting so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, yet we haven't. In both cases, as Charlton suggests, there are rather large vested interests in preventing that from happening. But the case for IQ and its role in academic, and life performance is far more solid, being abundantly demonstrated by the evidence. I can see how this is resisted; I mean, we are saying that the evidence shows that we could replace most schooling with IQ tests, content-only focused courses, and perhaps work-study operations to serve as demonstration of work ethic, and achieve the results the Ivy Leagues do in terms of selection of quality candidates. A tough pill to accept to be sure; the only real challenge being how to devise a test of work-ethic that is representative of the demands asked of people in the working world, but considering that school and its many often unnecessary tasks serve as just that, this would probably not be too difficult. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 00:23:04 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Sat Jul 9 22:05:01 2011. >>>class groups are way too large (groups of 30 students or more per class is simply too much if you want to do your job well)IIRC, the Europeans cheat by paying their teachers (along with their other civil servants like train operators and firemen) less than their American counterparts. So the Europeans can get away with smaller class sizes because they spend less on salaries and benefits when compared to the well-funded districts here in the US. This is actually irrelevant; class size doesn't affect student performance. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Easy on Sun Jul 10 00:26:34 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 00:20:50 2011. We could curb global warming by not emitting so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,False. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 05:13:41 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 00:20:50 2011. "You're saying the way education is structured can improve or degrade the performance of students en masse."Yes. PERFORMANCE, not INTELLIGENCE. Major difference. Intelligence is basically what you're capable of doing. Performance what you actually do with that intelligence. "You can't change how much students actually learn (beyond their optimal pace, anyway) and certainly not what they can understand." Beyond their optimal pace, anyway. Important words. The US system often means they don't reach that optimal pace. And no, you can't change how much they CAN understand, but you most certainly can change how much they DO understand. "And that is determined by the person's IQ, determination, and chance. Mostly by IQ." While those are most certainly big factors, you're ignoring the outside influence. Personal problems like the parents going through a nasty divorce, puberty, etc, can have, and very often does have, a MAJOR impact on students' performance in school, and that is where teachers and schools come in, and where they can, and DO, make a major difference. "But knowledge and skills are determined in large part by smarts. That's the key point you're missing" I've never denied that. But you're making it seem like that's the ONLY part. It isn't. For example: a school system, like the American one often is, that is not challenging enough for students with a high IQ, works as a major demotivator, and they often start underperforming. Which is why it is so important to have a system that is geared towards each individual's potential. Those with the high IQs take lots of theoretical courses, like sciences and languages, while others take more practical courses. A good system is one that seeks to bring out the potential in each individual student. I don't see enough of that in the US system. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 05:25:39 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Sat Jul 9 22:05:01 2011. "IIRC, the Europeans cheat by paying their teachers (along with their other civil servants like train operators and firemen) less than their American counterparts. So the Europeans can get away with smaller class sizes because they spend less on salaries and benefits when compared to the well-funded districts here in the US."First: there no such thing as 'European education'. Every country is different. Second, for my country, the major difference lies in priorities: U.S. high schools seem to spend way more money on infrastructure than Belgian high schools, while Belgian high schools spend more on teachers, allowing smaller groups. "Is Belgian schooling all day from say 7AM to 3PM or is it basically a half day programme where the children go home around noon or so?" Normal Belgian schooldays start at 8.30AM and finish at either 3.30PM or 4.20PM. On Wednesday, school finishes at noon. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 05:53:46 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 00:23:04 2011. Oh for crying out loud... |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Sun Jul 10 06:38:10 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 05:25:39 2011. there no such thing as 'European educationIt's easier to generalize like that, but even I must admit that schooling does vary at the national level in Europe, more so than at the state level in the United States. Although, how many teachers in Belgium (or in Europe) can earn near $90000 (or 63000 EUR or so) after say a decade or so of teaching? From what I've read, in general, Europe seems to spend less in general on education, and from what I remember, teachers in France make less on average when compared to some of their counterparts in the US, especially in high cost of living areas like New York. Although, I wonder if issues like health insurance and pension benefits are non-issues for Belgian schools when compared to their American counterparts. U.S. high schools seem to spend way more money on infrastructure than Belgian high schools I think you'll have to explain this in depth given that many in the United States believe that some of our schools, especially in urban and certain rural and older suburban areas are in poor shape and need replacement or rehabilitation. Regardless, do you mean that we simply spend more money on a school building, or do we spend more money on labs and computing equipment, and are our schools "gold-plated" by Belgian standards? Normal Belgian schooldays start at 8.30AM and finish at either 3.30PM or 4.20PM. On Wednesday, school finishes at noon. That isn't too dissimilar from American schooling except for the half-day sessions on Wednesday, and the fact that American high schools tend to start earlier for some strange reason. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 08:26:50 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 05:53:46 2011. Exactly. |
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