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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 09:10:56 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Sun Jul 10 06:38:10 2011. "Although, I wonder if issues like health insurance and pension benefits are non-issues for Belgian schools when compared to their American counterparts."They are indeed. From the numbers you give it seems teachers in the US probably do make more than over here. "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." That depends on your definition of 'poor shape'. I remember visiting an American high school back in 1996 when I was in my senior year, and the principal apologising for the state of the school buildings, adding that they were going to be replaced with a new campus. We thought she was joking, as the infrastructure was better than what an average Belgian school had. You won't find things like olympic sized swimming pools, fully equipped gyms, etc. at Belgian high schools, and many buildings are from the 1950s or 1960s. |
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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 09:13:10 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 09:10:56 2011. They are indeed. From the numbers you give it seems teachers in the US probably do make more than over here.And they still complain. That's why some governors like Christie in New Jersey are taking on the powerful teacher's unions. They claim, "Oh it's for the kids". No it's not, it's for their wallets. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by RockParkMan on Sun Jul 10 09:14:57 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 09:10:56 2011. My high school in Upstate NY was built in 1945 with additions in 1964 and 2005. It is as fine a school as can be found ANYWHERE. |
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Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta |
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Posted by RockParkMan on Sun Jul 10 09:36:14 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 09:13:10 2011. And I hope the American people wake up to the Nazi bullshit. Nazis don't want to pay taxes but their mouth is always open demanding this or that from Government (Iraq war) Their faces should be smashed by IRS boots. Unions are fighting to keep America's living standard up, Despicable Nazis like you want to drag the nation down. Incompetent BO's problem is he wants to unite with the Nazis, not FIGHT to DESTROY the Nazis. |
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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 11:00:33 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. http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2010/05/19/latest-study-reducing-class-size-doesnt-benefit-student-achievement/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/education/22class.html. Older research that has shown a positive effect of smaller class size have observational rather than experimental; they have noted that school districts that have smaller classes have better performing students. Like so many things in education, this is technically true, but it fails to control for confounding variables, most importantly, IQ. In the States, districts that have smaller classes have been the wealthier ones that could afford to hire more teachers per student. But affluent districts have a higher-IQ population, and hence higher-IQ students. But when you change the class size in the same district but don't change the students, as has been done in minority districts in an attempt to boost their performance, you don't see much effect. |
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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 11:41:38 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 05:13:41 2011. Here's the next secret: while black and brown students are often already performing to the best of their ability in America, as you noted, there may be some leeway with the white students vis a vis Europe. But here's the trick: even if you cram a few more semesters of work into American students, you won't significant change their life outcomes (because, really, that's what we're interested in) since that is mostly affect by IQ, g in particular, and that is highly heritable.But then, the results of the PISA tests argue against the notion of how bad American students are doing vs Europe and even East Asia:  (clickable)American students outrank students of the same respective races in almost all other countries, including Belgium (but maybe your 8% non-European population is bringing down your total). (Cheating is not likely a factor in U.S. scores since the PISA is not a high-stakes test.) The fundamental crux of the argument is two things, whether American students are living up their full potential, which is highly debatable considering the evidence, and whether that matters—whether bringing (white) American students up another grade so they can be more like their European counterparts will make them better employees, get them better jobs, make them more competent people in society. I'm not going to deny there is all sort of things that can affect school performance one way or the other, such as the externalities you mentioned (which are indeed also partially heritable). Much of this falls under the "chance" umbrella I discussed (say an illness or accident that prevents you from doing well one semester and blows your chances at that elite college). Two studies—experiments—come to mind that shows that changing student attitudes can have modest effects on their performance. I would argue that this does so by encouraging them to work a bit harder and tough it out a bit longer, as indeed the personality traits that affect this are only partially heritable and are subject to environmental manipulation to a degree. Perhaps it is worthwhile to try to achieve such small gains for everyone. Perhaps it isn't. In America anyway, we already spending massive amounts money to try to boost student performance anyway (make no mistake, this is black and brown students), so what would it hurt to try something that actually had a chance of working. But Charlton argues that we could radically revamp the education system and make it far more efficient and arguably much less expensive. I can't say that I am fully on board with what he's advocating (yet), but I can't deny the logic of his argument. As it stands now, education is very much a long drawn out obstacle course designed to weed out the unintelligent and the lazy, and it's often not recognized as such. But then, we can do the same thing with shorter simpler tests (especially the intelligent part). Ergo, we could replace the Ivy League degree with an IQ and work ethic test. He's advocating that we instead focus education on content delivery and specialize earlier on, and in so doing we could accomplish the goal you're trying to accomplish and graduate some more doctors, lawyers and engineers earlier, instead of wasting their time with repetitive demonstrations of their intelligence throughout their educational career. |
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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 11:46:37 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 11:00:33 2011. "But when you change the class size in the same district but don't change the students, as has been done in minority districts in an attempt to boost their performance, you don't see much effect."Not if you don't change the way teachers teach, or teachers don't take advantage of the opportunities smaller groups present (often because they don't know them). And that's exactly what appears to have happened here. Reducing the size of classes (and I don't mean going from 25 to 23 students, I mean going from 25 to 15) isn't the magical solution in itself, it's just an 'enabler'. It opens up a whole lot of opportunities for new, much more intensive teaching methods. If you simply reduce class size, most teachers will simply do the same thing, teach in the same way, to a smaller group. Of course there's not going to be much result! If teachers don't know these more intensive methods (because they're simply not trained for them) they're not going to use them, and thus it'd be money thrown away. |
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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 11:49:41 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 09:10:56 2011. That depends on your definition of 'poor shape'. I remember visiting an American high school back in 1996 when I was in my senior year, and the principal apologising for the state of the school buildings, adding that they were going to be replaced with a new campus. We thought she was joking, as the infrastructure was better than what an average Belgian school had. You won't find things like olympic sized swimming pools, fully equipped gyms, etc. at Belgian high schools, and many buildings are from the 1950s or 1960s.You can't take the experience you had at one high school, in who knows where, and try and say that is the American School experience. Condition of buildings vary GREATLY from locality to locality, there is no set "mold", and there are more than the fair share of old decrepit school buildings too. |
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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 11:58:12 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 11:41:38 2011. You need to consider other factors aside from IQ. There are significant differences in many of the countries on this list regarding what percentages of their total number of 15 year olds would participate in this test. For example schooling at that age isn't mandatory in some of the countries on this list so their numbers skew high as the under performing have left school. Mexico for example only requires that students attend school until the 6th grade. You can't extrapolate these numbers into a meaningful comparison without accounting for such major differences among the participants. |
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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 12:01:00 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 11:49:41 2011. It varies, but many suburban US high schools are as he's describing. High schools in Orange County, CA all have swimming pools, football fields, baseball fields, tracks, weight rooms, etc. |
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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 12:03:02 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sun Jul 10 12:01:00 2011. Again, it varies GREATLY by area. Even in the "same" area, it varies. For example, we have decrepit junky buildings without all those amenities on Long Island, and there are a few districts that do. |
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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 12:08:46 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 11:49:41 2011. "You can't take the experience you had at one high school, in who knows where, and try and say that is the American School experience."I'm not. I was citing an EXAMPLE. |
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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 12:13:27 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 11:41:38 2011. "while black and brown students are often already performing to the best of their ability in America, as you noted"I what now? I never made any such claim. Please don't put words in my mouth. |
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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 12:14:31 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:03:02 2011. Did I not just state that schools vary? |
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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 12:15:05 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 11:41:38 2011. "American students outrank students of the same respective races in almost all other countries,"You're ignoring the fact that this PISA test tests 15 year-olds, so students at the BEGINNING of high school. It basically tests primary and middle school education, not high school education, which is what we're discussing here. |
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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 12:18:52 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sun Jul 10 12:14:31 2011. Yes, but then you went on to say how many Suburban areas have these great school buildings. But the truth is for every great one, there's a junky one. |
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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 12:19:50 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 12:08:46 2011. Understood, but you said elsewhere that you think that "American schools focus more on infrastructure", and you based that statement on that one sample. |
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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 Sun Jul 10 12:19:51 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sun Jul 10 11:58:12 2011. Excellent post. |
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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 12:20:46 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 12:13:27 2011. Don't feed it, he's going to try and say that Blacks just don't have the ability to do better. |
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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 Sun Jul 10 12:24:34 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:19:50 2011. Generally speaking it's true.Having been in many Euro countries, the majority of their high schools tend to look like our middle schools. Even when new, they don't have all our bells and whistles. Every kid I've spoken to there is always impressed by our HS infrastructure when watching American movies and TV shows. They spend money on teachers. We spend them on HS football stadiums. |
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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 12:29:45 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sun Jul 10 12:24:34 2011. Every kid I've spoken to there is always impressed by our HS infrastructure when watching American movies and TV shows.LOL, yeah, and we all know that Hollywood doesn't add any "magic" to anything it films....it's all 100% as it is. Note: I am also "impressed" when I see our "HS infrastructure when watching American Movies and TV shows". Too bad that's about as accurate as when they set up Downtown LA to look like NYC....I didn't know NYC has Palm Trees....I'm impressed. |
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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 12:34:01 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:18:52 2011. That's not "the truth". That's your generalization based on one small area in one small area of the country. I'm not making sweeping generalizations as you are, so there's no need to correct me. I only said that some suburban high schools do indeed have more infrastructure. Even where I went to high school now has a pool. Those are much more common than they were two generations ago and they are a priority for some parents and educators. |
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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 12:42:41 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:19:50 2011. No, I cited it as AN example. Fact is the US spends considerably more money per child on secondary education than Belgium does. While teachers make more money is the US, that is negated by the considerably lower number of teachers per student in the U.S.So where does all that extra money go then? Infrastructure is one of the things it goes to. |
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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 12:48:18 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sun Jul 10 11:58:12 2011. That was noted in the source article of the image....I'm not using the PISA test as the definitive measure of national IQ in all the nations listed (though, indeed, it is about as good as an IQ test as is the WISC). Rather here I'm mostly interested in comparison of American whites with Europeans, whether it be due to education or IQ, American whites fare very well compared to their European counterparts, contrary to Scorpio's claims. |
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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 12:48:43 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 12:42:41 2011. And it could be that we have a much larger bureaucracy. Los Angeles Unified has 45k teachers and 38k other employees. And since LAUSD has only 700k students, I suspect that many of the 45k teachers are part-time and substitute meaning that we have as many non-teachers employed as teachers. |
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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 12:49:57 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 12:42:41 2011. If only.The money goes to endless bureaucracy of superintendents, administrators, retired teachers pensions, and so forth. There are teachers that retire and get the same money they were getting when they were working. The unions destroyed our school districts. |
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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 12:51:02 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 12:13:27 2011. Reread what I typed, or at least quote in context:Here's the next secret: while black and brown students are often already performing to the best of their ability in America, as you noted, there may be some leeway with the white students vis a vis Europe. That's what "as you noted" refers to. |
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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 Sun Jul 10 12:55:03 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:29:45 2011. I mentioned Hollywood shows because while not all our schools look like that, many in fact too.In most European countries, NONE look like that. |
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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 12:56:06 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:20:46 2011. They don't....Indeed, Blacks already do quite well considering their IQ. Blacks are more likely to obtain highly educated positions than are Hispanics, who have 5 IQ on Blacks... |
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Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:58:08 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sun Jul 10 12:48:43 2011. Exactly. The bureaucratic waste is astounding in the education systems. |
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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 12:58:18 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 12:56:06 2011. IQ is only part of the puzzle for being successful. |
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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 13:01:49 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sun Jul 10 12:55:03 2011. Of course there are schools that do, but many more do not. To derive an image about what "our schools look like" from Hollywood TV and movies is far from an accurate description of anything, much less the average school. |
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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 Sun Jul 10 13:15:44 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:58:08 2011. It's because of small independent districts.Every small town of 3000 people has its own bureaucracy. In most European countries, things are much more consolidated with the bureaucracy being limited to a higher governmental level than in the US. |
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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 13:17:23 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sun Jul 10 13:15:44 2011. Agreed. But that's also where "all this extra money" Scorpio was talking about goes. |
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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 Sun Jul 10 13:17:24 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 12:49:57 2011. Stop looking for scapegoats.Other countries teachers are just as heavily unionized. The best districts in America are also heavily unionized. Unions have no bearing on the quality of education. |
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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 13:26:31 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sun Jul 10 13:17:24 2011. I didn't say anything in reference to the quality of the education. Scorpio claimed that"the US spends considerably more money per child on secondary education than Belgium does. While teachers make more money is the US, that is negated by the considerably lower number of teachers per student in the U.S. Well, it doesn't go to "infrastructure", most of it winds up in our bloated system bureaucracy and superintendents, and teachers pensions for teachers that make the same thing they were making when they were teaching. |
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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 13:27:02 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sun Jul 10 12:48:43 2011. 38k other employees??? Damn! That IS staggering. And I thought our bureaucracy was bad!For comparison's sake: for Flanders, secondary education, the numbers are 62,500 teachers, 7,800 other employees, for 450,000 students. Though the teacher numbers do include principals and teachers in so-called 'pre-retirenment', so the number of active teachers is probably closer to 50,000. Still, that shows more than anything that the problem in the US seems to lie with priorities. |
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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 13:29:30 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 12:51:02 2011. "That's what "as you noted" refers to. "Doesn't matter, as that still comes down to the exact same thing: claiming I said there's still some leeway with white students implies I said there ISN'T any with others. And I did NOT say that at any point. |
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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 Sun Jul 10 13:30:29 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 13:17:23 2011. We spend a lot of money on extra-curricular stuff.Our schools are more than just schools. They are community centers. They are places of sports, theater and other such things. We also have higher mandatory school ages and therefore more students per capita. |
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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 Sun Jul 10 13:31:54 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 13:26:31 2011. Well, it doesn't go to "infrastructure", most of it winds up in our bloated system bureaucracy and superintendents,Which has nothing to do with unions. |
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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 13:38:13 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 13:27:02 2011. Unfortunately his example of Los Angeles is not atypical for many other districts. The amount of bureaucracy in the school systems is really staggering. |
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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 13:40:55 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sun Jul 10 13:31:54 2011. Sure it does, the bloated bureaucracy, superintendents, and (what you conveniently left off) teachers pensions, etc has EVERYTHING to do with the unions. |
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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 Sun Jul 10 13:46:23 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jul 10 13:40:55 2011. yeah, retired European teachers eat cat food when they retire (roll eyes).The waste is that with zoned schools for the tiniest of districts, every school has to recreate the same thing regardless of efficiency instead of consolidating certain courses and functions with other schools. |
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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 13:52:48 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sun Jul 10 13:46:23 2011. yeah, retired European teachers eat cat food when they retire (roll eyes).There you go, exaggerating nonsense. They also should be retired and making the same or better than when they were actually working, all at taxpayer expense, bleeding the system out. It's not sustainable. The waste is that with zoned schools for the tiniest of districts, every school has to recreate the same thing regardless of efficiency instead of consolidating certain courses and functions with other schools. Yes, that is correct. |
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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 13:53:24 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by SMAZ on Sun Jul 10 13:46:23 2011. yeah, retired European teachers eat cat food when they retire (roll eyes).There you go, exaggerating nonsense. They also shouldn't be retired and making the same or better than when they were actually working, all at taxpayer expense, bleeding the system out. It's not sustainable. The waste is that with zoned schools for the tiniest of districts, every school has to recreate the same thing regardless of efficiency instead of consolidating certain courses and functions with other schools. Yes, that is correct. |
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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 14:01:04 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Easy on Sun Jul 10 12:58:18 2011. I never claimed otherwise... |
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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 14:34:48 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Sun Jul 10 14:01:04 2011. Keep reminding yourself of that. |
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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 Tue Jul 12 23:39:40 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 11:46:37 2011. If these methods produce better results do work (which is far from clear at this point), they would only do so by increasing student motivation, since what students can learn and how quickly is limited by their intellect. Of course, the effects, if any are bound to be small for the majority of the student population (a minority of children with special needs however likely benefit greatly from individualized attention). And of course, this will certainly narrow the achievement gap between Whites and people of color, which, in America anyway, is the primary preoccupation of educational policy. |
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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 Tue Jul 12 23:44:44 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by Scorpio7 on Sun Jul 10 12:15:05 2011. Testing 15 year-olds is useful because it's less likely to be biased upward by attrition that usually occurs in high school.In any case, a test like the PISA (and the NAEP here in the states) is essentially an IQ test much like the WISC. |
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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 Wed Jul 13 02:49:37 2011, in response to Re: ARTICLE: America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta, posted by JayMan on Thu Jul 7 19:25:50 2011. As promised, my response to this article and your hypothesis (that overemphasis on standardized tests does not undercut students' ability to think, given that such is mostly dictated by IQ and personality):Clearly, there are points in Mr. Charlton's article that I concur with - namely, that education cannot modulate IQ to any significant degree and that the strength of curricula (i.e. subject matter) is more significant than its structure. However, there are some points I take issue with, which I will now explain. When full account has been taken of IQ and personality (and the measured effects of IQ and personality have been increased to take account of the inevitable imprecision of IQ measurements and the even greater difficulties of determining personality), and when the presumed effects of chance have also been subtracted – then there is not much variation of outcomes left-over within which educational differences could have an effect. Of course there will be some systemic effect of educational differences, but the effect is likely to be very much smaller than generally assumed, and even the direction of the education effect may be hard to detect when other more powerful factors are operative [1]. Certainly IQ and personality are significant factors in determining one's aptitude; however, the effect of educational differences is not as insignificant as Mr. Charlton implies. Consider, for instance, a study conducted by Carrell and West concerning the influence of professors on student achievement at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Their findings show that professor education and experience (i.e. highest degree earned and years teaching) are negatively correlated with student performance in prerequisite courses (r = -0.69), but positively correlated with student performance in subsequent courses dependent on that prerequisite (r = 0.70). What this means is that students who took prereq. courses under professors with lower levels of education and experience performed much better in the prereq. courses than those taking the same prereqs. with more experienced professors (who are much more likely to develop a curriculum that stimulates deep learning). Consequently, students who took follow-up courses did worse when the prereqs. were taught by lower-experienced profs. than those who took the prereqs. with higher-experienced profs; the exception to this was when both prereq and follow-up courses were taught by the same prof - this yielded high student achievement gains. In the case of the lower-experienced profs, the article I cited suggests that such are more likely to stick to "regimented" curricula and teach to the test, resulting in a higher likelihood of success early-on but a far lower likelihood of retaining the knowledge needed to succeed in follow-up courses. This study was also cited in another article which analyzed data from a longitudinal study conducted in 1988 (yes, the data are that old; Payne acknowledges this in the article's conclusion). The analysis also found negative correlation between a teacher's experience and test scores, supporting some of Carrell and West's remarks - namely, that test-based curricula improve near-term results but impart little lasting knowledge. Now, let us consider another point raised in Charlton's article: ...a person’s level of ability to think abstractly and systematically is mostly a biological given – and not a consequence of formal education. The implication is that formal education should not be focusing on trying to do what it cannot do – i.e. enhance IQ. Instead, formal education should focus on educational goals where is can make a difference: i.e. the teaching of specific knowledge [1]. I agree with this premise - and that's why teaching to the test IS a problem. In addition to the points I highlighted in the article in my OP (namely, that schools are subject to being "split" or closed and teachers fired if test scores are not "up to par"), there is also the problem of misdirected education "reforms" such as NCLB and Race to the Top - both of which emphasize standardized test scores. A consequence of the focus on standardized testing is a bastardizing of curricula (namely, sacrificing subject content for elements specifically designed to improve standardized test scores); this, along with the evidence suggesting that students studying under test-based curricula do worse long-term, show that such curricula impede the imparting of "specific knowledge." Concerning some of Charlton's points on replacing current standardized testing with psychometric testing and reducing the time-frame of formal education: the evidence I provided supports his point somewhat; Payne's analysis shows a negative correlation between length of school days and performance in private schools (r = -0.222), which is counter to another reform idea floated by some gov't officials - that more schooling (in the form of longer days and/or more school days per year) = more results. Incidentally, the evidence also suggests significant correlation between socioeconomic status (SES) and academic performance; in terms of teacher effects, they were more pronounced among students of low SES than those of high SES. Payne's article also acknowledged the role of genetics in a student's intellect, with no correlation found between intellect in low-SES students and performance and 60% correlation between intellect in high-SES students and performance; more details are found in Section II of his article. On the point of Conscientiousness: if "tasks that require a great deal of toil and effort" are significant indicators of conscientiousness, then I surmise that work in the form of challenging HW and projects will be a greater barometer of such than testing. (Note, however, that I do not advocate eliminating all testing - just that curricula shouldn't be centered around them.) As far as having certain students do grinding work in an employment sense to measure conscientiousness, isn't this already done in some capacity in terms of schools that allow one to intern with an organization for credit? Also, what if these "dull and demanding but necessary jobs" are outside of one's degree of study? Given that employers are increasingly requiring bachelor's (and higher!) degrees and multiple years experience for jobs that arguably consist of "dull and demanding but necessary work," how does one enact the proposed reforms Charlton suggests without first reforming employer criteria for such work? ********************************************************************** As an aside, while on the subject of IQ tests, what do you make of GIGI? I just might take this thing some day... |
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