And yet I disagree with his conclusion that school reform not only has failed, but must fail. (Have I mentioned I Am A Real American?)

That's the $60,000 question, but just in terms of my own life, this book, along with The Learning Gap by Harold Stevenson and James Stigler clear things up for me.

Carolyn and I were talking about the Russian constructivists a couple of nights ago—the Russian constructivists & de Saussure. De Saussure said 'meaning comes from difference'; the Russian constructivists believed that art was 'the familiar made strange.'

Both of those slogans are true for me, and these two books, for me, defamiliarize American schools just enough so that I feel, for the first time, that I see our situation with some clarity.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone else thinks.

update

Back to main page.

Comments

" ... Taking issue with school reform, Steinberg offers a different perspective where remedy will be found not in schools but in students' lives outside of school and in changed social and parental attitudes. "

This is the good 'ol change this one thing and everything will be fine approach. Another one you hear is smaller class size . How about the one that says that all you need are better teachers. Of course, there is the favorite: "If only we had more money."

How about all of this and more? How about not using outside excuses to avoid dealing with things you do have control over? Look at the NAEP tests and results. How bad must students and parents be (external forces) to not know how many fourths in a whole in fourth grade? Even if kids have horrible home lives, you can get something done in schools.

From one of the Amazon commentors:

"...Our problems with public education do not begin in the schools, the consumer culture of America teachees children how to think and the results are manifest in the schools. His research supports what I see every day in the classroom. I don't buy what conservative policticians say, because they are not on the front lines like I am. They never include teachers in Ed Reform because they see us as part of the problem. We can help make schools better, but only when parents and children care about it enough. Steinberg hits the nail on the head."

In other words, it not their fault; it's not about the curriculum; it's not about union rules; it's not about low expectations; it's not about spiraling and social promotion; it's not about full-inclusion; it's not about fuzzy, top-down, real world, thematic learning; it's not about "Anything But Knowledge". It's not their fault!

I have not read the book. It may do a fine job explaining the major external factors that influence whether a child will take advantage of whatever opportunities are available at schools. I just (a priori) dislike the quick rationalization (by this commentator) that nothing can be done until something external changes. The book may not say this, but this is what I often hear from educators. "If only..."

Of course, they (in K-8) do not separate those who can and will from those who can't or won't. They don't set high expectations. They don't hold kids back. They use the can'ts and won'ts as excuses for bad teachers and bad curricula. In our town, most parents (and kids) care about education, although they might not have a firm idea about what that should be. They leave it up to the school. The schools set low expectations and use poor curricula. Twenty-five percent of the kids in our town go to other schools which set higher expectations. Many of their parents grew up in public schools.

There have always been parents and kids who do not care. External forces do make a difference. So what!

External factors play a big role (including parental and tutoring help, by the way), but these factors do not prevent schools from setting higher standards and separating those who can and will from those who can't or won't.

-- SteveH - 05 Nov 2005

It sounds as though the KIPP academy (for one example that came immediately to mind) is a counterexample.

-- CarolynJohnston - 05 Nov 2005

As are the DI schools in the Baltimore Curriculum Project.

Check out these movies, especially the one on behavior management.

-- KDeRosa - 05 Nov 2005

And look what else I found:

Following are negative and positive examples of technically proficient curriculum development. Unfortunately, the negative example (under the aegis of progressive, child-centered, constructivist education) has been dominant for a long time.

...

VI. Planners use unvalidated assessment methods and instruments, generally qualitative (teacher notes and portfolios of students' "products"), to make a case that the curriculum is working well enough with enough students. Administrators explain student failure as an example of the effects of poverty or lack of family involvement or insufficient funds for materials.

from: Technical Proficiency, Direct Instruction, and Education Excellence

-- KDeRosa - 05 Nov 2005

I have not read the book. It may do a fine job explaining the major external factors that influence whether a child will take advantage of whatever opportunities are available at schools. I just (a priori) dislike the quick rationalization (by this commentator) that nothing can be done until something external changes.

Steve you still have young kids, right?

Steinberg's book—which you should definitely read!—is about teenagers.

Teens are a completely different situation. We think we know how different it is dealing with teens....but we don't.

I'm pretty much shocked every day, and Christopher is only 11.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

So what!

The 'so what' is, in part, that parents & communities are ambivalent about high standards. We've had student walk-outs in Scarsdale over state tests; we have constant parent revolts over homework; teachers everywhere will tell you parents put sports & lessons above homework.

Schools aren't independent operators.

I don't know if you read Ed's experience creating the CA social studies-history frameworks.

They created a demanding, rigorous test that was shot down by an alliance of conservative Christians with black &, I believe, Hispanic activists. That's not an alliance you see often, and an effort to increase school rigor provoked it.

Same thing with the Regents exam.

The Regents used to be a rigorous test taken by only some NY state students.

Then a law was passed saying that everyone had to have a Regents diploma.

One or two years later, sure enough, everyone was passing the Regents.

Parents will not stand for having their kids flunked & held back. Period.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

In any case, that's not the subject of Steinberg's book.

His subject is culture, and he shows, definitively I'd say, that peers are far more powerful than parents when children reach adolescence.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

I hope you'll all read the book, because, as I say, I disagree with his conclusion, which is that school reform must fail—and I'd love to have a discussion of his findings with everyone here.

My own preliminary thoughts, in a nutshell, are these:

a) he's right about peer culture in adolescence (I think this is a huge part of the explanation for why homeschooled kids do so much better than kids in any kind of school, public or private

b) BUT that doesn't mean that 'school reform' can't work

c) if you look at schools that have been successful with disadvantaged kids, what do you see? You see schools that have created and imposed a rigid, uniform different culture on the kids. KIPP kids wear uniforms, have special slants & sayings & slogans, special KIPP rituals, and on and on and on. The place is practically a cult. Same thing with Catholic schools, which have long been known to do a good job teaching underprivileged black & Hispanic kids. A Catholic school isn't just a school; it's a culture—an imposed culture.

Now here's my question.

What does this mean in terms of your average white kid?

There are lots of questions here.

Politically speaking, would it be possible to create public schools that impose a culture like KIPP's or Catholic schools?

I tend to think this is only possible in charter schools, and even then there may not be a lot of demand. Think about my Coffee with Principal Fried. These are parents who are super-engaged in their kids' education, and they don't want more challening math, period. Ken has made similar observations; most parents want to protect their children from the experience of competing and losing.

So that's one problem I assume we'd face in trying to create middle & high schools that impose an academic culture on kids.

Second, I'm interested in whether a DI model might get around these objections.

With DI (at least with DI as I understand it) the object is never to create winners & losers; DI is not a gatekeeping approach to education.

The object is for everyone to learn to mastery.

Some kids will move faster, some kids will move slower. But DI isn't a race; the object is for everyone to get to the finish line.

I've mentioned that I read a terrific article I probably won't find for awhile, looking at tracking.

There was a Catholic school that used tracking purely as a means of giving slower kids more time to work on math so they could catch up to the faster kids.

By the end of high school, the slower kids had caught up.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

I'm going to have to pull this book off my shelf & read it, too:

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

wow!

Arnold Kling posted a review at Amazon:

This book asks a question that is interesting to many people: what factors explain the personality differences in people? The author starts by reporting on studies that show that about half of the differences can be explained genetically. Most social scientists would agree with that assessment.

But what about the half that cannot be explained genetically? The author deals with this in three steps.

1. The assumption that parenting style matters is attacked by showing that the evidence for it is merely anecdotal. Rigorous attempts to quantify the effect of parents fail to show more than a negligible impact.

2. An alternative theory is developed. She suggests, based on evolutionary biology, that there might be a greater role for peer groups than parents in shaping personality. This is a very interesting section of the book, because even outside of the context of the theory, the observations of how groups form and interact are interesting.

3. The author tries to provide empirical support for the "group socialization" theory. Ironically, to my untrained eye, this evidence appears to be largely of the anecdotal variety derided in step 1! And nowhere is there a clear demonstration of the quantitative importance of peer groups.

I believe that the author has succeeded in raising the "group socialization" theory to the same level of plausibility as the nurture assumption. But I came away feeling that neither theory is well supported.

I suspect that we may never prove that anything other than genetic factors matter in personality. A large component of the "other half" could be measurement error. A physical characteristic, such as eye color, is a relatively well-defined concept that can be measured fairly precisely. Not so with "intelligence" or "aggressiveness." These are fuzzy concepts, measured imperfectly. The mere attempt to measure these concepts induces random variation. Imagine how difficult it would be to explain height differences if we weren't quite sure what "height" really means, and if the measurements were based on rulers with 20 percent margins of error!

Try to read the book with an open mind.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

Steinberg, btw, has reams of data showing that parenting style is critical to children's academic success or failure.

However, when a child hits his teen years peers take over.

Asian peers have an "A culture"; white peers have a "B culture"; black & Hispanic peers have a "C culture."

This is, I would bet the ranch, one reason why you see white homeschooled kids doing so incredibly well.

Those families dumped the peers.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

I think it may be a wee bit more complicated. Within these three cultures you have the honors/AP kids that have an A culture (almost all go to college and graduate), the normal academic kids who have a B culture (most go to college, only some graduate) and the non-college bound kids who have a C culture. These cultures within cultures form pretty early on in school -- late elementary school or so.

So let's see how this plays out. For the asians who have the cognitive ability they naturally push up to the A culture classes. For those that do not have the ability, they still generally perform like A culture kids in the lower classes due to the parental influence.

For the whites, those that have the ability to get into the A culture classes, they tend to exhibit A culture traits too. This goes for the blacks and hispanics too.

I think we just start getting higher perecentages of high cognitive slackers in the white, hispanic, and black groups once we get out of the A culture classes. This also compounds the IQ differences of these groups. This just means you start to get more and more kids not performing at their cognitive capacity among the whites, hispanics, blacks once you get out of the A culture classes.

You get a big drop off in desire to learn for non-A culture whites, blacks, and hispanics. It is huge. And the lack of rigor in th schools plays right into this. It's especially bad in the US -- we have a long history of anti-intellectualism.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

Within these three cultures you have the honors/AP kids that have an A culture (almost all go to college and graduate), the normal academic kids who have a B culture (most go to college, only some graduate) and the non-college bound kids who have a C culture.

He's got all that stuff, too.

I'm serious.

Read this book.

It's incredible.

The 'smart kid' crowd is almost never more than 5% of any student population.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

It's amazing how consistent kid culture is from school to school.

It was interesting reading the end of the book, because Steinberg says what I had come to believe: when you pay the kind of taxes we're paying what you're really paying for is a different set of peers.

Steinberg says parents paying for private school are probably paying for better peers.

And better peers are worth the money.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

So let's see how this plays out. For the asians who have the cognitive ability they naturally push up to the A culture classes. For those that do not have the ability, they still generally perform like A culture kids in the lower classes due to the parental influence.

Wrong!

READ THE BOOK!!!!!

It's not parental influence.

Parents have no influence over a 15-year old.

Asian kids stay in the top group because they can't get into the sports & jocks group.

They did massive, massive interviews of teenagers everywhere in the country, and then cross-checked those interviews with interviews of the kids' peers.

In other words, they didn't take a kid's word for it that 'I'm popular' or 'I'm a jock' or 'I'm a brain.'

The Asian kids all said, "I don't want to be a brain, I want to be a jock."

Everyone wants to be a jock.

I wanted to be a jock, too, when I was in high school.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

This also compounds the IQ differences of these groups. This just means you start to get more and more kids not performing at their cognitive capacity among the whites, hispanics, blacks once you get out of the A culture classes.

Almost no teenagers in America are performing at their cognitive capacity.

That's the point.

The entire curve is skewd, all of it (with the possible exception of the 5% of the country taking AP calculus).

Nobody is bumping against his or her cognitive ceiling.

That's our problem.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

So by this theory, private school benefits the non-smart kid who may have the cognitive ability to succeed but needs to work at it. Whereas, the smart kids do well in both public and private schools.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

The gap between homeschooled kids & everyone else gets larger over time. (I have some other cool charts, but must get Jimmy to his program.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

Smart kids are not doing particularly well anywhere.

As far as I can tell, kids taking AP calculus are doing well in calculus, but who knows how well they're doing in anything else.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

I think it's fair to say that our schools make overachievement an EXTREMELY UNLIKELY OCCURRENCE.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

so its still fair to blame the schools.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

schools in the US are an obstacle to overachieving.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

K-8 in most schools are an intellectual wasteland. The only kids in a position to achieve in high school are the high cognitive kids who can deal with challenging material they get, for the first time, in high school.

In math, you can do well in calculus as long as you learn algebra. That's a four year timespan.

In English, there is so much to learn -- spelling, grammar, reasoning, writing, vocabulary -- you just can't begin in 9th graded and get yourself up to AP level in four years. It takes more than being an avid reader to achieve. You need to be challenged from day one in kiundergarten to get your verbal ability to the same high level then you can get in math in four years.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

my previous points are limited to high achievers.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

The main difference between homeschool and regular school is that homeschooling parents pick better curricula -- rigorous, basic skills, non-constructivist. And, any parent who has the will to homeschool also has the will to demand achievement. If schools picked better curricula and demanded achievement, students would perform as well as homeschooled kids. This is why DI works so well. The curricula is rigorous and well thought-out. And, because it is mastery learning, it is designed so that all kids keep pace and continue to learn. There just is no opportunity for bad culture to surface.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

so its still fair to blame the schools

After reading Steinberg, I'd say it's fine to blame the schools, but it's not especially accurate, if that makes sense (and I think it does).

With little kids, yes, I blame the schools. Little kids are still malleable; the schools can teach.

With teenagers, no.

Steinberg's right; schools & parents both are out of the picture by the time a kid's a teen.

I misspoke above.

When I said 'our schools' make overachievement unlikely, I meant that the culture of our schools makes it unlikely, and by 'culture' I mean kid culture.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

The main difference between homeschooling & public school is NO STUPID PEERS.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

When you look at what homeschoolers are actually doing, there are quite a few doing 'unschooling'; there's a big John Holt unschooling movement; there's a huge amount of constructivist homeschooling, etc., etc.

Those kids are doing great, too, as far as I know.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

The main difference between homeschool and regular school is that homeschooling parents pick better curricula -- rigorous, basic skills, non-constructivist.

I don't have figures on this, but I'd put money on it this is wrong.

It's entirely possible that the majority of homeschoolers pick better curricula.

But there's a HUGE group of homeschoolers out there who oppose rigorous curricula on principle.

One alternative approach is "unschooling", also known as "natural learning", "experienced-based learning", or "independent learning". Several weeks ago, when our homeschooling support group announced a gathering to discuss unschooling, we thought a dozen or so people might attend, but more than 100 adults and children showed up. For three hours parents and some of the children took turns talking about their homeschooling experiences and about unschooling. Many people said afterward that they left the meeting feeling reinforced and exhilarated - not because anybody told them what to do or gave them a magic formula - but because they grew more secure in making these decisions for themselves. Sharing ideas about this topic left them feeling empowered.

NaturalChild.com

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

and.....by 'supid peers' I mean peers who act stupid

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

If schools picked better curricula and demanded achievement, students would perform as well as homeschooled kids. This is why DI works so well. The curricula is rigorous and well thought-out. And, because it is mastery learning, it is designed so that all kids keep pace and continue to learn. There just is no opportunity for bad culture to surface.

This is my question, and it's one of the reasons I hope folks will read Steinberg's book.

Would DI......be a way around Stupid Peer Culture?

I think it's a real interesting question.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

There's a way in which DI is so 'democratic'—it might help. Everyone's learning the same material, moving forward on the same path.....there might be a way, in a DI high school, that you've 'dissolved' the groups into individuals.

That runs counter to EVERYTHING KNOWN about the adolescent mind & character, so probably not.

Still, it's interesting.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

Again, the idea that schools should 'demand achievement': parents are not going to stand for this.

Parents will not have their kids flunked.

Period.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

Here's a great chart:

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

I have a feeling the unschooling parents aren't the ones breaking the records. There's not a whole lot of data on homeschoolers yet, especially broken down into the various subgroups.

Public schools are a confounding variable. They've been rotten for 3 generations now. Plenty of time to affect the culture.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

Developing an Unschooling Non-Curriculum - Math

A Few Words about Unschooling Math

These things are everywhere.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

wait.....are you saying public schools have caused anti-intellectualism in American culture?

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

Again, the idea that schools should 'demand achievement': parents are not going to stand for this. Parents will not have their kids flunked.

That's the genius of DI, you don't have to flunk anybody. Remember, in DI kids get placed where they know 70% of the material already -- they have to pass.

Kids are grouped according to ability not age. So holding a kid back to repeat material isn't so bad.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

wait.....are you saying public schools have caused anti-intellectualism in American culture?

No, but they sure haven't helped it. Probably even accelerated the process.

Anti-intellectualism doesn't necessarily mean anti-learning, it started as suspiciousness of the elite which has grown, with the help of the schools, into a means to excuse performance.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

That's the genius of DI, you don't have to flunk anybody. Remember, in DI kids get placed where they know 70% of the material already -- they have to pass.

That's what sprang to mind.....but I'm trying to do an armchair experiment, imagining how this plays out with a TEEMING MASS of cynical, disengaged teens who were up half the night drinking or worse.

I don't know.

Teens really are a different species.

Anti-intellectualism doesn't necessarily mean anti-learning, it started as suspiciousness of the elite which has grown,

Yes, absolutely.

I have a fairly broad streak of 'anti-intellectualism' myself.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

Basically, I can't summon up an image of DI either working or not-working in the social context of the American high school.

-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Nov 2005

A comment about peer influence --

when I read "the Nurture Assumption", it made PERFECT sense to me that kids would be more influenced by the kids around them than by their parents. The reason is that their parents may not be best-adapted to the local culture. Think about immigrant parents; they developed their attitudes and adaptive behaviors somewhere else, and they may be permanently at odds with the place where they are. But their kids have to look for mates (in both senses of the word mate) among the peers who are right around them, so of course it's to their advantage to be influenced by the other kids.

Also, homeschoolers don't dump the peers -- most homeschooling parents are very aware that their kids need socializing and they go to lengths to be sure their kids are getting it. What happens is that the parents PICK the peers.

I also think it's rare for parents to homeschool into high school (is that true? Nicksmama?).

-- CarolynJohnston - 06 Nov 2005

The unschooling pages look kind of crazy. Take this ditty from this unschooling link:

Someone sent me some email saying that I hadn't answered the question Steve Graham asked about unschooling. The question was: "What if the children don't choose to learn math?"

He was right. I didn't answer that question. And I'm not going to. Instead, I've been working on two different questions, ones that I think are more applicable to our lives with our children.

Those questions are:
1. How do unschooling parents encourage their children to learn math?
2. What can an unschooling family do to help their children master math skills?

This is an avoidance of the key question that isn't even so deft, to my mind. The answer is clear enough: if the kid doesn't choose to learn math, you say tough, and ensure that they do.

It's part of our job as parents to be their frontal lobes. This whole unschooling thing is a little too Rousseau for me.

-- CarolynJohnston - 06 Nov 2005

imagining how this plays out with a TEEMING MASS of cynical, disengaged teens who were up half the night drinking or worse.

Now imagine they've spent the past nine years of their lives being egaged during school and have mastered all the skills they need to do the work.

I spent many of the high school days in the same condition and yet I still managed to pay attention and do my work because I was never lost and could do the work.

-- KDeRosa - 06 Nov 2005

Definitely most of the successes claimed by Niskayuna High School are a result of the peer group. When I went there, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the students took calculus in 12th grade. The prom queen for my class was enrolled in both AP Computer Science and BC Calculus. (She's now an architect in NYC, I'm told.) The football players were not popular. In fact, football was so unpopular when I was in high school, Niskayuna was forced to play a non-League schedule; we joked that the Homecoming game would have to be played against Albany Academy for Girls.

Same thing happens in college: that's what you get for paying the big bucks for the elite private college vs. the state school (and why more state universities should expand their honors program into an Honors College if they want to woo the best students). In my opinion, lower tier private colleges aren't worth it: the peer group is pretty similar to the state schools.

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 06 Nov 2005

Now imagine they've spent the past nine years of their lives being engaged during school and have mastered all the skills they need to do the work.

Yes, definitely.

Steinberg's book makes me feel getting it right in K-5 is critical.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Also, homeschoolers don't dump the peers -- most homeschooling parents are very aware that their kids need socializing and they go to lengths to be sure their kids are getting it. What happens is that the parents PICK the peers.

Definitely.

It's funny, because my neighbor once said that every homeschooled kid she ever met was a really nice kid.

At the time I thought, You know—you're right!

But I didn't take it any further....

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

MIke Feinberg, co-founder of KIPP, says they started their school in grade 5 because it's the last chance an adult has to tell a kid what to do.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Steinberg's book makes me feel getting it right in K-5 is critical

Nothing else can be fixed until k-5 is fixed. Once K-5 gets fixed, 6-8 can get fixed starting with the first group of students graduating from fixed K-5. Then high school can be tweaked.

-- KDeRosa - 07 Nov 2005

Definitely most of the successes claimed by Niskayuna High School are a result of the peer group. When I went there, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the students took calculus in 12th grade. The prom queen for my class was enrolled in both AP Computer Science and BC Calculus. (She's now an architect in NYC, I'm told.) The football players were not popular. In fact, football was so unpopular when I was in high school, Niskayuna was forced to play a non-League schedule; we joked that the Homecoming game would have to be played against Albany Academy for Girls.

Interesting.

That's exactly what he found.

Peers rule.

The other thing is that peers are semi-invisible to adults.

He said all kids have 3 circles of peers:

best friends
clique
crowd

Parents know who their kids' best friends are; they tend to know who their clique is.

Parents usually have no clue who the crowd is, or what it's like. In fact, most parents aren't even aware there is a crowd.

I didn't know it myself, and I have zero idea who might be in Christopher's crowd.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

I haven't read the last chapter yet. It's about work. Huge numbers of American teens are working 20 hours or more at jobs (I had one senior year).

This strongly affects their ability to do homework, and teachers adjust their assignments downwards in response.

An enormous amount of this is invisible to the naked eye.

Parents have no idea how things work, or what's happening, and the kids don't necessarily know, either.

Like any other social system, people in high school&mdashteachers, students, administrators—respond to incentives & disincentives without necessarily being conscious that they're doing so.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Admittedly, I am the voice of ignorance in this discussion. I haven’t read the book. I’ve ordered it, but who knows when I’ll get it read. I’ve only read a couple of newspaper-like articles on DI. I don’t have much depth of insight for the colleges I attended, where I studied engineering. I certainly don’t know much about small, elite, liberal arts schools. But I do have some thoughts…

Ken, I’m sure DI is much better than what is in wide use today, and Catherine, I’m sure that Catholic school worked hard to lift its low achievers, but…I don’t see how the low performers catch up to the high performers unless they just do a lot more work. And you probably have to hold the high performers back, too. Those high performers can include some really talented kids. They are the best at math, but also at reading, writing, music, drama, etc. It’s not like their excellence in one dimension is compensated for by shortcomings elsewhere. I don’t know whether it’s good genes or parenting style or peer selection, but they’re good. So, even while you work with the low performers to bring them up, the high performers can still pull away. Unless you stifle them or bore them. If you can get the low performers into algebra in eighth grade, I can get the high performers there in sixth. Or fifth. If the low performers are spending more time on math to catch up, what are the high performers doing with their time? If it is anything worthwhile, they are going to stay ahead one way or another.

Carolyn, I also didn’t like the tone of that unschooling site. I really felt an undercurrent of sneering coming at me for my small-mindedness or something.

Rudbeckia, what you said about the importance of quality peers on the quality of a college sounds right to me. Especially for undergrads, contacts with faculty can be quite limited. If anything, schools with the highest quality students will also have better student teaching assistants, too. Further, if you are struggling in a class, your perception of it is strongly influenced by your peers. If everyone is in the same boat, you conclude that it’s a lousy class with a lousy instructor. If you find yourself way behind the majority of your peers, you wonder whether you are good enough to belong in this school.

-- DanK - 07 Nov 2005

Dan, you are right. The high performers can always be accelerated faster than the low performers. However, in DI most low performers can keep up with the high performers at today's somewhat leisurely grade level pace which is a pretty remarkable achievement.

-- KDeRosa - 07 Nov 2005

"Steinberg says parents paying for private school are probably paying for better peers.

And better peers are worth the money. "

That's why my Mum pays/paid for all four of us to go to an elite private school. The academics were better than the local public schools, which was a factor, but mainly she wanted us to meet the future 'leaders' of Australia (a great many of them go to or went to our schools, or to the other schools that these schools associate with). Academics were (and are) important, but that wasn't why she pays $20,000 per child per year to go to these schools. And it isn't the reason for any of the other parents either.

"I also think it's rare for parents to homeschool into high school (is that true? Nicksmama?)."

Some do, some don't. It depends more on the parents' confidence than anything else. I'm planning to homeschool my kids until year 11 - and the only reason they're going to school then is because it's near impossible to get into uni in Australia if you haven't got an ENTER score based on your final two years of school work and exams.

Just to point out how odd I am, I never wanted to be a jock. They were popular at my school, but I never wanted to be one. I think it's because most of them were REALLY stupid, and I've always thought that being stupid would be the worst possible thing in the world to be. Apparently, this is similar for most geeks/nerds etc (though not to the same extent that I was). They aren't popular because they would rather be intelligent than popular. They don't want to put in the work that most other kids are willing to in order to be popular. Obviously other factors are involved too, but a great deal of popularity can be determined as to people who are willing to work for it and those who aren't.

-- SamanthaRawson - 07 Nov 2005

"Steinberg says parents paying for private school are probably paying for better peers.

And better peers are worth the money. "

I haven't read the book either, but I agree. My mother in law, a public middle school math teacher for 30 years, put my brother in law in a private high school. He moved from hanging around the "I'm going to follow the Grateful Dead" kids to hanging around the college-prep crowd. Proved to be a smart choice.

BTW, she fully supports my homeschooling her grandsons.

I have seen some great hs success stories. It takes committment on the parents part. It is a great responsibility, as we have no one to blame but ourselves if we raise an idiot. We are not unschoolers and I don't know any that have stuck to unschooling more than a few years, so I can't comment on that.

I am planning on homeschooling through high school and supplementing where needed. We have partial enrollment in our county school system and a very friendly community college.

-- NicksMama - 07 Nov 2005

I always go back to this quote:

" ... Taking issue with school reform, Steinberg offers a different perspective where remedy will be found not in schools but in students' lives outside of school and in changed social and parental attitudes. "

"... remedy will be found not in the schools but in students."

I disagree with this most strongly! I have seen this used over and over again by schools as an excuse. "Gee, we would like to do more, but the kids and parents won't let us." This book might provide valid data, but this conclusion is just opinion. There are a lot of variables that affect education. This is just one of them, and it's nothing new.

"Parents will not stand for having their kids flunked & held back. Period. "

Are you saying that public schools are fundamentally flawed? I wouldn't necessarily disagree with this, but I wouldn't place the blame on the parents and kids. Unless, of course, parents are complaining both that their kids are not in the accelerated group and that the work is too much. This is not a problem in our area. Twenty-five percent of the kids in our town go to other schools because of the low expectations.

"Nobody is bumping against his or her cognitive ceiling. That's our problem."

And standardized testing sets really low cognitive ceilings. Our schools refer to our "academic ceiling" as it's number one issue. However, with a philosophy of full-inclusion, they don't have a pragmatic clue how to fix it. Below a certain level, it's the school's fault. Above that level, it becomes more the responsibility of the student and parent. We are nowhere near that level. One look at the NAEP tests and results will show that.

"K-8 in most schools are an intellectual wasteland. The only kids in a position to achieve in high school are the high cognitive kids who can deal with challenging material they get, for the first time, in high school."

I agree. K-8 is where all of the damage is done.

"so its still fair to blame the schools"

"After reading Steinberg, I'd say it's fine to blame the schools, but it's not especially accurate, if that makes sense (and I think it does). With little kids, yes, I blame the schools. Little kids are still malleable; the schools can teach.

With teenagers, no.

Steinberg's right; schools & parents both are out of the picture by the time a kid's a teen."

I don't agree. You are talking about culture and not individuals. Schooling and parenting should be all about individuals. Schools and parents may not be able to do anything about culture, but they can sure do something about individuals. I won't throw up my hands and say that I can't enforce standards and expectations on my individual child. Schools can do the same thing. They can't (and shouldn't be expected to) change culture, but they can provide a decent education to those who are able and willing. Individuals are important, not culture or some grand democratic, egalitarian role of public schools.

"Steinberg says parents paying for private school are probably paying for better peers.

No, this isn't true. Parents can tell the difference between a good school and a bad one, and it's not just better peers. Parents are not $10-20K stupid a year (generally speaking). There is a quantifiable difference in material covered and level of expectations. It's NOT because the kids are "pre-selected", which is one of the favorite excuses of public schools. Having said that, I'm not overly impressed by the curriculum in my son's private school. It's just that the one used in the public school is so incredibly bad.

-- SteveH - 07 Nov 2005

I don’t see how the low performers catch up to the high performers unless they just do a lot more work.

I'm sure that's the case!

I didn't mean to suggest it wasn't.

In Singapore, roundabout grade 6, they start tracking the kids.

The slower math learners get, I think, an extra half hour a day, and they get the best teachers!

They learn the exact same material, but they have more time to do it.

As far as I can tell, almost the definition of a 'math brain' is a child (or adult) who learns math faster than everyone else.

(At least, that's what my neighbor, who teaches math at Mercy College & has tutored forever, tells me. She says kids who are naturally good at math just whiz through the books. 'It's as if they can look at the book and they've got it.' That's pretty much a direct quote.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

I don't agree. You are talking about culture and not individuals. Schooling and parenting should be all about individuals.

Once you get to adolescence you aren't talking about individuals. You're talking about peers.

Adolescents really are different from little kids. Christopher is moving into adolescence, and the change is shocking.

And this is a kid who has had seriously focused parenting—and who has good peers.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

They can't (and shouldn't be expected to) change culture, but they can provide a decent education to those who are able and willing.

They do need to change the culture, IMO.

I would say that many high schools do in fact offer a decent education to those who are able and willing. (I'll get around to posting the MN article on that.)

But the number of kids who are able and willing is around 5%.

I do expect Christopher to be in that group.

However, seeing as how I live in this country, I'm not satisfied with a situation in which high schools offer a decent education to the 5% of American kids willing to take advantage of it.

(btw, my 5% figure comes from U.S. data on how many U.S. kids are competitive with their foreign peers, yet another source I haven't gotten around to posting yet. It turns out that the only kids in this country who are competitive with the very best kids in the rest of the world are kids taking AP calculus in high school. That's it. Only them. They make up 5% of the high school population.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Parents can tell the difference between a good school and a bad one, and it's not just better peers. Parents are not $10-20K stupid a year (generally speaking).

I don't know about that!

I know I've mentioned several times that whenever I ask any of the private school ($26,000/year) parents around here they have no idea what it is.

Just the other day I met the first parent who knew something about the math curriculum at Hackley & The Masters School.

One parent, when I asked her about the math curriculum at The Masters School, told me that the school had said to her, "Your child is in 5th grade, not you."

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Great peers, though!

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm taking it back.

I've probably misstated Steinberg's views on private schools.

I suspect what he's saying (have to get my class prepared, so I'm not going to track it down at the moment) isn't that private schools don't have a better curricula, or that parents aren't paying precisely for that better curricula. (In fact, I think I remember him saying something about the curriculum often being better; not sure.)

I think what he's saying is that the most brilliant curriculum on earth can't overcome the power of peers in adolescence.

I think what he's saying is that the 'magic' of a good private school is the peers.

I'm getting back to Rudbiecka's description of her high school culture. Peers like that make it possible for the good curriculum to succeed.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

"They do need to change the culture, IMO."

They need to change their internal culture.

"I would say that many high schools do in fact offer a decent education to those who are able and willing. (I'll get around to posting the MN article on that.)"

That is what all schools should do. I have been told by many parents now that what you have to do is send your kids to private school for K-8 and then to the public high school. Public high schools tend to be larger, offer more courses and extracurricular activities, and have a good number of top ability students. In private high schools, they don't have enough students to separate the best from the worst. (Kids are not necessarily in private schools because they are smarter than the average bear.) I was told by someone who has taught in the top private academy in our area for 25 years that private high schools don't necessarily offer a better education, but they do offer much more support and guidance for those students who need it. They also do an awful lot of college preparation. His point was that private high schools help the average student much more than the top students. In public high schools, you are on your own.

"However, seeing as how I live in this country, I'm not satisfied with a situation in which high schools offer a decent education to the 5% of American kids willing to take advantage of it."

I'm not either, otherwise I wouldn't have spent so much time over the last six years fighting for better education. However, the problems in high school start in Kindergarten. The problem is not that 95% of the kids in high school are not "willing" to take advantage of a decent education. You can't say that 95% don't care. You can say that they have not been prepared properly to take advantage of the education. That is not to say that a lot would not care no matter what, but it is not 95%.

Below a certain level, it is the fault of the schools, and the schools are well below that level.

"I think what he's saying is that the most brilliant curriculum on earth can't overcome the power of peers in adolescence."

Meaning that the curriculum doesn't matter? That there is nothing that the schools can do? Or is this a strong vote against full-inclusion. Is he talking about cultural peers or academic peers? If he is talking about a peer culture that denigrates education, then is he saying that nothing can be done about that? How about separating kids based on ability and setting high expectations and consequences? There are things that can be done. They may not change the external culture, but they will surely help those individuals willing to take advantage of the opportunity.

"I think what he's saying is that the 'magic' of a good private school is the peers."

I don't know if that is true. Some of my son's peers in his private school leave a lot to be desired. That is not why we put him into the private school. We considered the narrow cultural peer group to be almost a negative attribute. We went there for the higher expectations and the (somewhat) better curriculum. I think that his peer group in the public school was better in spite of the few really bad apples. Academically, the private school group is narrower, and that is why, perhaps, the standards are higher. Kind of a chicken and egg question. This leads to the "pre-selected" cop-out of public schools. They just don't want to separate kids based on ability. In fact, they do the opposite.

I think that one cannot talk about a peer group without specifying exactly what kind of peer group it is and what the problem is.

"I'm getting back to Rudbiecka's description of her high school culture. Peers like that make it possible for the good curriculum to succeed."

I would say that high school is quite different than middle school or Junior High. There is a history of tracking, more peer groups, and less social/cultural pressure to be or act dumb. Middle school is another thing. When I was growing up, they started tracking in 7th grade. I felt no pressure to act dumb. If you don't do this, then there are a lot of negative pressures on the better ability kids. Our public schools do no tracking through 8th grade and it shows. The material has to be weaker and many resent the smart kids. For K-6, however, it's all about low academic expectations.

-- SteveH - 07 Nov 2005

I was told by someone who has taught in the top private academy in our area for 25 years that private high schools don't necessarily offer a better education, but they do offer much more support and guidance for those students who need it.

Interesting.

Of course, The Masters School, $26,000/yr, firmly refuses all help to kids who need it.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

I'm developing a real antipathy to The Masters School, from afar.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

The problem is not that 95% of the kids in high school are not "willing" to take advantage of a decent education. You can't say that 95% don't care.

Yes!

You can say this!

READ THE BOOK!

btw, I'm mixing various statistics together.....I'm using the 5% figure from U.S. TIMSS stuff, but Steinberg comes up with a larger figure of students he calls 'engaged' (versus 'disengaged').

However, I believe his argument is that, given U.S. teen culture, engaged students aren't doing the level of work they could & should be doing.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

His point was that private high schools help the average student much more than the top students. In public high schools, you are on your own.

Very interesting.

This ties in with ANOTHER post I've been planning to write.....this is exactly the perception I'm coming to.

I've begun to see U.S. education, at least in math, as a survival of the fittest.

The very brightest kids will manage to learn & thrive in spite of a mediocre to bad public school system.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

Meaning that the curriculum doesn't matter? That there is nothing that the schools can do?

Steinberg is very pessimistic that high schools can do anything to reverse or improve the situation.

As I say, I don't buy the conclusion, though I do buy his analysis.

That said, it's hard for me to figure out what high schools would need to do to gain the upper hand.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

I would say that high school is quite different than middle school or Junior High. There is a history of tracking, more peer groups, and less social/cultural pressure to be or act dumb.

I don't follow—where is there less pressure to act dumb?

Steinberg finds immense pressure in high school to not only act dumb, but be dumb.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

In my high school athletes were gods.

Period.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

I think that one cannot talk about a peer group without specifying exactly what kind of peer group it is and what the problem is.

That was another fascinating finding: basically high schools all across the country have the exact same division of groups, with the exact same numbers!

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005

That was another fascinating finding: basically high schools all across the country have the exact same division of groups, with the exact same numbers!

Well, now that's a little creepy, I must say.

-- SusanS - 07 Nov 2005

High school groups:

the socially elite: 20% of student population
jocks
populars

the alienated: 20%
druggies, burnouts, greasers (they're called different names in different schools)

the average, normal, or in-between: 30%

the brains: less than 5% of all students are members of a high-achieving crowd that defines itself mainly on the basis of academic excellence
"students who thrive on academics, forge close relations with school staff, and avoid drugs and deviant actrivities"

the 'nerds' or 'loners' (?)
"members are generally low in social status and, consequently, self-esteem"

Although the names of these crowds may vary from school to school, or region to region (e.g., "populars" might be called"preppies," "stuck-ups," or "socies"; "druggies" might be called "freaks" or "stoners"), as far as we can tell, their existence is ubiquitous, at least within public schools.

Again, I'd need to re-read closely, but the reason these numbers don't add up, I believe, is that typically you also have 10 to 15% of the student population defined as 'ethnics.'

They asked everyone what crowd they belonged to, and what crowd they'd like to belong to.

"Of all of the crowds, the 'brains' were least happy with who they are—nearly half wished they were in a different crowd."

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Nov 2005