DebunkingTheDebunkers < Kitchen

28 Jun 2006 - 15:15

debunking the debunkers

The claim that slipping scores result from a changed demographic (and hence could even be good news) has surfaced repeatedly in the writings of education commentators such as Gerald Bracey, but it is demonstrably false. Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson summarized the matter in a 1994 column by noting: "The change in the student population preceded the drop in test scores. Between 1951 and 1963, the number of test takers went from 81,000 to nearly 1 million; test scores rose slightly.” Moreover, the percentage of test takers remained relatively constant between 1972 and 1984 (see Figure 1). There were still a million test takers in 1985, the first year in which test scores showed a small uptick after 19 years of decline. Scores have been flat or slightly improved since then, with math scores returning to their levels of 30 years ago, but failing to reach their mid-1960s apex.
Changes in the composition of the test-taking pool don’t explain the decline in test scores either. Studies by the Educational Testing Service and others have showed, in the words of Robert Samuelson, that “the main declines occurred among whites and could not be explained by changes in student’s gender, economic class, or parental education.” This analysis was seconded by Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks, who pointed out that the SAT scores of advantaged white males have also exhibited a steep decline.
source:
Waiting for Utopia
by David W. Murray

This line bears repeating:

[T]he SAT scores of advantaged white males have also exhibited a steep decline.

I don't know whether this is true of advantaged females as well. I assume so.

I'm no strategist, but speaking as parent I think the meme of nightmare-schools-in-the-city/good-schools-in-the-suburbs is doing more harm than good.

What makes suburban schools "good"?

Sadly, (now that I know that I don't know grammar I'm pretty sure 'sadly' doesn't modify what I think it does) .... starting over: I am sorry to say that I seem to have lost track of the study of suburban school financing I came across the other day.

IIRC, it compared districts with different levels of school spending but the same level student body SES.

Upshot: no difference in scores. (I'll do some Googling pretty soon here.)

If Ed Sector types wish to carry on focusing exclusively on achievement gaps, then at a minimum they ought to include the TIMSS & PISA data in white papers & pronouncements.

Black & Hispanic kids are way behind white kids.

But white kids are way behind everyone else. Black & Hispanic kids are behind the kids who are already behind.

rogue's gallery

In the rogue's gallery of edu-apologists, Richard Rothstein is a standout:

Yet Rothstein, exactly one year later, parroted his earlier claims. His reaction to the release of the 2001 scores, which showed no improvement over the previous year and hence were termed “stable” by the College Board, was to write, “Stable in this case does not mean unimproved. Hidden in the data is more hopeful news than most people would expect. These tests are voluntary. If only high achievers take them, average scores mean one thing. But if a broader range of students takes them, the results must be interpreted differently. The number taking the tests has in fact grown a lot. . . . It is remarkable that averages gained at all while the test-taking base was expanding.”

Passing off lousy SAT scores as a sign of progress takes nerve.

So does this:

A Japanese scholar is also invoked [by Rothstein] to assure us that his countrymen do “not attach great importance to students’ rankings because the exams measure skills valued by the old education system, not the new.” In fact, Rothstein concludes, the dour Japanese want to emulate our schools because of our “zest for living.”
In a July 2001 column, Rothstein tells his readers not to fret over data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showing that two-thirds of American 4th graders can’t read above a basic level, because “on an international survey of reading ability, American 4th graders scored higher than pupils everywhere except Finland.” In other words, international comparisons are apparently valid when they corroborate Rothstein’s fundamental beliefs, but easily dismissed when they reflect poorly on the American education system.

We are a zesty lot, we math illiterates!

What Money Can't Buy

I've never heard of this book! —

...the University of Chicago’s Susan Mayer undertook a far more comprehensive analysis of the relationship of income to school achievement in a 1997 book, What Money Can’t Buy. She examined nearly 17,000 records in two massive data sets in her search for the true effects of income. The study is important for its methodological sophistication and its conclusions, which take us beyond the traditional left-right political axis regarding welfare programs and the causes of poverty.
Mayer showed that income per se is not a consequential factor in children’s performance. Beyond providing the ability to satisfy basic needs like food and shelter, income is not a necessary, much less a sufficient, explanation of children’s academic achievement. Mayer found that a supportive family structure (a stable, two-parent home), a culture of learning within the family and neighborhood, and natural abilities were much more important than income. Given these factors, income can certainly help people achieve their ends. In their absence, however, income is largely inconsequential.

Tom Fischgrund, who interviewed 160 of the 541 "perfect 1600" kids from the year 2000, found that 90% of them had intact families, compared to 66% of high school students overall.

meet the parents, part 2

In a May 2001 column, Rothstein lamented the fact that teachers are assigning more homework, which is said to be “up 50 percent in the last two decades.” This is a problem, Rothstein believes, because it “may increase the gap between students from middle-class and low-income homes. With growing inequality now a greater danger than middle-class pupils’ inadequate achievement, policies that widen learning differences should be avoided.”
Rothstein cites an academic authority to reinforce the claim, quoting University of North Carolina professor Eugene Brooks, who says, “Because of homework, schools either consciously or unconsciously reproduce social inequality. It can be avoided only if teachers take over homework supervision from parents.” That’s a somewhat breathtaking mission for the school—reducing the impact of social class on learning by expunging parents from the equation, since they are unequal in their degree of helpfulness. It is apparently better for all youngsters to languish in dreary study halls—presumably reducing the amount of time left for instruction—than to take the risk that one mother might help her child learn faster than another.

wow

And here I thought I was being all wild-eyed and radical saying the reason suburban schools are good is the parents do the (re)teaching.

But no.

What folks like Rothstein really ought to do, if they want to prevent white kids learning more than black kids, is make it illegal for parents to hire moonlighting teachers from their kids' school.

Somehow I don't see Rothstein & his chums signing on for that one.

distributed practice

I'm going to practice this one to mastery:

“Because of homework, schools either consciously or unconsciously reproduce social inequality. It can be avoided only if teachers take over homework supervision from parents.”

meet the parents (big-time tutoring)
debunking the debunkers (Rothstein; What Money Can't Buy)
how much reading each day?

Irvington tutors
Irvington tutors, part 2

SATdecline
Irvingtontutors

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Jun 2006

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Look here for syntax help.

"Sadly, (now that I know that I don't know grammar I'm pretty sure 'sadly' doesn't modify what I think it does)"

We're having the same issue at our house with the word "badly." Kristy, our grammar queen, has attempted to teach us how to use it correctly, and we do listen, but we apparently need more repetitions in order to learn it to mastery.

I have noticed that the older one is, the harder it seems to be to learn new skills to mastery.

-- KarenA - 28 Jun 2006

Because of homework, schools either consciously or unconsciously reproduce social inequality. It can be avoided only if teachers take over homework supervision from parents... especially when my supervision grows into teaching the content.

Where did this quote come from? It's a beauty.

-- BeckyC - 28 Jun 2006

Oh Okay, I found it, a UNC professor. Nevermind.

In a backhanded way, I do agree with this guy -- I wish I was paying for teachers to not only teach, but also crack the whip and supervise some of the long, boring slog through worksheets. Rather than our teachers spending their days supervising the children as they write, illustrate, publish, and perform poetry. I mean, the poetry bit is fine, it's enriching, it's just... the fun stuff, isn't it? The teachers are keeping the fun stuff, the easy supervision to themselves at school, and I'm stuck with explaining deep mathematical concepts at 4:00PM when the kids are tired, as these concepts relate to generating and using a useful standard algorithm, etcetera. I actually have the more serious job to do. But some days I'd rather just hunt down colored pencils and ribbon.

-- BeckyC - 28 Jun 2006

I think now, and thought when in grade school, that the poetry stuff was tedious at best. The fun stuff was math and geography and science. You know, the stuff with right answers and wrong answers and unambiguous techniques for determining which was which.

If the poetry they were talking about were the Elder Edda or Kipling, I might have had a different opinion, but insipid blank verse is painful. (It would not surprise me if this were a sex-difference thing, BTW.)

-- DougSundseth - 28 Jun 2006

I've been looking over the pile of school work I kept for the boys this past year -- piles and piles. When the schol said they were going to make the children write, they really meant it. The school kept its promise.

For the stories and poems they published, they also had to illustrate them. Luckily, my boys love to draw things in great detail. My boys are very visual, very pencil-and-paper guys.

So for instance, when one or the other boy had to cough up a poem, about a boat or a fortress or whatnot, in blank verse... at least they got to illustrate it in great detail. Thank God. I think that's what kept them sane through all of these assignments completed during classtime. Five minutes of poem and forty-five minutes of illustration... what's not to like?

Forty-five minutes of Mandatory computation practice in long division commencing at 3:30PM.

-- BeckyC - 28 Jun 2006

IS THAT QUOTE AMAZING????

It's just astonishing what these people will open their mouths and say.

It's all right there; you don't have to unpack the text.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jun 2006

It's quoted in David Murray's article.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jun 2006

Becky

I'm facing a BIG brouhaha here.

It's seeming to me (I'm going to write a post & solicit advice)....

It's seeming to me that we have to go back to Saxon Math. Period. I don't think there's any royal road to geometry....and the school can't teach math. (It's worse than that, obviously. The school engages in anti-teaching.)

I haven't brought this up yet.

Ms. Kahl's final "assessment" tells Christopher to "brush up" on his "math skills" this summer.

Unbelievable.

THIS WOMAN HAS A JOB FOR LIFE.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jun 2006

All of these people believe it's the child's responsibility to teach himself math.

That makes it my job.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Jun 2006

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Title:	debunking the debunkers
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	AssessmentTests
LogDate:	200606281103

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