Raise Average Student Achievement

[The idea]

Suppose it were legal for private businesses to provide facilities for students who received below average marks to kill themselves.

Benefit #1: If we compare the average for all living students before and after the death of a below-average student, we will see that the average mark of the living has increased.

Benefit #2: Some students will kill themselves anyway. If they choose to use the facilities provided, then there will be cost savings. For example, there will be less need for police investigations, fewer delays on subway trains, etc.

Benefit #3: The businesses could be profitable. A student will have no further need for money after using the facilities.

Some people will assume that this couldn't possibly be a serious proposal. Perhaps there is some moral issue that needs to be considered?

Some students, while making significant efforts, earn low marks. There is no reason to consider such students to be blameworthy. Nevertheless, it is preferable for there to be as few such students as possible. Society should look favorably upon a method for decreasing the number of such students without violating anyone's rights. If you disagree, can you explain why you disagree?

[Powa]

I think you should have posted this in Humor. But then again it's not funny. :rolleyes:

[cbish]

Powa wrote:

But then again it's not funny.

No it's not funny. It's sad. This whole idea of raising standards is misguided. It's misguided in terms of diagnosis of cause (in terms of the basic premise that we're underperforming). It's misguided in practical result (in terms of what's actually obtainable). It's misguided in how, societally, we view ourselves. This issue has become a politcal one with no actual thought to cause or plan of attack.

There is an underlying belief that the reasons 'our schools have failed' is because of teachers and teachers union. This is on par with blaming cavities on dentists.

The idea that every child will read at grade level is a statistical impossibility. Grade level is a mean. This idea is on par with the idea that everyone will live past the average death rate.

Contrary to popular belief, people are stupid. Not everyone is educable. Our normal, everyday 'go to the grocery store after picking up the kids' world functions at about a 5th grade level. Unless there is injury or retardation everyone can function at about that. After that, however, intellectual levels vary. So, how much of a change are you really going to see, and is it a valid increase?

[drkitten]

I agree with most of what you say, but lose it at this paragraph:

Originally posted by cbish

The idea that every child will read at grade level is a statistical impossibility. Grade level is a mean. This idea is on par with the idea that everyone will live past the average death rate.


I don't believe that "grade level" is a mean; "grade level" is a norm, typically set by bureaucrats at the state (or Federal) department of education, who have decreed, in their infinite wisdom, that "by the time a child is in third grade, she or he should know X." As such, we're basically looking at an expert opinion here, but there's nothing inherently reasonable about it -- X could be "the alphabet," or X could be "tensor calculus." Part of the recent push for standards, and standardized curricula and testing, is the perception on the part of the general public (and their political representatives) that the mean has drifted unacceptably low, and that something needs to be done to make sure that students know what they should.

And at some level (although I completely disagree with the methods and solutions proposed), the critics are right. There is a level of knowledge, achievable by everyone without pathological medial conditions, that is more or less required in order to survive and be happy in modern society. We can argue about the details of where that level is,... but, for example, a person unable to read street signs is not going to be a safe driver. A person unable to work a tax form is going to have problems filling out taxes. I'm perhaps a snob and would set the bar higher -- a voter should be able to read the ballot, and read the newspaper to know for whom to vote. Anyone who works with money should be able to figure out change from a twenty (or a 6% sales tax). Anyone who barbecues should be able to read the safety instructions.

[cbish]

new drkitten wrote:
I don't believe that "grade level" is a mean; "grade level" is a norm,

I think we're talking about the same thing. For example, if we say the average IQ is 100; that's based on a norm, right? That's part of my point. Are these reform goals obtainable. It seems to me, we're going against the bell curve.

And at some level (although I completely disagree with the methods and solutions proposed), the critics are right

Are they? Again, we're playing against the curve. Is our society's intellectual capacity any different than 100 years ago? Or, is the the need for education and the demands on our educational system different than 100 years ago?

I agree with what you say. You are correct. And is the system broke? Yes. Again, I say that the general overall reform movement is misdiagnosing the problems.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by cbish


I think we're talking about the same thing. For example, if we say the average IQ is 100; that's based on a norm, right? That's part of my point. Are these reform goals obtainable. It seems to me, we're going against the bell curve.



No, we're not talking about the same thing (although I admit that the word "norm" has a rather broad meaning, which may be creating a bit of confusion). The reason that the average IQ is 100 is because it's defined (by the creators of the IQ test) to be so -- when the raw scores are collected by the test creators, they make a conversion table that takes the observed mean of the raw scores and maps it to an IQ of 100. Periodically, the designers need to re-scale the raw scores because the underlying means have changed.

On the other hand, cement comes in fifty-pound sacks. If you want a job hauling sacks of cement around, I can (reasonably) require that you have the ability to lift fifty pounds, because if you can't, you can't do the job. This has nothing to do with the lifting capacity of the average person (most of the population can lift fifty pounds) and everything with the nature of the job to be done; if the population gets stronger (or weaker), there will still be the defined 'norm' that "to take this job, you need to be able to lift fifty pounds." This isn't defined by the average of the population, or even by me, but by the cement manufacturer. If he stops selling in sacks of less than seventy pounds, then the demands for the job just went up.

The manufacturer of the product we call "Life" creates his own demands in terms of a skill-set necessary to handle the product; as life has gotten more technical, the demands for living have gotten more stringent, to the point where (for example) the illiteracy that was the norm in the 14th century is now an effective barrier to participation in (Western) society today. "Life" no longer comes in illiterate-sized sacks -- literacy has become the norm demanded of participants. Fortunately, this isn't a difficult norm to meet, which is why the US has a literacy rate in the high 90s. But it's getting harder to find "Life" in "barely-literate" sized sacks....




Are they? Again, we're playing against the curve. Is our society's intellectual capacity any different than 100 years ago? Or, is the the need for education and the demands on our educational system different than 100 years ago?

Yes, and yes. We have better medical care and better nutrition, which remove two substantial barriers to early childhood cognitive development. We also have a society that not only can afford, but expects that all children spend an extremely long period (over fifteen years) in intellectual development instead of economically productive labor. We can afford not only to keep eight year olds out of the workforce, but even to pay for adults to foster their intellectual capacity during this period. As a result, literacy rates (to use one easy statistic) have skyrocketed over this period, as have the uptake of all forms of educational credentials from elementary education through the Ph.D. There is also some very interesting data available specifically about IQ studies in the form of the Flynn effect, which basically says that raw IQ scores are continually rising over time, suggeting that the 'mean' intelligence is getting higher. (The average IQ stays 100 only because of the artificial renorming; if I took the IQ test my grandfather had taken long ago and got the exact same raw score as he, he might have gotten a measured IQ of 120, while I would get a measured IQ of 80 with the exact same answers. The difference is that the statistical norms have changed.)

At the same time, the demands of society have also gotten substantially greater; for example, the ability to do "addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division," by itself, used to qualify a person for a rather well-paying white-collar position as a clerk or (a telling term) a "calculator" in an office. The ability to read and write would qualify a person as a secretary or librarian in 1900. We're talking about (by modern standards) perhaps an eighth-grade education here -- what jobs, today, are available to people with only an eighth-grade education?

[cbish]

No disputes. I have a couple of questions, though.

What does a reading grade level mean to you? I'm under the impression that it is a norm. Whatever fine line you draw as "8th grade reading level"; half of general population above, half below.

Your second to last paragraph (yes and yes......). No disputing the fact that we are smarter, as a general population, than generations ago. I think you've touched on some of the reasons why. In short, opportunity and information. Just for fun, here's a hypothetical.

Say we take our current general population, one from 1930, and one from 1850. Each population gets in the Way-Back machine (or Way-Front machine), erases the intellect, and is awarded the standard educational/societal opportunities of the time. Test each group at each time. What do you think the results would be? How would each generation compare at different time periods?

what jobs, today, are available to people with only an eighth-grade education?

Your implication is correct. Leading to this quote:
At the same time, the demands of society have also gotten substantially greater;

to the point that this is increasing faster than mean intellegence?
I think so.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by cbish

What does a reading grade level mean to you? I'm under the impression that it is a norm. Whatever fine line you draw as "8th grade reading level"; half of general population above, half below.


Yes, yes, and no. Yes, it's a line. Yes, it's a norm. No, there's no expectation or requirement that half of the general population will be above it and half below. In fact, it would be extremely surprising if that were the case.

For example, the state of North Carolina defines five levels of "School Recognition," ranging from "schools of excellence," where ninety percent of the students perform at or above grade level, down to "low-performing school," where "fewer than 50 percent of students performed at or above grade level."

If "grade level" really were defined in terms of the mean performance, we'd expect to see fully half of the schools in North Carolina in this bottom category. In fact, North Carolina isn't exactly regarded as a national educational powerhouse, and based on the national norms, I'd expect to see more than half of the schools in this worst group. But, of course, that's what we don't see. Most schools fall into the middle groups, as you might expect.

This is also what we see from the standardized test scores: from the relevant government web pages, "In 2003-04, the eighth year of the ABCs of Public Education for K-8 schools and the seventh year for high schools, 81.3 percent of students in grades 3-8 were considered proficient in reading and mathematics, up 19.6 points from 1996-97. In grades 9-12, student proficiency in core subject areas increased to 73.5 percent, up 16 points from 1997-98. The achievement gaps for all racial groups narrowed with American Indian students posting the most improvement in the past few years, gaining 30.7 percentage points since 1996-97. In addition, 25 percent of all schools, or 563 schools, earned designation as Honor Schools of Excellence, the highest recognition category under the ABCs. Seven in 10 schools made their Adequate Yearly Progress targets under No Child Left Behind. Overall, North Carolina schools met 96.2 percent or 35,661 of 37,087 of their AYP performance targets."

"Proficient," in the quote above, basically means "performing at grade level."

So there are three questions. The first, of course, is whether 81.3% of students performing at grade level is acceptable. And the ultimate answer, of course, is no --- we should strive to make the number as close to 100% as possible. Realistically, though, it's a very good number and the North Carolina teachers are to be congratulated for achieving it.

Second is the question of whether the expectations for "grade level" are realistic, in that they are actually material that can be learned by (for example) third graders, but that aren't so easy as to be pointless milestones. I don't have either the information or the authority to answer that question; that's up to the NC State Board of Education.

The third is the the question of what level of "proficiency" will be necessary for success in life. A hundred years ago, someone who could perform "proficiently" on a test of eighth-grade skills was qualified to hold a reasonably good job. Today, not so.

[cbish]

drkitten wrote:No, there's no expectation or requirement that half of the general population will be above it and half below. In fact, it would be extremely surprising if that were the case.
I've always been under the impression that it was. Or at least a statistical range based on norm. I think I'm going to do some homework. I certainly could be misinformed.

up 19.6 points from 1996-97 Is this points as in a 0-1000 scale like we use here in Calif. If it's percentage, that's amazing!:D You folks must have really been knobs;) Actually, even on a 0-1000 pt scale, we'd take it.

The first, of course, is whether 81.3% of students performing at grade level is acceptable. And the ultimate answer, of course, is no --- we should strive to make the number as close to 100% as possible. Realistically, though, it's a very good number and the North Carolina teachers are to be congratulated for achieving it.

And, I'm afraid that moving toward 100% may be like moving toward the speed of light; you incrementally never get there.

Second is the question of whether the expectations for "grade level" are realistic, in that they are actually material that can be learned by (for example) third graders, but that aren't so easy as to be pointless milestones.

Here's scenario. Several years ago, the superintendent of our high school district pushed through Algebra I (standard 9th grade algebra) as a graduation requirement. Your thoughts?

The third is the the question of what level of "proficiency" will be necessary for success in life. A hundred years ago, someone who could perform "proficiently" on a test of eighth-grade skills was qualified to hold a reasonably good job.

Correct. Which is why I say the demands on the educational system are unprecedented. And, I might add, we're not really addressing this. With that being said, what would you consider a 'reasonably good job'? One of my former students is my recycle guy. Was he proficiently prepared in high school? (I don't think he passed Algebra;) )

[drkitten]

Originally posted by cbish

Here's scenario. Several years ago, the superintendent of our high school district pushed through Algebra I (standard 9th grade algebra) as a graduation requirement. Your thoughts?


There are a lot of complexities here to navigate; most school districts stop having course requirements in high schools as elective slip in, so it's perfectly legitimate for a 9th grader who is doing math "at grade level" to pass Algebra I, and then opt never again to take another math class. (Or science, or history, or.... but oddly enough, most school districts still require English every year). So the notion of "grade level" evaporates at the high school level, since not every student will take every subject. But this level is exactly where the notion of "what do you need to know in order to be successful" comes in; if you can be successful with only algebra, there's no need to require calculus.

But, yes, I certainly feel that a command of elementary algebra is a Good Thing in modern society and would be very uncomfortable with any school district that didn't require it. In broad terms, I'm more worried about the overall state of science teaching than math (in particular) as I know several districts that have no science requirements whatsoever to graduate. I think we probably agree that a good knowledge of science is one of the best defenses against the scam artists that JR spends so much time and effort exposing, and the easiest way to get that knowledge is in school.




Correct. Which is why I say the demands on the educational system are unprecedented. And, I might add, we're not really addressing this. With that being said, what would you consider a 'reasonably good job'? One of my former students is my recycle guy. Was he proficiently prepared in high school? (I don't think he passed Algebra;) )

I am in some regards a closet Marxist, in that I tend to analyze social issues in cold-blooded economic terms. My definition of "a reasonably good job" would therefore start with the ability of a person working that job (and only that job) to live comfortably, to raise and support a family, and to successfully retire under reasonable conditions. I'd like very much to end the definition there, instead of arguing whether owning a car is a necessity for a "comfortable life" (in the modern world, I think it is), or whether cable TV is a necessity (I don't think it is).

I don't know whether your recycle guy was proficiently prepared -- I never met the guy. Some really bright and well-educated people are nonetheless completely messed up (John Nash, or Ted Kaczynski). Some people just get dealt a bad hand, or make bad plays with the hand they have. ("Marry my girlfriend instead of taking that scholarship to college? Sure!") And there's a few people who really are uneducatable.

I'll say this, though. If he can't make enough money to live comfortably on his recycle-guy job, and he isn't qualified to get and hold a better job, then somewhere along the line either he, or the educational establishment, or more probably both, screwed up badly.

[cbish]

drkitten wrote:
So the notion of "grade level" evaporates at the high school level,
That's one thing to keep in mind. There are many, many forms of public education. Primary is certainly different than middle school than high school etc. There are even huge differences in high school; college prep, vocational, arts etc.

Trying to speak in broad educational terms is like a proctologist attending the American Dental Association.:D

elementary algebra is a Good Thing in modern society and would be very uncomfortable with any school district that didn't require it.

Well, here's what happened to us! We're an above average school dist. here in Calif. We're in the top 25%. When our Supe announced the Algebra requirement, our math dept. protested. They claimed that roughly 10-20% of the general population lacked the abstraction ability to understand algebra. Therefore, we'd see roughly the same distribution in our student body. Now, if that was true, what were our options? 1) 10-20% of our student body doesn't graduate. 2) We dumb it down.

We chose #2. We now have five different courses with the title "Algebra". We have Algebra 1, Algebra A, Algebra B, C, & D. Have things changed? No. Algebra 1 is Algebra 1. Algebra A is what we used to call Pre-Algebra. Algebra B is what used to be called Consumer Math. Algebra C is what used to be called Business Math. And, I don't know what the hell Algebra D is but by god it's called Algebra which is what is really important.

Apparently, our math dept was correct. 10-20% of our student body can pass 'algebra' in name only. This is why I'm a little skeptical because this has been my experiences with "raising achievement".

I'm more worried about the overall state of science teaching than math (in particular) as I know several districts that have no science requirements whatsoever to graduate.

This is disturbing. I agree with your sentiment. However, Calif. is toying with the idea with adding another year of science (from 2 to 3 years) as a grad requirement. I have mixed feelings and our dept. is against it. Yes, I believe science is vital. However 2/3rds of our students already take three years so who is our target audience for the requirement. When you make something a requirement, you're stuck in the dilema our math depart. was in. You're stuck with students who don't want to be there, don't want to do it, won't do it, and, in some cases, can't do it. What do you do for the ones that can't do it?

Ask a veteran English teacher that has to get students through four years. 'Yes the rest of you need to do a term paper on Shakespeare but since Jimmy can't read, he's going to make a ceramic sword instead of the paper' is what it breaks down to often times.

If he can't make enough money to live comfortably on his recycle-guy job, and he isn't qualified to get and hold a better job, then somewhere along the line either he, or the educational establishment, or more probably both, screwed up badly.
Perhaps. but I think you also answered it here.
And there's a few people who really are uneducatable.
And we won't admit that!

[cbish]

Another thing to consider:

We keep comparing ourselves to other countries and to the past. We keep hearing how "we've lost our status in the world in terms of math & science", and " we've declined in math & science".

Have we?

Think sample size. First, think how other countries sample these "tests" compared to the US. Case in point, who, which states in the USA have the highest SAT scores and who has the lowest. I believe IIFC, North Carolina had the lowest and , something like Rhode Island had the highest. The point?: North Carolina required all seniors to take the test. Rhode Island didn't. Even if I don't have my specific's straight, the point is: the larger the sample size, the more normal, the lower the score.

Do European and Japanese educational systems attempt to teach everyone as does the USA system. Same point. Again IIFC, these systems begin "tracking" (dirty word in the US) at about the 4th grade.

Have SAT scores really improved in the past 60 years? Statistically yes. The SAT had to be "normalized" a few years ago from 1941. Yet as I have questioned, are we any smarter? We have resources and information available to us as never before. Again, take my shuffle the generation question I posed earlier and am I smarter than my great, great grandfather?

So, is the "testing comparison" field a level field?

[drkitten]

Originally posted by cbish

Well, here's what happened to us! We're an above average school dist. here in Calif. We're in the top 25%. When our Supe announced the Algebra requirement, our math dept. protested. They claimed that roughly 10-20% of the general population lacked the abstraction ability to understand algebra.


Well, here's part of the problem. You see, although I agree that some of the population is fundamentally uneducatable, I think that your math department's assessment of the percentage is way off. (My personal assessment would be on the order of 1-2% of the population lacking the abstraction ability to understand algebra, although I admit lacking statistics to back this up, partly because it's so hard to gather such statistics.)

At the same time, another problem is with the idea of graduation requirements. Many supervisors (and it sounds like yours is one of them) is of the opinion that raising the requirements will automatically raise the performance of the people subject to the requirements. This is fundamentally asinine. If you raise the requirements to a point that 10-20% of the population cannot meet, then 10-20% of the population will fail to meet it. In the case of high school graduate requirements, this means that one student out of ten will not receive a diploma.

There are actually three options, instead of the two you mention. First, flunk 10-20% of the students. Second, dumb down the magic word "algebra" so that it no longer means what it used to mean. Third -- and this is the one that adminstrators have problems with -- offer additional resources/training to the students who would ordinarily fail the higher standard so that they can make it. However, this gets expensive, and is fundamentally stupid. If you can fund the program when it's required, why not fund the same program before the requirements change? (Answer, because there are other conflicting priorities. The supervisor's position only makes sense if you assume that the department/school/district had resources available that could be diverted into remedial math education but that were instead being spent on athletic uniforms or something. Basically, "no, the football team doesn't get new pads this year, but we've hired two more algebra teachers to reduce class sizes. Don't blame us, this was a requirement from the Supe.")

Part of the underlying problem is the assumption that 10-20% of the student body not graduating is itself a problem. Why? Is there some sort of entitlement to a diploma? If for some reason graduation rates are too low, raising standards will only worsen the problem. But "graduation rates" are themselves somewhat arbitrary and not a measure of student achievement.





This is disturbing. I agree with your sentiment. However, Calif. is toying with the idea with adding another year of science (from 2 to 3 years) as a grad requirement. I have mixed feelings and our dept. is against it. Yes, I believe science is vital. However 2/3rds of our students already take three years so who is our target audience for the requirement. When you make something a requirement, you're stuck in the dilema our math depart. was in. You're stuck with students who don't want to be there, don't want to do it, won't do it, and, in some cases, can't do it. What do you do for the ones that can't do it?

Ask a veteran English teacher that has to get students through four years. 'Yes the rest of you need to do a term paper on Shakespeare but since Jimmy can't read, he's going to make a ceramic sword instead of the paper' is what it breaks down to often times.


Bluntly, flunk 'em. The ones who genuinely can't learn should not receive credentials falsely claiming that they can and have. This is simply "truth in advertising." The ones who can learn, but find it difficult must receive the help they need -- which means that if you're going to teach more science to difficult students, you will need to hire more science teachers, equip the labs better, create more opportunities for different kinds of learning, etc.

Which is the primary problem of the modern school reform movement. They create arbitrary and escalating standards, with penalties for failing to meet those standards, but do not create the resources needed to meet them. What's going on now (and your math department appears, unfortunately, to be a good example) is not education, but triage. It is probably not the case that 10-20% of your student body cannot learn algebra, but it's probably the case that there are 10-20% of the student body that you can't afford to teach it to.

[cbish]

I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you in a timely manner. I can only respond quickly on one point:

lthough I agree that some of the population is fundamentally uneducatable, I think that your math department's assessment of the percentage is way off. (My personal assessment would be on the order of 1-2% of the population lacking the abstraction ability to understand algebra, although I admit lacking statistics to back this up, partly because it's so hard to gather such statistics.)

Yes, you're way off!! I feel our math dept. is exactly right! Take your numbers and multiply x10. I'll explain later. Had to give a 'Final' today so I'm ver busy. But, our discussion is good and I want to continue:D

[Capitalist]

The important question remains: why are Americans underperfoming?

I"m new in the forum, but I think this is a fundamental question.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Capitalist
The important question remains: why are Americans underperfoming?


Are Americans underperforming? Or are other countries simply doing more selective statistics via tracking?

For example, the "average" MIT student is basically brilliant at mathematics, because people who aren't brilliant at math don't get into MIT. FIfty years ago in the United States, people who weren't brilliant -- or at least substantially better than average -- typically didn't get into college at all. So if you look at the average performance of college freshman today vs. 1955, the "average" freshman today is probably a poorer student, because today's "average" student wouldn't have been a freshman at all.

But this sort of thing occurs routinely at much lower levels in Europe and Asia. For example, most of England (but not Ireland) has gotten away from the so-called "eleven-plus" exam, but the county of Buckinghamshire has not. From their web site: "Selection exams take place at the beginning of Year 6 for children aged 10/11. The results of these exams form the basis of the selection process. The children with the very best results will be “passed�, but a significant number of places are held back." Passing this exam will allow you to attend one of several elite "grammar schools," while failure will put you into another "secondary school." Typically, students in grammar school are college-bound and recieve more rigorous academic training, while students in the secondary schools are given more vocational training.

Which group of students do you think would be expected to sit the various placement exams that are used to compare British vs. American students?

[Nikk]

Originally posted by new drkitten

But this sort of thing occurs routinely at much lower levels in Europe and Asia. For example, most of England (but not Ireland) has gotten away from the so-called "eleven-plus" exam, but the county of Buckinghamshire has not. From their web site: "Selection exams take place at the beginning of Year 6 for children aged 10/11. The results of these exams form the basis of the selection process. The children with the very best results will be “passed�, but a significant number of places are held back." Passing this exam will allow you to attend one of several elite "grammar schools," while failure will put you into another "secondary school." Typically, students in grammar school are college-bound and recieve more rigorous academic training, while students in the secondary schools are given more vocational training.

Which group of students do you think would be expected to sit the various placement exams that are used to compare British vs. American students?



I do remember reading that there are a whole range of criteria given to education departments to ensure that like is being compared with like when schools are selected to participate in the study. Otherwise the whole exercise would be useless.

In fact this year the UK education department had a problem with its returns because it couldn't get enough of the selected schools to get the data back in time in order to produce a valid sample.