Tonight at 7pm (at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif) the U.S. Women's National Team will play in the semifinals of the Women's Gold Cup against Mexico. If they win, they go to the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup.
North Carolina still wins for sending the most women to play on the national team, with 5 UNC grads on tonight's roster (I expect they'll win the NCAA title too this year). Also notable on tonight's roster is goalkeep Briana Scurry, who hails from my own alma mater UMass-Amherst and took a year off in 2005, but is probably best known for making good on her promise to run naked through the streets of Athens if the U.S. won the 1996 Olympics. They did
so she did, 20 yards on a side street with nothing but her gold medal.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Whac-a-Charter School
Joe Williams’ Ed Next cover article about charter school opposition put me in mind of my late, lamented Whac-a-Mole Game. About four years ago a home version of the Whac-a-Mole carnival game popped up in my Amazon.com recommendations, and I just had to have it. It was by far the best $10 I ever spent. Sadly, after a few years of serious abuse, Whac-a-Mole died this year and now sits forlornly in a corner of my bookshelf. Even worse, it’s apparently been discontinued, probably because it was a very dangerous toy—people got hurt playing Whac-a-Mole, which was part of what made it so darn fun. Milton-Bradley now makes a watered down, much less fun-looking but probably safer (and also more expensive!) version of the game, but it’s a pale imitation. Rather than a board of about 8 moles like my game had, where you have to be alert to all the moles and a true master wins by not only hitting her moles but also blocking the opponent from hitting his moles (that's how one gets hurt), the new Milton Bradley version has only four moles, and each player is assigned exactly one mole. Boring! If anyone reading this happens to know where I can get a version of my beloved and discontinued Whac-a-Mole, or has facility with electronics and might be able to help me fix it, I would be exceedingly thankful. To sort of pretend I'm making this post education-relevant: Read Joe's article!
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Is Quality Preschool Good Enough?
Writing in the latest Education Next, UVA's Robert Pianta notes research showing that high-quality preschool classrooms can significantly narrow achievement and behavior gaps for at-risk 4-year-olds. But, he cautions, other research finds that:
What's more, there is great variation in the quality of experiences and supports for children even within programs that meet the standards that are generally recognized as being necessary for preschool quality--small class sizes, credentialed teachers, and the like.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that there is huge variation in children's experiences in preschool classes that meet similar quality standards. After all, virtually all K-12 teachers have bachelor's degrees and most are certified, but there's tremendous variation in the educational outcomes they produce for kids. A bachelor's degree might be a reasonable floor, but it's hardly a guarantee of effectiveness. Non-tangible or hard-to-measure teacher characteristics (and other characteristics of preschool programs) also matter a lot. That's why regulating inputs alone is never going to be sufficient to ensure quality, either in K-12 or preschool. We also have to look at outcomes in some fashion. Now, we can argue about different ways of measuring outcomes--although I think most reasonable people will probably agree that the way we measure outcomes for little kids will probably look different than it does for bigger kids--but that doesn't change the basic conclusion here.
Also, on a sort-of-but-not-really related note (Shameless Plug Alert!): While you're checking out the latest Ed Next, have a look at this piece I wrote on NCLB restructuring.
Most children in pre-K, kindergarten, and grade 1 classrooms are exposed to quite low levels of instructional support and only moderate levels of social and emotional supports--levels that are not as high as those in the gap-closing, effective classrooms...
What's more, there is great variation in the quality of experiences and supports for children even within programs that meet the standards that are generally recognized as being necessary for preschool quality--small class sizes, credentialed teachers, and the like.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that there is huge variation in children's experiences in preschool classes that meet similar quality standards. After all, virtually all K-12 teachers have bachelor's degrees and most are certified, but there's tremendous variation in the educational outcomes they produce for kids. A bachelor's degree might be a reasonable floor, but it's hardly a guarantee of effectiveness. Non-tangible or hard-to-measure teacher characteristics (and other characteristics of preschool programs) also matter a lot. That's why regulating inputs alone is never going to be sufficient to ensure quality, either in K-12 or preschool. We also have to look at outcomes in some fashion. Now, we can argue about different ways of measuring outcomes--although I think most reasonable people will probably agree that the way we measure outcomes for little kids will probably look different than it does for bigger kids--but that doesn't change the basic conclusion here.
Also, on a sort-of-but-not-really related note (Shameless Plug Alert!): While you're checking out the latest Ed Next, have a look at this piece I wrote on NCLB restructuring.
WaPost Goes to School Room, Misses Elephant
There's a kind of unreality running throughout today's front-page article in the Post about students who get good grades in school, and even end up on the honor roll, but fail state standardized tests:
Said one parent of an honors student who failed the state algebra exam:
How do we know this? Because every measure of what students who have graduated from public schools actually know and can do shows deep deficiencies. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress only 59% of seventeen year-olds can perform "moderately complex" procedures in math. 40% of all college students are forced to enroll in at least one remedial--that is, high school-level--course. 43% of all adults score at only the "Basic" level or below on a test of literacy. Etc., etc.
One could argue, I suppose, that the schools have set the standards right and the states have set the bar too high. But you can only make that case if you're willing to forgoe any and all arguments along the lines of "standardized tests are dumbing down the curriculum, hurting gifted students, etc."
You could also chalk it up to measurement error--inevitably, some bright students will score poorly on a given test on a given day. Then again, by the same token you would also expect the opposite to occur--students passing the standardized test who really didn't learn what they needed to know. Somehow, those students never seem to end up in the newspaper. And when you consistently come up with numbers like those cited in the article--between 12 and 25 percent of students who failed the state exam getting passing grades from their school--it's not hard to figure out what's going on. Unless, strangely enough, you're the normally reliable Post.
Update: AFTie Michelle offers a sensible take on the article.
Students and teachers offer an array of explanations for why test scores sometimes fail to match up with grades. Some students don't take the exams seriously. Some freeze up. Still others trip over unfamiliar language. And teachers sometimes are not prepped in what the exams cover, especially when the tests are new. Occasionally, some school officials suspect, classes aren't rigorous enough to prepare students adequately.Occasionally, some suspect. You know, just maybe, every now and again.
Said one parent of an honors student who failed the state algebra exam:
"It's hard to understand a situation where you can have an Honor Roll student who doesn't pass the test. She's been an Honor Roll student since the sixth grade," she said. "I can't say I really hold her teacher accountable. . . . I just accepted the fact that Brittanie may not be a child that tests well."The only mystery here is why everyone in the article is being so circumspect about something that should be pretty obvious: states create standardized tests because local schools, when left to their own devices, don't always hold students to high enough academic standards. They put students on honor rolls who don't belong there, pass them along to the next grade even though they haven't learned what they need to know, and ultimately hand them diplomas signifying the attainment of skills and knowledge that students haven't actually attained. Not all schools, certainly, or even most. But way too many.
How do we know this? Because every measure of what students who have graduated from public schools actually know and can do shows deep deficiencies. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress only 59% of seventeen year-olds can perform "moderately complex" procedures in math. 40% of all college students are forced to enroll in at least one remedial--that is, high school-level--course. 43% of all adults score at only the "Basic" level or below on a test of literacy. Etc., etc.
One could argue, I suppose, that the schools have set the standards right and the states have set the bar too high. But you can only make that case if you're willing to forgoe any and all arguments along the lines of "standardized tests are dumbing down the curriculum, hurting gifted students, etc."
You could also chalk it up to measurement error--inevitably, some bright students will score poorly on a given test on a given day. Then again, by the same token you would also expect the opposite to occur--students passing the standardized test who really didn't learn what they needed to know. Somehow, those students never seem to end up in the newspaper. And when you consistently come up with numbers like those cited in the article--between 12 and 25 percent of students who failed the state exam getting passing grades from their school--it's not hard to figure out what's going on. Unless, strangely enough, you're the normally reliable Post.
Update: AFTie Michelle offers a sensible take on the article.
Monday, November 20, 2006
In which Sara pretends to take the Onion seriously as an excuse to praise a favorite professor
So, apparently, the theater department at my alma mater has become more nationally recognized since I graduated. I was never a theater major, but I tended to hang out with a lot of theater people and managed to appear in a couple of shows and take a few classes. My Shakespeare professor, Robert Ball, was very demanding but also one of the best professors I had who had a lasting, positive impact on my life.
The Wire Week Nine: The Beginning of the End
After a couple of very good but not great weeks, The Wire launches into the final third of the season with a vengeance.
First, I hope the foolishness with sticking students in 90-minute test prep classes, but then turning up the heat in order to keep them docile in said classes, apparently without considering that the heat also means they're sure not to learn whatever meager test prep lessons are being presented, can help put to rest this whole argument about accountability and teaching to the test. Craig made this point last week, but it needs repeating: When people do stupid things in response to a sensible policy, that's not evidence that the policy is stupid, nor does it mitigate the responsbility of people who do stupid things.
For example, let's take the obvious parallel of the Baltimore police department. I think most reasonable people would agree that police departments have two mains goals: reducing crime and apprehending criminals. Most people would also agree that crime statistics are a pretty good way to measure success in accomplishing those goals.
Faced with the challenge of being evaluated by crime statistics, there are a number of things a police department can do. It can act strategically, tasking its best people with implementing a long-term plan to take down the high-level criminals. That's what Daniels' Major Crimes unit did, with much success. Or it can innovate, think outside the box, and try to reform the drug trade itself. Thats what Bunny Colvin did last season, also with some success.
Or it can be stupid and make a lot of meaningless low-level arrests, which will just antagonize people and do nothing to solve the problem--and thus, improve the crime statistics--in the long-term. That's what happened this week. I wonder if there's a Fraternal Order of Police blog out there somewhere pointing to this as evidence of how we need to stop holding police departments responsible for crime statistics? Probably not, because while we can criticize ineffective police departments, at least we respect them enough to hold them responsible for their own bad choices. Yet when it comes to teaching to the test--or messing with the thermostat--the refrain is too often, "No Child Left Behind made me do it."
The exchange between Colvin and the administrator about the goals of the special class was also interesting: "You're socializing them, but not educating them." I've been reading Diane Ravitch's history of 20th century school reform recently--back in the '30s and 40s, most leading progressive educators would have said that socializing Namond et. al. is educating them, that if the school can help them with practical lessons like learning to be a waiter or interacting with government, its job is pretty much done. Times certainly change.
But as has been the case all season, the most compelling storylines about the education of urban children on The Wire take place outside the school walls, as the writers constantly draw parallels between the fate of children caught between highly dysfunctional formal institutions and highly functional informal institutions. Take the unfolding tragedy of Michael's corruption by Marlo. Despite his unusual intelligence and integrity, the school system has all but ignored Michael. He turns in perfect homework problems and all Prez can do is look at them quizzically, like he's not quite sure what to do. Meanwhile, Michael and his brother have to live with a drug addict and a child molester.
Marlo, by contrast, sees Michael's potential in an instant (literally, with a shock of recognition in the first episode that I suspect will turn out to be the anchor moment of the entire season. While the writing on the The Wire is often and justly praised, many of the most significant passages this season have been dialogue-free, consisting entirely of silent moments of recognition and wordless shots of character's faces. Rawls' definitive break from Burrell happened in the mayor's office, with three consecutive half-second reaction shots--Rawls, the mayor's aide, the mayor. Or the lingering, Al-Pacino-in-the-Godfather-style shot of Michael's deadened face after he sent Chris and Snoop to do murder. Chilling.)
The lesson seems to be that highly efficient, well-managed organizations like Marlo's drug gang win out in the short-term--at least long enough to consume the likes of Michael, Namond, and possibly more. But in the long-term--and this is one of the meta-themes that runs throughout the entire series--the efficiency of untrestrained capitalism embodied by the Baltimore drug trade consumes everyone. When willingness to kill becomes just another competitive advantage, everyone dies in the end.
And so the The Wire's creators are caught between their frustration with the way politics and human imperfection diminish the value of vital public institutions--schools, police, cities--while at the same time acknowledging that reforming those institutions is the only thing that can save students like Michael. It's that combination of unforgiving realism and sustained hope that makes The Wire so great.
First, I hope the foolishness with sticking students in 90-minute test prep classes, but then turning up the heat in order to keep them docile in said classes, apparently without considering that the heat also means they're sure not to learn whatever meager test prep lessons are being presented, can help put to rest this whole argument about accountability and teaching to the test. Craig made this point last week, but it needs repeating: When people do stupid things in response to a sensible policy, that's not evidence that the policy is stupid, nor does it mitigate the responsbility of people who do stupid things.
For example, let's take the obvious parallel of the Baltimore police department. I think most reasonable people would agree that police departments have two mains goals: reducing crime and apprehending criminals. Most people would also agree that crime statistics are a pretty good way to measure success in accomplishing those goals.
Faced with the challenge of being evaluated by crime statistics, there are a number of things a police department can do. It can act strategically, tasking its best people with implementing a long-term plan to take down the high-level criminals. That's what Daniels' Major Crimes unit did, with much success. Or it can innovate, think outside the box, and try to reform the drug trade itself. Thats what Bunny Colvin did last season, also with some success.
Or it can be stupid and make a lot of meaningless low-level arrests, which will just antagonize people and do nothing to solve the problem--and thus, improve the crime statistics--in the long-term. That's what happened this week. I wonder if there's a Fraternal Order of Police blog out there somewhere pointing to this as evidence of how we need to stop holding police departments responsible for crime statistics? Probably not, because while we can criticize ineffective police departments, at least we respect them enough to hold them responsible for their own bad choices. Yet when it comes to teaching to the test--or messing with the thermostat--the refrain is too often, "No Child Left Behind made me do it."
The exchange between Colvin and the administrator about the goals of the special class was also interesting: "You're socializing them, but not educating them." I've been reading Diane Ravitch's history of 20th century school reform recently--back in the '30s and 40s, most leading progressive educators would have said that socializing Namond et. al. is educating them, that if the school can help them with practical lessons like learning to be a waiter or interacting with government, its job is pretty much done. Times certainly change.
But as has been the case all season, the most compelling storylines about the education of urban children on The Wire take place outside the school walls, as the writers constantly draw parallels between the fate of children caught between highly dysfunctional formal institutions and highly functional informal institutions. Take the unfolding tragedy of Michael's corruption by Marlo. Despite his unusual intelligence and integrity, the school system has all but ignored Michael. He turns in perfect homework problems and all Prez can do is look at them quizzically, like he's not quite sure what to do. Meanwhile, Michael and his brother have to live with a drug addict and a child molester.
Marlo, by contrast, sees Michael's potential in an instant (literally, with a shock of recognition in the first episode that I suspect will turn out to be the anchor moment of the entire season. While the writing on the The Wire is often and justly praised, many of the most significant passages this season have been dialogue-free, consisting entirely of silent moments of recognition and wordless shots of character's faces. Rawls' definitive break from Burrell happened in the mayor's office, with three consecutive half-second reaction shots--Rawls, the mayor's aide, the mayor. Or the lingering, Al-Pacino-in-the-Godfather-style shot of Michael's deadened face after he sent Chris and Snoop to do murder. Chilling.)
The lesson seems to be that highly efficient, well-managed organizations like Marlo's drug gang win out in the short-term--at least long enough to consume the likes of Michael, Namond, and possibly more. But in the long-term--and this is one of the meta-themes that runs throughout the entire series--the efficiency of untrestrained capitalism embodied by the Baltimore drug trade consumes everyone. When willingness to kill becomes just another competitive advantage, everyone dies in the end.
And so the The Wire's creators are caught between their frustration with the way politics and human imperfection diminish the value of vital public institutions--schools, police, cities--while at the same time acknowledging that reforming those institutions is the only thing that can save students like Michael. It's that combination of unforgiving realism and sustained hope that makes The Wire so great.
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