I posted a very important commentary this morning by researcher Ed Fuller of Penn State University about the Center for American Progress’ “study” claiming that American schools are “too easy.” Fuller is an expert at statistical analysis and he pulled the study apart to show that the best students said it was “too easy” and that the conclusions of the report were unfounded.
Fuller sent me the following postscript and I thought it was too important to bury as a P.S. in the original post. What he writes is symptomatic of education commentary in general. Everyone is an “expert” when it comes to education because they were once in school. Everyone who has made a lot of money in real estate or insurance or technology or selling shlock feels they have the right to “reform” the schools attended by Other People’s Children. Every think tank desk-jockey knows how teachers ought to teach, even if they have never taught or taught for a year. In no other field where expertise matters are the practitioners bombarded and undermined by the mandates of know-it-alls without relevant knowledge and experience.
That’s the context in which to read what Ed Fuller wrote to me this morning:
Two additional points need to be made that are not related to the report per se.
First, it seems to me that education research is one of the few fields where people with no training in either education or education research feel comfortable conducting “research” and can have their views blindly accepted by politicians, pundits, and the public. Thankfully, no one would invite me to run a bank, be a journalist, edit a newspaper, or make economic policy. It would be a disaster. Yet, evidently anyone can enter the world of education research and conduct shoddy work and have the findings widely accepted.
Second, the media needs to slow down and spend some time investigating the quality of the research and researcher regardless of whether the research originates from a think tank, university, or individual researcher. The education writers in Texas with whom I am familiar are generally a great example of journalists that spend some time doing some background work to get the story right. The Education Writers Association has recognized the problem of media reporting bad research has adopted a number of strategies and policies to help journalists improve upon this situation. EWA should be commended for recognizing and acting on this problem. Unfortunately, EWA cannot reach all journalists. Ultimately, this is why the peer-review process is so important–it helps weed out bad research such as the CAP study.
What about the findings that a third of 8th graders report reading fewer than 5 pages a day either in school or at home, or that 39% of 12th graders report that they almost never write about what they read in class?
Once upon a time, Ravitch herself was in favor of a rigorous curriculum, not one that made little to no demands of many students. One doesn’t have to be a scholar of any kind to agree with her apparently erstwhile opinion.
A fine example to what Fuller was referring: “What about the findings that a third of 8th graders report reading fewer than 5 pages a day either in school or at home, or that 39% of 12th graders report that they almost never write about what they read in class?”
What are the sources for your comment? What is the context of the research of the stats that you cite? Can you say “lies, damned lies, and statistics”?
Have you read the report? If so, there’s no need to ask what the source is.
Obviously I haven’t read whatever report it is to which you refer. What I meant by my comment was that isolated statistics without any context makes it hard to intelligently comment upon. Please fill me in on which report. Thanks!
I’m referring to the Center for American Progress report cited in the original post (you posted a total of 6 times in that thread and this one without knowing what report was at issue?).
Stuart, I don’t think anyone here is against an appropriately challenging curriculum. I imagine most of us are as appalled as you are at the mere thought there might be so many 8th and 12th graders required to do so little writing (I say “thought” because I am in no position to tell if this claim is really true or valid or not).
We also do not want teachers who are not good at their jobs and who can not learn to be good at their jobs remaining in their positions.
If you read this blog carefully, you’ll find that what most of us here object to are the uses to which SPURIOUS claims about ‘the curriculum being too easy’ or there being ‘too many teachers who are substandard’ are put. Which is usually to advocate for the dismantling of public schools and their replacement by private entities.
It’s worth noting that “kids reading fewer than 5 pages a day” is distinctly different from “kids assigned to read fewer than 5 pages a day.”
Fuller has a higher opinion of the Education Writers Association than I do. When Linda Perlstein was their ombudsman, she arrange at one of their meetings, in NYC in March of 2011, to have a dozen education bloggers from around the country participate. Yet even though most of us were classroom based, we were there as observers for the most part, allowed to ask questions, and at one part after all the ‘experts’ had left, put in groups with their members. The last was an eye-opening experience. After hearing one fairly well known reporter ask us how she could get the dirt on bad teachers, and a couple of other similar comments, I decided to ask a question of the assembled dozen or so reporters. I listed four things and asked how many could even identify them, much less explain them. While I do not remember the order in which I posed the question, the four items were Reggio Emelia, Simpson’s Paradox, the Zone of Proximal Development, and Campbell’s Law. NONE of the reporters could identify all four, most only knew of one or two. And this is the problem.
If you don’t know Campbell’s Law, you cannot understand what is fundamentally wrong with the imposition of so-called merit pay in education.
If you do not understand Simpson’s Paradox, you are probably not equipped to understand the statistics being in many cases misused in the advocacy of certain educational policies.
The Zone of Proximal Development is a key idea in the thought of Lev Vygostky, well supported by research, and essential to the constructivist approach to education, an approach with a strong track record of success but which is being squeezed out by the corporatizers and the so-called reform movement.
As to Reggio Emelia, it, like Montessori, comes from italy. What is important is that it is probably the world’s most successful approach to early childhood education,and it was developed in a relatively poor community.
How can we have meaningful public discussions about education policy when those supposed to mediate for the general public are not properly equipped to understand much less write coherently about the issues they are supposed to be covering?
Does anyone know if any educational researchers have done a fine grained analysis of the studies of economists that corporate “reformers” like Gates frequently quote as the basis of their policy positions?
The place to begin would be Hanushek’s research, starting with his earliest studies from 1970. (Statistical analysis is not really my area of expertise or I’d do it myself.)
http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/academic
I have not seen what you are looking for. Alan Krueger debated him on class size. Linda Darling-Hammond debated him on the relationship between spending and achievement in a Colorado court case called Lobato (she won); and I debated him online at Eduwonk on his theory about firing 5-10% of teachers to get dramatic improvement.
Thanks for the info.
Regarding student evaluations, these have been used in higher ed for a long time and many of us have questioned the accuracy of the information that students provide when surveyed.
For example, I’ve placed students on teams in virtually every course (labeled Team 1 and Team 2), explained why they are on teams, etc. Invariably, when surveyed about whether they were on teams, many students in those courses have indicated, “No”.
Okay, this comment is a repost because WordPress ate it.
Alan Krueger took apart Hanushek’s arguments on the ineffectiveness of smaller class sizes. The late Jerry Bracey wrote about that here:
http://www.america-tomorrow.com/bracey/EDDRA/EDDRA20.htm
and Laine, Hedges and Greenwald, in this piece:
http://rer.sagepub.com/content/66/3/411.abstract
took Hanushek apart on his contention that more resources didn’t make a difference in student achievement.
Hope that helps.
Thank you!
glad I could be of service