The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, which oversees the international tests called PISA, plans to start testing five-year-olds.
Early childhood education experts at DEY (Defending the Early Years) Are appalled. They have heard that several states have volunteered to participate in pilot testing, but secrecy is so tight that they don’t know which states they are. If you work in a state education department, please let us know if your state is one of them.
Reader Laura Chapman decided to research how this monstrous idea got off the ground. Here is her Research:
“The new International Early Learning and Child Well-being study (IELS)- dubbed “Baby PISA” will focus on testing 5 year-olds on narrow academic skills achievement. But…
If you go to the links beyond this headline, you will see a more complete description of the tests and surveys that are part of the package. This is not to say that I endorse the internationalization of tests for five-year olds and related surveys of parents and staff. I do not. The computer interface is a bummer. These tests and surveys will end with international stack rankings, just like everything else from OECD. Here is more information about the tests in the International Early Learning Study (IELS), officially administered in the US by the National Center of Education Statistics https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/iels/study_components.asp
Because this blog post indicates there was no consultation with experts from the US, I have spent the afternoon poking around to find more information. The short story is this: Around 2001, OECD enlisted high profile US experts in the early stages of work on early childhood, but for research not clearly related to test development. By 2015, only two US experts were listed as contributors to the project and the tests were being field tested–a fact announced in one session of an OECD conference titled: “Data Development for Measuring Quality in Early Childhood and Education and Care: International ECEC Staff Survey and International Survey of Early Child Outcomes” (p. 29). https://www.oecd.org/leed-forum/activities/Brochure-fpld2015-web.pdf
In 2015, the contact person for the tests was Arno Engel, a consultant for OECD’s Directorate for Education and Skills. Engel was also an Associate Lecturer with the University of Bayreuth, Germany. At that time six other scholars, were also working for OCED on early childhood research and assessments. Brief bios are here, none based in the US. http://www.oecd.org/education/school/international-early-learning-and-child-well-being-study.htm
This OECD project seems to have originated in 1998-99 with a series of commissioned papers under the title, Starting Strong, with the first publication in 2001. That publication summarized “themes” in papers from 12 OECD countries—Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/earlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm
I found the 2001 “Starting Strong” report from the United States, with “themes” that suggest the authors could not have imagined the current computer-based tests. Here are the topics (themes) and contributors.
I – DEFINITIONS, CONTEXT, AND PROVISION
Introduction and Definitions, Policy and Program Context, Overview of Current Provision—Sheila B. Kamerman: Compton Foundation Centennial Professor for the Prevention of Children, Youth, and Family Problems at the Columbia University School of Social Work, Co-Director of the Cross-National Studies Research Program at the School, and Director of the Columbia University Institute for Child and Family Policy and Shirley Gatenio a PhD candidate and Adjunct Lecturer at the Columbia University School of Social Work
II – POLICY CONCERNS
Quality—Debby Cryer: Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Access to ECEC Programs—Edna Ranck: Director of public policy and research for National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, early education historian and independent consultant for early childhood
Regulatory Policy and Staffing—Gwen G. Morgan: Coordinator of the Advanced Management seminars for Day Care Directors, Chair of the Social Policy Committee of the Day Care Council of America.
Program Content and Implementation—Lilian Katz: Professor of Early Childhood Education, Director of ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Family Engagement and Support—Barbara T. Bowman: Erikson Institute (a graduate school based in Chicago specializing in studies of child development, named for Erik Erikson developmental psychologist).
Funding Issues—Steve Barnett & Len Masse: Both from the Center for Early Education at Rutgers, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers—The State University of New Jersey.
Evaluation and Research—Kristin Moore: Social psychologist with Child Trends and
Jerry West, National Center for Education Statistics
Noteworthy innovations—Victoria Fu: Professor of human development, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech; co-author Teaching as Inquiry: Rethinking Curriculum in Early Childhood Education
III – CONCLUDING ASSESSMENTS
General shifts in ECEC policy—Richard M. Clifford: Senior scientist emeritus at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (No bio in original report).
Future trends Moncrieff Cochran—Professor Emeritus in Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. (No bio in original report).
Issues for further investigation—Sharon Llynn Kagan, Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy, Co-Director of the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Professor Adjunct at Yale University’s Child Study Center
In the 2015 paper, Starting Strong IV: Monitoring Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care, I found only two contributors from the United States. They were Sharon Lynn Kagen: who contributed to the first report and Mr. Steven Hicks: a Nationally Board Certified Teacher in Early Childhood and former Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Early Learning in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education (Obama Administration). He is now Assistant State Superintendent for the Division of Early Childhood Development at the Maryland State Department of Education.
https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/starting-strong-iv_9789264233515-en#page1
In the most recent report, Starting Strong 2017: Key OECD Indicators on Early Childhood Education and Care (189 pages), I found not a single contributor from the United States. The absence of any contributor was conspicuous.
By 2017, NCES had outsourced the US testing contract to Westat, an employee-owned statistical services corporation in Rockville, Maryland. The NCES description of this IELS project says: “ an international consortium was contracted to develop the study measures and fine tune the study design…” but there is no information about that “consortium.”
I am trying to get a list of the members of that international consortium and the names of the experts who were enlisted to “fine tune the study design.” Perhaps someone reading this blog knows who these unpublicized members are. It is no wonder that the test looks as if it came from nowhere known to current workers in early childhood education. The test will produce national rankings and these will make headlines even if the sample sizes are small (and they are).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“NCES had outsourced the US testing contract to Westat, an employee-owned statistical services corporation in Rockville, Maryland. The NCES description of this IELS project says: “ an international consortium was contracted to develop the study measures and fine tune the study design…” but there is no information about that “consortium.” in my neck of the woods, Westat affiliates with the NH consortium that brings Michael Barber into Boston to tell us how great the Pearson tests are. The MA Business Alliance pays for “studies” so called that proclaim how wonderful Pearson tests are — it is all promotional , sales literature. So I would check into everyone locally that affiliates with WESTAT. SOME OF THE firms that had good reputations for quality research in the past are no longer doing the same quality of work like this NH outfit that brings Michael Barber into Boston — it is all one large cabal/conglomerate.
a friend on my FB page says I mixed up WESTAT and WESTED…. so I looked up the WESTAT page and it appears they are hiring …. I don’t think I will send any people along to recommend these “jobs.” in Cambridge
Job description
Westat is currently seeking motivated individuals who are committed to excellence and are experienced in working with primary and secondary school students to work as Assessment Administrators (AAs) for the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). AAs will conduct assessment sessions using tablets in participating schools. In addition to conducting the assessments, AAs also assist with other assessment-related activities and work with their Assessment Coordinator (AC) to prepare for the assessments. This opportunity is ideal for retired educators.
I have suspected that MD would be a contender since the last blog post about this several weeks ago appeared. Now, I’m more convinced than ever. No….I do not know and I haven’t heard anything. I do know that PARCC is being dumped, and a new, closer to home testing company is going to be developing the new test (Meridian or New Meridian….which manages PARCC!) There has been an enormous push for pre K’s to be placed in the elementary schools here and there are lots of “elite” pre schools in the area….Goddard, Young, Celebrie etc. We also have many charters and a voucher program here, so my guess is that MD will have signed onto this abuse of children. I believe it will be the 6-7 existing states left in the Pearson/PARCC consortium. Just my opinion!
Lisa,
Given that MD has Larry Hogan as governor, and given that he appointed rightwing zealots to the state board, it is very likely that MD is part of the Baby PISA experiment. You can never test them too young. Preferably in the womb.
Larry Hogan is no friend to public education, but the neoliberal, progressive, democrat Gov Martin O’Malley set us sailing on this ship many years ago…even hiring a Broadie, Lillian Lowery for state Super because of her super duper grant writing skills that got her previous state of DE some nice grant funding $.
Diane and Laura: The only thing such tests are good for is making material for disposable diapers.
Before they throw tests at newborns, the big “They” need to transfer their efforts to the EDUCATION of PARENTS. In the US, the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) is the material point (AAACE-NLA).
But “They” are pushing the operative principles of intelligence and excellence, which rightly underpin FORMAL schooling, onto the principle of generation, which rightly underpin FAMILIES and the full-person education that occurs there–by infringing on the mostly-INFORMAL, early education of children that RIGHTLY flows from that generation principle BEFORE children enter formal schooling.
The testing shows a right intention to mandate the education of/for citizens, but a gross ignorance of how children actually develop, when they develop well (in families who love and care for children for their own sake), and of how that development should be fostered. If “They” don’t see that huge distinction, the end-run horizon of such ignorance-based efforts is far from benign–it is the institutionalization for testing of children (the camel’s nose under-the-tent of pre-K and child-care institutions), from the get-go and where the testing and the tests are written by people who fully understand neither themselves nor the long-term consequences of what they are doing. CBK
I think that the current pushers of early testing and stack ratings of children on various inventories understand only that there is an economic value to children with superior proclivities, the best personalities, and measurable skill sets.
Here is a really sobering look at the US interest in early testing, beginning with infants and tracking to later-in-life outcomes. The interest is financial—Return to investors who fund preschool programs. Everything else is ancillary.
The leaders of the initiative are Dr. Angela Duckworth known for her Character Lab and extensive scholarship on attributes such as “grit.” Duckworth is a MacArthur fellow.
No less important is the Dr. James Heckman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, specialist in behavioral economics and firm believer in the economic payoffs from investments in human capital— including infants and preschoolers.
Heckman and Duckworth are interested in measuring the economic value of early diagnosis and “interventions” to ensure toddlers and preschoolers pay off…literally.
Among other traits they want to measure are those called “The Big Five” also remembered by the acronym OCEAN Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. See more in this paper coauthored by Duckworth and Heckman with contributions from some scholars from the Netherlands. http://www.nber.org/papers/w13810.pdf
The ugly details of this whole program are illustrated and documented in the link below by some remarkable investigators. In addition to doing solid research they have learned how to use software that shows the interconnected efforts, flows of money, and players in this new category of “financial investment.”
If measuring the economic worth of children is your thing, then your thinking is closely aligned to the thinking in the Eugenics Movement. Thinking of our children as more or less profitable for investors is way, way, way
beyond the notion of identifying and increasing the social capital of children as forwarded by sociologist James Coleman in 1988.
https://wrenchinthegears.com/2018/06/10/heckman-and-pritzker-pitch-apps-as-poverty-solutions-yielding-a-13-return-on-investment/
James Coleman https://faculty.washington.edu/matsueda/courses/587/readings/Coleman%201988.pdf
I don’t believe any of these traits are teachable, so this whole effort is folly. Can one teach the skill of joke comprehension? Of course not. One gets a joke only if one has the knowledge relevant to that particular joke. By the same logic reading comprehension is not a teachable skill. One gets a text only if one knows most of the words in that particular text. Wisdom is not teachable. Judgement is not teachable. OCEAN is not teachable. Many things that we’re foolishly trying to teach are in fact not teachable. The only thing that’s truly teachable is knowledge, which we foolishly discount as barely worth teaching.
Laura: I appreciate the research and the reading links. It sounds worse than I thought. CBK
This monitoring and harvesting notion sounds like social engineering, and I agree some of these tendencies cannot be taught. What’s the plan for low scoring toddlers? Social-emotional boot camp?
Off topic but perhaps sometime we could discuss what went wrong with these people’s education:
Only social justice warriors and liberal elites believe in science. But, seriously, nothing went wrong with their education. There are a lot of people who value beliefs/faith over knowledge/science. Same reason my administration prefers minimizing recess to increase instructional time, departmentalizing elementary classrooms, and assigning first graders homework. They believe these are the right things to do, regardless of research.
And may your administrators burn in the “hell ” of their belief/faith system for abusing children.
“I found the 2001 “Starting Strong” report from the United States, with “themes” that suggest the authors could not have imagined the current computer-based tests. Here are the topics (themes) and contributors.”
That was a long time ago but I still I think you’re right. Lilian Katz and Barbara Bowman are well known in Early Childhood Education and I don’t see them supporting Baby PISA, especially not Katz, and particularly not computer-based tests for 5 year olds.
It is wrong on so many levels. Poor five years have very little exposure to technology. I’ve given pencil-paper tests five year olds. It is so developmentally inappropriate, and this is even worse.
“investment”. — the opportunity zones offer tax credits for “investment” in poor areas like Haverhill where I live , a Gateway City .
Noah Smith writes at Bloomberg: “…much of the investment money lured into the zones may flow into real estate. In empowerment zones, money was targeted toward businesses, but the new program may direct money into houses.
That wouldn’t create many jobs in blighted areas. But it could easily push up housing costs, including starter-home prices and rents. If real estate investment in opportunity zones causes landlords to convert rental units into condos, it would exacerbate an already severe shortage of housing supply in the nation’s cities. Rent across the country is rising faster than prices overall.
Poor areas don’t need wealthy investors to plow money into houses and buildings. They need investment in businesses that will give them jobs and better wages.”
and, of course they grab up your schools, because that is an “opportunity to invest” and not pay taxes for 10 years
Noah Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.
Retired teacher, it’s never been about the kids. We used to give pencil and paper tests to children who had little kindergarten experience. So we will go back to the 1950s I guess but it will be on a computer and I agree with the former President of the MTA/NEA affiliate that it is “white supremacist”. All the time the parents in my city are told to go beat up on the mayor for more money and the mayor has to take it from the police department of the fire department in order to satisfy the school requirements.
and it so very clearly helps to separate out those who have from those who have not.
If the test is actually well designed and easy to take without computers crashing, etc, it will reveal one thing and one thing only — that living in poverty causes most if not all of those children to start behind at age 5 and the results of other PISAs that “track” those children through school (if the same children keep taking the test) will support the already known fact that most if not all children that grow up in poverty in “every” country starts out behind at age 5 and stays behind.
In fact, a 2013 study out of Stanford (one of the top-5 private sector universities in the world and one of the wealthiest) of PISA results already revealed that.
“The report also found:
“There is an achievement gap between more and less disadvantaged students in every country; surprisingly, that gap is smaller in the United States than in similar post-industrial countries, and not much larger than in the very highest scoring countries.”
https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2013/pr-test-scores-ranking-011513.html
How are the corporate pirates out to profit off children by destroying traditional public schools going to use that age-5 PISA test to rank-and-punish teachers and close traditional public schools — l’m convinced they will find a way to do that?
OPT OUT!
I’m trying to wade in here… Um…
PreK means we’re not ready to start taxpayer-funded K12 yet… But I guess Baby PISA must be all about [prospective] nat’lly-funded universal PreK… which does exist in some Euro countries (right?), [& is promoted in US by “progressives”]… hence we [I guess per lockstep ed-reform agenda] need.. testing [would that be pre-age 2.5 or post age 4.5? Or maybe both, to determine “progress”?]. If at age 2.5, would that best be administered via sign language? [& might that mean we need to start teaching sign language in daycare at age 18 mos?]
OK, help me Laura: how is the “Return to investors who fund preschool programs” quantified — realized… what is it, exactly?
Does it mean… high-testing neonates will be high-salaried producers? Or just… highly-indebted consumers?
“OK, help me Laura: how is the “Return to investors who fund preschool programs” quantified — realized… what is it, exactly?” it is part of the 1% Tax bill passed by trump’s comrades . They don’t make enough profits out of housing construction so they are focussing on the “schools” to make their profits. The “investors” forego paying taxes for 10 years if they “invest” — so your city will be without those tax payments and at the end of the 10 years there is a “rollover” for the “investor”. It is another way to siphon off profits …. but the kids and grand-kids end up with the bill (so that the profiteers can buy more personal jets, yachts, or whatever). The euphemisms can be found and compared such as “empowerment”. and today “investment/oppourtunity”… but empowering whom exactly? and an opportunity for the 1% to avoid taxes — I am certain this is all behind it. Our pre-school programs are a patchwork quilt; some families get a “voucher” so the working mom will have the necessary child care — but it is the same thing as rationing.
Bethree5 The assessments will be gamified. They are creating digital play tables to capture social interactions between toddlers. See Hatch Education. They work with Teaching Strategies-TS Gold. Watch this from UCLA CRESST working with PBS Kids. “From math to marksmanship” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRUGsOAsc2w
Universal pre-k is a target for pay for success / social impact bonds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVr9NBxJj2A
yes, it is a target as you say “pay for success” … It is written into the 1% tax bill that trump’s buddies passed. Social impact bonds —- part of their “TAX ACT” and they see it as “investing” in our kids the same way they want to run the detention centers and prisons for immigrants and they rip the children out of the parents’ arms. It is sadistic and cruel policy. We have a Lieutenant Governor challenger here in MA who is speaking up about the cruel policies. (Quentin Palfrey if you want to write to him or call him). Inhumane; cruel, sadistic and we have seen it taking place in our schools over the past decade.
Yes, private companies own the detention centers at the border and are making big profits from our current polcy
Angus King (Independent, Maine) said this in 2015 ““I don’t get this at all,” said Maine independent Sen. Angus King, squinting with disbelief. “I think this is an admission that government isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do. This strikes me as a fancy way of contracting out.”
But King is a leader in this stuff.
and today a friend on my FB page said “this is worse than Nurse Ratchet”. and Miss Hannigan and her corrupt brother in the Annie stories. https://www.google.com/search?q=miss+hannigan+gif&safe=active&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=RfQs0lKfFBAuqM%253A%252C4Pb6T485RYrRCM%252C_&usg=__iZ-I5917MzDm6daAKRkF2hUzOVM%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXrJbTiNPbAhVDxVkKHY8JAtMQ9QEIQTAL#imgrc=RfQs0lKfFBAuqM:
My ex-marine nephew in Seattle with 4 grandchildren “gets it”… about the kids being detained…. and the agreements between ICE (Homeland Security) and the Bureau of prisons to house the kids? Why don’t the smart, affluent people in my city with 3 and 4 college degrees get it? I have friends with 3 and 4 college degrees who send emails about the racist stories about a prince who got married in England to a black woman ….
One of the sports personnel this week held up a sign. “You are not listening”. and that is the way I am thinking when my friends tell me trump is a hiccup. or they will pray for “my pagan babies because I vote democratic” or the banks failed because of the “gays”…. I am filled with moral outrage so I will change my name to “mean maryJean from the 1960s rock band”… or do something to call attention to these sadistic policies and the fools who support trump and his ilk.
Jean, this pay for success profit taking and the intensive data-gathering that goes along with it is a 100% bi-partisan program. If anything, the Democrats are out ahead on it. That is why it has been very challenging to fight. I come at this from a far-left standpoint, but it is the centrists on both sides who cannot see it.
I understand there are “Neo liberal’ who are pushing “Change” and “Technology”. as fast as you possibly can buy it and many of them reside as “democratic” party. That is one kind of “investment” — buy our stuff (and democrats are in that group) and decorates are “selling” these tools when they pick up a mayor in MA and fly him to TX to boast about “footsteps to brilliance.” When I retired the fellow in the next office to me (we were all democrats except ) took his “technology” change and accepted Gates funding to get his “business” off the ground.
I know there are those who reside in the republican party primarily who are quite affluent and don’t want to pay taxes (those tax reductions are part of their platform). You will see there is bipartisan push on the 1% tax bill now . …. but the minute I say there is a difference between the parties someone pipes up “what about”…. and they find something to bring up “what about”. and they point out what they think is equal and opposite and “all politicians are equally guilty”. or some such …. which only builds apathy and more cynicism. I refuse to be neutral on these issues of test and punish or ripping children out of their parents’ arms…. in November there is a clear choice for me.
Is anyone hearing from the Trump-supporting evangelicals about the children at the border–those folks who are so anti-abortion?
This is eugenics. This is social engineering. This is a rising/normalized fascist movement to justify future atrocities against a group of people. You know, women’s brains were once different, so we treated them accordingly. Black people have different brains, so we treat them accordingly. Poor people have different brains, so we are going to treat them accordingly. This needs to be stopped.
Thanks to Wrench in the Gears for splendid research and links on the actual and potential damage to all public programs when investors are seeing them as untapped profit centers. SIBs are financial products with cherry-picked features that reduce risk and maximize investment returns to investors. Here is a website that shows how SIBs are marketed. https://www.thirdsectorcap.org/what-is-pay-for-success/
Laura, I don’t think I shared this with you before, but you’ll want to read it. Who knew there were accounting professors for social justice? I’ve reached out to him and we corresponded a bit, but he seems to have gone silent on this topic. The Invisible Heart documentary is coming out of Canada, so perhaps that is why. This goes into great detail about the flaws in pay for success contracts in housing/social service delivery in the UK. It is a series. http://fearfulasymmetry.ca/practice/2017/6/5/social-impact-bonds
Laura, you’ll want to read this. I corresponded with Graham for a bit. Detailed analysis of the flaws of SIBs used in homeless services in the UK. http://fearfulasymmetry.ca/practice/2017/6/5/social-impact-bonds
this is where you can find Angus King quote: also information on the Rikers program that was evaluated by Vera Institute of Justices. http://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-social-impact-bonds.html
Reblogged this on L. R. CAPUANA and commented:
Testing five year olds is undoubtedly insane, but what appears to hide behind it is even worse.
Vera Institute of Justice evaluates Rikers program. https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/impact-evaluation-of-the-adolescent-behavioral-learning-experience-able-program-at-rikers-island/legacy_downloads/ABLE-summary.pdf
In case you had not notices ESSA provides for public funding of Pay-for Success programs, for the most vulnerable students.
ESSA, Part D—Prevention And Intervention Programs For Children And Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, Or At- Risk. Part D twice refers to pay-for-success contracting for these services with federal funds.
See p.131, Section 1415, A
and p.137, Section 1425.
So members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike approve of profit-seeking from the most vulnerable children. Obama put $200 million into “SIB incubators. ”Here is a website that markets, explains, and shows the many current SIB projects in healthcare, assisted housing and mobility, adult education, childhood education, home visiting, therapies and more. http://www.payforsuccess.org/projects
Remember: SIBs and Pay-for Success-Contracts are financial products of interest to investors only if they are low risk and have a high rate of return on investment. They are becoming a way for cash-strapped social programs to find funding if they allow themselves to be placed under a pay for performance scheme, become managed by people who want to hire and fire at will and scale-up a local service (think franchise or exclusive sub-contractor).
Diane and Laura: This just in from EdWeek–see all of the companies getting on board:
How (and Why) Ed-Tech Companies Are Tracking Students’ Feelings
Florida 8th graders Shayna Thomas, left, and Kenna Wioncek are among the 200,000 students whose clicks and keystrokes have been collected as part of an effort by researchers to teach a software platform called Algebra Nation how to pinpoint student emotions and engagement.
—Josh Ritchie for Education Week
A push to use new technology to understand the ‘whole child’ is sparking privacy fears
By Benjamin Herold
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/06/12/how-and-why-ed-tech-companies-are-tracking.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news1&M=58515710&U=1182129
EdTech
FYI Here was my reply to that EDTech article: wpewen is correct. If the movement is authentic at all (regardless of its corrupt “riders”), it’s because it performs as a human mentor would perform, potentially helping children understand themselves and their own potential to move beyond the mentor and to continue to grow for and in themselves as full human beings, and not for and in the mentor or, in this case, for and in Wall Street (added later: or for arrogant manipulator rich-tech mazens who themselves lack basic respect for other humans).
The fundamental problem, then, is that it seems to drift AWAY from the many human elements that are needed to (guess what) humanize, or to unfold in the student as becoming fully human, and that, for all the good of tech, cannot be duplicated by tech–on principle.
In the bigger picture, this ed-tech movement is “moving” along with the slower-paced paradigmatic change of the corporation itself from being NOT democratic, and a cancer on the world community, moving from a money-making machine that puts predatory practices (that the article suggests) as a high value; to a fuller understanding of the corporation as surviving, but as an ongoing and developmental enrichment of that community.
What Herold’s article misses is that the impact investors plan to focus on SEL metrics, because that is where they think they can manipulate children’s human capital potential (moreso than IQ, which levels out according to them around age 10). Move the numbers tied to pay for success contracts and you net a cost savings by stealing the next generation’s access to public services should they need them.
From my post-a transcript of this talk Heckman and Pritzker gave in San Diego in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01xPl0ugkqA
“So, I think a good measure of how much the world has changed in terms of thinking about skills is a new report issued by the OECD. The OECD was the group that promotes the PISA exam, so every few years you know Shanghai is very proud and has some of the highest PISA scores in the world. And you go into China and you go into Hong Kong and they are lower and very envious. But the OECD now is getting the point. It only got it recently, but it’s now starting to say we need to inventory exactly these character skills, because they’ve been shown to be predictive, they’re also highly malleable, and they’re actually highly valuable even to somewhat later ages.
So even when we think we can’t boost IQ, that might be very difficult because the rank is stable and your ranking in the IQ distribution is pretty well established as JB was saying around 8, 9, 10 or somewhere in that zone. It is still true that these character skills are more manipulable (malleable?). In the sense they are actually our target of opportunity. So a much deeper understanding, and I think when we go in and look at what the economic and social benefits are of these interventions, we have a deeper and more comprehensive evaluation system looking at both cognitive and non-cognitive skills.
But to come to the economic return; we can see substantial benefits. So we have actually computed the rate of return, the kind of rate of return that venture capitalists worry about, and should properly worry about, and that many of you probably worry about. What we found was the rate of return on something like the Perry Preschool Program was somewhere between seven and ten percent per annum, per annum, which is extremely high. If you look at the US stock market average investment in equity between 45 and 2008, that’s above that. Great, ok so you’re actually finding it’s a very, very good investment.” James Heckman in a 2016 talk given to impact investors in San Diego.
Read the rest of my blog here: https://wrenchinthegears.com/2018/06/10/heckman-and-pritzker-pitch-apps-as-poverty-solutions-yielding-a-13-return-on-investment/
“Therefore when the kings had regulated names, when they had fixed terms and so distinguished actualities . . . they were careful to lead the people towards unity. Therefore making unauthorised distinctions between words, and making new words—thus confusing the correct nomenclature, causing the people to be in doubt and bringing about much litigation—was . . . a crime like that of using false credentials or false measures. . . . Hence the people were guileless. Being guileless, they could be easily ordered. …” linguistic disobedience (secondary source David Greene)