Number 2 Pencil

Pinhead alert

Hey, I finally got some new hate mail - and it was in the comment section of a post that had nothing to do with the original post that upset the mailer. Given that they left it in a comment, I figure they want it public, so here it is:

I read an old entry of yours from February 11, 2004 about your stand on the SAT. I am quite angered by what you wrote, but I will try to be civil and tolerant in my response.

You clearly are someone that is not insightful or considerate to those less fortunate. I suggest that you read this book: "None of the Above: The Truth Behind the SATs" by David Owen. Hopefully it will help you understand this issue. Please keep your mind open, and come to think of people other than yourself.

I suppose I should keep an open enough mind to be swayed by the uncited, anecdotal evidence that the commenter feels is proof that the SAT is completely useless. I also suppose I should do a better job of explaining validity, reliability, correlations, and all those other things that could possibly help people like this commenter understand what test bias really is, and why anecdotes like this don't necessarily have anything to do with it. I could point out that I have said, several times, that I think colleges should be free to cease using the SAT in admissions, because I understand that the test could be useful and valid for predicting college performance in one environment, and not as useful in another. I could also point out that perhaps rich kids might do better on the SAT because they have the advantages in life that allow them to better prepare scholastically in every sense of the word, and that this disparity is not exactly limited to standardized tests.

Or I could just sit here and goggle at the fact that, of all the pro-test posts I've put up over the last three years, what got this pinhead exercised enough to write was an article in which I said virtually nothing. I just noted that the Cornell Sun was defending the SAT. All the pro-SAT comments in the post were quotes from the Sun article. I mean, surely I've said many other things over the years which would piss off the anti-testing hordes more than that. It's like this guy wasn't even trying.

(Hmmm... Did one of you Devoted Readers write me some fake, irrational hate mail just because you knew it would cheer me up to be able to slap it around on the front page? 'Fess up, now! If in fact you did that, I appreciate it. It's a lovely gesture.)

Anyway. As you know, I've had a bad week, and it's Friday. And I have the feeling that this person calling me names, and telling me that I don't have an open enough mind (you mean, like how open this pinhead is to the idea that the SAT could have some use in college admissions?), will not be influenced by any information I give, or arguments that I cite. I have the feeling that this person just wanted a soapbox (for which I'm paying, of course) on which to stand to bitch and moan about how unfair it is that some "children" do better on the SAT than others.

So here's their soapbox. If you want to respond, the comments are open. I won't be back until 12 or so, because I've got a Morbid Angel show to attend.

Update: Hey! The Morbid Angel show was great! Lots of good energy. Dave and I took goofy photos of ourselves with our cell phone cameras (on this one, he looks especially goofy because while I was photographing us with my phone, he was talking to someone else on his phone). Afterwards, we went to our favorite restaurant (the Troc is in Chinatown). It's easy to find - it has lots of aquariums in the front. Not for decoration - it's all entrees.

Ideological blinders at RIC

Joanne Jacobs correctly summarizes the attitudes of the educrats in the social work program at Rhode Island College: "Conform or get out."

A master's student in social work at Rhode Island College failed a course because he refused to lobby the legislature for liberal causes he didn't support, reports FIRE. Bill Felkner took Professor James Ryczek’s fall 2004 “Policy and Organizing” class, which required students to lobby for one of a list of causes, none of which Felkner supported.

The details (at FIRE's website) are atrocious:

Last fall, master’s student Bill Felkner received a failing grade after protesting a professor’s admitted bias in class and after writing an essay in connection with a lobbying assignment that dissented from that professor’s approved perspective. Felkner’s situation comes in the wake of RIC’s attempt to punish a professor for refusing to censor constitutionally protected speech...

Bill Felkner’s trouble with the RIC School of Social Work began in Professor James Ryczek’s fall 2004 “Policy and Organizing” class. When Felkner wrote an e-mail to the professor about what he felt was liberal ideological bias at the school, Professor Ryczek responded, “I revel in my biases,” and added, “I think anyone who consistently holds antithetical views to those that are espoused by the profession might ask themselves whether social work is the profession for them.” Ryczek suggested that if Felkner did not agree with the school’s political philosophy, he should consider leaving or finding another line of work. After Felkner made Ryczek’s comments public, the professor refused to communicate any further with him through e-mail.

RIC’s infringement of Felkner’s rights continued after Ryczek’s e-mail. In class, Ryczek assigned students to form groups to lobby the Rhode Island legislature for social welfare programs from an approved list. If a student could not find a suitable social welfare topic on the list, he or she could also lobby for gay marriage. Felkner did not support any of these programs or issues and asked Ryczek if he could instead lobby against one of them or for the Academic Bill of Rights. This request was refused.

Bill's own words are here:

Don't misunderstand. There are great professors at Rhode Island College, but in the School of Social Work (SSW), even the good ones practice political indoctrination. As one faculty member put it, "The SSW is not committed to balanced presentations, nor should we be." How does this loss of academic freedom affect Rhode Island? Besides robbing us of intellectual diversity that spawns creativity and knowledge, it does tangible damage to our economy and, more important, the poor.

When you look at only one point of view, you never know if you are right or wrong. You just continue to think you are right (until someone gets killed).

Setting some standards for high school

Stephen at Cold Spring Shops wonders if college students can sue high schools for malpractice:

I'm finishing a stack of blue books. There were sufficiently many spelling errors that I posted the following announcement on the class website.

Editorial comment: can these students sue their high schools for malpractice?

Stephen's not the only one to think that these kids weren't taught enough in high school (via Joanne Jacobs):

Citing the paltry skills of many high school graduates, the nation's governors are calling for more rigorous standards and harder exams than states have already imposed, often with considerable difficulty.

Indeed, more than 4 in 10 public high school students who manage to graduate are unprepared for either college courses or anything beyond an entry-level job, the governors reported, requiring billions of dollars in remedial training to endow them with the skills "they should have attained in high school."

Sadly, part of the problem is the objection to any sort of set of objective standards for high school students:

When Mr. Warner looked at the exit exams of 13 other states in 2003...he said that nine of those "that talked tough about high stakes had retreated and pulled back from their consequences." In that light, getting states to adopt an even stricter curriculum than they already have, and then possibly denying diplomas to those who have failed to master it may not be easy.

"The idea of consequences, and sticking to your guns about it, that is still is very controversial," Mr. Warner said.

Sad, but true.

Earning the respect of the testrixes

James Lileks has quite the little test-taker on his hands:

This morning I took Gnat to get screened for school. It’s mandatory. They test the eyes and ears, put the kid through a battery of tests designed to test all sorts of skills. Fill in the blank, name opposites, identify adjectives, repeat patterns, find rhymes, identify alliterations, reconcile Social Security expenditures with income in the out years, etc...

“Perfect score,” she said. “In all the time we have done this, she’s only the second one to get a perfect score.” A round of applause! The expected score for 4 /1/2 year olds is 30 out of 68. She got 68 out of 68. We looked over the results; the testricine explained what they’d done, and how she’d not only got everything right but done so in a snap. And so begins a lifetime of overachievement and self-identification through testing!

Congrats. I feel like I should send flowers.

It's been a "Plan Nine" kind of day

Bad day.

Really, really, bad day.

If you're reading this blog voluntarily, and you're not leaving nasty messages in the comments, you're being nicer to me than 99% of the people I've had to deal with today.

Sheesh.

The snow's awful pretty, though. And I have The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made geared up in the DVD player, and am taking some comfort in the fact that my screwups will probably never be so large, nor so amusing, as to make it into documentary format.

Starting earlier with G&T education

NYC's DOE wants to make some major changes to the city's gifted and talented program, and the skeptics are coming out of the woodwork:

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced last Wednesday that the Department of Education will make sweeping changes to gifted and talented programs for elementary school students beginning in September. In addition to adding several new programs, the DOE will develop a standardized admissions test for kindergarten and first grade students by September 2007 and improve professional development for teachers...

According to the DOE, the admissions test will be developed with the help of experts outside the education department and will measure verbal, nonverbal and spatial skills. Until the test is ready, programs will continue to use existing criteria, which vary from school to school.

I'll be very interested to see what happens with this. The city's planned exam sounds like it could be very similar to one IQ test for young children, the WPPSI-III, which I don't believe is "an accident waiting to happen." These tests can, however, be confusing; this guide is extremely informative and helpful (it's written for parents with learning-disabled kids, but the same material would be helpful for parents of gifted youngsters).

We see again the old argument about how the kids who pull ahead are disadvantaging those left behind:

While many parents are supportive of the gifted and talented concept and want programs to be expanded, others wonder if the term is applied too freely. Because of such programs, they say, a large number of above-average students have been pulled out of neighborhood schools. “If you take all the children who are on the upper end of the spectrum out of their zoned schools, it just makes the zoned schools worse,” said one Flushing parent, who declined to give her name.

A number of teachers also expressed reservations about expanding the programs, if it means that other students will be left behind. “When classes are heterogeneous, it can bring the lower-level students up,” said Lucy Evans, a music teacher at PS 164 in Flushing. “What about the other children? I don’t think the others should be left behind.”

It depends on whether you think the gifted children should be in school for the express purpose of helping the less-gifted. If you don't think that - and you should be entirely free to think that, even in public education - then it's not fair to the gifted students to keep them in a slower classroom.

A commitment to fun!

Oh, isn't this darling. The Scottsdale (AZ) Unified School District has decided to demonstrate its commitment to learning by getting rid of all those stuffy old titles for school employees:

She used to be known as the receptionist. Now she's the Director of First Impressions. Barbara Levine is one of several employees in the Scottsdale Unified School District whose job titles have changed in a sharp departure from the traditional titles that parents grew up using.

Was the school bus late? Blame the "transporter of learners," formerly the bus driver. Got a problem with your school principal? Take it up with the 10-word "executive director for elementary schools and excelling teaching and learning," formerly known as the assistant superintendent of elementary schools.

And of this demonstrates Scottsdale's commitment to learning...how? I'd be more impressed if Scottsdale could prove all their students could spell words like "transporter" and "excelling."

Workplace experts disagree whether the new job titles are a positive step. Liz Ryan, who spent 20 years in human resources and founded WorldWIT, a Web site devoted to women's workplaces issues, calls the new titles "trivial, sad and misguided."

"When you are talking about education, you better be kind of serious, and I don't mean stodgy, but grown-up. 'Director of First Impressions' makes me want to gag," she said.

I suppose it's illegal to ask Liz to marry me, but I still want to. She hits the nail on the head - these new titles don't so much demonstrate a commitment to education as they demonstrate a fear of seeming old, stodgy, grown-up, un-hip, boring, etc.

Ryan said the word "director" implies there is something wrong with being a receptionist. Director also implies that the receptionist supervises many other employees, which isn't usually the case. This may make it hard for the Director of First Impressions to find another receptionist job, she said, because people will get confused by the title on her resume. Common job titles exist for a reason, Ryan said, so people can figure out whom to call when they need help.

Yes, and even though parents haven't complained yet, it's possible that some will be confused by all this. But hey, the employees are happy:

As for Levine, Scottsdale's Director of First Impressions, she loves her new title. "I think it's classy," she recently said while answering the telephone and directing a visitor to the right office. "It sounds so important. Everyone wants to be important."

Sounds like the natural extension of the feel-good "self-esteem" movements so popular in "progressive" education theory.

Update: Link is fixed now (and no, I don't shop at NM!)

Mistaking criticism for bullying

I haven't blogged much about the brouhaha going on in California with the Governator on one side and the educational establishment on the other. For one thing, I think keeping up with the whole saga would be full-time job in and of itself, with Arnold taking on the sacred Proposition 98 and tackling the thorny issue of merit pay. Not surprisingly, a group of educators have formed to protest the Governor's wide-ranging reforms.

And some of Arnold's critics are sounding pretty whiny:

Could Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) have another "woman problem" on his hands? Schwarzenegger made headlines in recent months by deriding political opponents as "girlie men" and ridiculing a group of nurses at a women's conference. Now, an effort to paint the state's teachers as little more than a balky special interest group has angered many critics, who have begun to question why constituencies dominated by women have been subjected to such tough talk.

"He behaves like an arrogant patriarch with respect to women's occupations," said Rose Ann De Moro, executive director of the California Nurses Association. "Nurses, teachers, home health workers — it's vulgar how he's run roughshod over them. He's arrogant, and he's a bully."

Wow, they're great spokeswomen for female-dominated fields. Are we supposed to conclude from all this that women can't be expected to take tough talk, at any time? Tough talk like the following?

In December, a small group of nurses gathered at a state women's conference to protest Schwarzenegger's decision to side with hospitals and delay changes to the state's nurse-to-patient ratio. With Shriver in the audience, Schwarzenegger responded to the protesters by saying, "The special interests don't like me in Sacramento because I am always kicking their butts."

Yeah, that's really...evil. And demeaning. Or something. Obviously, women should be expected to cringe and fold when faced with such violent language.

Last week, some 300 nurses and their supporters disrupted a movie premiere in Sacramento, booing Schwarzenegger as he posed with actors Vince Vaughn and The Rock. "A mass movement is developing, and it's fascinating to see women coming together," DeMoro of the nurses union said.

Uh, is it a surprise to DeMoro that women can congregate and protest? Are we supposed to be amazed about this? And are we supposed to be impressed that their "coming together" was nothing more than a public ruckus? Are we supposed to mistake that for an intelligent rebuttal to the Governor's criticisms?

Thank God at least one woman in the article makes an intelligent statement:

"To say that women voters perceive Arnold Schwarzenegger as a bully because he's taking on a reform agenda belittles women," said Karen Hanretty, a spokeswoman for the California Republican Party.

"This is not about any individual profession. It's about exposing organized labor unions who have used their influence and set policies that have created multibillion-dollar deficits both statewide and nationally."

C'mon, ladies. If Sarah Connor had been such a wimp, the Terminator might still be out there terrorizing LA.

Concerns about cutting

Michelle Malkin expresses concern aboutthe recent popularity of “cutting”:

Have you heard of "cutting?" If you're a parent, you'd better read up. "Cutting" refers to self-mutilation— using knives, razor blades, or even safety pins to deliberately harm one's own body— and it's spreading to a school near you.

Actresses Angelina Jolie and Christina Ricci did it. So did Courtney Love and the late Princess Diana. On the Internet, there are scores of websites (with titles such as "Blood Red," "Razor Blade Kisses," and "The Cutting World") featuring "famous self-injurers," photos of teenagers' self-inflicted wounds, and descriptions of their techniques. The destructive practice has been depicted in films targeting young girls and teens (such as Thirteen). There is even a new genre of music — "emo" — associated with promoting the cutting culture.

Mmm, not really. Emo is basically a moody/introspective/whiny (depending on your take on it) outgrowth of punk that keeps the thrashing energy but injects more depression into the lyrics. It’s gotten more popular as of late, I’ll agree, and there’s no denying that emo will be popular with some self-destructive kids. But emo as a whole isn’t that new, and doesn’t “promote” that culture any more than Pink Floyd “promoted” drug use just because a lot of people liked to get high and put on Dark Side of the Moon. An emo listener will engage in cutting behavior only to the extent that the underlying pathology led them to the music in the first place; emo won’t make a healthy kid suddenly pull out the razor blades.

Cutting isn’t really anything new, either, and the seemingly-recent upswing in it may be partly the result of a recent willingness to admit to such behavior. There may be scores of websites that promote such behavior, but there are also a few books written by therapists, and cutters who have recovered, that exist to help those. Cutting, by Steven Levenkron, is one such book. Another, Bright Red Scream, appears to have the best reviews on amazon.com, and it’s six years old. I wouldn't be surprised to see more of these types of books out soon.

I agree with Malkin that it’s sad to see famous actresses “glamourize” such behavior, but there may be a fine line between admitting to something in the hopes that others can learn to avoid it, and promoting it.

Cutting is something I have more than a passing interest in, because it does overlap a great deal with the more dysfunctional aspects of goth culture. Certainly, there are aspects of goth that do promote self-mutilation in this fashion, and that has more than a little to do with the perceived coolness of vampires and the vampiric lifestyle. I'm a supporter of goth culture, and have been goth to some extent since 1988, and even I realize that the tolerance for such behavior in that milieu is not healthy.

I'd be concerned more about the goth promotion of such behavior - and the celebrity interviews where young women talk about the "coolness" of such behavior - than about any link there might be with emo.

Update: Links are fixed now. Also, Malkin has this to say in an update to her original post:

Yes, it's true, emotional, woe-is-me music has been around a long time. But the kind of "emo" music embraced now by young people who cut themselves (Taking Back Sunday is one of the most popular cited; the Apathy Code, which depicts cutting on its album cover and in the lyrics to "No Alarms") is new. And it is cited repeatedly on kids' websites and blogs. Take a cursory look here.

Look, you can mock me for paying attention to this problem, but something very wrong is going on here--for whatever reason you want to believe--and parents have asked me to help get the word out. I hope it helps.

I don't think she deserves mocking for paying attention to the problem, nor for being concerned about the link between cutting and popular culture. When I made my comments about emo above, I did so only to correct what I saw as a misconception of the genre; I didn't expect Michelle to be an expert on emo, nor do I think she's wrong to be concerned about self-mutilation. Unfortunately, it sounds like a lot of people wrote emails just bitching about the emo part, and missing the whole point of her post.

I thought Illuminaria's post on the topic was very intelligent and balanced, while Blind's Eye take on it is exactly what I'd expect a metalhead (like my fiance) to say.

Dashing their spirits, the apology

The Brooklyn teacher whose students sent less-than-encouraging letters to troops in South Korea apologizes:

In a statement issued by the Department of Education, social studies teacher Alex Kunhardt said he regretted offending Pfc. Rob Jacobs. His statement, however, did not address whether he either coached the students or read their missives — which accused soldiers of committing atrocities in Iraq — before mailing them. The DOE, which is sending an apology to Jacobs and his family, declined comment.

"It was never my intention to demean or insult anyone," said Kunhardt..."I never meant for the words of my students to hurt any of our troops. The responsibility for this action is mine alone, and I apologize." Kunhardt mailed letters to Jacobs last month written by 21 of his sixth-graders at JHS 51 in Park Slope for an assignment. Nearly half of them derided President Bush or the Iraq war and accused soldiers of crimes such as killing civilians and destroying mosques. Even some of those that praised soldiers for their bravery were laced with divisive political rhetoric and ominous predictions.

Update: The Post prints Letters to the Editor on this topic today, most of which say we shouldn't "censor" the kids, or we should assume that the teacher "brainwashed" the students. But one letter writer who knows her history gets it exactly right:

One irony in this story is that JHS 51 is called "The William Alexander School." It is named after Lord Stirling, a general in Washington's army and hero of the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776 — the turning point in the American Revolution.

Nancy Brenner, Manhattan

Bingo.

The return of sunshine

The weather is sunny and relatively balmy (meaning, not freezing cold). I opened the window in the library, and .02 seconds later, Pippin was there, chattering wildly at the birds outside.

I want birdies! Do you hear me? BIRDIES!

Letting parents choose, but only if they make the right choice

Babealicious RightWingSparkle thinks that legislators in Lincoln, Nebraska, are trying to engineer their preferred ethnic makeup for local schools:

Dick Eisenhauer is tired of watching white families take their children out of the schools in his Nebraska district and enroll them in smaller, outlying ones where there are virtually no poor or Hispanic students. Like many of Nebraska's school systems, the Lexington district where Eisenhauer is superintendent has seen an influx of Hispanics, largely because of jobs at the meatpacking plants, and an accompanying exodus of white students to public elementary schools just outside town.

The situation in Lexington and elsewhere in Nebraska has caught the attention of the state Legislature, which is considering a bill to thwart what some say amounts to legal segregation in the schools. The proposal would force the outlying elementary-only schools to merge with larger kindergarten-through-12th-grade districts. That could mean the closing of the smaller schools.

So let me get this straight. In Nebraska, it is completely legal for parents to choose where to send their kids to school. So parents - most white, some not - are exercising that choice and driving their kids further out to suburban elementary schools; schools that, by the way, are completely open to any kids. There's nothing stopping any parent from sending their kids to the suburban schools. In-town schools and suburban schools - all parents have a choice.

But because the results are not politically correct, state legislators want to do away with that choice. There's really no other explanation for it, is there? And what sort of article would this be without inflammatory statements about the parents who are exercising their legal choice?

Cecilia Huerta, director of the state's Mexican-American Commission, said other Nebraska communities with large numbers of Hispanics are likely to have the same situation. "People in Lexington and Schuyler do not want their kids being polluted by Latin Americans and Hispanics," Huerta said. "They think they're not going to get the quality of education if they have a diverse classroom."

Parents are moving their kids because they want them to be in a small school instead of one that is massively overcrowded.

Chris Dvorak, a white parent who has two children who attend a school outside Schuyler, said she sent her children there to avoid overcrowding in town, not to get away from Hispanics. "I would have done the same thing if they were all white kids," Dvorak said.

There are 45 students enrolled at Dvorak's children's school, compared with more than 850 at Schuyler Grade School.

This is the part that galls me the most:

Some senators are afraid the state will face legal challenges if the Legislature does not stop the trend toward separate white and Hispanic schools. "It is unconscionable," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Ron Raikes.

What? There is nothing official that is keeping the schools segregated. Any parent who wants to drive their kid to an outlying school can do so. What's the legal challenge here? That it should be illegal for parents to choose when they don't make the "right" choice? What's unconscionable is that legislators think it's their place to put a stop to parents exercising legal school choice just because they don't like the ethnic breakdown that results.

What's more, aren't the inner-city schools now less crowded because the suburban schools are there? What if some Hispanic parents were planning on getting their kids away from the crowding? Shouldn't they have the choice to buy a car and move their kids to a smaller school? Or do their kids exist just to provide feel-good diversity for the white kids?

RWS notes:

What do you think will happen? Private schools will flourish and you will have the exact same situation. Government trying to force parent's hands is just not going to work.

No, but that doesn't mean they won't be dumb enough to try it.

The stylish way to protest the test

Hoo-boy.

Maeghan Gibson is fed up with the state's standardized test. Focus on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is encroaching on classroom learning, Gibson said. Instead of having high-level discussions, the Haltom High School junior honors student said she spends too much time taking practice tests and filling out work sheets.

So she and a few friends waged a silent protest Monday morning outside the school by handing out pre-sold green T-shirts with slogans including "Walking standardized test score," "I am not in the equation of my education" and "Total Annihilation of Knowledge and Skills."

I want one of those "Walking standardized test score" shirts. And, frankly, students should be free to wear them - even during test time.

The students say their protest was not aimed at Haltom High School, teachers or the Birdville district, but rather at state and national policies that require the standardized test.

"It's turned into a real 'Grab a work sheet, go sit down and you have to know this or you will fail' kind of thing. That's not good for long-term learning, in my opinion," junior Chase Robinson said. "We want our teachers to advance our knowledge, not a test."

And that's commendable. But long-term learning doesn't often happen in the absence of basic skills, which is what these types of tests are intended to measure. It's not surprising that some of the more bored students are fed up with all the tests, but it would be pretty tough to, as one student suggests, create a test that measures only whether a student improves, and not whether they fail.

Brrrrr

In case you're wondering where the blog-burst energy is coming from, I'm stuck at home waiting on various and sundry furnace techs to fix my heat. Typing rapidly is the only thing keeping me from freezing solid at the moment. And posting here is much less expensive than shopping on eBay.

Update: The crotchety, ancient furnace is fixed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go eat dinner, finish laundry, and soak my snake. He's having trouble shedding in this colder, drier weather.

When the SAT doesn't explain it all

John of Discriminations has a thoughtful reply to an unpublished study (excerpted in The Chronicle of Higher Education) about two common criticisms of AA:

[the study] examined longitudinal student data from 28 selective colleges in an attempt to determine whether any evidence supported two of the most common criticisms of race-conscious admissions policies. Those are the "mismatch hypothesis," which holds that such policies result in the admission of students who find themselves in over their heads academically, and the "stereotype-threat hypothesis," which holds that such policies stigmatize all minority students as academically subpar, thereby placing them under a form of psychological pressure that undermines their academic performance.

The authors apparently had at their disposal SAT scores and college GPAs by race for these universities. They deduced AA admissions by the following:

To try to measure how much of a role a particular student's race or ethnicity played in his or her admission, the researchers looked at the difference between that person's SAT score and the average for the entering class. (On average, black students' SAT scores were 131 points below the average for all students at the 28 colleges, while Hispanic students' SAT scores were 76 points below.)

John wonders, and rightfully so, why black and hispanics were compared to the average of the entire class, rather than the average of those who did not receive race-based preferences. That comparison would have provided a much clearer picture of the score gap.

Beyond that, I wonder why the authors made the assumption, as they seem to have done here, that all black and hispanic students who scored below the group SAT mean received race-based preference in admissions. I assume some non-minority students below the mean were also admitted, and it would have been enlightening to see how they did in school.

What's more, it's entirely possible that that admitted students of any race who had low SATs also had good high school GPAs or other indicators suggesting that they might do well in college. SAT and high-school grades are correlated, but not that highly. Wouldn't it have been logical to conclude that at least some of the low-SAT admittees were folks who didn't test well but had stellar extracurriculars and great references, and thus didn't need the race-based preferences? After all, unless everyone below the mean was a minority, we know that some non-minority kids did get in with middling SAT scores and no preferences. And unless every minority student below the SAT mean also had a subpar high school GPA and no references, there's no reason to assume that a student received racial preferences based on skin color and SAT alone.

John is also quite right to wonder at these conclusions:

The study found that those black and Hispanic students who had seemed to get the biggest break in admission actually tended to have slightly higher grade-point averages than other students, and were much less likely than other students to leave college. Their level of satisfaction with college was about the same as that of other students....

Again, we don't know that these students actually did get in because of race-based policies; we only know their SAT scores. And what about students below the SAT mean who didn't receive preferential treatment? That's really the group to whom these students should be compared.

And then we see this:

When all black and Hispanic students at an institution were examined collectively, however, evidence of "stereotype threat" emerged. The more a college used affirmative action, the lower were the grade-point averages of its minority students, and the more likely such students were to leave college and express dissatisfaction with their college experience. The negative correlation between a college's commitment to affirmative action and the grade-point averages of its black and Hispanic students grew stronger the longer the students were in college, suggesting that the effects of "stereotype threat" mounted as the students became more accustomed to the campus culture.

How on earth can the researchers look at this data and conclude that "stereotype threat" must exist, especially when they just said that the minority students they thought benefited from AA had higher GPAs than the average student? The only way they could reach this conclusion is if they assume that the "stereotype threat" hypothesis of AA is true, and rule out any other explanation why students admitted due to racial factors would do poorly.

Here's what I think is going on. In these colleges, some minority students below the SAT mean were admitted due to AA, and some were not. Those who had other strengths not measured by the SAT may have gone on to do okay in school, and that could increase the average of the below-SAT group. But the more a college indulges in AA - that is, the more they admit minority students with subpar SAT scores - the more likely it is they are going to get a group of students who are unprepared for and unhappy with the college environment.

Nothing I can see in these excerpts suggest that the "mismatch" hypothesis must be false, and that the "stereotype threat" hypothesis must be true. Nothing I see here supports the conclusion that AA policies are, as a rule, good for minority students. Statistical quibbling aside, these data are consistent with the idea that race-based admissions policies can be a bad idea, especially if the minority student not only has low SAT scores but doesn't qualify in other academic areas as well.

The benefits of homeschooling

WriteWingNut vents about the negative portrayals of homeschooler, especially with regards to the aspects of domestic violence and socialization:

One of my biggest pet peeves as a homeschooling mother is the "socialization" myth. Anti-homeschoolers would have everyone believe that our kids are locked in a cramped house all day, forbidden to speak to outsiders. The truth is, the lack of school restraints gives us more opportunity for genuine socialization. Our kids aren't grouped with only those the same age as them, at a desk in a classroom, being told by a teacher, "You're not here to socialize!"...

I later found out that the mother who instigated the attack on me is married to the county Superintendant of Public Schools here. Figures.

The research is already beginning to appear suggesting that homeschooled parents do just fine in socializing their kids:

Despite a 1999 statement from the National Education Association that, "home schooling cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience," a study released earlier this month shows home-schooled students are actually more socially and academically advanced than their peers.

"They're two totally different environments," she said, adding that there's no comparison to children in school to children "at home with mommy." As long as the right programs are in place, "you'll get good results" no matter what the environment, Bass said.

But wait, I thought the NEA said that homeschooling couldn't possibly cut the mustard. And now the AFT is claiming that we can't compare the two? Really? Why not? The outcome measures are there - test scores, college admissions, even the vaunted "self-esteem" indices - for the assessment. But now, for some reason, we're supposed to believe that we can't possibly draw any conclusions by comparing the two methods. Certainly, the homeschooling group is special, and self-selected - but it's silly to say that no conclusions can be reached.

What's more, the NEA goes on and on about how important parental involvement is in education. Doesn't it make sense, then, to wonder if the ultimate in parental involvement - homeschooling - might have the potential to be the ultimate in educational environments?

And that line about "at home with mommy" is just insulting, if you ask me.

Here's the report, by the way. Choice quote:

There is one overriding lesson for policymakers to learn from this survey of home schooling. As home schooling researcher Isabel Lyman pithily described the American experience: “Home schooling has produced literate students with minimal government interference at a fraction of the cost of any government program” (Lyman, 1998).

I'd say they're learning that lesson, and they're none too happy about it.

Not on the same wavelength

Fascinating article in the LA Times about a town that's riled parents and students alike with some new technologies:

This little Northern California farm town is blissfully unaccustomed to turmoil. But recent weeks dished up a hopper of dissent. It started with a girl who went home from junior high saying she felt like an orange.

After a rambunctious Feb. 8 board meeting, InCom opted to turn off the scanners until the board resolved the squabbling. As school let out before last week's board meeting, foes prowled either side of campus with picket signs. "Badges … badges…. We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges," said one.

Emphases all mine. What a classic mess. Parents citing biblical warnings from Revelations, picket signs, parents missing some important public hearings, the concept of using RFID to better track attendance and keep school funding, kids who feel like produce on the shelf - it's all here.

Valedictorians gone bad

Fox News tells us that a high-school valedictorian - who, by the way, moved to Saudi Arabia and joined an al Qaeda cell - was arrested and charged with conspiring to kill President Bush:

An American citizen was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and with supporting Al Qaeda. If convicted of all the charges, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, faces a maximum sentence of 80 years in prison...

Abu Ali was born in Houston and later moved to Falls Church, Va., where he was valedictorian of his high school class. He allegedly went on to pursue religious studies in Saudi Arabia in 2000 and federal prosecutors say Abu Ali joined an Al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia in 2001. The alleged Bush plot occurred while he was studying in that country, the indictment says.

How coy of them not to mention what high school he attended, given that they saw fit to tell us he was a valedictorian. Is that, somehow, supposed to be more important than the specifics of his "religious training" in Saudia Arabia? I couldn't find him mentioned in the class list of George Mason High School (the only Falls Church public high school I could find) for graduation years 1997 - 2000, so that doesn't look like the place, unless he's changed his name since graduating. Other schools in the area seem to be primarily Hebrew or Catholic, so those are doubtful.

Anyway, the buzz on the right side of the blogosphere along the lines of "How could someone come out of the educational system in the US and turn out like this?" has already begun.

The Baron, for one, isn't surprised:

Every day, I walk into a building where a picture of Bush is prominently displayed on a staff-member’s door with the caption “American Psycho.” Across the street, a picture of Bush used to grace the post office drop box (for weeks before someone ripped it down) that read “Kill me before I kill some more.” The CD store down the road has posters in the window for CD’s titled “Rock Against Bush.” I often hear people debating whether or not Bush means to kill innocent people. During the innauguration, one man wondered aloud if we would be so lucky as to have Bush catch pneumonia and die after his inauguration speech like William Henry Harrison did.

Update: Boy, was I ever on the wrong track. Abu Ali was a valedictorian all right - at the Islamic Saudi Academy. All the news reports about his top dog academic status, and they couldn't manage to let us know the name of the school?

Update # 2: Philly.com has another name for Abu Ali's alma mater.

Watch what you say

With reports like this, it's no wonder that we don't see many students blogging about the inanities of their schools:

Yvette Lacobie was steamed at one of her teachers at Bellaire High School. She felt like her Spanish teacher had been picking on her all year, and particularly so on that day. So she did what a lot of teenagers do. She vented to her friends. She went home last November 9 and got on an online chat line called Xanga, used by a lot of Asian-American kids.

Yvette was sentenced to 103 days at either the privately operated alternative school CEP (Community Education Partners) or online learning at the Virtual School.

Appalling. Jim of Zero Intelligence has more:

It did not matter that Yvette posed no actual threat to the teacher, had not threatened or intimidated the teacher directly or that the comment had not been made at school but rather at an open public forum [and was doctored before being delivered to the teacher, to boot]. Yvette's cooperation with school authorities and admission of penning the note did not matter either, except to make the administration's kicking her out of school a bit easier.

What's next? Kicking kids out for criticizing what their teachers say in class? For criticizing asinine school rules? What's more, Yvette's parents had more to add to the story in the comments of ZI:

...The particular statute they accused her of, "terroristic threat" (Texas Penal Code 22.07) very clearly requires intent. We reviewed the case with a few criminal attorneys, and they immediately agreed a website posting, without additional evidence (like, say, an actual kill list, or plans, or other violent or threatening behavior), would not pass muster in the courts; probably wouldn't even pass the DA's office. So, the school administration decided to handle in "administratively", with only cursory involvement from the police.

We presented much of this upon appeals, but unlike the court system, the appeals process in schools is often long on style, short on substance. Sigh. Our daughter wrote something in an immature way, something that we would have immediately corrected her for, and demanded apologies (which she did give to the teacher), but to criminalize it as a threat, is quite a shock. And not the America I was used to as a kid!

Losing perspective

N2P reader Jim Parsons has an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle about the recent TAKS cheating scandals:

Suburban districts like Humble are not exempt from problems. If there is one thing we have learned over the past several years, it is that anything can happen anywhere. We are, however, dedicated to reducing the likelihood of cheating in Humble ISD. But all of the procedures, safeguards and after-the-fact analysis we might employ are not the only keys to preventing test cheating, nor are they the most important.

Sometimes it is easy to confuse test scores with learning, just as we often confuse looking good with being good.

Bubble sheets and bunny feet

Poptarts and pajamas help kids prepare for standardized tests:

At Sharpsburg Elementary, girls and boys giggled at each other's pajamas and slippers on the way to class Saturday morning. A couple of boys lugged boxes of Pop Tarts and fruit drinks to three classrooms, as about 30 fourth-graders settled into chairs or on sleeping bags and played "Survivor" and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire."

It seems to be working. After three years of Saturday pajama parties, Sharpsburg went from not meeting statewide standards to meeting them all and earning an "excellent" designation last year, said Principal Brad Winterod.

Next up, "Truth or Dare" with math questions.

Bet the laboratory assignment is a doozy

Wasn't this a storyline from Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

The Roman Catholic Church is facing a shortage you may not have heard about: qualified exorcists. And so, on Thursday about 100 priests stood, prayed for protection, then sat down to begin an eight-week study of how to distinguish and fight demonic possession. The course at Rome's prestigious Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum, represents the first time a Vatican- sanctioned course in exorcism is being offered at this level...

"When you're dealing with a reality like the devil," said 39-year-old Father Clement Machado of Canada, "you can't just learn the theoretical. You need the pragmatic experience…. It's such uncharted territory."

Uncharted territory that they're going to cover in two months. I'm just amazed that public schools take years and years to teach basic skills in the 3 R's, and here the Vatican's figured out a way to teach priests to recognize and deal with demons in only 8 short weeks! Now that's some efficient teaching.

So, who wants to help me develop the multiple-choice end-of-course exam for this class?

Dashing their spirits

On the one hand, teachers should be applauded when they assign meaningful writing assignments, such as writing letters to elected officials or military members. On the other hand, when teachers don't bother to teach children what the proper time and place is for positive vs. negative communication, the results can be ugly:

Pfc. Rob Jacobs of New Jersey said he was initially ecstatic to get a package of letters from sixth-graders at JHS 51 in Park Slope last month at his base 10 miles from the North Korea border. That changed when he opened the envelope and found missives strewn with politically charged rhetoric, vicious accusations and demoralizing predictions that only a handful of soldiers would leave the Iraq war alive.

The JHS 51 teacher, Alex Kunhardt, did not return phone calls, but the school principal, Xavier Costello, responded with a statement: "While we would never censor anything that our children write, we sincerely apologize for forwarding letters that were in any way inappropriate to Pfc. Jacobs."

Ah, I see. Educating children to be polite to letters to servicemen, and to avoid rash charges of murder and mayhem in unsolicited written communication, would be "censorship." Got it.

Wizbang is equally unimpressed, and notes that the teacher is obviously guilty of failing to teach geography as well:

Jacobs was stationed in South Korea, far away from Iraq. Even though Jacobs was not in Iraq, why did the teacher allow these letters to be sent? Aren't teachers supposed to be the responsible adults in the classroom, is it too much to ask that the use a little common sense?

Update: Commenter LC ima mommy has the following:

The soldier in the article is my little brother, and my family appreciates you taking the time to write in support of him. There will be a follow up in the Post tomorrow, and my dad will be on Hannity and Colmes to discuss the issue...

The followup is here (thanks, KimJ!):

The city Department of Education, red-faced over Brooklyn sixth-graders who slammed a GI with demoralizing anti-Iraq-war letters as part of a school assignment, will send the 20-year-old private a letter of apology today. Deputy Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina, who has a nephew serving in Iraq, plans to personally contact Pfc. Rob Jacobs and his family, said department spokeswoman Michele McManus Higgins...

"Support" was not the word that came to Jacobs' mind when he read the letters.

The understatement of the year, given the dire predictions and statements in the letters. If one were feeling charitable, one could assume that the teacher didn't read the letters (I suppose that would have been "censorship"), and conclude that the teacher in question is guilty only of failing to teach the students to be kind.

Others are not feeling so charitable today:

What a freaking joke. Are we supposed to believe that no teacher even read these letters before sending them out? They knew damned well what was in there and chose to send the package anyway. The children may have even been coached to write this garbage. It’s disgusting, and it’s more than a little frightening for the future to think that children’s opinions are being shaped by the kind of anti-American nutjobs who can read a letter predicting death and defeat for our troops and see nothing wrong.

Even though I'm in a charitable mood, I find it hard to believe that sixth-graders naturally came by the rants about killing innocent people and only 100 soldiers surviving the war.

Wizbang has a follow-up in which a blogger from the planet Bizarro thinks that all of us outraged by this story are just "Republican attack hamsters" who are picking on poor defenseless sixth-graders. But then he goes on to say:

The kid has an excuse for being stupid---he or she is eleven years old.

It seems to have escaped this blogger's notice that everyone else linking to this story is criticizing the teacher, not the kids, for allowing this to happen, and this "enlightened" blogger is the only one I've seen who calls the kids "stupid." Who, exactly, is picking on the kids, again?

Update #2: One of LGF's commenters notes that the middle school in question, JHS 51 in Park Slope, is a feeder school for the Acorn High School for Social Justice:

The ACORN High School for Social Justice created by a resolution of the Board of Education on June 24, 1999 opened its doors to students for the first time in September of 1999. The school offers an opportunity for students to engage in a comprehensive academic program and to participate in citywide campaigns dealing with issues of social injustice which affect the Bushwick Community and the larger Brooklyn community. ACORN High School for Social Justice's mixture of academic and community involvement helps the students to become lifelong learners.

Fascinatingly, Acorn students show a higher number-per-thousand of the students involved in police department incidents than students at similar schools or city schools, at least for the "non-criminal" incidents. Guess the school does a good job of preparing students to be arrested at protests.

Striking another blow for "economic freedom"

Lawrence University is making the ACT and SAT optional for admission:

Less is more when it comes to the use of standardized tests in college admissions as far as Lawrence University officials are concerned. For students enrolling for the start of the 2006-07 academic year Lawrence will no longer require students to submit SAT or ACT scores for admission consideration college officials announced Friday (2/18).

"We've basically decided to say 'enough already,'" said Steve Syverson, dean of admissions and financial aid at Lawrence. "The recent introduction of the additional writing segments for both the SAT and ACT has further raised the level of confusion, angst and expense already associated with the admission process."

Hmmm. Confusion, angst, and expense. Let's take those in reverse order:

(1) "Expense" - The old SAT cost $29.50. The new SAT costs $41.50. As always, those who can't afford the test can apply for fee waivers. Is all this complaint about expense because of a measly $12 increase?

Of course not:

According to a Feb. 2, 2005, Business Week article, the most intensive test-preparation programs can cost as much as $1,000, while personal tutors can charge $100 to $400 an hour. The addition of the new writing component, the magazine reported, has produced a major spike in new business for both the established test-preparation companies such as Kaplan and The Princeton Review as well as new players in the market.

In other words, because test prep companies (which have nothing to do with the tests themselves, and which may or may not be any good) are jacking up their prices, the test and admissions process itself can be criticized as "too expensive". Somehow, we're supposed to assume that Lawrence applicants have no choice but to pay the $1000 in test prep fees in order to pass a test of basic high-school level skills. This from a university that charges $32,418 a year in tuition and fees.

(2) "Angst"

While students will still have the option of submitting standardized tests scores, Syverson said Lawrence will continue to use its time-tested standard of "multiple intelligences" when reviewing a student's application for admission.

"A test score provides an additional piece of information about a student's potential, but in our opinion, that added tidbit is not commensurate with the financial and emotional costs to students," said Syverson, who has been directing admissions operations at Lawrence since 1983.

Nothing wrong with admitting students based on what seems suitable for the university. However, it's strange to hear a dean brag about the traditionally-high scores for his college, yet in the same breath go on about "multiple intelligences" that don't show up on tests. Likewise, Lawrence is looking for creative, motivated, and energetic leadership types - who can't face the new SAT without suffering an emotional crisis.

(3) "Confusion"

...Studies have shown that higher standardized test scores correlate strongly with higher family income, raising questions about their legitimacy in identifying academic potential.

"The increased emphasis on the tests further disenfranchises students from less-privileged backgrounds, which then interferes with higher education's traditional mission to enhance socioeconomic mobility in America," said Syverson.

For any student not grounded in eduspeak, I'd imagine this would be confusing. For starters, it makes me wonder how a liberal arts college that charges over $32K for tuition and fees is striking a blow for "enhancing socioeconomic mobility" in the US by deciding that applicants need no longer demonstrate their college readiness skills with a $41.50 test. It also makes me wonder how no one at Lawrence understands the nature of correlations nor the concept that perhaps students with wealthier families may in fact be better prepared for college.

For the record, I believe any college should be free to make SAT scores as mandatory, or as optional, for the admissions process as trapeze-swinging ability or fluency in Esperanto. I just get tickled at the ones who are so pretentious about it.

Raging against the (educrat) machine

Teacher Suburban Decay is on a fine rampage over a recent flyer in Delaware touting the wonderfulness of mixing students of wildly-different abilities in the classroom:

"What would you say about a school where all teachers were given the opportunity to fully teach all students? Where students were not placed in segregated settings because their needs were different than the majority of students?"

I am so sick of the academic utopians spouting theory from their ivory towers. They should come down into the real world and do more than merely observe a classroom. They should have to teach in the US public school system for at least 10 years before they're allowed to start a PhD in Education...

Nice rant! Amusingly, there was a commenter at SR's page called "No 2 Pencil" who isn't me - but I agreed with what they said.

When reality and satire overlap

The Onion is a popular publication in my household, namely for its ability to recognize the cruel realities of everyday life, and push them about 10 steps further:

Teach For America, a national program that recruits recent college graduates to teach in low-income rural and urban communities, has devoured another ethnic-studies major, 24-year-old Andy Cuellen reported Tuesday...Just one of the 12,000 young people TFA has burned through since 1990, Cuellen was given five weeks of training the summer before he took over a classroom at P.S. 83 in the South Bronx last September.

"Oh, I'd say we burn through a hundred or so ethnic-studies majors each year," said Anderson, pointing to a series of charts showing the college-major breakdown of TFA corps members. "They tend to last a little longer than women's studies majors and art-therapy students, but Cuellen got mashed to a pulp pretty quickly...

Giggle. Best "quote": "No one can tell you that you can't make a difference. It's something you have to figure out for yourself."

(Via Joanne Jacobs.)

Criticizing the tests the correct way

Devoted Reader Daryl sends along this article about the new SAT:

I've been a high school English teacher for 10 years, and if there's one thing I hate worse than the SAT, it's the idea of a new SAT...It's not that I'm against assessing kids. I give my own students eight to 10 assessments each marking period, though my assignments don't look anything like what students encounter on these high-stakes national exams...

What the bulk of the writing section of the new SAT is really measuring is acquired skills in managing style within the realm of standard written English...Students would be better served by consistently reading the commentary section of the local newspaper - and then periodically writing letters to the editor - than by sitting through the painfully boring lesson plans that these changes to the SAT are likely to inspire.

I agree. And all those testing critics out there should be taking notes - THIS is how effective test criticism should be done. No hyperbole. No hysterical rants about how the exams are completely biased or dependent on one's social standing. No childish arguments about how evil it is to hold students to objective standards.

It's completely legitimate to worry about the impact of the new SAT on writing curricula. It makes sense to put the horse before the cart and suggest changes that schools can make to improve writing skills. And portfolios, though expensive and laden with plenty of psychometric challenges, are