11D

Aspen Idea and Smoozing Fest

A few of the people that I follow on Twitter were at the Aspen Idea Festival over the weekend. I think that the point of the conference is to bring together various smart people and to cross fertilize ideas. I'm alternatively jealous of the attendees and suspicious of them. Lots of big heads there.

I've been watching a few of the talks on their website. David Brooks did a talk on a book that he's writing about education, success, and neuro-science. It rambles about, but there are some interesting nuggets in there.

He mentions a famous experiment that was done on a group of four year olds. Each four year old was  led into a room with a desk, a chair, and a marshmallow. The kid was told that he/she would be left alone for a few minutes, but not to eat the marshmallow. If he didn't eat the marshmallow, he would get two marshmallows when the person returns. Every kid ate the marshmallow. However, the kids who waited the longest before eating, who were able to defer gratification for longer, ended up more successful later in life.

I want to try this experiment on my niece this week.

Who Wants School Vouchers?

Andrew Gelman had a post on public support for school vouchers earlier this week. I held back on a response for a few days, because the Iran thing was occupying my attention and because I'm a little sick of talking about school vouchers. Is there anything new to be said? Maybe. Voucher support may be a proxy for the continuing fault lines about schools and class.

Gelman finds that voucher support is strongest among the very rich and the poor, particularly among Latinos. OK, now we need a little qualitative information to fill in the gaps.

The Politics of Food Meets the Politics of Education

My kids go to different schools, because Ian gets shipped out of district to a school that has a classroom for kids with special needs. The schools have different policies on junk food.

It was Jonah's birthday last week. Before school, we drove to Dunkin' Donuts and I got 20 of the goopiest, spongiest, slurpiest donuts that you could possibly imagine. None of the ingredients were found in nature. When you take a bite of those babies, they are so soft that chewing is optional, but the grit of the sugar stays in your mouth for a while. You need a Coolatta to wash it down. How many weight watcher points is that?

At Ian's school, we were given a list of the appropriate foods to bring in for birthdays. They included carrot sticks, rice cakes, and air popped popcorn.

I honestly don't give a crap if my kids get donuts in school. They don't get a lot of sweets at home. They are so skinny that I have to buy shorts with those adjustable waist rubber bands. But this donut thing is a big deal for some of my friends and it has erupted into a frenzy in school districts around the country.

Some links: Joanne Jacobs, Tim Burke, The New York Times. We talked about the Cookie Police last year.

John Sides points out this story is an example of how the politics of food meets the politics of education. Two of my favorite topics.

I am huge sucker for farmers markets and organically grown food. I spent a long time yesterday thinking about starting my own vineyard after reading this article. However, the foodies have to prevent themselves from being Food Nazis. Dowd talks about how the Obamas are having a tough time walking that line.

Educating Women in Developing Nations

From the Brookings Institute:

Education, especially for girls and women, is the most highly leveraged investment now available for developing countries. Obama's top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, has found that "educating girls yields a higher rate of return than any other investment available in the developing world." Women's education is a key driver for the economic growth of countries around the world. A 100 country study by the World Bank found that every 1 percent increase in the level of women's education generates .3 percent in additional economic growth. Educating women increases their wages by as much as 20 percent for every additional year of schooling. Women's education is a key driver for the economic growth of countries around the world.

Investing In Teachers

I'm a public policy geek. I get excited by trying out new policy programs and seeing what happens. I can't help it.

I'm awfully curious how this program in Washington Heights is going to work out. My buddy, Suze, has been telling me about it. She should have applied for it. (Stern look at you, Suze.) And thanks to Laura B. for sending me the article.

The idea behind the school is that highly quality teachers make a difference. If you find the best and pay them high salaries, then the kids will learn more. So, this school will pay their teachers $125,000 per year.

They are members of an eight-teacher dream team, lured to an innovative charter school that will open in Washington Heights in September with salaries that would make most teachers drop their chalk and swoon; $125,000 is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, and about two and a half times as much as the national average for teacher salaries. They also will be eligible for bonuses, based on schoolwide performance, of up to $25,000 in the second year.

...To make ends meet, teachers will hold responsibilities usually shouldered by other staff members, like assistant principals (there will be none). There will be no deans, substitute teachers (except for extended leaves) or teacher coaches. Teachers will work longer hours and more days, and have 30 pupils, about 6 more than the typical New York City fifth-grade class.

Predictions, people. Will this program succeed?

On Criticizing Schools

From time to time on this blog, I have talked about my annoyance with my kids' schools. Sometimes the post was related to the special education bureaucracy. Sometimes it was about our choice to move to the suburbs, because we were worried about the city public schools. Sometimes it was about the mediocre education that Jonah was getting in the suburban schools.

I often get a lukewarm or even chilly response to those blog posts. Someone will sneer, "entitlement." Others will portray me as a shrill, humorless, privileged mom picking on the poor teachers. Weirdly, commenters on another blog criticized me for being a privileged mom, because instead of complaining about things, I was dealing with the inadequacies in education privately at home.

I can't win. And it's partially because there's so much discrimination against moms. Others can rally around about abortion rights, same sex education, the War in Iraq, and a million other political matters. But a mom with a political agenda is seen as shrill and entitled. Terribly annoying.

So, this morning, I'm going to rant. Harry and Megan have convinced me that we should care about high-performing schools.

Rich Schools

Kitchen Table Math has a long excerpt of an Elmore article on high performing schools. Elmore says that many high performing schools aren't all that great. They are in wealthy districts where the parents supplement their kids' mediocre education with a lot of tutoring. Elmore said that a select group of schools in poorer districts actually have better practices.

Amy P sent that link my way, and these topics are often discussed by other moms that I know. I am not all that surprised and alarmed.

First of all, you should not rely on your schools to educate your kids. I spend a lot of time with my kids teaching them random things. If Jonah's doing his homework, I will be there in the room using the homework as a jumping board for my own lesson. If he does sloppy work, I make him redo it. I reteach the math lessons. We'll go up to the computer to look up a country in Africa. No school does this.

Secondly, the parents in the rich schools aren't all that upset. They can afford the tutors. The reputation of the school is enough to get their kids into Dartmouth. And that's all they care about.

Third, the schools, by whatever method, are getting the kids into college. My high school (ranked top five in the state) sent 90% of the student body to a four year college. The top 20% went to an Ivy League school. So, it's hard to get all that worked up about the average instruction in these districts. If I have to get upset about something, I choose to get upset by the 90% dropout rate in some schools in Philadelphia.

Still, Elmore's article and Catherine's commentary is interesting and worth a read, because it shows the limits of schools and the impact of money.

UPDATE: Harry at Crooked Timber says that these poorly performing, high performing schools are a problem. They eat up a lot of resources and neglect average students. Megan McArdle says that we should care because "those schools are often the model for schools in poor districts.  The affluent assume that what works in their school district, for their children, must be what works, and vote, and donate, accordingly."

Public School Hypocrisy

When Democrats go to Washington, they inevitably face criticism for refusing to send their kids to the public schools. And they should. Here's some bile on the matter from Megan McArdle:

Here's what I don't understand though:  how come the Obama girls benefit from leaving the DC public school system?  Surely, if it doesn't make any difference, the Obama girls would do just as well in ordinary, democratic, thoroughly American public schools as in an elitist Quaker institution.  Wouldn't it bring wonderful diversity to both the school, and the Obama daughters, to have the children of the president rubbing shoulders with the children of the district's more ordinary residents?  What is it about the Obama girls that enables them, nearly uniquely, to benefit from school choice?

If you know me on this issue, you know that I am very, very upset.  And that I think that there is probably a special place in hell reserved for politicians who betray our nation's most helpless children for the benefit of a sullen and recalcitrant teacher's union.  There they spend all eternity explaining to their victims why they couldn't possibly have risked their precious babies' future in the public school system, yet felt perfectly free to fling other peoples' children into it by the thousands. 

I actually think the every politician should do more than send their kids to public schools. They should use public transportation, sleep in public housing for a month, eat off food stamps for a month, wait on line for a green card, and sleep in a prison for a week.

Urban Schools That Work

Since the 1960s, education reformers have struggled to find education models that work in urban areas. Various plans went in and out of vogue from community-based education to principals with baseball bats. Every now and then, a school would decrease dropout rates and increase test scores. Education specialists would study and examine the school and its inspirational leader, but efforts to replicate those schools always failed.

The failures to improve urban schools and the persistent race gap in test scores have led many to say that schools can't make a difference. Good teachers give up and lower expectations. It's all environment they say; schools don't matter.

The charter school movement has been a mixed bag of horrible failures and notable achievements. Two programs in particular seem to have made some headway in dealing with urban schools. The KIPP programs have consistently done well over time and scaled up across the country. David Brooks writes about another program, the Promise Academy in Harlem, which shares the basic philosophy as the KIPP academy.

To my mind, the results also vindicate an emerging model for low-income students. Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values....

Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.

I'm quite convinced that intensive, resocializing programs can make a difference. The big question is whether these programs can be scaled up. I hate to be the baddie, but I see several problems:

1. The kids who choose to enroll in these charter school programs are exceptional. Their parent or parents are educated and motivated enough to hear about these schools, fill out the paperwork, wait on lines, handle bureaucrats, locate birth certificates, make their kids go to school every day, and make education a priority. This parental support is not found in every household. The students in these schools are outliers from the very beginning. There's no evidence that these programs would work among the general public.

2. The teachers who work in these schools work longer hours than regular public school teachers. They may not enjoy the same union benefits as their non-charter school peers. They have chosen to work in a high intensity environment, because they're unusually committed towards the goal of educating city kids. They have the zeal of a religious convert. It may be difficult to spread the zeal among battle-weary urban teachers.

3. Part of the success of these schools is due to the fact that they double the amount of time in school. How would New York City be able to pay their entire staff over time? Where would they put all those students?

Still, I am a big fan of this model and have been very impressed with their efforts. I think we could overcome problems 2 and 3, but problem 1 seems insurmountable to me.

UPDATE: Great post by Elizabeth on this topic. She looks at the actual study and discusses the findings. She says the findings do show gains by the students in the schools and refute the claims that schools can't make a difference. However, she has nearly the same concerns as I do about scaling up this program.

The Secret to Success

In an article for the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell writes about when Davids are able to beat Goliaths. When are guys who lack brains, strength, or technique able to win against those who have those attributes in spades? He says when they don't play by the traditional rules, have great attitude, and work harder than the Goliaths. He cites research on this topic:

David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.

In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

Gladwell also looks at how a team of untalented, short girls made it to the Nationals for high school basketball. He says the the key factor was that the coach, a dad of one of the girls, changed up the rules. I think that money was also a factor. The dad was a CEO a big computer company and hired big shot experts, but Gladwell doesn't give that factor much attention.

Elsewhere Gladwell and David Brooks have written about the limits of IQ. Gladwell explains that the research shows that a base level IQ is required for success, 130 or something, but after that, it doesn't matter. Other factors are more important in explaining success. Brooks says the latest research shows that practice is more important than IQ.

Why are we talking about IQ and underdogs and effort? Because in the new economy, it is much more difficult to know what to do to be successful. The old routes to success are dead-ends. And career success depends more on a mysterious combination of factors. College dropouts are billionaires. Poor immigrants are Silicon Valley super heros. Traditional employment options are going Chapter 11.

I had a long chat with a dad on the edge of a rainy soccer field on Sunday. I have to figure out how to write about that conversation while respecting his privacy and his world perspective. He's a Vietnam vet and a contractor who hasn't been able to get any work for two years. In his early 60s, he's struggling to support his five kids and pay his taxes. I like the man.

As part of this long conversation, he told me that I should have Jonah join the Boy Scouts, because he would be able to put Eagle Scout on his resume, and it would help him find a job. He told me that employers care about those things. I just nodded. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it didn't matter. Steve's an Eagle Scout and I seriously doubt that any employer gave a crap about that. The rules have changed, and my friend has no idea what the new rules are. Hell, I'm not sure what the new rules are.