TSBOLE is real and pervasive. It has done major harm to minorities

[light_strand]

december Did you even look at my post on head start? It seems to be one of the few federal low-income education programs that does work!

There’s nothing wrong per se with a biased source,

I’m not quite sure how biased the National School Boards Assn is, but I don’t imagine that Zogby International (the folks who did the poll) are terribly biased.

In fact, many studies do show educational gains

if there are so many studies why can I not find any that are unequivocal? However I did find this

Princeton economist Cecilia Rouse, then took the same data, reworked them, and found that students in private schools made small gains in math but none in reading. A second Rouse paper found that in Milwaukee gains for low-income public-school students in smaller classes were higher than gains of voucher students in private schools.

(from this site: http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/1/carnoy-m.html ) The stats show that either vouchers don’t work, or the numbers are shaky, or that it depends on who is doing the figuring. It certainly doesn’t give a carte blanch support for vouchers.

You posters are witty about the social promotion cites. However, I feel as if you’re asking for cites that there’s been difficulty between Arabs and Israelis.

We are asking you to validate your basic premise, that is not that social promotion occurs, but that it is more prevalent for minorities, that it is soft bigotry, that it harms any group in particular, and that it shows that “inner city school systems have simply given up.”

It seems to me that there are many reasons for social promotion. In addition to those already mentioned by wring there are also those that are more insidious. Teachers are overworked, overwhelmed, and underpaid. This could lead to students slipping through the cracks and being promoted to the next grade either unnoticed, or because teachers just don’t care. That is not to say those teachers have lowered their expectations, but that they might want problem children out of their classes.

We may say that the “administration” is allowing social promotion to occur, but really there is only one person who actually does the promoting, the teachers. How would we know that it’s really “bigotry” and not just that she actually KNOWS that student and understands what they can/can’t achieve? Can we really say that it’s institutionalized as “inner city school systems”?

[Moebius_Street]

*Originally posted by Ned *
It is pretty clear that this is more an issue of poverty than it is one of race.

I don’t believe that anyone said the bigotry was racial. The point is that some group is being cheated.

The same report he cites and countless others make clear that the best indicators of success are the parent’s educational level and their incomes.

And passing under-achieving kids will give them a higher education level (at least on paper), and will thus break the cycle?

The obvious solution is to increase funding for inner city schools to decrease class sizes

First, I’m not aware of any evidence that larger class sizes harms kids. Granted, it’s intuitive, but so is a flat Earth. Second, I’d like to quote my ex-boss’s “rule of the hole”: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging”. Our educational system, after decades of programs like you’re suggesting, and billions of (wasted) dollars, is doing worse than ever. Throwing more money at it is unlikely to help. Indeed, there is a suggestion (but not proof) that the increased funding causes lowered performance.

Finally, here is some documentation of officially lowering academic expectations (albeit at the college level):

Last year, Richard Atkinson, president of the nation’s largest university system, the University of California, proposed dumping the SAT test. Atkinson justified the projected move with the claim that the SAT, as a measure of aptitude rather than achievement, was unfair to those who could maximize their potential through hard work in high school and college.
http://www.nationalreview.com/contributors/kurtz032502.shtml
which in turn references
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/23/education/23EXAM.html

[Ned]

And passing under-achieving kids will give them a higher education level (at least on paper), and will thus break the cycle?

Not necessarily, but failing them to punish the school may not be in the students best interests either. Will failing larger numbers of children break the cycle?

First, I’m not aware of any evidence that larger class sizes harms kids.

I have to assume that the only reason that you are unaware is that you haven’t spent 10 seconds looking into the issue. Ignorance of the issues is not a compelling debating position. Class size reductions assuming appropriate personel and classrom resources have repeatedly shown significant improvement in childrens achievement levels. For example at http://www.aft.org/issues/class_size.html we find this summary of the issue.

In 1985, the state of Tennessee implemented a major class-size reduction initiative in grades K-3 in a way that allowed for one of the best-designed studies in the history of education. The result: Lowering class size substantially improved student achievement and was especially effective for poor children.

The Tennessee STAR study followed a group of students from kindergarten through third grade, randomly assigning these students to one of three types of classes: small (13-17 students); regular (22-25 students); and regular with an aide. With four years of data, researchers found that students in small classes significantly outperformed the other students in both math and reading, every year, at all grade levels, across all geographic areas. Subsequent studies, including some that compare the academic benefits of lower class size with vouchers, support the Tennessee results and conclude that lower class size makes a big difference for children, particularly poor children.

Finally, here is some documentation of officially lowering academic expectations (albeit at the college level).

Reliance on GPA alone is hardly evidence of lowered expectations.

[december]

*Originally posted by bio-brat *
december Did you even look at my post on head start? It seems to be one of the few federal low-income education programs that does work!

Yes, I did read your post. I agree that Head Start “works”, if by “works” you mean it does some amount of good. However, it doesn’t work nearly as well as the original goal.

My point is that those who control the program have low expectations. They’re comfortable with the program as it is, even though the poor kids who go through Head Start wind up well below grade level, on average.

If they had higher expectations, they’d be actively seeking ways to make Head Start even better.

[wring]

*Originally posted by december *
Yes, I did read your post. I agree that Head Start “works”, if by “works” you mean it does some amount of good. However, it doesn’t work nearly as well as the original goal.

so, are you relinquishing your position that ‘Head Start doesn’t work’ ?

**My point is that those who control the program have low expectations. They’re comfortable with the program as it is, even though the poor kids who go through Head Start wind up well below grade level, on average.

If they had higher expectations, they’d be actively seeking ways to make Head Start even better. **

Please prove your assertion that those who control the program have ‘low expectations’ and that they aren’t ‘actively seeking ways to make it even better’.

I’ll break out the keg while we’re waiting.

[december]

*Originally posted by wring *Please prove your assertion that those who control the program have ‘low expectations’ and that they aren’t ‘actively seeking ways to make it even better’.

I’ll break out the keg while we’re waiting. **

This googling is hot, dry work. You’d better pass me a cuppa beer while I’m working.

Ooh – I found one. Wahington Post

**Proposal for Head Start Raises Play-vs.-Learn Debate
Child Advocates Alarmed by Stress On Accountability **
By Theola Labbé
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 16, 2002; Page A08

The preschool children at the Rosemount Center’s Head Start program in Northwest Washington each have palm-size books – made of construction paper and secured with yarn – in which they practice drawing lines and tracing the letters of their name.

The students, ages 3 to 5, also listen to stories and learn the letters of the alphabet each morning …

Under a series of early childhood initiatives recently announced by President Bush, Head Start programs across the country would be asked to prove how well they are preparing some 900,000 low-income students for the rigors of school – a proposal that has renewed the debate over just how much preschoolers should learn and how much they should play.
[snip]
Bush also is calling on Congress to authorize $45 million so that the National Institutes of Health and the Education Department can study ways to best teach young children.

His proposals have angered some Head Start advocates, who say the program is doing what Bush has asked. And it has alarmed some child development experts, who see it as the first step toward shifting the school accountability movement into the earliest classrooms – where children still do much of their learning through play.
[snip]
Mary Beckman, who leads the Head Start programs in Garrett County, said it would be difficult to send her staff to training sessions if she did not have additional money for substitute teachers, or for travel and lodging costs for instructors coming from Maryland’s westernmost county.
[snip]
Pianta, of the University of Virginia, says it is possible to teach children more skills while keeping the Head Start experience enjoyable. “For kids, instruction and fun come together, with home, parents and child care,” he said. “The challenge is how to incorporate both of those elements in interactions with adults and kids, and it can be done.”

Note that the headline and the article say that “child advocates” are alarmed by accountability. Mary Beckman, head of Garrett County Head Start seeks an excuse not to participate.

Accountability = expectations. These people are opposed to raising their expectations for these needy kids. They’re comfortable with low expectations for the Head Start programs and for the Head Start kids.

Now, I’ve earned that brewski.

[wring]

let’s see, you found an administrator of one head start program who said (correctly) that to send her teachers to training, she’d need additional funds to pay for the training and for the subs to work while they’re training and that = in your playbook some one ‘seeking excuses’ to not participate and then that also seems to = in your play book ‘the organization not trying to make things better’.

I’m afraid I lost my december/English -English december dictionary.

but you can have a beer while you work at it.

[Kimstu]

december, I don’t think you quite understand what the opponents of the new proposals are saying. You seem to think that any resistance to any proposed evaluation process must mean that the resisters are opposing progress and clinging to low standards and low expectations.

But what if the proposed “accountability” measures would actually make the program worse? This is the objection raised by many excellent and dedicated teachers to recent national testing initiatives; as they point out, evaluating achievement by standardized tests may superficially look like rigorous commitment to educational quality, but in actual practice it often hurts students’ real learning by simply cramming them with formulaic test answers so that they can score well so the school won’t lose its funding.

As far as I can tell from the article, this is what the “angered” Head Start advocates are objecting to in the Administration’s proposals. In other words, they’re complaining that this is just another “accountability” shell game, designed to give the illusion of quantitative rigor (and make funding dependent on the resulting scores) while it actually diminishes the real value of the children’s education. This may or may not be a fair criticism, but it should be evaluated on its own merits, not just dismissed a priori as an “excuse” for hanging on to “low expectations.” (By the way, if you want to see Head Start’s own views on assessment and quality improvement, you can take a look at the description of their Program Performance Measures Initiatives.)

I’m also skeptical about your assertion that the “original goal” of Head Start was to achieve “educational equality between rich and poor.” Given that, as noted by another poster, school performance is strongly correlated with socioeconomic class, it would be pretty ridiculous to expect that a couple of years of preschool would be enough to compensate for all the rich kids’ educational advantages. In fact, as Head Start’s 35th anniversary webpage remarks,

Project Head Start, launched as an eight-week summer program by the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1965, was designed to help break the cycle of poverty by providing preschool children of low-income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs.

This is in line with the program’s current description of its “overall goal” as “increasing the school readiness of young children in low-income families” and “promoting the social competence of children, which is reflected in a comprehensive view of school readiness.” Nothing in there about erasing the educational gap between rich and poor, but I wouldn’t describe those as “low expectations.”

[december]

*Originally posted by Kimstu *But what if the proposed “accountability” measures would actually make the program worse?

So, why not support at least giving it a it a try?

In other words, they’re complaining that this is just another “accountability” shell game, designed to give the illusion of quantitative rigor (and make funding dependent on the resulting scores) while it actually diminishes the real value of the children’s education.

Sure, that’s what they say. And, a certain poster says to bring back apartheit for the good of the Blacks. Head Start administrators aren’t likely admit that they’re too comfortable, too lazy too wedded to current methods, or too incompetent to implement these changes.

This is in line with the program’s current description of its “overall goal” as “increasing the school readiness of young children in low-income families” and “promoting the social competence of children, which is reflected in a comprehensive view of school readiness.”

That’s low expectations in a nutshell. “increasing the school readiness” "promoting the social competence " How much increase? How much promotion? Measured how?

It’s a compliment to call these low expectations. They’re virtually no expectations.

[Kimstu]

december: “But what if the proposed ‘accountability’ measures would actually make the program worse?”
So, why not support at least giving it a it a try?

Obviously, if you believe that modifying a program in a certain way will make it worse, you’re not going to support “giving it a try.” Why should you?

*“In other words, they’re complaining that this is just another ‘accountability’ shell game, designed to give the illusion of quantitative rigor (and make funding dependent on the resulting scores) while it actually diminishes the real value of the children’s education.”

Sure, that’s what they say. […] Head Start administrators aren’t likely admit that they’re too comfortable, too lazy too wedded to current methods, or too incompetent to implement these changes. *

Or perhaps it’s that the current Administration isn’t likely to admit that it’s too demagogic, too wedded to pseudo-rigorous “quick fixes”, too hungry to score political points, too eager to do favors for its buddies in the educational testing business, or too superficial and ignorant to seek out and implement genuinely useful means of educational assessment rather than this one-size-fits-all number-crunching?

Perhaps one, perhaps the other. Perhaps both allegations are partly true; perhaps neither is true. But you seem to be starting out by firmly assuming your conclusion—that educators are mulishly resisting necessary change—and refusing to consider any alternative explanations. To wit:

1. You were asked to back up your claim that Head Start administrators cling to low expectations.

2. You provided a cite showing that some Head Start administrators and advocates object to certain recent proposals for new assessment techniques.

3. I pointed out that this doesn’t mean that they’re opposed to assessment per se, just that they think the assessment techniques in question are bad.

4. You asserted that they must be lying in order to shield their own laziness and/or incompetence.

Sorry. Assuming your conclusion is not the same thing as proving your conclusion.

How much increase? How much promotion? Measured how?

If you had bothered to look at the link I provided, you could get some answers to those questions.

It’s a compliment to call these low expectations. They’re virtually no expectations.

So if a brief statement of an overall goal does not contain detailed quantitative information about how the attainment of that goal is to be assessed, we should conclude that there are no real expectations involved? Gee, I’m shocked that you let your daughter enroll at Swarthmore, which claims that “The purpose of Swarthmore’s liberal arts curriculum is to help students fulfill their responsibilities as citizens and grow into cultured and versatile individuals.” What responsibilities? Fulfilled to what extent? How cultured? Versatile in what ways? Obviously, Swarthmore must have virtually no expectations for its students. :rolleyes:

But at least it appears that you are no longer trying to claim that the “original” mission of Head Start was to create educational equality between poor and rich students, and I guess that’s something. Do I rate a beer for that, wring?

[december]

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
**december:**So if a brief statement of an overall goal does not contain detailed quantitative information about how the attainment of that goal is to be assessed, we should conclude that there are no real expectations involved?

Since you disagree, please provide a cite.

Gee, I’m shocked that you let your daughter enroll at Swarthmore, which claims that “The purpose of Swarthmore’s liberal arts curriculum is to help students fulfill their responsibilities as citizens and grow into cultured and versatile individuals.” What responsibilities? Fulfilled to what extent? How cultured? Versatile in what ways? Obviously, Swarthmore must have virtually no expectations for its students.

Please don’t get me started on what’s wrong with Swarthmore and other liberal arts colleges. Garp’s motgher had the right idea.

But at least it appears that you are no longer trying to claim that the “original” mission of Head Start was to create educational equality between poor and rich students, and I guess that’s something. Do I rate a beer for that, wring?

It’s a hijack, so I’m not motivated to search. I did read that statement somewhere.

But, you can have a can of beer anyhow. Here, catch!

[Kimstu]

december: *“So if a brief statement of an overall goal does not contain detailed quantitative information about how the attainment of that goal is to be assessed, we should conclude that there are no real expectations involved?”

Since you disagree… *

I can’t figure out which you think I’m disagreeing with:

a) that in the general case of briefly stating an overall goal without including quantitative assessment techniques, we should conclude that there are no real expectations involved?
—Yes, I disagree with that as a general conclusion, because it’s silly to think that every one-sentence mission statement should have to include such detail in order to be considered sincere.

b) that in the particular case of the Head Start program, there are no specific expectations or performance assessments?
—Yes, I disagree with that, because the link I provided earlier discusses in detail those very expectations and assessments.

… please provide a cite.

!! I provided that cite three freaking posts ago, when I said “By the way, if you want to see Head Start’s own views on assessment and quality improvement, you can take a look at the description of their Program Performance Measures Initiatives”! If you had exerted yourself enough to click on the link, you would have been immediately rewarded by a description of the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey:

The full study, launched in Fall, 1997, follows 3200 children and families in 40 Head Start programs. The ongoing performance measures effort will continue to help Head Start chart its progress in meeting Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) goals and improving services to children and families, through combining outcome measures with agency-level data reporting and program monitoring.

Happy now? Thanks for the beer, btw.

[Polycarp]

Just a brief mini-hijack to apologize to December for a snide remark about Sharpton et al. – it was not in fact December but another person on another board of similar but much stronger views who continually brought up the names in question, and I remembered a faulty identity.