The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers, by David Leonhardt, Ny Times: How much do your kindergarten teacher and classmates affect the rest of your life? ... Great teachers and early childhood programs can have a big short-term effect. But the impact tends to fade...— which raises the demoralizing question of how much of a difference schools and teachers can make.
There has always been one major caveat, however, to the research on the fade-out effect. It was based mainly on test scores, not on a broader set of measures... As Raj Chetty ... says: “We don’t really care about test scores. We care about adult outcomes.”
Early this year, Mr. Chetty and five other researchers set out to fill this void. They examined the life paths of almost 12,000 children who had been part of a well-known education experiment in Tennessee in the 1980s. The children are now about 30...
On Tuesday, Mr. Chetty presented the findings — not yet peer-reviewed — at an academic conference... Just as in other studies, the Tennessee experiment found that some teachers were able to help students learn vastly more than other teachers. And just as in other studies, the effect largely disappeared by junior high... Yet when Mr. Chetty and his colleagues took another look at the students in adulthood, they discovered that the legacy of kindergarten had re-emerged.
Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more. ... Over time, the effect seems to grow, too. ...
Now happens to be a particularly good time for a study like this. With the economy still terribly weak, many people are understandably unsure about the value of education. ... But.... Education itself can make a difference. ...
Mr. Chetty and his colleagues ... estimate that a standout kindergarten teacher is worth about $320,000 a year. ... This estimate doesn’t take into account social gains, like better health and less crime. Obviously, great kindergarten teachers are not going to start making $320,000 anytime soon. Still, school administrators can do more than they’re doing. ... Given today’s budget pressures,... that’s all the more reason to focus our scarce resources on investments whose benefits won’t simply fade away.

Posted by Mark Thoma on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 01:08 AM in Economics | Stumble, Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, Tweet, Share, Like | Permalink Comments (62)

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reason said...
Lets compare that to the management of Goldman Sacks.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 01:24 AM

paine said...
its the whole interval from conception to 7 or 8
that are critical want to cut total social budgets for education
i got no problem so long as -9 months to 8 are increased dramatically

how funded ??? take it out of the social cost of higher ed
high school included

charge for 9-12
take the fat out of a marketable skill degree
end tenure nore on line universal credit transfers
no one "school" minimum credits for a degree etc

btw how much does it cost us to produce
an engineer or accountant or doctor compared to the rest of the oecd ???

germany produces one of the lowest higher degree percents in the oecd
hurting their competitive ness ???

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 03:40 AM

julio said in reply to paine...
Charge for 9-12? You're messing with my neighborhoods crime stats, fella.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 08:45 AM

paine said in reply to julio...
property crime stats need to go up

as for street violence
i think military induction can temper that

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:27 AM

paine said...
higher ed as a citizen amenity is pure
CIC crap
(college industrial complex crap )

community college continuing ed ??
great stuff student loans great stuff
but higher ed needs cost caps
(tradeable tuition increase warrents ?? why not)

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 03:43 AM

paine said...
stand out teachers at all levels matter and matter greatly
difference
after about grade 8 one can seek out a mentor
if given the opportunity and choice

the community college approach
where class choice is your choice oughta rule
in all levels above middle school
make kids borrow to pay tuition for grade 9 and they'll
drop out
great join the job world and find what that's like
or the national guard or get pregnant
these are life choices you learn from
so long as continuing ed is everywhere
and open to all ages
the cohorting of education "life stages " beyond pre adolescence is a deep travesty of independent action
opportunity and "choice with consequences "

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 03:51 AM

NKlein1553 said in reply to paine...
"the community college approach
where class choice is your choice oughta rule"

Completely agree with this. In my opinion as an educator (former educator now due to budget cut backs), the "Early College High School Movement" is one of the most important initiatives to emerge from the educational field in the past decade (roughly the time I've been involved in educational policy issues). I'm most familiar with the early college initiatives in NYC where the programs out of Hunter, Lehman, and The City College of New York (the CUNY system) have been extremely successful. In recent years research into the effectiveness of these types of programs across the nation has consistently shown very positive results. See here for an overview:

http://www.earlycolleges.org/publications.html#evaluations

Besides the socio-economic status of students' families and close friends, student empowerment is probably the most important factor in determining academic success. The best way to empower students is to give them choice and real control over their destiny.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 05:36 AM

NKlein1553 said in reply to NKlein1553...
Just in case the term "Early College," is not self-explanatory let me briefly explain what these programs entail. Universities partner with various High Schools in a given region to offer instruction to teenage students. In most programs students go to the University campuses to receive instruction and in others the professors come to the students. In NYC commuting is relatively easy so most students go to the universities themselves. Students have to complete a small High School core curriculum in order to graduate, but are left with a great deal of choice about which courses to take outside of that core. By their junior and senior years students have practically complete control over their coursework. Throughout the process counselors are made available to students and their families to assist them in choosing their coursework. Students gain college credit at the participating institution for higher education for a portion of their coursework provided they achieve a satisfactory grade in the classes they take and pass some sort of a test (in many instances the A.P. test).

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 05:59 AM

paine said in reply to NKlein1553...
"counselors are made available "

a key
but i'd prefer them to be independent
of the local school system
and
funded like the us marshalls service

again the only way this works is if the choices are job market oriented job market guided
require a tuition charge of modest proportions
and is strictly voluntary ie not an alternative to additional traditional class room
incarceration

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:33 AM

NKlein1553 said in reply to paine...
Well unfortunately paine "traditional class room incarceration," ain't going away any time soon so you're just going to have to deal with second best solutions. The Early College initiatives offer a choice of college classes to supplement instruction taking place in a brick and mortar High School drawing from a traditional core curriculum. Doing away with the core curriculum and the brick and mortar High School entirely is never going to happen. Although some programs come close to the functional equivalent for upper level High School students. I don't think it would be appropriate to do this for Freshman and Sophomores. Transitioning from a state of severely limited independence and choice in Middle School to a state of near complete independence and choice in College should be a gradual process.

From my experiences in the CUNY system the Early College programs work well. The CUNY system offers a wide range of course offerings, many technical or career orientated, for a very reasonable price (provided you're a state or city resident). I suppose much depends on the quality of the Higher Education institutions partnering with the local High Schools, but the research into these programs on the national level has shown quite positive results.

As for the guidance counselors operating on a free-lance basis independent of any single school district, I'm not sure what the benefit of this would be. Most guidance counselors I've worked with seem to be competent individuals who take into consideration the needs, desires, and abilities of the students who come to them. I'm sure there are many who do not, but I don't see how making counselors independent of local school systems would help. Do you see local school systems as some sort of a corrupting influence?

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:56 AM

paine said in reply to NKlein1553...
"Do you see local school systems as some sort of a corrupting influence?"

well yes

i'd prefer someone that wasn't paid
by just one of a kid's options
in fact i'd hope the counselor would come on board early enough to allow decisions that "avoid" grades 10-12 incarceration

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 02:17 PM

paine said...
no group interest besides the military and cops
not even corporate amerika is as self promoting
as Mr higher Ed

the big time research and big time sport
"university mega plex"
oughta be blown apart

no sport no research on campus

profs wanna do reseearch
get thee to an institute

still wanna teach
who's stoppin ya

joint positions are hardly "impossible"

but using grad students as your "worker bees"
is a grotesque "semi-feudal heeling " process

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 03:58 AM

Sarah said...
All of this-- including the apparent 'fade out' effect in Junior High School makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. By their teenage years kids are going to take on the protective coloring of their surroundings. If those surroundings are tough, they'll play tough. But you can't unknow what you know. It emerges when it gets the chance.

The only thing I wish is that people would stop focusing so exclusively on the 0-6's. The impact of brilliant teachers is profound at ANY age. The English teacher I had at 14 made a lasting impact on my life-- and so did the Differential Equations professor I had at 24. And both contributed to making me a lifelong SELF-learner-- which, I think, is the best gift any teacher can give.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 05:26 AM

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Sarah...
'stop focusing so exclusively on the 0-6's. The impact of brilliant teachers is profound at ANY age...'

An age group was selected & studied, in a real
sense this is kind of arbitrary, so it shouldn't
mean that teachers of any other age group are not
important. It's striking to see an analysis that
suggests what teaching is actually WORTH however.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 05:35 AM

paine said in reply to Sarah...

"By their teenage years kids are going to take on the protective coloring of their surroundings. If those surroundings are tough, they'll play tough"
exactly right !!!!

-------------------

"The only thing I wish is that people would stop focusing so exclusively on the 0-6's"

this is wildly off base
the social funding of 0-6 is inversely related to its relative impact

attendez

after grade 8 i suggest to u
the motivated will find their mentor of choice

if its institutionally possible

and those that pass up a mentoring moment
for
rowdy-ship courtship or poignant wasting away

prodigal son systems must exist for kids of all ages
but let them decide when its time to return to school

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:39 AM

Jerome Turner said...
Can they control for teacher quality at that point where the effect starts to "fade"? Having family in the primary and secondary educational systems, I would tend to think that kindergarten teachers are more passionate than the ones I had in junior high and high school.
Are we really seeing the effects "fade" over time or is this evidence that as we progress our teachers are less equipped to motivate and engage our students?

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 05:34 AM

Eric said in reply to Jerome Turner...
Even the least effective parents can usually deliver a child respectful of adults and with a fair degree of imagination and enthusiasm for learning something new to kindergarten. Later, regrettably, you get a good slice of kids for whom these attributes have significantly diminished with the passage of time. Teachers are human and it is hard to maintain enthusiasm for the job when the "customers" are increasingly uninterested and disrespectful. There are great teachers at every level, but those with the youngest children almost always have fewer disruptions - either active or passive. Teaching the youngest has some big challenges too, but these frequently stimulate the teacher instead of just tiring them out.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 08:15 AM

paine said in reply to Eric...
disrespectful of a system ??
what else does it deserve

when after about grade 5
its punitively boring
prodigally wasteful and
ultimately
disrespectful
of the millions of raw souls
its cracking open in its jaws
for the corporate mills ahead

disrespectful of the teachers??

well only of any teacher
that chooses to personify this wretched system

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:45 AM

NKlein1553 said in reply to Eric...
"but those with the youngest children almost always have fewer disruptions."

Have you ever taught Middle School?

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:58 AM

paine said in reply to Jerome Turner...
"as we progress our teachers are less equipped to motivate and engage our students"

that truth and i believe it to be a truth
indicts the system eh ??

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:40 AM

ken melvin said...
It's teachers and so much more.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 05:43 AM

Observer said...
This result is decades old. The positive adult impact of Head Start has been known for a long time. Republican response: cut Head Start.

I want to move to Mars...

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 05:54 AM

leolabeth said in reply to Observer...
Finland's closer and cooler.

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB120425355065601997.html

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 07:13 AM

ilsm said...
Higher ed is highly overrated. I learned everything I needed to know by end of first grade.

Something Einsteins said:

"The value of an education is what is left after all the learning is forgotten"

I "taught" adult career education and I devoted 10% of the time to useful tools that could be used if the problem solving process were internalized. The other 90% was what the folks wanting "certificates" got.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 06:03 AM

bakho said...
Some states like Indiana have half day kindergarten and want to move to full day. It is not happening in rapidly expanding districts because they lack the space necessary to educate the additional students and are cutting teachers because of budget problems.

Conservatives are not in the mood to spend more on public education. They would be fine with vouchers to support church run programs.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 06:41 AM

Fred C. Dobbs said...
Kindergarten must be offered in 42 states, but
attendance is mandatory in only 15 (as of 2001).

http://www.doe.in.gov/legwatch/2001/app_B.html

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 06:41 AM

Anon said...
Poor your education money into ages 4 to 7. Get em early.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 06:59 AM

lonesome moderate said...
To me, the more difficult and interesting question is where the most outstanding teachers come from and how to get more of them.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 07:19 AM

Observer said in reply to lonesome moderate...
This was my first thought as well.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of the teachers in this study were rated as "great". If the answer is more than 5-10%, I call BS.

Personally, I had one exceptionally good teacher in grades 7-12, 2 or 3 exceptionally bad ones; the rest were low-high mediocre.

Great teachers, like great engineers, doctors, or auto mechanics, are by definition probably less than 5% of the population.

I've seen somewhere in the last few months interesting work on training teachers to be materially more effective in the classroom, based on detailed analysis of what the most effective teachers do. I doubt this will create "great" teachers, but moving the average teacher effectiveness from a C level to B level might have more impact overall.

On funding, I'd happily pay great teachers 2X the average. But paying mediocre teachers 2X current rates wont make them great, and I'd oppose just dumping money on the problem.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 08:25 AM

jerseycityjoan said in reply to lonesome moderate...
Exactly.

For more reasons than one, I think it's time to start thinking about reforming or eliminating tenure.

I don't believe in teaching to the test and understand teachers' reluctance to be held responsible for student achievement.

However, it's crazy that we are force our school systems to keep whoever makes it through their first three years and obtains tenure, no matter how ineffective and inept they become in later years. Why should we have to keep employing these people, paying them a salary for 30+ years and a big pension for another 10-20+ years after that?

It's stupid and wasteful beyond words.

Does anyone know how this is handled in other countries? I never thought about it before, but it seems quite possible that this is another more or less unique American practice that is not serving us well.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:03 AM

anne said...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/business/economy/28leonhardt.html

July 27, 2010

The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers
By DAVID LEONHARDT

How much do your kindergarten teacher and classmates affect the rest of your life?

Economists have generally thought that the answer was not much. Great teachers and early childhood programs can have a big short-term effect. But the impact tends to fade. By junior high and high school, children who had excellent early schooling do little better on tests than similar children who did not — which raises the demoralizing question of how much of a difference schools and teachers can make.

There has always been one major caveat, however, to the research on the fade-out effect. It was based mainly on test scores, not on a broader set of measures, like a child’s health or eventual earnings. As Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist, says: “We don’t really care about test scores. We care about adult outcomes.”

Early this year, Mr. Chetty and five other researchers set out to fill this void. They examined the life paths of almost 12,000 children who had been part of a well-known education experiment in Tennessee in the 1980s. The children are now about 30, well started on their adult lives.

On Tuesday, Mr. Chetty presented the findings — not yet peer-reviewed — at an academic conference in Cambridge, Mass. They’re fairly explosive.

Just as in other studies, the Tennessee experiment found that some teachers were able to help students learn vastly more than other teachers. And just as in other studies, the effect largely disappeared by junior high, based on test scores. Yet when Mr. Chetty and his colleagues took another look at the students in adulthood, they discovered that the legacy of kindergarten had re-emerged.

Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more....

[Worry not, President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan have decided the thing that matters, the only thing that matters in education is test scores and are busily and happily smashing teachers and administrators whose students do not test properly.]

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 07:41 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
"busily and happily smashing teachers..." unions

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:49 AM

anne said...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/education/19winerip.html

July 18, 2010

A Popular Principal, Wounded by Government’s Good Intentions
By MICHAEL WINERIP

BURLINGTON, Vt. — It’s hard to find anyone here who believes that Joyce Irvine should have been removed as principal of Wheeler Elementary School.

John Mudasigana, one of many recent African refugees whose children attend the high-poverty school, says he is grateful for how Ms. Irvine and her teachers have helped his five children. “Everything is so good about the school,” he said, before taking his daughter Evangeline, 11, into the school’s dental clinic.

Ms. Irvine’s most recent job evaluation began, “Joyce has successfully completed a phenomenal year.” Jeanne Collins, Burlington’s school superintendent, calls Ms. Irvine “a leader among her colleagues” and “a very good principal.”

Beth Evans, a Wheeler teacher, said, “Joyce has done a great job,” and United States Senator Bernie Sanders noted all the enrichment programs, including summer school, that Ms. Irvine had added since becoming principal six years ago.

“She should not have been removed,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “I’ve walked that school with her — she seemed to know the name and life history of every child.”

Ms. Irvine wasn’t removed by anyone who had seen her work (often 80-hour weeks) at a school where 37 of 39 fifth graders were either refugees or special-ed children and where, much to Mr. Mudasigana’s delight, his daughter Evangeline learned to play the violin.

Ms. Irvine was removed because the Burlington School District wanted to qualify for up to $3 million in federal stimulus money for its dozen schools.

And under the Obama administration rules, for a district to qualify, schools with very low test scores, like Wheeler, must do one of the following: close down; be replaced by a charter (Vermont does not have charters); remove the principal and half the staff; or remove the principal and transform the school....

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 07:43 AM

soccerdad said in reply to anne...
Looks to me like it was the school district with a board elected by parents who "sold out" the principal. Why are you holding this out as an example of a "failed" BO policy?

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:29 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
something about this smells of trust fund liberal
bull shit

play the violin ???

bernie is a cat food eating dabbler

a hollywood progressive
his heart is good so put him in charge of helping the tatters that fall thru the job grate

not spoil fresh stock that just might get somewhere if their future job life
and their basic 3-8 school years
looked like they were from
the same brutish abrupt cold and nasty universe

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:55 AM

roger said in reply to paine...
Trust fund liberal? Who here is playing catspaw to obama's effort to break the teacher's union, except you, Mr. Paine? Another right wing goo-goo prescription, colored by implausible faux radicalism. I like it that the same guy who slices and dices the economics department at the New School can accuse Anne of elitism - we are talking meta-goo goo here.

Now, of course, we have the fortune to live in a time where the citizenry, if it wanted to, could be educated at a very leisurely pace, and not be forced onto the job market - that is, the jobs that should be standardized to about 30 hours per week - until they wanted to be. But no, the answer, in a time of soaring teenage unemployment, is add to the reserve army of the teen unemployed and massively fire government employees. I like it! And I like the fact that this little rightwing wet dream is colored by your mau mauing rhetoric, all radical adn stuffed, so working class! motivated, apparently, by nothing more serious than the imaginary idea that you are sticking it to the all powerful elitist goo goos.

Now, I'm sure that this is all cloud cuckoo land discourse - there are no mechanisms in place to stop the oligarchy from doing what it wants to do, so we will just watch from the sidelines as America pisses away its middle class, destroys its environment, makes a mock democracy out of a semi one, and immiserates its population, to the dancing of the various peckerwood fringes who will one day in the bright future "spontaneously" bring about revolution, of, uh, some sort. And maybe we will get an urban uprising out of this that we can watch on tv. That would be so cool! After all, that was the 'radical' success in the sixties, along of course with the spontaneous creation of all good things out of the bosom of the working class - in conjunction, of course, with the tooth fairy.

But the radicalism on display, here, is at least good for a laugh.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:14 AM

roger said in reply to roger...
Although I should add, this is the standard M.O. of the American "left" and I should not hold you personally responsible for it, Mr. Paine. After all, in your quest not to be an elitist, you have evidently become a greeter at Walmart.

It is the same tedious faux radical vocabulary that lefty bullies like Hitchens and Berman used to support the ultra right Bush. The mau mauing always comes down to agreeing, for Troskyite-Maoist-Che Guevara reasons, with anything the plutocrats want. Such, of course, is your attack on the 'educational complex'.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:30 AM

paine said in reply to roger...
rog

please you speak in dark clouds
that never rain

"left" ???
me ???

why you're all there is that's good about progressive instincts ...
you are the real left

speak softly
but carry a big ballot box

exhibit A:

"don't just vote to keep the jack asses
in control of the Hill this november
send money .... volunteer ...pray
this is the most important election
of your or my life..."
until the next one

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 02:33 PM

paine said in reply to roger...
this is plain silly

but i'm hardly surprised
knock kneeed liberal
love the public school system
and hate the prison system

its the reverse of course for reactionaries

prison cell or class room
to me its like choosing between
the repugs and the dembots

an easy choice
but only a choice
of degree
not of kind

----------------------

i take it rog u are one of those that sees the charter movement as more then just a way to bust
teachers' unions
it isn't

and yet public unions have had this coming for a few decades now

once the private sector unions collapsed
it was only a matter of time

perhaps on these ruins a new set of job class organizations will erect themselves

as for charterization i put it on
the social evil list
down with the war on drugs

harmless in the main
but good for...
the prison system

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 02:29 PM

roger said in reply to paine...
Pure mickey Ksusism.

It is rich that a man who evidently went through high school, and college, and even I dare say grad school, wants to knock the ladder away from kids in the current generation because, uh, it is just so elitist and stuff, and I have an old paperback copy of Ivan Illych to tell you all about it!
As I say, this is cloud cuckoo land stuff, anyway. The real onus of the radical posturing is simply - as you admit - to weaken teacher's unions. Period. Conflating them with the prison system is just so much detritus. Here, why don't you test your prooposition. Go out and try to get a job saying that you went to college. Then go out and try to get a job saying you went to prison. Compare the results. You could have lots of fun doing this, as you relax in your non-elite position at Walmart.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 03:14 PM

roger said in reply to roger...
Oops. Mickey Kausism. The New Leftist who campaigned in California for the Senate this year. I hope you contributed some pence to his radical campaign to break the teacher's union, Mr. Paine. It so, well, populist.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 03:15 PM

Eric said...
I am very interested in understanding how it was determined which "Students (who) had learned much more in kindergarten...." I'm not an education expert, but have been around children and schools for many decades. I believe that the differences in development for children entering kindergarten are exceptionally high. I think it is possible - even probable - that the youngsters that seem most skilled after their kindergarten actually learned the least in kindergarten. The involvement and skill of parents, grandparents, older siblings, other family and friends, per-school and day-care providers vary radically and probably overwhelm the influence that a kindergarten teacher has in her or his time with their students. I'm all for great teachers and paying them well, but, particularly with our youngest children, I think the ability to measure even roughly what was provided by the teacher versus everyone and everything else in their lives is pretty shaky.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 07:56 AM

purple said...
Chetty is mostly wrong - the Gatesian influence requires that ALL we care about is test scores. Because it provides a 'metric' with which to have 'accountability'.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 08:05 AM

anne said...
Chetty is mostly wrong - the Gatesian influence requires that ALL we care about is test scores. Because it provides a 'metric' with which to have 'accountability'.

[That is the well known specialist on education, Bill Gates.]

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 08:12 AM

NKlein1553 said in reply to anne...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/education/29scores.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

New Test Scores Show New York Students Struggling

New York State education officials, admitting that the state’s annual tests were not properly measuring student proficiency, released results Wednesday showing that more than half of New York City students were failing to meet state standards in reading, at a time when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg boasted that more that more than two-thirds of city’s students were reading at grade level...

But perhaps even more significant is that the state’s readjustment of the scores exposes the score inflation and could raise new questions about the imprecision of educational testing, even as policy makers across the country, including President Obama, are relying on such measurements to determine teacher pay and whether or not a school should be shut down.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 01:58 PM

anne said...
Great teachers, like great engineers, doctors, or auto mechanics, are by definition probably less than 5% of the population."

Elitist rubbish, I say less than 1% of the population and even that is a stretch. Fortunately I had a lot, a whole lot, of great teachers. Such is my luck. Duh.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 08:33 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
incoherent sarcasm
obviously your teachers
despite engagement and challenge
confirmed your genteel world view

get a 40 hour per
job at wallmart anne

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:57 AM

anne said...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/education/23college.html

July 23, 2010

Once a Leader, U.S. Lags in College Degrees
By TAMAR LEWIN

Adding to a drumbeat of concern about the nation’s dismal college-completion rates, the College Board warned Thursday that the growing gap between the United States and other countries threatens to undermine American economic competitiveness.

The United States used to lead the world in the number of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees. Now it ranks 12th among 36 developed nations.

“The growing education deficit is no less a threat to our nation’s long-term well-being than the current fiscal crisis,” Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board, warned at a meeting on Capitol Hill of education leaders and policy makers, where he released a report detailing the problem and recommending how to fix it. “To improve our college completion rates, we must think ‘P-16’ and improve education from preschool through higher education.”

While access to college has been the major concern in recent decades, over the last year, college completion, too, has become a leading item on the national agenda. Last July, President Obama announced the American Graduation Initiative, calling for five million more college graduates by 2020, to help the United States again lead the world in educational attainment....

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 08:48 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
"the growing gap between the United States and other countries threatens to undermine American economic competitiveness."
horse feathers germany has a very low college
grad share of each recent cohort

job skills aren't learned in the class rooms

of our 4 year liberal arts colleges
they are pure luxury items

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:59 AM

fred said...
I find it hard to believe that teacher quality is one-dimensional, so that we can line teachers up from great to terrible and pay them accordingly. My own impression (it was long ago) is that students in the lower grades are extremely sensitive to their personal relationship with the teacher. If the student likes the teacher and the teacher likes the student, the student will learn and otherwise thrive, and contrary-wise. But personal relationships are hard to measure objectively, and a teacher who has great relationsips with some students may have terrible relationships with other. Sometimes personalities clash and that is that. When the relationship is bad, the student needs to have to option to change teachers.

My own feeling is that professions which involve non-measurable factors of personality and judgement--elementary school teaching, most doctors and nurses, police, military, judges, politicians--should be paid fairly low wages, and these low wages should be compensated for in other ways, like easier working conditions, public recognition, free education, rights to appeal disciplinary actions, etc. The idea is to make sure only those who really like the work do it. There ARE people who like teaching elementary school or being a policemen for good non-financial reasons. (Obviously, there are also people who want to be a cop for very bad non-financial reasons, but presumably if the police force is mostly self-perpetuating and set up initially with the right people, it can weed these bad apples out.) When salaries are high, people are attracted for the wrong reasons. Low-paid judge and politician jobs should be reserved (by constitutional amendment) for those over the age of 55, for lawyers who have already made their fortune and now want to add fame and glory.

Nothing wrong with paying used-car salesmen, mortgage brokers, Wall Streeters and other FIRE jobs more than teachers, police and the like. Attract the thieving types to jobs where they can do the least harm.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 08:52 AM

mark said...
"a standout kindergarten teacher is worth about $320,000 a year."

Apparently a poor one is worth nothing at all.

I never went to kindergarten. Shouldn't those of you who attended kindergarten redistribute some of your income to me to compensate me for my lack of equal opportunity?

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 09:39 AM

paine said in reply to mark...
mark...it shows

in your low spiteful level of socialization

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 10:01 AM

Anne from Chicago said...
"Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more. ... Over time, the effect seems to grow, too."

No doubt that standout teachers make a huge difference for students. And no doubt that students who have the ability to learn more early on will likely turn out more responsible as adults.

But is there truly research that shows that the majority of the students in a particular kindergarten class taught by a particular teacher (not just "students who learn more in kindergarten") are head and shoulders above in achievement than the students in the classroom next door?

I'd like to see the research on this. Pretty eye-popping if true. But somehow, I have my doubts that the research shows that majority of the students of a particular kindergarten teacher are standouts throughout life....

(Had two children in kindy last year, as a matter of fact. The differences in student achievement at that age seem less to do with the teacher and more with the individual child. And I also know that children who struggle in kindergarten are not conversely doomed to failure in life....)

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 10:16 AM

DC in LBV said in reply to Anne from Chicago...
"...And no doubt that students who have the ability to learn more early on will likely turn out more responsible as adults."

----

Exactly. While I personally like the ideas expressed in this report, the professional statistician in me sees this as just another poorly done academic research project confusing correlation with causation.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 12:45 PM

Matt G said...
You can spend all the time and money available, and won't make any difference if certain cultures do not value knowledge and education.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 10:19 AM

jerseycityjoan said in reply to Matt G...
We'll be finding out more about the influence of schools vs. parental background in the years ahead. We already have a much greater percentage of poor and minority students than every before. And that's just not limited to certain areas but in most of our states now.

Whether we realized it or not, due to dramatic demographic shifts taking place, we've set up conditions for many social experiments over the next few generations.

God help us, we will find out what we've done by permitting an immigration free-for-all over the past 30 years and by not eliminating automatic birthright citizenship like Ireland and other First World countries have.

One thing's for sure: there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. Let's hope that education and positive efforts by the community at large can help the many disadvantaged children that will need extra assistance.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:48 AM

paine said in reply to jerseycityjoan...
"disadvantaged children that will need extra assistance."

education as one up on charity ???

here let me teach you to fish

okay so there's not many fish round here
but still....if there were ...

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 02:53 PM

Goldilocksisableachblonde said in reply to paine...
"here let me teach you to fish

okay so there's not many fish round here
but still....if there were ..."

If you were in my kiddygarden class , that would get you a couple Gold Stars.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 03:29 PM

paine said in reply to Matt G...
value

"knowledge and education" ??
of course they do
if its relevent to their life

that however they are more apt to get
at sing sing then dewitt clinton

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 02:47 PM

Patricia Shannon said...
When tutoring children and adults in math, it was often obvious that they were capable of the work, but they had a hard time because they thought they couldn't do it.

Almost everyone I know who hates math could trace it back to a particular teacher.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 12:19 PM

paine said in reply to Patricia Shannon...
ahh
now you've touched a soft spot
indeed indeed the beauty of math
has never reached into the minds of millions
quite a dismal outcome indeed !!!!

notice who teaches em math
at the wet concrete stage at least

hardly folks in love with math eh ???

what a dear dear loss

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 02:50 PM

gaddeswarup said...
There have been similar program Perry Preschool program reported here:
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/preschool/index.html
and a recent paper:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1641577
On the otherhand, there have been other studies like Benezet experiments:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools
It would be interesting to see which components worked. It seems to me that emphasis on cognitive development and caring environment rather than rote learning might have played a role in the Perry Preschool experiments.

Reply Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 02:29 PM