4 ms·

I like the concept. I’m not sure their stats check out. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in. The article suggests a lot of the kids here were bottom p

I like the concept. I’m not sure their stats check out. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in. The article suggests a lot of the kids here were bottom percentile performers on standardized tests (literal 1th percentile). I do wonder if the test is valid at scores that poor. Could it be that the bottom percentile is just the kids who guessed randomly and had bad luck, as opposed to, say, the ninth percentile who guessed randomly and had good luck? How likely would it be for a bottom percent student to stay bottom percent with no special schooling? I really just don’t have a good sense for what it means to strive for 10th percentile performance on tests like these.

jonknee 8y ago
> The 90 percent of I Promise students who met their goals exceeded the 70 percent of students districtwide, and scored in the 99th growth percentile of the evaluation association’s school norms, which the district said showed that students’ test scores increased at a higher rate than 99 out of 100 schools nationally. It sounds like almost all the students met their individual goals which means they are making progress no matter what percentile they started in. They're not out of the woods, but this is a population that previously had only ever seen bad results from the school system. It's a small experiment, but it's hard to spin the early results as anything but a good thing.
- xienze 8y ago
  >It's a small experiment, but it's hard to spin the early results as anything but a good thing. How much are they spending per student? That might put a damper on it if it turns out they’re spending an amount of money that wouldn’t scale.
  - jonknee 8y ago
    FTA: > The school’s $2 million budget is funded by the district, roughly the same amount per pupil that it spends in other schools. But Mr. James’s foundation has provided about $600,000 in financial support for additional teaching staff to help reduce class sizes, and an additional hour of after-school programming and tutors.
    - owyn 8y ago
      That seems like a pretty good result for 30% in additional funding. According to wikipedia, the federal gov't only provides 8% (or maybe 10%, I saw some different numbers) of the total budget for primary education at the moment... Total spending (federal+state+local) is apparently around $620B so an additional ~30% kick from the federal government would add $180B for a total of around $800B. Is that worth it? The military budget is about $600B just by itself so a 30% cut there would pay for it. Seeing how much work goes into fund raising vs actual teaching at local schools this really seems like a mis-allocation of teacher priorities that could be fixed with some slightly different spending priorities. These are all pretty big numbers of course but not out of the realm of possibility.
      - jonknee 8y ago
        Funding varies wildy based on location as it comes from local property taxes. Not all schools would need such increases. Thanks to that local funding scheme, the US tends to spend the most on the kids that need it the least.
        owyn 8y ago
        Right, implicit but unsaid was the thought that the federal gov't could cover that funding gap so that all schools got the same budget regardless of the local conditions. Of course given the political forces that created the current local conditions in the first place, that's probably unlikely too.
        Danieru 8y ago
        If you make the federal government cover all equalization you'll find rich areas lowering their property taxes. Other nations handle education at state or federal level from the start. If you want a federal equalization you will want it to come with a admin union as well.
        hopler 8y ago
        Even state governments could solve the funding gap between schools.
collective-intl 8y ago
I think there is a major flaw which you are getting at. If you take the students who performed at the 10th-25th percentile in any school in one year, on average they would do better the next year because of reversion to the mean. The way to understand it is that the population they chose did so poorly on their test last year, it is likely that they did worse than they usually do. They are more likely to have had an off year. For example, the NYT article mentions the girl who missed 50 days of school the previous year. It's more likely she won't miss so many days this year. That's reversion to the mean. IMO, that throws all the results into question, as you would expect them to do better already. In general, there are no panaceas in education. Any school which is claiming really great results pretty much never holds up. We've had decades of these articles with experts trying to figure out how to achieve better educational outcomes, and very few can be isolated. Even Bill Gates tried for a while. Anyone who studies this stuff seriously will tell you educational outcomes are mostly based on innate talent.
- bsder 8y ago
  > Any school which is claiming really great results pretty much never holds up. That actually isn't true. We know (we have had multiple state programs demonstrate in real programs) what works in the elementary to early middle crowd--roughly $15,000-$16,000 per pupil spent on the worst performers sustained every single year will bring the worst performers closer to mean ever year. Even the Gates foundation documented this. We simply do not have the political will to put it into broad action.
  - mac01021 8y ago
    $15,000 spent how?
    - bsder 8y ago
      Quoting myself from a much earlier comment: It's been a while since I chewed through the Gates foundation stuff but this one seems up-to-date about early programs: https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/Lessons%20from%20.. https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/Lessons%20from%20.... Page 16-17 talks about known effective programs and their costs. Note that the more expensive programs (almost all exceeding $15K per student--sometimes dramatically) are almost always more effective. Under $10K is almost uniformly not helpful and the further you get from 10K the less helpful they get. You can have effective programs for $10K, but it's really hard. Money really does make things easier. From Page 21: "At the highest level, this “doing many things well” requirement results in a high degree of difficulty and is a key reason why high-quality early learning that sticks is so infrequently seen." From Page 22: "ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HIGH-QUALITY PRE-K THAT STICKS" "3. Teachers delivering high-quality instruction is a key differentiator between early learning that sticks and early learning that, more than likely, will not stick. ... 4. All exemplar programs have two adults in the classroom—one lead teacher and one paraprofessional/aide— at all times. ... 5. All exemplar programs have maximum class size of 22 children or fewer and adult-to-child ratios ranging from 2:15 to 2:22. Adult-to-child ratios at the lower end of the range are particularly advantageous for classrooms where a significant number of English language learners (ELLs) are present and/or where a significant number of children with special needs are present. 6. Lead teachers with a B.A. plus suitable early learning credential, paid at same level as K-3 teachers. ... 7. Dosage. Three of the four exemplars offer pre-K that runs 6-6.5 hours/day, for 180-205 days/year. The other (Maryland) offers full-day (6.5 hours/day, 180 days/year) and part-day (3 hours/day, 180 days/year) options. It is clear from the exemplars and consistent with research findings that within high-quality pre-K programs the dosage required is related to the size of the achievement gap that must be closed for each low-income child. For low-income children who enter pre-K already on a trajectory to be kindergarten-ready, a high-quality part- day option may be sufficient. For most low-income children, at least one year in full-day, high-quality pre-K is needed to be kindergarten-ready. For low-income children for whom English is not spoken at home, children with special needs, and children who are significantly below age-level competency in one or more domains, it is likely that two years of high- quality, full-day pre-K is ideal and, in fact, may be necessary for most of these children to be kindergarten- ready on time. " It goes on to other things as well. And these exemplars are at the $10K-$12K per student mark, roughly. And even successful ones still can't get funding--"New Jersey was poised to expand the Abbott Pre-K Program in 2013, but budget pressures have delayed that expansion.". And the Gates foundation is VERY gently suggesting that all the mediocre, non-useful programs should be shut down in preference to spending ALL that money on the most underperforming students. While this is likely the best use of resource, it is going to be a politically unviable one. The upshot is that teaching properly is expensive, and money really DOES have an impact. And the effectiveness "breakpoint" is somewhere around $12K with some adjustmemts for cost of living. And your primary expense is the teacher vs class size--see page 17. The cost per student with a teacher at BA I qualification ranges from $10K with a 15 student class size to $8K with a 20 student class size. Of course, teaching effectiveness is inversely related to class size--pick your optimization point. I don't always like the Gates foundation because I think they sometimes helicopter in, muck things up, leave, and then other people have to clean up the mess. However, they have been quite forthright with publishing their information and do acknowledge when they have NOT succeeded even when it goes against their agenda. That I applaud.

jonknee 8y ago

> The 90 percent of I Promise students who met their goals exceeded the 70 percent of students districtwide, and scored in the 99th growth percentile of the evaluation association’s school norms, which the district said showed that students’ test scores increased at a higher rate than 99 out of 100 schools nationally. It sounds like almost all the students met their individual goals which means they are making progress no matter what percentile they started in. They're not out of the woods, but this is a population that previously had only ever seen bad results from the school system. It's a small experiment, but it's hard to spin the early results as anything but a good thing.

xienze 8y ago
>It's a small experiment, but it's hard to spin the early results as anything but a good thing. How much are they spending per student? That might put a damper on it if it turns out they’re spending an amount of money that wouldn’t scale.
- jonknee 8y ago
  FTA: > The school’s $2 million budget is funded by the district, roughly the same amount per pupil that it spends in other schools. But Mr. James’s foundation has provided about $600,000 in financial support for additional teaching staff to help reduce class sizes, and an additional hour of after-school programming and tutors.
  - owyn 8y ago
    That seems like a pretty good result for 30% in additional funding. According to wikipedia, the federal gov't only provides 8% (or maybe 10%, I saw some different numbers) of the total budget for primary education at the moment... Total spending (federal+state+local) is apparently around $620B so an additional ~30% kick from the federal government would add $180B for a total of around $800B. Is that worth it? The military budget is about $600B just by itself so a 30% cut there would pay for it. Seeing how much work goes into fund raising vs actual teaching at local schools this really seems like a mis-allocation of teacher priorities that could be fixed with some slightly different spending priorities. These are all pretty big numbers of course but not out of the realm of possibility.
    - jonknee 8y ago
      Funding varies wildy based on location as it comes from local property taxes. Not all schools would need such increases. Thanks to that local funding scheme, the US tends to spend the most on the kids that need it the least.
      - owyn 8y ago
        Right, implicit but unsaid was the thought that the federal gov't could cover that funding gap so that all schools got the same budget regardless of the local conditions. Of course given the political forces that created the current local conditions in the first place, that's probably unlikely too.
        Danieru 8y ago
        If you make the federal government cover all equalization you'll find rich areas lowering their property taxes. Other nations handle education at state or federal level from the start. If you want a federal equalization you will want it to come with a admin union as well.
        hopler 8y ago
        Even state governments could solve the funding gap between schools.

collective-intl 8y ago

I think there is a major flaw which you are getting at. If you take the students who performed at the 10th-25th percentile in any school in one year, on average they would do better the next year because of reversion to the mean. The way to understand it is that the population they chose did so poorly on their test last year, it is likely that they did worse than they usually do. They are more likely to have had an off year. For example, the NYT article mentions the girl who missed 50 days of school the previous year. It's more likely she won't miss so many days this year. That's reversion to the mean. IMO, that throws all the results into question, as you would expect them to do better already. In general, there are no panaceas in education. Any school which is claiming really great results pretty much never holds up. We've had decades of these articles with experts trying to figure out how to achieve better educational outcomes, and very few can be isolated. Even Bill Gates tried for a while. Anyone who studies this stuff seriously will tell you educational outcomes are mostly based on innate talent.

bsder 8y ago
> Any school which is claiming really great results pretty much never holds up. That actually isn't true. We know (we have had multiple state programs demonstrate in real programs) what works in the elementary to early middle crowd--roughly $15,000-$16,000 per pupil spent on the worst performers sustained every single year will bring the worst performers closer to mean ever year. Even the Gates foundation documented this. We simply do not have the political will to put it into broad action.
- mac01021 8y ago
  $15,000 spent how?
  - bsder 8y ago
    Quoting myself from a much earlier comment: It's been a while since I chewed through the Gates foundation stuff but this one seems up-to-date about early programs: https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/Lessons%20from%20.. https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/Lessons%20from%20.... Page 16-17 talks about known effective programs and their costs. Note that the more expensive programs (almost all exceeding $15K per student--sometimes dramatically) are almost always more effective. Under $10K is almost uniformly not helpful and the further you get from 10K the less helpful they get. You can have effective programs for $10K, but it's really hard. Money really does make things easier. From Page 21: "At the highest level, this “doing many things well” requirement results in a high degree of difficulty and is a key reason why high-quality early learning that sticks is so infrequently seen." From Page 22: "ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF HIGH-QUALITY PRE-K THAT STICKS" "3. Teachers delivering high-quality instruction is a key differentiator between early learning that sticks and early learning that, more than likely, will not stick. ... 4. All exemplar programs have two adults in the classroom—one lead teacher and one paraprofessional/aide— at all times. ... 5. All exemplar programs have maximum class size of 22 children or fewer and adult-to-child ratios ranging from 2:15 to 2:22. Adult-to-child ratios at the lower end of the range are particularly advantageous for classrooms where a significant number of English language learners (ELLs) are present and/or where a significant number of children with special needs are present. 6. Lead teachers with a B.A. plus suitable early learning credential, paid at same level as K-3 teachers. ... 7. Dosage. Three of the four exemplars offer pre-K that runs 6-6.5 hours/day, for 180-205 days/year. The other (Maryland) offers full-day (6.5 hours/day, 180 days/year) and part-day (3 hours/day, 180 days/year) options. It is clear from the exemplars and consistent with research findings that within high-quality pre-K programs the dosage required is related to the size of the achievement gap that must be closed for each low-income child. For low-income children who enter pre-K already on a trajectory to be kindergarten-ready, a high-quality part- day option may be sufficient. For most low-income children, at least one year in full-day, high-quality pre-K is needed to be kindergarten-ready. For low-income children for whom English is not spoken at home, children with special needs, and children who are significantly below age-level competency in one or more domains, it is likely that two years of high- quality, full-day pre-K is ideal and, in fact, may be necessary for most of these children to be kindergarten- ready on time. " It goes on to other things as well. And these exemplars are at the $10K-$12K per student mark, roughly. And even successful ones still can't get funding--"New Jersey was poised to expand the Abbott Pre-K Program in 2013, but budget pressures have delayed that expansion.". And the Gates foundation is VERY gently suggesting that all the mediocre, non-useful programs should be shut down in preference to spending ALL that money on the most underperforming students. While this is likely the best use of resource, it is going to be a politically unviable one. The upshot is that teaching properly is expensive, and money really DOES have an impact. And the effectiveness "breakpoint" is somewhere around $12K with some adjustmemts for cost of living. And your primary expense is the teacher vs class size--see page 17. The cost per student with a teacher at BA I qualification ranges from $10K with a 15 student class size to $8K with a 20 student class size. Of course, teaching effectiveness is inversely related to class size--pick your optimization point. I don't always like the Gates foundation because I think they sometimes helicopter in, muck things up, leave, and then other people have to clean up the mess. However, they have been quite forthright with publishing their information and do acknowledge when they have NOT succeeded even when it goes against their agenda. That I applaud.