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There's not much the education system can do here. When you look into educational research its grim - its really really hard to move the needle even a few % on

by cm2012 4y ago

There's not much the education system can do here. When you look into educational research its grim - its really really hard to move the needle even a few % on outcomes in a school system, even with large grants and volunteers and special projects. Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school.

theGnuMe 4y ago
It is not like we don't do research into effective teaching methods. It is not also like some schools have 90% of kids above grade level.
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  Correct that figure for confounding factors, including but not limited to socioeconomic status, availability of prenatal care, nutrition. . .
- cm2012 4y ago
  Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition. Smart people who raise their kids to do well in school move to neighborhoods with better schools, which raises the grade levels. Ex: I went to Bronx Science, a specialized high school in NYC where 98% of the students are above grade level and go to college. The principal at the time was known to be an obvious subject of nepotism and generally made poor decisions often. The guidance department was a joke. Teachers were above average because schools full of smart kids attract smart teachers, but not so amazing that they'd make up for kids who started below grade level if there were any. My wife actually went to the same high school and got depression, she dropped out of BX Science and went to a much lesser rated school. The teachers there were actually better in many ways (more organized, better processes, really useful classes work skills and stuff were available due to grants) but the students were still generally below grade level and less than 1/3 went to college according to the stats. She was effortlessly at the top of her class even though she was severely depressed and missed days all the time.
  - Scubabear68 4y ago
    I understand where this narrative comes from, but I think it is false. The reason I think that is Covid. With kids learning remote and going all digital, the facade was lifted from teaching. Parents can and did directly experience what our kids were going through. Our kids’ lowest standardized State scores were with teachers who were terrible. A science teacher who hated kids in general (really). A general teacher near retirement phoning it in. A math teacher who said “read section 5.6 in your book and do the homework” - and that was class. Our kids did well where the teachers were creative. Where they interacted with students. Where they gave direct feedback and corrections. Where they gave learning reinforcement extra credit to help them focus in areas they had trouble. In good public schools and many private schools, these bad teachers are not tolerated. In poor ones, the bad teachers flourish, and the kids suffer.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      Maybe bad teachers can pull down performance way more than good teachers can raise it. You'd need to compare the performances of kids with varying levels of help at home in classes with good teachers vs bad teachers. My own experience in school was that I tuned out bad teachers completely. If the teacher was good, I engaged more with the material in class. But in all subjects I had my parents' considerable expertise to fill in any gaps. And I did well in every subject, regardless of teacher quality.
      - theGnuMe 4y ago
        My parents never helped me with homework and I did fine cause I had great teachers. In think focusing on the home and “home work” is putting the emphasis on the wrong thing. We go to school to learn. That is where learning should be evaluated and focused. Pushing this on parents and home life is naive, immoral and wrong.
        triceratops 4y ago
        You're talking about how it should be, I'm tell you how it is. A teacher's impact is diffuse and spread over 30 students. A parent might only have an free hour to help their kid with homework. But it's still more individual attention than any great teacher can give. Parents can motivate and enforce standards on their children in ways that teachers just cannot do. No teacher can ground you for failing a quiz, or treat you to Disneyland for winning a science fair prize. Most people would rather make their parents proud than their teachers.
WalterBright 4y ago
When there's no incentive for the teachers and schools to get kids to grade level, they aren't. I've proposed before having a bonus to the teacher for every student that reaches grade level at the end of the year.
- ketzo 4y ago
  Tennessee did a version of this, and had to fire a huge number of teachers because they were just straight-up giving their students the answers to state-level test. Not saying incentives are totally the wrong approach, but they're also easily gamed, especially in the hands of people who are already criminally underpaid and overworked.
  - amelius 4y ago
    I think the solution to this problem is rather obvious. (Let other teachers grade the students)
    - thelock85 4y ago
      I’m not sure how this is obvious when there is a teacher shortage almost everywhere. I’d be willing to bet that more often than not students’ exam proctor is not their everyday teacher. Also while this is a solution to the symptom of perverse incentives, it is still part of a bandaid approach. Low-performing schools are already spending weeks and weeks teaching to the test, which is fine for achievement but just a step above giving the answers out when it comes to rigorous teaching and learning.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Instead of arguing that it won't work, why not give it a try? What's there to lose?
        thelock85 4y ago
        I’m simply pointing out that it’s not obvious how to implement teachers proctoring other classrooms’ exams in order to prevent the home room teacher from giving out answers for financial benefit. It’s not pragmatic when principals, guidance counselors, other-subject teachers and permanent subs are shoring up massive shortages across the country. If someone wants to try then go for it. But there are a lot of other well-researched interventions that are hard to implement in classrooms for similar pragmatic reasons. If we are going to ignore facts on the ground, then those would be the obvious ones to me. > What’s there to lose? Federal, state and local tax dollars that school principals probably have a better idea on how to spend.
Scubabear68 4y ago
I disagree. There are known “good” and “bad” school districts. The known good school districts have better teachers and teaching methods. This is not about the bell curve, it’s about a lot of US schools not actually teaching students successfully.
- cm2012 4y ago
  Copy and pasting from elsewhere in the thread: Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition. Smart people who raise their kids to do well in school move to neighborhoods with better schools, which raises the grade levels. Ex: I went to Bronx Science, a specialized high school in NYC where 98% of the students are above grade level and go to college. The principal at the time was known to be an obvious subject of nepotism and generally made poor decisions often. The guidance department was a joke. Teachers were above average because schools full of smart kids attract smart teachers, but not so amazing that they'd make up for kids who started below grade level if there were any. My wife actually went to the same high school and got depression, she dropped out of BX Science and went to a much lesser rated school. The teachers there were actually better in many ways (more organized, better processes, really useful classes on work skills and stuff were available for seniors due to grants) but the students were still generally below grade level and less than 1/3 went to college according to the stats. She was effortlessly at the top of her class even though she was severely depressed and missed days all the time.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    The "good students attract good teachers" factor is also why tracking is a terrible idea. It means that students who have "tracked" lower at any point in their schooling are then stuck with the worst quality teachers and cannot catch up to average standards.
    - peterfirefly 4y ago
      Does it help a struggling student if the teaching is 1) too fast and 2) based on things the student hasn't learned in previous years? Of course tracking is a good idea.
listless 4y ago
Malcom Gladwell covers this in Outliers. There is something that can be done, but it has to be done starting in pre-school and continuing through second grade. And that "something" is that you don't get a summer. You learn year round for those first few years. The reason why some kids excel and some don't is almost entirely because they don't get continuing education at home. And past 2nd grade, it's almost irreparable. We can fix it. But we have to retool primary education significantly. And "retooling education" isn't something that is ever going to happen in the current setup.
- HardlyCurious 4y ago
  The effects of preschool have been studied and showed no benefits after grade 3. Not sure about the year round portion of it, but it seems to me this is a narrative born from intuition and not from evidence.
  - listless 4y ago
    As I understand it, it's the gaps in the summer that account for the gaps in education. That's Gladwell's assertion. When kids have gaps without learning at an early age, they fall behind quickly and it is devastating.
    - seafoam 4y ago
      That is summer gaps. Now how about lockdowns?
  - standardUser 4y ago
    I've heard these studies referenced before, but studies have limitations and I wonder if there is some form of early childhood education that can lead to statistically meaningful improvements down the road, just not approaches that happen top have been studied.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  This is a bit of an aside but I wouldn't trust anything that Malcolm Gladwell says at face value. He approaches questions from a narrative perspective and Cherry picks studies or data to make a nice story. At the end of the day, he is a writer and not a scientist and that's where his priorities is lie
xwkd 4y ago
Allow me to be an annoying pedant for a moment: Isn't that a bit tautological? The bottom half of the bell curve is below the mean in a normal distribution by definition. There's always going to be a lower half as long as we model statistics.
- tomcam 4y ago
  Allow me to be a pedant a moment. Isn't a pedant annoying by definition? https://www.google.com/search?&q=definition+of+pedant https://www.google.com/search?&q=definition+of+pedant
- cm2012 4y ago
  Not quite, since its theoretically possible to move the whole bell curve right with improved teaching methodologies, meaning the bottom half could then meet our current reading and math criteria. No one has found a way to do this though.
  - troupe 4y ago
    Pretty sure this would just reset what is normal. What children know how to do in 8th grade is going to be a normally distributed curve. Maybe you can move the curve to the right, but then what is normal just shifts to the right.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  I’d note it’s not the mean but the median here. But the IQ is a good example where 100 is defined as the median but has had to be revised upward over time as test performance improves overall. So, in this case they set a fixed definition of grade level being slightly above the median at the outset of the measurements (presumably to induce HN headlines that attract clicks and ultimately funding for schools because more than half are under “grade level”) then over time the goal is to improve on the initial score. In 2019 and 2018 it’s interesting to note the score breached 50% for the first time, peaking at 51%. It’s slipped but presumably that’s a “large scale event” effect and will mean revert to the 2019 levels and continue advancing with time. But even with the great results in 2019 you can still say “49% of California students are less than grade level” and it looks really bad and people post about how bad public schooling is and hand wringing ensues. - again ultimately leading to more funding, when in fact it’s a real milestone achievement to have lifted such a huge number of students so far in so short a time. It’s always fascinating to watch the click bait statistic name induce reliable and predictable behavior every time, even when the actual data tells the exact opposite story. Very clever whoever decided to make “grade level” greater than the median performance.
cptskippy 4y ago
> Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school. It's not just kids on the bottom half because those that need support are disruptive to the entire class. The way the system is setup, you not only need parental support but the parent drives the process and the administration is resistive because it imposes more work on already strained staff. I volunteer in my child's class for 2-3 hours a week, as does my partner and a grand parent. There are a number of high needs kids in the class who need Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). These must be initiated by the parents and require outside services and assessments to be truly effective. The parents have largely been resistive to the teacher's appeals. Some point to their child's reading or math ability as proof that the child doesn't need support. Others just do not have the capacity or capability to take on the process. The teacher is spending a disproportionate amount of time keeping children on task and as a result the entire class suffers. The teacher in this classroom has begged for support from the administration but they assert that it's the teacher's failing. The have taken her out of class to observe other classes at other schools but this was more punitive than beneficial. The only positive from that action was the substitute they got became an advocate for support. The administration has been slow walking the process to get someone to observe the classroom and at this point is just waiting out the school year.
- frumper 4y ago
  I'm not understanding your point aside from the teacher could benefit from an aid. IEPs are legally binding agreements that the schools agree to based on student needs. Are you suggesting that the teacher should not be providing this IEP support, but the parents should seek outside support for that?
  - cptskippy 4y ago
    I'm not sure how you drew that conclusion, I said: > There are a number of high needs kids in the class who need Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). These must be initiated by the parents and require outside services and assessments to be truly effective. The parents have largely been resistive to the teacher's appeals. The teacher is asking the parents to initiate the IEP process because of the teacher's observations of the student in class. > Are you suggesting ... the parents should seek outside support for that? Part of the IEP process is that the parents must justify to the administration that an IEP is necessary. "Because the teacher said so" isn't sufficient. Outside support can be doctors, counselors, therapists, psychologists, etc.

by cm2012 4y ago

theGnuMe 4y ago

It is not like we don't do research into effective teaching methods. It is not also like some schools have 90% of kids above grade level.

thebooktocome 4y ago
Correct that figure for confounding factors, including but not limited to socioeconomic status, availability of prenatal care, nutrition. . .
cm2012 4y ago
Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition. Smart people who raise their kids to do well in school move to neighborhoods with better schools, which raises the grade levels. Ex: I went to Bronx Science, a specialized high school in NYC where 98% of the students are above grade level and go to college. The principal at the time was known to be an obvious subject of nepotism and generally made poor decisions often. The guidance department was a joke. Teachers were above average because schools full of smart kids attract smart teachers, but not so amazing that they'd make up for kids who started below grade level if there were any. My wife actually went to the same high school and got depression, she dropped out of BX Science and went to a much lesser rated school. The teachers there were actually better in many ways (more organized, better processes, really useful classes work skills and stuff were available due to grants) but the students were still generally below grade level and less than 1/3 went to college according to the stats. She was effortlessly at the top of her class even though she was severely depressed and missed days all the time.
- Scubabear68 4y ago
  I understand where this narrative comes from, but I think it is false. The reason I think that is Covid. With kids learning remote and going all digital, the facade was lifted from teaching. Parents can and did directly experience what our kids were going through. Our kids’ lowest standardized State scores were with teachers who were terrible. A science teacher who hated kids in general (really). A general teacher near retirement phoning it in. A math teacher who said “read section 5.6 in your book and do the homework” - and that was class. Our kids did well where the teachers were creative. Where they interacted with students. Where they gave direct feedback and corrections. Where they gave learning reinforcement extra credit to help them focus in areas they had trouble. In good public schools and many private schools, these bad teachers are not tolerated. In poor ones, the bad teachers flourish, and the kids suffer.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    Maybe bad teachers can pull down performance way more than good teachers can raise it. You'd need to compare the performances of kids with varying levels of help at home in classes with good teachers vs bad teachers. My own experience in school was that I tuned out bad teachers completely. If the teacher was good, I engaged more with the material in class. But in all subjects I had my parents' considerable expertise to fill in any gaps. And I did well in every subject, regardless of teacher quality.
    - theGnuMe 4y ago
      My parents never helped me with homework and I did fine cause I had great teachers. In think focusing on the home and “home work” is putting the emphasis on the wrong thing. We go to school to learn. That is where learning should be evaluated and focused. Pushing this on parents and home life is naive, immoral and wrong.
      - triceratops 4y ago
        You're talking about how it should be, I'm tell you how it is. A teacher's impact is diffuse and spread over 30 students. A parent might only have an free hour to help their kid with homework. But it's still more individual attention than any great teacher can give. Parents can motivate and enforce standards on their children in ways that teachers just cannot do. No teacher can ground you for failing a quiz, or treat you to Disneyland for winning a science fair prize. Most people would rather make their parents proud than their teachers.

WalterBright 4y ago

When there's no incentive for the teachers and schools to get kids to grade level, they aren't. I've proposed before having a bonus to the teacher for every student that reaches grade level at the end of the year.

ketzo 4y ago
Tennessee did a version of this, and had to fire a huge number of teachers because they were just straight-up giving their students the answers to state-level test. Not saying incentives are totally the wrong approach, but they're also easily gamed, especially in the hands of people who are already criminally underpaid and overworked.
- amelius 4y ago
  I think the solution to this problem is rather obvious. (Let other teachers grade the students)
  - thelock85 4y ago
    I’m not sure how this is obvious when there is a teacher shortage almost everywhere. I’d be willing to bet that more often than not students’ exam proctor is not their everyday teacher. Also while this is a solution to the symptom of perverse incentives, it is still part of a bandaid approach. Low-performing schools are already spending weeks and weeks teaching to the test, which is fine for achievement but just a step above giving the answers out when it comes to rigorous teaching and learning.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Instead of arguing that it won't work, why not give it a try? What's there to lose?
      - thelock85 4y ago
        I’m simply pointing out that it’s not obvious how to implement teachers proctoring other classrooms’ exams in order to prevent the home room teacher from giving out answers for financial benefit. It’s not pragmatic when principals, guidance counselors, other-subject teachers and permanent subs are shoring up massive shortages across the country. If someone wants to try then go for it. But there are a lot of other well-researched interventions that are hard to implement in classrooms for similar pragmatic reasons. If we are going to ignore facts on the ground, then those would be the obvious ones to me. > What’s there to lose? Federal, state and local tax dollars that school principals probably have a better idea on how to spend.

Scubabear68 4y ago

I disagree. There are known “good” and “bad” school districts. The known good school districts have better teachers and teaching methods. This is not about the bell curve, it’s about a lot of US schools not actually teaching students successfully.

cm2012 4y ago
Copy and pasting from elsewhere in the thread: Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition. Smart people who raise their kids to do well in school move to neighborhoods with better schools, which raises the grade levels. Ex: I went to Bronx Science, a specialized high school in NYC where 98% of the students are above grade level and go to college. The principal at the time was known to be an obvious subject of nepotism and generally made poor decisions often. The guidance department was a joke. Teachers were above average because schools full of smart kids attract smart teachers, but not so amazing that they'd make up for kids who started below grade level if there were any. My wife actually went to the same high school and got depression, she dropped out of BX Science and went to a much lesser rated school. The teachers there were actually better in many ways (more organized, better processes, really useful classes on work skills and stuff were available for seniors due to grants) but the students were still generally below grade level and less than 1/3 went to college according to the stats. She was effortlessly at the top of her class even though she was severely depressed and missed days all the time.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  The "good students attract good teachers" factor is also why tracking is a terrible idea. It means that students who have "tracked" lower at any point in their schooling are then stuck with the worst quality teachers and cannot catch up to average standards.
  - peterfirefly 4y ago
    Does it help a struggling student if the teaching is 1) too fast and 2) based on things the student hasn't learned in previous years? Of course tracking is a good idea.

listless 4y ago

Malcom Gladwell covers this in Outliers. There is something that can be done, but it has to be done starting in pre-school and continuing through second grade. And that "something" is that you don't get a summer. You learn year round for those first few years. The reason why some kids excel and some don't is almost entirely because they don't get continuing education at home. And past 2nd grade, it's almost irreparable. We can fix it. But we have to retool primary education significantly. And "retooling education" isn't something that is ever going to happen in the current setup.

HardlyCurious 4y ago
The effects of preschool have been studied and showed no benefits after grade 3. Not sure about the year round portion of it, but it seems to me this is a narrative born from intuition and not from evidence.
- listless 4y ago
  As I understand it, it's the gaps in the summer that account for the gaps in education. That's Gladwell's assertion. When kids have gaps without learning at an early age, they fall behind quickly and it is devastating.
  - seafoam 4y ago
    That is summer gaps. Now how about lockdowns?
- standardUser 4y ago
  I've heard these studies referenced before, but studies have limitations and I wonder if there is some form of early childhood education that can lead to statistically meaningful improvements down the road, just not approaches that happen top have been studied.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
This is a bit of an aside but I wouldn't trust anything that Malcolm Gladwell says at face value. He approaches questions from a narrative perspective and Cherry picks studies or data to make a nice story. At the end of the day, he is a writer and not a scientist and that's where his priorities is lie

xwkd 4y ago

Allow me to be an annoying pedant for a moment: Isn't that a bit tautological? The bottom half of the bell curve is below the mean in a normal distribution by definition. There's always going to be a lower half as long as we model statistics.

tomcam 4y ago
Allow me to be a pedant a moment. Isn't a pedant annoying by definition? https://www.google.com/search?&q=definition+of+pedant https://www.google.com/search?&q=definition+of+pedant
cm2012 4y ago
Not quite, since its theoretically possible to move the whole bell curve right with improved teaching methodologies, meaning the bottom half could then meet our current reading and math criteria. No one has found a way to do this though.
- troupe 4y ago
  Pretty sure this would just reset what is normal. What children know how to do in 8th grade is going to be a normally distributed curve. Maybe you can move the curve to the right, but then what is normal just shifts to the right.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
I’d note it’s not the mean but the median here. But the IQ is a good example where 100 is defined as the median but has had to be revised upward over time as test performance improves overall. So, in this case they set a fixed definition of grade level being slightly above the median at the outset of the measurements (presumably to induce HN headlines that attract clicks and ultimately funding for schools because more than half are under “grade level”) then over time the goal is to improve on the initial score. In 2019 and 2018 it’s interesting to note the score breached 50% for the first time, peaking at 51%. It’s slipped but presumably that’s a “large scale event” effect and will mean revert to the 2019 levels and continue advancing with time. But even with the great results in 2019 you can still say “49% of California students are less than grade level” and it looks really bad and people post about how bad public schooling is and hand wringing ensues. - again ultimately leading to more funding, when in fact it’s a real milestone achievement to have lifted such a huge number of students so far in so short a time. It’s always fascinating to watch the click bait statistic name induce reliable and predictable behavior every time, even when the actual data tells the exact opposite story. Very clever whoever decided to make “grade level” greater than the median performance.

cptskippy 4y ago

> Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school. It's not just kids on the bottom half because those that need support are disruptive to the entire class. The way the system is setup, you not only need parental support but the parent drives the process and the administration is resistive because it imposes more work on already strained staff. I volunteer in my child's class for 2-3 hours a week, as does my partner and a grand parent. There are a number of high needs kids in the class who need Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). These must be initiated by the parents and require outside services and assessments to be truly effective. The parents have largely been resistive to the teacher's appeals. Some point to their child's reading or math ability as proof that the child doesn't need support. Others just do not have the capacity or capability to take on the process. The teacher is spending a disproportionate amount of time keeping children on task and as a result the entire class suffers. The teacher in this classroom has begged for support from the administration but they assert that it's the teacher's failing. The have taken her out of class to observe other classes at other schools but this was more punitive than beneficial. The only positive from that action was the substitute they got became an advocate for support. The administration has been slow walking the process to get someone to observe the classroom and at this point is just waiting out the school year.

frumper 4y ago
I'm not understanding your point aside from the teacher could benefit from an aid. IEPs are legally binding agreements that the schools agree to based on student needs. Are you suggesting that the teacher should not be providing this IEP support, but the parents should seek outside support for that?
- cptskippy 4y ago
  I'm not sure how you drew that conclusion, I said: > There are a number of high needs kids in the class who need Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). These must be initiated by the parents and require outside services and assessments to be truly effective. The parents have largely been resistive to the teacher's appeals. The teacher is asking the parents to initiate the IEP process because of the teacher's observations of the student in class. > Are you suggesting ... the parents should seek outside support for that? Part of the IEP process is that the parents must justify to the administration that an IEP is necessary. "Because the teacher said so" isn't sufficient. Outside support can be doctors, counselors, therapists, psychologists, etc.