
The Harlem Miracle - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1
======
tjic
> The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing
> results... you meet incredible people doing wonderful things. Then you look
> at the results...these inspiring places are only producing incremental
> gains.

That's because a large percent of people (and a HUGE percent of folks who are
drawn into the non-profit world) care more about how much they care, and how
hard they work, than they do about what they accomplish.

In that world, measuring and comparing two programs against each other are
both unacceptable things to do.

There's a reason that "New Math" and "Whole Language Reading" have persisted
in the schools for decades, despite their demonstrable failure.

There's a reason that the DARE program is still running decades later, despite
the fact that it has no results.

There's a reason that all politicians love Head Start, even though all effects
dissipate a few years after the program graduates a child.

There's no profit motive in this world, and there's no mindset of measurement
and continuous improvement.

Go read some of Phil Greenspun's posts on how frustrating it is to try to work
with non-profits.

They don't want results; they want to build empires, and _feel_ like they are
doing something.

~~~
Alex3917
"There's a reason that "New Math" and "Whole Language Reading" have persisted
in the schools for decades, despite their demonstrable failure."

New Math, at least if you are talking about the version espoused by the 1989
NCTM, is currently considered the best practice. And Alfie Kohn debunks the
idea that whole language is a failure in his book "The Schools Our Children
Deserve."

~~~
tokenadult
_New Math, at least if you are talking about the version espoused by the 1989
NCTM_

The preferred term for that would be "reform math," and "new math" is best
reserved for the kind of math instruction I had in school in the late 1960s
and early 1970s.

But, no, Alex, reform math is not universally regarded as best practice. I'm a
member of NCTM (by virtue of winning the Mathematical Association of America's
Edith May Sliffe award for middle school mathematics coaching) and I am
appalled at the approach NCTM takes to curriculum reform. Much better math
instruction can be found in Taiwan (I read Chinese, and I own the textbooks),
the urban parts of China, Japan (I have seen translated textbooks), and
Singapore (I USE the Singapore textbooks to teach my own children, and their
approach to coach the children whose performance helped me win my coaching
award).

The United States could do better in math by setting aside "reform math," and
it could definitely do better in reading by setting aside "whole language"
reading instruction. I think the author you cite sincerely believes what he
wrote, and I like what he writes about some other subjects, but I think he is
sincerely wrong about the overall effect of "whole language" reading
instruction and "reform math" math instruction.

~~~
Alex3917
Have you read that book? Because his definition of "whole language" reading is
different than the one used by most critics.

~~~
tokenadult
If the take-away point of his book is that current practice in schools where
"whole language" is the label for what is being done is bad practice, then he
is helping along education reform, but if the take-away point of his book is
that "whole language" (whatever the heck that means) is better than "phonics"
(whatever the heck that means), he isn't helping improve reading instruction.

A typical problem in education reform discussion is ambiguous terms for broad,
ill-defined movements or programs.

~~~
Alex3917
He basically says that the goal of both whole language and phonics is to teach
phonics, but whole language teaches phonics differently. That is, if students
can figure out what the word is by looking at the picture then they then can
learn the sounds of the phonemes that make up this word. Some phonemes still
have to be taught by rote, but kids can learn most of them by actually
reading. He compares this to phonics, where he says kids memorize sounds on
flash cards and then read workbooks filled with sentences like "mat hit the
cat." He says that if students start by reading real books then they retain
much more of their intrinsic motivation to read, rather than learning to read
the way we learn to type.

Further, he says that whole language is not currently used in more than 1% of
classrooms, so it's impossible that whole language has caused the decline in
reading skills.

~~~
tokenadult
_if students can figure out what the word is by looking at the picture_

Oh gosh, that's terrible. There is a very great response to the whole look at
the picture nonsense in the book Education's Smoking Gun by Reginald Damerell.

[http://www.amazon.com/Educations-Smoking-Gun-Destroyed-
Educa...](http://www.amazon.com/Educations-Smoking-Gun-Destroyed-
Education/dp/0881910252)

There is an illustration of a cat, not so different from this image,

<http://spoilurpets.com/images/Thermal%20Cat%20Mat.JPG>

and the illustration is labeled in Chinese. I burst out laughing as soon as I
saw the illustration, because I can read Chinese, so I knew the punchline. The
children are shown the illustration, and asked to guess the meaning of the
Chinese characters in the caption. In the illustration that Reginald Damerell
commissioned his graduate student from Taiwan to produce, the Chinese
characters did not say "the cat is on the mat," but rather "the cat's eyes are
open."

One thing that I really like about the book Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach,
by an eminent linguist and an equally eminent lexicographer, is that the
stories have no illustrations whatsoever. Indeed, the final story in the book,
called "The Picture Country," is beautifully evocative and remarkably visual
story told entirely in words, which makes the point to children that once they
know how to read, they can see more beautiful pictures in their mind than one
could find in all the book illustrations in the world. That is genuine
reading.

~~~
Alex3917
Thanks, grabbed a copy of the first book on Amazon and bookmarked the second.

------
bendotc
While I'm in no way an expert on this subject, there was a really interesting
piece about this on This American Life, which you can listen to for free:
[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=3...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=364)
. It's Act One, which is most of that week's show.

I want to ramble about how interesting this is, but it would be best if you
just go listen to this. Obviously, it's still early on and while it looks like
they've captured lighting in a bottle, extraordinary results demand
extraordinary skepticism. However, especially for people with extremely
limited resources trying to do big things (e.g. entrepreneurs), I think it's
an interesting piece on thinking big.

Anyway, we should all hope this turns out well, and we can look forward to a
more educated next generation in the US.

------
loumf
When I click a link and see David Brooks's face, I have the same exact feeling
as when I fall for a rick roll.

~~~
Alex3917
I've actually read the book the article is based on. This school is
essentially a giant test prep factory. All the kids do for 10+ hours a day is
learn how to guess correctly on multiple choice tests. Then the entire measure
of school performance is how well the kids have done on these tests. The whole
program is designed to separate black kids from their parents and communities;
the NYT admits as much actually. In Paul Tough's original NYT Magazine
article, which the book is based on, the central question posed is:

"Can the culture of child-rearing be changed in poor neighborhoods, and if so,
is that a project that government or community organizations have the ability,
or the right, to take on?"

(Changing the culture is defined as extending the school day to keep kids away
from their parents, and also changing the qualitative school experience. The
idea being that poor black kids are qualitatively different than poor white
kids, and they need a qualitatively different school system based on rote
memorization and frequent testing.)

~~~
chancho
"Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as
much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are
performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school."

Yeah I don't really see whats magical about this program, its just really
intensive. If you took all the underachievers from other schools and tutored
them for 6 hours a day then those school's scores would rise too.

It's sort of like the "epiphany" of clear-build-hold in Iraq. No shit - the
secret to progress is focusing on fundamentals and working your ass off? But
then again, maybe common sense in bureaucracy is magical.

------
randallsquared
_In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black
students and the city average for white students.

Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap._

It's only repeating if those were the same statements. They aren't.

------
anamax
The unasked question is how the black/white achievement gap came about in the
first case. It actually started fairly recently, say the late 50s/early 60s.
(I'm not saying that black schools had equal resources. I'm saying that black
schools did very well with the resources that they had.)

~~~
kingkongrevenge
I don't think there was any standardized testing before the 60s.

~~~
gabrielroth
College Board testing began in 1901, and the first SAT was administered in
1926.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#1901_test>

~~~
Tichy
And in 1901 black kids were going to "normal" schools and they achieved the
same results as white kids?

~~~
gabrielroth
Did I say anything about black or white kids?

~~~
Tichy
Not you, but a post further up the tree made the claim that differences in
performance between white and black kids only started appearing in the
sixties.

------
adamc
Very interesting, but I would be interested in a link from a more objective
(less political) source.

~~~
tokenadult
I've previously said

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555734>

that I admire Hacker News participants who can grapple with factual
statements, regardless of who made them. It doesn't really interest me who
said something, if what was said might be true and is worth considering. As
robg, the original submitter of this thread points out, the submitted article
cites the research work of a researcher whose political opinions may be very
different from the columnist who wrote the submitted article.

~~~
adamc
Well, the problem is that you can't take David Brooks' statements of "fact" at
face value, as he's been known to provide rather one-sided arguments. I could
undoubtedly read the original papers, but my interest isn't that high and I
don't necessarily have the right background to appreciate them. What I need is
a precis produced by a knowledgeable, relatively unbiased party.

That's not an uncommon situation. The idea that we should all evaluate
statements "regardless of who made them" is naive.

~~~
tokenadult
_my interest isn't that high_

That's too bad. I look things up when I am curious about things, which is
often.

------
tphyahoo
I am relieved to see that David Brooks has finally gotten off the pro-iraq war
bandwagon and is now boosting school programs that teach harlem schoolkids...
"how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands."

Sigh. The program actually sounds pretty cool, but I really dislike something
about the tone of the article. But yeah, if I was a broke-ass welfare mom in
harlem I'd probably try to get my kid sent to this school. It would be a bit
like winning the lottery though... hey... why is that?

Neoconservative answer to social injustic: We have this special school that
proves we can solve these deep social programs, we just have to get off our
butts and do it! Yuppy jobs for all, even black people!

Socialibertarian answer to social injustice: Uh. Are you sure? Why does it
keep only working for a tiny minority of the fucked population? Why are things
not necessarily getting better? Don't people ultimately have to solve their
own problems? And isn't this what you're proposing more of an illusion of
that?

If you rely on a team of academics from harvard to boost your solution, your
broke ass welfare moms are not... solving... their own problems!

~~~
randallsquared
_welfare moms are not... solving... their own problems!_

Possibly you and they differ on what their problems are.

~~~
tphyahoo
you are almost certainly right about that.

See Alex3917's comments.

