

Helping Some Students May Harm High Achievers - naish
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/education/18child.html?_r=2&ref=education&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

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meredydd
* * face-palm * *

Do these people actually understand any maths at all?

 _In tests of fourth-grade reading from 2000 to 2007, for instance, the scores
of the lowest-achieving students increased by 16 points on a 280-point scale,
compared with a gain of three points for top-achieving students, according to
the study_

Riiight...and the point behind this policy is to get EXACTLY THIS RESULT.
Assuming ideal tests (har, har), the goal is that top students should continue
to move up, but the bottom end start to close the gap.

I mean, there may be other, objective reasons to suspect that the top
achievers are being short-changed - and the American HS system is sufficiently
screwed up that I'd readily believe it. But if you adopt a policy of narrowing
the gap is adopted (but letting the top students continue to improve), and
then you get figures showing that the gap is indeed narrowing (but the top
students continue to improve)... what the hell are you doing pointing and
yelling "failure"?

 _On the evidence they supply_ , they're talking bullshit. On a pogo stick.

~~~
Alex3917
"...since the law made it a goal to reduce the gap separating low-scoring,
poor and minority students from higher-scoring white students."

I'm pretty sure that the article is just misleading here. IIRC, the NCLB
mandates that the average test scores of the school improve each year or else
the school loses funding. The schools then turn around and only teach the
lowest scoring students since they show the biggest returns in points per
dollar spent. When the NYT says that the goal of the NCLB is to reduce the
gap, I think they mean it's one of the ideological goals rather than an actual
funding trigger. And the argument is that while it would be nice to reduce the
gap between high- and low-scoring students, only teaching the bottom quartile
because it's the easiest way to game the system is the wrong way to go about
it.

I haven't actually read the text of the final law, but that's at least what
educational theorists were saying was going to happen based on the draft text
before the bill was enacted.

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epi0Bauqu
This article fails to mention what the increases were in a similar time period
before the law. Also, wouldn't you expect the highest achievers not to
increase much since they are already at the top?

~~~
Alex3917
It would be very difficult to measure the improvement in test scores before
the tests were created.

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nadim
"In tests of fourth-grade reading from 2000 to 2007, for instance, the scores
of the lowest-achieving students increased by 16 points on a 280-point scale,
compared with a gain of three points for top-achieving students, according to
the study, by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research organization in
Washington."

Is it just me or does this seem normal? Is it not _much_ harder for someone on
top to improve vs. someone on the bottom? For example, a Michael Jordan who
already spends considerable effort and energy being the best (having little
more total time to work on improving), vs. someone who puts little time and
effort (having much more time to contribute and therefore improve).

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j2d2
Readers of this post might enjoy this:
[http://www.openeducation.net/2008/03/10/several-lessons-
to-b...](http://www.openeducation.net/2008/03/10/several-lessons-to-be-
learned-from-the-finnish-school-system/)

~~~
lutorm
Nice article. I liked this quote: While “the U.S. holds teachers accountable
for teaching” in Finland “they hold the students accountable for learning.”

Just one of the many examples of how government policy goes in the opposite
direction of science and empirical results.

~~~
j2d2
Agreed. I generally sum this idea up as victim-based policies vs. enabling
policies. This is subtle in the language people use too. Some people say, "we
need to control this" implying they want to rule out everything and allow some
things. I prefer "we need to influence this" because, to me, this says we want
to allow everything and disallow some things. It fosters a more open and
creative environment where people are free to try new things, since new things
are allowed.

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lutorm
I find it remarkable that they somehow claim that it's doing a disservice to
the high achievers that they didn't increase _as much_ in their results. It's
not as if they were disadvantaged, EVERYONE improved, so it's hard to see how
this will spell doom for the competitiveness of the nation. This wouldn't be
an example of the (white male) high achievers feeling threatened, would it?

That is, if you think that the NCLB indicators measure something tangible and
important...

~~~
cousin_it
> I find it remarkable that they somehow claim that it's doing a disservice to
> the high achievers that they didn't increase as much in their results.

Yes, it is a disservice to high achievers and to society as a whole. Bringing
the more intelligent ones down is fine, as long as you don't need anybody to
cure cancer or invent the Internet.

> This wouldn't be an example of the (white male) high achievers feeling
> threatened, would it?

By attacking white males you're making HN a worse place for me, a white male.
Stop with it.

~~~
lutorm
Sorry, but you didn't read the article or my response correctly. They did not
bring the high achievers down. They just brought them up _less_ than the ones
further down. But if they could cure cancer or invent the internet before,
they should still be able to do so, and better, now.

I'm a white male too, btw. (We can take a little attack. ;-) I'm just saying
that high-achievers complaining that the educational policies didn't further
_widen_ the gap seems so dishonest that there must be something more than
societal well-being behind that sentiment. It's not as if the US has a problem
at the high end, it's the 25% high-school dropout rate that brings it down
compared to other countries in the educational measures.

~~~
maurycy
Most people add little value to the society. Please see Kuhn's The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions.

In my opinion, what is education, and the whole welfare state, about is
creating the best environment for the high archievers, and not limiting them
needlessly. The thing is that no one knows which family raises a genius. That
is why all children, and thus their parents, should have the slighty the same
starting environment, or at least the guaranteed minimum.

One side note is that most educational reforms perceive the education as a
thing separated from the society. It is not truth. For instance, it is harder
to be a high archiever if your parents lack the social and cultural capital.
And the financial capital's role is way less important than before.

The yet another side note is that enormous time, at least in Polish education,
is wasted on propaganda and socialization. This time could be spent better.

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Hexstream
If the high-achievers are bored because they're so much ahead of the rest of
the group (probably in part because they're more independent in learning
material themselves), why not fund an inexpensive program to guide them
towards more advanced topics which they can learn after they're finished with
the standard topics and at their leasure?

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gojomo
Obligatory 'Examination Day' (1300-word short story) reference:

[PDF]
[http://education.uncc.edu/ssagallag/6124/Examination%20Day.p...](http://education.uncc.edu/ssagallag/6124/Examination%20Day.pdf)

[HTML] <http://englischlehrer.de/texts/examination_day.php>

