My thesis for the book I want to write, someday, but probably never will, is that the GOP's goal is to destroy public education through its "reforms", not boost education. That their goal is to create a two tiered system, of publicly funded private schools for the upper middle class, and a separate underfunded public system for everyone else.
Well, someone else thought of it first. It's Lowell Rose. I'm glad to see this point getting out there. See what he has to say below.Lowell C. Rose, executive director emeritus of Phi Delta Kappa International, called the No Child Left Behind Act a "Trojan Horse" - on the outside a disarming gift intended to improve public education, but, inside, a calculated means of destroying it (Phi Delta Kappan, September 2007).
How so? Schools that fail to close the achievement gap between poor or minority vs. wealthy or white students will lose their funds to privatized education. The NCLB Act misdiagnoses the reasons for the achievement gap; its simplistic mandates will not help poor or minority children, but only will result in the closing of their publicly funded neighborhood schools.
Here's the money quote about the acheivement gap, and how to address it: ...how is the achievement gap best reduced? Address the root causes that undermine children's development before they even get to school. We must begin in infancy and the preschool years to promote brain development in children from poverty backgrounds, especially those with multiple risks, if they are to arrive at the first day of kindergarten ready to learn.
Last, what tenets of the NCLB Act work against the possibility of closing the achievement gap? The NCLB Act misdiagnoses the causes of poor educational achievement in school and blames schools, teachers and students for problems beyond their control. One of the main problems of the NCLB Act is that it uses no pre-test at the start of school so that each child's progress over the year can be charted.
Sounds like he's getting to value-added at the end. The whole article is worth a read.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Someone stole my thesis
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Be on the watchout Dave, I sent my bro your site addy. His name is Chris, and he teaches in Cleveland city. I think I told you about him.
You can talk openly about dogs without being politically incorrect. All domestic dogs, from Chihuahua to Great Dane, are a single species canis familiaris; breed genetic differences result from enforced separations by breeders/trainers over 800 years. Similarly, all humans are a single species homo sapiens; race differences resulted from separation over thousands of years by geographic barriers. Dog breeds and human races are directly analogous as sub-groups within their respective single species.
Much can be learned from studying dogs; medical science does a great deal of this to avoid experimentation on humans. The brain is no exception, as dog brain structure and information flow processes are quite similar to that in humans. Numerous dog brain studies to analyze human brain diseases/conditions are in the medical literature.
Any experienced dog breeder will acknowledge the profound influence of genetics on intelligence and behavior. Traits such as trainability, aggression, are highly heritable and difficult to modify. Evaluations of dog intelligence have developed breed rankings according to ease of training and reliability of correct response to learned commands (analogous to education and testing in humans). Among dog breeds, there is a huge Achievement Gap, and it is GENETIC.
Humans are not exempt from the fundamental rules of biology. For humans, there is a mountain of relevant peer-reviewed research by well-credentialed scholars; numerous key citations are available in two recent books: Hart "Understanding Human History" and Lynn "Race Differences in Intelligence." It isnt fuzzy feel-good PC information, but it is indeed solid science...
I don't think the libertarians actually have thoughtful, well-analyzed views on education, health care, etc.
I think their tacit, a priori conclusion is that any monies that are not available to the private sector constitute socialism. So any tax expenditure that bypasses the "free market" is bad.
True libertarians are at least honest that they feel this way about all services; the "pseudo" free-marketers (church of Reagan) only want to eliminate the services they don't need. So highways and bridges are okay, but not social services, education, health care, etc.
And as far as anon's comment, I have a feeling he understands science like Pat Robertson understands the Bible.
As unpalatable as Anon's comments might be to many, I've seen presentations of some of the research on dogs he talks about - on "Nova" I think? One of most famous experiments apparently is one done by a Russian dog breeder who found that when dog were bred for certain behavioral traits, there were physical traits that came along for the ride.
In other words, the physiology of the brain is no different than other organs and structures in an organism and there seem to be clusters of traits that come in packages that determine the way all these elements develop in the embryo and early life.
I guess I find it interesting that the folks who want evolution as the whole answer to why things are they way they are will elect to dismiss scientific theories that produce answers they don't like (e.g. that some physical traits may be indicators of mental traits as well). The notion that "you are likely to behave this way because you have x colored skin" seems disgusting. Nonetheless, it looks like it may be the way mammals at least have evolved.
One could argue that it is much less likely that all of humanity would have identical brain wiring in spite of other physical differences - so unlikely that it would take divine intervention to make it so.
That will make some liberal heads explode.
The brain/mind is a particularly fascinating subject for me. I'm reading "Born on a Blue Day" by Daniel Tammet right now, and been looking at some of the stuff written by Temple Grandin. It's clear to me that the spectrum of autism disorders are manifestations of a particular kind of wiring abnormalities in the brain. My working model is that the brain is a collection of specialized processors that must communicate with each other to correctly evaluate and acceptably react to stimuli. Autism is caused by a malformation of the 'internet' that connects these various processors. In particular, the 'social' processors are badly connected.
If we think of all the different configurations a face can have, imagine how many more there are for the brain. Our challenge as enlightened humans is not to assert that the differences don't exist, but rather to widen the scope of configurations which we accept as normal.
In other words, I think it is very likely that we'll find that there are clusters of traits that include both mind and body elements. Some clusters work out better than others for the individual, depending on the environment.
So let's figure out how to have a cooperative society that leverages the differences rather than trying to eliminate them. Dr. Grandin says she's glad she was born with autism because it gives her a unique view of the world that ultimately enabled her to become one of the foremost experts on animal behavior. And it's clear the world is better off because of what she has contributed.
Don't worry, I haven't gone all left-wing. I think that this kind of social philosophy and free-market economics are very compatible.
What's this have to do with your thesis? Not much - my comments were elicited by Anon's. Let me think about the NCLB conspiracy you're suggesting.
PL
Well, the problem with Anon's commments is that there is no compelling evidence to tie race to differences in intelligence, the ugly insinuation he is suggesting. Furthermore studying evolutionary traits in breeds of dogs is very different from making assumptions about behavior, personality and intelligence in humans. I'm no biologist or psychologist, but the human brain is obviously a lot more complex than a dog's. I think that goes without saying.
By the way, Paul, I reviewed Born on a Blue Day here at my place. I hope you take a look at it at some point. Great book, isn't it?
I wouldn't want anyone to say that race is a predictor of intelligence. But it's use of the world intelligence that troubles me, not race. While I think there's a very good chance that there is a cluster of traits which manifest themselves in both skin pigmentation and the wiring of the brain, I don't equate different wiring with more or less intelligence.
Besides, the wiring is only the 'hardware' part of the system. The thing which is 'self' is greatly determined by the 'software' - which is the collection of experience, education and evaluation one collects in life. All that I've read says the software is much more important, unless the hardware is too severely difficient.
But even then, Tammet and Grandin show us there are ways to compensate for malformed hardware. Grandin attributes it to parents that never let her shrink into isolation the way Tammet did (understanding that some autistic kids have wiring that's so screwed up that this isn't possible).
I'll look for your comments on Blue Day...
PL
"By the way, Paul, I reviewed Born on a Blue Day here at my place. I hope you take a look at it at some point. Great book, isn't it?"
So I just found your book review, read through it, and found a comment I had posted to you way back then. Turns out it was your review that motivated me to put the book on my Wish List for Christmas.
So, thanks again.
PL
Now, on the assertion that the GOP is using NCLB as a means to create a two-tiered public education system:
I won't say that it's impossible. I believe our federal government has become unfathomably corrupt and resourceful. The person sitting in the White House has no more control over what really happens than I do. Someone is pulling the strings, and I don't think it's based on either politics or philosophy, but rather greed. I don't know that it changes that much whichever party is voted into power. But I'm always a sucker for the chance it might happen...
I don't know much about education politics outside central Ohio. I know that a perfectly good school system (Columbus Public Schools) was blown up 30 years ago, and I'm pretty sure the land developers were behind it. It has left us with an economic structure which is unworkable and a public that expects the State of Ohio to bail us out. Bad news - we're on the affluent side of the equation, and will be a net funder in any statewide funding scheme - not a net recipient.
Let me recommend a book to you: "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly. It's ultimately a computer geek book, but the first part of it is an amazing commentary and analysis of evolution.
It talks about a competition to build a robot that will go around a room and pick up pop cans on the floor. One approach is to build a machine with sophisticated vision sensors, powerful analysis engines, and complex motion control system. It was expensive to build, extremely difficult to debug, moved very slowly, and ultimately was unreliable at the task.
The alternative approach was what the designers called an 'robot cockroach.' Its motion system was like a kid's toy: go forward until you hit something, then back up, turn right and take off again. The vision system simply looked for something appearing in view that looked like a pop can. If it saw one, it told the motion system to stop. That was the extent of the interaction. Finally there was a robot grasper that would reach out and grasp any time the motion system was told to stop by the vision system. It didn't have to do any analysis - it could just assume that if the machine stopped moving, it needed to grasp.
The cockroach not only completed the task, but it would do so in a small fraction of the time of the complex robot. And it cost a fraction to build as well.
My point: complex systems like societies function much better with simple rules and lots of entities making individual decision with their own self-interest in mind. Adam Smith's invisible hand and all that.
It's expensive and unproductive to try to control all this via central government. Not only are there too many variables, the concentration of money breeds corruption and inefficiency.
I say pin a check for $10,000 to every kid and let them go to any accedited school they want.
"I say pin a check for $10,000 to every kid and let them go to any accedited school they want."
Then the good schools will cost $20,000 and the bad ones will cost $10,000.
PS The fact that you read a book I reviewed is the highest compliment I could get. Thanks for sharing.
I should have added that to be accredited, a school has to accept the $10,000 as full tuition. Folks are welcome to form endowment funds etc for their favorite schools, but still have to let any kid in for the 10 grand.
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