Friday, June 16, 2006

Culture, Discipline, and the No Child Left Behind Act

I agree fully with Mr Kosar's comments below but it should be noted that the delay of gratification research literature has characteristic problems. Mr Kosar tactfully does not mention an even bigger problem than differences in culture -- differences in ability

David Brooks of the New York Times has been on a bit of an education kick of late. In his May 7 column, "Marshmallows and Public Policy," he wrote of the famous Mishel experiment. “Around 1970, Walter Mischel launched a classic experiment. He left a succession of 4-year-olds in a room with a bell and a marshmallow. If they rang the bell, he would come back and they could eat the marshmallow. If, however, they didn't ring the bell and waited for him to come back on his own, they could then have two marshmallows. …. The children who waited longer went on to get higher SAT scores.”

Two and one-half weeks later (May 25 th ), Brooks penned, "Of Love and Money," wherein he wrote, “The people who do well not only possess skills that can be measured on tests, they have self-discipline (which is twice as important as I.Q. in predicting academic achievement, according to a study by Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman).” For this study, Angela L. Duckworth and Martin E.P. Seligman, “Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents,” Psychological Science , vol. 16, issue 12, Dec. 2005, pp. 939-944.)

Interestingly, both Brooks' columns and this study sound a bit like the hypothesis proffered over three decades ago by Edward C. Banfield. In his book, The Unheavenly City: The Nature and Future of Our Urban Crisis (1970), Banfield warned school reformers that their proposals to improve student learning were bound to run into a brute fact— large numbers of children in the United States were the product of “lower-class culture.” To be clear, by “lower class” Banfield did not mean “poor.” Rather, Banfield argued, “a person who is poor, unschooled, and of low status may be upper class; indeed, he is upper class if he is psychologically capable of providing for the distant future.” While “upper class culture” imbues a long view of life and goal orientation, lower-class culture has a live-in-the-moment ethos. Thus, youths reared in lower class culture tend to find school difficult because their parents failed to help them develop the mindset that enables them to sit still and learn.

When Banfield's book came out, he was roasted by the Left, who denounced him as a hard-hearted bigot who did not care about the poor. Too bad. Whatever one might say about The Unheavenly City as a whole, it is clear that in the chapter on education and schooling, Banfield was on to something. Both common sense, and now science, tell us that children need to come to school prepared to learn.

Before policymakers set about to rework the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), they should keep the issue of culture in mind. Here's why. NCLB, ostensibly, aims to raise student achievement by improving the operations of schools and state education systems. In exchange for federal dollars, states must establish standards and test students. All this is good and fine— but, NCLB also requires schools to get 100% of children proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 and delivers punishments to schools where children fail to meet achievement targets (“adequate yearly progress”).

Washington , we have a problem. The idealism of “No Child Left Behind” is on a collision course with reality. NCLB aims only at the institutional side of the schooling formula; it does not, though, attempt to elevate “lower class” culture or turn all parents into good nurturers. Nor, quite frankly, is it clear how NCLB or any policy could. Schools, especially those serving large numbers of children whose parents don't well prepare them for learning, cannot possibly see to it that 100% of children reach proficiency. To insist that they do is to imagine that a government institution can obliterate the effects of culture and parental child-rearing.

Hence, the goal of 100% proficiency must be lowered. How low should it be set? That is a question worthy of serious discussion. Some politicians and advocates might balk at any such discussion, grousing that setting a lower goal is tantamount to capitulation to what President Bush called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” But, as Professor Banfield intoned, “[F]acts are facts, however unpleasant, and they have to be faced unblinkingly to improve matters…”

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L.A. DROPOUT RATE GETS WORSE

The kids can't all have gone to Orange County. Note that no explanation for the drop in enrollments is attempted -- the dog that did not bark?

Enrollment in city schools will continue to drop by thousands of students next year, Los Angeles education officials said Tuesday, and the decline is expected to cost the Los Angeles Unified School District tens of millions of dollars in state funding.

The enrollment projections came to light when Supt. Roy Romer submitted a $7.5-billion budget for the coming school year to the Board of Education. According to Romer's proposed budget, about 20,000 fewer students will attend classes next year at the roughly 690 traditional campuses that dot the sprawling district, dropping enrollment to about 678,000. The loss would mark the fourth consecutive year the district has lost students. Last fall, district officials were caught off guard by a decline of 20,258 students for the current school year, which far exceeded their projections.

The number of students attending scores of independently run charter schools in the district, meanwhile, is expected to rise by about 5,000, bringing the district's overall head count to about 712,000 children.

Because nearly all the funding a school district receives from state coffers is based on enrollment, the declining totals in traditional Los Angeles schools will cost the district an estimated $114 million. At the same time, the district will save about $40 million in costs because there will be fewer students to serve. Despite the anticipated money loss, Romer presented a balanced budget, made possible largely because the state's improving economy has increased overall funding to schools. In coming weeks, the seven-member school board will debate the allotments put forth by Romer before voting on the final budget in August.

At the center of Romer's budget is a series of initiatives aimed at improving academics and safety in middle and high schools. The largest of the programs is a $36-million infusion that would improve science labs, modernize libraries and make other improvements at 17 of the district's lowest-performing high schools. Romer has also called for money to be set aside to provide incentives to attract special education teachers and increase training for teachers. But with the district in the early stages of contract negotiations with the teachers union, Romer said he had not built into the budget any raises for teachers.

The decline in enrollment has also had an effect on the district's ambitious construction and repair projects, which aim to end severe overcrowding that has plagued schools for decades. For the final phase of the building project, district officials had envisioned the need to build 21 elementary schools to reach the goal of removing all students from cumbersome, year-round schedules. Now, however, with projected enrollment showing a continued decline for the next six to eight years, Romer said only 15 new elementary campuses are needed. He emphasized that no schools under construction or in the formal planning stages have been canceled because of the lower student figures.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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