Re: David Berliner on A Nation at Risk: Three Decades of Lies #2 - ADDENDUM #2

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Re: David Berliner on A Nation at Risk: Three Decades of Lies #2 - ADDENDUM #2” [Hake (2013c)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: As a sequel to previous posts “David Berliner on A Nation at Risk: Three Decades of Lies #2” [Hake (2013a)] at http://yhoo.it/10dPm4V and “David Berliner on A Nation at Risk: Three Decades of Lies #2 – ADDENDUM” [Hake (2013b)] at http://yhoo.it/10g1iTV, I'm compelled to point out that today, 26 April 2013, the Fordham Institute http://bit.ly/15WNcPn and American Enterprise Institute http://bit.ly/ZpCkGc, both conservative think tanks, have placed on YouTube at http://bit.ly/10hDbUW a video “A Nation At Risk: 30 Years Later,” featuring such “reformers” as Lamar Alexander, William Bennett, Arne Duncan, Chester Finn, and Michelle Rhee. The only speaker not heaping effusive praise on A Nation at Risk is ex-conservative renegade Diane Ravitch. She says (paraphrasing): “What the writers of A Nation at Risk had in mind was higher standards, better schools, and a stellar public education system. But over the past 30 years the report has become the founding document of the privatization movement - the basis for privatization of the school system and the enrichment of a small number of entrepreneurs.”
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
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“[The authors of A Nation at Risk] were wrong. Their predictions were all wrong. And I think it would be almost better to regard it as just a wake-up call. It's a way of using language that was overheated to . . . . get attention. But it had a real-world effect because for one thing it began the wrong march to destroy public education which is now in full flower.”
- Diane Ravitch in YouTube video "A Nation At Risk: 30 Years Later"

REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 27 April 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013c. “Re: David Berliner on A Nation at Risk: Three Decades of Lies #2 – ADDENDUM #2,” online on the OPEN Net-Gold archives at http://yhoo.it/10jCnPq. Post of 26 April 2013 23:46:03-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Re: David Berliner on ‘A Nation at Risk’: Three Decades of Lies #2 – ADDENDUM

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Re: David Berliner on ‘A Nation at Risk’: Three Decades of Lies #2 – ADDENDUM” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In a previous post, “Re: David Berliner on 'A Nation at Risk': Three Decades of Lies #2” [Hake (2013)] at http://yhoo.it/10dPm4V, I quoted Ken Bernstein's comment on Diane Ravitch’s blog at http://bit.ly/13uNGbs (slightly edited): “Berliner was right in Manufactured Crisis (Berliner & Biddle, 1995/1996 at http://amzn.to/PGOfcT) about the ‘Nation at Risk’ report http://bit.ly/ZJ8Tyi of 30 years ago and is right today."

Berliner & Biddle wrote: “[The Nation at Risk report] made many claims about the ‘failures’ of American education, how those ‘failures’ were confirmed by ‘evidence’ and how this would damage the nation. (Unfortunately, none of the supposedly supportive ‘evidence’ actually appeared in ‘A Nation at Risk’ nor did this work provide citations to tell Americans where that ‘evidence’ might be found.) . . . . . . . . . When one actually examines the evidence, one discovers that it simply will not support the fiction that America has a generally failing system of education. This claim is nonsense.

SO IS AMERICAN EDUCATION OK?? In “Should the Culture of University Science Education Be Changed?” [Hake (2011)] at http://bit.ly/iegznz, I argued that it is *NOT*. For example, in Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 at http://bit.ly/dtQhbS it's stated that (see that report for the references): (1) Sixty-nine percent of United States public school students in fifth through eighth grade are taught mathematics by a teacher without a degree or certificate in mathematics [NCES (2003)]; (2) Ninety-three percent of United States public school students in fifth through eighth grade are taught the physical sciences by a teacher without a degree or certificate in the physical sciences [NCES (2003)]; (3) The United States ranks 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science or engineering [OECD (2009a)]; (4) The United States ranks 20th in high school completion rate among industrialized nations and 16th in college completion rate [OECD (2009b)]; (5) The average American K-12 student spends four hours a day in front of a TV [McDonough (2009)]; (6) Sixty-eight percent of U.S. state prison inmates are high school drop-outs or otherwise did not qualify for a diploma [Harlow (2003)].

For one attempt to improve U.S. K-12 science education see "8+1 Science: A new concept in science education" [Michigan State (2012)] at http://bit.ly/Hz898n.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3Mhttp://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
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REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 25 April 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “Re: David Berliner on ‘A Nation at Risk’: Three Decades of Lies #2 – ADDENDUM,” online on the OPEN Net-Gold archives at http://yhoo.it/10g1iTV. Post of 25 Apr 2013 13:09:11-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Re: David Berliner on "A Nation at Risk" Three Decades of Lies #2

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Re: David Berliner on ‘A Nation at Risk’': Three Decades of Lies #2” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Diane Ravitch at http://bit.ly/13uNGbs has called attention to David Berliner's (2013) “Three Decades of Lies” at http://bit.ly/17ihWIM. “Teacherken” (aka Ken Bernstein) commented on Diane's blog entry (paraphrasing) “Berliner was right in Manufactured Crisis (Berliner & Biddle, 1995/1996 at http://amzn.to/PGOfcT) about the ‘Nation at Risk’ report http://bit.ly/ZJ8Tyi of 30 years ago and is right today.” Berliner (2005, 2009) at http://bit.ly/ff8BVj, http://bit.ly/fqiCUA has also been right about “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children’s Educational Achievement” (Hake (2011, 2013) at http://bit.ly/tUU65W, http://bit.ly/XHnEzS.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
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"The data presented in this study suggest that the most powerful policy for improving our nations' school achievement is a reduction in family and youth poverty."
- David Berliner (2005) in "Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform"

REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 24 Apr 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “Re: David Berliner on ‘A Nation at Risk’': Three Decades of Lies #2” online on the OPEN Net-Gold archives at http://yhoo.it/10dPm4V. Post of 24 Apr 2013 13:27:11-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Berliner, D.C. 2005. "Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform," Teachers College Record, August 02, online as an 872 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/ff8BVj. Berliner argues that: "poverty places severe limits on what can be accomplished through school reform efforts, particularly those associated with the federal No Child Left Behind law."

The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement - Redux

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children’s Educational Achievement – Redux”
[Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Among the 263 Comments (as of 4 March 2013 15:27-0800) on Diane Ravitch's (2013) blog entry “Why I Cannot Support the Common Core Standards” at http://bit.ly/XGpEpK was one by “Penny”" who wrote on 3 March 2013: “We know that poorer (lower socioeconomic) students tend to do poorer in school. How about looking at the true root cause.”

To look at the “true root cause” see, e.g., the poverty-related references from my complete post “The Contentious Common Core Controversy” [Hake 2013)] at http://bit.ly/Y7ocMv:

1. "Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success"[Berliner (2009)] at http://bit.ly/fqiCUA;

2. "Eight problems with Common Core Standards" [Brady (2012)] at http://wapo.st/15Z4kTg;

3. "The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement" [Hake (2011)] at http://bit.ly/tUU65W;

4. "For Obama's New Term, Start Here" [Kristof (2013)] at http://nyti.ms/WnEhU2;

5. "Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics" [Marder (2012)] at http://bit.ly/KPitWM (scroll down);

6. "Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance: Poverty, Literacy, and the Development of Information Capital" [Neuman & Celano (2012)] at http://bit.ly/ZVCsil
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
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GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Google Scholar http://bit.ly/Wz2FP3
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm

“So much orchestrated attention is being showered on the Common Core Standards, the main reason for poor student performance is being ignored - a level of childhood poverty the consequences of which no amount of schooling can effectively counter.”
- Marion Brady (2012) at http://wapo.st/15Z4kTg.

REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 04 March 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement – Redux,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/XHnEzS. Post of 4 Mar 2013 15:38:45-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.




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Re: The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate: Poverty

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post “Re: The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate: Poverty” [Hake (2012)]. An abstract is:

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ABSTRACT:
Diane Ravitch in her hard hitting "Diane Ravitch's blog" http://dianeravitch.net/ wrote in an entry "The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate: Poverty" at http://bit.ly/RfuGY4:

“Poverty. Lots of talk about the middle class. Tax cuts for the middle class. Saving the middle class. Doing more for the middle class. Not one word about poverty. No mention that nearly 25% of the children in the world's richest nation live in poverty. Not one word.”

The overriding influence of poverty on educational achievement has been noted in, e.g. (alphabetical order by author):

1. “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform” [Berliner (2005)], at http://bit.ly/ff8BVj;

2. "Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success" [Berliner (2009)] at http://bit.ly/fqiCUA;

3. “Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances” [Duncan & Murnane (2011a)] at http://bit.ly/nCkmKv;

4. “Economic inequality: The real cause of the urban school problem,” [Duncan & Murnane (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/rv3rMO.

5. “To Improve Schools, Fight Poverty, Education Expert Says” [Gosier (2011)], online at http://bit.ly/qyrBSL - the expert is Stephen Krashen http://bit.ly/Ui9xm1;

6. “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2” [Hake (2011a)] at http://bit.ly/ozuZEn;

7. “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students' Academic Gain?” [Hake (2011b)], online at http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ;

8. "Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain? #3” [Hake (2011c)], online at http://bit.ly/jy61UB;

9. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” [Ladd & Fiske (2011)] at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub;

10. “Education and Poverty: Visualizations of World, US, and State-level Educational Data” [Marder (2011)] at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF;

11. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics” [Marder (2012)] at http://bit.ly/KPitWM;

12. “The hard bigotry of low expectations and low priorities” [Ravani (2011b)] at http://bit.ly/sUZ17T;

13. “Unaddressed Link Between Poverty & Education” [Schaffer (2011)] at http://bit.ly/tbckql.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
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Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52

“Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that more than 40 percent of the variation in average reading scores and 46 percent of the variation in average math scores across states is associated with variation in child poverty rates.”
- Ladd & Fiske (2011)

REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 04 Oct 2012.
Hake, R.R. 2012. “Re: The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate: Poverty,” online on the OPEN AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/QJWvds. Post of 4 Oct 2012 12:56:14-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. An abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists..

Ladd, H.F. & E.B. Fiske. 2011. “Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?” New York Times, Opinion Piece, online at http://nyti.ms/vx3nub.

Finnishing Touches

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post “Finnishing Touches” [Hake (2012)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: There have been several recent posts regarding the evidently exemplary Finnish educational system on the discussion lists Physoc at http://bit.ly/JjCbfH and Math-Teach at http://bit.ly/IJwwwf. These threads were stimulated by, respectively, Al Bartlett’s Physoc post “Education in Finland” at http://bit.ly/HXVVAS and Jerry Becker’s Math-Teach post “What it takes to cross the Finnish line” at http://bit.ly/IegubS.

Is this just Yogi Berra’s “deja vu all over again”? - see e.g., “Could the U.S. Put Finnishing Touches on K-12?” by Hake (2005b) at http://bit.ly/IJiNW4 .

Probably not, because material by evidently well-informed Finnish writers is cited by Becker: Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? by educator Pasi Sahlberg (2011) - see http://www.finnishlessons.com/ , and “What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success” by journalist Anu Partanen (2011) at http://bit.ly/JZpKB2.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake

“The story of Finland's extraordinary educational reforms is one that should inform policymakers and educators around the world.”
Linda Darling-Hammond, quoted at http://bit.ly/Jjsa2a

“A terrific synthesis by a native Finn, a teacher, a researcher, and a policy analyst all rolled up into one excellent writer. Pasi Sahlberg teaches us a great deal about what we need to know before engaging in national educational reforms.”
David Berliner, quoted at http://bit.ly/Jjsa2a


REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 22 April 2012.]

Hake, R.R. 2012. “Finnishing Touches” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/Ixkqa7. Post of 22 Apr 2012 11:28:54-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are also being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Re: What's the Meaning of 'Direct Instruction'? #2

Some blog followers might be interested in “Re: What's the Meaning of 'Direct Instruction'? #2” [Hake (2012b). The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “What’s the Meaning of ‘Direct Instruction’?” [Hake (2012a) at http://bit.ly/FOp16Y, Jack Rotman of the MathEdCC list wrote (paraphrasing):

“For those who look at direct instruction as an ‘automatic bad thing’, I would point you to the results of the largest educational research project every conducted in this country – ‘Project Follow Through.’ Start at ‘OVERVIEW: The Story Behind Project Follow Through’ [Grossen (1995/96)] to get some information.”

Contrary to Bonnie Grossen’s glowing account of “Project Follow Through,” Ellen Condliffe Lagemann (2000) in An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research wrote [my italics]:

"Some experiments ended inconclusively. One of these was the 'planned variation' strategy used in implementing Project Follow Through in the late 1960s . . . . . . . Although the Follow Through experiment seemed promising at first, to the surprise of many observers the variables involved were so difficult to identify and control that less was learned than anticipated. Even if one could identify gains and associate them with one rather than another plan for the delivery of Follow Through services, one could not be sure that those gains were a consequence of the Follow Through program as opposed to a better teacher or some other variable. Partly as a result of such problems scholars scrutinizing the same data, reached different conclusions. . . . . . as education researcher David K. Cohen (1970) concluded, all the Follow Through experiment really demonstrated was that power in education was so decentralized that the controls necessary for experimentation were virtually impossible to maintain."
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake

“But the important distinction is really not between the hard and the soft sciences. Rather, it is between the hard and the easy sciences. Easy-to-do science is what those in physics, chemistry, geology, and some other fields do. Hard-to-do science is what the social scientists do and, in particular, it is what we educational researchers do. In my estimation, we have the hardest-to-do science of them all! We do our science under conditions that physical scientists find intolerable.”
David Berliner (2002)

REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 19 March 2012.]
Berliner, D. 2002. “Educational research: The hardest science of all,” Educational Researcher 31(8): 18-20; online as a 49 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/GAitqc.

Hake, R.R. 2012a. “What's the Meaning of ‘Direct Instruction’? ” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/FOp16Y. Post of 16 Mar 2012 13:59:51-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. This post initiated a thread on MathEdCC that had grown to 19 posts at http://bit.ly/GCmxwt on 20 March 10:05-0700. The abstract and link to the complete post are also being transmitted to several discussion lists and are on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/znXSXn with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2012b. “What's the Meaning of ‘Direct Instruction’? #2 ” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/FPZ8my. Post of 19 Mar 2012 14:24:12-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are also being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2

Some blog followers might be interested in “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems” [Hake (2011)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: ARN-L’s Bob Schaeffer (2011) in a post “Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems” alluded to a Chicago Tribune Op. Ed. http://bit.ly/rv3rMO of that title by Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane (2011a), drawn from a book http://bit.ly/nCkmKv Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances [Duncan & Murnane (2011)].

Regarding the influence of economic inequality on K-12 education, some subscribers might also be interested in these six items:

1. “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform” [Berliner (2005)], online as an 872 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/ff8BVj ;

2. “Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success” [Berliner (2009)], online as a 729 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/fqiCUA;

3. “To Improve Schools, Fight Poverty, Education Expert Says” [Gosier (2011)], online at http://bit.ly/qyrBSL - the expert is Stephen Krashen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Krashen ;

4. “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain? ” [Hake (2011a,b)], online at http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ and http://bit.ly/jy61UB;

5. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics: Poverty is a More Important Cause than Teacher Quality” [Marder (2011a)], online as a 3.3 MB pdf at http://bit.ly/fjUquC;

6. “Education and Poverty: Visualizations of World, US, and State-level Educational Data, ” online at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF [Marder (2011b)], online at http://bit.ly/nYC6eF.

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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake
http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi
http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com
http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“For the short term, preparing teachers in mathematics and science is a wise and useful step toward improving schools. . . . . .[But]. . . As quickly as possible, we must understand the link between poverty and educational outcomes in the US, devise solutions, and test and implement them. Britain briefly tried to substitute public relations for aircraft safety and paid with the loss of its commercial aviation sector. I hope the United States can avoid a similar error, that proponents of teacher quality and charter schools will recognize the weakness of the evidence before it is too late, that we will not damage public education, let down our most vulnerable students, and lose technical leadership we take for granted.”
Michael Marder (2011)


REFERENCES [All URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 12 Oct 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011. “Re: Economic Inequality: The Real Cause of Urban School Problems #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/ozuZEn. Post of 11 Oct 2011 19:59:34-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists.

Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?

Some blog followers might be interested in discussion-list post “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?” [Hake (2011)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In his PhysLrnR post Rob Spencer pointed out that Sanders & Rivers (1996) in “Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers on Future Student Academic Achievement” concluded that “Within grade levels, the single most dominant factor affecting student academic gain is teacher effect.” This post considers four items relevant to Spencer's post:

I . VALUE-ADDED ASSESSMENT (VAA) criticized earlier in (a) “First, Let's Fire All the Teachers!” [Hake (2010a,b)], and (b) “Value-Added Inequities: Should Value-Added Measures Be Used to Evaluate Teachers?” [Hake (2011a,b)]; and in this post by reference to (c) “Using Student Progress To Evaluate Teachers: A Primer on Value-Added Models” [Braun (2005) http://bit.ly/gZiJdH], (d) “Challenges of Value-Added Assessment” [Doran & Fleischman (2005) http://bit.ly/dF6CuB], (e) “Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers” [Baker, Barton, Darling-Hammond, Haertel, Ladd, Linn, Ravitch, Rothstein, Shavelson, & Shepard (2010) http://bit.ly/h8k5Fw], (f) The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education [Ravitch (2010) http://amzn.to/faJ9JZ].

II. SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS (SES) stressed by Bernard Ricca, who pointed to Toni Feder's 2009 Physics Today report on Marder & Bansal (2009). Their statistical-mechanics study of “Flow and diffusion of high-stakes test scores” http://bit.ly/hYbbLe indicated that: Poverty is a more powerful influence on test scores than value added by teachers and schools. The case that poverty is an overriding influence on students' classroom achievement has been forcefully argued by David Berliner in “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform” [Berliner (2009) <http://bit.ly/ff8BVj>], and “Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success” [Berliner (2010) <http://bit.ly/fqiCUA>].

III. LESSONS FROM THE PHYSICS EDUCATION REFORM EFFORT suggest that: (a) high school, college, and university courses employing “Interactive Engagement" (IE) methods result in average normalized gains g(ave) in conceptual understanding that are about two standard deviations greater the g(ave) achieved by traditional (T) passive-student lecture courses [Hake (1998a,b; 2008); (b) “Teachers who possess both content knowledge and ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ are better equipped to deliver IE instruction” [Hake (2002)]; and (c) paraphrasing Wells et al. (1995): “teacher expertise is the critical factor in improving introductory physics instruction.” I suspect that the growing body of educational research in disciplines other than physics will eventually show that these same lessons apply to most other academic subjects.

IV. IS THE 'TEACHER EFFECT' THE DOMINANT FACTOR IN STUDENTS' ACADEMIC GAIN?" Judging from the all above:

(a) if “academic gain” means “gain in higher-level learning for U.S. K-12 students,” then the answer is: “NO! POVERTY is the dominant factor” - see ‘I’ and ‘II’ above, and the next most important factor is the degree to which ‘Interactive Engagement’ is provided by courses and teachers - see III above”;

(b) if “academic gain” means “gain in higher-level learning for students in higher education” then the answer is: “The dominant factor in promoting academic gain is the degree to which ‘Interactive Engagement’ in provided by courses and teachers - see III above.”

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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University

Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands

President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References which Recognize the

Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi

http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com

http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“The [Race to the Top] initiative should support research based on data that links student test scores with their teachers, but should not prematurely promote the use of value-added approaches (which evaluate teachers based on gains in their students' performance) to reward or punish teachers.”

“Letter Report to the U.S. Dept. of Education on the Race to the Top Fund” [NRC (2009)]

REFERENCES [All URL’s accessed on 08 April 2011 and shortened by http://bit.ly/.]

Hake, R.R. 2011. “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ. Post of 7 Apr 2011 17:51:59-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.

NRC. 2009. National Research Council, Board on Testing and Assessment (chaired by E.H. Haertel), “Letter Report to the U.S. Department of Education on the Race to the Top Fund,” online at http://bit.ly/dOg8v6.

Dukenfield's Law & Campbell's Law #2

Some blog followers might be interested in a post of August 2010 “Dukenfield's Law & Campbell's Law #2” [Hake (2010b)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: An earlier post “Dukenfield's Law & Campbell's Law” [Hake (2010a)] initiated a 49-post thread on EvalTalk which may be accessed at http://bit.ly/cqINPz and http://bit.ly/anwfoY.

The first response was by Art Burke who wrote: “Campbell said that corruption of quantitative indicators was a problem to be solved - he did not argue for abandoning quantitative indicators in the evaluation of social policies.”

And three years earlier Burke had written (slightly edited): “Nichols & Berliner (N&B) (2007) http://bit.ly/hwHtNY propose a hodge-podge of alternatives that they claim are more ‘reasonable and fair’ than the present testing and accountability rules [such as] ‘formative assessments,’ . . . . . I will certainly support alternatives that both reduce unwarranted stress on school staffs and preserve the protections for parents and children built into NCLB, but I don't see how this could happen with N&B's proposals. "

I wonder if Burke would support “formative assessments” as they have been utilized in science education?

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To access the complete 13 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/d3FrI8.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University

Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands

President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi

http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com

http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

Dukenfield's Law http://bit.ly/bsRokM : If a thing is worth winning, it's worth cheating for.

Campbell's Law http://bit.ly/hMsyUr : The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

REFERENCES [URL's shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 12 March 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2010a. “Dukenfield's Law & Campbell's Law,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/9FWI9n. Post of 14 Aug 2010 20:52:11-0700 to AERA-L, EvalTalk, NetGold, & PhysLrnR.

Hake, R.R. 2010b. “Dukenfield's Law & Campbell's Law #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/d3FrI8. Post of 22 Aug 2010 15:31:31-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists.

A Response to "It's Not All About Class Size"

Some blog readers may be interested in a recent post [Hake (2009] with the above title. The abstract reads:

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Stephen Ceci and Spryos Konstantopoulos in a "Chronicle of Higher Education" commentary "It's Not All About Class Size" point out that the new administration needs to be aware that attempts to fulfill its pledge to narrow the *international* achievement gap between America and it international competitors by reforms such a decreasing class sizes might thereby widen the *domestic* achievement gap that separates black and white, rich and poor. But, in my opinion, the new administration also needs to be aware that a major cause of the domestic achievement gap is POVERTY, as forcefully argued by David Berliner. I submit that: (a) reduction of poverty in the U.S. might reduce *both* the domestic and international achievement gaps, since then the learning of *all* students, not just the advantaged, would be markedly increased by reforms such a reduction in class size, more effective teachers, and more effective pedagogy; (b) a more important reason for increasing student learning than narrowing the international achievement gap is the need to alleviate the science/math illiteracy of the general population and thereby lessen the threat to life on planet Earth.
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To access the entire post please click on http://tinyurl.com/daf85y .

REFERENCES
Hake, R.R. 2009. "A Response to 'It's Not All About Class Size', " AERA-L post of 6 February 2009 09:42:04-0800; online at http://tinyurl.com/daf85y .