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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To access the complete 15 kB article please click on http://bit.ly/ozuZEn.

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? #3

Some blog followers might be interested in discussion-list post “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain? #3” [Hake (2011b)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In a previous post titled “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students' Academic Gain?” I pointed to the analyses of physicists Michael Marder and Dhruv Bansal (2009) at http://bit.ly/hYbbLe, which suggested that “educational outcomes for students from wealthy and poor families are very different in Texas.”

More recently Reeve Hamilton (2011) in a recent report in the Texas Tribune titled “Is Poverty the Key Factor in Student Outcomes?” http://bit.ly/mpkki0 did an excellent job of showcasing Marder's (2011) work by means of an interview and video clips of Marder explaining his graphs of mathematics achievement vs poverty concentration in Texas.

Hamilton wrote: “[Marder] sat down with the Tribune to talk about the role of poverty in educational outcomes, why he thinks charter schools are not necessarily the answer, and why he likes to think of the public education system as a Boeing airplane. . . . .[[more accurately, the dysfunctional British de Havilland Comet whose malfunction, like the malfunction of the U.S. K-12 educational system, was continually misdiagnosed - see Marder (2011) at http://bit.ly/fjUquC.]]. . . .

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To access the complete 15 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/jy61UB.

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 3 May 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011a. “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 were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/ifvkSz.

Hake, R.R. 2011b. “Is the 'Teacher Effect' the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?” #3” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/jy61UB. Post of 3 May 2011 13:02:37-0700. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.

Marder, M. 2011. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics: Poverty is a More Important Cause than Teacher Quality,” to be submitted, online as a 3.3 MB pdf at http://bit.ly/fjUquC. See also Marder & Bansal (2009).

The ‘Teacher Effect’ - Response to Hansen #2

Some blog followers might be interested in discussion-list post “The ‘Teacher Effect’ - Response to Hansen #2” [Hake (2011b)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?” [Hake (2011a)], Math-Teach’s Robert Hansen wrote (paraphrasing):

“Is there a complete high-school assessment endorsed by PER [Physics Education Research]? The FCI [Force Concept Inventory] assesses only one component of physics and I think that keeps people, especially physicists, from getting too excited over normalized gains on the FCI.”

Hansen is either dismissive or oblivious of the fact that PER is concerned with (a) students’ conceptual understanding, (b) students’ ability to solve non-algorithmic problems, and (c) at least 10 other capabilities listed in this post. I suggest over 30 references to the PER literature that might reduce Hansen’s confusion.

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To access the complete 24 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/eh6sge.

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 (PEDARRI)

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 premium so often put in schools upon external ‘discipline,’ and upon marks and rewards, upon promotion and keeping back, are the obverse of the lack of attention given to life situations in which the meaning of facts, ideas, principles, and problems is vitally brought home.”

John Dewey (1916)

REFERENCES [All URL's accessed on 14 April 2011 and shortened by http://bit.ly/.]

Dewey, J. 1916. “The Nature of Realization or Appreciation” in Democracy and Education: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, online at http://bit.ly/evICPb, Chapter 18, Educational Values, Section 1.1.

Hake, R.R. 2011a. “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 were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/ifvkSz.

Hake, R.R. 2011b. “The ‘Teacher Effect’ - Response to Hansen #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/eh6sge. Post of 16 Apr 2011 13:43:41 -0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being 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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To access the complete 69 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ.

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.