Re: A Teacher Grows Disillusioned After a 'Fail' Becomes a 'Pass'

John Galt wrote:

"Alan Lichtenstein" <arl@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:9umdnZADmK2AhirbnZ2dnUVZ_siknZ2d@xxxxxxxxxx

John Galt wrote:

"Alvin E. Toda" <aet@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:Pine.BSI.4.64.0708041846460.21049@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


On Fri, 3 Aug 2007, Alan Lichtenstein wrote:



Alvin E. Toda wrote:


On Thu, 2 Aug 2007, Alan Lichtenstein wrote:

And if you can document such a case for the school in question, why I'll agree with you. However, I happen to know for a fact that in this particular school, such is not the case, despite the obvious incompetence of the principal and first level supervisor, and the apparent questionable teaching of the teacher in question. There are over 150 teachers in that particular school, and 12 supervisors, and 3000 students.


You claim that a 50% rate of graduation is a success?

No. But neither is it evidence that the instructional services were provided in an unsatisfactory manner, or any of the other criteria were improperly achieved. You ASSUME that the service was provided in an unsatisfactory manner, because you ASSUME that there are no other variables that contribute to that success rate other than which accrue to the provider of the service.

An ASSUMPTION which is simply WRONG. And if your assumption is WRONG, then your conclusion is similarly WRONG.

I don't make that assumption. What I am saying is that ALL students need educating and it's the school's job to provide that-- not just to half of the students.


Then I don't think anyone's disagreeing, here.

If I can speak for Alan (he'll tell me if I do poorly, I expect) the disconnect here is that many folks don't see what teachers see. It's true that a class of randomly selected 4th graders ought to have the same performance as another class of randomly selected 4th graders. If we had such random classes, then we could accurately lay performances issues at the feet of the instructor or the instructional infrastructure provided.

The conclusion sounds logical, but it inherently makes the same error Alvin does, but on a milder sense, and it makes another, which Alvin doesn't make. The first assertion is that somehow student achievement can be tied to the delivery of the instructional service. These are two separate and distinct variables, which are connected only by their physical relationship( i.e., students are physically present at a certain time and place when the instructional service is delivered ). Thus, the quality of the delivery of the service is a separate and distinct variable from the success with which the recipients USE that service( i.e., the extent of diligence to task to master the taught content ). It additionally errs in that it assumes that students in two separate and distinct classes will have exactly the same degree of motivation and will pursue their tasks in the learning process with equal zeal. of course, that is not the case, so the conclusion similarly suffers. I note that your following paragraphs do try to negate the above conclusions, and I just wanted to add my two cents to the issue.


Quite so. The point is merely to control for the many (MANY!) variables inherent when judging instructional quality and/or student performance, either apart or as a function of one another.

The important thing to remember is what factors accrue to which variable. Alvin has a great deal of trouble understanding those distinctions, and consequently blurs things which are really separate issues. You judge instructional quality, by, among other things, the quality of delivery of the service, NOT by the success with which a user of the service happens to achieve.

Furthermore, in order to maintain such an assumption one would have to accept the condition that teachers are either effective or not, and reject any gradations of quality within the effective realm( i.e., all effective teachers are of equal quality, and none are more effective than others ). Of course, that underlying assumption is wrong, as some teachers are better than others, despite the fact that all are of 'satisfactory' quality.


But, we *don't* have classes of randomly selected children. We have classes of children culled from neighborhoods which have specific socioeconomic characteristics. Ergo, the parents in those neighborhoods have roughly similar academic histories and habits. A very low income area might have a high percentage of parents who never finished high school, and who never read a book; a high income area will have a high percentage of parents who are college grads, who read all the time. The latter group is "trained" from a very early age to have habits which encorage their success in school. The former group is not.

Indeed. But despite the fact that resources may not be available, motivation is not necessarily resource dependent, although culturally dependent. Recall the vast numbers of immigrants of the last century, many of whom settled in NYC. These immigrants had, for the most part, little or no formal education, and even fewer resources, yet their children became doctors, lawyers, and professionals of the highest order. The culture and motivation made the difference. NYC had and still has an abundance of public resources to permit a motivated individual to achieve those goals.


Sure. And we have the Vietnamese example from all over the West and Gulf coasts -- refugees from a poorly educated agrarian culture, and here a generation afterward, people have to rely on affirmative action to get Caucasian kids into highly competitive public schools.

Quite amazing, when you think about it.

Alvin should sit up and take notice. But he won't because then he'd have to confront the fact that his beliefs are wrong, and come up with another irrational rationalization as to why they aren't.


In short, schools work with different qualities of "raw materials" as they fashion students out of children. If you put the high income group in the lousiest school with the lousiest teachers, they'll still outperform (by a large margin) the low income group, even if they were placed in the newest school with the best teachers. So, one can never assume that a particular education outcome is the "fault" of the instructor or instructional infrastructure without careful analysis to what's really going on.

Actually, that's not necessarily so. Herrnstein and Murray, in their work, "The Bell Curve," point out that statistically, intelligence vs. income is relatively constant, and that you have the same distribution in higher income groups that you have in lower ones. But their results weren't 'politically correct,' so liberals and other wishful thinkers and assorted apologists reject their data, because it doesn't conform to their beliefs as they would want the facts to demonstrate.


Not sure we're disagreeing. The term and concept of "raw materials" was lifted from Murray's latest article having to do with his latest research. But, your analysis of the shameful intellectual dishonesty that followed "The Bell Curve" is spot on.

All of it was politically motivated. Even the late Steven J. Gould, the noted authority on evolution, who was a colleague of Herrnstein's at Harvard at the time, got into the act. His article, 'The Mismeasure of Man,' a rejoinder to 'The Bell Curve,' attacked the social aspects and its implied political consequences, but interestingly enough, said nothing about the science and methodology. And the reason is that it couldn't. Herrnstein and Murray's methodology were right on the money. Gould knew that, but lending his name to those who were against Herrnstein and Murray, led the masses to infer that somehow the science was bad, which it wasn't, but the perception was all that mattered. It is shameful that the politically correct, who on other occasions make much of ethics, had no hesitation to have their ethics take a back seat, and try to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

One of the things which is "patently unfair" to utopian egalitarian thinking is the observable fact the "achievement gifts" (academic abilities, athletic abilities, performance abilities, motivation, social skills, good appearance) are not randomly distributed. Anyone thinks about their own school experiences can easily see what's going on -- there are a small group of kids who seemingly have most or all of these "acheievment" gifts, and the remainder that might have one or none.

Indeed.


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