The Cart Before The Horse

Education Week posted an article about brain research as it related to self control.

The findings add to a growing body of research suggesting that a student’s ability to delay gratification can be as important to academic success as his or her intelligence—and that educators may soon know how to teach it.

The “growing body of research…” has been around for awhile, but the eduthink group is developing their spin so that we can teach our way out of neurological attributes.  This is done by mixing correlation with causation much like placing the cart before the horse.

 The studies by Mr. Mischel, who is now a psychology professor at Columbia University, and a cadre of other researchers have helped change the way scholars and educators think about why students succeed academically. In a separate self-control study, Angela L. Duckworth, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, even found that self-control was a better predictor of a student’s academic performance than an IQ test.

I’ll be the first to admit that challenging the assertion of an esteemed professor is daunting, but I’m skeptical.  My skepticism is a result of watching the elites manipulate research and broadcast the findings through a well established network of professional organizations and media outlets that share the similar leftist agenda.  That “scientifically” engineered agenda being that the state can cure everything, or better known as nutureering.

The Education Week article fails to point out prior research by the contrarian group: Jensen, Rothbard, Gottfredson, etc. that IQ correlates with all of the article’s revelations.  The problem is with causation.  IQ has a heavy hereditary load, and isn’t malleable, therefore, teaching impulse control- a genetic attribute so that children will do better in school will be problematic.  However, it does fit into the establishment agenda to nutureer society, and is a good way to fleece the public treasury.

Truancy and Delinquents

Texas public schools are in serious trouble and it has little to do with money. The trouble has everything to do with ideology; that is, the post-modernist ideology that has infected the leadership of this state.

Case in point is the recent passing of legislation by TX lawmakers to reduce student truancy.

Section 25.094, Education Code, are amended to read as follows:
(a) An individual commits an offense if the individual :
(1) is 12 years of age or older and younger than 18 years of age

First, we use force to get kids to go to school and call ourselves a free state. Freedom historically has been defined in a political sense as freedom from government. Now government in so many ways uses force to free us from ignorance, poverty, self destruction, etc. So do our friends in communist China. Since public education is free or significantly subsidized depending on your tax situation, why not keep it voluntary? Visions of gangs of children running the streets come to people’s minds. Crime, destruction, mayhem! There may be some of this, but isn’t it really transferred from the classroom to the street? Wouldn’t the classrooms be better off without it? Maybe some of the unruly would find a job if the government didn’t restrict employment. Oh no! We must force“quality” adolescence on them for their own good! Eleven years old and younger appear to get a pass. Wonder why?


Now districts must nutureer a plan to convince students to come to school so they won’t be law breakers and jam up the overworked judges, or make the judges feel bad about forcing them to do the right thing. Not only do schools have to already “track” students who leave school, but now this:

Section 25.0915. TRUANCY PREVENTION MEASURES; REFERRAL AND FILING REQUIREMENT.
(a) A school district shall adopt truancy prevention measures designed to:
(1) address student conduct related to truancy in the school setting; and
(2) minimize the need for referrals to juvenile court for and complaints filed in county or justice court alleging truancy.

Also, the TX Supreme Court Chief Justice Jefferson wants to treat the worst delinquents who disrupt public schools with compassion. How many of the delinquents don’t want to be in school? Is there causation? I think there is, but throw that reasoning out, and bring in the idea that the delinquents need to be in school. When the delinquents destroy the environment the Chief wants to offer softer penalties. This is insane reasoning from people who care more about the delinquents than those choosing to do right. They cannot have it both ways and lack the courage to make a stand for the good versus the bad. See the Chief’s address here and you will see that it reads like any sappy liberal, post-modern nonsense. Take note of the organizations that promote these reforms which are probably receiving your tax dollars. Dig a little and you will see a lot.

There is no mention of money to support this initiative either, but there are plenty of businesses ready to offer a means to meet the unfunded mandate. Just Google the plan title. This is the same racket as NCLB where the government mandates create millionaires sucking from the trough in the name of providing services to remedy all of our social problems.

The next step in enforcing the law is:

(b) Each referral to juvenile court for or complaint filed in county or justice court alleging truancy by a student must be accompanied by a statement from the student's school certifying that:
(1) the school applied the truancy prevention measures adopted under Subsection (a) to the student; and
(2) the truancy prevention measures failed to meaningfully address the student's conduct related to truancy.

The schools should have plenty of resources to comply with this- not! Recession/ staffing cuts? How many administrators will toil with this nonsense and have less time to ensure quality curriculum and instruction for the kids who want to be in school? Again, leadership resources are shifted from the cooperative and productive students to the delinquents so that they can be present to cause more delinquency and suck more resources from a diminishing account.

It appears that leaders who purport to be the biggest advocates for at-risk kids, continue to engage in an ideology that is destructive to the good kids. Then again, it’s always easy to be the nice guy.

Childish Reality

As the State of Texas projects a major budget shortfall, children continue to flood the Capitol, write editorials, and lobby for their piece of the pie. These children look a little different though; but they have been indoctrinated in Disneyland fantasy to wish upon a star. They also like to keep all of their toys, and choose not to think beyond any immediate stimulus confronting their situation. These children expect a lot and are willing to grab it from an unsuspecting neighbor if necessary, then act as though they didn’t do anything wrong. These children are arrogant enough to call themselves adults; not because of mature thinking, but because they have stopped growing. These children refuse to face reality- the State and country are broke!

And their math skills are lacking. Acting as though education has not gotten its piece of the taxpayer pie is absurd. The per-pupil expenditure between 1995-2007 has risen 29% and is expected to rise another 14% from 2007-2020. These stats are in constant dollars adjusted for inflation. The real story here is that education is in a bubble. The bubble has been driven by a neo-Marxist/ postmodern political philosophy of equity without justice. Governments have been on an education spending spree, but the return has not paid off and the bubble is bursting. Science has determined that there are limits of human cognitive ability and those limits vary. Therefore, defining collective educational objectives; such as, No Child Left Behind, college readiness schemes, or competing internationally for higher test scores only spends limited resources inefficiently because money is “thrown” at achieving these objectives or fixing problems constructed by politicians and special interests to justify this action. Votes get bought. Not everyone is college bound, and they don’t need similar educational resources spent on them, but economics 101 tells us that when something is subsidized, people want more of it. Education is heavily subsidized and the idea that too much of a good thing can be bad doesn’t register with adults who act as children.

Since government policy has led to the exporting of manufacturing jobs, promoting an immigration ponzi scheme to support the government finance ponzi scheme, and because technological advances have led to income disparity; education has become the soma of the masses and people are betting that in its current form it will solve the problems of being an advanced society. Every time a bubble head speaks about budget reform, cuts in education are off the table. We hear that we are investing in our future, we cannot hurt the children, we live in an advanced society and need skills for the future. We, we, we; Hillary’s village mentality is indoctrinated into the culture, but the reality of communalism is forgotten. The bubble is a result of poor leadership and rhetoric that a childish mentality unconditionally accepts. The reasons for the explosion in education spending are multifaceted because it reflects a plethora of special interest groups’ initiatives. These include groups that support special education, gifted and talented, fine arts, health, STEM, ESOL, Title I, etc., etc., etc. Public education policy is a result of politics and resembles a Soviet-era command economy. It is a monopoly that imposes its will on everyone. There are elected and appointed committees, boards, councils, but the Soviets had these window dressings also so that they could call it a people’s process. The Soviets had one party, but America appears to have one childish mentality. This makes it easier to impose dictates on everyone to include what is important to know and how its taught, feeding and medicating students, disciplining students, time spent in school, etc. There is little choice amongst schools, districts, or states and now with the promotion of the Common Core curriculum, the one size fits all will solidify. The only sanity the Soviet’s had within the command system was they understood nature versus nurture and had a flawed economic system which prevented them from borrowing endlessly to support nutureering©; that is, they didn’t believe and couldn’t spend enough money in an attempt to change people’s cognitive natural capacity through nurture. Cinderella didn’t exist in Moscow, nor does it exist in Beijing.

In a free society, parents should be able to choose their children’s educational path, government’s taxation should be limited, and decentralization should be the norm because it allows for innovation. Parents who don’t feel comfortable with choice can always rely on public schools to make choices for them and provide services. I do not advocate abolishing public schools, but I do advocate choices and abhor coercion. Texas on average spends $9,200 per student. Why not offer parents $6,500 vouchers and tie the eligibility to the students passing a state end of course exam? It’s non-coercive, cheaper, good for innovation, decentralized, and has an accountability factor. Think of it as a Pell Grant for K-12 education. I don’t hear people complaining about Pell Grants for college. How would this be bad for students and taxpayers? And if the federal government wanted to promote the aforementioned advantages, it could offer tax credits for parents or those who sponsor a student to make up any tuition differences. Education politicking wouldn’t be eliminated, but it would be significantly reduced, and adults’ childish behavior could more easily be ignored.

The Cost of Freedom - Student Drug Testing

On Fox’s “Cashin’ In” Saturday morning business program, the issue of a New Jersey school district’s drug testing policy was debated. Tracy Burns, a commentator who portrays herself as a hard-nosed free market advocate and protector of personal freedom, took a dive in this fight; but of course, it was for the children.

Her comments support the assertion that government intrusion is ok for “safety.” In this case the Belvidere School Board voted to extend a voluntary drug screening program from high school to middle school. It is voluntary in the sense that students and parents have to give consent for the student to be placed in a pool of testable students who are then randomly selected. Tracy thought that this is a great idea because it’s a safety issue and it concerns children. She appears incapable of seeing how this conflicts with freedom from government. She doesn’t consider the impact of conditioning for children who are volunteers and what they will later think: “What’s wrong with this? I did it. What’s the harm in it being mandatory?”

Even though it is voluntary, is it necessary for me to give examples that government has a way of expanding its scope? Tracy attests to this every week on the show but closes her eyes here. Tracy is always concerned about the government “stealing” our money, but she fails to connect the dots as to how this government board will pay for the program; including the counseling and drug rehab center placement. Tracy advocates “personal responsibility,” but wants a government body to do the job that a parent can do with a hair sample, lab, and the Post Office. Tracy wants to act as though it’s reasonable to surrender freedom for safety and that the government wants to limit its power. Therefore according to Tracy’s views, she is a hypocrite when she argues against the bank, auto manufacturer, and pension bailouts because those government actions have everything to do with economic security. She is a hypocrite when she argues against more business regulation because it is done in the name of financial security, and she is a hypocrite when she argues against the expansion of government surveillance and intrusion because of the security necessary to fight the war on terror.

With freedom advocates like Tracy, the government will continue to expand its power, reduce your freedom, and walk right through the gap left by Tracy who told us she was manning the wall.

Earl C. Rickman III & Me

I would like to comment on Mr. Rickman's essay. MY comments are bold and italicized.

Earl C. Rickman III is the president of the National School Boards Association and president of the Board of Education of Mount Clemens Community School District.

Everywhere I go these days, people ask if I have seen “Waiting for Superman,” the documentary that chronicles five families who have entered lotteries to seek admission to charter schools.

Whether it’s promoting any government policy or attacking one, we usually get just a few examples that are supposed to sway our opinion. This supports claims of American gullibility.

I have indeed seen the documentary and feel it is provoking conversations that are long overdue about public education.

As if there haven’t been enough conversations. What’s overdue?

However, the messaging associated with this project – “charters are good,” “traditional public schools are failing,” and “teachers unions are bad” – oversimplifies complicated issues and threatens to hinder thoughtful discussions about education reform.* The “us” versus “them” mentality promotes division rather than the collaboration necessary for our public schools to succeed.

I agree that most political discourse is oversimplified, but you’ve got to keep it simple; stupid, just like watching a football game or a sitcom.
Let’s not discuss our political divisions or choose right or wrong, let’s just get along and collaborate right into continuous discontent.

Instead of helping people understand the many challenges schools face and what it takes to address them, director and narrator Davis Guggenheim presents misleading information and simplistic solutions that benefit no one, especially those in classrooms who work so hard to help our children succeed.

For sure there are many good teachers and administrators, but what are the many challenges? Is there an official list, or maybe I can guess that they all can be cured with more rigor and money.

We shouldn’t use a handful of outliers to make sweeping claims about policy. While the stories highlighted in “Waiting for Superman” offer inspiring lessons about how strong principals and committed teachers can transform children’s lives and futures, research shows that only 17% of charters outperform their traditional counterparts.

The 17% number appears low, but remember that most states won’t grant a charter unless the school is targeting at-risk students. Do you think that states would part with their best and brightest from under their umbrella?

It’s also unfair and misleading to use the lowest-performing public schools as typical examples. While there are struggling public schools, there are also many successful public schools and teachers – here in Mount Clemens, across Michigan and around the country – that are helping children from all backgrounds reach great academic heights.

Yeah, those successful schools are in the more affluent areas of Michigan buddy-boy and you know that. Let’s take some of those teachers and place them in East L.A to see how well they fare. It’s a lot easier to be a “good” teacher when you have kids with aptitude and drive and those kids usually come from affluence.

We know all too well how urgently change is needed, but not from a corporate-modeled agenda of teacher bashing, union bashing, elected board governance bashing, test-based accountability, and highly selective charters run by private management companies.

Just get it out there: “I hate free enterprise!” Don’t beat around the bush!

Despite a lot of empty rhetoric about the importance of great teachers, the documentary does not contain a single positive image of a traditional public school or teacher. It never shows real teachers who are working in the trenches in traditional public schools every day and how they are offering hope for the students in their classrooms. The film simply disrespects and discredits traditional teachers. Not a single one of these dedicated teachers has a voice in the film.

There are plenty of good teachers, but what is the context of a traditional teacher? And what is the definition of a good, versus bad, versus master teacher? How many of each is there? Is every teacher a great teacher laying in wait to be let loose? Why do we use the success of great teachers to drive ideas when in reality most teachers are good or average? Or here we go again, not defining terms?

And there is no suggestion of how parents are working in collaboration with school leaders to improve the public schools their children attend, no suggestion of community engagement, no suggestion of how effective board leadership can improve public education.

How, how, how; but where, where, where is there credible research to show this improves schools?

There is no discussion of funding inequities, poverty, race, testing or the long dismal history of top-down bureaucratic educational reform failures.

It’s all about money when you are a socialist. Take from the above average and give to the below so everyone will be equal. I’m sure that he isn’t referring to the Bell Curve when it comes to race, poverty, and testing. I think that he’s referring to “social injustices.”

The film displays a heart tugging and undeniably powerful emotional impact. The stories of the children and families it highlights are truly compelling for all of us. But the film uses these stories to advance an agenda that continues to hurt public schools and the vast majority of communities that depend on them.

I feel the pain, the hurt, the emotional rollercoaster. Have a tissue?

Am I saying that we shouldn't criticize public education? No!

But only on your terms that advance your agenda.

If there were not the perceptions that the current system is not getting the job done and not addressing the needs of all students, there would be no need or outcry for change by those who depend on public school districts to provide a quality educational experience for their children.

What is the “job” and who defines it? It's government bureaucrats who will always throw in some capitalists who are never happy with their work force and want more of a good thing at a cheaper price.

For 26 years as a member of the Mount Clemens Board of Education I have fought, argued and advocated to bring social justice to our classrooms, our schools, our districts and our unions. I’ve learned that there is no such thing as a “Superman”; rather, ordinary men and women must do extraordinary things for our children.

Give me some of that “social justice.” Social justice =’s socialism. Just thought we should clear that up.

If children are our most essential investment, we must invest in their future and provide them with a quality public education. Instead, it is an annual ritual as we look at ways to cut education funding even when it will sacrifice student learning and achievement. We must make sure that we have the essential assets — great teachers, staff, curriculum, and key resources — to build an unwavering infrastructure for a solid education.

My child is my concern and I don’t appreciate you treating him like a derivative owned by the village. Good luck with all of those “great” teachers, whatever you define that to be. We don’t even have all “great” players in the NFL, but we just need to borrow some HOPE from all of those 2008 voters to get great teachers.

School leaders must nurture the ambition, creativity, curiosity and boldness of these young minds that come through our doors. These children will become lifelong learners and the leaders of tomorrow, and we must see that their dreams become reality through our work.

He says it as if nature doesn’t exist. Is Rickman actually in the education business or just well-schooled in eduspeak? Also, some of these children will be criminals, mentally ill, lazy, etc. It’s a shame but it’s reality. Rickman needs to find it.

You can find real heroes in every traditional public school, but “Waiting for Superman” fails to recognize this, and that is the movie’s fatal flaw. Instead of bashing our hard-working teachers, school leaders, parents and community leaders, we should look for realistic steps we can take to improve achievement and make opportunities available to all children.

So passé. Who isn’t a hero any more? We need to come up with a new term for people who are “of distinguished courage or ability, admired for brave deeds and noble qualities.”

By: EARL C. RICKMAN III

Dear Mr. Rickman,

You sound like more of the same.

P.S. This posting was found at: http://www.minidokaschools.org/article/2011-01-01/theres-no-superman-but-there-are-school-heroes/.

At the bottom of the page, I found the district’s motto: “We will increase INSTRUCTIONAL INTENSITY to significantly improve academic achievement for all students.” Sounds like nurtureering© to me, and instructional intensity sounds painful.

MIA- Qualified Soldiers and Individuals

Education Trust, another socialist-minded “think tank” which is trying to fill its tank with your money and freedom, released a report: “Shut Out of the Military.” The report is an alarm that 20% of Army recruit candidates cannot pass the military’s aptitude test known as the ASVAB. The report places great emphasis on the lower pass rate of “people of color” in comparison to their “white” counterparts. As a consequence, they are not eligible for the same careers that require advanced training. We continue to hear these alarms about variation between groups in SAT, IQ, state assessments, etc. and the finger pointing starts and the government spreads its magic HOPE money around to cure the problem. The ET points the finger at the poor job that high schools are doing to prepare students for college and the workforce. How do high school graduates perform so poorly on an assessment test? Is anything new here, or is this the continued bombardment necessary for submission to a socialist agenda of forced equality?

Another group who chimed in about the report in an Associated Press article was Mission: Readiness. MR is a group of senior military officers who are concerned that 75% of young Americans are not eligible for military service due to ASVAB failure, criminal records, or physical readiness. MR’s solution is much the same as Education Trust’s and other socialist groups: government mandates. On their website they cite the same inaccurate studies to support Head Start and a plethora of other feel-good child welfare programs which have been the impetus for continued government mandates, taxes, and debt. This group is so extreme that they have made child nutrition a national security issue. I get a weird feeling when the military brass wants to support the engineering of a compulsory government system for the purpose to supply them with more recruits.

The premise that all people are created equal has been perverted from the idea of being equal under the law, as exemplified in the Declaration of Independence; into all people are equal in ability and nature. And if they aren’t equal naturally, then the state can nurture them into equality. Let’s call it nutureering ©, a combination of nurture and social engineering. But when nurtureering fails because it defies the laws of nature, then those who are responsible for its implementation need to give the appearance of success, i.e. grade inflation for high school students to receive credit for courses, and the states have to construct a sham of a testing system where no child is left behind. In the end, the ACT, SAT, IB, or AP exams tell the true story. Unfortunately, the ASVAB doesn’t tell the whole story, and the ET missed the part about when the ASVAB was re-normed in 1997 and its pass scores were adjusted lower in order to prevent significant increase in the failure rate of blacks and Hispanics.

For the government to fix education, health, housing, etc. it needs to have control, and as long as Americans relinquish control then they can expect force in the form of mandates and taxes to be the result. They also can expect the government, nonprofits, and the media to frame their problems in the context that suit them. Individual control is lost in the process and is replaced by democratic collectivism; otherwise known as the tyranny of the masses, who are bestowed with control. Americans can continue to rationalize and feel good about nurtureering, or they can reject it as an affront to their freedom, and individuals can take control of their lives. In the end, Americans can decide if they want to be labeled by state constructs and identified by their race, ethnicity, economic status, etc. or be known by their individual actions.

Tubing in Texas

It’s not new news that Texas schools have been gaming or cheating on TAKS. Sharp rises in tests scores usually bring applause, except for anyone who understands testing. What this article below doesn’t address is the Texas Growth Model that gives schools credit for students who fail by way of an incomprehensible regression model that only the wizards at Pearson’s Testing understand. Also, why are test scores rising? Smarter students, better trained teachers, or a watering down of the TAKS test? Take your pick.

The staff of Normandy Crossing Elementary School outside Houston eagerly awaited the results of state achievement tests this spring. For the principal and assistant principal, high scores could buoy their careers at a time when success is increasingly measured by such tests. For fifth-grade math and science teachers, the rewards were more tangible: a bonus of $2,850.

But when the results came back, some seemed too good to be true. Indeed, after an investigation by the Galena Park Independent School District, the principal, assistant principal and three teachers resigned May 24 in a scandal over test tampering.

Is this any different than Wall Street cheats?

The district said the educators had distributed a detailed study guide after stealing a look at the state science test by “tubing” it — squeezing a test booklet, without breaking its paper seal, to form an open tube so that questions inside could be seen and used in the guide.

Tubing can be compared to Wall Street’s high frequency trading or naked short sales although much more primitive, but they are school administrators.

This is another example of trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Due to varying aptitudes, some students pass while others don’t. Then the state comes up with a plan to manipulate the test or scoring process and claims victory. Financial incentives are thrown in by the politics of running a school like a business, but without comprehension of the process or ‘product’. These teachers and administrators were just stupid, greedy and should go to jail for fraud, just like the bureaucrats from the Texas Education Agency and Department of Education should go to jail for perpetuating the fraud that the programs they promote are successful.

Article was retrieved on 6/13/10 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/education/11cheat.html