Archive | 2012

Study: Teacher merit pay works in some situations

27 Jul

Teacher compensation is a hot education topic. The role of evaluations in compensation, merit pay, pay based upon credentials and higher pay for specialty areas are all hot topics and hot button issues. The Center for American Progress has a report by Frank Adamson and Linda Darling Hammond. In the report, Speaking of Salaries: What It Will Take to Get Qualified, Effective Teachers In All Communities  Adamson and Darling- Hammond write:

As Education Trust President Kati Haycock has noted, the usual statistics about teacher credentials, as shocking as they are, actually understate the degree of the problem in the most impacted schools:

The fact that only 25% of the teachers in a school are uncertified doesn’t mean that the other 75% are fine. More often, they are either brand new, assigned to teach out of field, or low-performers on the licensure exam … there are, in other words, significant numbers of schools that are essentially dumping grounds for unqualified teachers – just as they are dumping grounds for the children they serve….

Download this report (pdf)

Download the executive summary (pdf)

Melanie Smollin has an excellent post at Take Part, Five Reasons Why Teacher Turnover Is On The Rise Marguerite Roza and Sarah Yatsko from the University of Washington’s Centeron Reinventing Education have an interesting February 2010 policy brief.

In Beyond Teacher Reassignments: Better Ways School Districts Can Remedy Salary Inequities Across Schools Districts Roza and Yatsko report:

This brief addresses this concern by demonstrating that districts would NOT need to mandatorily reassign teachers. It shows that there are other ways to restructure allocations that do not systematically shortchange the neediest schools. Discussed here are four options that districts could pursue to remedy school spending inequities created by uneven salaries:

  • Option 1: Apply teacher salary bonuses to some schools to balance salaries

  • Option 2: Vary class size across schools to level spending

  • Option 3: Concentrate specialist and support staff in schools with lower-salaried teachers

  • Option 4: Equalize per-pupil dollar allocations

Download Full Report (PDF: 736 K)

Of all the issues about teacher compensation, one of the hottest is “merit pay.”

Dylan Matthews writes in the Washington Post article, Does teacher merit pay work? A new study says yes:

There’s very good evidence that teacher quality matters a lot in terms of student performance in school and success later on in life. The economist Raj Chetty of Harvard, for example, has found that students randomly placed with more experienced kindergarten teachers not only perform better on tests but earn more and save more for retirement as adults, are likelier to go to college, and go to better colleges than their peers with less experienced teachers. Eric Hanushek of Stanford estimates that a good teacher – defined as at the 84th percentile, or one standard deviation above the mean for you stats nerds – provides students with test scores associated with an increase of between $22,000 and $46,000 in lifetime earnings.

Findings like these lead some to favor “merit pay” regimes that include student test scores as a determinant of teachers’ salaries. This has met opposition from teachers’ unions and testing skeptics, who argue that it would result in teaching-to-the-test at the expense of actual learning. For a long time, the data has been mixed on merit pay. Two studies from Mathematica Policy Research in 2010 that found little benefit, while a study in Nashville found mild benefits for fifth graders but none for other students.

That has changed with the publication of a new paper (pdf) by Harvard’s Roland Fryer, the University of Chicago’s Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) and John List, and UC San Diego’s Sally Sadoff. The authors went into nine K-8 schools in Chicago Heights, a city 30 miles south of Chicago, and randomly selected teachers (who had to consent, which 93.75 percent did) to take part in a merit pay scheme. The students affected were overwhelmingly low-income, with 98 percent receiving free or subsidized lunches. Teachers in the experiment were offered $80 per percentile improvement in student test scores, for a maximum reward of $8,000, compared to a typical teacher salary of $50,000.

The authors split teachers in the study into a control group, who were not offered any rewards, a “gain” group, which was promised rewards of up to $8,000 at the end of the school year, and a “loss” group, which was given $4,000 upfront and asked to pay back any rewards they did not earn. The idea behind the latter group was that loss aversion should motivate teachers to perform better than they would if they only stood to gain more money. Additionally, the gain and loss groups were split, with a “team” group being rewarded on the basis of theirs and fellow teachers’ test scores, and the “individual” group being reward only on the basis of their own scores. The conclusion: it worked, and it worked almost twice as well when the money was given at the start and then taken away…. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/23/does-teacher-merit-pay-work-a-new-study-says-yes/

One might ask why “merit pay’ seemed to work in the situation studied?

Jordan Weissmann writes a provocative analysis of the study in the Atlantic article, A Very Mean (But Maybe Brilliant) Way to Pay Teachers:

But Levitt, Fryer and Co. argue that there’s a serious problem with merit pay. So far, they say, there’s been scant evidence that it actually works. Studies of teacher incentive programs in Tennessee and New York City failed to find any signs that they improved student learning. In the New York experiment, which Harvard’s Fryer conducted, the impact may have even been detrimental. 

Enter loss aversion. The authors theorized that instead of offering a lump-sum bonus to teachers come summertime, it might be more effective to give instructors money upfront, then warn them that they would have to pay it back if their students didn’t hit the proper benchmarks. Rather than tap into teachers’ ambition, they’d tap into their anxiety.

To test their idea, the authors designed an experiment for the 2010-2011 school year involving 150 K-8 teachers from Chicago Heights, a low-income community in Illinois. The instructors were randomly assigned to a control group or one of two main bunches, which I’ll shorthand as the “winners” and the “losers.” The winners agreed to work under a traditional year-end bonus structure, where they could make up to $8,000 extra based on their students’ standardized test scores. The losers were given $4,000 off the bat and informed that if their students’ turned in below-average results, they’d have to pay a portion of it back commensurate with just how poor their scores were. On the flip side, an above-average performance could earn them additional bonus money, up to the full $8,000. 

The authors then divided the winners and losers again so that some teachers would be rewarded based on their results as a group, and others would be rewarded based on their results as individuals. 

Come vacation time, the losers had won. In math, paying teachers a year-end bonus had no statistically significant effect. When teachers had money to lose, though, their students over performed. The impact was large — the equivalent of improving a teacher’s skills by one full standard deviation — and the pattern held whether teachers were compensated as a group or as individuals. The authors’ data on reading scores turned out to be shakier, since most students ultimately had more than one instructor working with them on language skills, but it indicated a similar trend. 

In short, they found that merit pay can work. You just have to be tricky, and a little bit mean, with how you implement it…. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/a-very-mean-but-maybe-brilliant-way-to-pay-teachers/260234/#.UBHCJts3U6I.email

Citation:

Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives through Loss Aversion: A Field Experiment*

Roland G. Fryer, Jr.

Harvard University

Steven D. Levitt

The University of Chicago

John List

The University of Chicago

Sally Sadoff

University of California San Diego

Abstract

Domestic attempts to use financial incentives for teachers to increase student achievement have been ineffective. In this paper, we demonstrate that exploiting the power of loss aversion—teachers are paid in advance and asked to give back the money if their students do not improve sufficiently—increases math test scores between 0.201 (0.076) and 0.398 (0.129) standard deviations. This is equivalent to increasing teacher

quality by more than one standard deviation. A second treatment arm, identical to the loss aversion treatment but implemented in the standard fashion, yields smaller and statistically insignificant results. This suggests it is loss aversion, rather than other features of the design or population sampled, that leads to the stark differences between our findings and past research. 

What the various studies seem to point out is there is no one remedy which works in all situations and that there must be a menu of education options.

Resources:

A Lively Debate Over Teacher Salaries                         http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/05/a-lively-debate-over-teacher-salaries/

Are Teachers Overpaid?                                                http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/02/are-teachers-overpaid/

Some Teachers Skeptical of Merit Pay                   http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/13/some-teachers-skeptical-of-merit-pay/

Related:

Washington D.C. rolls out merit pay                  https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/washington-d-c-rolls-out-merit-pay/

Report from The Compensation Technical Working Group: Teacher compensation in Washington                   https://drwilda.wordpress.com/tag/teacher-recruitment/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Portfolio school districts

25 Jul

The Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice has a great introduction piece to “portfolio districts.” In the 2010 Executive Summary of Urban School Decentralization and the Growth of “Portfolio Districts” Kenneth J. Saltman of DePaul University writes:

The premise of the portfolio strategy is that if superintendents build portfolios of schools that encompass a variety of educational approaches offered by different vendors, then over time school districts will weed out under-performing approaches and vendors; as a result, more children will have more opportunities for academic success. This brief examines the available evidence for the viability of this premise and the proposals that flow from it.

The portfolio district approach merges four strategies:

1) decentralization; 2) charter school expansion; 3) reconstituting/closing “failing” schools; and 4) test-based accountability. Additionally, portfolio district restructuring often involves firing an underperforming school’s staff in its entirety, whether or not the school is reconstituted as a charter school. In this model, the portfolio district is conceptualized as a circuit of “continuous improvement.” Schools are assessed based on test scores; if their scores are low, they are subject to being closed and reopened as charters. The replacement charters are subsequently subject to test-based assessment and, if scores remain disappointing, to possible closure and replacement by still other contractors…. This perspective considers public schools to be comparable to private enterprise, with competition a key element to success. Just as businesses that cannot turn sufficient profit, schools that cannot produce test scores higher than competitors’ must be “allowed” to “go out of business.” The appeal of the portfolio district strategy is that it appears to offer an approach sufficiently radical to address longstanding and intractable problems in public schools Although the strategy is being advocated by some policy centers, implemented by some large urban districts, and promoted by the education reforms proposed as part of the Obama administrations Race to the Top initiative, no peer-reviewed studies of portfolio districts exist, meaning that no reliable empirical evidence about portfolio effects is available that supports either the implementation or rejection of the portfolio district reform model. Nor is such evidence likely to be forthcoming. Even advocates acknowledge the enormous difficulty of designing credible empirical studies to determine how the portfolio approach affects student achievement and other outcomes…. Moreover, even when the constituent elements are considered as a way to predict the likely success of the model, no evidence is found to suggest that it will produce gains in either achievement or fiscal efficiency.

Finally, the policy writing of supporters of the portfolio model suggests that the approach is expensive to implement and may have negative effects on student achievement. In light of these considerations, it is recommended that policymakers and administrators use caution in considering the portfolio district approach. It is also highly recommended that before adopting such a strategy, decision makers ask the following questions.

 What credible evidence do we have, or can we obtain, that suggests the portfolio model offers advantages compared to other reform models?

What would those advantages be, when might they be expected to materialize, and how might they be documented?

 If constituent elements of the model (such as charter schools and test-based accountability) have not produced advantages outside of portfolio systems, what is the rationale for expecting improved outcomes as part of a portfolio system?

 What funding will be needed for startup, and where will it come from?

 What funding will be necessary for maintenance of the model?

Where will continuation funds come from if startup funds expire and are not renewed?

 How will the cost/benefit ratio of the model be determined?

 What potential political and social conflicts seem possible? How will concerns of dissenting constituents be addressed?  http://greatlakescenter.org/docs/Policy_Briefs/Saltman_PortfolioDistricts_EXEC_SUM.pdf

Answering the questions posed by the report are particularly important in the analysis.

Christina A. Samuels  has written an interesting Education Week article, Job Roles Shifting for Districts’ Central Offices:

The Center for Reinventing Public Education, based at the University of Washington Bothell, has long tracked the progress of portfolio districts. It counts 26 school systems as members of its “portfolio district network,” including New York City, Los Angeles, the District of Columbia, Baltimore, and the Recovery School District in Louisiana.

Among the many central-office positions that need to change in a portfolio district is that of the chief academic officer, said Paul T. Hill, the center’s founder. Central-office administrators generally offer “a standardized approach, coaching, and professional development. But as much as possible, that needs to be put into the schools” in a portfolio-model district, he said. “At the extreme end, the chief academic officer can become a broker or a tender of the supply of options for schools. The district is not the default provider of anything.”

From Mr. Hill’s point of view, school administrators need flexibility not just in their schools, but freedom from mandates from the top in order to design programs, hire teachers, buy materials and technology, choose vendors, and own or lease their own property. Central offices can keep longitudinal data on students, assess schools based on student performance, distribute money to schools, recruit teachers to the district, and manage an enrollment process for the schools that do not use neighborhood boundaries, he said.

But this change, though easy to describe, is not always easy to implement, he added—in part because of concerns from central-office administrators about loosening the reins of power.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/07/18/36portfolio_ep.h31.html?tkn=QWMFYXnKDrhzWkFcOfHUEQQBfslMpYJJk0aw&intc=es

Feather O’Connor Houstoun writes in the Governingarticle, A Portfolio of Schools:

Portfolio management turns conventional school-district administration inside out by drawing all publicly funded schools into similar position relative to the governing administration. In its theoretical form, a portfolio school district no longer focuses primarily on management of district-run schools, with charters as a sideline operated largely outside of district oversight. Good schools—charters or district-run—are encouraged to expand; poorly-performing schools—charters or district-run—are closed or reconstituted under new management.

The unit of performance is the individual school, whether chartered or district-run. The evaluation is transparent and equivalent in standards. District-run schools operate with increasing autonomy, similar to charters. Parents are helped to make school choices for their children using a menu that lays out facts about their choices.

There are formidable challenges to putting this approach into operation. As Paul Hill comments in his recent report on four portfolio school districts, “Rebuilding a school district on the portfolio model involves challenges of many kinds: technical, organizational and political.”

Long-simmering resentment among public-school advocates toward charters that have drawn funding and students from both public and parochial schools may make collaboration difficult, particularly if the shrinking districts have had little opportunity to shed the costs of underutilized schools.

Meanwhile, charters, which believe they are offering safe havens and choices for parents, bridle at the suggestion that their expansion should be constrained to accommodate broader school-district concerns about funding, underutilized buildings and the complexity of change in big bureaucracies. They often have political and family support that challenges the validity of evidence of poor performance.

The Gates Foundation has begun to provide financial incentives for urban districts and their charter counterparts to sign “district-charter collaboration compacts.” These agreements are aimed at providing a framework for decision-making that can overcome what Vicki Phillips, a former Pennsylvania secretary of education and now Gates Foundation director of education, describes as “contentious and persistent tensions.” Greater levels of support from the foundation appear to be on the horizon, and in some communities other philanthropic efforts are aligning around these partnerships.

Both charter operators and public officials and administrators accustomed to working within the boundaries of those things they directly control may find the portfolio approach unsettling. Charter operators, for example, are agreeing to be judged by uniform standards and to relinquish some of the control they have over the destiny of their individual schools.http://www.governing.com/columns/mgmt-insights/col-portfolio-school-charter-district-run-management-challenge.html

Houstoun agrees with Saltman that the strategy is difficult to implement.

Resources:

Portfolio Strategy

A growing number of urban districts are pursuing the portfolio strategy and profoundly changing the role of the school district and its relationship to schools.

The portfolio strategy aims to dramatically increase student achievement by continuous improvement. The strategy, built around 7 key components, creates diverse options for families in disadvantaged neighborhoods by opening new high-performing, autonomous schools; giving all schools control of budgeting and hiring; and holding schools accountable to common performance standards.

New York City, New Orleans, Chicago, Denver, Hartford, and Baltimore are among more than 25 districts pursuing a portfolio strategy of continuous improvement.

CRPE’s portfolio work includes:

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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CDC report: Contraceptive use among teens

24 Jul

In No one is perfect: People sometimes fail, moi said:

There are no perfect people, no one has a perfect life and everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately, children do not come with instruction manuals, which give specific instructions about how to relate to that particular child. Further, for many situations there is no one and only way to resolve a problem. What people can do is learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others. Craig Playstead has assembled a top ten list of mistakes made by parents and they should be used as a starting point in thinking about your parenting style and your family’s dynamic. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/no-one-is-perfect-people-sometimes-fail/ Still, parents must talk to their children about life risks.  https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/talking-to-your-teen-about-risky-behaviors/

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC)has published a study about the sexual activity of children.

Here is the press release for the CDC report, Sexual Experience and Contraceptive Use Among Female Teens — United States, 1995, 2002, and 2006–2010:

Sexual Experience and Contraceptive Use Among Female Teens — United States, 1995, 2002, and 2006–2010

Weekly

May 4, 2012 / 61(17);297-301

The 2010 U.S. teen birth rate of 34.3 births per 1,000 females reflected a 44% decline from 1990 (1). Despite this trend, U.S. teen birth rates remain higher than rates in other developed countries; approximately 368,000 births occurred among teens aged 15–19 years in 2010, and marked racial/ethnic disparities persist (1,2). To describe trends in sexual experience and use of contraceptive methods among females aged 15–19 years, CDC analyzed data from the National Survey of Family Growth collected for 1995, 2002, and 2006–2010 (3). During 2006–2010, 57% of females aged 15–19 years had never had sex (defined as vaginal intercourse), an increase from 49% in 1995. Younger teens (aged 15–17 years) were more likely not to have had sex (73%) than older teens (36%); the proportion of teens who had never had sex did not differ by race/ethnicity. Approximately 60% of sexually experienced teens reported current use of highly effective contraceptive methods (e.g., intrauterine device [IUD] or hormonal methods), an increase from 47% in 1995. However, use of highly effective methods varied by race/ethnicity, with higher rates observed for non-Hispanic whites (66%) than non-Hispanic black (46%) and Hispanic teens (54%). Addressing the complex issue of teen childbearing requires a comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive health that includes continued promotion of delayed sexual debut and increased use of highly effective contraception among sexually experienced teens.

Nationally representative data on females aged 15–19 years were obtained from three survey cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG): 1995, 2002, and 2006–2010. NSFG is an in-person, household survey conducted by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics using a stratified, multistage probability sample of females and males aged 15–44 years. The response rate for females was 76%. Survey topics included self-reported sexual activity and contraceptive use (4). Respondents who answered “yes” to ever having vaginal intercourse were considered sexually experienced.

Respondents who were pregnant, postpartum, seeking pregnancy, or who had not had sex during the interview month were excluded from analyses on contraceptives used during the interview month. The remaining respondents were classified as currently using contraception (specifying up to four methods) or not currently using contraception. Current contraceptive users were classified further by their most effective method used (according to typical use effectiveness estimates for pregnancy prevention) (3), based on the following hierarchy: 1) users of highly effective methods, including respondents who used long-acting reversible contraception (i.e., intrauterine device [IUD] or implant), pill, patch, ring, or injectable contraception (with or without dual use of condoms), or who were sterilized or had a partner who was sterilized (both were rare for teens); 2) users of moderately effective methods, including respondents who used condoms alone; and 3) users of less effective methods, including respondents who used withdrawal, periodic abstinence, rhythm method, emergency contraception, diaphragm, female condom, foam, jelly, cervical cap, sponge, suppository, or insert.

Weighted least squares regression was used to assess the significance of trends in abstinence and contraceptive use over time. Differences in bivariate proportions between racial/ethnic and age subgroups were assessed using a standard two-tailed t-test without adjustment for multiple comparisons. Comparisons are statistically significant at p<0.05. All analyses were conducted using data management and statistical software to account for the complex sample design of the NSFG.

During 2006–2010, more than half (56.7%) of female teens had never had sex (Table), reflecting a 16% increase relative to the 1995 estimate of 48.9%. The proportion of teens who had never had sex did not differ significantly across racial/ethnic groups* (whites = 57.6%, blacks = 53.6%, Hispanics = 56.2%) (Table). Although the proportion of teens who had never had sex increased for all racial/ethnic groups from 1995 to 2006–2010, this increase was greatest for blacks (34% increase) and Hispanics (29% increase) compared with whites (15% increase). During 2006–2010, 72.9% of females aged 15–17 years had never had sex, compared with 36.5% of females aged 18–19 years.

During 2006–2010, among female teens who had sex during the interview month, but who were not pregnant, postpartum, or seeking pregnancy, 59.8% used a highly effective contraceptive method during the interview month (12.0% used a highly effective method with a condom and 47.8% used a highly effective method without a condom), 16.3% used a moderately effective method (i.e., condoms alone), 6.1% used a less effective method, and 17.9% did not use any contraception (Figure). A trend toward increasing use of highly effective methods was noted from 1995 to 2006–2010. Estimates for 2006–2010 reflect a relative 26% increase in use of highly effective methods, 43% decrease for moderately effective methods, 27% increase for less effective methods, and 7% decrease for no method use compared with 1995.

During 2006–2010, white teens (65.7%) reported a higher prevalence of highly effective method use than black teens (46.5%) and Hispanic teens (53.7%) (Figure). Nonuse of any contraceptive method was significantly higher among blacks (25.6%) and Hispanics (23.7%) compared with whites (14.6%). Among whites, the use of highly effective methods increased from 48.9% in 1995 to 65.7% in 2006–2010 (34% relative increase). Smaller increases were observed for Hispanics (19% relative increase) and blacks (4% relative increase). Method nonuse among whites decreased from 18.1% in 1995 to 14.6% in 2006–2010 (19% decline); however, rates increased among blacks from 21.4% in 1995 to 25.6% in 2006–2010 (20% increase). For females aged 15–17 years, the use of highly effective methods increased from 46.0% during 1995 to 56.5% during 2006–2010 (23% increase). For females aged 18–19 years, the use of highly effective methods increased from 48.4% during 1995 to 61.8% during 2006–2010 (28% increase). Rates of nonuse among younger teens declined from 23.9% to 19.5% (19% decline) but remained relatively stable for older teens at 16.3% in 1995 and 16.9% during 2006–2010.

Reported by

Crystal Pirtle Tyler, PhD, Lee Warner, PhD, Joan Marie Kraft, PhD, Alison Spitz, MPH, Lorrie Gavin, PhD, Violanda Grigorescu, MD, Carla White, MPH, Wanda Barfield, MD, Div of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC. Corresponding contributor:Crystal Pirtle Tyler, ctyler@cdc.gov, 770-488-5200.

Editorial Note

In 2010, the U.S. teen birth rate declined to the lowest level in seven decades of reporting and reached record lows for teens of all racial/ethnic and age groups (1). Declines since 1995 likely reflect significant increases in the proportion of female teens who were abstinent, and among sexually experienced female teens, increases in the proportion using highly effective contraception (5).

The proportion of female teens who never have had sex is now comparable across racial/ethnic groups, largely because of proportionately larger increases in delayed sexual debut observed since 1995 among black teens and Hispanic teens compared with white teens. Disparities persist, however, in the use of highly effective methods of contraception. Use of these methods remains highest among white teens, and increases over time have occurred at a greater rate among whites compared with blacks and Hispanics.

Achieving the HealthyPeople 2020 objective† of reducing teen pregnancy by 10% will require a comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive health that includes continued promotion of delayed sexual debut and increased use of highly effective contraception among sexually experienced teens. Condoms, the method used by many teens, can provide effective protection against unintended pregnancy when used consistently and correctly; however, during 2006–2010, only about half (49%) of female teens who used a condom for contraception reported consistent use in the past month (6). Dual use of condoms with a highly effective method of contraception can provide pregnancy protection with the added benefit of preventing sexually transmitted infections, including infection with human immunodeficiency virus, which affects teens disproportionately. Given that hormonal contraception and IUDs can be obtained only from a health-care provider, yearly reproductive health visits for teens who are sexually experienced or contemplating sexual activity can facilitate discussions about the advantages of delaying sexual debut, access to contraception, and the subsequent reduction of teen pregnancy (7,8).

An analysis of data from CDC’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System on female teens who had delivered a live infant within 2–6 months and reported that their pregnancy was unintended found that half were not using contraception when they got pregnant (9). Ways to reduce barriers to decrease teen pregnancy include encouraging teens to delay sexual debut, offering teens convenient practice hours, culturally competent and confidential counseling and services, and low-cost or free services and methods.

The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, estimates of contraceptive use are self-reported; however, NSFG was designed specifically to minimize potential sources of response error (4). Second, current use of a contraceptive method during the interview month does not necessarily reflect sustained use over time. Finally, data were not available to examine current sexual activity or contraceptive use among female teens aged <15 years, who accounted for 4,500 births in 2010 (1).

Several actions can be taken to reduce teen pregnancy further. Schools and community- based organizations can 1) provide evidence-based sexual and reproductive health education,§ 2) support parents’ efforts to speak with their children about advantages of delaying sexual debut and of delaying pregnancy, and 3) connect teens to health-care providers for reproductive health services. Health-care providers should be informed that no contraceptive method is contraindicated for teens solely on the basis of age (10) and encouraged to promote highly effective contraception, preferably with the dual use of condoms. Teen pregnancy might be reduced further if health-care professionals provide culturally competent, evidence-based sexual and reproductive health counseling on the importance of correct and consistent use of contraception, and offer an array of contraceptive methods to teens who have had sex or are about to initiate sexual activity.

Acknowledgments

Gladys M. Martinez, PhD, Stephanie J. Ventura, MA, Joyce C. Abma, PhD, Div of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics; John M. Douglas, Jr, MD, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, CDC.

References

  1. Hamilton BE, Martin JA, Ventura SJ. Births: preliminary data for 2010. Natl Vital Stat Rep 2011;60(2).
  2. United Nations. Demographic yearbook 2009. New York, NY: United Nations; 2010. Available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/dyb/dyb2.htmExternal Web Site Icon. Accessed February 28, 2012.
  3. Trussell J. Contraceptive failure in the United States. Contraception 2011;83:397–404.
  4. Groves RM, Mosher WD, Lepkowski J, Kirgis NG. Planning and development of he continuous National Survey of Family Growth. Vital Health Stat 2009;1(48).
  5. Santelli JS, Lindberg LD, Finer LB, Singh S. Explaining recent declines in adolescent pregnancy in the United States: the contribution of abstinence and improved contraceptive use. Am J Public Health 2007;97:150–6.
  6. Martinez G, Copen CE, Abma JC. Teenagers in the United States: sexual activity, contraceptive use, and childbearing, 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth. Vital Health Stat 2011;23(31).
  7. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Committee on Adolescent Health. The initial reproductive health visit. Committee opinion no. 460. Obstet Gynecol 2010;116:240–3.
  8. Hagan JF, Shaw JS, Duncan PM. Bright futures: guidelines for health supervision of infants, children and adolescents. 3rd ed. Elk Grove Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics; 2008.
  9. CDC. Prepregnancy contraceptive use among teens with unintended pregnancies resulting in live births—Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), 2004–2008. MMWR 2012;61:25–9.
  10. CDC. U.S. medical eligibility criteria for contraceptive use, 2010. MMWR 2010;59(No. RR-4).

* Persons identified as Hispanic might be of any race; persons in all other racial/ethnic categories are non-Hispanic.

† Objective FP-8, available at http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/pdfs/familyplanning.pdf Adobe PDF fileExternal Web Site Icon.

§ The Community Preventive Services Task Force recommends comprehensive risk reduction interventions. Additional information is available at http://www.thecommunityguide.org/news/2012/crrandaeinterventions.htmlExternal Web Site Icon

For a good summary of the report, More teens using condoms over past two decades http://www.wtop.com/267/2955744/US-targets-AIDS-stigma

In Talking to kids about sex, early and often, moi said: 

The blog discussed the impact of careless, uninformed, and/or reckless sex in the post, A baby changes everything: Helping parents finish school http://us.mg5.mail.yahoo.com/2011/12/26/a-baby-changes-everything-helping-parents-finish-school/ Let’s continue the discussion. Some folks may be great friends, homies, girlfriends, and dudes, but they make lousy parents. Could be they are at a point in their life where they are too selfish to think of anyone other than themselves, they could be busy with school, work, or whatever. No matter the reason, they are not ready and should not be parents. Birth control methods are not 100% effective, but the available options are 100% ineffective in people who are sexually active and not using birth control. So, if you are sexually active and you have not paid a visit to Planned Parenthood or some other agency, then you are not only irresponsible, you are Eeeevil. Why do I say that? You are playing “Russian Roulette” with the life of another human being, the child. You should not ever put yourself in the position of bringing a child into the world that you are unprepared to parent, emotionally, financially, and with a commitment of time. So, if you find yourself in a what do I do moment and are pregnant, you should consider adoption. Before reaching that fork in the road of what to do about an unplanned pregnancy, parents must talk to their children about sex and they must explain their values to their children. They must explain why they have those values as well.  https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/talking-to-kids-about-sex-early-and-often/

Related:

Study: Girls as young as six think of themselves as sex objects        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/study-girls-as-young-as-six-think-of-themselves-as-sex-objects/

Study: Low-income populations and marriage https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/study-low-income-populations-and-marriage/

Title IX also mandates access to education for pregnant students https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/title-ix-also-mandates-access-to-education-for-pregnant-students/

Teaching kids that babies are not delivered by UPS                       https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/teaching-kids-that-babies-are-not-delivered-by-ups/

Talking to your teen about risky behaviors                https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/talking-to-your-teen-about-risky-behaviors/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Important Harvard report about U.S. student achievement ranking

23 Jul

More and more, individuals with gravitas are opining about the American education system for reasons ranging from national security to economic competitiveness. In Condoleezza Rice and Joel Klein report about American Education, moi wrote:

The Council on Foreign Relations has issued the report, U.S. Education Reform and National Security. The chairs for the report are Joel I. Klein, News Corporation and Condoleezza Rice, Stanford University. Moi opined about the state of education in U.S. education failure: Running out of excuses https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/u-s-education-failure-running-out-of-excuses/ Education tends to be populated by idealists and dreamers who are true believers and who think of what is possible. Otherwise, why would one look at children in second grade and think one of those children could win the Nobel Prize or be president? Maybe, that is why education as a discipline is so prone to fads and the constant quest for the “Holy Grail” or the next, next magic bullet. There is no one answer, there is what works for a particular population of kids. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/condoleezza-rice-and-joel-klein-report-about-american-education/

Citation:

U.S. Education Reform and National Security

Publisher Council on Foreign Relations Press

Release Date March 2012

Price $15.00

108 pages
ISBN 978-0-87609-520-1
Task Force Report No. 68

Related:

Joy Resmovits of Huffington Post,Schools Report: Failing To Prepare Students Hurts National Security, Prosperity http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/schools-report-condoleezza-rice-joel-klein_n_1365144.html Now, there is another report, “Is the United States Catching Up? International and state trends in student achievement,” will be released by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG).  Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann conducted the study, which is available at www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/.  An article based on the report will appear in the Fall issue of Education Next and is available online at www.educationnext.org.

Here is the press release for Achievement Growth: International and U.S. State Trends in Student Performance:

CONTACT:

Paul E. Peterson (617) 495-8312 pepeters@fas.harvard.edu Harvard University
Eric A. Hanushek  hanushek@stanford.edu Stanford University
Ludger Woessmann  woessmann@ifo.de University of Munich
Janice B. Riddell  (203) 912-8675  janice_riddell@hks.harvard.edu External Relations, Education Next

Student Achievement Gains in U.S. Fail to Close International Achievement Gap

U.S. ranks 25th out of 49 countries in student test-score gains over 14-year period, report 3 scholars at Harvard, Stanford and the University of Munich

CAMBRIDGE, MA – A new study of international and U.S. state trends in student achievement growth shows that the United States is squarely in the middle of a group of 49 nations in 4th and 8th grade test score gains in math, reading, and science over the period 1995-2009.

Students in three countries – Latvia, Chile, and Brazil – are improving at a rate of 4 percent of a standard deviation annually, roughly two years’ worth of learning or nearly three times that of the United States.  Students in another eight countries – Portugal, Hong Kong, Germany, Poland, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Colombia, and Lithuania – are making gains at twice the rate of U.S. students.

The report, “Is the United States Catching Up? International and state trends in student achievement,” will be released by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG).  Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann conducted the study, which is available at www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/.  An article based on the report will appear in the Fall issue of Education Next and is available online at www.educationnext.org.

Compared to gains made by students in other countries, “progress within the United States is middling, not stellar,” notes Peterson, Harvard professor and PEPG director, with 24 countries trailing the U.S. rate of improvement and another 24 that appear to be improving at a faster rate.  While U.S. students’ performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests improved in absolute terms between 1995 and 2011, U.S. progress was not sufficiently rapid to allow it to catch up with the leaders of the industrialized world.

Rates of improvement varied among states.  Maryland had the steepest achievement growth trend, followed by Florida, Delaware, and Massachusetts.  Between 1992 and 2011, these states posted growth rates of 3.1 to 3.3 percent of a standard deviation annually, well over a full year’s worth of learning during the time period. The U.S. average of 1.6 standard deviations was about half that of the top states.

The other six states among the top ten improvers were Louisiana, South Carolina, New Jersey, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Virginia.  States with the largest gains are improving at two to three times the rate of states with the smallest gains – such as Iowa, Maine, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.

The study raises questions about education goal setting in the United States, which “has often been utopian rather than realistic,” according to Eric Hanushek, who cites the 1990 Governors’ goal calling for the U.S. to be “first in the world in math and science by 2000” as an example.  More realistic expectations would call for states to move closer to annual growth rates of the most-improving states.  These gains would, over a 15-20 year period, “bring the United States within the range of the world’s leaders.”

Other findings include:

  • States in which students improved the most overall were also the states that had the largest percent reduction in students with very low achievement.
  • Southern states, which began to adopt education reform measures in the 1990s, outpaced Midwestern states, where school reform made little headway until very recently.  Five of the top 10 states were in the South and no southern states were in the bottom 18.
  • No significant correlation was found between increased spending on education and test score gains.  For example, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey posted large gains in student performance after boosting spending, but New York, Wyoming, and West Virginia had only marginal test-score gains to show from increased expenditures.

International results are based on 28 administrations of comparable math, science, and reading tests over the period 1995-2009.  The authors adjusted both the mean and the standard deviation of each international test, allowing them to estimate trends on the international tests on a common scale normed to the 2000 NAEP tests.  Student performance on 36 administrations of math, reading, and science tests in 41 U.S. states was examined over a 19-year period (1992-2011), allowing for a comparison of these states with each other.  For more information on the study and its methodology, please see an unabridged version of the report, which are available at www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/ and at www.educationnext.org.

About the Authors

Eric A. Hanushek is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard and director of Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance.  Ludger Woessmann is head of the Department of Human Capital and Innovation at the Ifo Institute at the University of Munich.  The authors are available for interviews.

About Education Next

Education Next is a scholarly journal published by the Hoover Institution that is committed to looking at hard facts about school reform.  Other sponsoring institutions are the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance, part of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

For more information on the Program on Education Policy and Governance contact Antonio Wendland at 617-495-7976, pepg_administrator@hks.harvard.edu, or visit www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg.

Citation:

Achievement Growth:

International and U.S. State Trends in Student Performance

by Eric A. HanushekPaul E. Peterson Ludger Woessmann

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG12-03_CatchingUp.pdf

See, U.S. Students Still Lag Behind Foreign Peers, Schools Make Little Progress In Improving Achievement http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/us-students-still-lag-beh_n_1695516.html?utm_hp_ref=education

Here is a portion of the concluding remarks from page 21:

The failure of the United States to close the international test-score gap, despite assiduous public assertions that every effort would be undertaken to produce that objective, raises questions about the nation’s overall reform strategy. Education goal setting in the United States has often been utopian rather than realistic. In 1990, the president and the nation’s governors announced the goal that all American students should graduate from high school, but two decades later only 75 percent of 9th-graders received their diploma within four years after entering high school. In 2002, Congress passed a law that declared that all students in all grades shall be proficient in math, reading, and science by 2014, but in 2012 most observers found that goal utterly beyond reach. Currently, the U.S. Department of Education has committed itself to ensuring that all students shall be college or career ready as they cross the stage on their high-school graduation day, another overly ambitious goal.

Perhaps the most unrealistic goal was that of the governors in 1990 when they called for the United States to achieve number-one ranking in the world in math and science by 2000. As this study shows, the United States is neither first nor is it catching up.

Consider a more realistic set of objectives for education policymakers, one that comes from our experience. If all U.S. states could increase their performance at the same rate as the highest-growth states—Maryland, Florida, Delaware, and Massachusetts—the U.S. improvement rate would be lifted by 1.5 percentage points of a std. dev. annually above the current trend line. Since student performance can improve at that rate in some countries and in some states, then, in principle, such gains can be made more generally. Those gains might seem small, but when viewed over two decades they accumulate to 30 percent of a std. dev., enough to bring the United States within the range of the world’s leaders—unless, of course, they, too, continue to improve.

Such progress need not come at the expense of either the lowest-performing or the highest-performing students. In most states, a rising tide lifted all boats. Only in a few instances did the tide rise while leaving a disproportionate number stuck at the bottom, and most, if not all of the time, the high flyers moved ahead as well.

The increased rate of poverty has profound implications if this society believes that ALL children have the right to a good basic education. Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Because children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of societies’ problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. There is a lot of economic stress in the country now because of unemployment and underemployment. Children feel the stress of their parents and they worry about how stable their family and living situation is.

Teachers and schools have been made TOTALLY responsible for the education outcome of the children, many of whom come to school not ready to learn and who reside in families that for a variety of reasons cannot support their education. All children are capable of learning, but a one-size-fits-all approach does not serve all children well. Different populations of children will require different strategies and some children will require remedial help, early intervention, and family support to achieve their education goals.

Related:

Report from Center for American Progress report: Kids say school is too easy                                              https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/report-from-center-for-american-progress-report-kids-say-school-is-too-easy/

Complete College America report: The failure of remediation https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/complete-college-america-report-the-failure-of-remediation/

Book: Inequality in America affects education outcome https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/book-inequality-in-america-affects-education-outcome/

What exactly are the education practices of top-performing nations?                                       http://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/what-exactly-are-the-education-practices-of-top-performing-nations/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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The teacher master’s degree and student achievement

23 Jul

In Education Trust report: Retaining teachers in high-poverty areas, moi said:

Every population of kids is different and they arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Schools and teachers must be accountable, but there should be various measures of judging teacher effectiveness for a particular population of children. Perhaps, more time and effort should be spent in developing a strong principal corps and giving principals the training and assistance in evaluation and mentoring techniques.

The Ed Trust report, entitled “Building and Sustaining Talent: Creating Conditions in High-Poverty Schools That Support Effective Teaching and Learning,” examines how several districts have handled the issue of teacher retention:

Specifically, districts should take the following steps:

• Recruit talented school leaders to their highest need schools, an get them to stay. In addition to the districts spotlighted earlier, the District of Columbia Public Schools has taken a rigorous approach to principal recruitment. The district scours student achievement data from school districts around the country (especially those close to D.C.) and then actively recruits principals of top-performing schools.

• Put in place teacher and school-leader evaluation systems that differentiate educator effectiveness in order to identify top performing teachers and leaders. Using these systems in conjunction with data on working conditions and attrition, districts can study which teachers are more and less satisfied, as well as which ones are staying and leaving — and why.

• Provide teachers in the highest need schools with meaningful professional growth and career ladders as well as opportunities to collaborate with other teachers, as Ascension Parish and Boston Public Schools have done.

• Avoid isolating their most effective teachers and, instead, build teams of highly effective teachers in the district’s most challenging schools, as both Boston Public Schools and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have done.

• Concentrate not just on recruiting new school leaders and teachers to high-need schools, but on developing the skills and instructional abilities of existing employees, as have Fresno and Ascension Parish.

• Implement a tool to measure teacher perceptions of their teaching environment, such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ working conditions survey, and then use data from the tool to identify target schools and determine primary issues that need to be addressed. For example, Pittsburgh Public Schools works with the New Teacher Center to implement a district-wide survey on working conditions. The district requires all schools to use the data to identify a plan of action and pays special attention to the plans of schools with the poorest survey results to ensure that the planned interventions align with the identified areas of need.

• Once better evaluations are in place, districts should make working conditions data part of school and district-leader evaluations. North Carolina requires that survey data on working conditions are factored into school-leader evaluations, which encourages leaders to take the survey results seriously and to act on areas identified as needing improvement.

CONCLUSION

To date, the conditions that shape teachers’ daily professional lives have not been given the attention they deserve. Too often, a lack of attention to these factors in our highest poverty and lowest performing schools results in environments in which few educators would choose to stay. For too long, the high levels of staff dissatisfaction and turnover that characterize these schools have been erroneously attributed to their students. But research continues to demonstrate that students are not the problem. What matters most are the conditions for teaching and learning. Districts and states have an obligation to examine and act on these conditions. Otherwise, we will never make the progress that we must make to ensure all low-income students and students of color have access to great teachers.                                                                                                                                http://www.edtrust.org/sites/edtrust.org/files/Building_and_Sustaining_Talent.pdf

Melanie Smollin has an excellent post at Take Part, Five Reasons Why Teacher Turnover Is On The Rise See, Report: Make Improving Teacher Working Conditions a Priority http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2012/06/report_make_improving_teacher_working_conditions_a_priority.html

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/education-trust-report-retaining-teachers-in-high-poverty-areas/

The Center for American Progress has released the report, The Sheepskin Effect and Student Achievement: De-emphasizing the Role of Master’s Degrees in Teacher Compensation written by Raegen Miller and Marguerite Roza.

Miller and Roza write in the issue brief:

All teachers in Finland have a master’s degree, and they get extraordinary results from their students. If we want be(er results in U.S. schools, then, we should require teachers to have a master’s degree, so the argument goes.

But this argument has two fatal flaws. First, teachers in Finland hail from the top 10 percent of their graduating class.25 “is selectivity is woven into a set of policies that Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at Stanford University, has astutely described as a “teaching and learning system.”26 “e Finnish system could scarcely be more diferent than our domestic grab bag of policies arising from approximately 15,000 separate school districts carrying out their responsibility to provide public education, variously conceived by the diverse states of a country with an unmatched tolerance, at least among wealthy industrialized nations, for inequity in school funding and facilities.

Secondly, Finnish teachers hold master’s degrees that augment their knowledge and skills in a way that’s deliberately connected to their instructional challenges. Secondary teachers earn a master’s in the subject of instruction, and the master’s degree required of elementary teachers equips them with specialized knowledge and skills often found only among special education teachers and school psychologists in U.S. schools. “us, holding master’s degrees means Finnish teachers either have a serious grasp on academic content or are well equipped to problem solve around the individual learning needs of their students.

“The typical master’s degree held by a U.S. teacher and the associated skills a(ached pale in comparison. Moreover, it’s unlikely to move in this direction barring a tectonic shift in the higher-education landscape. Institutions of higher education, of course, won’t be at the vanguard of efforts to repeal legislation that inflates demand for one of their most lucrative products, master’s degrees in education. In addition, it bears mentioning, for example, that Connecticut’s requirement that teachers seeking a professional license hold a master’s degree was unscathed by recent reform-conscious legislation in that state. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/07/pdf/miller_masters.pdf

In Is it true that the dumbest become teachers? Moi said:

There is a quote attributed to H.L. Mencken:

Those who can — do. Those who can’t — teach.

People often assume that if a person could do anything else, they probably wouldn’t teach. Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. has an interesting article in the Washington Post.

In Do teachers really come from the ‘bottom third’ of college graduates? Di Carlo writes:

The conventional wisdom among many education commentators is that U.S. public school teachers “come from the bottom third” of their classes. Most recently, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took this talking point a step further, and asserted at a press conference last week that teachers are drawn from the bottom 20 percent of graduates…

Overall, then, the blanket assertion that teachers are coming from the “bottom third” of graduates is, at best, an incomplete picture. It’s certainly true that, when the terciles are defined in terms of SAT/ACT scores, there is consistent evidence that new teachers are disproportionately represented in this group (see here and here for examples from the academic literature).

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/do-teachers-really-come-from-the-bottom-third-of-college-graduates/2011/12/07/gIQAg8HPdO_blog.html

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/is-it-true-that-the-dumbest-become-teachers/

There isn’t really a definitive answer. Miller and Roza’s analysis of the importance of the masters degree in Finland means that more training might be useful in student education achievement.

Related:

Urban teacher residencies                                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/urban-teacher-residencies/

Study: When teachers overcompensate for prejudice https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/study-when-teachers-overcompensate-for-prejudice/

The teaching profession needs more males and teachers of color https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/the-teaching-profession-needs-more-males-and-teachers-of-color/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Single-sex classrooms should be allowed in public schools

22 Jul

Moi says repeatedly at this blog that there is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education, there is what works to produce academic achievement in a given population of children. The American Civil Liberties Union and their minions are gunning for single-sex classes in public schools. They should cease and desist.

Denise Williams had a hit with a catchy little tune, “let’s hear it for the boy.” The question for many parents and schools is how are boys doing? Time summarized the issue of the “boy crisis.” Boy Crisis

There was, for example, Harvard psychologist William Pollack’s Real Boys (1998), which asserted that contemporary boys are “scared and disconnected,” “severely lagging” behind girls in both achievement and self-confidence. The following year, journalist Susan Faludi argued in Stiffed that the cold calculus of global economics was emasculating American men. In 2000 philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers blamed off-the-rails feminism for sparking The War Against Boys, and two years later writer Elizabeth Gilbert found The Last American Man living in a teepee in the Appalachian Mountains.

The Seattle Times reported on the study by the respected women’s group AmericanAssociation of University Women (AAUW) AAUW Report

Both boys and girls are doing better in school, so there’s no reason to fear that school systems favor girls at boys’ expense, a women’s advocacy group says in a study to be released today.

It’s the freshest argument in the boys vs. girls debate in education, one in which the group, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), has been a major player. Having said in an influential 1992 study that the education system worked against girls, it now argues that the real crisis is racial and economic disparities, not gender. “The mythology of the boy crisis continues to be influential,” said Catherine Hill, the association’s director of research. One reason, she added, is that “people feel uncomfortable with the success of girls and women.”

Some readers might be thinking, a women’s group declaring there is no crisis. Right. Is there a crisis or a problem with boys? For every book, report, or study citing the difficulties that some boys are having, there is another book or study that questions the findings. Vanderbilt University researchers conducted a study of how boys and girls differ in some activities. Vanderbilt Study According to the Vanderbilt study, girls have an advantage over boys in timed tests and tasks. That finding is significant because many classroom activities are timed. A good summary of gender issues is provided by the Kansas Education Association.Gender and Achievement Issues

Boys Barriers to Learning and Achievement

Gary Wilson has a thoughtful article about some of the learning challenges faced by boys. Boys Barriers to Learning He lists several barriers to learning in his article.

1. Early years

a. Language development problems

b. Listening skills development

2. Writing skills and learning outcomes

A significant barrier to many boys’ learning, that begins at quite an early age and often never leaves them, is the perception that most writing that they are expected to do is largely irrelevant and unimportant….

3. Gender bias

Gender bias in everything from resources to teacher expectations has the potential to present further barriers to boys’ learning. None more so than the gender bias evident in the ways in which we talk to boys and talk to girls. We need to be ever mindful of the frequency, the nature and the quality of our interactions with boys and our interactions with girls in the classroom….A potential mismatch of teaching and learning styles to boys’ preferred ways of working continues to be a barrier for many boys….

4.Reflection and evaluation

The process of reflection is a weakness in many boys, presenting them with perhaps one of the biggest barriers of all. The inability of many boys to, for example, write evaluations, effectively stems from this weakness….

5. Self-esteem issues

Low self-esteem is clearly a very significant barrier to many boys’ achievement in school. If we were to think of the perfect time to de-motivate boys, when would that be? Some might say in the early years of education when many get their first unwelcome and never forgotten taste of failure might believe in the system… and themselves, for a while, but not for long….

6. Peer pressure

Peer pressure, or the anti-swot culture, is clearly a major barrier to many boys’ achievement. Those lucky enough to avoid it tend to be good academically, but also good at sport. This gives them a licence to work hard as they can also be ‘one of the lads’. …To me one of the most significant elements of peer pressure for boys is the impact it has on the more affective domains of the curriculum, namely expressive, creative and performing arts. It takes a lot of courage for a boy to turn up for the first day at high school carrying a violin case….

7. Talk to them!

There are many barriers to boys’ learning (I’m currently saying 31, but I’m still working on it!) and an ever-increasing multitude of strategies that we can use to address them. I firmly believe that a close examination of a school’s own circumstances is the only way to progress through this maze and that the main starting point has to be with the boys themselves. They do know all the issues around their poor levels of achievement. Talk to them first. I also believe that one of the most important strategies is to let them know you’re ‘on their case’, talking to them provides this added bonus….

If your boy has achievement problems, Wilson emphasizes that there is no one answer to address the problems. There are issues that will be specific to each child.

Single Sex Classrooms

Wesley Sharpe offers the pros and cons of single sex classrooms. Single Sex Classrooms  in Seattle Child describes the atmosphere at O’Dea and reports that for some boys, this is an environment where they thrive. Seattle Child Some children have achievement problems and social adjustment problems. When other solutions have not yielded results, single sex classrooms are seen as a possible solution. The New York Times reports on single sex classrooms in the Bronx. Single Sex Classrooms

The single-sex classes at Public School 140, which started as an experiment last year to address sagging test scores and behavioral problems, are among at least 445 such classrooms nationwide, according to the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education. Most have sprouted since a 2004 federal regulatory change that gave public schools freedom to separate girls and boys.

The nation’s 95 single-sex public schools — including a dozen in New York City — while deemed legal, still have many critics. But separation by a hallway is generally more socially and politically palatable. And unlike other programs aimed at improving student performance, there is no extra cost.

“We will do whatever works, however we can get there,” said Paul Cannon, principal of P.S. 140, which is also known as the Eagle School. “We thought this would be another tool to try.”

Adam Cohen puts the focus on gender stereotypes in his Time article.

Cohen writes in the Time article, Ew, Boys: The Brewing Legal Battle Over Same-Sex Education:

The American Civil Liberties Union is on a vigorous campaign to integrate Mississippi’s public schools, making requests across the state to find out which have segregated classrooms and weighing whether or not to sue.

But the investigation isn’t about racial segregation — it’s about sex-segregation. Single-sex classrooms are a growing phenomenon across the country. In 2002, just about a dozen schools had them, but now as many as 500 do, according to the Associated Press. The movement shows no sign of slowing down and has set off a pair of debates: a pedagogical dispute over whether sex-segregation makes for better education, and a legal one — which the ACLU is at the center of — about whether this sort of separation violates civil rights laws. http://ideas.time.com/2012/07/16/ew-boys-the-brewing-legal-battle-over-same-sex-education/#ixzz21Pk94S00

Wilson and Cannon are correct in stating that there is no one solution to solving a child’s achievement problems and a variety of tools may prove useful. Whether there is a “boy crisis” can be debated. The research is literally all over the map and a variety of positions can find some study to validate that position. If your child has achievement and social adjustment problems, whether there is an overall crisis is irrelevant, you feel you are in a crisis situation. There is no one solution, be open to using a variety of tools and strategies.

So, how is your boy doing?

The ACLU is wrong on this one.

Resources:

NEA Debate: Do Students Learn Better In Same-Sex Classes?     http://www.nea.org/home/17276.htm

Single-sex education: the pros and cons     ttp://www.greatschools.org/find-a-school/defining-your-ideal/1139-single-sex-education-the-pros-and-cons.gs?page=all

Are Single-Sex Classrooms Better For Kids?                    http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141692830/are-single-sex-classrooms-better-for-kids

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Do intense high school programs help students?

22 Jul

Catherine Gewertz reports in the Education Week article, High School Rigor Narrows College-Success Gap

Students from some racial- and ethnic-minority groups and those from low-income families enroll in college and succeed there at lower rates than their white, wealthier peers. But a new study suggests that if teenagers are adequately prepared for college during high school, those gaps close substantially.

The “Mind the Gaps” study, by ACT, draws on the Iowa City, Iowa-based testmaker’s earlier research showing that taking a strong core curriculum in high school and meeting benchmark scores in all four subjects of the ACT college-entrance exam enhance students’ chances of enrolling in college, persisting there for a second year, earning good grades, and obtaining a two- or four-year degree.

The ACT defines a college-ready curriculum as four years of English, and at least three each of mathematics, science, and social studies. The study found that “college-ready” scores on the ACT exam correlate with earning good grades in entry-level, credit-bearing college courses. Fewer than one-quarter of students currently meet those benchmarks in all four subject areas of the exam, however. (“Rate of Minorities Taking ACT Continues to Rise,” Aug. 25, 2010.)

A lot of the foundation for success in high school is built by a solid grounding in the basics during elementary school and that is where we are failing a lot of children.

Joel Vargas has an excellent article in Education Week, Early-College High Schools: ‘Why Not Do It for All the Kids?’

Hidalgo, Texas, has one of the most successful school systems in the United States. The dropout rate is nearly zero, and the high school regularly lands on a top-school list published by U.S. News & World Report. Last June, when members of the high school graduating class crossed the stage to receive their diplomas, 95 percent of them could proudly point to their college credits as well. Two-thirds of the graduating seniors had earned at least a full semester of credits toward a college degree.

It’s time for the nation to pay attention when any community boasts results like these. These are especially remarkable in one of the most economically depressed areas of the United States, just across the Rio Grande River from Mexico, with one of the lowest number of college-educated adults. Nine out of 10 students in the high school are considered economically disadvantaged, 99.5 percent are Hispanic, and 53 percent entered with limited proficiency in English.

The story of Hidalgo is not only one of success, but of turning around an entire school district. In the late 1980s, student achievement in Hidalgo ranked in the bottom 10 percent in Texas. But local leaders took giant steps to improve student performance, and they gained support from every segment of the surrounding community. Over the next two decades, everyone—from bus drivers to principals, from teachers to school board members—began to focus on doing what it takes to raise the achievement levels of all 3,500 young people in the Hidalgo schools.

“You can’t be afraid of change,” says school board President Martin Cepeda. “It starts from the superintendent all the way to the custodians. … Everybody counts. Everybody.”

One key to the turnaround came when Daniel King, the superintendent of the school district at the time, enlisted four partners: the University of Texas-Pan American, the University of Texas System, the Communities Foundation of Texas/Texas High School Project, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Together, the partnership formulated an innovative plan to create an “early-college high school.”

“Over the next two decades, everyone—from bus drivers to principals, from teachers to school board members—began to focus on doing what it takes to raise the achievement levels of all 3,500 young people in the Hidalgo schools.”

The early-college design is a vehicle for providing traditionally underserved students with an opportunity to earn a substantial number of college credits along with a high school diploma. Students spend fewer years and less money achieving a college credential. Hidalgo took this cutting-edge idea and extended it: By embedding a college and career culture in everyday activities, from elementary school through middle school and into high school, the school system motivates all of its students to believe that they can and will go on to postsecondary education.

The Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University has an interesting report by Katherine L. Hughes, Olga Rodriguez, Linsey Edwards, and Clive Belfield

Here are the policy recommendations of Broadening the Benefits of Dual Enrollment:

Policy Recommendations

Policymakers and community leaders can build on the lessons learned from the Concurrent Courses initiative and further reduce the barriers to program development and student participation. Based on the experience and outcomes attained in high schools and colleges across California, here are three high-value recommendations for state policymakers.

• Remove funding penalties: To encourage dual enrollment, California should adopt a “hold harmless” funding model for dual enrollment, in which neither participating institution loses any ofits per-pupil funding for dually-enrolled students. State policy should also require, rather than allow, colleges to waive student fees.

• Make dual credit earning consistent and portable: State policy should mandate that dualenrollment students automatically earn dual credit — both high school and college credit — forcollege courses they complete. In addition, a statewide system that facilitates the portability of college credits would ease student transfer and help ensure that students do not repeat courses theyhave already taken. This would benefit all California college students.

• Standardize broad student eligibility: At present, California policy sets no statewide academic

eligibility criteria for dual enrollment participation but stipulates that participating colleges may do so. Following the standard of student eligibility for community colleges, the state should encourage broad access and prevent students from being disqualified by grades or test scores alone. The experience of dual enrollment implementation partners leads to five recommendations for institutions.

• Continue to make dual enrollment available on both the high school and college campuses.Courses on the college campus provide a fuller and more authentic college experience; college opportunities must also be available at high school for students who lack transportation.

• Explore ways to ensure authenticity of the high school-based program format. Courses delivered at high school must have the same rigor and quality as college campus-based courses, andstudents must be held to the same standards of achievement as those in campus-based programs.

• Provide professional development to dual enrollment instructors. High school teachers mayneed greater assistance in creating a college-like atmosphere, and college instructors may need insights into scaffolding and other pedagogical strategies to support high school students.

• Identify dedicated college staff to smooth logistical challenges. In particular, colleges should identify a student services staff member knowledgeable about and responsible for registration of dual enrollment students.

• Obtain student consent to share college records. High school administrators and counselors need to be aware of how students are doing in their college coursework; monitoring progress is essential to providing needed interventions.          http://www.concurrentcourses.org/files/CCI_policy_brief_2012jul16.pdf

Citation:

Broadening the Benefits of Dual Enrollment

By: Katherine L. Hughes, Olga Rodriguez, Linsey Edwards & Clive Belfield — July 2012. New York: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University

This study suggests that career-focused dual enrollment programs—in which high school students take college courses for credit—can benefit underachieving students and those underrepresented in higher education. The study found that California students who participated in dual enrollment as part of their high school career pathway were more likely than similar students in their districts to graduate from high school, enroll in four-year colleges, and persist in college. They also accumulated more college credits and were less likely to take remedial classes. The three-year study, funded by The James Irvine Foundation, examined the outcomes of almost 3,000 students participating in eight dual enrollment programs across California. Sixty percent of participants were students of color, forty percent came from non-English speaking homes, and one third had parents with no prior college experience.
–A practitioner brief and a policy brief are available at: http://www.concurrentcourses.org/publications.html.

–Read the technical report at: http://www.postsecondaryresearch.org/index.html?Id=News&Info=New+NCPR+Working+Paper+on+Outcomes+for+Dual+Enrollment+Students.

As with anything there are pros and cons for each student regarding whether a dual enrollment program should be part of their school experience.

Studypoint has a great article, Dual Enrollment Programs: The Pros and Cons:

There are a number of benefits to dual-enrollment programs. Earning college credit while still in high school sounds like a dream for many students. In addition, these programs introduce students to the rigors of college coursework early, and recent studies have shown that students who participate in dual-enrollment programs are more likely go on to get a college degree. But is dual enrollment right for your child?

Why Should My Child Consider a Dual-Enrollment Program?

  • Dual enrollment gives students an idea of what full-time college coursework will be like, says ecampustours.com. By trying out a few classes while still in high school, your child can get used to the academic environment before he or she leaves the comfort and support of home.
  • Your child may be able to take classes that aren’t offered at his or her high school.
  • College courses can give your student a closer look at his or her area of academic interest. If your child is currently loving AP history, a college course next year on the Civil War or the Great Depression will help him or her explore that period in greater depth and precision.
  • According to collegeboard.com, most students change their majors at least once. Taking a college class as a high school senior can help your child find his or her area of interest before the pressure is on to declare a major.
  • If your student didn’t qualify to take AP courses, or if those courses weren’t available at your child’s high school, taking a college-level class will help him or her demonstrate the ability to handle more difficult coursework, according to ecampustours.com. This ability is something every college admissions officer wants to see.
  • Due to the large number of online and virtual classes offered by many schools, dual-enrollment courses may be conducted right at your child’s high school, says ecampustours.com. Ask your student’s guidance counselor about dual-enrollment options in your area.
  • Perhaps the biggest benefit of dual enrollment is that your student may start accumulating college credits, helping him or her graduate on time or even early.

Dual Enrollment Sounds Great! Is There Any Reason My Child Shouldn’t Participate?

  • If a course is already available at your child’s school, it might be best to take it there. Colleges may wonder why a student has chosen to take an intro class at a community college if there’s an AP class in the same subject available at the high school level. (High school AP classes may well prove more challenging than an intro-level college course.) If the college course won’t give your student something above and beyond what’s available at his or her high school, take a pass.
  • If a college class will interfere with your child’s regular coursework or extracurriculars, it may not be a good idea. A college course should enhance a student’s resume, but not at the expense of other resume-enhancing activities. When considering scheduling, be sure to take into account not just the normal class schedule but breaks as well, cautions Nevada’s Great Basin College; your local high school and community college may not operate on the same academic calendar. A different holiday schedule could cause conflicts with class trips, family vacations, or out-of-town athletic commitments.
  • A college course in music appreciation is a great resume booster—as long as your child plans to go into music. If he or she is planning a career in chemistry, the music class won’t help, and could raise questions about the academic rigor of your child’s senior year courses. Carefully consider the academic value of any class your child is considering.
  • Dual-enrollment courses are real college courses for real college credit; the grades will go on your student’s permanent record. Before enrolling, make sure your student is ready for the demanding work a college class will require, or it could hurt his or her chances at college acceptance down the line, recommends Florida’s Valencia Community College. Furthermore, if a student fails a dual-enrollment course, it could mean he or she won’t graduate high school on time.
  • If your child is considering a dual-enrollment program for the purpose of earning college credits, be sure of the value of the credits. For each college where your child may apply next year, check to see how many credits (if any) a dual-enrollment class would earn your child. The credit policy will depend on the school.

Where Should We Start?

  • Rules for dual-enrollment eligibility vary from state to state, so students should check with their high school guidance counselors to find out if they qualify, says ecampustours.com. Usually, students must be at least 16 years old and have a GPA of at least 2.5; they may also have to take placement tests. Students will also need permission from parents/guardians and a guidance counselor or principal.
  • Your child’s guidance counselor will also be able to provide information about financial obligations. Many states pay for dual enrollment; in other states, students must pay. http://www.studypoint.com/ed/dual-enrollment/

In The GED as a door to the future, moi said:

This world is in a period of dislocation and upheaval as great as the period of dislocation which ushered in the “industrial revolution.” The phrase “new, new thing” comes from a book by Michael Lewis about innovation in Silicon Valley. This historical period is between “new, new things” as the economy hopes that some new innovator will harness “green technology” and make it commercially viable as the economy needs the jump that only a “new, new thing” will give it. Peter S. Goodman has a fascinating article in the New York Times, Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs

Unless, children are given a meaningful education which provides them with basic skills to adapt to a changing environment, the education system is producing a permanent underclass which will not be able to participate in the next “new, new thing. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/the-ged-as-a-door-to-the-future/

Resources:

Dual enrollment may not benefit every student http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30867913/ns/today-parenting_and_family/t/dual-enrollment-may-not-benefit-every-student/#.UAw88JFDS1R

Do high school dual-enrollment/AP classes push kids too far ahead in college? http://blogs.ajc.com/momania/2012/05/17/do-high-school-dual-enrollmentap-classes-push-kids-too-far-ahead-in-college/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Dress codes in school may pay dividends later

21 Jul

In Does what is worn in school matter?  Moi said:

Particularly in the elementary grades it is important that teachers model appropriate behavior and appropriate attire. Given the number of children in distressed circumstances in contemporary society, it is important that schools be one institution where appropriate behavior is modeled. Another purpose of a good basic education is to equip children with the skills and the ability to make choices about their life. It has been my observation that many in education, not all, like to “rage against the machine” or what they perceive to be the dominant political dynamic. That is their right during their off hours. If a child wants to grow up and lead JP Morgan Chase, that is THEIR choice and THEIR right as well. The teacher is there to equip the child with the skills to follow THEIR dream. Many children come from families and backgrounds who are not as equipped to nurture and promote the child’s dreams as other families are. All children deserve a chance and a teacher modeling professional dress is an important part of the education of these children.

Moi supposes that after “business casual” probably degenerated into P.J.s and flipflops, banking giant UBS put the brakes on and delivered a dress code to its employees. Huffington Post has a good synopsis of the code along with a link to the actual document at the post, UBS 43′ Page Dress Code Warns Employees Not to Show Underwear:                                                                            https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/dressing-for-success-in-school/

Apparently, too many folks on the job have no clue what is appropriate work attire. Melissa Korn writes in the Wall Street Journal article, What Not to Wear To Work:

A new survey shows U.S. adults expressing more outrage at scantily-clad co-workers this year than they did last year.

The   report, commissioned by temporary staffing firm Adecco and based on interviews with more than 1,000 U.S.  adults, found that 72% of Americans believe strapless or backless tops and dresses are “inappropriate for the workplace,” up from 66% (strapless) and 64% (backless) in June of last year.

Showing a little skin below the knee by wearing shorts, flip-flops or open-toed shoes is also a bigger no-no this year. Fifty-nine percent of respondents say shorts are inappropriate at the office, up from 55% last year. Meanwhile, 76% said flip-flops aren’t appropriate attire, up from 71%, and the percentage that disapproved of open-toed shoes in general increased to 35% from 31%.

Mini-skirts, while still meeting with disapproval by 69% of respondents, are slightly more acceptable this year than last year, when 70% said they were inappropriate.

Perhaps more surprising than the findings regarding workplace attire were the results of a question about offensive workplace activities. Forty-nine percent of survey respondents said they were offended when people clip or bite their nails at work. That means 51% actually aren’t offended when a colleague breaks out the clipper for some finger-and-toe grooming. (We beg to differ.)

Other habits respondents found offensive include taking your shoes off, putting on makeup and brushing your hair at work.    http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2012/07/20/work-wear-101-what-not-to-wear-to-work/?blog_id=226&post_id=228

It would be great if people were judged by what Dr. King described as the “content of their character,” but people are quite often judged by the clothes they are wearing.

Meds Available has some interesting thoughts about clothes in the article, What your Clothes Say about You:

The truth is, whatever reasons you may have for choosing your clothes says you are still trying to make a statement even if that statement is “I don’t care about fashion.”

But clothes is more than just the fashion trends. It is who you are and who you want to be.

Dressing your emotions

How you look on the outside reflects or affects how you feel on the inside. If you know you are wearing fashionably chic clothing, then you feel a little more confident than if you wore baggy ones. Subsequently, if you are wearing an ill-fitting dress, your actions will tell everyone that you are uncomfortable with what you’re wearing, which affects your confidence, performance, and mood.

Dressing for your future

How you carry yourself through your clothes can say who you want to be. For example, if you want to be a respectable lawyer, you would make it a point to dress in professional looking blazers and “power” outfits to serve as a constant reminder of what kind of person you are trying to be.

Dressing to Impress

How others view you based on your fashion sense also affects your mental health. The clothes you wear everyday can be used against you by judgmental people in the society. They use it as a yardstick to determine who they are talking to – whether they are talking to a “somebody” or a “nobody.” It is unfortunate that there are many people who are like that and teenagers are especially aware of the presence of these people that they easily believe they will only be hip enough for them if they are thin and trendy, solely based on the opinions of these people.

The sad part about this is that these teens, in spite of their better judgments, worship these people. They allow themselves to be swept by their mockeries and bullying, which lead them to depression, anorexia, or depression and anorexia. At some point, they may succeed in impressing these people with their clothing size and style, but when the curtains fall, they feel naked because what they are wearing are not their true colors.

Clothing is never a luxury but a necessity but not because it clothes and protects you from environment, but because you simply need to feel beautiful and special. You may or may not love fashion but you have to love what you wear.                                                                                http://medsavailable.com/articles/be-careful-of-what-you-wear-you-may-be-wearing-the-wrong-attitude

Often schools and public authorities are concerned about clothing worn by children at school because it may indicate gang affiliation or gang identity. See, Gang Identity http://www.gangfree.org/gangs_identity.html There are several reasons moi feels that all children deserve a good preschool and a good basic education. Those reasons center around the purpose of education which in addition to individual enrichment are the ability to understand and participate in the political process and the opportunity to acquire skills which will make them employable and able to care for themselves and their families.

Related:

Study: Girls as young as six think of themselves as sex objects                                                                                                     https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/study-girls-as-young-as-six-think-of-themselves-as-sex-objects/

Does what is worn in school matter?                                                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/does-what-is-worn-in-school-matter/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Data mining in education

19 Jul

Marc Parry has written a fascinating Chronicle of Higher Education article which was also published in the New York Times, Big Data on Campus:

With 72,000 students, A.S.U. is both the country’s largest public university and a hotbed of data-driven experiments. One core effort is a degree-monitoring system that keeps tabs on how students are doing in their majors. Stray off-course and a student may have to switch fields.

And while not exactly matchmaking, Arizona State takes an interest in students’ social lives, too. Its Facebook app mines profiles to suggest friends. One classmate shares eight things in common with Ms. Allisone, who “likes” education, photography and tattoos. Researchers are even trying to figure out social ties based on anonymized data culled from swipes of ID cards around the Tempe campus.

This is college life, quantified.

Data mining hinges on one reality about life on the Web: what you do there leaves behind a trail of digital breadcrumbs. Companies scoop those up to tailor services, like the matchmaking of eHarmony or the book recommendations of Amazon. Now colleges, eager to get students out the door more efficiently, are awakening to the opportunities of so-called Big Data.

The new breed of software can predict how well students will do before they even set foot in the classroom. It recommends courses, Netflix-style, based on students’ academic records.

Data diggers hope to improve an education system in which professors often fly blind. That’s a particular problem in introductory-level courses, says Carol A. Twigg, president of the National Center for Academic Transformation. “The typical class, the professor rattles on in front of the class,” she says. “They give a midterm exam. Half the kids fail. Half the kids drop out. And they have no idea what’s going on with their students.”

As more of this technology comes online, it raises new tensions. What role does a professor play when an algorithm recommends the next lesson? If colleges can predict failure, should they steer students away from challenges? When paths are so tailored, do campuses cease to be places of exploration? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/education/edlife/colleges-awakening-to-the-opportunities-of-data-mining.html?emc=eta1

For a really good explanation of “data mining” go to Alexander Furnas’ Atlantic article.

In Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask, Furnas writes:

To most of us data mining goes something like this: tons of data is collected, then quant wizards work their arcane magic, and then they know all of this amazing stuff. But, how? And what types of things can they know? Here is the truth: despite the fact that the specific technical functioning of data mining algorithms is quite complex — they are a black box unless you are a professional statistician or computer scientist — the uses and capabilities of these approaches are, in fact, quite comprehensible and intuitive.

For the most part, data mining tells us about very large and complex data sets, the kinds of information that would be readily apparent about small and simple things. For example, it can tell us that “one of these things is not like the other” a la Sesame Street or it can show us categories and then sort things into pre-determined categories. But what’s simple with 5 datapoints is not so simple with 5 billion datapoints….

Discovering information from data takes two major forms: description and prediction. At the scale we are talking about, it is hard to know what the data shows. Data mining is used to simplify and summarize the data in a manner that we can understand, and then allow us to infer things about specific cases based on the patterns we have observed. Of course, specific applications of data mining methods are limited by the data and computing power available, and are tailored for specific needs and goals. However, there are several main types of pattern detection that are commonly used. These general forms illustrate what data mining can do. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-data-mining-but-were-afraid-to-ask/255388/

With the ability to collect vast amounts of information comes the question of what about privacy and what is the definition of privacy?

Ljiljana Brankovic and Vladimir Estivill-Castro discuss privacy issues in Privacy Issues in Knowledge Discovery:

Recent developments in information technology have enabled collection and processing of vast

amounts of personal data, such as criminal records, shopping habits, credit and medical history, and

driving records. This information is undoubtedly very useful in many areas, including medical

research, law enforcement and national security. However, there is an increasing public concern

about the individuals’ privacy. Privacy is commonly seen as the right of individuals to control

information about themselves. The appearance of technology for Knowledge Discovery and Data

Mining (KDDM) has revitalized concern about the following general privacy issues:

· secondary use of the personal information,

· handling misinformation, and

· granulated access to personal information.

They demonstrate that existing privacy laws and policies are well behind the developments in

technology, and no longer offer adequate protection.

We also discuss new privacy threats posed KDDM, which includes massive data collection, data

warehouses, statistical analysis and deductive learning techniques. KDDM uses vast amounts of

data to generate hypotheses and discover general patterns. KDDM poses the following new

challenges to privacy.

· stereotypes,

· guarding personal data from KDDM researchers,

· individuals from training sets, and

· combination of patterns.

http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/~vlad/teaching/kdd.d/readings.d/aice99.pdf

In Who has access to student records? Moi said:

There is a complex intertwining of laws which often prevent school officials from disclosing much about students.

According to Fact Sheet 29: Privacy in Education: Guide for Parents and Adult-Age Students,Revised September 2010 the major laws governing disclosure about student records are:

What are the major federal laws that govern the privacy of education records?

  • Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) 20 USC 1232g (1974)

  • Protection of Pupil’s Rights Amendments (PPRA) 20 USC 1232h (1978)

  • No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. 107-110, 115 STAT. 1425 (January 2002)

  • USA Patriot Act, P.L. 107-56 (October 26, 2001)

  • Privacy Act of 1974, 5 USC Part I, Ch. 5, Subch. 11, Sec. 552

  • Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act (Pub. L. 106-386)

FERPA is the best known and most influential of the laws governing student privacy. Oversight and enforcement of FERPA rests with the U.S. Department of Education. FERPA has recently undergone some changes since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act and the USA Patriot Act….https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs29-education.htm

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/who-has-access-to-student-records/

See, The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act balancing act https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/the-federal-educational-rights-and-privacy-act-balancing-act/

Still, schools collect a lot of information about students.

Jason Koebler has written an interesting U.S. News article, Who Should Have Access to Student Records?

Since “No Child Left Behind” was passed 10 years ago, states have been required to ramp up the amount of data they collect about individual students, teachers, and schools. Personal information, including test scores, economic status, grades, and even disciplinary problems and student pregnancies, are tracked and stored in a kind of virtual “permanent record” for each student.

But parents and students have very little access to that data, according to a report released Wednesday by the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that advocates for expanded data use.

All 50 states and Washington, D.C. collect long term, individualized data on students performance, but just eight states allow parents to access their child’s permanent record. Forty allow principals to access the data and 28 provide student-level info to teachers.

Education experts, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former Washington, D.C., Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, argue that education officials can use student data to assess teachers—if many students’ test scores are jumping in a specific teacher’s class, odds are that teacher is doing a good job.

Likewise, teachers can use the data to see where a student may have struggled in the past and can tailor instruction to suit his needs.

At an event discussing the Data Quality Campaign report Wednesday, Rhee said students also used the information to try to out-achieve each other.

“The data can be an absolute game changer,” she says. “If you have the data, and you can invest and engage children and their families in this data, it can change a culture quickly.”Privacy experts say the problem is that states collect far more information than parents expect, and it can be shared with more than just a student’s teacher or principal.“When you have a system that’s secret [from parents] and you can put whatever you want into it, you can have things going in that’ll be very damaging,” says Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “When you put something into digital form, you can’t control where that’ll end up.”

According to a 2009 report by the Fordham University Center on Law and Information Policy, some states store student’s social security numbers, family financial information, and student pregnancy data. Nearly half of states track students’ mental health issues, illnesses, and jail sentences.Without access to their child’s data, parents have no way of knowing what teachers and others are learning about them.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/01/19/who-should-have-access-to-student-records

The U.S. Department of Education enforces FERPA.

Resources:

Data Mining: How Companies Now Know Everything About You        : http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2058205,00.html#ixzz2172ZKahA

What is Data Mining? – YouTube
  ► 3:22► 3:22 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-sGvh6tI04

Defining Privacy for Data Mining                                                                      http://cimic.rutgers.edu/~jsvaidya/pub-papers/ngdm-privacy.pdf

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Study: Girls as young as six think of themselves as sex objects

18 Jul

In Children too sexy for their years, moi said:

Maybe, because some parents may not know what is age appropriate for their attire, they haven’t got a clue about what is appropriate for children. There is nothing sadder than a 40 something, 50 something trying to look like they are twenty. What wasn’t sagging when you are 20, is more than likely than not, sagging now.

Kristen Russell Dobson, the managing editor of Parent Map, has a great article in Parent Map. In Are Girls Acting Sexy Too Young?  Dobson says:

A 2003 analysis of TV sitcoms found gender harassment in nearly every episode. Most common: jokes about women’s sexuality or women’s bodies, and comments that characterized women as sex objects. And according to the 2007 Report of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, “Massive exposure to media among youth creates the potential for massive exposure to portrayals that sexualize women and girls and teach girls that women are sexual objects.”

Those messages can be harmful to kids because they make sex seem common — even normal — among younger and younger kids. In So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, co-authors Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., write that “sex in commercial culture has far more to do with trivializing and objectifying sex than with promoting it, more to do with consuming than with connecting. The problem is not that sex as portrayed in the media is sinful, but that it is synthetic and cynical.”

http://www.parentmap.com/article/are-girls-acting-sexy-too-young

The culture seems to be sexualizing children at an ever younger age and it becomes more difficult for parents and guardians to allow children to just remain, well children, for a bit longer. Still, parents and guardians must do their part to make sure children are in safe and secure environments. A pole dancing fourth grader is simply unacceptable.

The most recent example of the culture sexualizing women involves starlet, Dakota Fanning. Sean Poulter is reporting in the Daily Mail article, Dakota Fanning’s ‘Lolita’ perfume ad for Marc Jacobs is banned for ‘sexualising children’

A perfume advertisement featuring teen actress Dakota Fanning has been banned on the basis it appeared to ‘sexualise a child’.

The actress is 17, but she looked younger in the magazine ad for ‘Oh Lola!’, where she was sitting on the floor with the perfume bottle between her thighs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2059097/Dakota-Fannings-sexually-provocative-perfume-ad-banned.html#ixzz1dImHgIQP

Moi loves fashion and adores seeing adult looks on adults. Many 20 and 30 somethings prefer what I would charitably call the “slut chic” look. This look is questionable fashion taste, in my opinion, but at least the look involves questionable taste on the part of adults as to how they present themselves to the public. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/children-too-sexy-for-their-years/

Jennifer Abbasi reports about a study conducted by Christi Starr and Gail Ferguson in the LiveScience article, Why 6-Year-Old Girls Want to Be Sexy:

Most girls as young as 6 are already beginning to think of themselves as sex objects, according to a new study of elementary school-age kids in the Midwest.

Researchers have shown in the past that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the new study is the first to identify self-sexualization in young girls. The study, published online July 6 in the journal Sex Roles, also identified factors that protect girls from objectifying themselves.

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing “sexy” clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit.

Most girls as young as 6 are already beginning to think of themselves as sex objects, according to a new study of elementary school-age kids in the Midwest.

Researchers have shown in the past that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the new study is the first to identify self-sexualization in young girls. The study, published online July 6 in the journal Sex Roles, also identified factors that protect girls from objectifying themselves.

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing “sexy” clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit. Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, she wanted to play with. http://www.livescience.com/21609-self-sexualization-young-girls.html

See, Study: Girls As Young As 6 Are Thinking Of Selves As Sex Objects http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/07/18/study-girls-as-young-as-6-are-thinking-of-selves-as-sex-objects/

Citation:

Journal Article

Sexy Dolls, Sexy Grade-Schoolers? Media & Maternal Influences on Young Girls’ Self-Sexualization

Christine R. Starr and Gail M. Ferguson

Sex Roles, Online First™, 6 July 2012

Concern is often expressed that mass media contribute to the early sexualization of young girls; however, few empirical studies have explored the topic. Using paper dolls, we examined self-sexualization among sixty 6–9 year-old girls from the Midwestern United States; specifically self-identification, preference, and attributions regarding sexualized dress. Based on simultaneous maternal reports, we also investigated potential risk factors (media consumption hours, maternal self-objectification) and potential protective factors (maternal television mediation, maternal religiosity) for young girls’ sexualization. Findings support social cognitive theory/social learning theory and reveal nuanced moderated effects in addition to linear main effects. Girls overwhelmingly chose the sexualized doll over the non-sexualized doll for their ideal self and as popular; however, dance studio enrollment, maternal instructive TV mediation, and maternal religiosity reduced those odds. Surprisingly, the mere quantity of girls’ media consumption (tv and movies) was unrelated to their self-sexualization for the most part; rather, maternal self-objectification and maternal personal religiosity moderated its effects.

The Girl Scouts of America has some great suggestions for dealing with a reality television world.

Here are suggestions from Girls Scouts Research about how parents can talk to their children about reality television

Tips for Parents

Real to me: Girls and Reality TV/ Girl Scout Research Institute

Reality TV is a popular form of entertainment for young people today. While this may seem like a benign phenomenon, our research suggests that girls who view reality TV on a regular basis are impacted signifi­cantly on personal and social levels. Regular viewers seem to have more extreme expectations of how the world works and relate to their peers differently than do those who don’t watch as much. Reality TV can also serve as a learning tool, inspire families to explore new interests and activities, and encourage young people to get involved in social causes.

Tip #1: TV watching is the number-one activity for girls, but they don’t necessarily want it to be this way. Use this opportunity to create alternatives for your entire family….

The good news is that girls would like to spend their time differently. Ninety percent of girls would rather spend an hour hanging out with friends than an hour watching their favorite TV show, and 84% would rather spend an hour doing a fun activity. This finding is similar to one from the GSRI study on social media, which found that even though girls today communicate profusely through the computer and/or their mobile devices, most prefer in-person time with friends….

You can even think about ways you can use what you see on TV to get the family interested in other things. For instance:

o Try out a recipe seen on a cooking program.

o Explore a place—through books or the computer, or in person—inhabited or visited by characters in a program you like.

o Engage in a fun family activity seen on a favorite show.

Put effort into demonstrating that face-to-face communication and enjoyable activities are important in your family, and you’ll create a healthier balance between TV and other things family members like to do.

Tip #2: Reality TV is here to stay, but not all shows are created equal. Be mindful of the type of reality TV your daughter is consuming, consider watching with her, and use the shows as learning tools and conversation starters….

Our study suggests that competition-based shows (American Idol, Project Runway, etc.) and makeover shows (The Biggest Loser, Extreme Home Makeover, etc.) have the most potential for inspiring conversa­tions with parents and friends, making girls feel like anything is possible, and helping girls realize that there are people out there like them. These shows have an educational and awareness-based component, portraying new ideas and perspectives; increasing girls’ exposure to people with different backgrounds, values, and beliefs; and teaching girls things they might not have learned otherwise. Makeover shows in particular raise awareness about important social issues and causes….

o Did your daughter relate to the characters or scenarios?

o What did she think about the situations portrayed? Does she have any questions?

o What did she agree or disagree with? What is the most valuable thing she came away with?

o Is she inspired by what she saw? What inspires her?

o Does x-show encourage new passions or thoughts about what she wants to be when she

grows up?

….By being mindful of the variety of reality programs that exists and monitoring/participating in what your daughter is watching, you are in a better place to inspire conversation and learning.

Tip #3: Talk about the differences between reality TV and actual reality.

This is especially true of girls who watch reality TV regularly. These girls are more likely to be comfortable with gossiping, feel that girls have to compete for a boy’s attention, and say it’s natural for girls to be catty and competitive with one another than are girls who watch reality TV less frequently. They are also less likely to trust other girls and to place more value on being mean and/or lying to get ahead.

What girls don’t often recognize is that much of what they consider “real” is actually scripted. In the Girl Scout Leadership Journey MEdia, TV producer Melissa Freeman Fuller shares that crew members often feed lines to participants, set up situations, and edit shots to make things seem more dramatic and inter­esting.* As an adult, you may be able to distinguish between reality and scripted TV and to take the latter with a grain of salt, but young people are more impressionable and perhaps believing in and mimicking these behaviors….

o Does your daughter find herself mimicking the negative behaviors depicted or is she totally turned off by them?

o Does she assume this is just the way the world works?

o Does she know a lot of people who depict these behaviors?

o What are some ways she might react differently that could produce a better outcome?

…Because girls so often think that what they see in reality TV programs is an accurate portrait of real life, it is imperative that you discuss the differences between the two. If shows don’t reflect your daughter’s reality, encourage her to create media that does.* [Emphasis Added]

Tip #4: Encourage your daughter to look beyond the mirror.

Girls who regularly view reality TV are focused on the importance of physical appearance and more likely to think that a girl’s value is based on this, and it’s a shame, because of course girls have so much more to offer the world than their looks. Make sure your daughter knows this. Compliment her on her talents and praise her for her values or willingness to try new things. Encourage her to pursue interests that are not based on improving her looks….

Tip #5: Model healthy relationships.

One of the more troubling findings of this study is that reality TV shows seem to promote questionable behavior, appearing to compel girls to act out stereotypes like being catty and competitive and fighting among themselves for guys’ attention. Girls understand that reality shows depict unhealthy relationships, but they don’t always understand that these kinds of behaviors aren’t and don’t need to be the norm. As long as girls think that other girls can’t be trusted and that it’s necessary to fight and beat out others in order to “win” the affection of a romantic interest, they will continue to engage in actions like those above.

Girls need to believe that they can trust one another and that not all girls are out there to hurt others through relational aggression, bullying, and other detrimental behaviors. As a parent, keep your eye out for potential harmful behaviors between your daughter and her friends/peers. Promote healthy relationships and prevent gossiping in your own life so that your daughter has a model of healthy relating to look to. Think about groups or places in which your daughter can build positive relationships, such as Girl Scouts, and encourage her to develop these relationships with her peers.

Tip #6: Keep girls grounded.

Some reality shows feature characters competing for a prize, be it fame, fortune, or status, and in some cases these characters choose to lie, cheat, or be mean along the way. Regular reality TV viewers are more likely than their non-viewing counterparts to internalize this and believe that one has to do these things in order to get ahead in life.

As well, many girls want to become famous—more so now than in years past. While it’s encouraging that girls have high hopes for their futures, it’s important they don’t go overboard to become noticed and recognized. Becoming famous often means focusing on external beauty and acting out; it’s critical that girls remain grounded and in possession of the positive values instilled in them by family and other healthy influences. Continue to encourage your daughter to cultivate such internal assets as assertiveness, confi­dence, individuality, and creativity; she’ll go far. More information on the research cited here can be found at www.girlscouts.org/research.

Dr. Wilda has been just saying for quite a while.

Resources

  1. Popwatch’s Miley Cyrus Pole Dance Video

  2. Baby Center Blog Comments About Miley Cyrus Pole Dance

  3. The Sexualization of Children

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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