Measure, Measure, Measure, Barf

I was shamelessly looking over a shoulder this morning at test scores and remarked to the guy they were intended for that they looked remarkably uniform. Was the maximum score on the test 30? No, he said it was 100.

Uh oh.

He told me his 9th grade Algebra class was full of children who had never been to school. I don't mean kids who skip school. I mean kids who have attended only a year or two of school in their lives because their parents couldn't afford to pay tuition where they used to live.

There are two things to think about here.
First, there are countries with no free education.
Second, these kids are like Tarzan when it comes to school. You remember him? Tarzan was not even marginally ready to go to high school. But we have a staff to care for and teach him and the other kids who are not ready to do any number of the things that your kids are ready to do.

Our school has ten reading teachers. Not English teachers. These are just for teaching reading to kids who are not up to reading above a fourth grade level. That means they may be at a first grade level for those of you who don't know that the NCLB ruler begins at four, not zero.

I have no idea how many remedial Math teachers we have (there are eighteen Math teachers for a population of 1,700 students) but fifteen reading teachers require about three quarters of a million dollars in payroll and benefits, not to mention the fact that they displace other classes since the school has a fixed budget based on a population of kids who have NO SPECIAL NEEDS AT ALL. Or put another way, ten percent of our staff doesn't teach high school skills. The official count for Reading is ten but there are twenty English teachers on staff.

18 Math, 20 English, 10 Reading = 48 out of 134 people teaching classes and providing resources.

Thankful is such a pitiful word sometimes . . .

The Jehova's Witnesses were here a minute ago. I told them I am an atheist and they asked me how I came to it. I said nothing more than years of theology. One of them laughed and said, "Of course! That will do it every time."

I wondered what she thinks she studies. Are their heads just so upside-down that nothing can fit?

I am thankful that it is my choice to talk to them - or not. Thankful that it is the act of men and women, not gods.

Thank God and Greyhound You're Gone

Sun-Sentinel:
The Rev. D. James Kennedy, a pioneering Christian broadcaster and megachurch pastor whose fiercely conservative worldview helped fuel the rise of the religious right in American politics, died Wednesday. (September 5,2007) — Dr. D. James Kennedy, founder and senior pastor for 48 years of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (CRPC) in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., passed away peacefully in his sleep at approximately 2:15 a.m. at his home with his wife and daughter by his bedside, following complications from a cardiac event last December.

NYT:
Mr. Kennedy stayed largely in the background as men like Mr. Falwell, Mr. Robertson and James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family spoke to Americans about the need to curtail abortion rights, gay rights and the teaching of evolution. But over the last decade, he, too, grew more openly active, creating the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, which held conferences that taught people to how to get involved in the political process. The center closed in April.

Me:
Kennedy's attack on Science.
Of course he probably did many things during his lifetime that were worthy of our admiration. I only know that the kind of poison represented by the program is deadly to free will. Reverend Kennedy wanted to take back America for a certain group of morally superior people. I suggest that he was far more Hitler's heir than the people he, Behe, and Coulter attack.

Murdoch and the WSJ

Those of us who have heard that Fox News takes daily political direction and believe it think the situation should be exposed. Others say that there is no evidence that Fox does anything more than run from fire to fire gawking and pumping up fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Here is an article that provides a pedigree for what is happening today. It is _Bending to Power_ by Bruce Page in the Columbia Journalism Review.

It appears to me that between the Moonies and Murdoch, neo-conservative manipulation got a tremendous boost over the past few years. When global warming skepticism proved to be so easily planted in the psyche of a substantial portion of the public, it became clear that critical thinking skills are sadly absent at all levels of society.

FUD produced by the Wall Street Journal will have the same effect on the grey-suited and well-educated that Fox News has on "angry middle-aged men who scream at the TV." In fact it will be more insidious because they honestly feel their education confers mental fitness.

Who would have thought Ben Stein is an idiot?

Why would Ben Stein collaborate with the production company that created this abortion ? It looks like a good education doesn't armor one from errors in thinking. OMG what an obvious statement. Just look at the smorgasboard of autodidacts around Bush. Smart, well-educated people who will do anything to have the last word. They are the Strangeloves of today, inventing convoluted solutions to problems that exist only in their huge, echoing brainpans.

Ignoring the U.S. District Court decision that found the ID folks from the Discovery Institute to be disingenuous and liars, somebody is throwing actual money into producing a movie about how science is somehow screwing free thought.

Forget the philosophy. Forget the science. Forget the religion. What they did was lie when they should have told the truth. As far as I'm concerned, there is no thoughtful consideration of alternatives involved. I vote for the side that tells the truth.

This reminds me of the stranger who was observed swimming in a lady's swimming pool last week. When confronted, dripping wet in her driveway by police, he denied the illicit swim.

But is it Science?

When a Federal District Court judge says information bearing the imprimatur of the Discovery Institute is NOT science, it is a good bet he is right.

Generally when a publisher classifies a book, it is for purposes of clarity within the ontology. When the Discovery Institute people classify their books it is for the purpose of destroying the integrity of the structure of knowledge.

If libraries can't deal with the issue, they have a problem discriminating honesty from dishonesty. The judge said that the Discovery Institute people are disingenuous and dishonest. Just how does that translate into a "different point of view?"

resources:
http://webpages.charter.net/tomeboy/bias.html

Trust and Authority

One of the most amazing things I see today is the use of the adjective environmentalist as a pejorative. The funny thing is that nobody I know isn't an environmentalist in one way or another. Yet there is a substantial stream of invective that tries to cast it as a religious movement.

My conclusion is that the invective is cast by a group that understands the world in religious terms alone and can't unshackle themselves from their common sense beliefs.

I'm using common sense in terms of believing only the evidence of one's senses.

This was brought home to me today when I read an article - I am posting the abstract with the issue information for those who wish to read the whole article:

Science 18 May 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5827, pp. 996 - 997
DOI: 10.1126/science.1133398

Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science
Authors: Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg

Resistance to certain scientific ideas derives in large part from assumptions and biases that can be demonstrated experimentally in young children and that may persist into adulthood. In particular, both adults and children resist acquiring scientific information that clashes with common-sense intuitions about the physical and psychological domains. Additionally, when learning information from other people, both adults and children are sensitive to the trustworthiness of the source of that information. Resistance to science, then, is particularly exaggerated in societies where nonscientific ideologies have the advantages of being both grounded in common sense and transmitted by trustworthy sources.

Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.

So you can see that it is to be expected in populations where practical knowledge is highly valued as well as faith-based organizations or groups of young people. This is why we have such a terrible time convincing people that the world is old and anthropogenic warming is a fact. We have to bring them up to speed by filling in gaps in their education. This assumes they are willing to learn.

Probably the majority of people who do accept evolution as a fact do so because they accept authority in a different way than the people who do not accept natural selection. Trust and authority. These two words are my mantra in Internet and Society classes. Without developing the ability to discern the good from the bad, a person has no signposts and wanders in search of meaning.

Trust and authority are key because you just can't know everything. Let's take the example of deciding whether to believe a group of climatologists versus a single geologist's view of global warming or a political appointee's statement versus the head of meteorolgy at NASA. The political appointee has more than one doctorate and is a highly respected manager at NASA. However, he owes his job to the administration.

Here is what we know for sure. The Bush administration's appointees have been broadly accused by hundreds of employed scientists of intimidation and coercion. Evidence has been offered. This is countered by accusing the other guy of being an environmental nut and a liberal. The problem as I see it is that the scientist is working inside of his specialty and will continue to do so as long as he does a workmanlike job. The political appointee is beholden to his master alone no matter what his academic credentials may be. So I see this as a pretty clear cut example. The evidence points to the side of the employed scientist and against the political appointee.

Saving for your child's education

A good education is expensive. Marketwatch agrees with me.

"It's a totally unnatural act to pay for school," said Patrick Bassett, president of the National Association of Independent Schools, which represents more than 1,000 of the nation's private schools. "Everyone wants to believe that their high local taxes are paying for good public schools. But by the time kids get to middle school and parents are spending time around the school, they get very nervous."

Comment: The truly sad thing is that in terms of education, the elementary school is where the problem starts and can be most easily fixed. Continue reading . . .

Then, the crunch comes. Private high schools offer precious little financial aid to cover yearly bills that run almost $17,000 nationwide and are often closer to $30,000 in New York, Los Angeles and other urban centers. Depleting cash, scrimping on expenses, borrowing against home equity and relying on grandparents and other relatives is standard.

So it looks like the folks at the Wall Street Journal have a pretty good idea about how much it costs. I guess it's no surprise. They probably aren't planning on having their kids deliver pizza for a living. They may even take the future knowledge based economy seriously. Imagine that.

By now you know I think we don't spend nearly enough on public education. I know that common NCLB wisdom says that money has no bearing on it, but if that were true, wouldn't those smart folks at the Wall Street Journal, the Bush family, and the rest of those who so benevolently rule send their kids to an inexpensive but well run school somewhere?

No? You mean the social benefits of Phillips Academy are worth the cost of a new Mercedes to Daddy? :-D

Really it's a matter of value-added services. The teachers have lots of contact with the kids. They invite them to visit their homes too. I remember how surprised I was when I found out that pblic school teachers tear the address labels from the magazines they take to school. I don't do it, but everybody I know does.

There are serious extra-curricular activities like debate, journalism, theater, and electronics in addition to sports. Sports are not considered a suitable alternative lifestyle unless they are golf or tennis.

Teachers have specialized educations in their subjects. Most of them have Masters and many have Doctorate level educations. They actively encourage inquiry and debate in their classrooms.

Perhaps the most important factor is mentioned in the quote above. Many of the parents of these kids are willing to sacrifice a lot to send their kids to these schools. That translates into a huge driving force behind the child.

It is a matter of odds and keeping track of what works. It has worked for them for generations so they just keep on doing the same thing.

Why Wikipedia is a success

This isn't about Jimmy Wales' sex life. Sorry! It is about tearing down walls and rearranging furniture in a house that is growing at an ever-increasing rate.

The volume of information, particularly new information, is such that it can't be created, edited, or distributed in what people born prior to 1970 consider a normal way. If the Internet was not around, it would have to be created.

This isn't about paper or the movement of paper. It is organizational and it is about money. Paper output can keep up with scholarly output and it can be shelved, but can it be paid for and accessed?

Needing knowledge and finding appropriate knowledge is an increasing problem for people. The cost of access and the lack of authority is key.

My train of thought leads me to the possibility that Wikipedia has to be non-authoritarian because an editorial structure that guarantees objectivity is too heavy. Authority and trustworthiness may not be a part of Wikipedia's editorial function. I don't mean to say that there is a complete lack of it. I just think that the kind of ex-cathedra pronouncements Wikipedia's critics look for is not going to appear under any circumstances.

I expect that authority may be replaced by oversampling. Just as a Walkman oversamples a track to replace gaps, oversampling could play a role in building knowledge rules.

The Trinity. Scale, Trust, and Findability. Which is the greatest?

Seeing No Progress Some Schools Drop Laptops

Today, the New York Times published an article about schools that have Decided to get rid of their one-to-one laptop projects.
There is a litany of reasons: cheating, pornography, hacking, and repair costs. But the worst by far was the fact that student's test scores didn't go up. I don't know why cheating and pornography are mentioned in the same breath with the project's failure to reach objectives, but an analysis of the failure should be attempted.

*** Update 5-12-07 - It turns out that the average usage for all schools was only 10 minutes a day for BOTH math and reading.***

Since I am in Broward County, I will quote the portion of the article that deals with us first.

Two years ago, school officials in Broward County, Fla., the sixth-largest district in the country, shelved a $275 million proposal to issue laptops to each of their more than 260,000 students after re-evaluating the costs of a pilot project. The district, which paid $7.2 million to lease 6,000 laptops for the pilot at four schools, was spending more than $100,000 a year for repairs to screens and keyboards that are not covered by warranties. “It’s cost prohibitive, so we have actually moved away from it,” said Vijay Sonty, chief information officer for the district, whose enrollment is 37 percent black, 31 percent white and 25 percent Hispanic.

The program was initiated three years ago, then two years ago it was abandoned. The repair cost was only 1.4% of the cost of the laptops annually. I wonder if that included theft? The six thousand laptops were given to students at schools where online education was absent from classrooms and the teachers unprepared to teach using the appropriate tools. Note that I said "online education", not technology education.

What is not surprising about the article is that students are not scoring higher on tests. This is because teachers are teaching the same way, using the same material and the same lessons they were prior to having computers.

The reporter states that many districts sought to "prepare their students for a technology-driven world and close the so-called digital divide between students who had computers at home and those who did not."

In the very next paragraph we have this from Mark Lawson of the Liverpool New York School District:

The teachers were telling us when there’s a one-to-one relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the way. It’s a distraction to the educational process.

I don't know if it's obvious to you, but what I see is a disconnect between two stated learning objectives that should be naturally connected. Maybe the first isn't really a learning objective, but it expresses the hands-on use of a tool (like a pencil) in pursuit of knowledge. The idea is to teach "through" the box, not to use it like a supplemental textbook.

The article goes on recounting disaster stories. Schools that have two sets of classes for haves and have-nots, huge repair bills, and the dreaded time consuming computer glitches. It concludes with a quote from Tom McCarthy, a teacher who says that the art of thinking is lost when you can give up after you find the first reference online.

*Grins in an evil fashion* Can you tell why I have the grin? I just have to wonder why a computer causes a child to satisfice when doing research. I have to wonder why a computer is responsible for any off-task behavior at all.

My classroom has a computer for each child. A web server delivers lessons and content. A web server is used to store student created projects. The Internet is used to bring content into the classroom from all over the world to enrich the experience. I can see every screen as I walk around the room and talk to the students and off-task behavior is no worse or better than any other classroom. Sometimes students even cheat.

But what my students don't do is idle their brains. Saying the art of thinking is lost typifies an abysmal misunderstanding of tool usage.