Comments on: The Wagner Epic Continues

By: Dave W.

Dave W. — Thu, 27 May 2010 20:57:27 +0000

Just read your bio and CV. Impressive. Now I understand your need to discredit people like Wagner.

By: Dave W.

Dave W. — Thu, 27 May 2010 18:11:17 +0000

I just read the book, and while I have some disagreements with Wagner’s take on the effects of technology on student motivation, I am in full agreement that what we currently call “education” amounts to 12 years of mostly mind numbing rote memorization with no context or connection or relevance to students lives. As a teacher of over 20 years, I happen to agree that our curriculum is too much guided by what best serves textbook publishers and bureaucrats, and by a misplaced belief that the goal is to do well on tests that test passive memorization. We are pumping out students who hate school, hate learning, and yet think they are bright because they got all Bs (because the pressure is on to pass students so that schools look good and everyone keeps their job). You ask for evidence to back all this up; but it seems that what you really want is a certain type of evidence. Anecdotal evidence is evidence; as is history, and personal experience. Did you decide, for example, how to raise your children by conducting controlled experiments, evaluating spreadsheets and analyzing a budget? Or did you, like the rest of us, follow the wisdom and experience of your parents and friends, combined with some of your own (unclinically derived and tested) intuition and preferences? “Hard data,” as we might call it, is not always available or appropriate or even possible for certain aspects of life. But despite this, there is plenty of hard data cited in Wagner’s book, including actual questions from national standardized “accountability” tests we give our students, questions from the tests used in countries who are beating us in measures of entrepreneurialism and high-tech innovation, and rankings of student achievement which show the US losing ground to countries we recently considered “third world.” It is not true, as you imply, that Wagner blames this all on standardized tests. He cites a number of factors and conditions in these other countries to account for their outcomes; however, he sees our use of multiple choice tests as one of the most pernicious threats to the quality of education here in our country, and therefor focuses more on that topic.

Your accusation of “snake oil salesman” falls pretty flat. It might possibly make sense (but I doubt it) applied to Wagner’s motives, but it doesn’t explain why the many other individuals he spoke to would agree to have their thoughts and words in his book. They earn no royalties for being quoted. If you doubt the truth or accuracy of Wagner’s observations or those of the business leaders he interviewed, on what do you base these doubts? My hunch–since you provide no other kind of evidence for this–is that they are based on your own prejudices, preconceptions and assumptions–i.e. anecdotal experiences. (But that’s just my hunch–I can’t back it up with research!)

By: Teaching unmeasurable skills at Joanne Jacobs

Teaching unmeasurable skills at Joanne Jacobs — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:24:12 +0000

[...] Jay Greene piles on here and here, arguing that Wagner “shows no evidence that higher levels of critical thinking can be found [...]

By: Julia Kaufman

Julia Kaufman — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:18:24 +0000

That Fayetteville Public Schools is investing so much in Wagner’s words highlights one of the biggest problems with moving quality research to practice: that quality research is often not translated in a way that speaks to public school administrators. Thus, they end up utilizing information that sounds nice but doesn’t contain hard empirical data. One important move that researchers must make is to involve those close to practice and policy – both administrators and policymakers – to help them translate good research for those that might have a chance to apply it.

By: Mind The Gap: Creativity vs. Content? « Eduphoria

Mind The Gap: Creativity vs. Content? « Eduphoria — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:26:39 +0000

[...] Jacobs highlights Sandra Stotsky, the critic mentioned in Jay Greene’s blog and quoted here. Jay Greene continues the discussion and posts his editorial, with Bugs Bunny imagery and bonus Dan Willingham comment. Dan Willingham [...]

By: 21st Century Snake Oil at The Core Knowledge Blog

21st Century Snake Oil at The Core Knowledge Blog — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:49:57 +0000

[...] Greene goes after the education guru on his blog and in an op-ed in the Northwest Arkansas Morning News. The Fayetteville Public School system [...]

By: Greg Forster

Greg Forster — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:37:43 +0000

I have one bone to pick with you here, Jay. You write that if the success of Wagner’s three model schools is due to school choice, it’s not clear how Fayetteville could imitate that success.

How about by offering students a city-funded school voucher, with the funding for the voucher offset by the reduction in locally-borne costs for the government school system as students leave it? If the city needed a bridge loan to provide financing to get over the gap between paying for the voucher and realizing the cost savings, it could probably find a philanthropist willing to do that.

Better yet, pay for the program by deciding that next year you’re not buying 2,000 copies of a snake oil book and then sponsoring a bunch of public discussions about it. How much are they spending on these public discussion events, anyway?

By: Jay P. Greene

Jay P. Greene — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:53:27 +0000

I agree with you, Dan, that the problem is systemic. And I agree that centralized panels of experts cannot be the solution. Even the What Works Clearinghouse, which was started with the best of intentions, fails because the process is ultimately politicized and meaningful, consistent standards are impossible to invent or implement. In the end, quality is a matter of judgment.

So how do other applied fields effectively apply judgment to sort out competing research claims? Basically, you want the people making decisions about which research to implement to experience the consequences of their decisions. If the there are competing research claims about the best manufacturing process for semi-conductors, the firms that choose wisely will be rewarded and those that choose poorly will suffer. Ultimately we need choice and competition or some other method of attaching consequences to decisions to incntive education officials to choose wisely among research claims.

By: Brett Pawlowski

Brett Pawlowski — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:33:25 +0000

There are two problems here. First, as you note, we get lots of bad and/or distorted data that muddies decision making and allows people like Wagner and Kohn to misdirect people. The second problem, one that may not be immediately obvious, is that it reduces public support.

I’ve talked with several businesspeople over the years who are, or have been, involved in public education, and I get two things from them. One is a sense of futility, because they want to help improve outcomes but don’t trust any of the data (with good reason); ultimately this drives some people out entirely.

The other thing I see is a desire to avoid controversy. A company is going to go to great lengths to avoid controversy in its public giving and support, and when they see the raging battles over how to teach reading and math, for example, they stay out – why pour in resources when you’re going to tick off half the people involved?

I don’t know what the solution is either – we can’t rely on the community to sort it out for themselves.

By: Dan Willingham

Dan Willingham — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:54:44 +0000

Jay, I think that this is a real problem, and obviously a systemic one. There needs to be some mechanism of quality control, somewhere. I can’t see a solution that entails some self-appointed experts passing judgment on everything that comes down the pike, but the current system is not working.