The ALA Double-Standard?

August 11, 2008

Last week I had a post observing that high school reading lists were much less likely to contain feminist critiques if those critiques were of non-Western societies, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel. 

Later last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Random House had cancelled the imminent publication of a book that it had under contract that was a fictionalized history of one of Mohammed’s wives.  Random House engaged in this self-censorship out of “fear of a possible terrorist threat from extremist Muslims.”

Once again we see a double standard in the treatment of non-Western subjects.  Where is the American Library Association (ALA) to denounce this self-censorship?  The ALA rightly advocates against efforts to restrict the kinds of books that are available and maintains a list of the most frequently “challenged” books.  They preface that list with a quotation from Judy Blume: “[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.”

The ALA saw the need to issue a statement to denounce censorship in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.  When will they release a statement denouncing Random House’s decision not to publish a book that they had deemed worthy of a $100,000 contract because they were bullied by threats of violence?

2 Comments | civic values | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Best. Choice. Argument. Ever.

August 6, 2008

 

 Brilliant.

 

(HT, Stuart Buck and Lydia McGrew at http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2008/08/great_video_clip_on_government.html#comments )

4 Comments | vouchers | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Arkansas Blogs Increase 200%

August 6, 2008

Well, not really.  But I’ve come across two relatively new Arkansas-based blogs (at least they are new to me).  One is The Arkansas Project, written by David Kinkade, Freeman Hunt, and Dan Greenberg.  Greenberg is a state representative who shares my interest in the naming of public buildings.  The other is the eponymous blog, Freeman Hunt.  And speaking of the symbolic power of names, Freeman Hunt appears to be her real name. 

They join the extremely high quality blog written by Stuart Buck at The Buck Stops Here.

1 Comment | journalism | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Mascot Mania Strikes Back

August 4, 2008

 SchoolCenter Picture

In keeping with our love of summer blockbuster sequels, I have another post on school mascot names.  Just to set the stage, let’s have a flashback to my first mascot post:

“The names we choose matter.  When we name our children, or name a public school, or name a public park or courthouse — we are signaling what is important to us.  Once names are given, there is an opportunity for people to learn about the values those names represent and promote those values in the world.   

With Brian Kisida and Jonathan Butcher, I have already analyzed patterns and trends in what we name public schools.  We found a trend away from naming schools after people, in general, and presidents, in particular.  Instead, schools are increasingly receiving names that sound more like herbal teas or day spas — Whispering Winds, Hawks Bluff, Desert Mesa, etc… 

[We found] that there are more public schools in Florida named after manatees than George Washington.

Now I am turning my attention to school mascots.  I understand that mascot names aren’t taken very seriously and are often chosen without much deliberation or care.  But even something trivial, like what we name our pets or the mascot names we adopt says something about us.  Besides, this is a bit of fun.”

In a subsequent post I identified a national data set of mascot names and offered some very preliminary analyses.  With the help of Jonathan Butcher and Catherine Shock, I now have some more detailed analyses to present.  In particular, I can show a list of the most common mascot names, show that Indian or war-like mascot names are fairly common, and show that those Indian or war-like names have not become dramatically less common over time.

I have a list of 19,785 mascot names (including some private and Canadian schools), while there are about 23,800 public secondary schools in the US (some of which probably do not have mascot names).  So, my list captures a large portion of all high school mascot names in the US.

There are 1,566 unique mascot names, but the more common 182 names account for 88% of the total.  Below is a list of the 60 most common mascot names, which account for 79% of all mascot names.  As you can see, animal mascots predominate.  Human or humanoid (like devils) mascots are about 36% of all names.  The remaining 64% are almost all animals, with a sprinkling of weather names (e.g., blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes). 

Eagle, which suggests both patriotism and ferocity, is by far the most common mascot name, accounting for 6% of all names.  The next most common names are tigers, bulldogs, panthers, and wildcats.  The most common “person” mascot is warrior, which ranks 6th and accounts for 3% of all mascot names. 

Rank         Name          Frequency

1 eagle 1223
2 tiger 914
3 bulldog 816
4 panther 804
5 wildcat (or kit) 706
6 warrior 630
7 lion 507
8 cougar 469
9 knight 466
10 indian 435
11 hawk 424
12 mustang 400
13 raider 399
14 bear 387
15 trojan 387
16 viking 362
17 falcon 361
18 devil 336
19 wolves 325
20 ram 322
21 cardinal 299
22 spartan 288
23 pirate 268
24 hornet 264
25 patriot 241
26 crusader 210
27 rebel 188
28 bobcat 182
29 yellowjacket 164
30 angels 155
31 wolverine 146
32 dragon 143
33 huskie 143
34 titans 140
35 saint 137
36 jaguar 134
37 charger 126
38 braves 116
39 rocket 111
40 chief 107
41 pioneer 102
42 cavalier 88
43 bronco 77
44 ranger 75
45 redskin 72
46 cowboy 71
47 owl 71
48 gators 70
49 longhorn 69
50 hound 66
51 tornado 66
52 royal 66
53 bruin 63
54 bluejays 61
55 hurricane 55
56 buccaneer 55
57 highlander 55
58 colt 55
59 irish 54
60 buffalo 53

Indian mascots, including chiefs, braves, and specific tribal names, are about 4% of all mascot names.  The warrior is sometimes represented by a Native American, but I have not included warriors among Indian mascots. 

Indians are not the only ethnic/national group featured as mascots.  There are also a fair number of Highlanders, Irish, and Scots as mascot names.

War-like names, including anything with “fighting” in it or warriors, raiders, pirates, bombers, etc…, are about 19% of all mascot names.  Excluding animal mascots, war-like mascots account for about half of the remaining “people” mascots.  Respect for a martial spirit is represented in a very large portion of all mascot names.

This interest in ferocity has only declined slightly over time.  Repeating a technique that I employed in the study of school names, I used the age of school buildings as a sort of “time machine.”  If schools built more recently have mascot names that are different from schools built a long time ago, then we could observe a trend in mascot selection over time.  Of course, there are problems with this technique.  For example, old schools might change their mascot names.  I can’t observe old schools that have closed.  I only have building age for a limited number of schools in a limited number of states.

With all of these confessions out of the way, I still believe that if there were a big change in mascot names, newly built schools should have very different mascot names than old schools.  I do not find a big change. 

I looked at mascot names for schools built before and after 1970 in Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Wisconsin.  There appear to be some modest trends.  Schools seem to be less likely to have a “person” mascot over time.  Animals are becoming somewhat more common as mascots.  And Indian mascots in these five states are becoming less common, but by no means have disappeared.  Lastly, there has been a modest decline over time in schools having war-like names. 

  Before 1970 After 1970
“Person”    40.0% 35.6%
Indian    8.1% 6.5%
War-Like    22.2% 19.2%

It’s possible that flaws in the analysis are understating the trends, but even if that were the case the changes are unlikely to be large.  The shift away from “people” mascots, away from Native American names, and away from war-like names is happening, but it is happening gradually. 

My guess is that the appeal of tradition in mascots is likely to be very strong.  Change can only occur gradually, as old schools are closed and new ones opened.  We occasionally hear news stories about schools changing mascots, but those stories may account for almost all of the instances of such shifts actually occurring.  When a school changes mascots it tends to make news.

Curiously, the change in mascot names over time is much less dramatic than the change in school names.  Perhaps school boards increasingly avoid naming schools after people because they wish to avoid fights over who should be honored, but are less politically sensitive about mascot names because they provoke less conflict.  Maybe our commitment to the values of fierce mascots has not changed much over time, while our commitment to honoring great presidents, educators, and other people has declined.

The first person to post a comment identifying the schools and mascot names represented by the three images at the top wins a prize!

15 Comments | civic values | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

NCLB: Less Than Meets the Eye, More Than Nothing

July 29, 2008

Given all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth, one would think that NCLB was a crushing burden on the school system.

In actuality NCLB demands very little. It only requires that states wishing to receive Title I funds have to establish goals for student success, select tests for measuring progress towards those goals, and report results from those tests broken out by subgroups.

The sanctions for failing to make progress toward those goals are almost non-existent. Schools failing to make progress have to offer tutoring or allow students to transfer to better-performing public schools in the same district (if one can be found). But, as we have previously discussed on this blog and in this article, there is widespread non-compliance with even these minimal sanctions. Too often schools fail to inform parents properly of their options under NCLB or direct students into their own tutoring programs, resulting in very few students taking any resources out of their local school, let alone district. Without placing school funds in jeopardy, the only possible sanction is public embarrassment. And that plus $4 will get you a latte at Starbucks.

I do not believe that a single tenured teacher out of the more than 3 million teachers currently working in public schools has been fired, experienced a pay-cut, or otherwise been meaningfully sanctioned because of NCLB. I do not believe that a single student out of the 50 million enrolled in public schools has been held back a grade, been denied a diploma, or otherwise been meaningfully sanctioned as a result of NCLB. (Some states have retention and graduation requirements as part of their state accountability systems, but those policies are not required for NCLB.) Yes, chronically failing schools might eventually face “restructuring” but that is likely to be yet more bark and no bite. Next they’ll be put on double secret probation.

So what supports complaints about “pressure cooker NCLB testing,” or “NCLB-post traumatic stress disorder,” or other “NCLB outrages”? If NCLB has almost no real consequences for teachers or students, what is all of the fuss about? The overwrought reaction seems to have more to do with a political campaign over the future direction of education policy than the actual effects of the current policy.

The most important future policy that the higher volume of squealing is meant to influence is increasing education spending. A center-piece of the complaints about NCLB is that it is an unfunded mandate. Let’s leave aside the fact that federal spending on education has increased 41% since passage of NCLB. And let’s leave aside that NCLB is not actually a mandate, since states do not have to comply with NCLB if they do not want Title I funds (which have increased 59% since 2001).

Besides neither being unfunded nor a mandate, the argument that NCLB is an unfunded mandate is especially odd because it makes one wonder what all of the funding that schools received before NCLB was for. It’s as if the unfunded mandate crowd is saying: “The $10,000 per pupil we already get just pays for warehousing. If you actually want us to educate kids, that’ll cost ya extra.” Remember, that NCLB just asks states to establish and meet their own goals. Didn’t they have goals before NCLB?

While NCLB demands much less than the overwrought rhetoric about it suggests, it does not demand nothing. Most importantly, NCLB entrenched the idea that we should take regular measures of student achievement and report the results, including results for subgroups. Even this is a smaller thing that it may seem at first glance since 37 states had already adopted state testing and accountability systems before passage of NCLB. But NCLB brought the laggard states on-board to this growing national consensus that we ought to have some systematic measures of how our students are doing. It also made reversal of this growing testing and accountability culture more difficult by placing it in federal as well as state law.

Greg Forster has already made the case for why this shift under NCLB has been important, so I will not repeat it here. I would just emphasize that the controversy over NCLB is not really about what NCLB does, but about the broader policy shift that it represents and the extra funding that folks hope they may get as they acquiesce to that policy shift.

26 Comments | school accountability | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

When “Sorry” Means “J’Accuse”

July 28, 2008

The letter "J'accuse"

The following column about a letter appeared on the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Wednesday, July 23.  The letter is in the form of an apology, but it is actually a series of accusations about testing and accountability.  Like another front page letter of accusation, this one has all of Emile Zola’s moral outrage but has none of Zola’s justification.

I’ve reprinted it here with my comments in blue italics.

Students pass state test, but at what cost to their education?

by Regina Brett

The school report cards came out in June.

Rocky River Middle School passed the 2008 Ohio Achievement Tests, earned an Excellent rating from the state and met the requirements for Annual Yearly Progress.

For all of those accomplishments, Principal David Root has only one thing to say to the students, staff and citizens of Rocky River:

He’s sorry.

Root wants to issue an apology. He sent it to me typed out in two pages, single spaced.

He’s sorry that he spent thousands of tax dollars on test materials, practice tests, postage and costs for test administration.

Actually, he did not spend the money.  The taxpayers did when they decided through their elected representatives to adopt a testing and accountability system.  They then hired David Root to implement this policy in his capacity as principal at a public school.

Sorry that his teachers spent less time teaching American history because most of the social studies test questions are about foreign countries.

I guess the people of Ohio thought it was important for students to learn about foreign countries when they, through their elected representatives and hired agents, devised the state curriculum and test.  Besides, if students learned more about foreign countries they might know who Emile Zola was.

Sorry that he didn’t suspend a student for assaulting another because that student would have missed valuable test days.

Sounds pretty irresponsible.  Would he have made a different decision if the student would have missed valuable instructional days?  If so, whose fault is that?  Oh yes, I forgot that this is an accusation, not an apology.

Sorry he didn’t strictly enforce attendance because all absences count against the school on the State Report Card.

So, is David Root saying that he cheated on the state accountability system?  Isn’t this like lying to your boss about your job performance?  Will he be fired, sanctioned, or resign to make amends for his infraction?

He’s sorry for pulling children away from art, music and gym, classes they love, so they could take test-taking strategies.

Why didn’t he just follow the state curriculum and let the scores show what students knew? The decision to take time away for “test-taking strategies”  was completely unnecessary given that more than 90% of Rocky River students have been scoring above the proficient level in reading, math, and writing.  It sounds like they would have done just fine on the state test without working on test-taking strategies and having spent more time on art, music, and gym.

Sorry that he has to give a test where he can’t clarify any questions, make any comments to help in understanding or share the results so students can actually learn from their mistakes.

How reliable would the results be if principals could clarify questions, help in understanding, or share secure test items that would be re-used on future tests?  Does every assessment have to be a formative assessment?

Sorry that he kept students in school who became sick during the test because if they couldn’t finish the test due to illness, the student automatically fails it.

This sounds like a difficult decision.  Football coaches similarly have to think about whether to take injured players out of the game versus having the players tough it out.  We pay leaders to make these difficult decisions, balancing competing interests wisely.

Sorry that the integrity of his teachers is publicly tied to one test.

Actually, the state accountability system — let alone “the integrity of his teachers” —  is not based on one test.  The overall rating of Rocky River Middle School is based on several test results (in Reading, Math, Writing, Social Studies, and Science), the progress students have made in those subjects, and (as we already heard about) the possibly fraudulent attendance rate.

He apologized for losing eight days of instruction due to testing activities.

I thought Root didn’t want one test, so it takes time to administer several.  While testing takes place on eight days it does not (or at least does not have to) consume the entirety of those days.  My understanding is that the average student only spent two mornings being tested, as testing occurred in different grades and subjects for different students across eight days.

For making decisions on assemblies, field trips and musical performances based on how that time away from reading, math, social studies and writing will impact state test results.

I would hope that the principal would think about how assemblies, field trips, and musical performances impact instructional time for other academic subjects regardless of whether those subjects are part of a state accountability system.

For arranging for some students to be labeled “at risk” in front of their peers and put in small groups so the school would have a better chance of passing tests.

Again, if smaller group instruction would help certain students, the principal should arrange for that regardless of the state accountability system.  And the principal would have to think of a way to provide that necessary assistance without stigmatizing the students who need it.

For making his focus as a principal no longer helping his staff teach students but helping them teach test indicators.

Why didn’t he just help his staff teach the subjects with confidence that the test indicators would show what they had learned?  This is especially puzzling given how likely it is that students at Rocky River would pass the state test without paying any special attention to test-taking strategies.

Root isn’t anti-tests. He’s all for tests that measure progress and help set teaching goals. But in his eyes, state achievement tests are designed for the media to show how schools rank against each other.

Seems like the state accountability system does measure progress and help set teaching goals.  What’s wrong with it also informing the public and policymakers (via the media) about how their schools are doing?

He’s been a principal for 24 years, half of them at Rocky River Middle School, the rest in Hudson, Alliance and Zanesville. He loves working with 6th, 7th and 8th graders.

“I have a strong compassion for the puberty stricken,” he joked.

His students, who are 11, 12, 13 and 14, worry that teachers they love will be let go based on how well they perform.

One asked him, “If I don’t do well, will you fire my teacher?”

He cringed when he heard one say, “I really want to do well, but I’m not that smart.”

Has a single tenured teacher in Ohio (or in the United States) been let go based on performance on state accountability tests?  Maybe he should reassure the students that their concern is misplaced.

He wants students to learn how to think, not take tests.

Can’t they do both?

“We don’t teach kids anymore,” he said. “We teach test-taking skills. We all teach to the test. I long for the days when we used to teach kids.”

Why not just return to those days and let the test results show what kids have learned?

Unless we get back to those days, principals and teachers all over Ohio will continue to spend your tax dollars to help students become the best test takers they can be.

The people of Ohio decided to adopt an accountability system because the schools weren’t doing an adequate job teaching kids to think without it.  The “just trust us to do a good job” approach wasn’t working.

(edited to add color)

7 Comments | school accountability | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Savage Comments

July 22, 2008

The blow-hard radio host Michael Savage has never been known for his careful and thoughtful analysis, but he recently went a big-mouth mile too far when he declared that autism was “a fraud, a racket … In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. … They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. … Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ “

2 Comments | special ed | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Camp Education

July 21, 2008

“I desire macaroni pictures! And those little shaker things where you put beans inside of paper plates that are glued together! And let us put patterns of glue on the outside of those paper plates so we can then pour glitter on them so they look nice and sparkly!”

As I drop the kids off at sleep-away summer camp, I’ve been thinking about whether school should be more like camp.  At camp the kids learn an enormous amount, including a large amount of traditional academic content.  Two of my children are at a Jewish camp where they learn Hebrew and Judaics in addition to more typical camp activities.  (And no, there is no giant Moses in the shape of the CPU from Tron demanding macaroni pictures).  My oldest goes to a special needs camp that offers an emphasis on independent living skills (just like school) in addition to the usual camp stuff.

They all learn a lot.  But unlike school, the kids love it.  Don’t get me wrong, they like school quite a bit — but they love camp.  They love it even though they are made to do all sorts of challenging or sometimes unpleasant things that they rarely do at home.  They have to do all of the cleaning, they serve and clear all of the meals, and they fold their own clothes.  It can be broiling during the day and freezing at night.  They help tend farm animals.  They climb to the top of a high tower.  They go for long hikes.

The camps my kids go to have very nice facilities and are considered expensive.  Their camps offer activities not usually found at other summer camps, including go-carts, mountain biking, computers, water trampolines, and tennis.  The ratio of counselors to campers at the Jewish camp is less than 5 to 1, and at the special needs camp is about 2 to 1 (including specialists).

How are these camps able to teach kids a lot, get them to work hard, and get the kids to love it, while schools struggle to do any of these things?

What’s more, even these expensive camps are less expensive than the average public school.  The Jewish camp costs $151.92 per day, which given that they are cared for 24 hours per day, comes out to $6.33 per hour.  The average public school, as of 2006-7, cost $10,725 per pupil for 180 days, which works out to $59.98 per day or $8.51 per hour for the 7 hours they are in school.  Even the special needs camp, which seems quite expensive, costs less than the average special education in public schools.  The hourly cost of the special needs camp is $11.02 compared to $16.17 for special education at the average public school.  I also looked up the tuition of a popular Christian camp in the area.  The charge there is only $3.33 per hour.

How do sleep-away camps get kids to work hard, learn a lot, broaden their experiences and love it — all for less than the cost of public schooling?  A big difference is that most of the counselors are young, college kids.  They don’t get paid very much but tend to be enthusiastic, bright, and energetic.  Some will later be doctors or lawyers, but they are happy to be counselors for a few summers in the meantime.  It’s easier to get talented people for low pay for a short time than for an entire career.  Camps always have some wise old-hands to keep the young staff in check and to maintain the norms and mission of the organization, but camps mostly succeed at low cost because of their energetic young counselors.

Could schools be more like camps?  Could we hire a lot of enthusiastic, bright, and energetic teachers fresh out of college, who know full well that most of them will leave in a few years to become lawyers, doctors, or something else?  A few old-hands would stick around to keep the young staff in check and to maintain the norms and missions of the organization.  But schools could potentially attract more talented people as teachers at lower cost if they followed the camp model.  And perhaps schools with a high-turnover, young staff would better connect with students and convey the love of learning and working hard.

I know that current research finds that teachers tend to be less effective in their first few years and that turnover is harmful.  But those are findings about new teachers and high turnover under the current system that rewards teachers for sticking around for 20-25 years.  We can’t simply extrapolate from that to what would happen under a system that attracted a different crop of new teachers and where turnover was effectively encouraged (reform of the pension system and pay scale could move us in that direction).

Maybe the intensity of camp just couldn’t be sustained for an entire school year.  Maybe adding even a little more academic content would ruin the camp magic.  I’m sure many things would go wrong if we tried to make schools more like camps, but I think it’s worth thinking about what we can learn from camps to make schools more effective.

17 Comments | teacher pay, teacher quality | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Bigger is Not Better in Education

July 20, 2008

I have a piece in this morning’s Arkansas Democrat Gazette arguing that consolidating school districts in Arkansas to 75 countywide school districts is not a promising reform strategy.  A number of state officials as well as the Dem Gaz have floated the idea of cutting the number of districts to less than one-third of the current number as a way of saving superintendent and football coach salaries while improving the capacity of high schools to offer state-required courses.  I argue that the salary savings will be few, there are better ways to help high schools offer courses (such as with distance ed), and student achievement tends to suffer in larger schools and school districts. 

Now, this doesn’t mean that reconfiguring larger urban high schools into “small” schools within a school, as the Gates Foundation once pushed, is likely to produce much of an improvement either.  The benefits of smaller schools and school districts may be related to the tighter connection they have to their communities and the more competitive market provided by having more districts.  Simply breaking up big high schools may not better connect schools to communities or create more competitive pressure. 

Being able to choose among schools within a district is like being able to choose among the menu items at McDonalds.  It’s nice that you could choose the Filet-O-Fish if you prefer to eat fish, but there is no change in competitive pressure from adding that menu item — all of the money still ends up in the same place.  The same is true for choice within school districts — all of the money still stays with the school district, so their motivation is not significantly altered by your choice among their schools.  We should only expect significant competitive pressure when money leaves one organization and enters another as a result of consumer choice.  School districts are the main organizational unit of education funding.

3 Comments | competitive effects | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Would You Pay $43,479 for a 1971 Impala?

July 19, 2008

Andrew Coulson at Cato does a great job of illustrating how disastrous it is to have had stagnant achievement outcomes for 17 year-old public school students since 1970, while per pupil spending has increased by a factor of 2.3 (adjusted for inflation).  He likens it to paying $43,479 for a 1971 Chevy Impala, which is 2.3 times the $19,011 inflation-adjusted price back then ($3,460 before adjusting for inflation).  Meanwhile, a brand new 2008 Impala sells for $21,975 and comes with features like On-Star, side air bags, and anti-lock brakes that weren’t even imagined in 1971. 

In the automotive industry cars keep getting better with little increase in cost (after inflation), while education has not improved significantly and costs us 2.3 times as much (after inflation).  It isn’t every day that people wish that an industry would be as efficient as car-makers.

4 Comments | competitive effects | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »