August 25, 2004
the concept of purple
“Is our children learning?” -George W. Or more appropriately, is our educators insane? Report cards no longer have A’s or F’s on them, schools are banning dodgeball and tag, and now teachers are going to use purple to grade papers instead of red, because red is ‘too frightening’.
“If you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening,” said Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Northampton. “Purple stands out, but it doesn’t look as scary as red.”
This is precisely why the public school monopoly is failing to educate children. Our 'educational establishment' has better things to do than teach. We are failing to educate our children simply because we have an educational establishment. Our 'educators' spend more time thinking about how a color might make a child feel rather than whether or not that child actually learns anything. Psychobabble is elevated and accepted as educational doctrine rather than the tried and true methods of a classical education.
A mix of red and blue, the color purple embodies red's sense of authority but also blue's association with serenity, making it a less negative and more constructive color for correcting student papers, color psychologists said. Purple calls attention to itself without being too aggressive. And because the color is linked to creativity and royalty, it is also more encouraging to students."The concept of purple as a replacement for red is a pretty good idea," said Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute in Carlstadt, N.J., and author of five books on color. "You soften the blow of red. Red is a bit over-the-top in its aggression."
Honestly, I see a pattern here. My daughter started the second grade on Monday. Last year I was surprised by her first grade report cards. Uninformative and unintelligable just begins to describe them. It's as if they are purposely vague. Each section of the report card used a different scale. One part had numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4. Another part had letters, but not A, or b, or C, D, or F... No, it had letters like: F for fine, V for very good, G for great.
Wouldn't it be simpler, and more straightforward to use the tried and true A through F so that parents could understand how their child was doing in school rather than hiding that information? Perhaps it is more important for 'educators' to make sure parents are not offended just in case their child is not doing well in school. Perhaps teacher's unions are working to acheive their goal of zero accountability for educating the children they have responsibility for.
"I do not use red," said Robin Slipakoff, who teaches second and third grades at Mirror Lake Elementary School in Plantation, Fla. "Red has a negative connotation, and we want to promote self-confidence. I like purple. I use purple a lot."Sheila Hanley, who teaches reading and writing to first- and second-graders at John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Randolph, said: "Red is definitely a no-no. But I don't know if purple is in."
Hanley said a growing contingent of her colleagues is using purple. They prefer it to green and yellow because it provides more contrast to the black or blue ink students are asked to write in. And they prefer it to orange, which they think is too similar to red.
But aside from avoiding red, Hanley said she is not sure color matters much. At times, she uses sticky notes rather than writing on a child's paper. What's important, she said, is to focus on how an assignment can be improved rather than on what is wrong with it, she said.
Perhaps we should change the stop lights to purple as well because drivers might be intimidated by the bright red color meant to tell you to stop. And let's not make stopping mandatory while we're at it. It's just too black and white. Too right and wrong. Too aggressive a message. After all there are no absolutes.
At least one mother and one teacher understand what 'red' is supposed to mean:
Ruslan Nedoruban, who is entering seventh grade at his Belmont school, said red markings on his papers make him feel "uncomfortable."Posted by Eric Simonson at August 25, 2004 12:35 PMHis mother, Victoria Nedoruban, who is taking classes to improve her English, said she thinks papers should be corrected in red.
"I hate red," she said. "But because I hate it, I want to work harder to make sure there isn't any red on my papers."
Red has other defenders. California high-school teacher Carol Jago, who has been working with students for more than 30 years, said she has no plans to stop using red. She said her students do not seem psychologically scarred by how she wields her pen. And if her students are mixing up "their," "there," and "they're," she wants to shock them into fixing the mistake.
"We need to be honest and forthright with students," Jago said. "Red is honest, direct, and to the point. I'm sending the message, 'I care about you enough to care how you present yourself to the outside world.' " boston.com
Ugh. I guess we can’t expect much from teachers since they are a product of the public education system.
Posted by: Joseph Briggs at August 25, 2004 12:39 PMEric,
Did it excape notice that the color purple is the chosen color for gay activists ?
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not gay-bashing, just stating facts that you can google.
Is it a “stretch” to think that liberal teachers may have other motives that “red is scary” ?…just wondering
Posted by: Beagle at August 25, 2004 01:07 PMWell I think the solution is obvious because the tools are already in place: Provide counselors to ensure that the children aren’t scarred for life. They bring in a truckload of them every time someone’s gerbil dies, so why not this?
Posted by: NOTOTH at August 25, 2004 01:24 PMIf you look at chart of amount spent per pupil on public schools you find no correlation between quality and cash. The District of Columbia and New York City top the list of expenditures. I never heard of any parents moving to these places to take advantage of the schools. Public school in areas where parents are not poor usually are better than those in poor districts. The difference may be money, but not money spent directly on school.
Money gives parents choice. They can make the schools perform and they can afford to send their kids to private schools if they want to. The implied threat of private choice is what keeps public schools performing well. Parents in places like Fairfax County Virginia or Edina Minnesota don’t have to send their kids to private schools BECAUSE THEY CAN if they want to.
In other words, the public schools are strong because of private school choice. The same dynamic is at work in American universities. How long would great public universities like Berkeley, UVA or Michigan remain excellent if they were the only game in town? It would benefit public schools and the pupils attending them if poor parents had some of the same options as rich parents. That is why I support school choice. School choice might make some uncomfortable, but it would revitalize PUBLIC schools. The only losers would be those who would rather play politics than educate students.
Saw that linked on FARK.com - unbelievable.
Posted by: ceejayoz at August 25, 2004 02:02 PMBeagle, you’re thinking of Pink, not Purple. Purple is simply the color for people who like unicorns and wizardry.
Eric, I agree entirely with your take on this purple thing, and on the bans on dodgeball, jungle gyms, and other perfectly normal things that kids should see and do.
I’m kind of old-fashioned in some ways when it comes to education, actually. I’m opposed to this whole massive standardized testing thing, I’m opposed to the crazy syllabic teaching technique that was on display on the morning of September 11, 2001 in the Florida school Bush was visiting (have you heard that stuff? they’re teaching kids to read like robots! it’s crazy.), I’m vehemently against the use of television promotions and paid advertising in schools. I’m actually quite sympathetic to certain ideas from the home schooling movement (even though I know that 90% of them are apparently teaching their kids that the world is only 4,000 years old and that the holocaust never happened). I’m not in favor of school vouchers, however, because it seems like it would quickly degrade into a twisted sort of pyramid scheme with vast swaths of the inner cities with no schools at all.
I think kids should go to schools with smart teachers and small classes and they should read lots of great and challenging books and be required to talk and write about what they’ve read. I think the government should pay top dollar if necessary to support such a system, and that kids shouldn’t have to watch Pepsi ads to pay for new textbooks. Standardized tests, robotic reading techniques, capitalist schools, purple ink, and padded playgrounds turn our children into commodities and I don’t think that’s a good way to educate kids.
Eric, I wish your daughter well! I’ll be having kids soon, and I really do fear what our school system is becoming.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 25, 2004 02:29 PMWhat a gross misstatement of fact, Eric. Our Educators are not the ones who conducted the research regarding color of grading marks. Our educators were the recipients of the research, and with results indicating a color change can reduce stress, it is reasonable to make the change. Why? Because a whole other set of research demonstrates that stress in small amounts improves academic performance, in larger amounts, it is deleterious to learning and testing.
Your comment, “Our ‘educators’ spend more time thinking about how a color might make a child feel rather than whether or not that child actually learns anything.”
This comment is to be completely ignored as hyperbole without evidence to back it up. Most teachers do the best they can with what they have. They are not all the best teachers money can buy, but, then, we don’t offer much money in the first place in far, far too many school districts. My daughter had a teacher last year who we, her parents scored “C”. But, given the fact that our school district had a huge drop in funding, it was understandable that all her teachers would not be the best. We are getting what we pay for.
For those who would argue Public Schools spend more and produce less, compared to private schools, I will nip that in the bud right now. What private school provides busing to the district, classes for the handicapped and learning challenged, and emotionally ill-prepared? What private school is mandated to take as many students as come regardless of capital or human assets per student. Let us not compare apples and oranges and try to imply they can be compared. They can’t until these factors are accounted for.
Here in Texas, some private schools are set up in used mobile homes. Compared to brick and mortar public schools? Apples and oranges…..
I think that this move reflects a rather naive assumption on the part of those promoting purple as less scary than red. Red has been used for years in making corrections and marking down grades, it has built up an association in children’s minds of being corrected, of having been wrong, and of having failed. Switching to purple might relieve these feelings initially, but it will almost certainly be only a matter of time before these same feelings begin to be associated with the color purple.
I’m not a fan of our present educational system, I’ll admit, but I hardly think changing the color of ink used to mark papers is where we should be directing our attention.
Posted by: Jarin at August 25, 2004 02:52 PMNototh,
There is no need for a truckload of counselors, if Kerry had been there, he could have revived the dead gerbil.( I saw that on TV at the Dem. convention).
Gerbil reviving alone should lock-up the Calif. vote for Kerry in nov.
I would say stress is a good thing as long as you give kids a way to remedy it. Changing the pen color and soft-pedalling academic failings will only lead to future stress that the kids cannot escape so easily, as a opposed to that which a little concentrated tutoring can take care of. I believe we should keep high standards, but also intensive work with the students. If they find themselves capable of more than they themselve believed themselve able to handle, then you have gone a long way towards lessening the truly harmful anxieties that would cripple them the rest of their lives.
So if your point is we shouldn’t try to build self-esteem by not pushing kids too hard to succeed, you have my agreement.
However, if this is just one more bit of propaganda against public schools, let me tell you, you’re off base. A private school is nice if you can afford it, but a public school is denied to no one. Our country’s success is built as much on the products of public school education as private. The Public schools are the schools of the middle class, that enable our kids, altogether to prosper without having to be born to parents who can afford the tuition.
Frankly, I think dividing the debate along public/private lines fails to focus the academic debate where it needs to be focused. The point is made that private schools provide superior education, but I believe that private schooling is not a guarantor of individual initiative. A person can plug their way through public school and learn just as well as anybody else.
What we need are standards and methods and resources concomitant to the purpose of encouraging and nurturing that individual initiative. We should not act as if one system or the other will have to go by the wayside. We should instead approach it in terms of mutually exclusive systems. One reason why I oppose vouchers is that it defeats the purpose of both systems- that is, that private schools compete in a market, with out most government interference, beside accreditation. Public schools, in the meantime, ensure that those outside of groups that can pay such tuition and those who would otherwise be left utterly uneducated gain at least the minimum of knowledge they need to function in society.
The Public school system is a Bulwark against the kind of endemic ignorance and illiteracy that plague developing nations.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 25, 2004 03:28 PMSwitching to purple might relieve these feelings initially, but it will almost certainly be only a matter of time before these same feelings begin to be associated with the color purple.
This is the best point of all. Seriously. These colors have no intrinsic “meaning.” Red is also often associated with passion and excitement. So why aren’t the kids excited when they see red markings on their papers? Because in the context of grading, red has bad connotations. If the color of choice had been purple from the begining, the teachers would be wanting to switch to red now to avoid the negativity of purple.
The negative feelings that kids may have about red markings on their papers are conditioned responses to the conditioned stimulus of red pens. So now we’ll just create a conditioned stimulus in purple pens. Great plan. We could also get them to salivate when the teachers ring a bell if we wanted to.
You would think that with the amount of attention these people seem to be paying to the “psychobabble” they might have considered the concepts of conditioning. But then again, they probably got graded with red pens when they covered that unit in psych class and now they’re too traumatized to remember.
Posted by: Kathryn Knowlson at August 25, 2004 04:16 PMFirst of all, let me make it clear that I am not eduphobic. As I’ve said many times over the years, some of my dearest friends have been teachers. [Note to the far-left: This is what’s known as subtle humor so please don’t have a hissyfit.]
The posts regarding school funding and public vs. private schools are way off topic, but since we’re already there, I do have just a few comments.
Everybody wants well-educated kids. But what constitutes “well educated” is an issue that can and will be argued forever because we all define it differently.
I think that there’s definitely a place for home schooling because I know a few home schoolers and my experience is that their kids are generally better read and better informed than their public or private school peers. I do have reservations about the possibility of undeveloped social skills, which is why I personally wouldn’t home school my kids…if they were still in school…which they aren’t…thank God. Oh yes, Chris, I’d really like to take a look at your source for the statement that “90% of them are apparently teaching their kids that the world is only 4,000 years old and that the holocaust never happened.” I don’t know anyone who’s doing that so maybe you’re just hanging out with a bad crowd.
What private schools really have going for them, in my opinion, is that they are free to toss students who become disciplinary problems. Unfortunately, that just dumps these hooligans back into the public schools where teachers are subjected to their abuse with very limited recourse. It’s a job I wouldn’t have and I’m deeply grateful for those who are willing to do it. The fact that most of the kids of congresscritters attend private schools makes it pretty clear what their true sentiments are on this whole education thing.
As to funding, I have always been under the impression that most school funding comes from local and state taxes, not federal taxes. That’s why I’m a little uneasy about federal mandates for states to establish academic standards. Anyway, the standards themselves, as I understand it, are actually established by the individual states and I’m certainly okay with that.
Having said all that, a lot of the rhetoric regarding school funding — especially during an election year — is about how the feds must spend more to make education better for all.
To the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely no correlation between dollars spent and results obtained in the classroom. Chicago schools spend far more per pupil than my little downstate town and yet our school’s SAT scores blow away many Chicago schools, and that’s not a unique situation. Utah, for example, spends less per pupil than most states but manages to turn out some of the best educated kids.
The reasons why some states and districts do better than others is a matter for educators to explore, but it seems to me that big bucks from Washington ain’t the answer and neither is a one-size-fits-all policy.
Posted by: NOTOTH at August 25, 2004 04:40 PMEric, i suspect your daughter will do fine. She seems to have an intelligent involved parent, which is really the key to a good education.
My sister was a teacher until she had kids and my brother in law is a principal. There are good students and good teachers learning. It is a talent and a gift to be a good teacher and something that can’t always be taught. I’ve been playing guitar for over 20 years and I’m still a hack.
I agree there is a great deal of waste in the upper administration of schools. It should always be a locally controlled entitiy. I think accreditation and standards are useful, but in the end we need more teachers and less politicians.
I don’t think schools have necessarily worsened. More people are exposed to more schooling than ever before. My Grandmother attended eight grade twice because that’s all her town in Eastern Kentucky offered in 1920. Now we expect school age kids to be computer literate as well as know calculus in high school as some black kids were discussing behind me at McDonald’s the other day.
I think it is popular to blame schools for dropout rates that are more to do with poor parenting than teachers or school programs. There is, Eric, some validity to the argument against labeling 2nd graders failures. Would you kick your daughter out on the street if she brought home an F that meant failure instead of fine? Of course you wouldn’t, nor would you label her a failure.
Populist ranting against absurdities is convenient and thereputic, possibly, but doesn’t always address the real issues or frame the debate accurately.
Posted by: Greg at August 25, 2004 06:06 PMNOTOTH, your comment above is quite rational IMO. You touched on, though not directly, the difficulty with national public education. The fact that there are a myriad of variables that go into a quality or poor education. Money is but one of these. Local community values, property values and taxes, job base and consequently education of parents throughout the school district, level of competitive advantage in acquiring students, economic class of families (indirectly related to discipline of children at home by virtue of whether both parents have to work, number of one parent families, etc.). The local geographic and cultural richness of a community plays a factor in whether top grade teachers want to live there or not. And the list is much, much longer, but you get the idea.
I do see a role for national government in education in establishing minimum acceptable standards for passing from grade to grade. This does however, raise a host of problems about how the federal government can enforce those standards. But, the fact remains, putting student welfare aside, the society as a whole, and industry too, have a stake in whether a high school graduate has a minimum standard of education required to read and write, follow instructions, work with others in groups, do basic algebra, have keyboard, internet and library skills, all considered necessary for even basic informed citizenship and blue collar entry level work.
I don’t know what the solution is, but, our society does have a direct and important interest in ensuring our public educational system succeeds as far as possible. Where rural school districts are clearly disadvantaged economically, it is in the national interest that those students and families not be left to suffer the consequences of a poor economic base. We are seeing the slow and inevitable demise of manufacturing in our country. That is leaving a number of communities less and less capable of sustaining their property tax rates and school funding from the local level. Some states are experiencing the same phenomena.
The cost to society at large for ignoring declining educational experience in school districts will be great when those students reach work age and are ill equipped to compete in the job marketplace. The black market and criminal cost to American taxpayers is already in the hundreds of billions of dollars each year and growing. To deny a national stake in local educational success will only add to the armies of black marketeers and criminal cadre of the future.
If we don’t invest now, we will see rural areas populated by a support class of menial laborers working for a wealthy class capable of affording home-schooling or private schools for their class. It is already happening in the mid-west as family farm and small businesses continue to fail decade after decade. The young are exiting rural areas in droves and this demographic shift will have a very high price if not reversed.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 25, 2004 07:57 PM> What private schools really have going for them,
> in my opinion, is that they are free to toss
> students who become disciplinary problems.
> Unfortunately, that just dumps these hooligans
> back into the public schools where teachers are
> subjected to their abuse with very limited
> recourse. It’s a job I wouldn’t have and I’m
> deeply grateful for those who are willing to
> do it.
I agree 100%!
> As to funding, I have always been under the
> impression that most school funding comes from
> local and state taxes, not federal taxes. That’s
> why I’m a little uneasy about federal mandates
> for states to establish academic standards.
Me too. If the federal goverment is going to set academic standards, they should pony up the cash and distribute it equally per captita. Otherwise they should cut it out with the unfunded mandates.
An unusual amount of cross-party agreement is going on in this here thread. Very interesting.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 25, 2004 08:42 PMchuckle
Since when has school become a “stress free” environment?
I feel sorry for these poor waifs that are so horrified when they see red marks on their papers, but maybe, just maybe, if they applied themselves a little more and quit whining to their parents maybe, just maybe, they would see a lot less red and their lives would become a lot easier to live.
Posted by: Ynot at August 25, 2004 09:48 PMWhat private schools really have going for them,
> in my opinion, is that they are free to toss
> students who become disciplinary problems.
> Unfortunately, that just dumps these hooligans
> back into the public schools where teachers are
> subjected to their abuse with very limited
> recourse.
What private schools have going for them is that they don’t have to accept the hooligans in the first place!
The private high school I attended had a student body of 250 boys. The public high school down the street had 5,000 children! How can you compare an education between these numbers.
As the product of a private school in the 50’s and 60’s, with an involved set of parents, I got an incredible education, but I was counting the seconds until I could get out of there.
Children of diferent economic classes make very few friends in private school. Granted those I made, have, for the most part, remained my friends through the years.
Being driven to school every day from ten miles away meant that I seldom saw my friends from the neighborhood and those friends quickly became aquaintences.
I am against the voucher system because we can’t pay for everybody. It reeks of discrimination. It’s not even “separate but equal”. We will breed generations of have’s and have not’s
Parents must be more involved in not just their children’s schools, but their lives as well.
> Oh yes, Chris, I’d really like to take a look
> at your source for the statement that …
I guess I should have prefaced it with a disclaimer like yours [Note to the far-right: This is what’s known as subtle humor so please don’t have a hissyfit.] Still, it’s well-known that home schooling as a movement - and the legal battles that movement has fought and won - was for a long time largely dominated by fundamentalist Christians who were fed up with all the evolution and stuff being taught in the schools. I know it’s not really 90%, but the movement is still largely motivated by a desire to instill a religious and decidedly not secular education. I know some home schoolers myself (and their kids are amazingly irreverent young geniuses) and they told me that it was hard to find home schooling resources that didn’t have at least a little bit of a Christian point of view.
By the way, I’m not being critical here. I think Christians have every right to teach their kids whatever they want at home.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 25, 2004 11:05 PMA major factor in the success of private school education is parental involvement. If I am writing a tuition check out of my own pocket each month, you can be sure that I am going to monitor what type of product I am getting for my money. If I don’t think it is a good value, I have the freedom to take my child elsewhere. When something appears “free,” I have no incentive to monitor the return on my investment or participate in the process.
Ultimately, educational standards are set in the marketplace, not within the American educational system. It doesn’t matter what my grades or SAT scores were if my “formal education” does not give me any skills that an employer finds valuable enough to compensate me for.
Posted by: drroakie at August 25, 2004 11:20 PMUltimately, educational standards are set in the marketplace, not within the American educational system. It doesn’t matter what my grades or SAT scores were if my “formal education” does not give me any skills that an employer finds valuable enough to compensate me for.
I’ve heard this argument before, but I just can’t abide by it. The point of schooling is to make us good little workers in the marketplace? So schools are nothing more than factories producing factory-workers?
Non scholae sed industria discimus is the essence of what you propose? We learn not for school but for industry? No, I think I still support the words of Seneca. Non scholae sed vitae discimus. We learn, not for school, but for life.
School is not just about learning facts and figures, or skill-sets that one can later market off. It’s about learning the most important skill of all, the only skill that really separates us as a species. Learning how to learn. And as of right now it’s not doing a great job at that task, having been diverted by industry primarily into a tool for teaching how to obey, and other skill-sets useful to those looking for a continuously produced pool of laborers, with education very fundamentally different from the private education afforded their own children; destined for the upper-echelons of business.
Posted by: Jarin at August 26, 2004 12:50 AMJarin, you are talking what should be. NOT what is. The fact of the matter is, that our schools are factories for producing labor. If they were preparing students for life, there would be far greater emphasis on history, citizenship, government, child rearing, responsible sexual relationships, balancing a checkbook, maneuvering the credit-debt mine field, law and rights of home ownership vs. eminent domain, law and rights of self-defense, environmental science, political ideology and philosophy, world and domestic current events, time budgeting and managment, human relations, psychology and sociology, basic home and yard maintenance skills, and on and on. All of these are vitally important to day to day life and the lives of one’s children in terms of our actions as parents.
No, our schools teach little if any of the above until college and such subjects are even waning in baccalaureate programs around the nation. I agree with your assessment of what schools should be, but, they are far from that. They are in fact, becoming preparatory schools for the job marketplace, which is why computer technology is finally becoming a priority in our schools, the job market demands those skills.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 26, 2004 07:05 AMChris:
You are correct, I think, that the home schooling started with a high number of evangelical Christians. And I think its okay to assume that many of these would teach the theory of Creationism, and perhaps that the world is only as old as can be referenced Biblically, which is around 4000 years.
But I dont know where you come up with the idea that evangelical Christians would deny the Holocaust. I’ve not seen ANY evangelical Christian with that point of view.
I have seen proponents of white supremacy who would argue the Holocaust never happened, but I wouldnt characterize these people as evangelical Christians. To do so would be akin to characterizing radical Islamic terrorists as devoted Muslims, and we know that is incorrect.
I’d agree with paying top dollar if it could be shown to be effective in education. The problem is that we keep throwing money at the problems without solving them. One solution that I see would be to reduce the sheer amount of overhead administration. There is so much redundancy here—-and when money becomes a problem, administration looks to cut sports or extracurriculars, and NEVER EVER looks to make cuts in administration, which is where the cuts should be.
I live in a great school district, and I also pay exorbitant property taxes (I’ll switch my bill, sight unseen, with anyone willing to do so, but do so only at your peril). I’d be more than happy to share the education level with anyone willing to share the property tax bill.
Its also a district with high parental involvement. This is the critical issue. In many schools that underperform, there is little or no parental involvement. As parents, there is nothing more important than your children. And we all have time to spend with them, though not without sacrifice.
Chris, your kids will do well, in part because you seem the type to be highly involved. That shouldnt be a commendable thing—-it should really just be the norm.
Posted by: joebagodonuts at August 26, 2004 10:03 AMDavid
I wish everyone could learn all the things you mention in school, but they can’t. One of the biggest problems in learning is the cognitive challenge – we just are not smart enough to remember and use such a wide variety of information. (The politically incorrect truth is also that some people are smarter than others, so similar input produced very different outputs.) I studied five languages, but I can’t speak them all now. One pushes out another. I have met almost nobody who can really speak more than two languages (although I have met many that claim they can), unless they are closely related. (Portuguese-Italian-Spanish-French, for example). Another problem is applicability. There are many things we can’t teach at certain ages or in certain situations. Nobody learns about home ownership until he owns a home or understands the capriciousness of the stock market until he owns stocks. I have an MBA. I studied and understood the theories of these things very well, but I didn’t understand the reality at all until I did it. And the theories change. Even if you knew all there was to know about stocks in 1980, your education would be almost useless today. Then there is experience. I recently completed a fellowship at a major university after having been out of school for twenty years. History looks different after you have experienced more of it. I draw very different conclusions from the same texts after seeing humanity in action. It is something that cannot be explained to a twenty year old, no matter how intelligent.
So, what do we do? Read, writing and arithmetic would be a good start. With the basic tools, you can educate yourself. The basics are where schools are falling down and one reason they are failing is that they are trying to teach everything else. I must end on an optimistic note, however. As I mentioned, I just finished a fellowship and I spent a lot of time speaking on other campuses. The kids are all right – naive and idealistic, as they should be, and a little too cautious and politically correct, but smart and able. I have no problem leaving my world in their hands. My own kids are getting good educations in the public schools. I have to supplement their educations and sometimes “correct” misconceptions, but that after all is a parent’s job. Education is not a problem that can be solved; it is a process that must be managed. We will always be working to make it better and if we ever stop working that is when we have lost.
My theory of learning is that it propagates in a fractal manner, much like one of those designs in a computer. People talk about useful knowledge in today’s society, necessary knowledge, but the reality is, nobody has a firm idea of what is useful or necessary to know.
This is why home-schooling is not always necessarily the best method, because parents do not always have the expertise or broad range of experience. A professor of mine home-schooled his children, and as far as I can tell, they turned out alright. The oldest can put together a computer from scratch. But then again, my professor is a teacher by trade, and pretty good one. Not everybody who homeschools their kid can do a good job.
I think, if we are to improve the learning skills of our students, we should paint a more substantial real world picture of how that knowledge can be worked back into their lives. Texts should be more practically focused, not just giving the kids empty information to remember, but meaningful insight into how the items learned integrate into the world.
One thing for sure- the more you learn, the more additional information you cand understand in a timely fashion.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 26, 2004 11:59 AMI’m just curious, does anybody know when have we ever tried “just throwing money at the problem,” in some kind of systematic way where the effects can be studied. Effective educational policy is difficult and multifacited. Comparing inner cities to rural environments and public to private schools doesn’t seem as fruitful as comparing schools that exist within the same context. I am currently in an education graduate school, love politics, but am at a loss for an opinion when it comes to coherent educational policy. Anybody got any good books, studies, websites or whatever to help me figure out what would be best for our schools.
Posted by: Adam Crossley at August 26, 2004 06:41 PMI’m just curious, does anybody know when have we ever tried “just throwing money at the problem,” in some kind of systematic way where the effects can be studied. Posted by Adam Crossley at August 26, 2004 06:41 PM
Interesting question, Adam. I’m not an educator, but I suspect that the numbers, if there are any, would be similar to the numbers for Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty initiative and all of the programs that followed. We were to wipe out poverty once and for all but of course, forty years and probably trillions of dollars later, here we are. Olasky’s book “The Tragedy of American Compassion” examines that in great detail and the book should be required reading for everyone, regardless of political persuasion. It’s pretty clear that more money isn’t necessarily the answer to solving problems.
I have a few teachers in my family and from what they’ve said, I think that parental involvement in education is as important as anything. Schools can’t fix broken families any more than the government can and shouldn’t be expected to do so.
Just a guess, but I would expect to find that school districts with a high percentage of stable families produce better educated students, regardless of family income or school funding levels. If you come across a study on the subject, I’d be very interested in reading it.
Posted by: NOTOTH at August 26, 2004 08:41 PMI suspect that throwing money at teachers salaries would have a positive effect. After all, if increasing CEO paychecks to 400x an average worker salary is necessary to bring in talent, that should work for teachers as well.
And Eric, in the early grades, K-3 especially, there is such a wide difference in the capabilities of children that it is really unreasonable to use an ABCDF grading system. The kids need to even out in basic skills before you start grading on a curve.
Posted by: Al Maline at August 26, 2004 09:30 PMAnybody got any good books, studies, websites or whatever to help me figure out what would be best for our schools.
AACTE Education Policy Clearinghouse
Posted by: Joseph Briggs at August 26, 2004 09:51 PMHere’s some more websites:
Education Policy Analysis Archives
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Posted by: Joseph Briggs at August 26, 2004 11:39 PMFor me, the problems in public education aren’t a partisan issue—I don’t think Republicans or Democrats have the answers and at best can and do only tinker around the edges (and work themselves into a snit over anybody who disagrees with any of their massively failed solutions).
I think it’s because the problems are deep-rooted and cultural. If parents and communities actually came to value education instead of watching ten hours of TV a day and buying their kids a lot of expensive worthless crap instead of books, then everything else will fall into line. The dirty little secret of our education system is that we have lazy indolent and ignorant students who don’t value learning because (in too many cases—not all, but too many) we have lazy indolent and ignorant parents who call for educational reform without looking in the mirror.
Posted by: Martin at August 27, 2004 12:26 AMOn a side note: The teacher quoted above teaches in one of the most off-the-wall liberal communities in the entire United States (I spend a good ammount of time there because my girlfriend goes to college in the town). So this does not surprize me one bit.
on a serious note: The public education system has failed for the same reason that so many government programs fail- it has been captured by a special interest. The teachers’ unions have gotten so powerful that schools are hamstrung in firing bad teachers and pay higher compensation to target more talented ones. We need to de-involve the state in the direct administration of education. We should shift to a voucher program that allows schools to compete for student’s patronage by offering better schools, better teachers, ect. Of course, since the democrats are completely wedded to the teacher’s unions, they would never support even trying out such a proposal- no matter how much good it could do.
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at August 27, 2004 09:45 AMAdam, there is a wealth of research out there. Google “Education research”.
Certain principles are known from controlled studies to be valid.
1) Multi-sensory input affords greater learning retention than single sensory input. Think about what that means in terms of money - think about what that means in terms of handicaps.
2) More positive reinforcement creates greater learning and retention than less or negative reinforcement. Think about this in terms of student to teacher ratio - a financial factor if there is one.
3) Safe school environments from home doorstep to classroom back to home doorstep is highly correleated with higher grades.
4) Information manipulation toward expected results creates longer retention of learning than rote memorization. Think of this in terms of teacher - student ratio, educational materials and supplies, and time consumed by teacher in the classroom.
5) Fed children learn better than unfed children.
6) Environmental conditions such as temperature, color scheme, lighting, all have optimum levels for learning. A lot of research in this area can be found in industrial psychology and environmental psychology.
Given the evidence of these principles, it is logical that where money can enhance and foster the optimal conditions supported by this research, money can and will make a difference in educational performance.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 27, 2004 03:42 PMMisha, the voucher system has been tried in a number of locales, and the results are very mixed, as one would expect.
Talk about inefficiencies. Your plan would provide vouchers, increasing taxes to cover the vouchers, while having to maintain funding for public schools for parents who chose to keep their kids in public schools.
Unless vouchers are for 100% of the cost of sending a child to a private school, what do you propose folks who can’t afford private schools do? Quit their job, file bankruptcy, and homeschool?
Sheeezeee! What a plan. How does a voucher plan avoid diminishing funding for public schools? And if funding for public schools is diminished, how do those schools avoid the lowering of educational standards and resources? Vouchers is the most non-sensical notion ever devised. And it is not the Democrats who would oppose elimination of public education, the majority of parents in this country would, regardless of party. Simply because there is no better system to replace it.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 27, 2004 06:26 PMDavid, I think the BEST CASE senario is the elimination of all public school in exchange for a voucher program. My contention, and one I think that most people would agree with, is that there are certain inefficiences that result from the government running schools. So if the government is spending X dollars per student in creating a public school, I believe that the SAME ammount of money can be better spent on that SAME student in a competative private school (which would likely be tailored to provide tuition at exactly the rate of the voucher- as has happend in communities where voucher programs have worked).
If EVERY kid moved from a public to private school, there would be no disadvantage to the students (as the money would be spent better per student), and the level of education in this country would benefit.
The only reason for having public schools is because all children in our country should have an education. If private institutions can provide a better education for the same cost, the rationale for having public schools is gone. Dont you agree? (you may disagree as to whether private schools would do better per dollar, but I think that would be a very difficutl case to make).
What is keeping the current system is dogma, unwillingness to look for new solutions, and the power of the teachers unions. If we break out of the box, we would do much better for our children. if we stop hyperbole by labeling ideas “the most non-sensical notion ever devised”, perhaps we could move to actually improve education in this country.
Posted by: Misha Tseytlin at August 27, 2004 06:38 PMAnd how, Misha would you provide competitive advantage to rural districts, suburbs, etc., where it would not be cost effective for private companies to share the market?
And what of urban markets where one competitor provides $X education, another provides $2X education and third provides $4x education, when one goes out of business or fails in their contract?
I am sorry, but, there is a reason every society in the world that tries to educate its people regardless of class, offers publicly funded education. I just got screwed by my well driller who sabotaged my well in order to generate a profitable call back 10 days later.
Do we really want profit motive to supercede educational motives for our children? I don’t. My public school system addresses my parental concerns. I cannot imagine a private school doing that after they have established a monopoly or oligopoly in my community. Service to our children’s education would be determined by a board of directors whose profits are their main and primary motive. Why would for profits want to take on handicapped students who will eat into profits? Why would they want to address emotionally disturbed youth like San Antonio’s School District does with a special facility to assist those students through temporary crises and assimilate them back into the regular school system?
They would pawn off those students to the lowest bidding Nursing Home equivalent for youth. The nightmares that would ensue would fill headlines across the country.
This is academic, however, since most parents would readily recognize the inevitability of a privatized school system that would quickly stratify into great schools for the rich, pretty good schools for upper middle class, and detention day care discipline centers for everyone else.
And that leaves the debate over what happens to public schools if vouchers drain their funding away. They will worsen, that’s what! Not Improve.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 27, 2004 09:05 PMDavid
We have the example of a public/private mix in education always before us: the university system in the U.S. While we could well argue about the quality of our K-12 system, American universities are clearly the best in the world. There are some bad universities and bad programs. Competition keeps them in check. I don’t think Harvard or Yale cut corners to maximize profit. (Harvard’s endowment is bigger than the entire French university budget.) Public universities have no disappeared and students can still get excellent educations at public universities, although not always brand names. (I attended graduate seminars at Harvard. They were excellent and drew the big names, but I learned as much at similar seminars at my Alma Mater University of Wisconsin. The biggest difference is that at Wisconsin we didn’t get free coffee.) The key to success is giving people choice. This also applies to K-12. Rich people already have the choice. Why not give the poor the same option?
Can you imagine the public reaction and outrage that would occur if the government dictated which college or university a student was REQUIRED BY LAW to attend based solely on the institution being situated in their local “school district?” Everyone would consider that proposal part of some sinister plot to severely limit our freedom of choice. In America, students are free to apply and attend whichever college or university will accept them ANYWHERE in the country.
Why should elementary and secondary education be any different? Do parents and their children somehow “magically” become qualified to make important decisions concerning education only after completion of high school? I think we can agree that this idea is silly.
The real issue concerning public education involves the control and disposition of billions of educational tax dollars. What really bothers me, is that the public educational elite seem to think that they have cornered the market on how to best educate our children. Parents are considered completely unqualified to make such judgments about what schools or programs will best serve the educational goals related to their childrens’educations.
Posted by: drroakie at August 28, 2004 01:31 AMTHE REASONING REPUBLICAN
Stupid Kerry, he stood up against the Vietnam War.
It was such a great war. Why would he want to end it?
And why did he shoot himself 3 times?
And why did he lie on all those reports?
And why did he switch sides and work for the Vietcong?
Why does he look French?
How come he wants to take away all my money with taxes?
He must have gone to Vietnam just to become a war hero and then run for president 30 yrs later.
And how come his crew all like him?
Don’t they know that all the other officers hate John Kerry?
Why are they lying for him?
Why does John Kerry like the Al Queda?
Why does he want to be nice to them? Does he think that’s gonna work?
Why does John Kerry hate Veterans? And why does he hate our soldiers?
Did you hear he wanted to make them to fight without body armor?
Why does John Kerry hate babies, he just wants to kill all of them.
Why did he lie about atrocities? Why did he think the other American soldiers weren’t good men?
Why was he best friends with Jane Fonda?
Why does Kerry lie and say there aren’t more POW’s?
That John Kerry, he’s the worst person to ever walk the earth.
Oh yeah, why did he hate Ronald Regan, and love Communists?
And why….
Posted by: number5 at August 28, 2004 03:05 AMYou’re absolutely right Eric, we do need to worry about the children of America.
“I mean, if you’ve ever been a governor of a state, you understand the vast potential of broadband technology, you understand how hard it is to make sure that physics, for example, is taught in every classroom in the state. It’s difficult to do. It’s, like, cost-prohibitive.”
Dubya, Washington, D.C., Jun. 24, 2004
“For example, if a school — a child is trapped in a school for several years that is — that’s not meeting standards, the federal government will pay for after-school tutoring, and the parent can choose all kind of tutoring options, whether they be public or private. One parent — a parent can send the school — a child to a different public school. In other words, when — there has to be accountability in order for a — I mean, there has to be a consequence in order for an accountability system to work.”
Dubya, Van Buren, Arkansas, May 11, 2004
“If you want to be blunt about what has taken place, sometimes when you don’t measure, you just shuffle kids through. Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling.”
Dubya, Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004
“A good education system is one that is going to mean more likely for any country, including ourselves, to be a freer country, and a more democratic country.
Dubya, Camp David, Maryland, Jun. 24, 2003
“It’s very important for the school children here to listen to what I’m about to say. You’re probably wondering why America is under attack. And you need to know why. We’re under attack because we love freedom, is why we’re under attack. And our enemy hates freedom. They hate and we love. They hate the thought that this country is a country in which people from all walks of life can worship an almighty God any way he or she fits.”
Dubya, Trenton, New Jersey, Sep. 23, 2002
‘We didn’t need any more theory in Washington. We needed people that actually done.”
Dubya, Nashville, Tennessee, Sep. 17, 2002
“I don’t need to tell that to the people in this room, but there is some in our country believe in the — what I call the soft bigotry of low expectations. They don’t believe in the bigotry, but because there’s low expectations, there is a soft bigotry.”
Dubya speaking of education, White House, Sep. 4, 2002
“Arkansas and Alabama don’t need fancy theories, or what may sound good. Science is not an art — I mean, reading is not an art. It’s a science. We know what works.”
Dubya, White House, Sep. 4, 2002
“In the way they’re kind of writing it right now out of the Senate Finance Committee, some people could spend their entire five years on welfare - there’s a five-year work requirement - going to college. Now, that’s not my view of helping people become independent, and it’s certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control.”
Dubya speaking to high school students, West Ashley High School, Charleston, South Carolina, July 29, 2002
“You’re the first high school class to have graduated with America under attack.”
Dubya proclaiming an incorrect historical fact, Rufus King High School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 8, 2002
“The people who care more about the Iowa children when it comes to education, are Iowans, not people in Washington, D.C.”
Dubya, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Apr. 15, 2002
“Sometimes when I sleep at night I think of “Hop on Pop.”“
Dubya, Pennsylvania State University, Apr. 2, 2002
“We’ve got to make sure that the education system throughout the world provides people the needs to be able to provide work.”
Dubya, Barbara Walters interview, Dec. 4, 2001
“If a person doesn’t have the capacity that we all want that person to have, I suspect hope is in the far distant future, if at all.”
Dubya, addressing the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Institute, Washington, D.C., May 22, 2001
“If you’re like me, you won’t remember everything you did here. That can be a good thing.”
Duyba, Yale University, May 21, 2001
“Madam Superintendent, I promise you, I know where the great educational entrepreneurship of America lay, and it lay right here, in districts such as this one.”
Dubya, St. Louis, Missouri, Feb. 20, 2001
“We must have the attitude that every child in America — regardless of where they’re raised or how they’re born — can learn.”
Dubya, New Britain, Connecticut, Apr. 18, 2001
“It’s in your best interests, by the way, that we have a literate tomorrow. You’re irrelevant if people can’t read. And we need to start figuring out whether they can or cannot early in a child’s career.”
Dubya at the National Newspaper Association 40th Annual Government Affairs Conference, Washington, D.C., Mar. 22, 2001
“Reading is the basics for all learning.”
Dubya, announcing the “Reading First” initiative, Reston, Virginia, March 28, 2000
“”Thou shalt not kill” is pretty universal. Districts ought to be allowed to post the Ten Commandments, no matter what a person’s religion is.”
Dubya, GOP Debate in Johnston, Iowa, Jan. 16, 2000
“I mean, there needs to be a wholesale effort against racial profiling, which is illiterate children.”
Dubya, second presidential debate, October 11, 2000
“In 1994, there were 67 schools in Texas that were rated “exemplorary” according to our own tests.”
Dubya, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, New York, Oct. 5, 1999
“I don’t remember debates. I don’t think we spent a lot of time debating it. Maybe we did, but I don’t remember.”
Dubya, regarding the Vietnam War when he was an undergraduate at: Yale, Washington Post, July 27, 1999
It seems glaringly obvious that we really need a president with a sound education to address our concerns over public schools.
Posted by: Adrienne at August 28, 2004 04:21 AMWho are we as human beings? No warning? What about courage, love of country, honor, integrity, justice?
http://www.gpln.com/wetry.htm
Adrienne, I knew it was bad, but, I had no idea we were this bad off. Bush really can’t put a coherent sentence together without scripting and coaching. Must be all them dead brain cells from 100’s too many drunken bouts. He found Jesus alright, an alcoholic induced hallucination, no doubt.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 28, 2004 04:15 PMShowing personal disrespect for President Bush or John Kerry is not called for and not useful if you are trying to persuade. Maybe such insults are appropriate to a pep rally where you are talking to the converted, but when I see someone refer to Bush as Dubya, I automatically discount everything else I read. The same is true when I read that Kerry is a traitor. Remember how excessive Republican personal criticism of President Clinton brought him support from the undecided? Most Americans do not hate GW Bush, even if they don’t agree with the way he is doing his job.
Besides, responsible people have the responsibility to mitigate damage, even in a bad situation brought about by a bad leader. The United States belongs to all of us, after all.
Posted by: Jack at August 28, 2004 08:18 PMJack, nothing speaks louder of a person’s character and inner self than their own words and actions. Amazingly, half the voting population has rose colored glasses, and the other half are blinded by the incompetence.
The facts are the current situation in Iraq is an embarassment and tragedy, the gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening, the canyon between the American people and solidarity is widening, the U.S. is losing its place as it is swallowed up bit by bit by globalization, and virtually none of our long term systemic problems are being addressed.
But, hey, who wants facts, we’d rather watch a spectator sport that is over on Nov. 2, so we can get back to our little lives work, food, sleep, and recreation on the weekend.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 29, 2004 12:31 AMJack,
You’re right, most people in this country don’t hate bush. It would be considered cruel to hate someone that ignorant.
Misha,
Where will we get the teachers to fill the need for the private schools you tout?
The increased load that vouchers will cause will bring down the quality of education you espouse, as will the large class sizes that will be the result.
I received a private school education. The individual class size was small and all the parents were involved with their children’s education.
You can’t place all the blame on the teacher’s unions when the parents of these children are only looking for a babysitter. Without the parent’s involvement even a private school vouchers system will be doomed to failure.
