Mike Falick's Blog

Forbes Makes the Astonishing Argument that Closing the Achievement Gap is a Fool's Errand

Yesterday, I posted about the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank's study, The Changing Face of Texas: Population Projections and Implications in which the Dallas Fed comes to the conclusion that

For the Texas economy to remain robust, it is essential that the state’s education system make progress on at least two fronts: (1) investing in resources to improve overall student achievement, and (2) developing programs that help bridge the educational attainment gap between racial and ethnic groups.

Today I ran across this Forbes article entitled Gapology 101 in which the author makes this astonishing statement:

The equity theme here has two components. One is that the prime objective of educational policy is to eliminate the "achievement gap"--the gap between what's learned in school by disadvantaged kids and what's learned by middle- and upper-class kids. The other element is the notion that the U.S. would be much better off if only we devoted more resources to the education sector. . . . What's so strange about all this? Just one little thing: It is not possible to close the achievement gap. The mission statement is a summons to a fool's errand. The reason that the gap will never be eliminated is that intelligence rises with socioeconomic status. Estimated correlations between social class and IQ range from 0.3 to 0.7 (on a scale where 0 means no connection and 1 describes two variables marching in lockstep). Those figures tell us that the poor and disadvantaged have less cognitive ability than those from higher-status families. Cognitive ability predicts scores on achievement tests.

Contrast this fatalistic attitude with these prior posts here and here and the immutable conclusion is this -- if Forbes is right, Texas a doomed state.  However, I cannot come to that conclusion.  On the contrary, I believe the prior posted studies clearly demonstrate the immediate need to ensure success for all students today, regardless of the student's current economic or social background.

The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank Issues Its Cautionary Report: The Changing Face of Texas: Population Projections and Implications

Today's San Antonio Express News has an article that highlights a study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas entitled "The Changing Face of Texas: Population Projections and Implications ."  The study supports the conclusions I discussed in this prior post, and contains this striking statement concerning the urgency of the present situation:

If the income differential between Anglos and non-Anglos persists, a larger share of Texans could be drawn into poverty in the future. According to the Texas State Data Center, the share of households with annual incomes of $25,000 or less will increase from 30.7 percent (in 2000) to 37.5 percent by 2040. Moreover, the percentage of families with earnings exceeding $100,000 will fall from 11.5 percent to 8.5 percent. The net impact could be a decline in real income, reduced tax revenue per household and increased burden on the state government to pay for welfare services in Texas. As the state is likely to depend progressively more on non-Anglo Texans for future tax revenues, it is important to lessen the existing wage gap and education differential between ethnic groups. . . .

The study warns of increasing numbers -- 30% by 2040 -- of our citizens who will not have a high school diploma.  At the same time, public school enrollment is expected to skyrocket.  As a result, the Dallas Fed concludes that "state expenditure on public education as well as the number of students requiring financial assistance could expand rapidly unless socioeconomic differences between races are reduced. Rising education costs coupled with slow growth in tax revenues would adversely impact the state’s financial situation."

The education section of the study concludes with this clear directive:

For the Texas economy to remain robust, it is essential that the state’s education system make progress on at least two fronts: (1) investing in resources to improve overall student achievement, and (2) developing programs that help bridge the educational attainment gap between racial and ethnic groups.

Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Jim Collins Adds a Chapter to His Bestseller

I have just finished reading best-selling author Jim Collins' recently published a monograph entitled Good to Great and the Social Sectors.  Essentially, Mr. Collins has added an additional chapter to Good to Great for the 30% - 50% of Good to Great readers who come from non-business, social sector environments.

The monograph starts with this provocative statement:

We must reject the idea - well intentioned, but dead wrong - that the primary path to greatness in social sectors is to become "more like a business."

Mr. Collins recalls how, upon making this statement in a gathering of business CEOs, he was challenged by David Weekley who stated "In my work with non-profits, I find they're in desperate need of greater discipline - disciplined planning, disciplined people, disciplined governance, disciplined allocation of resources."  Mr. Collins responded that these concepts are not solely business concepts because most businesses also need this "culture of discipline" and concludes that

The critical distinction is not between business and social, but between great and good.  We need to reject the naive imposition of the "language of business" on the social sectors, and instead jointly embrace a language of greatness.

I found this monograph to be an excellent addition to an already phenomenal book.  Additional excerpts from Mr. Collins' website appear below.

Students plug into iLectures: Tech-savvy Professors Understand Today's Digital Native

Recently, the Detroit News carried a very interesting story about University of Michigan dentistry professors uploading their lectures onto iTunes.  Students can then download missed lectures, or lectures needing review, and listen to them anywhere.

During our Visioning sessions, educational futurists Ian Jukes and Ted McClain referred to today's students as "digital natives" as compared to non-tech savvy people who are "digital immigrants."  A clear example of this divide is the commentary in the Detroit News article from those professors resisting the technology like Prof. William Kennedy who is quoted as saying, "My concern is students not taking notes will have a lasting effect on their true mastery of the material."

It is clear that times have changed and rapid adaptation of technology is no longer an option in today's hyper-competitive world.

Updated 12/28/05: Here's an additional article that appeared in today's Hartford Courant.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst Appoints Senate Select Committee on Education Reform and Public School Finance

Lost in the holiday shuffle may have been Lt. Governor David Dewhurst's announcement last week of a Senate Select Committee on Education Reform and Public School Finance.  The Lt. Governor's press release states that the committee will

study issues regarding the Texas Supreme Court ruling in Neeley, et al. v. West Orange-Cove Consolidated Independent School District, et al. The purpose of the committee is to make recommendations to the Texas Senate on legislation that ensures compliance with the Supreme Court's decision, improves public schools, and reduces school property taxes.

The Committee is comprised of six Republicans and three Democrats and is chaired by Senator Florence Shapiro (R-Plano), the Chair of the Senate Committee on Education.  Other members of the Select Committee are Senator Kip Averitt (R-McGregor)(member-Senate Committee on Education), Senator Kim Brimer (R-Fort Worth), Senator Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock), Senator Juan Hinojosa (D-McAllen), Senator Eddie Lucio (D-Brownsville), Senator Steve Ogden (R-Bryan)(member-Senate Committee on Education), Senator Royce West (D-Dallas)(Co-Chair-Senate Committee on Education), and Senator Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands)(member-Senate Committee on Education).

It is likely that the Lt. Governor's action is in response to House Speaker Craddick's refusal to create a joint House-Senate committee to study these issues. (See this San Antonio Express-News editorial and Speaker Craddick's response.

A Compendium of Free Education Resources on the Web

Regular readers of this blog know that I have had several prior posts containing useful free educational resources.  I have continued to collect these sites and offer this attempted compendium of free educational websites:

Janet Young's Super Charged Educational Voyage & The Education Companion Web Site: As described by the site's author: This award winning site is a central location in which to find a ready reference of some of the best education sites on the web. Content is geared towards that information sought after by teachers, parents and students. The focus is grades K-12. The site is constantly changing, as new topics are listed for further development as requests are submitted to me. Material is a mixture of my own insights, and links to outstanding sites in the fields. Topics range from lesson plans, math, reading, children's safe internet fun, to homework help, parenting skills, to teacher resources. This site is easy to navigate and tries to make each topic appealing. I work very hard to assure that ALL of the information is "Family Safe" and is RASCi and Safe Surf rated.

The Educator's Reference Desk: Contains the following: Resource Collection - Links to over 3000 resources on a variety of educational issues. This collection includes Internet sites, educational organizations, and electronic discussion groups. Lesson Plans - The Lesson Plan Collection contains more than 2000 unique lesson plans which were written and submitted by teachers from all over the United States. Question Archive - A collection of over 200 responses to popular questions on the practice, theory, and research of education. These responses may include citations from the ERIC database, Internet sites, discussion groups, and/or print resource information.

Sites for Teachers: Hundreds of educational websites ranked by popularity.

Atlapedia.com: Provides a wide range of facts about countries across the globe and gives you access to an A-Z country guide. Atlapedia Online also has a large collection of world maps with attractive graphics and clip art. Ideal for Geography homework or subjects where knowledge of the world is required.

Encyclopedia.com: This site contains an extraordinary amount of information at your fingertips in the form of an online encyclopedia. You can access more than 14,000 articles from the "Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia" and sort your way through an organised A-Z directory to find particular topics.

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence: More than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds of Federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The result of that work is the FREE web site. For an overview of what's available here at FREE, please visit the site map.

Learning Wave: Another compilation of resources website.

BUBL: Website geared to high school and college.  Covers just about every subject area possible from accounting http://bubl.ac.uk/link/linkbrowse.cfm?menuid=9583 to zoology http://bubl.ac.uk/link/linkbrowse.cfm?menuid=6412

Eric Weisstein's World of Science: This science education site contains free full-text "encyclopedias of astronomy, scientific biography, chemistry, and physics ... assembled over more than a decade by Internet encyclopedist Eric W. Weisstein with assistance from the Internet community."

Internet Public Library

Chemistry.org : This American Chemical Society site provides information for professionals, educators, and students at all levels with access to publications, chemistry news, jobs, lesson plans, a "Molecule of the Week" feature, and an interactive periodic table. Check out the "Educators & Students" tab, with its K-12 sections, including "WonderNet" for elementary kids.

The Constellations and Their Stars :This site explains what constellations are, lists stars and constellations alphabetically, by month, and by catalog number. It also includes interactive star charts, a bibliography of star myths from various cultures, and a brief explanation of the myths behind the names of constellations.

Slingbox: Watch Your TV Anywhere in the World

I normally don't post about new technology that doesn't in some way relate to education, but in this case I am making an exception.  I just connected my Slingbox, and it is impressive.  If you haven't heard about Slingbox, one of Time magazine's most amazing inventions of 2005 (among many other awards), you soon will.  This amazing piece of technology allows you to watch your television anywhere in the world you have an internet connection. 

According to the Sling Media website the Slingbox:

The Slingbox redirects, or "placeshifts", a single live TV stream from a cable box, satellite receiver, or DVR to the viewer's PC located anywhere in the home. If the Slingbox is coupled with a broadband Internet connection, the viewer's live TV stream can be "placeshifted" via the Internet to a PC located anywhere in the world.

And if you have a DVR or TiVo, you can even watch programs you have recorded.

See the cNet review below for a full description of this cutting-edge technology.

Open Courseware: A Tremendous Resource of Free Educational Materials

A new website furthers the Open Courseware movement started by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2001.  MIT's concept, which has been duplicated by a number of other universities, is to put all of the educational materials from MIT's undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, free and openly available to anyone, anywhere, by the year 2007. 

The new website makes the collective open courseware of several universities (MIT, Utah State University, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Tufts University, Foothill De-Anza SOFIA, and Carnegie Mellon with more to be added) searchable on a single site.  For example, a search for Shakespeare produced this result complete with student student work samples. 

This is yet another example of the growing place the internet has in education.

Related posts:

NASA's Observatorium: More Great Free Science Education Tools

Want to Learn Physics? Italian Ph.D. Christoph Schiller's Free Online Physics Textbook Can Help

The Space Foundation: Advancing Science Education in the United States with Its Free K-12 Lesson Plans

NPR Reports that OxyContin Use by 12th Graders has Increased 40% in the Past 3 Years

National Public Radio's All Things Considered carried a story on Monday concerning the increasing use of the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin by high school students.  NPR quoted the following statistics:

About 1 in 20 high school seniors now acknowledges taking OxyContin, a prescription drug for managing severe pain that, when abused, can be powerfully addictive. In its annual survey of teen drug use, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that OxyContin use by 12th graders is up 40 percent nationwide in just three years. Five times as many 12th graders report using OxyContin than report using methamphetamine. The results have been tragic. . . . All the teens interviewed for this story said they knew at least one young person who had overdosed and died recently either on OxyContin or on heroin after first getting hooked on OxyContin.

Was that the Sound of the Gloves Coming Off?: Joe Nixon and Dan Patrick Show Why the Senate District 7 Race Won't be Dull

Two of the four candidates to replace retiring State Senator Jon Lindsay appeared to begin the holiday/campaign season by bashing each other today.  Radio station owner and author, Dan Patrick released a poll of 403 likely Republican Primary voters. Mr. Patrick's website states,

"When asked “if the Republican primary election for State Senate District 7 was held today for whom would you vote,” the randomly selected primary voters responded Patrick (54%), Undecided (20%), Nixon (10%), Hamric (9%) and Ellis (7%)." The site continues, "The poll also shows one candidate’s spending of an estimated $350,000 has bought an increase in name identification with voters, but no increase in support against the rest of the field." 

The candidate referred to is current Texas House member and lawyer, Joe Nixon. Rep. Nixon's campaign shot back with this blast:

Yesterday, the Dan Patrick for State Senate campaign released their third set of poll numbers in the SD7 race.  When they distributed their first poll summary in August, the various numbers for the candidates and undecided voters added up to an eyebrow-raising 103.  Polls are supposed to add up to 100.

When the Patrick campaign released their second poll summary (during a recent trip to meet with special interest lobbyists in Austin), the total for all the figures got to 94 – close, but again not what you might hope for from a candidate who claims he can bring excellence to Texas schools.  To be fair, the findings in this third Patrick poll are perfectly timed, because now all the children who are too old to believe in Santa but not yet old enough to know about politics have a new holiday myth to fall for!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Nixon Campaign!

And to think, the March primary is just 76 days away........