Harvard Study Shows Maine at the Bottom in Education Achievement Growth

The study was about so-called progress in student achievement. Whether or not this is in any way a useful piece of information is a discussion for another day.

The study compared all the states based on 2 decades of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress test which is given to only a few schools each year. In 1992, Maine was in the top tier of states, so all the other states have been playing catch-up. It's as if you were comparing how much better a college-level athlete is to one in high school. The former can't advance as much as the latter, even though they may end up at the same level.

Take a look at Page 16 of the study on which you can see Maine and Iowa specifically referenced for this purpose. [http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG12-03_CatchingUp.pdf]

The study says nothing about current educational programs.

A tip of the hat to NamcyEH and her union buddies for a great job of putting the children first. After dealing with a child who comes out of the public school system, is anyone surprised. But they do use some spiffy laptops.

Whether or not this is in any way a useful piece of information is a discussion for another day.

No. It is a discussion for today - hence my post. So, because this study yet again reveals the Maine government-educational complex to be failing our youth, it isn't "useful"? Really?

In 1992, Maine was in the top tier of states, so all the other states have been playing catch-up.

And it has been so nice of Maine school admins, the government and educators to hold off on moving forward so the other states could catch up. Nothing like resting on one's laurels, eh?

It's as if you were comparing how much better a college-level athlete is to one in high school.

To continue your sports analogy, college-level athletes can work to improve their skills and go into professional sports. Professional athletes can improve their understanding of their sport still further and go into coaching. Retired coaches can do beer commercials. Maine students should be doing beer commercials, not standing still on a torn up high school field while students from other states catch and surpass them.

Nice try, Nancy. Keep right on defending the status quo!

There is a false premise here.
The premise is that student achievement is the goal of American schooling.
But American schools are organized around kids' ages, not their achievement.

Given that fact, the main objective of American schooling, especially primary and elementary schooling, is the socialization of the individual student into the group setting.
Our schools miss the mark with only a very small number of children, by that measure.

In contrast, if achievement were the main objective of American schooling, then institutions would be organized around the achievement of each individual student, not around the kids' ages. "School year" or "grade level" would have no meaning aside from a practical nicety in that we would probably make time for a nice summer vacation.

As long as we labor under the false premise that schools are mainly about achievement, we will continue to be dissatisfied with the outcomes.
Or, we can affirm that premise and use it to change the way we think about how schools should be organized.

In the twelve years of public school students spend 2160 days in a classroom. Regardless what you teach there will be a limit to the amount learned until you increase the number of days to learn more. The public school system was originally designed to produce literate individuals who could later be further trained in a skill or profession in order to earn a living. A literate individual knows how to read and write and communicate orally in the language of their country and enough basic mathematics to understand the economic system under which we operate. That is all the preparation that is necessary for the next phase of life.

In order to obtain the results described we hire teachers to motivate students to become literate. It is expected that these practitioners will produce a literate student, no more no less recognizing that the time necessary to accomplish this has not changed since its inception. The plain fact is we have been paying these practitioners more and more every year for doing the same job and expecting a different result. That is the definition of insanity.

But we've been told by the liberal left the computer laptop program has advanced our kids into a realm above all others learning without them. All they need now is more money.

Scrap the laptop program except for 11th and 12th grade, change the curriculum to get back to the basics, and stop all this nanny teaching.

Stop the social engineering and leave the parenting to the parents, get rid of tenure and if they were smart drop the union. Take a page from private schools and homeschooling see why they are successful and turn out children who are ready for college instead of graduates who need a remedial year of college because they are not prepared.

A literate individual knows how to read and write and communicate orally in the language of their country and enough basic mathematics to understand the economic system under which we operate. That is all the preparation that is necessary for the next phase of life.

Agreed. If one can read, write, communicate and compute, one has the skills required learn about anything. Or, "the next phase of life." Ninety five percent of this foundation should be accomplished by the fifth grade for ninety five per cent of the students.

Wed, 07/18/2012 NancyEH: "The study was about so-called progress in student achievement. Whether or not this is in any way a useful piece of information is a discussion for another day."

There are no grounds on which to postpone "discussion for another day".

"The study compared all the states based on 2 decades of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress test which is given to only a few schools each year. In 1992, Maine was in the top tier of states, so all the other states have been playing catch-up. It's as if you were comparing how much better a college-level athlete is to one in high school. The former can't advance as much as the latter, even though they may end up at the same level.

Take a look at Page 16 of the study on which you can see Maine and Iowa specifically referenced for this purpose. [http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG12-03_CatchingUp.pdf]"

Do take a look at page 16 and the surrounding discussion and you will find that this was not the conclusion or explanation given by the report about Maine's dismal ranking or other state's low scores. The report explicitly describes different countervailing influences.

"The study says nothing about current educational programs."

So what? How is a study of trends supposed to be about a snapshot of yesterday and why should anyone think that yesterday was any better? One doesn't need an international "study" to observe the ongoing nature and results of Maine's failing and corrupt government/union school system. Regardless of comparisons with other areas, in absolute terms the system is terrible and inexcusable.

Scrap the laptop program except for 11th and 12th grade, change the curriculum to get back to the basics, and stop all this nanny teaching.

What Jeepn said, the idea that the status quo in education is not working is that the status quo has been constantly changing for decades, constantly fiddled with to meet the "new" concept of education.

Oh and of course, teachers suck, the lazy over paid slackards

I would argue that the stutus quo has not changed, depsite decades of "reform."
We cling to the paradigm that kids need to be structured according to age and grade level, rather than giving an individual teacher a possibly mixed-age group of kids who are similar in their literacy achievement and holding the teacher and principal accountable for their improvement.

Thomas Jefferson supported public education which he thought could be accomplished in three years. That is to teach literacy. The basis for his concern was the fact that a child has difficulty lerning to be litereate at home when their parents are not. That is no longer true but we're getting there, thanks to the teacher's union and their over paid and under worked minions. Example, Detroit - 40% illiteracy rate and it isn't from illegal aliens

I do not think teachers are lazy or underpaid. My stepdaughter is a teacher and it was damned near impossible for her to find a teaching job due to tenure. Scrap the tenure, teach the material and not the test, and allow some measured creativity with performance standards and I'm willing to bet the scores will turn around.

Get the school out of the home and back into school. This means teachers not asking the kids to 'rat' out their parents, not playing TSA with the lunches brought from home, and actually requiring the student to learn and not just be a babysitter. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are the core topics that need advancing, everything else is just riding on their coattails. Once they have a FIRM grasp of the basics, they can expand onto art, philosophy, science, and history, which are all intertwined. Most of the kids today have no idea what a preposition is, how to add without a calculator, or even how to develop decisionmaking skills. That is a travesty.

The teachers are not the problem, the administrators who set policy for the teachers and school system are the problem.

Jeepn, so why do the teachers put up with it? I hope your daughter does not get sucked into the union mindset, where mediocrity is the norm. How many teachers use the same text book year after year, same tests year after year. Teaching used to be a respected profession, it no longer is.

Teachers do it because they love teaching. I used to want to become a teacher, and may still do so, but the call to me is not what it once was due to the current climate. I used to teach in the Army and in Hunter Safety, and there is something priceless when you see it all click for an individual and they finally understand. It is very rewarding. I'm sure most parents have experienced this as well.

She is a liberal type, so the odds are not good she won't become part of the morass.

Did she look into teaching at private school? A much better atmosphere for teaching and learning. But if she is a liberal she won't mind tenure, then she can cruise to retirement.
Having dealt with many teachers in the public school system I can say they may have started out teaching because the liked it, but once they become card carrying union members that goes out the window. Then it is more about toeing the union line than teaching.

She is teaching at a private school. She started out part time and was able to get a job full time due to one of the teachers having a baby and leaving.

Good for her, I think she will enjoy it. I wish her all the best in her profession.