Grantcoulson's Blog

   Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

    There was a discussion on a listserv concerning the advisability and tactics involved in attempting to explain effective teaching techniques to those in public education. Trying to make headway with those who wield influence in government service is pointless because the most important principle in human behavior–INCENTIVES–is against any such attempt. When it’s INCENTIVES on one side and everything else on the other, INCENTIVES will always win. Humans are built to maximize INCENTIVES.

     In the public service, the INCENTIVES are not in favor of effectiveness. In fact, effectiveness plays no part in advancement of careers, retention of jobs, status or any other INCENTIVES important to humans.

     This is Dr. Martin Kozloff’s take on the matter of attempting to persuade public education officials.

“Adapting how we describe DI so that we will be more acceptable to the morons who make the curriculum decisions is the act of slaves.

It’s jumping through invisible hoops.

It’s trying to play honestly with persons who keep changing the rules.

Is there any reason—besides wanting to be accepted—for dancing to the insane tunes piped by these jerks?

Even when we do succeed in being accepted, it’s always tenuous and temporary.  New principal or superintendent….bye bye DI.

<insert>

   It’s been oft stated here and many other places that effective programs in the public service occur by chance and are gone at whim because INCENTIVES ARE UNRELATED TO EFFECTIVENESS IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Doesn’t it make more sense to be as skilled as you can in whatever your setting, no matter if it’s "only" your classroom?

If you want better curriculum decisions, then do what it takes to be in the position to make them.

The truth eventually prevails.  The powers that be, and the competition, put Galileo down, too–even when the truth could be seen through his telescope.  But who won in the end?

The heck with the district, city, state, nation, or even civilization.  If our fellow citizens are too stupid to know and to do what is right and true in education, then they will be just as stupid in every other institution.  [In fact, they are.]  Take care of your own soul and let the rest suck eggs.”

<end>

    I gave up speaking to anyone from public education years ago.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

   Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

    Wherein we learn about the discrepancy between tax producers and tax consumers.

Slaves to the Government Class

    Kyle Olson

May 24, 2012

Slaves to the Government Class

Over the past year, a lot of people have been talking about “the 1%” versus “the 99%.” But if you’re concerned about one class exploiting another for economic gain, that’s the wrong way to look at the problem.

<insert>

    Click the link below for an animated version of the disparity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of97J_jmXwQ

The protesters are right about one thing: there are gross class inequities in America.

There is one class that works more hours per day, more days per year, for more years of their lives. They have less job security, they pay more for health coverage, and their retirements are not guaranteed. Their incomes are determined by their performance, limited by economic reality, and tied to the fortunes of their employers. This is the private-sector producer class.

<insert>

   Strangely enough, this is the class that the protestors want to exploit even more. In their world of elite entitlement, they deserve everything the underclass can give them.

Part of what private-sector workers produce is taken for the benefit of another class, the government class.

The government class plays by a different set of rules, dictated by unions and implemented by the politicians they help elect. For government union members, income is not determined by job performance, but by how many years they’ve managed to stick around. They’ll work fewer hours, get more vacation time, and make more money than their producer class colleagues.

They’ll get better health coverage, and it’ll cost them less. The government class will retire at an earlier age and with a pension providing a guaranteed income, something fewer than 1 in 10 producer-class workers enjoy.

In Wisconsin, the government class makes up 14% of the population, exploiting the other 86%, the producer class.

The average Wisconsin state employee makes about $70,000 annually in salary and benefits, while the private-sector workers whose taxes pay for it earn about $15,000-a-year less. Talk about income disparity!

The government class is powerful because government employees are members of unions that contribute heavily to political campaigns. And in Wisconsin, no single group funnels more money into politics than teachers unions.

As the producer class struggled with a sluggish economy, Milwaukee public school teachers were rewarded for their political support by getting a 5% pay increase for the current school year.

Compared to the producer class, Milwaukee’s teachers are getting a pretty sweet deal. When school is in session, teachers work almost 4 hours less each week than the standard private sector employee does. And instead of getting the usual two weeks off each year, Milwaukee teachers enjoy nearly 14 weeks vacation. All told, the typical producer-class employee works well over 600 hours a year more than the typical government school employee.

You would think with this workload, total compensation for government teachers would be a lot less than for private-sector workers. But when you add salary, retirement and health benefits, a first-year teacher’s total compensation is almost $56 per contracted hour worked. For a fifth-year teacher, it’s over $60 an hour. A tenth year teacher, more than $66 an hour. And teachers can retire sooner, too, at age 57.

If that sounds generous to you, you’re not alone. Producer-class workers earn less than $735 a week. For a typical 40-hour week, that works out to just over $18 an hour.

Of course, there’s a cost to all this generosity. If you’re in the producer class, you’re working harder than ever to pay for it all. And yet, mobs of government workers have besieged the capital for months, complaining that you’re not working hard enough, that you need to pay even more.

Government employees make up a small sliver of Wisconsin’s workforce, just 14%, and it’s time they stopped pushing the other 86% of us around.

Next time you see government employees demanding that you sacrifice even more for them, remind them that a public servant is supposed to serve the public, not turn the public into their servants.

<end>

   More government intervention, more government workers—yep, prosperity cannot but follow.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

   Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

Pay for disability—get more of it.

2.2 Million Go On Disability Since Mid-2010; Fraud Explains Falling Unemployment Rate

   Mike Shedlock

Since mid-2010, precisely at the time millions of US citizens used up all of their 99 week of unemployment insurance, disability claims have risen by 2.2 million. Those on disability are not counted in the workforce and are not considered unemployed.

The number of workers receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show. That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

The participation rate — the share of working-age people holding a job or seeking one — was 63.8 percent in March after falling to a three-decade low of 63.7 percent in January. Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution could grow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year.

“How we measure and understand what’s going on in the economy can be influenced by the degree to which various public- support programs are available and being used,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan in New York. “With a rising number of disability beneficiaries, there are both lower unemployment rates and lower participation rates.”

<insert>

   As noted before, this rapid increase has to do with the increase in psychiatric drugs and the looseness of the criteria because no one in the government spends his own money paying for disabling pensions.

More than 99 percent of all SSDI beneficiaries remain in the program until retirement age, David Greenlaw, a managing director in New York at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a March research note, citing government data. The program provides an average of $1,111 in monthly income to eligible workers with a physical or mental impairment that will last at least 12 months or result in death, according to Social Security.

Unemployment insurance requires that applicants search for job opportunities, while disability insurance requires they be unable to work.

Lax Screening Procedures

Less-stringent screening procedures, more attractive benefits and a waning need for less-skilled workers have bolstered SSDI rolls.

In addition, “difficult-to-verify disorders,” including muscle pain and mental illness, more easily qualify for SSDI under program reforms, [David] Autor [economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology] wrote in a 2011 paper.

Based on current trends, 7 percent of the nonelderly adult population could be receiving disability benefits by 2018, Richard Burkhauser and Mary Daly wrote in the spring issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. That’s two years after the SSDI program will run through its trust fund, according to an April report by the Social Security trustees. Costs Increase

Costs Increase

Costs have increased with the rolls: The program spent $132 billion last year, more than twice as much as in 2000.

Non-Solutions

Richard Burkhauser, a policy professor at Cornell University, and Mary Daly, associate research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, think the solution is to raise taxes on businesses with larger shares of people on disability.

<insert>

    Higher taxes–a swell idea.

So does David H. Autor in a white paper The Unsustainable Rise of the Disability Rolls in the United States: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Options.

While the paper provides a clear understanding of the problem, their proposed solutions, centering around more taxes, would make it more likely that businesses fire workers before they go on disability, make it more likely businesses will seek younger, not obese workers in excellent health in the first place.

While I am sure that happens today, nothing like incentives from the Fed to increase that pressure on businesses.

How About Stopping the Fraud?

Autor’s proposals dot not go far enough to stop what is clear fraud.

Indeed, Autor explicitly states "A second lesson, evident from the drug and alcohol addiction experience, is that highly motivated applicants in many cases will eventually succeed in obtaining benefits, particularly because of the 1984 liberalization of the criteria for pain and mental illness. While this latter observation highlights that the SSDI disability determination system is badly in need of modernization, my main conclusion is that better gatekeeping cannot be the centerpiece of effective SSDI reform."

I do not buy that, nor do I buy  the excuse "Revoking benefits en masse from needy beneficiaries is not politically viable, whether or not this would be desirable from an efficiency standpoint."

What about the "not-needy, fraudulent beneficiaries"?

Moreover, this country better come to grips about what is "politically viable" before government percent of GDP soars to 56% like it is in France, or worse yet, the extremely unstable mess in Greece or Spain.

From an "efficiency" standpoint one has to be nuts to not to want to stop the fraud. And throwing money at alcoholics, drug addicts, and those claiming mental stress does nothing but increase those number of claims.

Mental Illness

I talked about mental illness and fraud on February 20, 2012 in Disability Fraud Holds Down Unemployment Rate; Jobless Disability Claims Hit Record $200B in January

Pre-crisis, mental illness constituted about 33% of claims. Now it’s 43%. The cost is staggering, over $200 billion a year.

I did some calculations in the above link and this is what it looks like with a mere 10% rate of fraudulent claims.

    Unemployment Rate with 10% Fraud

        10% of 27.5 million is 2,750,000.
        The civilian labor force would rise to 157,145,000 from 154,395,000
        The number of unemployed would rise to 15,508,000 from 12,758,000
        The resultant unemployment rate would be 15508/157145 = 9.9%

    Is there anyone who thinks disability fraud is less than 10%? If not, then the unemployment rate would be at least 9.9% assuming those in fraudulent claims started looking for work.

Those numbers are as of the February BLS jobs release and would undoubtedly be worse now given Friday’s Payroll Disaster: Nonfarm Payroll +115,000 Establishment Survey But -169,000 Household Survey, Labor Force Drops by 342,000

Amazing Achievement is Fraud

In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,638,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 945,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,693,000.

In the last month, actual employment fell by 169,000, but the unemployment rate dropped by .1%.

That is an amazing "achievement" to say the least.

Since Mid-2010 2.2 Million Went on Disability

Notice the jump in claims after the recession was allegedly long-over.

The timing coincides with unemployment benefits expiring at 99 weeks. Supposedly higher taxes will fix the problem. I say "nonsense".

<end>

    We’re slowing down–throw out another anchor.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

    Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

     “Too many pigs for the tits”. Abraham Lincoln on the desire to get “on the government”.

    When the political discussion centers on the distribution of wealth rather than on the creation of wealth, society is doomed to wider distribution of less.

Leftist California Professors "Corrupt" Higher Education

    Larry Elder

Apr 12, 2012

"I don’t know any polite way of putting this — but he’s lying," said professor John Ellis, president of the National Association of Scholars’ California division. Ellis was reacting to a critic’s characterization of the NAS’s damning report, "A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California."

California taxpayers spend $2.8 billion to educate the more than 230,000 students at the 10 campuses that comprise the UC system. But the report says the UC system does not help students learn how to think, but rather teaches them what to think. And what they "learn" is that they are victims — whether of racism, sexism, classism or discrimination because of sexual orientation. Liberal profs, says the report, turn the UC campuses into "a sanctuary for a narrow ideological segment of the spectrum of social and political ideas."

Nationwide, left-wing professors vastly outnumber conservative professors in the humanities. It isn’t even close.

<insert>

   Allowing this extreme  ideological slant guarantees the kind of nonsense this “scholarship” produces. Assumptive knowledge prevails, facts are ignored and those on the other side taunted by the undeniable fact that left-leaning philosophy has the approval of higher education. That higher education is a racket fueled by irrational beliefs is ignored.

The report cites several studies, including political scientist Stanley Rothman’s 1999 study: "Whether the question was posed in terms of liberals versus conservatives or Democrats versus Republicans, the margins favored the former by nearly 5-to-1 in each case, and in some departments the results were overwhelming. For example, in English departments the margin was 88-to-3, and in politics 81-to-2."

A different 2007 study, says the report, found the 5-to-1 margin between liberal versus conservative professors had become 8-to-1. Almost 20 percent of professors in social sciences and 25 percent of sociology professors self-identifies as "Marxist."

<insert>

     Under these extreme circumstances, a point of view allowing people to make choices for themselves is regarded as radical. Strange.

And things are getting worse. Younger professors tend to be even more liberal than older ones. Among UC Berkeley’s associate and assistant professors, according to one study, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 49-to-1 in all departments — including sciences. When Berkeley associates and assistants replace the older professors as they retire, the extreme 8-to-1 tilt in favor of liberal profession could reach 50-to-1.

UC Berkeley professor Robert Anderson, the critic whom Ellis accuses of "lying," called the report "short on facts, but long on innuendo and anecdotes." Is it? The 87-page report looked at course descriptions, books assigned, faculty’s political party registration and self-identification of ideology, and student feedback.

Students are immersed in an education that emphasizes the wrongs done to minorities, women, gays and other groups. Gender, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation grievances are highlighted as representative of an imperial, racist, exploitative capitalist superpower that continues to engage in widespread racism, sexism, homophobia and worldwide domination.

"We wuz wronged" takes center stage over a basic understanding of economics, of the concept of federalism, and of the values that turned a struggling bunch of colonies into a political and economic superpower. Indeed, the very mission statements of many departments on UC campuses stress their commitment to activism for enacting social change, or to bring about social or racial or fill-in-the-blank justice.

Take the UC Berkeley history course that majors in that field must take, "The United States from Settlement to the Civil War." Its course description states its goals: "to understand how democratic political institutions emerged in the United States in this period in the context of an economy that depended on slave labor and violent land acquisition."

A conservative professor — if there were any — might offer an alternative version of American history: The British colonies defied the mightiest world power by demanding and then fighting for political and religious freedom. They conceived a radical document, the United States Constitution, born out of armed revolution, where for the first time in human history, the new, imperfect country said: "The people rule. Through our Constitution, which we have amended to ensure equal rights of blacks and women, we grant our government limited, non-intrusive powers. The rest is left to the people and to the states."

Why does this matter?

After all, students expect professors to give opinions. Surely students aren’t potted plants, and can a) read about other points of view and b) freely disagree with professors without fear of classroom ridicule or lower exam grades.

But the report says many students complain that alternative viewpoints are discouraged, scorned or dismissed, sometimes derisively. Students’ complaints to administrators are ignored.

What is the practical effect of this "corrupted" education?

Take today’s debate over whom to "blame" for high gas prices. Without some understanding of supply and demand, voters buy into the patently ridiculous argument that the price of oil results from "manipulation" by oil executives or evil "oil speculators." Voters ignorant of Econ 101 support populist policies like the minimum wage, which actually hurts the job prospects of the poor — the people minimum wage proponents purport to help.

NAS’s Ellis says the answer is for the UC system to first acknowledge the problem. Then the UC system should stop ignoring its own regents’ "Policy on Course Content." It states: "(Regents) are responsible to see that the University remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest. Misuse of the classroom by, for example, allowing it to be used for political indoctrination … constitutes misuse of the University as an institution."

<end>

    The Left is famous for its ignorance of economics and the belief in the absolute necessity of coercion to produce the Nirvana pushed out of reached by “Capitalism”.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

     There is an alleged scandal in Mexico where Walmart officials allegedly bribed Mexican government officials for certain favors. Curiously, all of the ink has been focused on Walmart and none on the government officials. Bribery is an inevitable result of government power. Why is anyone ever surprised, or more hypocritically, outraged?

   I have a brief report today of an extremely capable, high performing student whose academic capabilities have been further enhanced by Direct Instruction. Roxanne, as she will be known, came to us six months ago 3.2 grades ahead in reading, .2 grade ahead in spelling, .1 grade behind in math and 1.3 grades ahead in comprehension. She now tests the same in reading (probably the ceiling effect), 3.3 grades ahead in spelling, 5.2 years ahead in math and 4.3 grades ahead in comprehension. Writing was far ahead on pre and post tests, again, probably because of the ceiling effect. This was done by the judicious application of Direct Instruction programs, skipping those parts, especially in math, where Roxanne had fluent knowledge. These results were accomplished in 36 hr. of instruction. Roxanne’s progress indicates, once again, that high-performing students can benefit from Direct Instruction programs.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

   Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

    About a decade ago, there was a petition circulating in Ontario to the effect that privatization of electricity generation would lead to “unconscionable” increases in electricity rates. The statists took over and now we have increases that make unconscionable look appealing. We have hidden costs, wind power, solar power, vast overruns on nuclear and biomass. Part of this job-killing increase has been in the unfunded pension liabilities of the “dedicated public servants” who have given their careers in the selfless service of others.

Sad Violin Alert: Michigan Teacher Upset She Can’t Retire…at Age 47

    Kate Hicks
Apr 18, 2012

Union lunacy at its finest. A Michigan teacher, and member of the Michigan Education Association (the teachers’ union), has gone on the record protesting an education spending reform bill that would preclude her from collecting health benefits right away when she retires…at age 47.

It’s hard to decide what’s more galling here: the fact that this woman believes she’s entitled to retire so early — on taxpayer funds, I might add — or that she’s protesting a bill that would require teachers to take marginal responsibility for their own retirements.

The nerve of these insensitive, education-hating politicians!

SB 1040 calls for some fairly invasive cost-cutting measures that would relieve the taxpayers of some of the heavy burden education spending imposes, while asking teachers to invest in their own retirement. The bill requires Michigan teachers to put 5% of every paycheck toward their pension funds, among other reasonable, moderate practices considered standard by virtually everyone in the private sector.

English teacher Terri List, however, thinks the proposal is completely unfair, because it would require her to stay in the profession for longer. To quote a fantastic movie: "It’s a life ruiner. It ruins people’s lives."

    The MEA reported on its website: "Saginaw Township teacher Terry (sic) List had hoped to retire in the next three years when she was 47 years old. That wouldn’t be possible under SB 1040. List would have to work another 16 years to be eligible for health benefits."

    "By the time I’m 60, I would have put in 43 years of service, earning a salary at the top of the pay scale. How does that save the district money? You could hire two people for the cost of one and encourage young people to join the profession. Right now, I would not recommend to my pupils to become a teacher in Michigan."

<insert>

      Started at 17?

Rich. She thinks she should be allowed to retire early on the taxpayer’s dime because it would save the district money. What she fails to recognize is that she’s not saving anyone money. Her pension of $60,000 (which would increase at a rate of 3% per year) is provided to her by the same people who would be paying those two new teachers: Michigan taxpayers.

In what profession is retirement at 47 a reasonable expectation? Even in Greece, the retirement age is 63! It’s just another lesson on the ills of public sector unions. They’re not unionized against a private company that might seek to cheat them of hard-earned profits; no, they’re unionized against the taxpayers. If they want more money, they just ask for more from the government coffers. There’s no impetus to spend less and save more. Thus, its members adopt the entitled attitude borne of a distorted definition of "fairness" that means, "what I think I deserve."

Terri List thinks she deserves to retire at age 47, without contributing a cent to her own pension. If she can’t, it’s not fair, and it hurts the children. Ah. The terrible injustices reality imposes on us all.

<end>

   Why do some choose the hammock and others the plow?

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

   Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

     Here’s what happens when you give an organization an increasing flow of money and expect nothing except the pretend results public education is known for.

       From an essay “Why I like school.” –“I have exploratories like gym, drama, music and computers.–I don’t like dance.”  Can’t teach reading or math, but we have music, drama and dance.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

Leftist California Professors "Corrupt" Higher Education

    Larry Elder

Apr 12, 2012

Leftist California Professors

"I don’t know any polite way of putting this — but he’s lying," said professor John Ellis, president of the National Association of Scholars’ California division. Ellis was reacting to a critic’s characterization of the NAS’s damning report, "A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California."

California taxpayers spend $2.8 billion to educate the more than 230,000 students at the 10 campuses that comprise the UC system. But the report says the UC system does not help students learn how to think, but rather teaches them what to think. And what they "learn" is that they are victims — whether of racism, sexism, classism or discrimination because of sexual orientation. Liberal profs, says the report, turn the UC campuses into "a sanctuary for a narrow ideological segment of the spectrum of social and political ideas."

Nationwide, left-wing professors vastly outnumber conservative professors in the humanities. It isn’t even close.

The report cites several studies, including political scientist Stanley Rothman’s 1999 study: "Whether the question was posed in terms of liberals versus conservatives or Democrats versus Republicans, the margins favored the former by nearly 5-to-1 in each case, and in some departments the results were overwhelming. For example, in English departments the margin was 88-to-3, and in politics 81-to-2."

A different 2007 study, says the report, found the 5-to-1 margin between liberal versus conservative professors had become 8-to-1. Almost 20 percent of professors in social sciences and 25 percent of sociology professors self-identifies as "Marxist."

<insert>

     When you have a job for life, neither shame nor rationality need apply.

And things are getting worse. Younger professors tend to be even more liberal than older ones. Among UC Berkeley’s associate and assistant professors, according to one study, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 49-to-1 in all departments — including sciences. When Berkeley associates and assistants replace the older professors as they retire, the extreme 8-to-1 tilt in favor of liberal profession could reach 50-to-1.

UC Berkeley professor Robert Anderson, the critic whom Ellis accuses of "lying," called the report "short on facts, but long on innuendo and anecdotes." Is it? The 87-page report looked at course descriptions, books assigned, faculty’s political party registration and self-identification of ideology, and student feedback.

<insert>

    Facts do not appeal to ideologues, especially those employed by the state because political stances are about the emotional show. Politics is also based on making the unfavored ones perpetually ashamed of their success and providing the favored ones with excuses for failure.

Students are immersed in an education that emphasizes the wrongs done to minorities, women, gays and other groups. Gender, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation grievances are highlighted as representative of an imperial, racist, exploitative capitalist superpower that continues to engage in widespread racism, sexism, homophobia and worldwide domination.

"We wuz wronged" takes center stage over a basic understanding of economics, of the concept of federalism, and of the values that turned a struggling bunch of colonies into a political and economic superpower. Indeed, the very mission statements of many departments on UC campuses stress their commitment to activism for enacting social change, or to bring about social or racial or fill-in-the-blank justice.

Take the UC Berkeley history course that majors in that field must take, "The United States from Settlement to the Civil War." Its course description states its goals: "to understand how democratic political institutions emerged in the United States in this period in the context of an economy that depended on slave labor and violent land acquisition."

A conservative professor — if there were any — might offer an alternative version of American history: The British colonies defied the mightiest world power by demanding and then fighting for political and religious freedom. They conceived a radical document, the United States Constitution, born out of armed revolution, where for the first time in human history, the new, imperfect country said: "The people rule. Through our Constitution, which we have amended to ensure equal rights of blacks and women, we grant our government limited, non-intrusive powers. The rest is left to the people and to the states."

Why does this matter?

After all, students expect professors to give opinions. Surely students aren’t potted plants, and can a) read about other points of view and b) freely disagree with professors without fear of classroom ridicule or lower exam grades.

But the report says many students complain that alternative viewpoints are discouraged, scorned or dismissed, sometimes derisively. Students’ complaints to administrators are ignored.

What is the practical effect of this "corrupted" education?

Take today’s debate over whom to "blame" for high gas prices. Without some understanding of supply and demand, voters buy into the patently ridiculous argument that the price of oil results from "manipulation" by oil executives or evil "oil speculators." Voters ignorant of Econ 101 support populist policies like the minimum wage, which actually hurts the job prospects of the poor — the people minimum wage proponents purport to help.

NAS’s Ellis says the answer is for the UC system to first acknowledge the problem. Then the UC system should stop ignoring its own regents’ "Policy on Course Content." It states: "(Regents) are responsible to see that the University remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest. Misuse of the classroom by, for example, allowing it to be used for political indoctrination … constitutes misuse of the University as an institution."

<end>

   A cult will never acknowledge reality until reality is imposed upon it.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

    Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

   State Tests vs. School Choice

by Don Crawford  |  Posted April 07, 2012

A few months ago, Richard Phelps attracted attention with an article in The Wilson Quarterly called "Teach to the Test?” Its argument is that "most of the problems with [school] testing have one surprising source: cheating by school administrators and teachers."

<insert>

     Since there are few checks for reality in government “service”, lying is an option often taken.

Last week an investigative report published in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution found indications of standardized test cheating in school systems throughout the US.

Certainly cheating of various types is a big problem in education. But it is not really that surprising. Where else would the highest stakes of evaluation be left up to the individuals or groups being evaluated? But these articles proceed from the unquestioned assumption that state tests are an appropriate way to hold schools accountable for quality. For instance, Richard Phelps wrote, “Without standardized tests, there would be no means for members of the public to reliably gauge learning in their schools.”

The state tests are wrong both for what they leave out and for what they include.

I agree that the purpose of education is to increase academic skills. I agree that tests ought to be used to determine what students have learned. I agree that more learning is better. I do not agree with folks who say that testing is bad and that schools should not give tests because that stifles teacher creativity. I do not agree with the proposition that tests can’t measure what is important in education.

<insert>

     It is oft’ stated, but never demonstrated, that “teacher creativity” leads to better learning.

Neither do I agree, however, with the use of state-constructed tests to attempt to hold schools accountable for quality. It has taken me several years to come to this position. I have three main reasons.

First there is the issue of alignment. Whatever the state chooses to put on the test becomes, in essence, the required curriculum of all the schools in the state, even if it is wrong. The state tests are wrong both for what they leave out and for what they include. For example, state tests for elementary age students in reading and math ignore fundamental areas of the curriculum. I refer to accuracy and fluency in decoding the meanings of words, in the statement (memorization) of mathematical facts, in mathematical calculations, and in spelling. State tests simply don’t bother to measure these pillars of an elementary education, even though they are critical to future educational success.

I run six charter schools, which due to our use of a trend-bucking curriculum called Direct Instruction (DI), mostly achieve better test scores than the school districts in which we reside. DI is a specific, scripted, sequential elementary curriculum (grades K through 5) that takes much of the guesswork out of teaching. The lessons are carefully crafted to be easily understood, build only on what has been taught in earlier lessons, and prepare students precisely for what is to come. There are programs for reading, math, spelling, and writing. All but the very lowest special education students can learn from these programs and emerge from elementary school with average or above average skills. DI is hated by the progressive educators at universities, but we love it, and so do our students and parents.

Curricula such as DI that focus on bringing all the fundamental student skills to mastery (including the ones not tested) must do so on top of teaching the things that are measured on the test — while other schools focus all their efforts on the test material. A majority of American elementary schools no longer teach spelling, for example, simply because it is not measured on the state tests. While learning how to spell is an essential skill, the state tests have pushed it out of the curriculum. Not to mention all the other critical content not tested and no longer taught.

Conversely, state tests focus strongly on a number of things that, although they sound good, are not skills to be taught but attributes of intelligence that we desire. These attributes are such things as the ability of bright elementary students to make inferences from unfamiliar texts, to write interesting imaginative stories, and to find creative solutions to unique word problems in mathematics.

<insert>

     Education, as practiced in North America, is an extended, expensive IQ test.

These attributes, and their application, are not an emphasis of the very strong DI elementary curriculum. But if schools that use DI, such as my own, taught what is in our curriculum (what kids need) and ignored the less relevant, they would get lower state test scores and be branded as poor schools. Schools ought to be able to use their own tests to measure what their own curriculum plans to teach, and be evaluated on how well the school does what it claims it will do. Parents, of course, could select schools according to the nature of their claims as well as their performance.

Second, people forget important facts about state tests. One is that the results have no consequences for the children. Another is that these are children taking these tests. Children are subject to wide swings in their performance, often depending on testing circumstances. In our schools we have found children who have been well taught but who for years have failed the test. Yet they can reach not only "proficient" but “exceeds proficient” if their teacher sits next to them and makes them read the test aloud and gives them breaks when they get tired. Essentially we are making certain that they actually do their best on what to them is a very long test. This is not cheating. These practices are specifically allowed by the state rules for students who need them; they are called an “accommodation.”And it is an appropriate accommodation. It just shows the best that the student can do. Guess what? Children don’t always do their best. Sometimes they just guess their way through the test to get it over with. If those children go to another school, where no one they know or care about is monitoring their test performance or where they are allowed to do fun stuff when they are “done,” they will probably turn in a failing score the next year.

If we expect teachers and administrators to want to work with populations that are below average in some way, we have to stop proclaiming that those who teach the smarter students are better teachers.

<insert>

    There are some students, including some who do “poorly” in school who are such fast learners that teaching is simply “page turning”, showing them the material and checking their output.

Third is the issue of students’ ability. Obviously, the more able students are, the easier it is for them to learn. The less able they are, the harder the teacher and the school must work to teach them. Scores on state tests are as much a measure of how smart the student body is, as they are a measure of how well the teachers teach. It is ridiculously unfair to ignore this fact and proclaim that high test scores mean a school is good and low test scores mean it is bad. That would be true only if the student bodies of the schools were evenly matched in IQ — which is never the case. It is a heavier lift to raise test scores in a school that enrolls many students with low ability, or learning difficulties; and until we begin to measure the weight of the load, we cannot claim to know who is stronger. If we expect teachers and administrators to want to work with populations that are below average in some way, we have to stop proclaiming that those who teach the smarter students are better teachers, just because their students get higher test scores.

We would be far better off if the states stopped giving their tests, instituted more school choice, and left it up to schools to find a way to prove they were doing a good job for the consumers — just as it happens in every other service industry. We could do it easily in our schools, without a state test. If we gave aligned end-of-year final exams for each of our DI programs and shared the results with parents, they would be blown away by what we teach. Few students outside of our schools could match that performance. That’s how you prove quality, not with bogus, we’ll-decide-what’s-important-to-learn, state tests.

About this Author
Don Crawford lives in Portland OR, where he manages a group of six charter schools.

<end>

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

    Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

     Anchorage has set a new record for snowfall. This will undoubtedly be attributed to the mirror-like effect of Global Warming, the phenomenon, caused by greed and capitalism,  which will destroy us all. Just ask the professional hysterics.

   Pasquale Alladente, the nom-de-guerre of our “Untaught Student”, continues to make progress in math. His reading has been outstanding for several months. I had a conversation with an “official” from his school which put me in foul humour because I knew its was for the purpose of “covering someone’s ass” and giving the impression of caring and completeness so beloved of government bureaucrats. These overpaid folks have neither the expertise nor intention of doing anything useful. In politics, of which public education is a highly visible  part, appearance is all, accomplishment nothing. Ass covered, compassion simulated, mission accomplished, child taught no better.

     I had a long discussion with a mother who is quite passionate about getting the proper amount of attention for her son from the public school system. I pointed out that, since the first product of politics is pretending, the only thing you can get from a political system is better pretending. My advice, stop bothering them, they have nothing you want.

    One of my students, incorrectly labeled as autistic, was commenting on a Direct Instruction story in which a small, kind ghost, Boo, takes on a monster who wreaks her havoc with a magic rod. The small ghost confronts her to demonstrate that he is a good ghost, but she turns him into half-fish, half ghost. “What do we call Boo now?”, our young hero asked, “A foast or a gish?”

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies