The Economist and Schools. 

Recently, the Economist did another story on schools.  In this article entitled, "Visiting an inspiring school in a tough London neighbourhood,"  the Economist extolled the virtues of a formerly run down school known as Paddington Academy.  The Economist wants to know if the school's success can be duplicated and thinks it can.  Here is why I think they are wrong.

Schools are a by-product of their communities and not the other way around. 

 

Writing on Educational Matters, I am Michael Langdon MSE. 

 

 

1/8/2012
Recently, I received an email from Kathleen Marsh.  Kathleen Marsh is a Wisconsin public employee who started a petition to tell our politicians that they should keep their paws out of our deferred compensation or pension as some call it.  It is only a pension if you actually receive your pension.  Well, she provided a link to an article from Andrew Biggs in the Wall Street Journal.  Here is the original paper that he wrote for the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation entitled, Are Teachers Overpaid? (http://www.aei.org/article/education/k-12/higher-pay-than-private-sector/)   If you want to see how a research paper shouldn't be written, this paper is an excellent example.  It would never be published in an actual research journal with standards.    

Here are the horrible highlights of Assessing the Compensation of Public-School Teachers upon which Are Teachers Overpaid is based.

1. Falsely assumes that markets set accurate prices.  If markets accurately set prices there wouldn't be asset bubbles such as the housing bubble, stock market bubble, or tech stock bubble.  Markets require honesty and transparency to work, neither of which has ever happened and will probably never be.

2. Uses lots of anecdotal evidence to support predetermined conclusions -- also known as dogma.

3. Cites non-peer reviewed sources, including a blog on page 7 citation #18.

4. Asserts without evidence that the better grades of education majors are a by product of low grading standards instead of the improved effectiveness of people who are experts at instruction or the ineffectiveness of instructors who have no expertise in instruction.   (Page 7 paragraph 6).

5. Uses anecdotal evidence to deny statistical evidence that teachers are in fact underpaid.  On page 6, they state that, "In other words, public-school teachers receive salaries that are 19.3% lower than non-teachers who have the same observable skills."  That is the statistical evidence.  Now here is the anecdotal evidence, "If we added an indicator for architects to the regression, for example, we would find that architects receive a wage premium over similarly skilled workers.  Yet, few people would immediately conclude that architects are 'overpaid.'"  Few people?  Who are these people and where did Mr Biggs find them? 

6. On page 6, Biggs asserts that experience does not have an impact on teacher quality without evidence to back up his assertion.  In reality, the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance states that expertise requires approximately 10,000 hours of effortful practice.  Hardly something a new teacher would possess.  Teachers work approximately 200 days a year.  Multiply this by seven hours a day of instruction, and you get 1400 hours.  It would take about seven years to put in the appropriate number of hours to be an expert and that is under perfect effortful practice conditions, not necessarily a classroom.

12/24/2011
I wanted to take some of the knowledge I acquired from a music theory class I took last year and do something useful with it.  So, I was on YouTube visiting Mike Lively's Channel and I found this video (http://youtu.be/kH8Z12ZBs0M) Flash Builder Dynamic Sound Generation.  I watched the video and decided I could do something with this.  Maybe a crude version of band in a box.  

12/21/2011
    Well, the semester is over and I have gotten everyone's grades in.  This semester was an interesting one to say the least.  There are two changes I plan to make for the coming semester: exams and retention.  I am dumping high point assignments for three exams.  I need to be sure that what they are representing as their own work is, in fact, their work. 
    Retention is something that I haven't ever really dealt with; however, I find that I have decided to try to intercede.  Qualitative research indicates that students quit because they don't think anyone cares.  So, this semester, I plan on issuing verbal reports to each student on a biweekly basis.  If a student misses class, they will be sent an email stating that they missed and how many classes they have left before they drop the course.  
    

Not only is Miley Cirus a pothead but now she’s also part of the 99 percent.

This was meant not only to show his filial piety but also to strengthen the family cult, Kim Jong-il’s only source of legitimacy.

With the sands running out till the glass reaches 2012, the fate of the so-called payroll tax and pipeline deal on Capitol Hill is a tale of disorder and disunion not only between the warring states of the Republicans and Democrats but also among intramural factions within each party.

Economist.com
The revised financials not only show the severity of Olympus's troubles, but its need of better management.

Additive manufacturing, then, is changing not only how things are made, but what is made.

New Yorker
There will be more of this sort of low-level terrorism in the United States in the years ahead, not only from self-styled jihadis but possibly also from the extreme right.

Not only were many more people killed on that morning; they were victims of a premeditated act of mass murder that pioneered the use of hijacked passenger jets as suicide bombs and then reordered and distorted the decade that followed.

Conclusion
Results are mixed.  Clearly, the rule is not applied in a consistent manner amongst the most well known publications.  Because of this, I would find it difficult to enforce it as a rule of language. 

 

 

Meet the Elements by They Might Be Giants