Thursday, January 30, 2014

Journal sees smaller classes as the answer - misses the point

If there were a way to precisely measure the outcome of educational interventions, one could calculate cost effectiveness of each.  One might find that lowering class size by some percentage will raise test scores by some correlating percentage and, then employ interventions or not based on their cost effectiveness.

Lowering class size is very expensive and according to research, a largely ineffective intervention until class sizes are nearly halved.

Textbooks are very expensive and manifestly ineffective.  They are particularly ineffective for students who can't read.  And by "can't read" it is important to understand that in this context, can't read means can't read well.  Mediocre readers, the overwhelming majority of students, are not well served by textbooks.

Ask a teacher, ask if they would rather have a different primary learning resource.  Textbooks are most useful and most used as a teaching tool when a teacher's immediate need is to keep 30 squirming minds and bodies under control.  Textbooks are employed in unison, every student opens to the same page at the same moment.  Faster readers grow bored, slower readers fall still further behind.

The Journal editors this morning, expressed opinion on the effectiveness of smaller classes.

I would be willing to bet a modest sum, that their opinion is not expert.  I would bet not one of them has taken advantage of the opportunity to substitute teach for a day.  I would be willing to bet a similar sum that not one Journal reporter, nor any investigative reporter for any TV or radio station, has substitute taught for a day.

There is no evidence to suggest that the establishment media has made any effort at all to find out what teachers think about what's going on in classrooms and schools.  There have been no surveys, no interviews, no investigations.  Do they really want smaller classes or might they want something else instead?

Maybe they would rather have larger classes and more control.

Doesn't it seem odd to anyone at all, that there has never been an investigation and report on discipline in schools?  I represent that it is a significant problem.  In some classrooms and schools, it is the number one problem.  And yet, the truth remains hidden.

Why hide the truth about discipline in schools?

It is because the responsibility for establishing and enforcing discipline policies does not rest on teachers.  It rests squarely on the shoulders of school board members and administrators and they have the power and influence necessary to hide the truth about their failure.

To admit failure to establish and enforce meaningful standards of conduct is to admit to executive and administrative incompetence.  And to the extent that guilty knowledge is malfeasance, failure to remedy administrative incompetence is corrupt.  The executive and administrative failure to keep schools under control is manifest incompetence and corruption.

And that is why we never talk about student discipline and the effects of chronically disruptive students in APS classrooms and hallways.

It is fair to wonder how the establishment media remains disengaged.  It might be complicity - maybe the leadership of the APS asked them to help with the cover up and they obliged.

Maybe it is complacency, maybe they just don't care.
If so, they should worry it might be true that;

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who, in times of great moral crisis, are complacent.

unk derived

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