Re Post: Is David Brooks That Gullible? by Aaron Pallas

FYI - If you want to see some great back and forth debate on the issue, go to the original website to see all the comments afterward.

Re-posted from www.thisweekineducation.com

May 8, 2009

Just How Gullible Is David Brooks?

by Aaron Pallas

Now that I have your attention … Today’s New York Times column by David Brooks touts a new study by Roland Fryer and Will Dobbie of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) Promise Academy charter schools, two celebrated schools in Harlem. Fryer and Dobbie’s finding that the typical eighth-grader was in the 74^th percentile among New York City students in mathematics leads Brooks to state that HCZ Promise Academy eliminated the black-white achievement gap. He’s so dumbstruck by this that he says it twice. Brooks takes this evidence as support for the “no excuses” model of charter schools, and, claiming that “the approach works,” challenges all cities to adopt this “remedy for the achievement gap.”

Coming on the heels of yesterday’s release of the 2009 New York State English Language Arts (ELA) results, in which the HCZ schools outperformed the citywide white average in grade 3, but were well behind the white average in grades 4, 5 and 8, skoolboy decided to drink a bit more deeply from the datastream. The figure below shows the gap between the average performance in HCZ Promise Academy and white students in New York City in ELA and math, expressed as a fraction of the standard deviation of overall performance in a given grade and year. The left side of the figure shows math performance, and the right side shows ELA performance.

It’s true that eighth-graders in 2008 scored .20 standard deviations above the citywide average for white students. But it may also be apparent that this is a very unusual pattern relative to the other data represented in this figure, all of which show continuing and sizeable advantages for white students in New York City over HCZ students. The fact that HCZ seventh-graders in 2008 were only .3 standard deviations behind white students citywide in math is a real accomplishment, and represents a shrinkage of the gap of .42 standard deviations for these students in the preceding year. However, Fryer and Dobbie, and Brooks in turn, are putting an awful lot of faith in a single data point — the remarkable increase in math scores between seventh and eighth grade for the students at HCZ who entered sixth grade in 2006. If what HCZ is doing can routinely produce a .67 standard deviation shift in math test scores in the eighth grade, that would be great. But we’re certainly not seeing an effect of that magnitude in the seventh grade. And, of course, none of this speaks to the continuing large gaps in English performance.

But here’s the kicker. In the HCZ Annual Report for the 2007-08 school year submitted to the State Education Department, data are presented on not just the state ELA and math assessments, but also the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Those eighth-graders who kicked ass on the state math test? They didn’t do so well on the low-stakes Iowa Tests. Curiously, only 2 of the 77 eighth-graders were absent on the ITBS reading test day in June, 2008, but 20 of these 77 were absent for the ITBS math test. For the 57 students who did take the ITBS math test, HCZ reported an average Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) score of 41, which failed to meet the school’s objective of an average NCE of 50 for a cohort of students who have completed at least two consecutive years at HCZ Promise Academy. In fact, this same cohort had a slightly higher average NCE of 42 in June, 2007.

Normal Curve Equivalents (NCE’s) range from 1 to 99, and are scaled to have a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 21.06. An NCE of 41 corresponds to roughly the 33^rd percentile of the reference distribution, which for the ITBS would likely be a national sample of on-grade test-takers. Scoring at the 33^rd percentile is no great success story.

How are we to make sense of this? One possibility is that the HCZ students didn’t take the Iowa tests seriously, and that their performance on that test doesn’t reflect their true mastery of eighth-grade mathematics. The HCZ Annual Report doesn’t offer this as a possibility, perhaps because it would be embarrassing to admit that students didn’t take some aspect of their schoolwork and school accountability plan seriously. But the three explanations that are offered are not compelling: the Iowa test skills were not consistently aligned with the New York State Standards and the Harcourt Curriculum used in the school; the linkage of classroom instruction to the skills tested on the Iowa test wasn’t consistent across the school year, and Iowa test prep began in February, 2008; and school staff didn’t use 2007 Iowa test results to identify areas of weaknesses for individual students and design appropriate intervention.

If proficiency in English and math are to mean anything, these skills have to be able to generalize to contexts other than a particular high-stakes state test. No college or employer is ever going to look at the New York State ELA and math exams in making judgments about who has the skills to be successful in their school or workplace. I’m going to hold off labeling the HCZ schools as the “Harlem Miracle” until there’s some additional evidence supporting the claim that these schools have placed their students on a level academic playing field with white students in New York City.

An Older Post, from my birthday about life in general

I'm eating oranges on my birthday, on my last day of vacation before the semester begins (kind of). The sun is shining a little brighter every day and I'm about ready to hang my grandfather's clock above the piano.

AK is a wonderful place full of all kinds of interesting adventures. I'm attending school at UAA, and have recently (finally) decided to major in math. Carey has a great job teaching in the anchorage school district and after years in the cooking profession, I'm ready for the steadiness and great hours (vacation too) of teaching - probably high school.

We bought a house last Spring/Summer, I spent the whole summer on a new ASC yacht (last year for that probably), and jumped right back into school. Before summer was over, Carey and I spent my two week vacation together in Juneau, ferry hopping to Petersburg for a week, then Sitka for a night (or two?). In Petersburg we were greeted by friends who took us fishing (in the rain no less). After a whole day, each of us had caught a beautiful fresh Halibut. Carey took the prize with her approx. 108 lb Halibut, which Nathan and Trinity helped us haul home and clean, eventually sending us the meat via Alaska Airlines (video of the catch is currently available on Carey's Myspace page). Petersburg is nothing if not quiet (other than fish noises). Sitka has a to-die-for restaurant - nuff said.

I like long walks on the beach and cozy campfires.

I'm taking piano lessons so I can get decent enough to play in front of people, was on the UAA debate team but have since quit that (maybe resume to a limited degree soon); I'm assistant coach to the East High DDF (debate, drama, and forensics) team which is way more hoot-hooty than I thought it would be.

We miss family and friends in the lower 48, but Anchorage has been very good for me. It's easier to find yourself when you isolate yourself a bit, but you also feel guilty for leaving other people out of your life, as much as you'd like to be around them all the time. We've made more than a couple new friends up here who we will be in contact with even if we move back to Oregon/Washington (which we plan to do in about, oh...2 more years I'd say roughly).

I've been into cooking sushi a bit, and I just got a slow cooker/crock-pot that I'll be delving into (thanks Dad). The slow cooker is some Euro- somting or another and has a two chambered insert that allows you to use it to keep two seperate buffet items hot, like a chaffing dish. Very exciting for the rag-tag get togethers we've been hosting for random (mostly teacher) friends who we invite over for holidays and poker nights and what-not. Really just an excuse to cook for people - it's hard to keep "the skills" in working polish when just cooking for Carey and me.

Alaska is fascinating, and home prices are steady (though gas prices are crazy - diesel esp. like 3.59 or some s*($, but we use regular which is about 2.3something I think, maybe 2.5). On a walk with the dog the other night, just around the block, his feet got so cold that he just wanted to stop. It must have been at least ten below zero, and I had to cajole/drag him along behind me - a very unusual position for our big black lab. The liberal talk radio station KUDO is great too. There's tons of crusty strange people who have radical takes on life - similar to Oregon, but not nearly so mellow and touchy feely. To be fair, it isn't too much different, except that Alaska is bush-country (not Bush country). Despite this, there is very little beating around the bush, and more just going straight for it. Anchorage doesn't have a very broad progressive/green community, or doesn't seem to - lots of Independent parties and an old guard of Alaskan separatists (though I'm still checking on this). Then there's the whole Palin thing...

I got a job as a Supplemental Instruction Leader (study group coordinator/leader) for a Calculus class at UAA. I'm excited to be paid to go to class for once - not that I'm economically motivated, but even at 9.50 an hour, the perceived value of any commodity goes up when someone starts paying you for acquiring it. I'm trying to get a job at the campus paper too, but we'll see.

Carey likes teaching and has been warming up to the debate thing. She has many loyal fans among the students owing to her high expectations, candid communication, and interpersonal enthusiasm. I think she mostly likes being the boss, but who knows. Either way, she has had many marvelous success stories credited to her name since joining with the Anchorage School District.

Buddy on the other hand is just idling until the good days coming in the latter part of this Spring, when spittle and breath vapors don't freeze to your fur moments after they hit the air. Also, his view out of our big living room windows is obstructed by a mostly permanent layer of ice coating the interior, and only melting a little bit on top when the sun blares into it for a few hours. We're in process of making giant curtains to hang in those big windows; the fabric is awesome and we can't wait to see it done. Between that and replacing the windows someday, we hope to keep our house a little warmer next winter than it has been during this cold spell.

Our favorite things lately, other than laying in the afternoon sun on the couch and dreaming about seventy degrees, have been: our organic produce box every other Wednesday from Full Circle Farms, the hoarfrost on the trees, Payday + Costco, video games, regular games, the internet, and Babylon 5 DVD's. And Buddy of course, and friends near and far. Music, art, writing, and self-guided study distract me in phases and ebbs - I am ever the undergraduate 'absent-minded professor'.

I met a man this summer fondly referred to as "Old Goat." His spanish is way better than mine and we enjoyed many conversations together; he told tales of pyrotechnics at Burning Man that he worked on, Alice in Chains Allison Krauss and a slew of 70's psychadelic rock band members he's known or ran security for, and long yarns about the Bohemian struggles of the formerly unpopular borough of Fremont in Seattle where he's been actively involved since the Seventies. -except when he was living in Mexico which is a whole other story.

All things being equal, Carey is well and I am well. The glasses are half full and progress is being made. We're dreaming of some kids and a hobby farm in the Coastal or Cascade regions of Oregon, Washington, (Northern California...Italy...Vancouver...)

Well, even though there's many other wizard things to discuss, I'm going to get moving here - it's getting cold even in my pajamas.

Beginning Thoughts For Summer Blogging: A Super-String Stream of Consciousness

I'm 30. Guilty as charged of using too many parentheses.

Currently watching Zeitgeist, The Movie, though with a dubious eye that Eris would be proud of. Anyone thinking of revolution or atheism/agnosticism should check it out. It's like Pink Floyd meets Fahrenheit 9/11.

I'm saddened by the apparent failure of the local morning and afternoon liberal talk radio shows on KUDO 1080. I will miss all the interesting conversations, though I'm glad a garage transmission is still going on at another frequency (two frequencies?). And congratulations to Jonathon Teeters for making Organizing For America happen in Anchorage and beyond.

I'm okay with the idea that Bush supporters, tea baggers, and anti-tax anti-christ's (which is a term I use to reference the true meaning of Christ - "the annointed one", as in: the annointed one who we all annointed by voting him and his administration and family into the white house, even though saying such a thing is traditionally called blasphemy) are stubborn and busy detractors of Obama; such people make sure we aren't lax in our efforts to change things, even though they chaffe our sensibilities by suggesting grassroots efforts of reform amount to masses of obedient sheep who deserve to be burned for their betrayal of non-thinking America. No leader can or should command the idolatry of 100% of a population - doing so would violate the principles of evolution and surely lead to the demise of all (which stems from the nature of variation - if everyone is the same, then someday we'll all make the same mistake or catch the same disease, as lemmings to time's slaughter). Instead, the purplish map of the U.S. has been remade by thousands of people switching sides (of which there are two in this two-dimensional political salience cross of red and blue). These new converts to progressivism are stubbing along on tender new feet towards a simple, archetypal goal: ushering in a new age, where the status quo has no place. I have my version of what the new age should be and you have yours. I'm okay with that difference because we have all the time in the world to talk about it and get it right. Plus, life has taught me that even at my best, I'm not completely right about just about anything. Life has also taught me that neither are you.

I'm also okay with the idea that you, as detractors, aren't going to help be the primary force in shifting the dialogue from old left and right to new left and right (and green and orange...the old ways enlightened by the yellow from the sun, which is the sun of superman's powers...). In the game of Row-sham-beau, you chose the rock of tradition and we chose the paper of the Law. The Law protects gay partners who would be at the bedside of their only friend in the world when they faced death in a hospital bed. The Law seeks to prevent World War II from happening again by holding the Geneva Conventions up above the flood plain of self-interest that destroyed the lives of so many Prisoners of War throughout history. The Law is the promised land of religious tolerance that so many Immigrants have needed (backwards and contrary to this as the Plymouth Rock Pilgrims might have been, they nevertheless hoped for and sought the sanctuary that our First Amendment promises). The Law that protects your ability to speak out against abortion and pursue that happiness of yours, is the very same Law that says freedoms will be maximized. It is only the Law that makes a Supreme Court decision from many years ago about how the State can mandate morality or not in your reproductive decisions mean ANYTHING AT ALL to us today. The bulk of human history shows that Kings have an unacceptable average rate of raping their subjects in the name of eliminating potential enemies and spreading superior bloodlines - thank god we are free of that tyranny. Roe vs. Wade protects U.S. citizens from the One Child policy that China has so horrifically cast on billions of human beings (even though they may have saved the planet by doing so when they did). If, god forbid, China were to conquer the U.S., pro-choice and anti-choice alike would march together to keep State Laws off our bodies. Meanwhile, short of banning abortion in all cases, I'm more than happy to donate some of my earnings through government taxes in order to attempt to collectively solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies. (How many times does it take, telling a teenager to wait, and if you just can't wait then you'll be in big trouble if you don't put on that Jimmy-Hat, before the message finally sinks in and they do it? 42 times? Give me a room full of teenage boys, a power point show, and Carte Blanche to swear and scare the bejesus out of them, and I'll show you a room full of teenage boys frightened of what will happen to them if they go unprotected into unfamiliar territory).

I love the fact that you, as detractors (not the readers - your're awesome) of the much-vaunted "Change" we're all talking about, totally disagree with me. I love you for it, since I know it isn't easy to disagree with practically everything being talked about. I was there myself for many years recently (still am in many ways), and some people who have really high moral ideals for this nation have actually been there in a place of screaming minority for the entire history of this country. And, were they to live forever, some tiny little minority of people would always rail against the status quo, whatever it may be, because nothing is ever perfect. Justice, fairness, wisdom, civilization; these are all words that are redefined every moment, every year, every era, and every age as the world stage keeps changing. So, you disagree with me, and refuse to engage the new dialogue, and are continuing to say and believe things that are old irrelevant ideas - fear of the "enemy", mistrust of a government purported to be Of, By, and For the people, blindness to out of control military expenditures - old and comfortable ideas for you, old and detestable for me. So you hate the idea of political correctness, and can only see socialism as an evil thing from rhetoric past. So you mock and deride those who pledge to support new collectivist ideas. I'm sorry you don't see how zealous individualism has enrichened our lifestyles while destroying our way of life, but enough of us have reached that conclusion now that we're going to act on it, whether you like it or not. We won't take away anything you have right now. We won't stop you from doing anything. We just want to stop borrowing time, money, resources, and clean air from our great-grandchildren. This country must live within it's means ASAP, but if all you really want to do is Jet-ski, you're more than welcome to continue.

The actions I take as a progressive will be voting, organizing, writing, talking, and most of all, critically thinking about our collective problems and our collective solutions. I apologize in advance if I fail in any of these duties, or if you are harmed in my haste to correct injustices.

Forgive me for I am being long winded, but such length of commentary is inevitable in the age of exponential information; with so damn much to talk about, it's no wonder reading is getting so boring. Then again, maybe that is just the effect of constant comparison to video. Crash! Boom! Fanfare! Hardly could the meditative imagination of books compare with the flickering lights in the long run.

Speaking of which, there was a great great book I once read called "Four Arguements For the Elimination of Television." I'd dare to say that if it wasn't already in the book, that T.V. will be the demise of literature should be Arguement Number Five. T.V. is like crack for the somnambulant mind. Like in Idiocracy, only unreasonable people truly believe the world should conform to their particular worldview, are willing to let the world come to them, and somehow this ends up empowering idiots to breed like rabbits (hence, since the human race is numbering billions, we're clearly an unreasonable people). But, I try to take the magnanimous view: bunnies are cute and fuzzy, and all they need is the right environment to educate them enough to prevent their own demise. Really all the heaviest of the heavy breeders need is some lessons in Biology and Comparative Religions/Comparative Ethics from the right teacher. As always, a little bit of algebra can show why exponential population growth invariably leads to chaos, destruction, and basically Armageddon for life as we know it.

Oh, and all this recession business: don't panic. As human beings, all we have to do is make sure everyone gets fed, watered and sheltered (which by the way, we are more than capable of doing without any money whatsoever if we actually put our minds to it and got to work on it) and everything else will take care of itself. Stuff is just stuff, and economies are just the numbers of stuff that stuff is happening to which affect your ability to have stuff, do stuff, and make more stuff. So stuff the stuff, focus on the bare essential stuff, and stuff will take care of itself. Just don't panic; you don't have to be afraid of losing your stuff.

Currently reading the Universal History of Numbers. It is a forbiddingly detailed tome of the simplest of all things: counting. Meanwhile, Carey is counting the days until summer break releases her from work bondage, albeit noble work.

At this point, anything more than one or two days might seem practically uncountable to a pre-historian and defaults to the next natural counting stage after one or two; without being able to say one or two weeks, solely relying on days, everything larger than the first one or two might just seem as "many" and indistinguishable from each other to a human born of a culture before this last 1% of Human History; before language regimented math theory in the decimal system (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, and last but ironically not least 0).

While the awesome power of counting hundreds and millions of years (or dollars, or cars, or glasses of orange juice) we can count gives us a mental capacity to absorb at least the mere order of Human History (if not it's complexity of content), I find it interesting to ponder how qualitatively different today's humans feel about "the meaning of life" when our approach to infinity is so much less mysterious than that of our ancestors. We have a logical definition for infinity, whereas they viewed the cosmos through the naked eye and unindoctrinated heart. Did they take it for granted that the sun would rise and set every day? Does the fact that our scientists inform our culture that the sun will burn on for billions of years - more significantly, that we have a number for that - change the experience of watching a sunrise?

Is that why Douglas Adams was so brilliant for suggesting that the answer to the question of "Life, the Universe, and Everything" is 42? Does he suggest that the answer is meaningless without understanding the question, and simultaneously point out how quantitative precision trades off with qualitative vision in a human mind which graduates towards one direction or the other as the mind develops in childhood? Were Neanderthals spiritual geniuses who eventually became shamans?

Lastly, I'll add to that last little idea by saying this: if we can count precisely the number of people in the world who don't have food, shelter, or water (let alone liberty and the pursuit of happiness that the Great Statue on Liberty Island holds her torch as a beacon of), does that precise count somehow lessen the qualitative psychological understanding and feeling of the sheer volume of suffering that such a precise number may represent? Are we committing a sin in the artificial intelligence that we recieve in the form of numbers, when significant dimensions of the data - the qualitative meaning of it - are lost by and large by a T.V. audience nation? Is FOX and everyone else morally detestable for purporting to hold valuable information that satifies our duty to understand what is going on in the world, or is the failure of most modern media just another way of reminding us to be vigilant in our attention to detail and our active pursuit of the truth, constantly showing us where we are weakest and how to proceed to victory by the items they omit from their broadcast messages?

Here is a brief message I wrote to President B.H.O. and Co. regarding www.healthreform.gov.
The question they ask is "Why do we need health reform this year?"


If you need to be convinced of WHY we need health reform, then you probably also think Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and there is no hope for you or your children in the long run. Sorry.
Far more important is what to do about health care reform, and health and well-being reform. The latter is a matter of the public being informed of it's own self-interest through education and a comprehensive locally sustainable farm movement across the whole country (indeed the world). Unfortunately, status quo agribusiness will block any political effort through lobbying. Ergo, we just need to teach the kids how to garden, and rely on age-old, mostly free techniques (call it blood, sweat, and tears, or call it the "old-fashioned" way). At the very least, make sure every child attending school in America receives a fresh, nutritious, and delicious breakfast and lunch (otherwise most of the money poured into public education is truly wasted on minds that can't learn too good).

The Health Care System, being tied to our semi-free market economy is pretty simple to fix (again, if it weren't for the lobbyists and pig-headed behaviors of politicians - no offense). Subsidize medical school loans for med students, but only in the broadest of specialization fields - General Practice, etc. Additionally, provide federal grant money to attend college for doctors and nurses who take lower paying clinical and relief work (encouraging rewarding careers as altruistic healers of people who normally drive up the cost of the system, and increasing the number of doctors which is key to making medicine cheaper - they can live without the Beemer's and the country clubs will lower their prices if membership gets too low).

Lastly and most importantly, we must do whatever it takes to make sure that ninety-nine cents of every dollar spent on health care is used to pay for the actual health care received, not the administration and profit-taking thereof, otherwise everyone is screwed - even rich people. Health Care is a right. Some different ways to accomplish this would be: open a can of Anti-Trust Whuppin' on insurance, drug, and medical care companies, pass that law you've been talking about making it illegal to deny coverage for prior conditions, mandate collective bargaining for everything from drugs to MRI's and cancer treatments (sorry private industry, you've abused us so long that the system won't correct itself until we abuse you for a little while - trust me, this little shot in the arm won't hurt a bit *wink); basically just give the people who make profit on health care seem just as bad as war-profiteers (which people used to care about) and give the industry hell until it covers everyone reasonably or until they fail. If the private sector cannot provide health insurance on these terms, then capitalism has failed us in that arena and another solution must be found. Technically, if we found ourselves in such a tight spot where capitalism didn't do the job, we might try asking, say...ANY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD to see how they do it. At that point, no matter what they say, it will be a better solution than anything the free-market can produce.

Alternately, you could quit spending money on war and arming the world through weapon sales. Then we could afford all kinds of social reforms that would actually help the American Dream thrive, instead of ever increasing the number of depressed and violent Americans. Despite all evidence to the contrary, if we stop building bombs, we won't all die of terrorism (a little bird told me that ridding our homeland of weapons of mass destruction will actually prevent terrorism on a global scale - you figure that out for yourself.)
Good luck with your task. I hope you are a far better person than I to be able to solve such a dilemma.

Sincerely and audaciously-hopefully,

Phillip K. Bunker
Anchorage, AK