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2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

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Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SES and IQ are not orthogonal . In the limited studies we have, SES interventions generate durable IQ gains, gains substantially larger than the supposed gap between races. The grandparent comment is "not even wrong".

> interventions generate durable IQ gains Oh, really? That's awesome. I was under the impression this wasn't possible. Do you have any resources on what the interventions were? I'm interested from a selfish parental perspective...

Start here and follow links:

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-...

(This only looks like a Vox article; it's actually an open letter from authoritative researchers Vox happens to be publishing.)

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> interventions generate durable IQ gains Oh, really? That's awesome. I was under the impression this wasn't possible. Do you have any resources on what the interventions were? I'm interested from a selfish parental perspective...

Start here and follow links: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-... (This only looks like a Vox article; it's actually an open letter from authoritative researchers Vox happens to be publishing.)

I read the Vox piece, and I don't find it logical. Do you think a fair summary is "nature has a larger impact on IQ than nurture?"

Note the article does concede that genetics impact IQ.

Somewhat related: I find it amusing when parents talk at length about how similar their children are to themselves and to past relatives -- and then pivot to essentially argue that every individual has equal capabilities.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#163

"California isn’t alone in its stagnating scores and in fact compares favorably with the 12 other states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands, that administered the same tests last spring from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Scores decreased in every state, and California’s decline was about the smallest, retired educational testing specialist Douglas McRae said." This is the most important sentence in the artic…

"Standardized testing isn't a particularly good way to gauge schools' ability"

Maybe not the best, but it's still a measure, however crude, and that it's going down is a legitimate cause for concern.

It's not magic - basic reading and math comprehension, are probably fairly strongly correlated with all sorts of life outcomes, though as you point out maybe not as direct as we would like to think - it still matters.

As messed up and politicized as the teaching industry may be - at the core level, again, it's not rocket science: decent teachers, students who are somewhat motivated and want to learn, a classroom with a blackboard and some books etc. etc..

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#164
post #117

When are we going to come out and admit that our schools are not providing our society with what it needs or wants? For a large chunk of HN, schools served us relatively well. But for a huge chunk of the US, school is just a waste of time. At best, it's free childcare for parents. Preparing everyone to college is overkill (n.b. having a way for everyone who wants to go to college an affordable way to go to a good sch…

Basic, decent, somewhat cross-discipline education is the cornerstone of civilization.

Yes - it's to some extent daycare, yes, maybe too much focus on 'University for Everyone', yes, maybe too much focus on standardized education ...

But getting everyone reasonably literate and 'through high school' - is probably the #1 thing any nation could do to improve the standard of living in their citizenry.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like kind of a low effort comment. Are you disputing any of these claims: * IQ or other measures of aptitude contribute to success in school * IQ/aptitude are heritable * IQ/aptitude contribute to success in life Because those all seem sort of reasonable to me, and would explain the top comment of "wealth is the largest predictor of educational attainment", without some sort of nefarious inequality good sc…

SES and IQ are not orthogonal . In the limited studies we have, SES interventions generate durable IQ gains, gains substantially larger than the supposed gap between races. The grandparent comment is "not even wrong".

I see irony when people make these simultaneous claims:

  1. This test has deep bias and flaws because it shows a difference in groups

  2. I know this is true because of the results of this other test that shows equality.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#166

"California isn’t alone in its stagnating scores and in fact compares favorably with the 12 other states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands, that administered the same tests last spring from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Scores decreased in every state, and California’s decline was about the smallest, retired educational testing specialist Douglas McRae said." This is the most important sentence in the artic…

-> magically get stupider

Anyway, it's actually more than magic at work; kids in grades 3-8 and 11 in 2016 are not the same set of people as kids in grades 3-8 and 11 in 2017.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#167

One of the reasons - probably one of the biggest reasons - for continuously lower test scores in America is the quality of the care these children receive. Over 40% of children in the US are born to unwed mothers, compared to 5% at the beginning of last century. About 70% of unwed childbirth is by black mothers, versus just 24% in 1965. The last two peaks of teenage pregnancy were 1991 and 2007 - so the children of t…

> There is almost no reasonable assistance given to the families of these children - assistance like food, shelter, access to education, daycare, transportation. Yes, there is. You are arguing for more welfare, but welfare caused the problem in the first place: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=16...

Sorry, but this article is politically biased crap.

The assertion of the article that black women had more babies because they could afford to due to welfare is as laughable as it is insulting.

You know how much food assistance families get today? $1.50 per person per meal - when they get food assistance, as there's a variety of factors that prevent getting food assistance. As many as 12.3% of American households are food insecure. Food assistance programs are almost criminally underfunded when you consider the long term costs they have on the youth of the nation and the subsequent impact on the rest of society.

There has been a precipitous decline in "shotgun marriages" over the past 40 years as stigmas about unwed mothers changed, women became more sexually liberated, and men felt less need to raise their offspring. Combine this with a lack of jobs, a lack of access to contraceptives and basic sexual health information, a drug war, and institutionalized racism in housing, transportation, education, the judicial system, etc and you build up impoverished communities where unwed pregnancy is significantly more likely. Welfare did not create the oppression of African Americans, and certainly did not encourage unwed pregnancy in African Americans more than anyone else welfare is applied to.

Another common trope of this subject: "Just as welfare policies discourage marriage and the formation of stable families, they also discourage the development of a healthy work ethic". But many food assistance programs actually _require you to work_ or you get almost no food assistance - which again, exacerbates these problems, as if you could work, you wouldn't need as much food assistance, and many impoverished black communities don't have enough access to jobs.

Yet another ill-advised argument they propose is that some couples stay together and unwed in order to siphon benefits from the government. This is again, ridiculous, as marriage is not a detriment to food assistance. Dozens of states have social welfare programs dedicated solely for two-parent families, and many have programs incentivizing marriage.

We have far more unwed mothers, and they need more assistance than wed mothers, hence they receive more benefits. This is a sticking point for many conservatives because they use this as an example of how the "family unit" is being "attacked", with single parents receiving more benefits than married ones. But it only makes sense, as the single parent has less financial and organizational help in raising a child.

A huge percentage of welfare is dedicated to programs encouraging people to get married, and be abstinent. Who put these provisions in place? Conservatives, concerned about the lack of focus on the family unit. Google around and you will find thousands of websites talking about the "attack on marriage" that welfare has seemingly caused.

I think an excerpt like this sums it up well (from "Blame Welfare, Ignore Poverty and Inequality" (2006)):

  The [1996 welfare reform] legislation asserts that public assistance (i.e. 
  welfare dependency), not poverty, reinforces personal moral failures, which
  causes social pathologies. In other words, the consequence has become the cause.
  Moreover, there is a subtext underlying the "family values" agenda. It is the
  moral condemnation of alternaitve family structures and particularly the
  degradation of poor single mothers of color.
  
  "Family values" reinforce the racially motivated stereotypes of "poor ghettos",
  which are supposedly charcterized by promiscuity, irresponsible parenthood, an
  "epidemic" of teen pregnancies and debilitating welfare dependency. In fact,
  poverty, unemployment, low wages, and lack of human and social capital are the
  major causes of single parenthood and marital instability, teen pregnancy, and
  stunted child development.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#168
post #93
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're referring in this case to the wealth of parents, not of students. Students have very little control over which parents they're assigned.

Most students have the combined genetic material of their parents. Genetics are a key influence on aptitude. To be transparent, I personally benefited from public schools, and my parents were not wealthy (but they were graduates of public colleges). I'm not arguing that only wealthy people should have access to quality education. I'm just saying that it's a weak argument to point out that success in school is linked…

"Genetics are a key influence on aptitude."

Even though that may be true, I don't think for a moment that it's the driving factor.

I think that culture is it.

And the key one is the '5 major personality trait' - 'Conscientiousness'.

Parents who are thoughtful, considerate, value education (at least in a basic way), take care of their kids well, are stable providers - create children who are much the same in life.

I don't mean 'rocket science super parents'.

Just good, basic parenting.

This is strongly culturally ingrained.

It's at the level of family, community and ethnic group.

Good behaviours, consistently applied over a lifetime, over many people's lives, produce quality outcomes and a high degree of intelligent social organization among those people.

And of course more wealth helps.

Note: it seems that 'Private Schools' don't even provide for a better education when normalized for things like wealth [1]. So even that is not a thing.

[1] http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/private-school-students-...

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#169
post #112
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of incentive to do well is precisely the point of these tests, and they are designed with this context in mind. The testing regimen relies on the same level of apathy in both students and teachers being present year after year, which provides a nice baseline for statistical analysis/comparison. Incentives mess everything up. See also: NAEP [1] Source: worked in ed covering this subject, studied assessment in…

I don't get why incentives mess test up? I would try harder on graded test, including preparation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_anxiety

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like kind of a low effort comment. Are you disputing any of these claims: * IQ or other measures of aptitude contribute to success in school * IQ/aptitude are heritable * IQ/aptitude contribute to success in life Because those all seem sort of reasonable to me, and would explain the top comment of "wealth is the largest predictor of educational attainment", without some sort of nefarious inequality good sc…

SES and IQ are not orthogonal . In the limited studies we have, SES interventions generate durable IQ gains, gains substantially larger than the supposed gap between races. The grandparent comment is "not even wrong".

The comment is not "not even wrong". In fact you are not even really disagreeing.

People with high SES have children with high IQ, then those children's children also have high SES and IQ. Does it really matter if the high IQ was because of inherited genes vs inherited wealth? You both already believe that it is hereditary.

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