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Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

economist.com

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Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#11

Post by swaits »

NietzscheanNull wrote: post #9
swaits wrote: post #6

Their solution is that you must read at a 3rd grade level in order to get promoted to 4th grade. It brought them from basically the worst State to the 30th percentile in reading for 4th graders. So, common sense? If you’re requiring proficiency in order to promote, then I’d expect to see significantly better results than this. It’s noteworthy that they’re still basically the worst in 8th grade reading and math. Might…

> still basically the worst in 8th grade reading and math. Doesn't that stand to reason? The changes described in this article have been in place for less than six years, so the earliest grade cohorts haven't yet made it to 8th grade! In my opinion, it's very encouraging to see Alabama making the strides they've made so far.

Yes. I realized I should’ve clarified that and edited it into my comment in parallel with your comment.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#13

Post by fncypants »

gruez wrote: post #10
b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #5

This is less "Alabama" and instead "one blue city in a red state making policy changes while the governer takes credit for it".

Look at the chart. Adjusted for "poverty rate and other demographics", the top states are red states, so it's harder to chalk it up as some sort of n=1 outlier.

What does that mean, "adjusted for poverty"? Reading level is an absolute. You're either at a third grade level or not. This adjustment seems to have no purpose other than completing a narrative that does not help solve the problem.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#15

Post by gruez »

alphawhisky wrote: post #12
hollywood_court wrote: post #4

It's good to see Birmingham finally doing something right. It so easy to become distracted by the corruption and the drama surrounding the water board at the moment.

Something something broken clock

Not really. The specific policies seem like plausibly good things, so you can't really dismiss it as "broken clock twice a day".

>Three city programmes stand out.

>The first tackled absenteeism [...]

>Next, the district turned to preventing holiday learning loss [...]

>[...] “Birmingham Promise”, a programme that pays full tuition at many Alabama colleges for graduates of the city’s public schools. [...]

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#16

Post by nixon_why69 »

fncypants wrote: post #13
gruez wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the chart. Adjusted for "poverty rate and other demographics", the top states are red states, so it's harder to chalk it up as some sort of n=1 outlier.

What does that mean, "adjusted for poverty"? Reading level is an absolute. You're either at a third grade level or not. This adjustment seems to have no purpose other than completing a narrative that does not help solve the problem.

To be fair to gruez, the chart was made by the economist and not by them.

To be less fair to the economist, "adjusted by poverty level" is a heck of a spin, we've had many generations as a developed nation now, your state poverty level is caused by your state education outcomes. And that's without even speculating about what "demographic factors" means or implies.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#17

Post by HanShotFirst »

swaits wrote: post #6

Their solution is that you must read at a 3rd grade level in order to get promoted to 4th grade. It brought them from basically the worst State to the 30th percentile in reading for 4th graders. So, common sense? If you’re requiring proficiency in order to promote, then I’d expect to see significantly better results than this. It’s noteworthy that they’re still basically the worst in 8th grade reading and math. Might…

I expected to see that in the article, but it's not mentioned at all.

Re: Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools

#20

Post by CGMthrowaway »

swaits wrote: post #6

Their solution is that you must read at a 3rd grade level in order to get promoted to 4th grade. It brought them from basically the worst State to the 30th percentile in reading for 4th graders. So, common sense? If you’re requiring proficiency in order to promote, then I’d expect to see significantly better results than this. It’s noteworthy that they’re still basically the worst in 8th grade reading and math. Might…

>Their solution is that you must read at a 3rd grade level in order to get promoted to 4th grade

Can someone explain why we ever stopped doing that? It does seem like a lot of public school advocates these days push simply for graduate rate, to the exclusion of meeting common sense aptitude standards. To the point where it is having a downstream effect on universities having to tie up an unreasonable amount of resources on remedial education

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