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Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

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Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#141

Post by throwanem »

DangitBobby wrote: post #140
throwanem wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, please. I denied nothing. If you object to my characterization of that experience, do so overtly. But I knew at least a dozen like you. You were friends with the young rich asshole kids of the old rich asshole antebellum planter families, because they were your family's social peers even if you yourself didn't respect them - your family owned real estate worth redlining! - and now you think you're being magnanimo…

Care to address the slurs and redlining?

Have I been less than clear? Those are core examples of exactly the trashy behavior I expect from the Mississippi social class and scene of which my other interlocutor and their family were part, during their time in my home state.

(My hometown, actually, I bet. Oxford, right? Biggest net exporter of nonmalodorous feces in the state, bar none. The university draws 'em like flies on...well, never mind. Bet you never put a finger in a bullet hole on the Lyceum's frontage, the way I did.)

Where my other interlocutor and I really differ is that they expect to get a pass for having been "one of the good ones," and I issue no such passes. It isn't that I consider anyone who grew up that rich beneath my consideration, only that I'm less inclined to be patient and gentle with those who can afford about as much such treatment as they like and yet still expect it free of charge from me.

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#142

Post by toast0 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #69

This all feels a bit astroturfed. Is their increase in 4th grade student reading scores still there if you count the kids that they made resit grade 3 if they failed to meet literacy standards as 4th graders? I quickly skimmed a few reports and articles and the lack of clarity on that point makes me suspicious.

I imagine the 2nd year 3rd graders aren't tested since the tests are only administered at certain grades.

But... if repeating 3rd grade leads to better test results in 4th grade, it may lead to better educational outcomes? You'd hope that the state would also be looking into the rate of repeating and how to do interventions to reduce that rate.

Personally, I've never been a fan of test scores as presented as an indicator of school quality. I'd like to see something like a delta of a test at the beginning of the year and the end of the year; of the kids that were in this school for a full school year, how much 'academic progress' did they make? Conceivably, you could match up children's scores from 4th and 8th grade and do it that way, for students that stayed in one school system for 4 years, but I've never seen that done.

Testing is expensive, so I understand why it's not done; but it might also be nice for teachers to have an early in the year test result for their students so they can lesson plan around what the class may have missed. I know there's ways to do that outside standardized tests, too.

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#143

Post by altcognito »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #14

I guess I don't really get the basis of this blog post. I've heard of the Mississippi Miracle several times among my blue state teacher friends - it feels like it is in fact en vogue to talk about it and try to figure out how to emulate it. Do a search for Mississippi Miracle for countless articles and posts.

The basis is likely to create engagement with all the "blue states won't listen" and "Democrats are AWOL" commentary.

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#144

Post by palmotea »

aredox wrote: post #112
kardianos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They teach using proven methods, like phonics. They actually teach math. They test and use that as real information. They focus on results not on ideology. They do NOT encurage using Paulo Freire's "methods".

Proven methods... For what? Acing standardised tests? There is more to live and success than standardised tests. Steve Jobs wasn't a brilliant student with top marks everywhere.

>> They teach using proven methods, like phonics.

> Proven methods... For what? Acing standardised tests?

Phonics is the proven method for learning how to read English. Quite controversially, a lot of states ditched or de-emphasized phonics in favor of some faddish "balanced literacy" idea that took the education establishment by storm, but doesn't actually work as well and led to bad outcomes, like poor literacy. Now that the damage has been done and is visible, a lot of states are now mandating phonics again.

I think there have been similar cycles with math.

Education is probably one of the areas where our cultural obsession with innovation and change leads to bad outcomes. It's not like reading is a new technology or prior generations were full of stupid people (though there are a lot of chauvinists who assume they were). At a certain point, new educational ideas are very likely to be worse ideas, but they're pushed and adopted because people are required to be "innovators."

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#145

Post by keenmaster »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #136
keenmaster wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mississippi's average ACT scores are tied for last (edit: tied for second to last). I’m sure some of their educational outcomes are improving, but the demographic-adjusted stats from elementary school students are misleading. Holding kids back for poor performance can really pump their numbers inadvertently. Even if that’s not a very prevalent practice, performance in high school is more important and far more predic…

https://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the... Indeed they are towards the bottom, but not "tied for last". Talking about statistics, take a look at the "Estimated % of Grads Tested" column. the top 20 do not break 20%, while the bottom is near 100% with the exception of Hawa'ii.

Thanks for pointing that out, they’re actually tied for second-to-last.

As for % tested, states that don’t mandate the ACT tend to have higher performance in general. They don’t have as compelling of a need for the mandate, and they have many students who’d rather just take the SAT on its own. There is an effect going the other way though - if you don’t mandate the ACT, then students who don’t want to take any standardised testing at all…won’t, and so they won’t depress the average score.

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#146

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bombcar wrote: post #80
pc86 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to strawman your argument but it sounds like you're saying that if you're in 3rd grade one year you should be in 4th grade the next year no matter what. That there's nothing you actually need to learn in 3rd grade in order to be advanced to 4th grade. Is that what you're saying?

I would say that the point is that you can't just look at one datapoint, especially if there are other things affecting it. The most obvious case of this is comparing private vs public schools, where the private schools can be selective and kick out anyone who doesn't perform or they don't like, but the public schools have to accept everyone by law. Obviously failing anyone who cannot read from getting to 4th grade w…

Those failing kids eventually make it to the 8th grade, however, and affect statistics. Still, having lived there and attending one of the better middle and high schools near Vicksburg, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were gaming the system in some way (I hope they aren’t and these gains are real, though).

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#147

Post by gcmeplz »

happyopossum wrote: post #86
keenmaster wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mississippi's average ACT scores are tied for last (edit: tied for second to last). I’m sure some of their educational outcomes are improving, but the demographic-adjusted stats from elementary school students are misleading. Holding kids back for poor performance can really pump their numbers inadvertently. Even if that’s not a very prevalent practice, performance in high school is more important and far more predic…

ACT scores trail education outcomes by ~10 years, as students in school in the middle of a shift don’t get the full benefit from it - they’re often not included in policy changes for the sake of continuity (you may not be able to suddenly change the way you teach math in 5th grade).

State-based ACT scores are also highly influenced by who takes the ACT. If more students choose to take the ACT, the scores might go down even it's because your education system is doing a better job because more kids are trying for college.

For the same reason, you'll see some surprising state scores for SAT/ACT. If you're in a state that prioritizes the ACT, the main students taking the SAT are the strongest students who are looking at out-of-state schools.

Aside from the time lag, I don't think you can look at voluntary test scores and draw many useful conclusions from it.

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#148

Post by DangitBobby »

throwanem wrote: post #141
DangitBobby wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to address the slurs and redlining?

Have I been less than clear? Those are core examples of exactly the trashy behavior I expect from the Mississippi social class and scene of which my other interlocutor and their family were part, during their time in my home state. (My hometown, actually, I bet. Oxford, right? Biggest net exporter of nonmalodorous feces in the state, bar none. The university draws 'em like flies on...well, never mind. Bet you never p…

I'm just not understanding your entire position, I guess. They are saying the overt racism is inexcusable and hating that ignorance makes sense to them. You are saying they grew up rich and so ... what exactly? They were also subtly racist? Or that if they were impoverished they would have been just as racist?

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#149

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

svachalek wrote: post #26
philo_sophia wrote: post #9

I think the comments on the article are a fair critique. Notably that this single metric for educational outcome is not as important as the author is suggesting. Also, Maine has a huge drop on that chart I'm assuming from COVID. I don't think this is southern states catching up. I think it was just them outperforming during COVID potentially. Whether or not that will last, we will see.

You mean "At the end of the day, it's cognitive ability, not instruction method, that wins the day in the long term."? Which in the context of the comment is just blatant racism wrapped in some kind of incoherent triple redundant wrapper.

There are reasons other than race for some children to do better in school than others.

Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools

#150

Post by throwanem »

DangitBobby wrote: post #148
throwanem wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have I been less than clear? Those are core examples of exactly the trashy behavior I expect from the Mississippi social class and scene of which my other interlocutor and their family were part, during their time in my home state. (My hometown, actually, I bet. Oxford, right? Biggest net exporter of nonmalodorous feces in the state, bar none. The university draws 'em like flies on...well, never mind. Bet you never p…

I'm just not understanding your entire position, I guess. They are saying the overt racism is inexcusable and hating that ignorance makes sense to them. You are saying they grew up rich and so ... what exactly? They were also subtly racist? Or that if they were impoverished they would have been just as racist?

They're generalizing ignorantly from a very narrow slice of a culture, which they saw because that was the narrow slice in which their own family chose to participate, and proceeding to blame quite literally everyone else possible but themself and their parents for that entirely intentional choice. They have either failed to study sufficient history to find the error, or have done so and found the error preferable. Neither merits my respect.

I don't even care they won't listen to me trying to explain how they're blinkered, because I have been trying for three mortal decades and that literally never works; to somebody like this one, I'll never be anything but poor white trash, no matter just how cleverly they always think they say it.

I grew up poor and white in Mississippi and I didn't grow up hearing slurs. That is white trash behavior - white trash, not poor! - as I was raised to believe from before I myself could speak. Like public drunkenness or indecent exposure, that is, an "unforced error" invariably both culpable and shameful. And here we have this fool who not only did grow up with those who knew no better, they themself is ignorant enough not to know they should have known better, yet believes themself qualified not merely to opine but to condescend. Must I wipe their nose for them as well? Another orifice, perhaps?

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