Disaster of the delusion that all children are the same: blaming the teachers

[ApostateAbe]

On April 1st (no joke), eleven black educators of Atlanta were criminally convicted of racketeering--changing the wrong answers of their students' tests to raise the scores so the teachers and schools could be rewarded with bigger payments from the federal government.

The story is worse than that, because it speaks to a larger systemic problem. Teachers are held responsible for the lower-than-average academic performances of their students. Per the No Child Left Behind Act:

"(C) REQUIREMENTS- Such assessments shall-- (i) be the same academic assessments used to measure the achievement of all children"

Persistently underperforming schools are required to take corrective actions before receiving further funding, which may include:

"Replace the school staff who are relevant to the failure to make adequate yearly progress"

So, both schools and teachers are judged according to the same assessment standards as "all children," as though all children have equal academic potential. If the students perform below the average, then the teachers may be fired.

But, students do NOT have equal academic potential. This claim is not mere speculation. This is established scientific fact. Academic performance differences among students are mostly genetic. Psychologists know it. Teachers know it. And the delusion that all children have equal potential exists only in politics and the popular public.

Black students have the greatest academic underperformance (genetic or not), which means their teachers and their schools are punished by the federal government for failing to fix the apparently unfixable. They are given a choice between either cheating the tests or taking a beating in their careers. Forward-thinking teachers and administrators would be foolish to accept jobs teaching poor inner-city schoolchildren. The federally-enforced systems would doom their careers.

These eleven convicted educators are almost certainly not isolated cases. Convictions are obtained only with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Hundreds of other teachers of disadvantaged students likely cheated the tests but left the evidence inconclusive.

So don't blame these teachers in isolation. Don't even blame the two presidents of two parties responsible for the No Child Left Behind Act and the Race to the Top Act. Presidents and congresses ride on the public's delusions. The public is mainly to blame. If you dismiss the genetic basis of intelligence differences (strongly related to academic performance differences), then you share in the blame. That can end now. Review the following image (showing a much greater correlation of intelligence scores between people of shared genes than shared households). Then call for rational revisions of the No Child Left Behind Act and the Race to the Top Act.

"The United States Congress, acting with large bipartisan majorities, at the urging of the President, enacted as the law of the land that all children are to be above average." --Charles Murray

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah. The teachers look at the situation and realize their professions are going to be taken away because of bad luck (being in a bad school.) Is it really surprising that they choose to cheat?

What do you expect when you horribly screw someone without any justification?


The job of an inner city school teacher is impossible in today's climate. They are held accountable for making suitable progress in test scores, never mind that the teacher can't possibly accomplish this due the differences in the student's ability coming in. Take two teachers, one is given all 5th graders, one is given a group of 1st through 5th graders. The students are of equal ability--yet the latter teacher isn't going to perform as well.

It's much easier to say that the people who point this out are racists rather than admit that the problem is far deeper than a few bad apples that can be run out.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I understand that evaluating teachers based on student performance can be a problem, but what is the better practical solution?

 

[ApostateAbe]

I understand that evaluating teachers based on student performance can be a problem, but what is the better practical solution?

The No Child Left Behind Act created problems that didn't exist before, so the complete repeal of it may be the best solution, but there are ways to revise it. The root of the problem is evaluating schools based on their academic performance relative to the singular general population. Instead, I would suggest evaluating teachers based on the academic performance of students relative to what is expected from the student's IQ test results (independently administered). So, a school with a low average student IQ has lower academic expectations than a school with a higher average IQ. Teachers should not be expected to significantly increase their student's IQs. It is a fundamentally unscientific expectation.

 

[Juma]

Teachers should not be expected to significantly increase their student's IQs. It is a fundamentally unscientific expectation.

Oh, really?

 

[Arctish]

Instead of hammering the poorly performing schools by cutting their funding, how about making additional resources available? Kids who aren't doing well need tutors, after-school study sessions, maybe even a different teaching method, not brand new teachers who don't know them and have no idea what might help them learn the material. The way the system is rigged right now, persistently underperforming schools get funding cuts, even if they are underfunded to begin with.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Teachers should not be expected to significantly increase their student's IQs. It is a fundamentally unscientific expectation.

Oh, really?

Yes. That is what follows from the given figure, sourced from Bodmer, Walter F. "Race and IQ: The Genetic Background." Ed. Ashley Montagu. Race and IQ. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. p. 326. It is uncommon knowledge among the public that intelligence differences are mostly genetic, but it is widely accepted among psychologists. The heritability studies (there are many of them) make it undeniable.

 

[Juma]

Oh, really?

Yes. That is what follows from the given figure, sourced from Bodmer, Walter F. "Race and IQ: The Genetic Background." Ed. Ashley Montagu. Race and IQ. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. p. 326. It is uncommon knowledge among the public that intelligence differences are mostly genetic, but it is widely accepted among psychologists. The heritability studies (there are many of them) make it undeniable.

But they are statiscal correlations only.
The reasons for these correlations is not deducable from these figures.

Just because people have bern brought up apart from each other does not mean that their circumstances has been very different.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Black students have the greatest academic underperformance (genetic or not), which means their teachers and their schools are punished by the federal government for failing to fix the apparently unfixable.

Not here in Britain. The lowest academic performers are white working class males (i.e. the average black lad in the same demographic does better). This is usually attributed to many UK black people being from Caribbean cultures where education is highly valued - certainly more so than in the average pit village and mill town. It could be that UK black people have different genetic heritage from US black people, but the facile relation of "black" and "genetic" assumed from the US experience by 'scientific racists' doesn't appear to hold.

Similarly, the worst performing immigrant group is Bangladeshis. It's unlikely that Bangladeshis have significantly different genetic heritage to immigrants from neighbouring Asian countries (Bangladesh didn't exist until partitioned by the British in the 1940s) who do significantly better. Even if they did, the difference would fly in the face of the race categories touted by 'scientific racists' (for want of a better expression).

Now it's certainly unfair to blame teachers for schools in inner cities and former pit villages doing worse than schools in leafy suburbs. Let's not conflate that with what is anything but a settled scientific issue.

 

[tupac chopra]

But, students do NOT have equal academic potential. This claim is not mere speculation. This is established scientific fact.

Not really. Unless you can really isolate a control group and some eternal measure of "academic potential"

then you share in the blame. That can end now.

Why does this thread sound like a late night television advertisement urging me to buy...now....or maybe a late nite preacher

 

[arkirk]

Teachers should not be expected to significantly increase their student's IQs. It is a fundamentally unscientific expectation.

Oh, really?

The IQ test is unscientific as well, having a cultural component built into the the language used in the test.

While it is bad that the teachers cheated, I feel the punishments being handed out are way out of line.

 

[barbos]

Yes. That is what follows from the given figure, sourced from Bodmer, Walter F. "Race and IQ: The Genetic Background." Ed. Ashley Montagu. Race and IQ. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. p. 326. It is uncommon knowledge among the public that intelligence differences are mostly genetic, but it is widely accepted among psychologists. The heritability studies (there are many of them) make it undeniable.

But they are statiscal correlations only.
The reasons for these correlations is not deducable from these figures.

Just because people have bern brought up apart from each other does not mean that their circumstances has been very different.

It does not but circumstances are pretty irrelevant. To see that, look at "unrelated persons reared together" and then compare to "monozygous twins reared apart"

 

[RavenSky]

Instead of hammering the poorly performing schools by cutting their funding, how about making additional resources available? Kids who aren't doing well need tutors, after-school study sessions, maybe even a different teaching method, not brand new teachers who don't know them and have no idea what might help them learn the material. The way the system is rigged right now, persistently underperforming schools get funding cuts, even if they are underfunded to begin with.

^^^ this, though the extra funding should come with extra oversight

 

[ApostateAbe]

But they are statiscal correlations only.
The reasons for these correlations is not deducable from these figures.

Just because people have bern brought up apart from each other does not mean that their circumstances has been very different.

It does not but circumstances are pretty irrelevant. To see that, look at "unrelated persons reared together" and then compare to "monozygous twins reared apart"

That's right. The data leaves no escape. Genetic variations matter for intelligence.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Here's what I love. The (generally) conservative folk who tell you that schools need to be run like a business runs -- that student performance is the 'product' and that 'productivity' involves, among other things, larger class sizes (because a competent teacher should be able to generate more product -- I've heard this argument) -- all hold to the G.O.P. mantra that government regulation is a major roadblock to business success. Yet they see nothing wrong with regulating education to death and installing layer after layer of mind-boggling paperwork and documentation. I'm retired from public ed, thank Ker-RIST, but I talk to people who are still in the system and their enthusiasm and dedication are being worn down by the crazy excesses of the reform movement (which, all the way back to A Nation at Risk, was based on ludicrous abuse of stats. Don't get me started.)

 

[Bronzeage]

It does not but circumstances are pretty irrelevant. To see that, look at "unrelated persons reared together" and then compare to "monozygous twins reared apart"

That's right. The data leaves no escape. Genetic variations matter for intelligence.

Out of a random sample of 4 year old children, what percentage lack the intelligence required to be able to pass a written drivers test, or balance a checking account?

 

[SimpleDon]

The basic premise of the OP is wrong, excuse me for pointing out. The teachers aren't paid bonuses based on how high their students score, they are paid bonuses based on how much improvement their students make from year to year.

Arguably the worse for teachers would be to have a classroom of highly intelligent over achievers who would be less likely to gain much from year to year. And the best would be to have a classroom of under achievers. It is easier to take a class that averages 35% to say 38% (percentile) than it is to take a class that averages 95% to 97%.

The real point that these convictions raise is not the use of standardized tests, we have had them for more than sixty years without these problems, or the effectiveness of IQ tests, once again they measure the relative ability between individuals to learn quite well to benefit all.

What these convictions point out are the unintended consequences of incentive payments.

It wouldn't be too much of an overstatement to say that we suffered the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis because about 10,000 people on Wall Street cheated, committed fraud, to earn their incentive bonuses. They knew that they were trading high long term risks for high short term gains. But those short term gains guaranteed them their personal bonuses, in many cases enough in a few short years to retire in luxury.

And dare we compare the treatment to these teachers who cheated to the kid glove treatment given to the bankers who committed fraud and nearly destroyed the world's economy?

 

[Juma]

It does not but circumstances are pretty irrelevant. To see that, look at "unrelated persons reared together" and then compare to "monozygous twins reared apart"

That's right. The data leaves no escape. Genetic variations matter for intelligence.

Yes, i have not argued against the genetic variation matters. But you overestimate its importance.

 

[barbos]

That's right. The data leaves no escape. Genetic variations matter for intelligence.

Yes, i have not argued against the genetic variation matters. But you overestimate its importance.

Well, presented data says genetics is more important than environment.

 

[ApostateAbe]

That's right. The data leaves no escape. Genetic variations matter for intelligence.

Yes, i have not argued against the genetic variation matters. But you overestimate its importance.

Since there is a strong correlation among all intelligence tests (i.e. 0.81 correlation between Spearman's g from the Cognitive Abilities Test and the English General Certificate of Secondary Education test per Deary et al 2007), the genetic heritability of these scores matter a helluva lot. Expecting teachers to be able to significantly raise these scores as though all children are born equal is like expecting each of them to be Jesus.