As far as I know, those figures are provided by the school district. They didn't interview any TM teachers, did you notice?
They are in-line with the figures cited by then-principle James Dierke in his essay that is still up on the San Francisco Unified School District blog: SFUSD News Feed: A Quiet Transformation http://blog.sfusd.edu/2012/09/a-quiet-transformation.html http://blog.sfusd.edu/2012/09/a-quiet-transformation.html SFUSD News Feed: A Quiet Transformation http://blog.sfusd.edu/2012/09/a-quiet-transformation.html By: James S. Dierke | Leadership Magazine A Quiet Transformation View on blog.sfusd.edu http://blog.sfusd.edu/2012/09/a-quiet-transformation.html Preview by Yahoo And as for "indoctrination" with SCI or whatever, they've learned their lesson there. Quiet Time was carefully devised to avoid all the pitfalls that they ran into back in the Malnak v Yogi days and thus far, no lawsuits have been filed that I am aware of, even though Americans United Against Church and State is very unhappy with the DLF Quiet Time program. By the way, just as the old superintendent was saying, the new superintendent of SFUSD is saying he wants ALL students in San Francisco to be participants in Quiet Time ASAP. L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : I am going to agree with James here, Michael. This TV report *was*, obviously, based on data provided to them by the TMO, which has a proven history of lying about data to present a better impression of its products than would be warranted by presenting real data. But to counter these claims, you need to analyze the *real data* from these schools, and present reasons why this reporting might be fallacious. For example, was there any *other* change in the criteria used to issue suspensions during the period being measured? Were there any *other* reasons that attendance could have improved? The statistic provided on improved academic performance speaks for itself -- a ".4% increase" is probably not enough to be statistically valid; variations that small probably happen regularly in every school. But stick to the facts. Don't try to bring your own grudges and anger into it. Even *I* have no issue with this "quiet time" experiment *as it is being presented* -- meditating in a classroom, with no indoctrination into anything other than the TM technique, and with TM teachers given no access to students to try to get them more involved with the TM movement outside of school. If they left it at that, I'd have no problem with it. If the TM teachers involved start using class time to indoctrinate students into weird neo-Hindu beliefs (basically, what the TMO teaches as "SCI") or tries to get them to learn the TM-Sidhis, then I'd have a *big* problem with it. James is right. You're so intent on trying to "get" the TMO that you don't seem to realize how obsessed with it you seem. Lighten up. The TM movement doesn't need your help to self-destruct; they're doing a good job of that on their own. As for the basic TM technique, well if that has any value it will stick around long after MUM is nothing but ruins. But in neither case will you and the things you post here or elsewhere have made a big difference in how things turn out. Just my opinion... From: "jamesalan735@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2014 6:18 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] MJ's head exploding in 3... 2... 1 The changes reported in the NBC news pieces are as follows: 79% reduction in suspensions, 93% increase in attendance, 0.4 increase on 4.0 point scale (10% increase) in GPA over four years in School one. 75% reduction in suspensions and a move from the bottom in academic performance in SF to the middle range of SF performance for School 2. Michael, regardless of what happened in the other SF schools you mentioned - no matter what happened and no matter what your views or Gina's views are on what happened - has zero relevance when disputing the impact of TM on the schools reported in the NBC news program. The whole history of the TM movement, what MMY got up to or not, why MMY ran the TMO the way he did, whether the whole TMO was motivated by the desire to make money or by greed, how the TMO is run, the character of the current movement leaders, etc.,etc. are all up for discussion, but none of these things has any relevance whatsoever in attempting to explain the above results or to refute the above results. [It is also not relevant as an argument what may happen in these two schools in the future related to the practice of TM by its students.] None of the above has any relevance whatsoever. To put it another way: If MMY started and ran the TMO to make money, to get power, if MMY had zero interest in the welfare and happiness of others, if all the rumors of a private sexual life were true, if all the frameworks of the growth in consciousness and enlightenment that MMY expounded were complete rubbish, if all the current leaders of the TMO are complete frauds who are just in it for the power/money, if the Maharishi effect is pure fantasy and no such effect exists, if pundits have rioted in FF (this last one is true), if most people give up TM after a short while, if TM works for some period of time and not for longer, etc. etc. - even if all these things were true - this NBC news piece is still reporting significant benefits to children over a four year period (a long and crucial time in a child's life) as a result of practicing TM as part of their school day in two different schools. My points above are not limited to the value or non-value of TM. If we were discussing the impact of say, physical exercise/quality of food/teacher expertise and their effects on children's performance in any school, my point also applies: It is not a valid argument against the impact of an intervention in one school, to say that another school district had refused to introduce the same intervention or had withdrawn the same intervention following some conflict. My points are about making a valid, logical argument about what a critic (you in this case) is required to do to refute the impact of any intervention in any situation, and what arguments don't cut it. So if you want to refute the gains reported in the NBC, you have to apply appropriate arguments. The one you have used has no validity and must be dismissed for that reason.
