I didn’t
think Miguel intended to use the report to demonstrate a trend but I think the
original question had to do with whether or not students are getting worse and
I just wanted to point out that this article didn’t address that issue.
According
to Jayne Freeman in an article from 1995 at: http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/ed378665.html,
“Nearly 60 percent of U.S. high school graduates go on to post-secondary
studies, and about 26 percent receive bachelor's degrees, a larger percentage
than in other industrialized countries.” I suggest connecting to that link to read an argument (at
least circa 1995) that students are not getting worse and students are not worse
compared to other students. One point she raises about cross-cultural
comparisons (that I am ashamed I didn’t think of myself) is that you cannot
directly compare standardized test results among nations because, in most
nations, like the US years ago, only elite students take college entrance
exams.
So, if we
take into account the fact that some number of those 60% just may not really be
candidates for success in college and some will attend two year colleges, Miguel’s
hypothetical 50% preparedness rate for HS grads for college may not be too bad.
The VP of Enrollment at our campus told me that the curriculum listed in the
article is pretty standard at high schools today but, unlike the picture
presented in the article, there are many colleges who will admit students
lacking this curriculum who show strengths in standardized testing or have good
references or are highly motivated. Of course, these students would probably be
better prepared with the curriculum than without it. However, according to http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/populate.htm
(citing another source to which the link didn’t appear to be up-to-date), 33%
of adults in the US have successfully graduated with a four-year degree. I don’t
know if I agree that 50% being ready for college would be a disappointing
statistic. Remember, most students are required to attend school through high
school. Although we want everyone who can benefit from a college education to
have the opportunity, I don’t think that fraction is going to be greatly above
50% of the population of HS grads. I am sorry I didn’t have time to find more
authoritative sources for enrollment and graduation rates but if anyone happens
to know them, I would be interested in finding out. Thanks,
Rick
Dr. Rick Froman
Associate Professor of Psychology
John Brown University
2000 W. University
Siloam Springs, AR 72761
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(479) 524-7295
http://www.jbu.edu/academics/sbs/rfroman.asp
-----Original
Message-----
From: Miguel Roig
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003
12:54 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological
Sciences
Subject: RE: I hate technology/The
Web is evil.
Hi, Rick,
regarding your critical analysis of the Manhattan Institute's report, I want to
point out that it was not my intention to use the data I cited from the report
as demonstrating a developmental downward trend in the quality of public school
education. Taking into account all relevant factors (e.g., increase in
diversity of student body attending college - John Kulig) it may very well be
that, academically, students today may not be that much different from those
of, say, 20 years ago. However, based on my personal experience, I do not
believe that to be the case and it seems that neither do many others on this
list and elsewhere. But, I realize that personal experience and opinion
are not data and I only have a passing familiarity with the issues at
hand. And so I ask, are there any data to support the belief that
students today are worse than before? Rick or others who may be more
familiar with the empirical literature in this area can perhaps provide some
references as to where students today stand relative to those in the past.
Lastly, regarding the percentage of graduating seniors who are prepared for
college level work, let's assume that, as Rick's analysis reveals, that the
report underestimates the actual numbers and that the actual percentage is
higher than 32%. Let's say that it is as high as 40% or 50%. Frankly,
given that one of the primary missions of high school is to prepare students
for college-level work and given that we are talking about the educational
system of the most power nation in the world, 50% should still be considered a
rather disappointing statistic IMHO.
Miguel
At 11:09 AM 10/23/2003 -0500, you wrote:
-----Original
Message-----
From: Miguel Roig [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003
8:52 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological
Sciences
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: I hate technology/The
Web is evil.
Miguel Roig wrote:
We've had threads before about 'students getting worse' and those discussion
have sometimes led me to question the accuracy of faculty impressions of the
academic readiness of students. However, annual 'report cards' of our
nation's schools have not been favorable for years and verify our perceptions.
In fact, a just-published report by the Manhattan Institute (http://www.manhattan-institute.org/ewp_03.pdf)
paints a pretty grim picture of public high school education. For
example, consider the following statistic revealed by the Manhattan report:
"Only 70%
of all students in public high schools graduate, and only 32% of all students
leave high school qualified to attend four-year colleges." I don't
know what the exact figures are, but I imagine that the 32% probably translates
to hundreds of thousands of students. One also wonders how much better
some private high schools really are.
Thanks, Miguel, for the
link to the study. I am always looking for primary sources to give my students
practice in critical thinking about research. For example, on this very issue,
I have had students in the past read opposing reports on our educational system
and try to ascertain which is closer to the correct picture. The two reports,
while not primary sources, do provide some practice in critical thinking. The
sources http://www.theatlantic.com/election/connection/educatio/singalf.htm
and The Near-Myth of Our Failing Schools by Peter Schrag at: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97oct/fail.htm.
As to practicing my
critical thinking on the Manhattan Institute study, the first point is that
nothing said about today s students alone can be taken as evidence that today s
students are doing worse than during some previous golden age. Although 70%
graduation and 32% qualified for college doesn t look good, without a
comparison we can t say that they are worse than before. When reading such an
article, I always go to the Method section first because we all know that Satan
is in the specifics. And this one does have some specifics. It is a great
reminder to us that sometimes it is not as easy as we might imagine to get the
numbers we use in an analysis. How hard could it be to get graduation rates?
Pretty difficult as it turns out. I leave the details for you to slog through
at the link Miguel provided.
The authors go on to
describe three screens they use to determine the percentage of students who
leave high school qualified to attend four-year colleges. The first is HS
graduation rate, the second is a transcript screen and the third is a literacy
screen. In the transcript screen, they exclude anyone who hasn t taken, in high
school, four years of English, three years of math, and two years each of
natural science, social science, and foreign language. The literacy screen
excludes the percentage of those who don t achieve a basic level on the NAEP
reading test. Finally, we apply all three screens by multiplying
the percentage of students who graduate high school by the percentage of
graduates who pass the transcript screen by the number of transcript-ready
graduates who pass the test score screen. So, with a 70% graduation rate, if
70% take the appropriate curriculum and 70% of those who take the appropriate
curriculum pass the literacy test, multiplying them together would give you 34%
ready for college. Correct me if I m wrong, but using the multiplication rule
there assumes that all three of those screens are independent measures of
college readiness. I seriously doubt that but maybe I am missing something.
One other thing just
smells to me but I have nothing to confirm it one way or another. The Executive Summary says, Graduation
rates in the Northeast (73%) and Midwest (77%) were higher than the overall
national figure, while graduation rates in the South (65%) and West (69%) were
lower than the national figure. The Northeast and the Midwest had the same
college readiness rate as the nation overall
(32%) while the
South had a higher rate (38%) and the West had a lower rate (25%). So the South
has the lowest graduation rate and the highest college readiness rate. I live
here in Arkansas and education is not one of the strengths of this region.
Mississippi is last in most education-related rankings and Arkansas is often
number 49. Other southern states are also low. I can easily believe that we
have the lowest graduation rate of any region but I don t understand how that
translates into the highest college readiness rating, especially since
one-third of the formula for college readiness is based on HS graduation. That
tells me we must have higher percentages of high schools requiring the
specified curriculum and/or higher literacy rates than the rest of the nation.
That seems unlikely. I haven t looked for a detailed explanation of this in the
paper (maybe I will look when I have more time) but if any of you have any
other ideas, I would like to hear it.
And to all you
PowerPoint haters out there, guess who paid for this report? That s right: Bill
and Melinda.
Thanks again
Miguel for another opportunity to exercise my critical thinking (and for my
students to practice it).
---
You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
___________________________________________________________________________
Miguel Roig, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Notre Dame Division of St. John's College
St. John's University
300 Howard Avenue
Staten Island, New York 10301
Voice: (718) 390-4513
Fax: (718) 390-4347
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm
--Visit my
instructional resource on plagiarism and ethical writing: http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm/plagiarism/
___________________________________________________________________________
---
You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---
