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ABSTRACT: Craig Nelson, in "Reducing Racial Gap: Nisbett (2009a) in
Sunday's NY Times" cites Nisbett's NY Times OpEd, wherein Nisbett
claims that: (a) Head Start and Early Head Start "have been found to
have only modest effects on the children's academic achievement"; (b)
KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program <http://www.kipp.org/>) has worked
well; (c) the Obama administration should heed the Bush
administration's "What Works Clearinghouse" reports. But claims a,
b, and c are countered by, respectively, Zigler & Muenchow (1994),
Campbell (2006), and Schoenfeld (2005). Furthermore, Nisbett [in
company with Ceci & Konstantopoulos (2009)] fails to consider the
fact that a major cause of the achievement gap that separates black
and white, rich and poor, is POVERTY, as forcefully argued by David
Berliner (2005).
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Craig Nelson, in his POD post "Reducing Racial Gap: Nisbett in
Sunday's NY Times" wrote:
"Great set of examples re reducing achievement gaps, including at
college. . . . [Nisbett (2009)]. . . . . His bottom line is that
modest interventions can change expectations and improve achievement.
Strong evidence suggests that effective pedagogy is also quite
important in reducing this gap (even eliminating it in some cases),
as I have argued previously, e.g.:
. . . . .[Nelson (1996)]. . . . [Ideas apply across the curriculum.]"
Nisbett (2009) <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nisbett> wrote
[bracketed by lines "NNNNNN. . . . ."; my inserts at ". . . .
.[insert]. . . ."]:
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
As Department of Education officials consider how best to spend
billions from the economic stimulus plan, they would be wise to pay
attention to which programs actually help children's achievement -
and keep in mind that sometimes very small influences in children's
lives can have very big effects.
Consider, for example, what the social psychologists Claude Steele
and Joshua Aronson. . . .[(1995)]. . . have described as "stereotype
threat," which hampers the performance of African-American students.
Simply reminding blacks of their race before they take an exam leads
them to perform worse, their research shows. . . . .
If simple interventions can have big effects, one might assume that
bigger interventions would always be even better. But the truth is
that some big interventions in education have had only minimal
effects. Head Start, which places 3- and 4-year-olds in supposedly
enriched classroom settings, and Early Head Start, which works with
1- to 3-year-olds, for example, have been found to have only modest
effects on the children's academic achievement, and these often fade
by early elementary school. . . .[but see "Head Start: The Inside
Story Of America's Most Successful Educational Experiment" [Zigler &
Muenchow (1994). " Likewise, "whole-school interventions," in which
teams of education engineers descend on a school and change its
curriculum, introduce new textbooks and train teachers - often at
great expense - typically produce little in the way of educational
gain . . . .[where are the references?]. . . . .Some bigger programs
have worked well, however. . . . [Perry Preschool
<http://www.evidencebasedprograms.org/Default.aspx?tabid=32> and
KIPP (for Knowledge Is Power Program <http://www.kipp.org/> (but see
"Why KIPP is not a model for urban education" Campbell, 2006)] . . .
. . .[but they]. . . must be tested to ensure that they work as they
are meant to.
The United States Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse,
which was established by the Bush administration, has the job of
making public all significant evaluations of educational
interventions. The Obama administration should heed the
Clearinghouse's reports. . . .[but see "What Doesn't Work: The
Challenge and Failure of the What Works Clearinghouse to Conduct
Meaningful Reviews of Studies of Mathematics Curricula," Schoenfeld
(2005)]. . . .
Stimulus money should be spent only on programs that work well - and
on creating new programs, which in turn should be properly tested for
effectiveness. President Obama is in a position to not only inspire
black youngsters by his example, but also make an enormous difference
in their schooling - as long as he supports successful educational
interventions, from the smallest to the most ambitious."
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
As I indicated [Hake (2009)] in a response to "It's Not All About
Class Size" [Ceci & Konstantopoulos (2009)], Dept. of Education
officials and the new administration generally should consider the
fact that a major cause of the domestic achievement gap that
separates black and white, rich and poor is POVERTY, as forcefully
argued by David Berliner (2005, but which receives no notice from
Ceci & Konstantopoulos (2009) and Nisbett (2009).
I submit that reduction of poverty in the U.S. might reduce *both*
the domestic and international achievement gaps, since then the
learning of *all* students, not just the advantaged, would be
markedly increased by reforms such as reduction in class size, more
effective teachers, and more effective pedagogy.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands.
<[email protected]>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/>
<http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/>
REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
Becker, J. 2009. "It's Not All About Class Size," Math-Teach post of
4 February; online on the OPEN! Math-Teach archives at
<http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1896092&tstart=0> -
contains a copy of Ceci & Konstantopoulo (2009) as allowed by the
"fair use" provision of U.S. Copyright Law - see e.g.,
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml>.]
Berliner, D.C. 2005. "Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform"
Teachers College Record, August 02, freely online only to subscribers
at <http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=12106>, but the
abstract is free to all.
Campbell, P. 2006. "Why KIPP is not a model for urban education,"
School Matter Blog; online at
<http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2006/06/why-kipp-is-not-model-for-urban.html>.
Ceci, S.J. & S. Konstantopoulos. 2009. "It's Not All About Class
Size," Chronicle of Higher Education" 55(21): A30, January 30; free
online at <http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i21/21a03001.htm>. I thank
Math-Talk's Jerry Becker (2009) for alerting me to this article.
Hake, R.R. 2009. "A Response to 'It's Not All About Class Size', "
AERA-L post of 6 Feb 2009 09:42:04-0800; online on the OPEN! AERA-L
archives at <http://tinyurl.com/daf85y>, the OPEN! Net-Gold archives
at <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Net-Gold/message/27065>, and at
<http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/2009/02/response-to-its-not-all-about-class.html>
where comments may be easily posted. The abstract only was
transmitted to POD and other discussion lists. On the POD list the
abstract appears at <http://tinyurl.com/aguo7t>.
Nelson, C. E. 1996. "Student diversity requires different approaches
to college teaching, even in math and science. American Behavioral
Scientist 40(2):165-175; online at
<http://mypage.iu.edu/~nelson1/96_StudentDiversity.pdf> [5.2 MB (scanned)].
Nelson, C. 2009. "Reducing Racial Gap: Nisbett in Sunday's NY Times"
POD post of 8 Feb 2009 09:59:18 -0500; online on the OPEN! POD
archives at <http://tinyurl.com/atuoj4>.
Nisbett, R.E. 2009a. "Education is All in Your Mind," New York Times
Op-Ed, 7 February" free online for a few days at
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/opinion/08nisbett.html?ref=todayspaper>.
See also Nisbett (2009b).
Nisbett, R.E. 2009b. "Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools
and Cultures Count." W.W. Norton. Amazon.com information at
<http://tinyurl.com/bloso8>.
Schoenfeld, A.H. 2005. "What Doesn't Work: The Challenge and Failure
of the What Works Clearinghouse to Conduct Meaningful Reviews of
Studies of Mathematics Curricula," Educational Researcher 35(2):
13-21; online at
<http://gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/ahschoenfeld/Schoenfeld_WhatDoesntWork1.pdf>
(100 kB).
Steele, C. M., & J. Aronson. 1995. "Stereotype threat and the
intellectual test performance of African-Americans," Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 69(5):797-811; an abstract is
online at
<http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=1996-12938-001>.
See also at <http://www.psychologymatters.org/stereotypethreat.html>.
Zigler, E. & S. Muenchow. 1994. "Head Start: The Inside Story Of
America's Most Successful Educational Experiment." Basic Books.
Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/ahpo35>. Arla Lindgren
in "The Library Journal" wrote: "As one of its earliest champions,
Zigler has been intimately involved with Head Start throughout its
27-year history. Aided by Muenchow, executive director of Florida
Children's Forum, he details the national politics of this
educational program from Lyndon Johnson to George Bush. He
dispassionately acknowledges the many critics and challenges the
program faced, such as the much-quoted Coleman report (Equality of
Educational Opportunity, U.S. Office of Education, 1966) and the
Nixon administration's attempt to eliminate it altogether. Why, then,
would Head Start ultimately become the nation's most successful
educational and social experiment? Zigler credits its success to its
comprehensive health and family support services, its
'two-generational assault on poverty.' Asserting that Head Start
should now be recognized as a full partner in Welfare Reform, he
proposes an expanded program for the future. As child care still
remains a massive problem in the United States, the report and its
recommendations deserve serious consideration by all segments of
society. Extensive notes on original source material are included.
For all education and social sciences collections." See also at
<http://ziglercenter.yale.edu/people/facultypages/zigler.html>,
Zigler (in press), and Zigler & Styfco (in press).
Zigler, E. in press. "Head Start as the beneficiary and benefactor of
psychological research and theory." Psychological Science Compendium.
Zigler, E. & S.J. Styfco. in press. "Social justice and America's
Head Start program," in C. Wainryb, J. Smetana, & E. Turiel, eds.,
"Social development, social inequalities, and social justice" Erlbaum.
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