A Clear Voice

August 23, 2005

Changing our Perception of Teenage Pregnancy

Via Number 2 Pencil, I ran across an link to an editorial by Paul Sheehan of the Sydney Morning Herald that is, as Kimberly puts it, quite provocative. He argues that teen pregnancy is biologically expected and the problem is actually society’s reaction to it.

A woman's body is at its fertility peak between the ages of 17 and 23. So when young women advertise or flaunt their sexuality they are being driven by a force far stronger than the Judeo-Christian ethic. They are driven by the power of peak fertility and a million years of evolutionary biology. Nature has programmed them for pregnancy, genetic diversity and keeping the species going. A big job.

I have no argument with this premise. However, he seems to completely miss the mark as he heads towards his conclusion.

A healthier society would allow women to have children earlier than they do now. At 32, no matter what people want to believe, the reproductive system is far less robust than it was 10 years earlier. Our aim should be to have children born into a culture where there is plenty of support for child care in addition to the mother, thus liberating mothers to more fully exploit the possibilities that advanced society can offer them.

Guess what culture gives a lot of support to young mothers and children and has worked for thousands of years? The culture of marriage. Indeed, the best predictor for poverty isn’t the age at which one has children, but whether or not one is married when the children are born.

And this isn’t just some tired old Judeo-Christian ethics thing. Not only are women biologically programmed for desiring children at the age of their peak fertility, but they are also biologically programmed for wanting to keep the father around. Men are the ones who are typically seen as wanting to sow their seed far and wide, while making sure that their partners don’t. Marriage is and has been an almost universal method across nearly all cultures for dealing with the competing biological urges of the sexes.

But, instead of promoting marriage, the tried and true method of making sure children have the support they need, Mr. Sheehan lauds the recent expansion of parental leave rights in Australia.

It gives an employee a right to request a maximum of two years of unpaid parental leave, up from one year. They can request to work part-time after returning from parental leave, until the child reaches school age. And they can request up to eight weeks of paternal leave (as distinct from parental leave), up from a maximum of one.

Such requests can be refused. However, the commission has placed a higher burden on employers, who are required to show reasonable grounds for refusal, rather than simply deny the request outright. This is a shift in the balance towards nurture.

If you ask me, this solution is like putting a band-aid on an arterial gusher. The parental leave decision will likely have no effect on future poverty rates. (Indeed it seems that the author came up with a conclusion (that the parental leave decision is good) and thought of a sexy way to support it by stating that “There is nothing wrong with pelvic display, push-up bras, Gosford miniskirts, spray-on jeans, low-cut tops, bare legs, bare arms, bare ankles, G-strings or even buttock cleavage, providing the displayer is young enough to get away with it.”)

Changing parental leave policies is completely useless for fixing the problems of teen pregnancies and their effects on future poverty. Pregnant teenagers usually aren’t worried about if their job at McDonalds will provide them two years of unpaid parental leave or let them work part time. If they are to the point where they are working in an industry that actually pays more than minimum wage and doesn’t have a huge turnover rate, which is when parental leave actually matters, then they are much less likely to face poverty in the future anyway. However, teenagers usually aren’t because our society is structured such that they have rarely even begun considering their permanent career path, let alone solidifying it. The reason that things have worked better in the past isn’t so much the rise of materialism as it is the necessity of more education to be considered a mature adult in our society.

Our current educational system is very inflexible in terms of how long it takes to produce mature adults (that is, if it does at all). If we want to enable people to have children younger, we need to increase the flexibility of our educational system. A (non-exhaustative) list of better solutions might be:

1. Stressing the importance of marriage before children (even if they do choose not to wait until marriage to have sex.)
2. Improving intellectual and emotional development (so that teenagers can make an informed decision of when to have kids) instead of just focusing on pure knowledge.
3. Bring back the apprentice system so that kids who want to can start on their careers sooner. (Not everyone needs to go to college to have a successful career.)

Basically society needs to mature the minds of teenagers so that they are either mature enough to not decide to have children until they are ready, or mature enough to have children when their bodies tell them to. Traditionally, society has attempted to implement the first solution. Mr. Sheehan might inadvertently be correct in his overly provocative and simplistic suggestion that the second might be worth a look.

Posted by illuminaria at 03:59 PM | Comments (0)

June 03, 2005

Teachers Not the Only Ones in Short Supply

Schools are also having a hard time finding people who are willing to drive 40 mostly badly behaved children around for $10 an hour.

Henrico County [Virginia] has 24 full-time bus drivers, plus 20 supervisors and others pulled in to cover routes, transportation supervisor Harold Grimes said. The average driver turnover is between 10 percent and 13 percent a year; there are now 23 driver vacancies.

Grimes said that besides balking at the starting salary of $13,920, or $10.69 an hour ($14,153 annually and $10.87 hourly for the upcoming school year), potential bus drivers also consider the responsibility involved, especially after recent bus accidents and violent incidents on buses.

"They're in charge with those children," Grimes said. "Plus it's hard to watch for the traffic. When it's added together, people say, 'Whoa, why am I trying to do this?"'

Virginia has had two fatal accidents this year -- a teenager was killed in February and last month two children died after their bus collided with a truck. And in Tennessee, a 14-year-old was charged with fatally shooting bus driver Joyce Gregory in March because he "hated her," according to a recorded statement played in court.

Earlier this month, a security camera on a school bus in Punta Gorda, Florida, captured a fight between a substitute driver and two teens. The driver was charged with misdemeanor battery and the teens with assault.

Behavior problems that affect teachers also affect everyone else who comes into contact with the kids.

At the end of the article, someone puts the blame where it belongs.

Megan Williams, a mother of four, thinks potential bus drivers don't want to put up with disrespectful children, for which she blames parents.

"I am part of the problem. I have four boys. They are the kind that don't sit still and say, 'Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am,"' Williams said. "I drive my van with my four kids in it and that's enough. I can't imagine a bus full of them."

Er, ok... At least she's not in denial.

Posted by illuminaria at 01:35 PM | Comments (1)

May 19, 2005

Pregnant Student Walks

Pregnant student defies graduation ban

A pregnant student who was banned from graduation at her Roman Catholic high school announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway at the close of the program.

Alysha Cosby's decision prompted cheers and applause Tuesday from many of her fellow seniors at St. Jude Educational Institute.

But her mother and aunt were escorted out of the church by police after Cosby headed back to her seat.

"I can't believe something like this is happening in 2005," said her mother, Sheila Cosby. "My daughter has been through a lot and I am proud of her. She deserved to walk, and she did."

...

"I worked hard throughout high school and I wanted to walk with my class," she said.

If I were making the decision for the school, I probably would have gone the other way with this one, depending on other circumstances. I certainly have respect for their decision though. It is a private religious school, and preventing public flouting of their morals is not something all that outlandish, discriminatory, or unexpected. I mean come on, it's a Catholic school! If I were the student or the student's family I surely would have respected the decision.

On the other hand...

Cosby was told in March that she could no longer attend school because of safety concerns, and her name was not listed in the graduation program.

The father of Cosby's child, also a senior at the school, was allowed to participate in graduation.

I have a lot less respect for the school for not coming out and saying their reasons and instead coming up with some crap about "safety concerns." What, were they afraid she'd trip and fall down the stairs on the way up to the stage?

And I damn well have a lot less respect for the school for allowing the other culpable party to walk when his partner was not. He may not have a big pregnant belly, but he's just as responsible and should recieve the same punishment.

Number 2 Pencil has more.

Posted by illuminaria at 05:45 PM | Comments (1)

May 16, 2005

Affirmative Action in the Classroom

Via Number 2 Pencil, I saw this story about the University of Oregon offering classes

that reserve the first 10 slots in an 18-student class for minority students, while requiring others who want to get into the class to arrive on the morning of the first day of class and meet with an adviser before being allowed to register for the remaining eight slots. The OMAS pays for and controls three lower-division math and three lower-division English classes that allow fewer enrolled students and provide more individualized instructor attention. While other sections of Math 242 and Math 243 this term have an average of 115 students for lectures, 29 students for discussions and 35 students for integrated classes, the OMAS classes had a maximum of 18 students. The general Writing 121 and Writing 122 sections had an average of 25 students per class, and the OMAS sections were again restricted to 18 students.

Linda Liu, advising coordinator and academic adviser for OMAS, said the classes are meant to offer a safe haven for minority students and give struggling students a chance to work more closely with professors.

This issue was brought to the forefront when a white student attempted to enroll in one of these classes because it was the only one available. This certainly seems like blatant racism to me. What’s the reason given for these classes?

University Senior Instructor Michel Kovcholovsky, who teaches the OMAS's math classes, said the classes were created to foster a comfortable environment for minorities. "That was the basic idea, so that they don't feel afraid to raise their hand and ask something."

Ahhh, the same condescending claptrap you always hear from these sorts of people. Minorities might feel afraid to raise their hands to ask a question if there are too many white people in the class. (This makes me wonder what they are going to do if they get a job in the real world where less than half of the workforce is non-white.) Let me just say, as a female engineering student I attended many a class where I was one of 2-3, if not the only, female in the class. It never caused me a moment of trouble.

I might also point out that, seeing as how American engineering programs attract a lot of students from different countries, there were also times when white students were in the minority in my classes. And yet no one ever made any concessions for us. Indeed, see my article from last month about unintelligible foreign instructors. On that subject many were saying that this problem was the fault of the white American students who just weren’t willing to suck it up and learn “worldly listening skills.” So what if it took them half the semester to learn how to understand the instructor and they were unable to catch up?

He said students enjoy interacting with him one-on-one.

Gee, you think other struggling students would enjoy interacting with you one-on-one?

The course material he teaches is exactly the same. "To lower the standards for people of color would be racism," Kovcholovsky said.

That last sentence there is pretty darn funny.

Senior psychology major Kady-Ann Davy, who identifies as Jamaican American, said she took an OMAS Writing 122 class her sophomore year, and she liked the class because it covered diverse cultures and provided time to free-write about her own experiences with diversity.

So the class material isn’t the same.

She said the enrollment policy is fair because coming from a smaller high school, she liked the opportunity to study in a smaller class and that the remaining slots still give everybody a chance to enroll.

Apparently the white students who come from small high schools or struggle with large classes just have to suck it up.

The comments on the article are filled with the sort of stuff you always hear from supporters of affirmative action. It’s ok because it’s just making up for past racism, white people have it better so it’s ok to discriminate against them, you’re a racist if you object to this, etc.

This is my favorite comment.

What does it mean to be white? Please think about that. Why do I have to go to a class and be the only person of color in my class? Do you know what that feels like? So what students of color have 5 classes designated for them, you have all the rest of the 1,000 or whatever amount of classes where you are the majority. You are right, this campus is racist, the fact that we are even contesting the validity of the classes is a joke.

Yes, because the school has more whites than blacks enrolled, even though there are more whites than blacks in the population, the school is racist. Obviously, America should ship over 100 million black people from other countries so that everything will be “fair.”

You know, I do sympathize with these people who have a hard time coming into an unfamiliar culture. I’m very shy, and I have trouble in many situations where there are lots of people who are substantially different from me in any one of many ways. I think anyone of any race would have trouble being in a school where the majority of the population is a different race with a different culture. But that’s just life, and dealing with those situations is how you learn tolerance and respect for people who are different from you and how you learn to function in the real world. These courses may be just as academically rigorous as the other classes, but they aren’t as socially rigorous and “people of color” don’t need to be protected from that anymore than a person from a rural area needs classes with only FFA members in them, or a Jew needs a class with no Christians allowed.

Linked at Outside the Beltway and Mudville Gazette's open post.

Posted by illuminaria at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2005

Black Girl Charged With Hate Crime

Via Michelle Malkin, I saw this story about a recent incident at Trinity International University where three students received “racially motivated hate mail.” When the third letter, which was the first to threaten violence, was brought to the attention of the administration, they called in the police and the FBI and evacuated minority students off campus.

Well, today the university released a statement.

The Bannockburn Police Department investigation of hate mail at Trinity International University has reached a successful conclusion. On Monday, task force members were able to obtain a confession from a Trinity student. The student is a female African-American who became disgruntled and wanted to leave the school. The notes became her way to leave the school by implying it was not a safe campus.

See, also, this story

There never was a serious threat at Trinity International University, police Lt. Ron Price said Tuesday.

He said the woman, who was arrested and was expected to be charged on Tuesday, was unhappy at the Christian school and wanted to convince her parents it was too dangerous for her to stay.

"It's kind of a sad story, actually," Price said. Her name was not immediately released.

That’s right, she scared the shit out of lots of students and forced the university and the police and the FBI to waste money and time on an investigation because she didn’t want to deal with telling her parents something unpleasant.

People like this who make false accusations - whether they are of rape, molestation, or hatred - make me so angry. Whether it is for revenge, attention, or manipulation, they waste everyone’s time and make it so real incidents will be less likely to be believed.

The hate crime ones are especially heinous because they give credence to the belief that Americans are “really” racist bigots below the surface, when I think that the majority of Americans really aren’t racist anymore.

That’s why I was very glad to read this in the university’s statement.

The student is being charged with disorderly conduct and a hate crime per the Lake County State Attorneys office.

I hope this is not a misprint or misunderstanding on the part of the school. I don’t agree with hate crime legislation, but if it’s going to be around, I’m glad it’s going to be applied in this case. Threatening people simply because they are a particular race is no less heinous if you’re a member of that race yourself than if you're white.

More here where La Shawn decries the unfair application of hate crime laws, and also here, here, and here

Update: This story has the name of the girl, Alicia Hardin, 19, of Chicago. It also says she is charged with a hate crime.

Also, see this story, where you can see an example of, erm, "interesting" english from Jesse Jackson.

''It would have been the height of irresponsibility to have taken three threatening letters not seriously."

Posted by illuminaria at 12:55 PM | Comments (1)

April 20, 2005

Exercising the Constitutional Right to be Stupid.

Via Number 2 Pencil, see this story about a mall that, in response to several recent incidents, is passing out flyers about appropriate conduct and requiring that children under 16 are accompanied by an parent or other responsible adult.

In response parent Leann Newcomb said "I feel as though if I want to drop my kids off, I should. They're responsible." You may want to do it, Ms. Newcomb, but the mall is not required to let you, no matter how responsible you may think your daughter is. They are a private institution with no obligation to act as babysitter to your child.

What was even better, though, was her response to the mall’s rule banning dress "commonly recognized as gang-related…such as long chains …or studded dog or wrist collars, all of which can be used as weapons.”

"They sell that stuff," said Newcomb. "How are they going to tell the kids after they buy that stuff not to wear it? Isn't that a violation of your constitutional rights?"

Words escape me.

Do the schools still teach civics classes? Does anyone pay attention in them? Would it be a violation of Ms. Newcomb’s constitutional rights if I drove to Massachusetts and stuffed a copy of the Constitution where the sun don’t shine?

I can see the Supreme Court cases now – a customer of Victoria Secret sues the company because they objected to her wearing her newly purchased lingerie around the store.

Other annoying examples of constitutional misunderstanding – people who claim it’s a violation of their right to free speech for you to disagree with them or, *gasp*, even call them unpatriotic and children who protest “it’s a free country” when their parents attempt to lay down the law.

Posted by illuminaria at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

Mayor “Are You Attacking My Manhood” Coleman

Recently talk radio host Glenn Beck has been covering the story of the 16 year old handicapped girl that was beaten and raped on videotape at Mifflin High School in Columbus, Ohio. (Audio can be obtained here. Registration required. Free audio avaliable here.)

While the actions of the students are obviously outrageous, what is even more appalling is that the administration at the school tried to convince the girl’s father to not call the police in order to “avoid media attention.” Surprise surprise, the father called the police anyway and now the school is getting even more media attention for that little gaffe.

But what is simply unbelievable is the fact that the school board decided to fire the principal, but only suspend the assistant principals and then move them to other schools. This, despite the fact that one of the assistant principals was the one that told the girl’s father not to call the authorities.

Glenn Beck was finally able to get Michael B. Coleman, the mayor of Columbus, Ohio on the phone today. (After he tried to back out of his promise to call in two days ago.) The conversation was quite interesting and perhaps indicative of why Columbus has such a problem with their school system.

Glenn attempted to talk to Coleman about the school board’s decision to keep the assistant principals on, and Coleman talked about the criminal side of the investigation and said that he was not allowed to reveal anything about it while it was open, but he was sure everything would be taken care of. Glenn kept trying to steer him back to the subject of the school board and their actions towards the assistant principals and Coleman kept insisting that he couldn’t talk about an open police investigation. About the only thing he said about the schools was that they had paid policemen there and that he, the mayor, had no control or influence over what the school board did.

The best part of the interview was when Glenn attempted to ask him a question, “Doesn’t it offend you as a man….” He didn’t get a chance to finish, but I’m assuming the end of that question was something like, “that the schools would allow something like this to happen to a girl and then do nothing to the people who allowed it to go on.” However, he didn’t get a chance because Coleman interrupted him with “Are you attacking my manhood?”

No wonder the Columbus school district is having so many problems, if no one in the city government is willing to get their hands dirty and deal with the problem. Sending the police over to patrol the schools is a good temporary first step, but it's not a solution. A little something more than that needs to be done, and it seems that the school board doesn’t want to do it and the mayor “can’t get involved.”

Apparently Coleman wants to run for governor of Ohio. I hope all you voters in Ohio remember this incident.

To end this article on a funny note, I’ll relate an exchange with a humorous man who called to say that this incident had nothing to do with Mayor Coleman, but instead was completely the fault of President Bush. When a stunned Glenn asked him why, he said “because Cameron Diaz said that if Bush was reelected, that rape would be legal.” Much laughter was enjoyed by all.

Update: Ohio for Blackwell has a post up on this also, and has the audio of the interview avaliable for free.

Update 2: I just spend a while talking about this with my husband. He listened to the entire Glenn Beck show, whereas I came in midway. Glenn was apparently ripping on the mayor the entire two and a half hours during which it seemed that the mayor was dodging the interview that he had previously agreed to. Glenn began the interview by apologizing for a scheduling mistake that Glenn, the mayor, and every single person in the audience knew that Glenn's staff had not made. Glenn was offering the mayor a way to save face for trying to dodge the interview.

However, my husband thinks, right or wrong, that Glenn treated his guest with hostility from the outset. My husband’s impression of the interview with the mayor was that Glenn had one major question to be answered and after the first time he asked it, the mayor stated concretely that he had no authority over the school board, but that his authority and duty was to the police department which was heading up an investigation into the matter and that to answer Glenn's question would most definitely compromise that case. Glenn persisted. The mayor never deviated from his insistence both that the police were doing all they could to investigate and that he was prohibited from compromising the case by answering Glenn's question.

The mayor did indeed say that he couldn’t talk about the police investigation, and it might be a possible interpretation of his words that the school board’s actions were included in the investigation, but I’m not at all convinced that that is the case. It can also easily be interpreted as him avoiding the issue. Plus, I don’t really see any reason why the school board’s actions would be part of the police investigation into the incident and thus covered by the mayor's inability to talk about an ongoing police investigation. My husband maintains, however, that when investigators initiate a media gag order, that they throw the net wide as to what can not be discussed to allow for possible unforeseen ramifications of information disclosure.

My husband also thinks Glenn, who he usually likes, was stupid and uninformed to be trying to talk to the mayor instead of the school board members. I agree. They are the ones who made this decision and should be anwering for it.

Also, directly after the “don’t attack my manhood” incident, the mayor did finally say “I’m not offended” to Glenn’s question about the school board putting the administrators back to work. That makes me think that he’s OK with the school board’s decision and explains why he’s avoiding the issue elsewhere in the interview. My husband thinks, though, that the mayor was flustered because he thought Glenn was attacking him with schoolyard insults. The mayor lost his composure and didn't really understand the question. He thinks that the mayor was reassuring Glenn that he had not offended his guest and that they could continue the discussion.

I still think the mayor was skirting the issue to cover himself and his people and his town, so I’m just recounting all this for the purposes of full disclosure, since I don’t want to be one of those hysterical pajama people who don't tell both sides of the story. I’m curious, though, as to whether anyone else has any sort of similar reaction to the audio of the interview, or if you all think my husband is nuts too. :)

Posted by illuminaria at 12:09 PM | Comments (7)

April 18, 2005

Does Universial Preschool Make Sense?

At Number 2 Pencil today, Kimberly mentioned a push by Rob Reiner to make preschool universal. A recent study by the Rand Corporation claimed that making universal preschool available in California would yield $2.62 in benefits for ever $1 spent. The study is here.

The study says that the benefit breakdown is as follows

19 percent of the benefits to California society are realized by the public sector in the form of savings to the education, child welfare, and justice systems and in the form of higher taxes. Forty-eight percent of the benefits are in the form of increased earnings (net of taxes and higher education costs) of participants in adulthood, while another 21 percent of the benefits stem from the value of childcare to the parents. The remaining 12 percent of benefits accrue to participants and the rest of society in the form of savings from reduced child abuse and crime.

This means that even if we assume that all their assumptions and data is correct, in terms of California funds, the state would actually be getting back about fifty cents on every dollar. The rest of the benefits would go to participants, participants’ parents, and “society.” That changes things a bit.

Plus the study makes some assumptions that would very much change the results. First of all they take a study done by Chicago Child-Parent Centers and use the benefits of being in a preschool program that that study found and assign a value to them. The benefits are things such as reduced likelihood of failing a grade and lower incidence of involvements in the juvenile justice system. Thankfully, the CPC study does indeed address and try to reduce the effects of self-selection. However, one of the benefits listed is “lower incidence of child abuse and neglect from ages 4 to 17.” I find it kind of hard to understand how putting a random child in a preschool program will make that child less likely to be a victim of child abuse and neglect. What, does the preschool teach the child to get out of the way when their dad comes home drunk or something? Therefore I would suspect that there are some self-selection effects here and that the findings of the CPC study probably overestimate benefits.

The Rand study also makes assumptions in order to assess how much of the CPC benefits each child will gain. One of these assumptions is that the new universal preschool will be better than current public preschools, meaning that a high risk child attending the universal public preschool will get 50% more of the CPC benefits than if they had attended one of the current public preschools. This assumption is certainly not robust; there’s no reason to think that a universal preschool would be any better than the current public preschools. They also make the assumption that medium and low risk children who currently attend no preschool will get 50% and 25% respectively of the CPC benefits by attending the universal preschool. This assumption is also somewhat suspect. I would think that it is probable that low risk children might even be better off NOT attending preschool.

In fact, it may very well be that the only children who would benefit from universal preschool would be high risk children who currently do not attend preschool. If we use their assumptions on how many children would enroll in the universal preschool, we see that even though the universal preschool plan would mean that twice as many California 4 year olds would be in public preschool (35% to 70%), the overall rate of preschool attendance would only raise from 65% to 80%. Almost 70% of the new children enrolled in public preschools would be low risk children, most of them moved over from private preschools. Only 5.82% of California 4 year olds would be the high risk children not currently enrolled in preschool who would enroll in the universal preschool that the program would help the most. Instead of doubling costs, costs could be increased by less than 20% in order to make preschool available for more high risk children.

I certainly agree that putting more high risk children who don’t get stimulation and learning at home into preschool would help break the cycle of poverty. But I see no reason, even with this study, to make universal preschool available.

Some other interesting tidbits in the study:

As of 2001, 43 percent of U.S. 3-year-olds and 66 percent of 4-yearolds were enrolled in some form of preschool program. These percentages are three times as high for 3-year-olds and twice as high for 4- year-olds as they were in 1970.

Somehow I doubt there were twice as many children with educational problems in 1970 as there were in 2001. Obviously most of this is the increase in popularity of preschool, both due to more working mothers and more focus in educational circles on starting children young. This doesn't really support the idea that preschool is necessary for sucess in school

However, the current enrollment rates are subject to large variations across groups of children, depending on race/ethnicity, family income, parental education, and other factors. For example, enrollment rates are lowest for Hispanic children, and lower for families with incomes below poverty compared with families at the top of the income scale.

In the CPC study, it actually says that poor black children are the most likely to be enrolled in preschool, compared with other poor children. I thought this was interesting.

One of the sharpest contrasts is by mothers’ education, with just 38 percent of 3- to 5-year-olds whose mothers have less than a high school education enrolled in early education programs compared with 70 percent of those whose mothers have at least a college degree.

I’m sure this is not a surprise. Holding income even, more mothers who have college degrees work outside the home, thus more of them have reason to put their children in preschool.

Posted by illuminaria at 07:01 PM | Comments (4)

April 14, 2005

New Scapegoat for School Violence: Talk-Show Hosts

This AP article talks about rises in school violence perpetrated by parents.

The shooting last week of a Texas high school football coach -- allegedly by a player's father -- was just the latest and most extreme example of the threats and assaults that teachers around the country say they are increasingly being subjected to by parents.

"I know teachers really feel they're in a pressure cooker," said Aimee Bolender, president of Alliance/AFT, a Dallas teachers union. "The respect for authority has definitely changed. Teachers are no longer respected in general."

In Philadelphia in September, a mother slapped a teacher three times in the face after he told her she needed to get a late slip for her daughter, state officials say. In Dallas, police say, a mother stormed into a classroom, grabbed a teacher's hair, and punched her and kicked her April 1 after the teacher scolded the woman's daughter for loitering outside a locker. The mother is herself a teacher in Dallas.

I’d certainly agree that people in our society have lost a lot of respect for authority, although I think part of the reason that people have lost respect for teachers is because their quality has decreased a lot, especially in some areas. It’s not like respect is something you automatically get when you get your teaching degree, it still has to be earned. Not that having crappy teachers is any reason to be violent, of course.

But it’s not really surprising that some parents are having more trouble with violence, if their kids are too. Kids learn attitudes and ways of dealing with things from their parents, after all.

""They feel like the parents come in as CEOs and order them around," Jacobson said. "I've seen many cases of parents going into schools and coercing teachers to change grades."

Again, this is not too surprising considering that kids do this (and get away with it) all the time. How is a child supposed to learn to respect a grade as something given based on valued work, if their parents don’t?

"You listen to the talk show hosts on the radio, you watch the confrontational programs on TV. We're all more sharp and pointed and critical and demanding of each other," district spokeswoman Mary Waggoner said.

But of course, the fact that parents are now doing it gives us a whole new range of simplistic things to blame it on. It’s not just video games and gun rights, it’s Jerry Springer and Rush Limbaugh.

Posted by illuminaria at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)

Do Journalists Ever Take Logic Classes?

Number 2 Pencil points to a post at Eduwonk about the New York Times trying to use a study with very poor sampling to cast doubt on No Child Left Behind, despite the fact that other, better studies have reached the opposite conclusion.

They’re quite right to point this out. Goodness knows I hate it when the media chooses studies to report based on ideology rather than how good the study is. However, there’s also an even more idiotic thing that I found buried in the depths of the article.

In both reading and math, the study determined, test scores have gone up somewhat, as each class of students outdoes its predecessors. But within grades, students have made less academic progress during the school year than they did before No Child Left Behind went into effect in 2002, the researchers said.

…

[The] Northwest study tracked student performance at a level that others did not, a factor that may help explain why some of its findings appear unorthodox. Rather than relying on test scores at just one point in the year, the Northwest study looked at how students fared in the fall and then again in the spring, in an effort to see how much they had learned during the year.

Average student scores at a certain grade level may be improving, but individual students aren’t learning as much during the year. Uh-hu…

With this approach, Northwest found that test scores on its exams did, in fact, go up from one year to the next under No Child Left Behind, typically by less than a point. The reason successive classes appear to do a little better than those before them may stem from the fact that younger students have grown up during a time of more regular testing than their immediate predecessors, the researchers said, and are therefore higher achievers.

Oh, I see. So the “only” reason the average testing score is going up within a grade level, is because the younger students who have been exposed to more testing are higher achievers, and have the right amount of knowledge going into the grade to meet the standards after they’ve completed the grade. Damn! You people have convinced me! Standardized testing IS totally useless.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:07 PM | Comments (2)

April 11, 2005

At Least They're Admitting It

Here's a story entitled, "Public schools wooing home-schooled students."

One day after jazz band practice, 14-year-old Peter Wilson's band teacher pulled him aside.

The instructor wanted to know whether Peter, who is home-schooled alongside his three brothers, liked being taught by his mother, and why he didn't come to public school full-time, instead of just for music.

The teacher seemed uncomfortable bringing it up, and the conversation was brief, Peter said. When he got home, he told his parents.

Mark and Teckla Wilson, who are raising their four sons in Mark Wilson's roomy childhood home in this former timber town, soon found out to their annoyance that the teacher's questions were part of an effort by the Myrtle Point school district to persuade home-schooling families to give the public system a shot.

Enrollment has been dropping steadily as timber jobs have dried up, and Oregon's budget cuts have left Myrtle Point facing a $675,000 gap for next year. Since Oregon bases its state school funding on enrollment, every home-schooled child Myrtle Point can woo means an extra $5,000 or so. An estimated 100 youngsters living in the district are home-schooled.

Well, at least the school district is admitting that they are trying to woo home-schooled children in order to get more money, instead of pretending like they are really so terribly worried about those poor abused un-socialized children in the hands of crazy religious nuts their parents.

Of course their honesty about their motivations apparently doesn't seem to extend to honestly attracting children to the school. What parent is going to send their child back to public school because his band teacher tried to talk him into it? It's not like home-schooled children came home from school one day and said, "Mom, Dad, could you take me out of school please?" and the parents said, "hey, why the hell not." Home-schooling parents are generally trying to do what's best for their children, whether or not their children want it.

Of course, it appears the the school finally realized that.

After Mark Wilson complained, Myrtle Point officials told teachers not to try to recruit home-schooled students directly. Instead, parents got letters inviting them to a dinner to hear about the new classes the school is adding.

Smart move, too bad they didn't get it quite right this time either.

The fate of the school has provoked plenty of discussion in the town of 2,700, and prompted a tart opinion column by school board member Dal King in the weekly Myrtle Herald.

"Families who home school or choose to send their kids to other districts, we need your full support, not just what's convenient for you," King wrote. "While you may have good reasons, please do your part by enrolling your kids full-time in the district and don't just 'cherry-pick' music or sports."

Yeah, families who home-school are doing it because it's "convenient" for them. Really they should be doing the hard work of sending their children to public schools with worse academic standards, more behavior problems, and less personal attention so that the school district can get more money. Those selfish parents. Imagine, looking out for the interest of their children rather than the interest of the school district. I mean we all know school districts always spend their money responsibly and effectively, so much more so than any parent could possibly do.

Seriously though, I simply do not buy this argument that parents should put their children into public schools no matter what for reasons of egalitarianism and fairness. Parents first and foremost are supposed to do what is best for their children, not what is best for the entire world. Besides which, there's plenty of parents who don't believe that public schools are in any child's best interest.

I particularly liked this quote from the parent.

"We do this at some cost to ourselves," Mark Wilson said of home-schooling. "If the kids were all in school, my wife could get a job. To think that by offering us a few courses, by dining us, they could get us to say, 'Oh, never mind,' is unrealistic on their part."

Posted by illuminaria at 07:51 PM | Comments (2)

Student Informants?

Check out this AP article:

Using revenue from its candy and soda sales, Model High School plans to pay up to $100 for information about thefts and drug or gun possession on campus.

Under the new policy, a student would receive $10 for information about a theft on campus, $25 or $50 for information about drug possession, and $100 for information about gun possession or other serious felonies.

Have you ever heard of a more awful idea? Police informants undertake a terrible risk of backlash. Is there any reason to think that there would not be any similar risk in setting up an informant program at a school? What happens when some kid gets put in the hospital for informing on some character? It’s not like the kid who gets informed on is necessarily going to jail, they’d still be able to easily retaliate.

In addition, there would most likely be a spate of false allegations that would take up the valuable time and effort of both administrators and students. What does the informant have to lose by making false allegations for revenge or profit? If the allegation isn’t found to be true, they’ve still gotten revenge on another student through “legal harassment.” If it is found to be true, they’ve gotten their revenge and they get money.

And what would we be teaching our children by doing this? Obviously we want kids to tell an adult if someone is in danger, but historically our society has looked down on “tattle-tales,” and with good reason I think. Tattling on other children who are not harming themselves or others teaches kids to be legalistic, judgmental, and more concerned with others’ misdeeds than their own. Do we really want to be raising a generation of little brats and rewarding them for it?

"It's not that we feel there are any problems here," said Principal Glenn White. "It's a proactive move for getting information that will help deter any sort of illegal activity."

At nearby Rome High School, there is no similar program because students there have a rapport with officials and are comfortable providing information, said Superintendent Gayland Cooper.

So the school is doing this when they don’t even have a serious problem. That’s great, instead of slowly building a rapport with the students and teaching them that adults respect them and are there to help, they are going to create an even more antagonistic relationship with the students and pay some of them to help.

The longer I’m out of high school, the more it sounds like prison to me.

More here.

Posted by illuminaria at 06:19 PM | Comments (3)

April 05, 2005

Say What?

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article about a proposed education bill in South Dakota.

[State Rep. Bette Grande] wants her state's university system to do something about the fact that its students can't understand what the heck their foreign-born instructors are saying.

Late in January, Ms. Grande proposed a bill in the North Dakota legislature to prod public institutions of higher education in precisely that direction. Under her bill, if a student complained in writing that his or her instructor did not "speak English clearly and with good pronunciation," that student would then be entitled to withdraw from the class with no academic or financial penalty -- and would even get a refund.

Further, if 10 percent of the students in a class came forward with such complaints, the university would be obliged to move the instructor into a "nonteaching position," thus losing that instructor's classroom labor.

This is a big problem in higher education and I’m pleased to see that people are taking an interest, seeing as how the universities often don’t seem to care.

[Ms. Grande] approached administrators about the issue, but received responses she found to be tepid at best. "I found it as frustrating as any student had described," she says. "'This is something that the students should work through; it's a diversity issue,' they told me."

"There were more excuses," Ms. Grande sizes up, "than there were avenues to remedy the situation."

It seems that universities usually approach this issue with English proficiency tests. Craig Schnell of North Dakota State says that foreign teaching assistants are required to take “a series of written and spoken language-proficiency tests” and if they fail them, take “remedial classes in English as a second language.”

The problem is that English proficiency does not always translate to being understood. You can be proficient at the technical aspects of English and still have a heavy accent that is difficult for others to understand. It’s also possible that a person who is able to do well on a test will not necessarily bring that proficiency into their classroom. For instance, it is possible that I could demonstrate a high vocabulary on a test, but not bring that into my everyday speaking vocabulary.

I would also be interested to know if the English tests that universities use include the correct pronunciation of technical words. A foreign teacher may be able to speak English well in one setting, but pronounce “differentiate” in a calculus class so poorly that students have trouble following.

Allowing the students to assess foreign speakers of English in the setting where it really counts seems like a much more efficient way to make sure that the teachers in the classroom can make themselves understood. Tests can only do so much.

However, there are questions about possible student abuse of the proposed system. I can certainly understand this. For instance, while I am in favor of these websites that “grade” instructors so that you can decide whom to take a class from, I also realize that some students use them to pick out the instructor with the easiest grading policy or simplest course content. I think it’s stupid for a student to use them this way, but in this case, it’s that student’s right to choose a poorer quality education if they so desire. But that student should not have too much power over who teaches and who doesn’t.

As with this case, a balance needs to be struck between student feedback and more objective grading of a foreign born instructor. So I don’t think that students should have complete say over who is understandable and who isn’t, but universities need to do more to address the issue and listen to student concerns instead of just assuming that it is the fault of students who are not prepared for a “global society” as Mr. Schnell says.

"I think North Dakota's fairly provincial," he says, "and if you sound in any way different, that's a point of contention." Those hang-ups are something students must grow past, he insists. He then cites one of the basic premises -- for Ms. Grande, a basic excuse -- of contemporary higher education: "We're going to live in a global society," Mr. Schnell says, "and we have to be prepared.

I don't think that, as Mr. Schnell suggests, the problem is merely one of outright xenophobia. But indeed some students show an unwillingness to put any work into understanding foreign speakers. I have found that with just a little effort, it is possible to learn the particular kinds of mistakes speakers from a certain country make with English, and then it becomes much easier to understand them. But it takes time to learn that. Should students be required to learn how to understand a Taiwanese speaker of English while they are trying to learn calculus, a difficult subject in and of itself?

[Donald L. Rubin, a professor of education and speech communication at the University of Georgia], however, prefers to think of the issue in terms of prerequisites -- worldly listening skills as a requirement for graduation. "I consider the ability to listen to and comprehend world Englishes a prerequisite to success in a wide variety of enterprises," he says.

Dr. Rubin seems to think so. But I’m not quite so sure.

Ms. Grande's bill is currently undergoing modifications. Hopefully it will end up being something that is useful, without being overly abused.

Other schools are taking different approaches to the problem.

At the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, foreign-born teaching assistants go through an intensive two-and-a-half-week program that meets for five to six hours a day in the summer. The program encompasses management strategies and teaching methodologies for American classrooms, campus dynamics, and the broader scope of American culture, in addition to focusing on simple language fluency.

Meanwhile, at institutions like Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, foreign-born teaching assistants are paired with undergraduate tutors whose function is to expose the newcomers to both the rules and idiosyncrasies of students' behavior and speech.

At the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, incoming international teaching assistants participate in role-playing exercises in which they play students and teachers, or in which a student theater group acts out a number of different classroom scenarios for them to discuss.

These programs have their proud advocates, but are they effective? Do undergraduates still complain that they can't make heads or tails of what their foreign instructors are saying?

"Yep," says Diane Larsen-Freeman, director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan, home to one of the most robust international orientation programs. "We do get undergraduates who will complain."

The question isn't whether or not students still complain, because there will always be people who will complain, but about how many complain now as opposed to before the program was implemented.

For more, see Say Anything and Dakota Pundit

Posted by illuminaria at 02:46 PM | Comments (2)

Please, No, Not the Red Pen!

Read this recent AP article about the new trend of teachers grading with purple or other various colors, rather than red.

The only problem is that the AP is about eight months late to the story, and by continuing to go on and on about it news organizations are making a mountain out of molehill.

What is the big hubbub? The whole point of using a pen that’s a different color than the students’ work is to make the grading marks stand out. The use of other isn’t indicative of the fall of society any more than using red is “derogatory or demeaning.”

"The color is everything," said [Joseph Foriska, principal of Thaddeus Stevens Elementary in Pittsburgh], an educator for 31 years.

He’s wrong. Color is nothing but an easy way to distinguish the teachers marks from the students’ work.

At Daniels Farm Elementary School in Trumbull, Connecticut, Karwoski's teachers grade papers by giving examples of better answers for those students who make mistakes. But that approach meant the kids often found their work covered in red, the color that teachers long have used to grade work.

Parents objected. Red writing, they said, was "stressful." The principal said teachers were just giving constructive advice and the color of ink used to convey that message should not matter. But some parents could not let it go.

I see. We’re letting a few hysterical parents create huge deals out of nothing and dictate school policy. Well that's nothing new.

Thank goodness for this breath of reality at the end of the article.

"I don't think changing to purple or green will make a huge difference if the teaching doesn't go along with it," [teacher Janet] Jones said. "If you're just looking at avoiding the color red, the students might not be as frightened, but they won't be better writers."

Amen. If we don't put a rest to this idiocy, we’re going to start seeing reports of prisoner abuse because the interrogator was writing in the wrong color ink.

Updates:The Education Wonks and Devil's Advocate also seem to be baffled by the parents' behavior.

Michael Williams has a post relating this story to the emphasis on self-esteem. I agree with that, but he also seems to think that the emphasis on self-esteem is because of the "feminization of education at the primary and secondary levels." I'm not so sure I agree with that. Women have dominated the primary and secondary educational sector for hundreds of years, but this self-esteem thing is relatively new.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if more of the parents who complained were female. However, the problem isn't necessarily that people are complaining about stupid stuff; they do that all the time. The problem is that someone is listening to them, and I see that as more of a cultural thing. The principle in the story is male and so is the guy who wrote the news story. School administration and news organizations definitely do not tend to be dominated by females.

Posted by illuminaria at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2005

Non-PC Teacher Fired

I see from this AP story on CNN that while it’s difficult to get an terrorist-sympathizing plagiarist removed from a university, there’s no problem finding a reason to fire a member of a pro-Nazi group.

TEANECK, New Jersey (AP) -- An adjunct history professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University who hosts a webcast program called "White Viewpoint" has been dismissed for missing too many days of class, school officials said.

Jacques Pluss, 51, acknowledged he is a member of the National Socialist Movement, a pro-Nazi group.

University officials said Pluss was dismissed for missing too many days of a class, but Pluss said each of his three absences was excused with a doctor's note.
...
"I never mentioned my political affiliations to anyone on campus, either students or faculty," he said, adding that he was trained to bring objectivity to teaching assignments.

He was previously a tenured professor at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, from 1984 to 2000.

Natalia Galbetti, a Fairleigh Dickinson freshman from Brazil, said the anti-foreigner comments Pluss made on his Internet show were not consistent with the way he treated his students.

"He was always so nice to me," she said. "He knew that I was a foreigner. He definitely kept it out of the classroom."

It’s not that I agree at all with his political views, but if that is really the reason he was dismissed, it’s not a good enough reason.

The missing class thing doesn’t seem real firm either. Maybe it’s different in New Jersey, but I have instructors who miss way more than 3-5 days of class, and I don’t see them getting dismissed. That group certainly includes non-tenured faculty.

We’ll see if we hear anything more of this.

The Education Wonks has more, including this link to an article that includes an interview with Pluss.

I thought this point was interesting.

Pluss was teaching the History of Western Civilization this semester and was informed Monday that he was being replaced immediately, although he would be paid for the rest of the semester.

This seems suspicious. Is it common for teachers that are fired for attendance problems to be paid for the rest of the year?

In the interview with Inside Higher Ed, Pluss said that his views were consistent with the platform of the National Socialist Movement. That document, among other things, calls for stripping U.S. citizenship from anyone who is Jewish, gay or not white. The Nazi Web site also features photographs of Hitler, drawings of marching Nazi soldiers, photographs of American Nazis in their uniforms, and images of the U.S. flag.

Fairleigh Dickinson officials were not available for comment over the weekend. But John Snyder, a dean at the university, told NorthJersey.com that Pluss was dismissed for missing too many courses, not his views, which Snyder said the university only learned about this week. But Snyder was also quoted as saying that Nazi views made it impossible for Pluss to ever receive another teaching assignment.

“It’s not politics, it’s hate mongering,'’ Snyder said. “It’s just hatred directed at the very students he taught. His position would be untenable on the basis of student welfare. It’s our job to see to it that students are treated with respect and security.”

Yeah, they fired him for missing classes, but they'd never hire him again because of his views.

Again, I find his views disgusting; just as disgusting as the idea that the people killed on 9/11 deserved it. But since he was not expressing those views in class, there was no legitimate reason for him to be fired or to not be hired in the future because of it.

Universities are about embracing all sorts of people with all sorts of ideas, not just the ones that certain people agree with. I think Ward Churchill's ideas are disgusting too, but I don't think he should be dismissed for them. (I think he should be dismissed for academic dishonesty and plagiarism.)

Posted by illuminaria at 11:46 PM | Comments (2)

March 31, 2005

Sample Questions from the NY Teacher Certification Examination

Everyone's been talking about this New York middle school teacher who paid a homeless guy $2 to take his certification test for him because he had failed it so many times he was in danger of getting fired.

Let's take a look at some sample questions from this difficult test.

Math

The next time you see lightning and hear the accompanying thunder, you can easily estimate the distance between yourself and the lightning by using the following method.

When you see a lightning bolt, start counting the seconds until you hear the thunder. Divide the total number of seconds by five. The result is the approximate distance to the lightning. Thus if you counted 10 seconds between the flash of lightning and the sound of the thunder, the lightning struck about two miles away.

How does the method work? It’s simple. The speed of sound in air is about 1,125 feet—approximately one-fifth of a mile per second. The speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per second. The light and sound created by the lightning bolt originate at the same time, but because the speed of light is much greater than the speed of sound, we see the flash of the lightning before we hear the rumble of the thunder.

When you count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder and divide the total by five, you are in fact estimating the distance in miles—one mile per five seconds—that the sound traveled since the lightning flash.

Which of the following is a fundamental assumption of this method of estimating the distance between an observer and a bolt of lightning?

A. The wavelength of light is much shorter than the wavelength of sound.
B. The speed at which light travels is so great that the time required for the light waves to reach the observer is essentially zero.
C. Sound waves are more strongly affected by atmospheric conditions than are light waves.
D. The speed at which sound and light travel varies proportionately with the distance they travel.

Science.

Many systems in the living and physical worlds have mechanisms that use feedback to help maintain equilibrium—that is, help to keep the overall conditions of the system relatively constant over time. Which of the following processes is the best example of a mechanism that uses feedback to maintain equilibrium in the human body system?

A. the increase in breathing rate while exercising
B. the detection of temperature by a finger touching a cool surface.
C. the continual growth of hair and nails.
D. the loss of blood at the site of a cut.

Social Studies.

Which of the following would be considered primary sources in researching the factors influencing U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the 1960’s?
I. the official correspondence of Lyndon B. Johnson from 1963 to 1968, the years of his presidency.
II. a journal article, published in 1975, about Robert S. McNamara, secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968.
III. a biography, published in 1969, of John F. Kennedy, president from 1961 to 1963.
IV. an interview, taped in 1976, with Dean Rusk, secretary of state from 1961 to 1969.

A. I and II only
B. I and IV only
C. II and III only
D. III and IV only

English.

In Spring when all the flowers are in bloom,
The evening river appears smooth and motionless.
Suddenly the tidewater comes with the reflection of flittering stars;
The ebbing waves carry away the image of the moon.

This poem most closely reflects which of the following tenets of Asian belief systems?

A. the Taoist emphasis on simplicity and contemplation of the effortless processes of nature.
B. the Confucian emphasis on ethical precepts for the proper management of the social order.
C. the Shintoist emphasis on the supernatural and the power of the divine forces of nature
D. the Buddhist emphasis on enlightenment and renunciation of worldly cravings and attachments.

Did you get B, A, B, A? Congragulations. You could be a teacher in New York.

Apparently the ridiculously easy test, which has a pass rate of 95%, is typically required to be passed before one can teach in New York. However, the city of New York has a "temporary waiver" because it has been unable to find enough qualified teachers. How sad is that? It's been suggested that the reason why they can't find teachers is because they underpay them. But surely for 59,000 they could get somebody who could summarize a four line poem. (I know the cost of living is greater in New York, but come on!) Perhaps barely adequate teachers who could get jobs elsewhere just don't want to teach at terrible schools. If this is a case, bravo to New York City for changing that situation by hiring teachers who can't even understand simple scientific concepts. That's sure to improve the school system.

(Note: The sample questions listed here were choosen from 22 sample questions based on length, ie, how long it took me to type them.)

Posted by illuminaria at 12:46 PM | Comments (3)

March 10, 2005

Pathetic Protestations from Le Moyne

David Limbaugh today pointed out a story about a graduate student dismissed from Le Moyne because he advocated corporal punishment. Scott McConnell wrote in a paper that he thought “corporal punishment has a place in the classroom.” He also had controversial opinions on what he called “anti-American multiculturalism” and said that he would not favor some students over others in the name of self-esteem. The subject of the paper was how the students would like to run their classroom. He got an A- on the paper and in fact he had a 3.78 GPA that semester and received an “excellent” evaluation for his time spent in an actual classroom, but administrators decided to revoke his conditional acceptance to the college. In their acceptance letter, however, the college said that his academic performance would be the determining factor as to whether he would be accepted permanently. The letter said nothing about personal beliefs, nor were any students ever told that they were required to hold certain personal beliefs.

Some of the quotes from various officials in the New York Times are quite interesting.

Le Moyne's provost, John Smarrelli, said the college had the right as a private institution to take action against Mr. McConnell because educators had grave concerns about his qualifications to teach under state law.

…

Because it has an accredited school of education, moreover, Le Moyne officials said that the college was required to pledge that its graduates will be effective and law-abiding teachers who will foster a healthy classroom environment.

"We have a responsibility to certify people who will be in accordance with New York State law and the rules of our accrediting agencies," Mr. Smarrelli said. In Mr. McConnell's case, he said, "We had evidence that led us to the contrary."

…

[Joseph P. Frey, the assistant commissioner for quality assurance in the New York State Education Department] said that graduate education schools might face a threat to their accreditation, or legal action by school districts, if they produce teachers who fall into trouble

This is simply laughable. Have you heard of a single story of teacher misconduct in which the college the teacher went to was even mentioned, let alone blamed? There certainly aren’t any that are popping in to my mind. This also assumes that McConnell would disobey any law against corporal punishment, and that he’d not move to one of the 22 states where corporal punishment is legal. It certainly seems that no one at the school actually talked to him about these issues; in fact the first McConnell heard about this was when he got his dismissal letter. Their protestations of protecting themselves are pathetic at best.

Futhermore, the implication that officials in New York might agree with this is somewhat chilling. Wouldn't this lead to the chilling of free speech?

FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) is on the case. Responding to a letter from FIRE, Smarrelli said, “the College does not believe it is appropriate to enter a public debate with your organization concerning the College’s admission decision regarding any particular student.” (Although I see he has no problem with talking to the New York Times.)

In conclusion, lets take a look at Le Moyne’s mission statement:

Le Moyne College is a diverse learning community that strives for academic excellence in the Catholic and Jesuit tradition through its comprehensive programs rooted in the liberal arts and sciences. Its emphasis is on education of the whole person and on the search for meaning and value as integral parts of the intellectual life. Le Moyne College seeks to prepare its members for leadership and service in their personal and professional lives to promote a more just society.

Yeah, right.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:15 PM | Comments (1)

March 09, 2005

Another Study that Measures What it Measures.

I read at Number 2 Pencil about a study that Bates College recently released about their optional SAT submission policy. It compares the SAT scores, graduate rates, etc. for submitters and non-submitters. Apparently everyone is automatically taking it to mean that the SAT is not an accurate predictor for college achievement. My first thought on reading this was, “how on earth are they comparing SAT scores if the non-submitters never submitted them.” Obviously there must have some sort of optional surveying that was done. When this is the case, the problem of self-selection comes up.

I went to the Bates website and tried to find the paper, but all I could find was a press release, a powerpoint presentation of figures, and the associated notes. From looking through the figures, though, I was able to calculate that the pool of people that they used for the study were people from the class of ’92 to the class on ’93. (This runs from the time period where all standardized testing, not just the SAT, was made optional to the last class that they would be able to get graduation rates on.) This class composes 3888 students. 2487 (63%) were submitters and 1471 (37%) were non-submitters. They seem to use this pool to compare graduate rates, admission rates, GPA, academic scoring, field of study, etc.

However, the pool of people they use to compare SAT scores with these other values is 3275 (84% of the possible subjects.) 91% of the submitters participated, but only 68% of the non-submitters participated. This leaves plenty of room for the effects of self-selection. Plus, I will point out that since they're comparing the SAT values for the self-selected group to the other values for the entire group, this makes their comparisons suspect. That sort of thing is only valid if the sample is actually random.

Self-selection could affect the results in many ways. Perhaps students were more likely to participate in the study if their SAT score was higher, or perhaps students were more likely to participate in the study if their college GPA was higher, or perhaps students in non-math and sciences were more likely to participate in the study because they care less about revealing their SAT score, etc. Who knows what the results of these things were, but I can’t believe that the study doesn’t even address this at all. For example, a comparison of fields of study or GPA’s of participants and non-participants in each group would be helpful.

Update: I did some more number crunching, and it is possible to calculate that the average GPA of submitting participants is 3.21 (compared to a GPA of 3.11 of all submitters) and the average GPA of the non-submitting participants is 3.10 (compared to a GPA of 3.06 of all non-submitters). Therefore all of the participants had better GPA's than the non-participants, which means a the difference is now .11 rather than .05, which is the number that SHOULD have been compared to the SAT gap of 160. Also, I realized that since the graduation rate for both groups is about 87%, it is likely that the majority of the submitters that didn't participate, also didn't graduate. So most likely they used the stats they had on submitters who stayed for a certain length of time, but the non-submitters are all self-selected. It's also revealing to note that they do a graph of SAT scores vs. GPA for each group, and there as the SAT score increases from the 1000's to the 1500's, the GPA increases by about .5 points for both groups. Thus, in fact, it seems pretty obvious that SAT score IS a good predictor for GPA.

I found some things said in the notes quite interesting.

In this and previous studies, we asked statistical experts at Bates to check and critique our work. Michael Murray, a renowned international economist at Bates who designs national economies and central banking systems for third world countries, said to me, "Bill, you shouldn't be comparing submitters and non-submitters!" I thought, "Oh no, into what statistical blind alley is Michael leading me." He went on, "You should be comparing the enrolled non-submitters with the students you would have had to admit if you didn't have 1500 non-submitter applicants from which to choose the very best." He is right, of course, and at Bates and most colleges, that would comprise the entire wait list and a decent slice of the refuse pool.

He then goes on to not discuss this issue’s affect on the study at all. Murray seems to have made an incredibly good point here.

From 1992 to the present, 129 (about 3% of the total enrolled students) SAT I Non-submitters submitted SAT IIs. We have significant volumes of AP's, A levels, and IB's, but most of them come in late in the senior year for placement and advanced credit use, so they are not part of this research.

I think it would be a great idea if they were a part of this research. No one that takes the SAT 5 times is going to get the same score each time. (For instance, I took the ACT twice within the same year and got a 34 and a 32.) That doesn’t mean that the SAT is not a good measure of intelligence, only that there are going to be variations in many things that will show up in the score. If you have a bunch of students with the same intelligence, knowledge, and test taking skills that each take the SAT one time, you’re going to have differences between the scores, even if there’s no differences between the students. Quite often there are students who do better on the ACT than the SAT, and so submit that score, and vice versa. If we compared the scores of SAT submitters and non-submitters on other tests, we might be able to detect this effect.

Also, comparing high school GPA of submitters and non-submitters would be of interest. All of this stuff could have been done with a few more questions on the survey.

But something important should be pointed out here. Optional testing is often assumed to be a device for an affirmative action policy, to open the admissions process from a narrow statistical review to a more complex and subtle reading. And it does that. But white students using the policy outnumber the students of color by about five to one.

This is like taking a truckload of apples and a bag of oranges and saying “well, yeah, 50% more of the oranges are rotten, but the number of rotten apples outnumbers the number of rotten oranges by 50-1.” This is a person with a PhD in statistics? Either he’s outright stupid, or he’s one of those people blinded to any logic that contradicts his opinions on affirmative action. Either way, I’m not feeling real good about his study.

In California, that bell-weather state so often several years ahead of the rest of us. I refer you to Eugene Garcia's report of several years ago on Hispanic admission to the public institutions in California. The U-Cal public university admission rate for Hispanic students has been over the years less than 4%, and Hispanic students comprise 50% of the K-12 school cohort. Does this pass a common sense test of access to a public university system, to have a 4% admit rate for 50% of the school population? Does it pass a test of social ethics? I am not pointing a finger at California, but asking a common sense question about our country: are we getting the students the education they need to be competitive?

This statement kind of makes me think he’s an AA zealot. Does the guy realize that in California lots more of the kids are immigrants or children of immigrants who don’t speak English well or at all, not to mention being immersed in a culture where the dreams and aspirations of the population are very different from others.

On average, Submitters score about 90 points above the Non-Submitters in Verbal SAT, and 70 points above non-submitters in Math SAT, for a total SAT gap of 160 points. This TSAT gap has been amazingly stable for the entire history of the policy, and if there reasons for that, we cannot see them.

I’d be interested to see the Verbal and Math SAT statistics compared with the graduation rate, GPA etc. Perhaps we would find that the Verbal score is a good predictor, wheras the Math isn’t.

While testing seems to have some very basic correlation with GPAs, non-submitters seem to outperform submitters with the same SAT scores, but for both groups, the lines are pretty flat, because virtually everyone is succeeding.

This is kind of a problem. This study would be more effective at a school where there are a significant group of people who are not succeeding.

And here is the glaring exception. Bates alumni earn graduate degrees at quite high rates: about 70% of all Bates alumni will earn at least one graduate degree. At the Master's Degree level, the percentage of submitters and non-submitters are quite close. But in fields that require another standardized test for admission, there are big, visible gaps between submitters and non-submitters: MBAs, PhDs, MDs and JD's. I mean this as a honest and not a rhetorical question: are these the best, or just the best test-takers? Let that question go proxy for a lot of what we need to understand better than we do.

I like how here he posits the question of whether the people getting graduate degrees are the best, or just the takers; but in the press release, they say, “in fields where success does not depend on further standardized testing—including business executive officers and finance careers—submitters and non-submitters are equally represented.”

In conclusion, I’d like to point out that, like a standardized test, statistical studies only measure what they measure, which is not necessarily what the researcher wants them to measure.

Posted by illuminaria at 02:50 PM | Comments (1)

March 07, 2005

How About Some Sexual Abuse Education?

I’ve been following the story on the “Milton Academy sex scandal” on Wizbang this past week. I’ve been rather disturbed by the tone of the discussion. Everyone seems to be assuming that this is a symptom of a morally degenerating society, or that this is an example of how teens don’t think oral sex is really sex ala Bill Clinton, or that this girl is just a slut and they’ve always been around, etc. etc… Only a few people have brought up the possibility of sexual abuse, and a lot of them were quite dismissive of the possibility.

What the hell? The allegations are that on at least four occasions within a very short time period she performed oral sex on several boys at a time while others watched. I understand that more teens are having sex and stuff, but this is not normal teenage sexual behavior. The only ones who think it is are NAMBLA and other perverts, people who watch too much porn, and idiots.

Kids who are abused start to sexualize everything. They see themselves as having no worth other than through sex. They are the sort of people who are servicing 13 boys in a week’s time, while others watch. And sexual abuse is very common, more common than many people think.

Normal human behavior for females, even in a sexually permissive society, looks nothing like this. Yes, these days there are many more young girls out there having sex with their boyfriends, but the “sluts” have most likely been abused, and that’s how it’s been over time immemorial. The only reason that it seems to be a new phenomenon now, is that it’s more socially acceptable to reveal it. You think in the 50’s there weren’t any girls who were giving multiple blow jobs? No, that stuff probably went on then as much as it does now, it’s just that there weren’t any Katie Couric specials about it.

I wasn’t very surprised today to read that this girl’s brother has also had sexual incidents at a young age, and that her father has been accused of indecent exposure and “improper touching.”

If you ask me, the schools should take some time out from teaching kids how to put condoms on bananas, and point out that if some girl wants to service you for no reason, then she’s probably been abused and you’d be a miserable bastard to take her up on it. I’m sure there are some boys out there who wouldn’t give a damn why she wanted to do it, but on the other hand I know for a fact that there are boys out there who just don’t realize the circumstances, and who never would have done anything if they had known. I’ve had friends who have gotten caught up in a bad situation because they did something with a girl that had been sexually abused, who never would have done it if they had realized. Teenage boys may think with their "other brain" too often, but that doesn't mean they want to hurt anyone.

And I wish people would stop and think for a minute, before calling this girl a “slut” and a “whore.” All they are doing is abusing her some more.

Number 2 Pencil's post on the subject really made me think too. Everyone is so concerned with liberating sexuality, that they totally miss the fact that abuse might be involved. This is just as bad as ignoring the possibility of abuse by just calling the girl a slut, or ignoring abuse because "we just don't think about those things," like we were 50 years ago.

Posted by illuminaria at 03:04 PM | Comments (6)

February 28, 2005

Getting an Education About Coffee?

I saw an interesting AP article on CNN today, “Coffee a Popular Topic on College Campuses.”

For years, sociology professor Beau Weston has held informal office hours off campus in a local coffee shop, sipping his mocha latte while advising students.

As he did, he formed relationships with other coffee shop regulars who might otherwise have remained strangers. That caused a sort of academic epiphany, and now he's one of a handful of teachers across the nation who have developed courses that study coffee and its effect on society.

The article also mentions other specialty classes, such as "Basketball As Religion."

My first reaction is skepticism. It seems that the trend these days, both in elementary and high schools, and colleges is to tend towards more and more off-the-wall topics merely in order to hold the attention of the students.

Mike over at Highered Intelligence deals with this issue a lot. In elementary and high schools, this seems to be geared towards using rap lyrics to teach poetry and comic books to interest kids in reading.

Mike says:

The object of education isn't just to "get someone to read anything." It can be a useful first step, but the truth of the matter is that one will not get all one should out of comic books if one doesn't know how to read in the first place.

Once the knowledge of putting together sounds and reading is in place, it's time to start, you know, reading. And it's not about finding something that "grabs" a child. It's not about finding something that they like to read.

If we followed that recipe for child-rearing, dinner would be all ice cream and no vegetables.

At some point, if your child or student isn't reading books, and you know they can put together the sounds and read the words, it's time to sit their ass down in the chair and tell them they need to read Hamlet. And I mean Hamlet, not The Prince of Denmark: A Graphic Novel. Then you need to go through it with them, help them get through the (admittedly difficult) language and (even more difficult) philosophical ideas. You need to work the text, force the student's mind to engage.

The CNN article says that the class in question is being taught at “Centre, an elite private school known for producing two Supreme Court justices and hosting the 2000 vice presidential debate between Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman.” Presumably, then, these are students that aren’t just eating intellectual ice cream all day. It does, however, seem to me that this is the road down which this could lead, especially considering this quote from the article.

The feedback from parents has always been positive. "What they say is, 'Wow, my kid was really motivated.' They don't say, 'I want my money back,"' [John Ward, Centre's vice president for academic affairs] said.

Do parents actually send their children to school so that they can get really motivated about coffee? And, more worrisomely, is this all that kids are getting motivated about at college?

It seems that school is becoming more and more about learning knowledge, than actually getting an education.

An education is about more than just learning facts; it’s about gaining a love of knowledge, learning how to think critically, and internalizing the scientific method. If you’re truly an educated person, you enjoy learning about most any subject. You’re going to be motivated by almost any class you take in your chosen subject matter, not just the ones on topics that are “hip.”

From the article:

Ward said offering classes like the ones on basketball and coffee "is as if you hold a microscope up on something really interesting. We apply the same academic and intellectual rigor in courses like this as we do in advanced literature, language or science courses. It's the same tools at work."

I’m sure that the professors are actually making an attempt to hold the same academic standards to classes like this as they do to any class they teach. My question is, do the students really understand that?

Colleges offering classes like these need to be certain that the option to take them comes only after a thorough introduction to the main subject matter. Instead of using “fun” courses like we should in elementary school, to build children’s skills and interest so that they can participate in a more serious study of the subject later, they should be used in college as a way to apply basic principles that have been well learned beforehand.

Posted by illuminaria at 07:24 PM | Comments (1)

February 23, 2005

Educate the Parents, Not the Children

Michelle Malkin has an article up today about cutting, or self-mutilation. She even has a link up to "National Self Injury Awareness Day" and says “If your kids' schools aren't on top of this, they should be.” I may be wrong, but she seems to be implying that it’s a good idea to educate the kids about this, just like we educate them about drugs, sex, anorexia, and a multitude of other problems. I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with her on this issue.

Self-mutilation is certainly a serious issue. I personally have had three relatives who, at one time or another, and for various reasons, have done it. I definitely think that parents should be well educated about it, just as they should be well educated about any problems that their children might face. However, I think educating kids that do not yet have a problem with this behavior is a very bad idea.

First of all, this is a relatively uncommon problem (although still more common than most would think) and children normally do not start it because of pressure from their peers, as is often the case with sex and alcohol. If you start teaching kids about it and it becomes a popularly known thing, then it gradually starts to be accepted. Eventually certain groups of kids start to think it is “cool.” This very well could lead to peer pressure related to this behavior to become more common.

It’s all well and good to educate kids about problems that their peers might be experiencing so that they can be more understanding. However, children do not yet have developed ethical systems. They don’t consider the future or the more distant consequences of their actions. They do not need to know about every single thing that might affect them, and they don't need to lose all of their innocence about the world. As far as a child who is experiencing a problem like this, her peers simply don’t need to know about it. Support and understanding of problems like this are better done by parents and other adults who are mature, loving, and stable enough to handle the knowledge.

Second of all, if the education includes all of the reasons why people do it, such as the fact that it releases endorphins and relieves emotional pain, this might cause a kid who normally wouldn’t do it, or might start doing it later to think, “hmmm, I’m feeling some pain. Why not cut?”

A somewhat common example would be anorexia. Years ago when it finally became accepted as a disease, you started seeing programs aimed at educating children, not to mention all of those “movies of the week.” Now there are innumerable chat rooms and webpages for people who are, or want to be anorexic. I’ve been to some of them before, and it certainly seems that there are kids there who do not have anorexia, but are using the behavior to lose weight or attract attention. The anorexia boards provide a support group and a how-to to these kids who might otherwise not have a problem with this behavior. Certainly there would still be some of these webpages if the education of kids on this topic had not been done, but I would not expect to see so much of them, especially not so many of the ones devoted to glorifying the disease.

Parents, teachers, and other people that deal with children regularly need to be educated about these problems so that they can recognize the warning signs and get the child help early. But I do not think that heavy education of every child on this topic and other similar ones is a good idea.

Secure Liberty and The Llama Butchers both point out the main reason kids do this is because they are looking for attention. All the more reason to educate parents and teachers.

Posted by illuminaria at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2005

Speaking Truth to Power Idiots

I saw on Wizbang that a transcript of the meeting with Lawrence Summers has been released. He gives a great speech. However, I also think the responses to his speech in the transcript are quite interesting.

First of all, this part is funny,

Q: Well, I don't want to take up much time because I know other people have questions, so, first of all I'd like to say thank you for your input. It's very interesting-I noticed it's being recorded so I hope that we'll be able to have a copy of it. That would be nice.

Yes, that was nice.

[From the speech] If it was really the case that everybody was discriminating, there would be very substantial opportunities for a limited number of people who were not prepared to discriminate to assemble remarkable departments of high quality people at relatively limited cost simply by the act of their not discriminating, because of what it would mean for the pool that was available. And there are certainly examples of institutions that have focused on increasing their diversity to their substantial benefit, but if there was really a pervasive pattern of discrimination that was leaving an extraordinary number of high-quality potential candidates behind, one suspects that in the highly competitive academic marketplace, there would be more examples of institutions that succeeded substantially by working to fill the gap. And I think one sees relatively little evidence of that.

Q: Secondly, you make a point, which I very much agree with, that this is a wonderful opportunity for other universities to hire women and minorities, and you said you didn't have an example of an instance in which that is being done. The chemistry department at Rutgers is doing that, and they are bragging about it and they are saying, "Any woman who is having problems in her home department, send me your resume." They are now at twenty-five percent women, which is double the national average-among the top fifty universities-so I agree with you on that. I think it is a wonderful opportunity and I hope others follow that example.

Good job at totally missing the point! The question is not whether it is possible to have a department with more women professors if you recruit heavily, the question is whether the quality of that department increases because of it.

[From the speech] Most of what we've learned from empirical psychology in the last fifteen years has been that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attributable to socialization. We've been astounded by the results of separated twins studies. The confident assertions that autism was a reflection of parental characteristics that were absolutely supported and that people knew from years of observational evidence have now been proven to be wrong. And so, the human mind has a tendency to grab to the socialization hypothesis when you can see it, and it often turns out not to be true

Q: One thing that I do sort of disagree with is the use of identical twins that have been separated and their environment followed. I think that the environments that a lot of women and minorities experience would not be something that would be-that a twin would be subjected to if the person knows that their environment is being watched. Because a lot of the things that are done to women and minorities are simply illegal, and so they'll never experience that.

Let me get this straight. So the questioner is saying twin studies would be worthless because people wouldn’t discriminate if they knew they were being watched because discrimination is illegal? First of all, the kind of discrimination we’re talking about is generally not overt or illegal. When we speak of socialization, the great bulk of it is done by the parents. We’re talking about parents buying their little girls dolls instead of trucks, or not emphasizing school work. None of that is illegal. And it’s not like the researchers are hanging over the subjects 24-7, cowing anyone who might discriminate against the children. Even if the fact that the child was in a research study changed the ways in which people interacted with the child, so what? Twin studies are concerned with the circumstances the subjects ACTUALLY grow up in, not the circumstances they would have grown up in had they not been in a study. So if observation really did prevent discriminate/socialization, then the study might not tell us much, but it wouldn’t be invalid.

Q: Raising that particular issue, as a biologist, I neither believe in all genetic or all environment, that in fact behavior in any other country actually develops [unintelligible] interaction of those aspects. And I agree with you, in fact, that it is wrong-headed to just dismiss the biology. But to put too much weight to it is also incredibly wrong-headed, given the fact that had people actually had different kinds of opportunities, and different opportunities for socialization, there is good evidence to indicate in fact that it would have had different outcomes. I cite by way of research the [unintelligible] project in North Carolina, which essentially shows that, where every indicator with regard to mother's education, socioeconomic status, et cetera, would have left a kid in a particular place educationally, that, essentially, they are seeing totally different outcomes with regard to performance, being referred to special education, et cetera, so I think that there is some evidence on that particular side.

Yeah, and if you control for mother's education, socioeconomic status, et cetera, there will still be great variability. Summers never said that socialization had nothing to do with it; he simply said that there was more to it than that. Besides which I’m sure those factors make a big difference in, for instance, whether someone graduates from high school or not, but I doubt they make a very big difference in whether or not someone becomes a professor after getting a graduate degree. Somehow I don’t think there are a lot of people who manage to overcome their terrible life in order to get a PhD, but they just can’t get past their humble upbringing enough to become a professor.

Q: You know, in the spirit of speaking truth to power, I'm not an expert in this area but a lot of people in the room are, and they've written a lot of papers in here that address ....

LHS: I've read a lot of them.

Q: And, you know, a lot of us would disagree with your hypotheses and your premises...

LHS: Fair enough.

Q: So it's not so clear.

LHS: It's not clear at all. I think I said it wasn't clear. I was giving you my best guess but I hope we could argue on the basis of as much evidence as we can marshal.

Q: It's here.

LHS: No, no, no. Let me say. I have actually read that and I'm not saying there aren't rooms to debate this in, but if somebody, but with the greatest respect-I think there's an enormous amount one can learn from the papers in this conference and from those two books-but if somebody thinks that there is proof in these two books, that these phenomenon are caused by something else, I guess I would very respectfully have to disagree very very strongly with that. I don't presume to have proved any view that I expressed here, but if you think there is proof for an alternative theory, I'd want you to be hesitant about that.

In the spirit of speaking truth to power, this questioner, and the entire NOW organization for that matter, is an idiot if they think that it’s a good idea that we totally ignore any research that disagrees with our premises and refuse to even discuss it rationally and without using the phrase “speaking truth to power.”

Unfortunatly, Summers had to leave pretty quickly, or we could have seen more.

Michelle Malkin and Powerline have more.

Posted by illuminaria at 04:18 AM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2005

Harvard to Throw Derision at Summers, and Money at "Summers Problem"

As a followup to my recent post, I read an article in the New York Times. (Registration required.)

Professors at Harvard Confront Its President
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Feb. 15 - President Lawrence H. Summers of Harvard was confronted at a meeting of his own faculty on Tuesday by some of the university's most influential professors, who expressed strong dissatisfaction with his leadership and charged that he was damaging the institution.

These professors, including two department heads, said after the meeting that they had emphasized that their concerns went well beyond the furor that resulted from Dr. Summers's recent comments suggesting that innate sex differences could account for the lack of women in science and math careers.

"Many of your faculty are dismayed and alienated and demoralized," Dr. Arthur Kleinman, chairman of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said at the meeting, referring to a "crisis concerning your style of leadership and governance."

Yeah, they SAY their concerns go beyond the recent comments about innate sex differences, but from reading the rest of the article, it sure doesn't sound like it.

Most speakers took aim at Dr. Summers for what they described as an autocratic management style that has stifled the open debate that is at the core of the university's values. While their comments were respectful, they were forceful and were greeted by strong applause.

In all this, it sounds like Dr. Summers is the one that has felt the consequences of stifled debate.

The 90-minute meeting ended with a unanimous vote to hold an emergency meeting of the faculty next Tuesday so professors could continue to discuss their lack of confidence in Dr. Summers's leadership.

Yes! Lets have another meeting.

Several, including Barbara J. Grosz, chairwoman of a new task force on women in science and engineering, called on Dr. Summers to release a transcript of his remarks about science and women. Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology, said, "President Summers appears to be apologizing profusely, yet he refuses to release for honest discussion his actual remarks." The result was that commentators have cast his critics as "unreasonable opponents of academic inquiry and openness," with Harvard "ridiculed as a center of close-minded political correctness."

I'm all for releasing the transcrips of his remarks, but somehow I think that if that happens, Harvard will continue to be "ridiculed as a center of closed-minded political correctness." We have reports of what he said there and Dr. Summers is not denying the correctness of those reports. Somehow I don't think the transcript is going to read:

Professor: So, Dr. Summers, why do you think there are less women in faculty positions in the sciences?

Dr. Summers: Because women are stupid.

One of two professors who spoke in support of Dr. Summers was Ruth R. Wisse, the Peretz professor of Yiddish literature, who said her colleagues were allowing sexual politics to silence the open discussion Dr. Summers intended when he spoke about women at a conference last month, The Crimson reported.

Lawrence Katz, an economics professor and admirer of Dr. Summers, said afterward that he thought Dr. Summers was "humble and forthcoming, and he clearly articulated that he in no way intends to intimidate."

Gee, certainly sounds like Dr. Summers is practicing his "autocratic management style that has stifled open debate."
I don't know much about the man other than in this context, so I can't say whether he is a good University President or not, but I sure hope that he doesn't get kicked out over THIS.
And of course now Harvard is calling for a task force to tackle women's issues and supporting a study of female Harvard graduates' careers. (I'll note, though, that the article points out that the people doing the study support Summers.) Ich. A bunch more money being wasted on diversity that probably won't make a bit of difference.
Hat tip to Powerline.
Also see this post by SteveL who says that Summers is an excellent president.
And this post at "what if" that compares the treatment of Summers with the treatment of Ward Churchill.

Posted by illuminaria at 11:30 AM | Comments (1)

February 11, 2005

A Bill the ACLU Would Have Supported…40 Years Ago

Wizbang points out this bill being proposed in the Ohio Senate intended to "establish the academic bill of rights for higher education." The ACLU, of course, is totally against it.

There's some things in there I really like, which I think will address quite a few issues which have come up recently. These include

-University administrators, student government organizations, and institutional policies, rules, or procedures shall not infringe the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of conscience of students and student organizations.
-The institution shall distribute student fee funds on a viewpoint-neutral basis and shall maintain a posture of neutrality with respect to substantive political and religious disagreements, differences, and opinions. The selection of speakers, allocation of funds for speakers' programs, and other student activities shall observe the principles of academic freedom and promote the presentation of a diversity of opinions on intellectual matters. Except as provided by law, the institution shall not permit the obstruction of invited campus speakers, the destruction of campus literature, or other efforts to obstruct a civil exchange of ideas.
-The board of trustees of each state institution of higher education ... shall adopt a grievance procedure by which a student, faculty member, or instructor may seek redress for an alleged violation.

There's lots of other interesting things in there, go read it.

These are the ACLU's complaints:

-The bill forces the board of trustees, of both public and private schools, to adopt policies about what can and cannot be taught.
-Under the bill, faculty would be discouraged from teaching anything “controversial” – a vague term that could pertain to any number of topics including evolution, history, or religion.
-If they do raise controversial issues, instructors would have to present alternative views regardless of the merits of those views or their own beliefs about them.
-Senate Bill 24 would shift the responsibility for course content and student evaluation from highly trained faculty to the state government or the courts.

I can kinda sorta slightly see their point, as the bill has some pretty vague language that could be interpreted lots of different ways.

However, this is a problem with just about any bill. It might be possible to revise the language in some places to help take care of some of that. And, I expect even if that was done, the ACLU would still be against it, and the fact is, some of their protestations are pretty over the top.

On the first and last points, I really don't see what the problem is with having oversight of course content by the board of trustees. They have more accountability than a single professor does. And it's not like, as they infer, the bill requires the trustees to lay out every single detail of course content. In fact, it doesn't require any detail of course content to be laid out, all it requires is that complaints about course content be addressed. It's not like professors are hired by a university to be able to teach whatever they want. That is not what academic freedom is about. Professors should be able to study whatever they want, so long as they can find funding, but teaching courses is a specific job that they do for pay in order to teach whatever the school thinks needs to be taught.

In regards to the second and third complaints, the bill does say, "Faculty and instructors shall not infringe the academic freedom and quality of education of their students by persistently introducing controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that has no relation to their subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose." Therefore, controversial matter is defined as something not related to their subject of study and not seen as legitimate in the greater academic community. It's not like teaching evolution in a biology class will now be illegal, even though it is controversial, since evolution is pertinent to biology, and the academic community sees it as legitimate, though not without controversy.

Posted by illuminaria at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)

My Experience As a Woman in Engineering

I saw today on David Limbaugh’s blog that a statement has recently been released by Princeton President Shirley Tilghman in regards to the debate over Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggestion that the differences in numbers between males and females might in some part be attributed to innate differences between men and women. Tilghman, Stanford President John Hennessy and MIT President Susan Hockfield said

The question we must ask as a society is not 'can women excel in math, science and engineering?' -- Marie Curie exploded that myth a century ago -- but 'how can we encourage more women with exceptional abilities to pursue careers in these fields?'

They mentioned in their statement research that supported their findings, but I note that they didn’t actually say what that research was so that I could look at it.

Being a woman in graduate studies who is considering becoming a professor, this whole subject has been really annoying to me a long long time. I did an interview with someone working on a “Women in Engineering” project a few years ago. I told her that I had never experienced the slightest bit of discrimination in regards to my gender in all my years in school.

One of the big assertions of how women have been discouraged from entering math, engineering, and the sciences is that they don’t have enough female role models. In fact, I have had lots of mentors over the years. They, along with the support of my parents, are one of the big reasons why I am where I am now. And they were all male, by the way, but I don't think that affected my tender female sensibilities.

In junior high, my math teacher both years was extremely encouraging and helped me get onto the MathCounts team for the school, which won the state championship. In high school, I had a wonderful geometry teacher who would always bring extra puzzles and things to school for me to do. He even gave me a slide rule, which I never learned how to use, but treasure to this day. I then worked with the computer guy for the school learning how to install cards and make network cables. He was the person who made me want to get into computer engineering. My calculus teacher in high school was also great, and made it possible for me to get 10 credits of calculus out of the way before I even got into college.

Then in college I have been lucky to have a wonderful mentor who has employed me for the past five years, encouraged me to get into graduate school, and helped me learn about funding and research and writing papers and what it’s like to be a professor. He talks me up to everyone and has given me so much; I don’t even think I’d be in graduate school without his help.

I realize that just because I’ve had a good experience, doesn’t mean that everyone does. But the ultra feminists who control policy these days don’t even seem to consider anything other than outright bias as an explanation for the state of affairs. Consider, for example, this NOW press release last year about a study on diversity which begins with the sentence, “The Ole' Boy's Club is alive and well in academia.” The study finds that even though female enrollment in math, engineering, and the sciences undergraduate and graduate programs is rising, there still aren’t very many female professors in these fields. The study takes all this data and then irresponsibly attributes the reason to discrimination and the lack of female mentors without even considering any other explanation.

Allow me to suggest a few possibilities. Perhaps women are not eager to get into research in academia in the sciences where, as far as I’ve seen, a large part of time is spent on chasing funding. Perhaps women are not eager to get into an environment where petty politics can overpower their job. These and many other problems have always been issues in academia, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the gender make up of the faculty, and they’re not going to be fixed by “Adopt[ing] an extensive and candid program of accountability [towards diversity].” In fact, this will merely add to the problem.

Finally, even though I used to be an ultra feminist myself, who believed that all differences in gender could be attributed to social conditioning, I no longer believe that. There are so many ways that you can see generalized differences between boys and girls, even under a year of age. There are so many studies about girls being better at verbal skills and boys being better at spatial visualization. And I don’t see how anyone can think that the differences in body composition and hormones won’t have the slightest effect on how people think and behave.

In my opinion, the best thing to do about this “problem” is to improve the quality of education from kindergarten to graduate studies, and then just accept that perhaps the current percentage of women in certain fields is just how it is going to be. I know there are sexist people still out there, but for the most part I think they are not having that large of an effect on percentages of women in certain fields. I’ve also had a number of idiotic teachers of all sorts over the years, and I simply ignored them and moved on to a better one. All of the money we waste on diversity programs could be better spent on improving education and would go much farther towards making the world a better place. I'm sure there's more possible future female science professors languishing away in a terrible school than there are possible future female science professors being scared away by the "'Ol Boy's Club."

Update: More here.

Posted by illuminaria at 02:12 PM | Comments (1)