Prometheus 6

and my wife was apoplectic...again.

One interesting point she raised was that the rise in Math Scores is more related to additional funding and a focus on raising math scores (and accompanying funding and new programs) than to anything else.

Math Scores are up across the board, across the country.

A thornier inference from Fryer's experiments is that Black students perceive no value in education for education's sake.

Who does?

Seriously...who pursues an MBA for the sake of education alone? Our whole education drive is predicated on creating better trained workers, researchers, etc. If you tell kids, Black or otherwise, to pursue an education without regard for future employment you will be laughed out of the city.

Oh, and this is not Fryer's 'experiment' under discussion. This is a plan that's in its fourth year. Here's some more detail on this very plan.

It does not look like a promising approach.

"A thornier inference from Fryer's experiments is that Black students perceive no value in education for education's sake."

MIB, you have fallen prey to the lure of a false inference. There is nothing in the study that supports the inference you have made. Nothing.

I agree with P6...but while MIB may still not be correct he's got a case.

The problem--and because I don't really think much of Fryer's work I'm not going to read the study, so feel free to correct or inform me about it where you think i get it wrong--is that it isn't clear whether scores dropped because the kids no longer wanted to perform because they weren't getting paid (plausible, fits MIB's points), or they no longer wanted to perform because they felt that this was yet another example of how folks just want to give them lip service (also plausible). There's probably other stuff going on--when you say scores dropped what does that mean exactly? but like i said, i'm not going to waste time on the study unless someone's paying me to do so.

actually...now that i think about it....

[edited to add]

wait. the video is about what appears to be a rural white school district. are the findings about that school district or about the predominantly black urban schools?

Like I said, this isn't about Fryer's study. It's a rural white district.

Would you expect the results to be different?

No. Only that MIB's comments don't apply HERE.

(also means he didn't check the report before he commented)

So my question is why would MIB make a statement about the desire for learning on the part of black children when the study had nothing to do with black children's desire for learning? This is not my site but MIB seems to inching toward the dreaded DV software program.

So my question is why would MIB make a statement about the desire for learning on the part of black children when the study had nothing to do with black children's desire for learning?

Gotta ask him.

MIB seems to inching toward the dreaded DV software program.

I don't think so. Just being wrong (in my estimate, of course) doesn't get you devoweled.

I can't speak for MIB. But, even after seeing that the study focused on white rural rather than black urban kids, I still think the findings wouldn't be different. So his points WOULD hold. Does this make sense?

As I think about it, the findings contradict some of Fryer's work on "acting white" right? but that's another issue.

Well, it's not my site. He wasn't mistaken. He was lying. I was trying to make a joke about being devoweled. It's a flat medium.

Okay, seriously...folks come through with agendas all the time. It's pretty easy to pin folks to physical fact if physical fact is respected.

I don't want folks protected from these agendas. I want them to recognize. 

I was still making a joke.

I was still making a joke.

Okay. I've always been the worst stick-in-the-mud.

Spence:

So his points WOULD hold. Does this make sense? 

No,it doesn't. Here's his point again.

A thornier inference from Fryer's experiments is that Black students perceive no value in education for education's sake.

Given that the experiment is still going on, the worst you can infer is that FRYER thinks Black students perceive no value in education for education's sake. The best you can infer is that he thinks it's a strong enough possibility to test for it.

I feel the strongest inference I can make is MIB believes it, and believes the repercussions of this are bad.

So what's the point he made that holds?

You asked me if the findings on the white group (that white scores go down when the students don't get paid) would hold if the students were black.

I think they would.

Which...ah. I see.

I wasn't thinking about the sum findings taken as a whole. I was thinking about the findings if they were applied to black kids.

What the findings suggest taken in SUM is that POOR KIDS don't value education without reward. Not that BLACK KIDS don't value education without reward.

In that I may defend myself...

I was responding to the title of this thread, as I know Fryer is involved with similar projects in NYC and Baltimore which, IIRC, focuses on low-income Black students and their parents. I didn't even bother to listen to the podcast linked here, because... well... I'm not particularly impressed with the thinking behind the e-x-p-e-r-i-m-e-n-t, regardless of the students involved or who's running the program. So sue me for drawing an inference specifically about Black students from the specific example here.

However, the same inference can be drawn about students in the PBS report. While I won't threadjack about the U.S. education system's emphasis on endoctrination at the cost of enlightenment, giving students (or their parents) cash for learning seems half-baked to me as the incentive could easily be increased, decreased, or removed altogether to induce their ignorance. As this logic applies whether the children are White, Black, rich, poor, born on Tuesday, etc., it's reasonable for me or anyone to conclude the kids -- in this case -- don't value education for education's sake. I shouldn't have to explain this, but saying something is reasonable does not make it 'true', 'factual', or agreeable; just logical.

As this logic applies whether the children are White, Black, rich, poor, born on Tuesday, etc.

There are times when less specificity is more accurate. You said "Black students."