I do have feelings about the children he's supposed to be looking out for, though. Therefore, I would like to suggest he take advantage of his Harvard cred to get some help from The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.
I'll tell you the truth, you don't have to look around Harvard very long to find something applicable to your work. Might be wrong...Roland...but it's applicable.
This isn't wrong, though. Check out the executive summary of A Science-Based Framework for Early Childhood Policy. Does his experiment touch on ANY of this? If not, I have to wonder what is the point of ignoring over 40 years of research on programs that have proven to be successful in favor of handing out $100 or so. Is he trying to find a method that improves education results without changing the education process? Because that would be really curious.
A Science-Based Framework for Early Childhood Policy
Using Evidence to Improve Outcomes in Learning, Behavior, and Health for Vulnerable ChildrenA New Publication from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University The path to our nation’s future prosperity and security begins with the well-being of all our children, yet state and federal policymakers often struggle with confusing information about which strategies can actually improve outcomes for children at risk for problems. As scientists, we believe that advances in neuroscience, molecular biology, genetics, and child development research, combined with four decades of rigorous program evaluation data, can now provide the common ground on which policymakers, business executives, civic leaders, and practitioners can design effective policies for children in the first five years of life. After vigorous debate among experts representing numerous fields, we present the following summary of what we know from credible, peer-reviewed research.
Early experiences determine whether a child’s brain architecture will provide a strong or weak foundation for all future learning, behavior, and health. The interaction of genes and experience shapes the architecture of the developing brain, and the active agent is the “serve and return” nature of children’s relationships with the important adults in their lives. Policies that support the ability of parents, providers of early care and education, and other community members to interact positively with children in stable and stimulating environments help create a sturdy foundation for later school achievement, economic productivity, and responsible citizenship.
Young children need positive relationships, rich learning opportunities, and safe environments, not quick fixes or magic bullets. There are many ways to increase the availability of growth-promoting experiences for young children, in their homes and in a variety of child care or preschool settings, as long as programs are well implemented and match the needs of the children and families they serve. Core concepts of neuroscience and child development apply equally to all early childhood policies and practices, and do not vary depending on program category, administrative structure, or funding source.
Four decades of program evaluation research point to the following “effectiveness factors” that can enhance development in the first five years of life:
- Access to basic medical care for pregnant women and children can help prevent threats to healthy development as well as provide early diagnosis and appropriate management when problems emerge.
- Environmental policies that reduce the level of known neurotoxins in the environment will protect embryos, fetuses, and young children from exposure to substances that damage their developing brains.
- Not all services are effective. Center-based programs that have positive impacts on young children’s development provide some combination of the following features:
- highly skilled staff;
- small class sizes and high adult-to-child ratios;
- a language-rich environment;
- age-appropriate curricula and stimulating materials in a safe physical setting;
- warm, responsive interactions between staff and children; and
- high and consistent levels of child participation.
- Programs that cost less because they employ less skilled staff are a waste of money if they do not have the expertise needed to produce measurable impacts.
- Scaling up successful, model interventions into effective, multi-site programs is a formidable challenge that can be addressed, at least in part, by establishing quality standards and monitoring service delivery on a routine basis.
Program evaluation research also identifies intervention strategies that have been shown to be effective for children and families who are at risk for poor outcomes:
- For vulnerable families who are expecting a first child, early and intensive support by skilled home visitors can produce significant benefits for both the child and parents.
- For young children from low-income families, high-quality, center-based, early education programs can enhance child cognitive and social development.
- For young children from families experiencing significant adversity, two-generation programs that simultaneously provide direct support for parents and high-quality, center-based care and education for the children can have positive impacts on both.
- For young children experiencing toxic stress from abuse or neglect, severe maternal depression, parental substance abuse, or family violence, interventions that provide specialized services matched to the problems they are asked to address can prevent the disruption of brain architecture and promote better developmental outcomes.
- For families living in poverty, work-based income supplements for working parents have been demonstrated to boost the achievement of some young children.
Effective programs are implemented well, evaluated regularly, and improved continuously. Even the best programs can be improved by the continuous development, testing, implementation, and refinement of new strategies to produce stronger outcomes, particularly for the most vulnerable children and those with challenging behavior or serious mental health problems.
Ensuring that children have positive experiences prior to entering school is likely to lead to better outcomes than remediation programs at a later age, and significant up-front costs can generate a strong return on investment. Cost-benefit studies have demonstrated positive returns on high-quality programs for vulnerable children beginning as early as prenatally and as late as age 4
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Isn't that begging the
Isn't that begging the question a bit? Like saying "Why do any more experiments on particle physics when we have 40+ years of research pointing to the Standard Model?" That's what researchers do.
In the executive summary, note all the times that 'highly skilled staff' also implies 'well paid staff.' There's plenty of education research that shows that how teacher compensation is structured matters. He's looking into structuring student rewards differently.
I also don't buy the crisis of the loss of "learning for learning's sake." I do it plenty myself, but that's not something everyone is going to learn to enjoy. But getting a good job after being able to take college-level math/eng. courses will let them enjoy what they want to (maybe even the math).
Parents often enough, reward their kids for good grades. Why not the school?
Isn't that begging the
No it isn't because all particle physics research must be able to account for the Standard Model results. This is more like creation science vs. evolution.
What I'm asking is, is he doing anything other than paying them?
This is the training vs. education issue at best.
No it isn't because all
Really? I'd say it's one of the most easily testable/falsifiable education methods to work on. The treatment can be analyzed across classrooms and even track different treatments on the same student. Most treatments on education are MUCH harder to test. For instance, the nutrition and parental influence only falls out after a lot of normalization for other variables.
It also makes sense wrt what subjects it works on (writing, math) since these are subjects for which aptitude increases correlate well with how many hours a student practices (music, too)--not the case for history and science (which involve a lot more conceptual work, etc.).
Honestly, wrt it being a study, I would hope not. You need controls. As far as the rolled-out policy, yes (insofar as what 'he' is doing is what OpportunityNYC is doing):
[see first FAQ]
I'd say it's one of the
First of all, I don't think paying them is an educational method.
It is easily testable. My point is, we have 40 years of data on making education work. We are not using them in NYC.
If your goal is to improve the education process you should start by implementing education processes that are known to work. That is a far better technique than ignoring them. And if you still need to jerk around then you can try your bribes.
OpportunityNYC seems to pay
OpportunityNYC seems to pay parents rather than children. That's WAY different.
First of all, I don't think
Definitely, I wanted to change that wording after I submitted.
Agreed. That has to do with resources, state regulations, and politics. I'm not going to hang that on ANY single person, much less Fryer (the man most in my sites for the current suckage is Pataki).
In terms of known methods, educating poor kids successfully requires more than two or three times the resources of educating kids with professional educations and salaries. So it's kind of how Jeff Sachs characterizes his work in the third world. A lot of economists say he's cheating because he just wants rich nations to give the drop in the bucket that it would take them to eliminate many of poor nations' problems. Instead some economists dedicate time to working out how poor nations can solve their own problems within the boundaries of the resources they have.
So, I think the resources should be spent, and the state government should stop cheating the city, and actually start helping it. But I'm also not going to begrudge an economist who is working on creative alternatives to get the most for our buck.
Well, that's the program he helped roll out beyond a study. I'm interested in the results from both.
In terms of known methods,
You mean after the poor kids have come up short on resources and attention for a few years, it's two or three times more expensive to catch them up by the time they should graduate than it would be to educate them from that point forward had the not been shortchanged.
Right?
Because if you start them with a small enough teacher to student ratio, and up to date books and equal access to libraries and such, there is no reason that would cost more for poor kids than wealthy ones.
Honestly, the question OpportunityNYC answers is, "will it help if we give additional income to poor families in highly directed fashion?" The obvious answer is yes. And as I said at Submariner's joint, if you look at American culture you'll see market transactions are the model for pretty much everything. Relationships, educational planning, everything. Fryer's method simply adds to that whole mess. It's not a new method and so will yield no new results.
Because if you start them
Unfortunately, not. Poor students start out behind even as they enter school. Things like the vocabulary and attention at home (that professional homes more often have the luxury and time for) cause lower reading scores etc with the same student-teacher ratio, etc. Obv. a 'small enough teacher ratio' exists--but that teacher has to be better skilled (read 'paid') and have fewer students to match aptitude with students from professional homes--not equal.
I guess I see that the American culture problem isn't that market transactions are everywhere--it's that some of them are in the wrong places. There are a lot of things I could hypothesize Fryer's study could change. For instance, if we look at it as simply a more liquid and less rigid approach to scholarships, then that would suggest we'd be helping mostly median-to-above average students. Perhaps we disagree because Fryer's approach is incredibly surgical--affecting a single variable, leaving a lot of variables behind. Obviously, we need to attack the whole, but sometimes divide-and-conquer works.
One thing I don't see from your comment over at Submariner was "Fryer uses the "kill one" approach." To me, it's the opposite. Whiting is promoting 'achievement > affiliation.' It's Fryer who, by not addressing the issue altogether, allows for any of your three.
Obv. a 'small enough teacher
I think that's a 'or' rather than an 'and', which makes it easier to conceive of an actual solution. Under current circumstances, the problem is paying for it. Yet it is the same type of institutional subsidy the mainstream community received in the New Deal.
Not to mess with you, but what's the difference here?
Yeah, because in physical reality you cannot affect a single variable. The illusion that you can is responsible for an incredible number of bad decisions made for good reasons.
Here's a seriously practical example: if his efforts determine that paying children to study improves their test scores, how will the government prevent middle and upper-class families from getting "their fair share" of these payments? Because regardless of Fryer's intent they will act for their own benefit, hire lawyers and lobbyist and determine it is economic, if not racial, discrimination to exclude them.
Given that, consider this
Let's be "conservative" and take the low figure of 1.36 million students and a low estimated payment of $100 per kid. Impleneting such a program would cost $136 million. In New York City alone. Per year. To pay kids.
That is sooooo not going to happen that presenting it as a possible solution to the poor education is nothing short of fraud. That reality gives experimenting on the kids a Tuskeegee-like flavor to me. If he came out with, "We know we aren't really ever going to do this for everyone, we just want to see what happens," I might support the experiment.
In order to fix public education you have to actually implement what you know will work and then figure out how to pay for it. If it is the priority we claim it is, which it obviously is not.
Fryer is gathering data points for some reason other than improving public education. That's my actual assessment of this experiment.