The Right Expert for the Problem

A few months ago, Michelle Rhee came to speak at UCLA. One of the things that struck me about the way she was greeted by what can only be described as an extremely hostile crowd was the way that people reacted when she was asked how much teaching experience she has. She said three years, and practically the entire room groaned in disapproval. The message was clear even before one of the earnest fellows (it was a woman, mind you, on fellowship) from the Principal Leadership Institute at UCLA actually was rude enough to put it into words a few moments later: no one with just three years of teaching experience has any business attempting to make educational policy.

That night was in the back of my mind a few weeks ago when I was reading this post about the influence of Bill Gates on education, over at Joanne Jacobs' blog. Many of the commentors reflected what I think can fairly be called a healthy skepticism about Gates' qualifications to engage in the project of education reform; there was much talk about his misguided efforts, his reliance on experts. The meme is fairly common; I've heard this sort of thing about Gates before:

As much as Bill Gates knows about making money through monopolistic business practices aided by neo-liberal economics and libertarian politics, he knows next to nothing about education, and worse, he refuses to listen to experienced teachers, instead dismissing us as enemies.

You've doubtlessly heard similar criticisms directed towards other ed-reformers: "You don't have any experience in administration", or "All your experience is in suburban schools", or "Education reformers are all ivory-tower academics, not real people with real experience in teaching", or my absolute favourite, "What can you know about education? You're not a parent."

So I've been thinking the last few weeks: what exactly would "qualify" someone to be an education reformer? Thankfully, it's not like there's a major one can get in Education Reform -- or if there is, it's sufficiently ridiculous that no one takes it seriously. There's MPA programs, and EdD programs, and all sorts of other programs, but none of those seem to uniquely situate people to engage in education reform. (Which, I admit, is a vague, broad term, but bear with it for now.)

Who among us has 15 years of teaching in blighted urban schools at both the elementary and high school levels (to understand the problem), 10 years of teaching at successful urban schools serving the same populations (to understand some possible solutions), 10 years of experience in suburban schools, has done fellowships studying the education of children in other countries, has experience in on-site educational administration and finance -- but not too much experience, otherwise you become part of "the system", has been a member of teachers' unions but has never participated in their leadership or institutional activities, has 10 years of experience as a superintendent, has run a successful business, has served as the Secretary of Education, has a PhD in Child Psychology and an MPA with a focus on education, is a parent of more than one kid, all of whom are doing perfectly well?

No one, of course. And even if someone did have such a CV, it doesn't mean that their ideas would be any better than the ideas from a stay-at-home Mom in Indiana, or a second-year Junior High teacher in Seattle. Anyone might come up with a good idea. But who is qualified to judge whether an idea is any good?

I think the answer is that you are. I am. And the guy down the street is qualified. Human beings are pretty cagey creatures, and we tend to know good ideas when we hear them. Sometimes things go badly, but by and large we've been pretty successful. If Bill Gates were to come into my living room and tell me that the solution to public education's problems was shopping off the ring fingers of all the boys, and the pinky toes of all the girls, I'd be pretty sure he was off his rocker. Likewise, if Michelle Rhee were to tell me that what we need to do is turn every public school into a Spartan Military Academy, well, I'd be pretty sure that was a bad idea, too.

I don't think we do anyone any service whatsoever by making ad hominem attacks -- and that's exactly what a criticism of someone's qualifications amounts to. If Gates is wrong, then there's some premise from which he's operating that's simply false, or he's made a mistake in reasoning. If Rhee is wrong, then there's some premise from which she's operating from that is false, or she's made a mistake in reasoning. People say, "If the teachers' unions weren't in control of the schools, they'd be better." That's either true or false -- and it's probably false. People say, "Charter schools will make inner-city education better." That's either true or false -- and it's probably false. We can tell it's false by running a simple thought experiment: imagine a district with dozens of Charter schools filled with child molesting meth addicts for faculty. Clearly merely having charter schools isn't the answer.

There's no one who is an "expert" at education form. There can't be, because it is by its very nature a speculative enterprise. If you want to drill an oil well, you can call a well-drilling expert who's done it before.

But no one has ever really gotten a public school system like the one that the United States has to work before. In the first place, it's a new project, this goal to educate everyone. In the second place, you can say "Well Finland did it!" but the fact is that whoever is the expert from Finland is the expert of what works in Finland. We are not they.

That's not to say that the Finland-guy doesn't have useful things to add to our discussion and debate. He surely does. But he should be explicit as to why he thinks the things he thinks, so that we can judge for ourselves whether they are applicable to our individual situations. We shouldn't discount what he says simply because he's from Finland.

This sort of qualification-hunting and discounting that I'm talking about, this sorting through people based on their resume, is a sort of intellectual shorthand. We use it so that we don't have to parse through 10,000 different people's ideas. We dismiss people as not knowing what they are talking about because, often, that's the only way to make it through the day. Maybe that guy at my door really does have the miracle product that will make my carpets cleaner; but the fact is that I don't have the time to bother with it because I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

But when we're seriously debating issues, big, important issues like education reform, we need to put away our interpersonal heuristics. They aren't helping us. There is no "Right Expert" for the problem, and if someone is serious about throwing their hat into the education reform ring, well, merely on the basis of that qualification I'm willing to listen to what they have to say, and to see what they can do.

Gratuitious Link of the Day

As if there's anybody reading this blog right now who doesn't come here from Rachel's blog, I'm going to tell you to go read this post on teaching English. It's quite wonderful.

The Challenge of the Application-Challenged Family

Julia Steiny, you may have heard, is writing at EducationNews.Org these days. Her inaugural column was a rumination on how things could be better if only people would just care about kids (presumably the way she does). I was rather put off by the self-righteous tone, but I thought to myself, "This is someone who's been at this for a while and has clearly thought about these issues; a first column can be allowed a little egocentric indulgence and biography. It's not like I'm never self-righteous, after all. Let's wait and see what she does next. She even kinda looks hot in a Cathy Siepp-sort of way, may she rest in peace."

Well, her second column is here. Overall, I'm unimpressed. But amidst confused arguments and some possibly bad ideas, there's a glimmer of what I think is a good idea.

Probably the biggest problem I have with her column is that it undermines itself. She uses that tired expression, "left behind", to talk about seriously troubled kids whose parents don't care enough to apply to charter schools.

For now, it’s fabulous that more lucky parents are as satisfied and engaged in their child’s learning as the private-school and affluent parents are.

* * * *

(But) an unintended consequence of the otherwise-terrific choice movement is that some of the toughest kids to educate are left behind in certain regular public schools – in increasingly high concentrations.

The worse-off kids are, we are to believe, finding themselves in an increasingly perilous position as the better-off kids leave, as the "concentration" of these toughest kids rises.

On this basis, she argues that all kids should share in the benefits of school choice:

But in the meantime, states need to look long and hard at their reform strategies. Hard-to-reach families must be integrated into the benefits of the choice movement.

But that seems a very odd argument to make, given that she acknowledges that the bad situation is bad precisely because of the presence of those who are being "left behind". We know that they are the proximate cause of the bad situation because as the "concentration" of these disengaged, unsupported, suffering kids increases, the schools are (she argues) getting worse. That's not to say the kids are to blame for the bad situation, merely that they are the proximate cause of it. (If you are confused as to what I mean, imagine that a terrorist puts a bomb in my suitcase and I carry it on the train. The bomb causes the crash, and I cause the crash, and the terrorist causes the crash, but really the terrorist is the only one to blame.)

Steiny assumes that the charters aren't, in and of themselves, academically superior schools. So what exactly are the benefits of school choice? Well, the assumed academic parity suggests that the primary benefit of the school choice movement is getting away from the kids with problems that stem from the fact that their families have problems that interfere with their ability to make school choices, the "application-challenged" families. (Her term, not mine.)

So how do we "share" those benefits? If the benefit of my train ticket is that it takes me far away from someone else, I can't "share" that benefit by getting them a train ticket, too. That destroys the benefit.

So this strand of Steiny's column makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But, thankfully, that's not all she has to say. She also has some thoughts about how we can flat-out improve the lives of the application-challenged. (Yes, that's a little bit of mockery you hear in my writing when I'm using that term.)

One day, in a happier future, let’s hope that all families have so many good school options that every one of them makes active choices. Outreach programs help them choose.

Now, we've already established that the problem isn't a lack of choices. It's a lack of capable, motivated choosers. And good options don't make for motivated choosers, so the first sentence is rendered almost unintelligible: you can't possibly get enough good options to make everyone into an active, motivated chooser.

But the outreach idea isn't a bad one. Direct work with the families probably has a place in the grand scheme of things. I don't know how efficacious it will be: it's not as if there aren't tons of such programs already. You'd have to be a bit more invasive than normal, because these aren't the sorts of families that are going to seek out benefits.

But invasive, it seems, is exactly what Steiny has in mind.

And then, if a family fails to fill out an application or preference sheet, a red flag goes up, indicating possible domestic distress.

So if the parents don't get on board by demonstrating that they are engaged in their kids' education by filling out an application... we'll what? Put up a red flag? Then everyone can point and say, "Hey... it's the red flag! How pretty!"

I jest. Red flags are calls to action. And since we seem to be talking about the government here, we know that there's always going to be an iron fist hiding somewhere in the velvet glove.

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Social services goes out to visit the home and gently offers help.

So if the outreach programs fail, we're going to have more outreach?

Of course, Steiny is either being naive or disingenuous; I suspect that she doesn't really mean "gently offers" at all, because that's presumably already been done through the outreach she calls for. But whether she means it or not, there's no "gentle" with social services. There's a threat to take kids away from their parents, pure and simple. That threat might be hidden behind smiles and brochures and applications and "monitoring visits" and all that, but that's what it comes down to in the end. Social services is the opposite of gentle.

Now, maybe that's what's really needed. Maybe not going to PTA meetings or failing to enter a charter lottery, or just not giving a crap, is a form of child abuse, and we should just take those kids away and put them in better, "application-ready" homes. I'm not a fan of that kind of policy, frankly. I support parental autonomy just as I support free speech, and that means I have to put up with a certain amount of behavior of which I do not approve. But it's not an inherently unreasonable position to take, and even though she's being mealy-mouthed about it, I can understand the sentiment.

I like Steiny's last idea the best, though she almost manages to make it unappealing:

Or if we’re going to concentrate the Dennys of this world into certain schools, they should be showered with help for what is essentially a special special-needs population, made more difficult by segregation.

First off, what a god-awful sentence. "They should get help for a population that is made more difficult." What the hell? But putting that aside, if I'm understanding her correctly, this is actually a pretty good idea. It's more or less what I advocated a few days ago. Why not have a special set of schools for dealing with kids who are hell-on-educators because their home lives are a disaster, the "intentional non-learners" as they're coming to be called?

But it's not that their situation is made more difficult by segregation. Their situation is made worse by the fact that there are a certain number of them, not by their distribution in the population. Once you reach a critical mass of such students (around 4 or so) in a class it doesn't matter how many good students you pack into the classroom with them. The class is shot. And the only way to avoid having that low of a concentration is to disperse them to schools all around the country (which, I suppose, is possible if Social Services is taking them out of their homes; why not send a few to rural Iowa?). But the way things are situated right now, in urban centers the natural concentration is already way past that stage, and the presence of the "application-ready" families isn't really helping that much (which is why they're eager to leave).

No, if she's right, then this segregation could be the key to making their situation better. And that, I think, is a fine idea. It will take more resources, and a certain amount of political will, but, well... I put that Latin phrase up as the motto for my blog for a reason.

Update: Minor stylistic/wording change to the second paragraph.

Administrators: How much is too much?

Imagine you were designing a university. You'd want buildings. You'd want books and/or computers. You'd want faculty. A theatre or two. Some workshops. Tables and chairs. Maybe a printing press. Some athletic fields. Dorms, maybe? A dining hall.

And you might think to yourself, "Gee... I should probably get some people to run this place." So you have a President, and he has a secretary. And you maybe have a few deans, each with their own secretaries: a dean of admissions/PR seems like a good idea. A dean of academic affairs/faculty relations seems like a good idea. A dean of university services, maybe? (Or maybe call that person a VP?) You'd want a VP for finance, and probably under that person a Financial Aid Director, a Director of Accounting. An assistant director of accounting who is primarily responsible for student accounts. Maybe a Registrar with a staff of assistants (I'm thinking 2 assistants, plus 1 for every additional 5000 students). You'd want a GC, maybe with one assistant and an EEOOC/Title IX compliance officer. A Physical Plant manager, maybe with an assistant. I'm sure there's lots of other people you'd want to: someone to head up IT, a good chief librarian, etc. The list could get pretty long.

But would you ever think that you'd need more administrators than you need faculty? It's not as if we're discussing total university employees, which one would expect to be quite numerous, but rather people classified as administrative/professional who aren't faculty -- people with titles like "Deputy Under-Assistant Dean of Tuesday Services" and such. These are not the people on hourly wages like your groundskeepers, electricians, registrar assistants, work study students, etc. It probably (I'm speculating) doesn't even count a goodly chunk of the secretaries.

Surely such administrative bloat is ridiculous, no?

On the other hand, talking about Administrative Bloat is a popular pastime among people who don't know much about running organizations. It's always harder to point at a particular position and say "We don't need YOU." It's like government spending: everyone likes to reduce it in theory, but in practice that gets harder.

So just for perspective, here's a list of administrahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftive positions at a local college (Chapman) that I cobbled together from their "Key Department" listings and the associated links. It's almost certainly incomplete, and I've tried only to grab titles that sounded like they would actually be admin/professional. I've left out almost all duplicated titles (on the grounds that they can't be that important and are really just titles for worker bees), anyone who looked like they might be faculty, and I've tried to eliminate as many duplicative spots as I could find (i.e., where the same person has more than one position). I was unable to get any information on their External Education or Legal Affairs offices -- there doesn't seem to be any sort of generally accessibly telephone directory for the university.

Controller (Accounting/Financial Services)
Assistant Controller
General Account Manager
Accounts Payable Manager
Financial Manager
Payroll Manager
Director of Grants and Contracts
Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief Admission Officer
Director of Undergraduate Admission
Associate Director of Admission
Associate Director of Admission and Int'l Admission Officer
Assistant Director of Admission (TWO OF THEM!)
Assistant Director of Admission: Transfer / Int'l
Communication, Publications, & Events Coordinator (Admissions)
Chancellor (Adult Education)
Director of Athletics
Associate Director of Athletics
Senior Women's Administrator (Athletics)
Assistant Athletics Director (TWO OF THEM!)
Sports Information Director
Business Manager (Athletics)
Recreational Sports Manager
Director of Student Business Services
Assistant Director of Student Business Services
OC Student Account Advisor Supervisor
Vice President of Campus Planning
Director of Property Management
Director of Career Development Center
Chancellor
Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs and Assessment Liaison Officer
Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education
Vice Chancellor for Special Projects
Vice Chancellor and Dean for Enrollment Management
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Dean of Students
Vice Chancellor for Academic Administration
Assistant Chancellor
Director of Institutional Research
Director of Academic Technology and Digital Media
Director of Academic Advising
Director of Fellowships and Scholar Programs
Financial Operations Manager
Testing Administrator, Academic Advising Center
Dean of the Chapel
Director of Conferences and Event Scheduling Services
Director of Facilities Management
Associate Director, Facilities Management
Building Trades Manager
Contract Services & Events Manager
Project Manager, Facilities Maintenance
Director of Financial Aid
Assoc. Dean/Director of Housing & Residence Life
Assistant Director of Housing and Residence Life
Vice President of Human Resources
HR Services Coordinator
Equal Opportunity Officer
Employment Services Manager
Director of Employee Relations and Performance Management
Benefits Manager
Director of HRIS and Compensation
Chief Information Officer (IT / Tech)
Director of Communications and Media Relations
Public Relations Coordinator
Public Relations Editor
Public Relations Writer
Chief of Public Safety
Director of Purchasing
University Registrar
Associate Registrar - Registration & Enrollment Records
Associate Registrar
Associate Registrar - Datatel & Clearinghouse Management
Assistant Registrar - Transfer Credit & Articulations
Assistant Registrar - Degree Audit & Curriculum
Director, Student Health Services
Executive Vice President, University Advancement
Assistant VP, University Advancement
Director of External Relations (Univ. Adv.)
Manager, Advancement Communications and Gov't Relations (Univ. Adv.)
Assistant VP, Advancement Operations & Information Systems
Director, Prospect Research (Adv. Op. & Inf. Sys.)
Director, Alumni Engagement
Assistant Director of Alumni Engagement
Assistant Director, Alumni Oportunities
Director of Annual Giving (I'll assume the three managers have glorified titles)
Assistant Director, Parent & Grandparent Relations (Annual Giving)
Manager, Donor Relations (Annual Giving)
Director of Special Events (Annual Giving)
Director, Corporate & Foundation Relations (Annual Giving)
Director of Planned Giving (Annual Giving)
Vice President, Strategic Marketing and Communications
Associate Director of Creative Services
Director of University Services
Operations Supervisor (University Services)
Dean of Business & Economics School (BES)
Associate Dean (BES)
Assistant Dean (BES) - Graduate and Executive Programs
Assistant Dean (BES)
Director: Center for Economic Research (BES)
Director: Center for Real Estate and Finance (BES)
Director: Center for International Business (BES)
Dean, Education College (EC)
Associate Dean (EC)
Assistant Dean - Undergraduate Education (EC)
Director, Athletic Training Education Program (EC)
Director, PhD Programs (EC)
Director, Teacher Education (EC)
Dean, College of Film and Media Arts (FMA)
Senior Associate Dean and Chief Academic Officer (FMA)
Associate Dean (FMA)
Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS)
Director, Undergraduate Writing
Co-Director of the Guggenheim Gallery (two)
Director, Center for Holocaust Education
(Most administrators in HSS seem to be faculty)
Interim Dean, Law School (LAW)
Associate Dean of Academic Affairs (LAW)
Associate Dean for Administration (LAW)
Assistant Dean of Student and Alumni Affairs (LAW)
Interim Director, Law Library
Assistant Dean of Admission & Financial Aid (LAW)
Dean, College of Performing Arts (PER)
Director, Conservatory of Music
(There's no dean of the College of Science because it's filled by the Vice Chancellor for Special Projects)
Senior Associate Dean, College of Science (SCI)
Associate Dean, Earth and Health Sciences
Associate Dean, Health and Life Sciences
Associate Dean, Computational Sciences
Director, Marriage and Family Therapy Program
Director, Food Science Program
Director, Hazards, Global & Environmental Change Program
Director, Health Communication Program
Director, Economic Science Institute
Director, Honors Program
Director, Undergraduate Research
Dean of the Libraries
Associate Dean of the Libraries
Collection Management Division Chair
Library Systems and Technology Chair
Public Services Chair (Libraries)

That's quite a bit - around 130. Total enrollment at the school for all of its various colleges is around 6,000. They've got around 400 professors (calculated from a 15:1 claimed student faculty ratio). So it doesn't seem that bad, does it?

Well, obviously this proves nothing at all -- I have no idea whatsoever how many I missed in my really, really brief trip through their web pages. I could have gotten 70%, or only 20% -- I don't know. But I think it helps put it in perspective to actually see all those titles.

We should also bear in mind that a lot of those titles -- particularly the Center Directors, are specifically endowed positions, so it's not like the university is losing money by paying them.

I guess my point is just this: having more administrators/professionals than faculty seems like it's a generally bad idea, but if it's a bad idea it's a bad idea because specific administrative positions aren't needed. It's not a bad idea in and of itself -- after all, the modern university does a LOT MORE for its students than mere academics. Now maybe you think that shouldn't the part of the university mission (I'm rather of that mind myself), but then your problem isn't really with the number of administrators at all, but rather with the university mission itself.

Double Majors

Erin O'Connor has an interesting post up about the value of humanities majors in college, to which I wish to add only the following thought:

All three of the "Hugh Akston heroes" in Atlas Shrugged (Galt, d'Anconia, Danneskjöld) studied both Philosophy and Physics. To the extent that one thinks that there was something valid in Rand's portrayal of a morally centered, competent person (I don't agree with her philosophy in toto, but neither do I dismiss it out of hand) one might think that what Erin is suggesting has some prior support.

Destroy Education to Save It?

That's what Zombie thinks. He went to a teachers' rally and didn't like what he saw.

Will it mean chaos for a generation of students? An unstable and ever-shifting educational landscape? Maybe. And I wish that wasn’t so. But I see no other viable alternative.

Do I wish there was another, more palatable solution? Sure. But these leftist teachers like the ones you see on this page leave me no option: They’re not going to change their political stripes, and they’re not going to voluntarily relinquish control of our public schools or our children’s minds. So as I said at the beginning of this essay:

We have to destroy education in order to save it.

And after everything has collapsed and been rebuilt, maybe then we could re-create public education from scratch, free from politics and indoctrination. But until then I will have to reluctantly assume the role of the villain in the school funding debate. It’s for the children!

I confess I have trouble taking his blog post seriously, even if he meant it in all seriousness. (And sometimes it's hard to tell whether a blogger is serious, joking, or simply hiding a serious point within decidedly unserious rhetoric.) If we've come to the point where political divisions prevent us from having a foundational system of public education, well, houses divided and all that. Such a nation isn't long for this earth.

If I take his post seriously, I must simply despair.

That's not to say he doesn't have some good points. I'm all for lowering the compulsory education age as far as ten or twelve. And I think that Pierce v. Society of Sisters needs to be taken more seriously (along with the 9th and 10th Amendments), and that homeschooling and other alternative forms of education need to suffer from less "oversight" and regulation. But none of that means destroying public education.

His wish to destroy public education seems entirely partisan; I doubt he'd have any problem with it if it weren't a bastion of his political enemies. (And I seriously question whether it is; perhaps in Los Angeles it is, but it is a common lament among college professors that high school teachers, by and large, are exquisitely conservative and that they've brainwashed the poor kids who now need to unlearn all their conservative instincts.) Indeed, it's odd to hear someone who apparently disdains "progressives" adopt one of their fundamental tropes: destroy the old system and bring out a new future! Does he understand how much he sounds like the stereotypical college revolutionary?

Maybe we need reduced funding. Maybe more flexible funding. Maybe we need alternative funding mechanisms like endowments -- but I'm simply not on board with his thesis that we should destroy the public schools. In fact, I think it's a little ridiculous. And it is the duty of the citizen, inter alia, to condemn silly ideas when they enter the public forum.

Mass Differentiation

Kids and young adults don't understand expertise, that is, they don't really understand how wide the range of human ability in a given area really is. They can't, because they don't have any real experience with it. Even if they are experts in something (I'm thinking of, say, teenage chess phenoms), they haven't had a lot of experience with other experts, and they (probably -- I'm having to guess at this point) think that they're just better than other people without understanding how much better. They might understand that, say, LeBron James is an expert, or that Gary Kasparov is an expert, but they don't really "get" how much better an expert is at something than a non-expert.

Just by way of example, a bright high school graduate might think that they understand world history -- after all, they've taken three classes in it since 7th grade, and they got A's! Oh sure, there are people who know more history. But it's just a matter of studying a little more. Then they go to college, and they realize that they didn't know much history at all. But now they've majored in history -- surely they know history now! Well -- not so fast. Now they decide to go to graduate school, let's say. Now they come to understand that even undergraduate history majors don't really know that much about history.

And it's right about then that they start to understand that it's not just history: it's everything. An expert mechanic can often tell what's wrong with your car just by listening. An expert plumber can finesse a stuck snake out of a pipe when you and your five friends couldn't get it out with all the tools and effort in the world. An expert juggler can do things that the juggling club in college never dreamed of.

Humans can get very, very, very good at things. It's part of our DNA -- we learn, and we adapt. But it takes time for us to develop a sense of how good people can get at things (and how narrow of a focus an expertise can have). It takes experience and exposure and thought to really understand how wide the various gulfs of human talent and ability are.

But if that's true on the macro-level, I think it's also true on a smaller level. I don't think that people generally appreciate the size of the ability gap between a smart and well-prepared student and a somewhat dim and ill-prepared student. It's enormous. There are 8th graders who know more math (and better) than a lot of 12th graders will ever know. There are 10th graders with a greater understanding of poetry than a lot of people will ever know. And there are students who only in high school get to the level of academic ability where most of their classmates were in 6th grade.

It's not just a matter of talent, either. Academic ability, or as some people call it, "cognitive ability", is a combination of natural mental aptitudes (flexibility, memory, etc.), practiced aptitudes, actual knowledge, and motivations. There are plenty of really "bright" kids out there with good mental flexibility, decent memories, and a little practice at being clever who are actually low achievers because they didn't (or don't) have motivation or background knowledge; they have, often through no fault of their own, squandered some prime learning years. It's easy to think that, with just a little extra work, you can get these bright kids "caught up" with their more advanced peers. (There was a commenter on one of Joanne's posts a short while ago, BenF, who made this exact point in the context of a discussion about AP classes for everyone.)

But it's a mistake to think that. What you're seeing isn't just talent that hasn't blossomed; you're seeing an achievement gap that is the result of years of differentiated development. The well-prepared 6th grader isn't just better prepared than the ill-prepared 6th grader: he's years ahead, even if they have identical natural mental potentials. And the kids who are really at the bottom of the class aren't just behind, requiring a little more attention and motivation: they're years behind, even by 6th grade.

Knowledge and ability builds upon itself. It's like compound interest in that way. If you've had a lot of enrichment very early, and a lot of exposure to knowledge and a lot of social motivation to academically excel, you're going to be able to take advantage of the time in grades 1-3 in a way that isn't going to be possible for your less-well-prepared classmates. While they're learning to sound out words, you're going to be reading books, acquiring more knowledge, thinking more things. And that gap is only going to grow. And once again, this is true in reverse of those at the bottom end of the ability spectrum -- whether they are there for reasons of natural deficiencies, social reasons, or simple lack of knowledge: they are going to fall further and further behind even their average classmates because they are still learning to recognize letters.

So what are the consequences of all this if I'm right? Well, for starters, it seems like "Differentiated Instruction" (by which I mean the practice of teaching at multiple levels within the same classroom) is made even more difficult than people already think it is. You might think that not only should we break apart subject-specific classes in terms of ability level, but that we need more levels. Maybe instead of a year-long algebra class for everyone, what we need is a six month algebra class, a year-long algebra class, and a two-year algebra class. Maybe we need to divide up the grades into more grades, K-24 instead of K-12, and allow kids (with parent approval) to simply test through some grades if they want.

Computer instruction offers a wealth of possibilities for supra-individuated instruction. I don't personally think it's any sort of panacea, and I think that there's something vital and important in real-life student-teacher contact that can't be duplicated with recorded lessons and flashing programs. But technology is at its best when it makes what we are already doing easier to do -- and if a computer network can help a teacher keep track of a larger variety of students, then maybe that's a good thing.

My suggestion is just this: we need to seriously consider that our student population is far, far more varied than we typically think, and we need to consider adjusting our institutions to meet this hyper-heterogeneity. We should give serious thought to whether opening different types of schools in the same district isn't a good idea. And I don't just mean arts magnets and tech magnets and so forth. I mean outright different types of educational institutions: remediation-intensive boarding schools, two-year high schools, half-day math schools and half-day reading schools -- I hate to use a cliche, but I'm talking about really outside-the-box sorts of institutional change, with smaller, more individualized schools and sub-schools. I'm already seeing some motion in that direction across the country, but I'm also seeing movement the other way: common core curricula, de-tracking, etc.

Of course, another reaction to my arguments is that we should just stop pouring resources into doing anything other than helping those who are on the lee side of this gaping ability chasm. After all, they're not only behind, but moving more slowly. And to some limited extent, I think that we've adopted this approach. We stick the bright, well-prepared kids into the same class and tell them to sit down, shut up, and be quiet. (We have to keep them off the streets, after all.)

In our more reflective moments, we hope that they will help their less advanced bretheren -- and we stupidly think that this will help close the ability gap. This, actually, has to be one of the silliest ideas I have ever heard. Do people who advocate this not remember the second principle of teaching? You never learn a subject better than when you teach it to someone else. If we were serious about closing the ability gap, we'd lock the bright, motivated, and/or well-prepared (pick two) kids in a room by themselves and turn off the lights for 8 hours a day.

Anyway, this is just a blog post. I'm not professing to have all the solutions to the world's ills. Heck, I don't even have a solution to what Mrs. Johnson should do with her 4th period class, because, frankly, I'm not an expert in her 4th period class the way she is (or should be, we might hope). I'm just an attorney and a philosopher and an educator thinking hard about a problem, and what sorts of things might work as solutions.

Guest-Post at a Better Blog

Thanks to the magnanimity of my hostess, I've got a guest-post up at a much more interesting (and well-trafficked) blog than mine. It's about diversity at our mutual alma mater, Wesleyan University.

When Cheating is the Only Way to Win

Something that has come up a lot in recent discussions in the edu-blogosphere (I'm specifically thinking of this conversation at Joanne's blog) is the "success" achieved by schools that experience tremendous rates of attrition. Many people are critical of this sort of "success", to the point where they think it's a form of failure. One regular commenter, CarolineSF, had this to say:

If I ran a school that were experiencing such high attrition (or, in the case of AIPCS, such a major transformation in demographics), it seems like my common-sense strategy would be to celebrate the successes of the remaining students, maintain good relations with my funders and school community, and LAY LOW, refraining from the public preening and boasting that prompts busybodies to look up the statistics.

The assumption is obviously that the high attrition is something to be ashamed of, something that runs counter to academic "success".

You might think that high attrition rates are a form of cheating, that true educational success involves educating everyone that walks through your door. LIkewise, you might think that not letting in the more difficult cases is like refusing to fence/wrestle/race against better opponents. Yes, you'll have a great record, but you're never getting to the Olympics that way.

Let's digress for a moment and talk about Star Trek. You've heard of the Kobayashi Maru scenario, I hope? If you haven't, follow the link and go read. Now, Kirk "cheated" because he changed the rules of the game. But the game couldn't be won with the rules it had -- all it could do was test your character as your ship was destroyed. That's great if what you're trying to do is see how people respond under pressure, it's not so great if you're trying to see who can actually succeed and who cannot.

I want to suggest the possibility that people who accuse high-attrition schools of 'cheating' (bearing in mind it's my word, not theirs) are misunderstanding what is going on, and that there is a difference between testing a school's character and testing a school's ability to educate students. I first brought this line of thought up in the comments to another post at Joanne's site. CarolineSF was making a similar point then to the point she makes above: namely that a school with a huge attrition rate can't be claimed to be "superior". Much of what I am going to say from here on is an elaboration on those comments.

Whether a school can be called "superior" or not depends entirely on what you think the goal is. For example: in SEAL training, the goal is to produce maximally competent and adaptable military operatives; because this is the success condition, the training has a huge attrition rate, and doesn't even let all that many people in in the first place. Likewise, you might imagine a training program that defined "success" in terms of producing as many people who can make a three-point shot as possible. They're going to run like an assembly line: anyone who is going to take more than a few days of training is going to be dismissed because the resources needed to train that person can be better used to train five others.

We need to understand what it is we believe the success conditions of our public school system to be. Understanding those success conditions will tell us what we should do vis-a-vis students with a wide range of "problems": poverty, illiteracy, various forms of social blight, hostility, sociopathy, disability, etc. If our success condition is "EVERY SINGLE BIOLOGICAL HUMAN THAT COMES THROUGH THAT DOOR NEEDS TO BE ABLE TO GET 1200 ON THE SAT", well, then that's our success condition.

But is that really what would make for a good school? I doubt it. I'm of the mind that the success conditions of public education should be twofold: First, any human being who presents him or herself as a student should be accepted by the teachers. Second, any student accepted by the teachers should meet some minimum threshold (say, a 1200 on the SAT. Or a statewide graduation exam, or something like that.)

Now it's the "presentes him or herself as a student" that is doing all my work for me, so let me explain what I mean. CarolineSF -- and people like her -- seem to be claiming that a "win" in education involves not just delivering the opportunity for a high-quality to every single human being under the age of 18 (I am loathe to call them all either children or students), but having that person successfully receive that education.

That position can't possible be right. It's a Kobayashi Maru scenario: all you're going to test is the character of your educators and administrators as your schools fail at the impossible. And I do mean "impossible", because learning isn't entirely up to the teachers. If I can quote St. Anselm's De Casu Diaboli for a moment:

Therefore, that which he did not receive to keep because he deserted it, he did not receive not because God did not give it, but, rather, God did not give it because he did not receive it.

Anselm's point here is that the Devil was not "fated" to turn to evil because of something God did: it's not that God did not give the devil the power to cleave unto the truth and the light. Anselm thinks that the receiving of something -- a facility, a quality, etc. -- can be conditioned on two separate requirements: that the thing be offered or given, and that the thing be accepted.

I'd like to posit that something very similar must occur with an education. It can be given by the teacher, by the relative, by the parent, but not received by the learner. And it is thus not received, but it is not received not because it is not given, but because it is not received. (Yes, I just compared some students to the Devil. I'm sure most teachers understand.)

In other words, at some level or another, a student has to want to learn; he or she has to be willing to receive instruction. Merely placing a human body in a classroom doesn't make them a student. A teacher must accept a student, and a student must accept the authority of a teacher:

First make sacred pact. I promise teach karate. That my part. You promise learn. I say, you do, no questions. That your part.

Daniel-San was a highly motivated learner. Not all students are going to be quite as motivated. Some will be of mixed minds, and some will be outright reluctant. It's surely true that some teachers are better than others at breathing life on the embers of interest. But that's an interpersonal talent that's dependent on chemistry, not really a teachable skill at all, and it's extremely context dependent. *I* might be the right person for getting Johnny interested in math, or Clara interested in Homer. But I might be the wrong person for getting Clara interested in math or Johnny interested in Physics. And in any case, there have to be embers there.

It might be possible to coerce learning, to some extent: reasonable minds differ on this point. Surely it's harder to coerce learning than mere behavior, but it strikes me that if I beat you (or even just threaten you credibly), I might be able to get you to "want" to do whatever it takes to get me to stop. And that seems like it's at least part of what we do with students right now: "get good grades or your future is doomed" we tell them. It's not a recipe for a good education -- for it puts the focus on the wrong things -- but it yields at least some results.

But there are human beings under the age of 18 who will not choose to be taught, who will not choose to be coerced, and who do not wish to receive what is offered to them. And it may just be that the right thing for a school to do in such a situation, assuming that your goal is educational success and not some sort of fascinating Kobayashi Maru psychology experiment, is to remove them from the school. Not necessarily permanently -- just until they decide they want to choose to learn, until they present themselves as a student.

Clearly this intuition of mine flies in the face of how we have our schools set up now. They are compulsory, and -- within certain limits -- we arrest kids and parents who don't attend. We tell teachers that they have to take as a student every human being who walks through their door. The teacher is deprived of the ability to pick and choose their students, to a certain extent.

And that's probably as it should be. Mr. Miyagi wasn't earning his keep as an instructor, otherwise he would have added "You promise learn and pay 19.99 per lesson." He was taking Daniel on as a charity case, which is noble. (And indeed, Socrates used to think that teaching for money was suspect.) So he got a choice. Teachers are working for the state (or for a private school, funded by parents). They agree, as part of their job, to take on any student who comes along.

But it's one thing to say that you have to teach all your students regardless of ability or economic background or culture or education level. That's fine -- call it "social justice" if you're inclined, or just call it "equal opportunity" if you're not. It's an entirely different matter to say that you have to teach all the human beings in your classroom, even if they don't want to be taught. The fact that the teacher is accepting a paycheck for such a task doesn't make it any less unrealistic a prospect. (N.B. - we do let people out of contracts on the grounds of impossibility...)

But if that's the success condition we have -- if Caroline SF is right -- then this is why I think that, in a sense, the "cheating" involved in attrition and dropout rates may be the only way to win: if you want a good school, if you want a school at all, you have to be able to get rid of human beings who do not wish to be students at all.

Alter v. Ravitch: A Call For Facts

Courtesy of Joanne Jacobs' excellent edublogging, I've been following what seem to be two sides of an argument that's shaping up. It started with Diane Ravitch in the NYT, which Joanne blogged about here. Then recently, Jonathan Alter (who I'm always confusing with Eric Alterman for the obvious morphological reasons) wrote a response to Ravitch, which Joanne blogged about here.

Except it's not really two sides of an argument at all. It's Diane Ravitch presenting an argument (that's probably wrong, I should note), and Jonathan Alter launching a rhetorical diatribe about her recent positions based not on their falsity, but apparently on their being, well, depressing:

While healthy skepticism is a virtue, Ravitch seems bent on extinguishing any hope that our teachers and schools can do better. In an op-ed in the New York Times on June 1, she derided the impressive progress made at three public schools as “a triumph of public relations” based on “statistical legerdemain.”

Yes, but is she wrong?

Also from Alter:

“This was a very cynical statement that she doesn’t believe teachers and schools can make a difference in high-poverty areas,” says Colorado State Senator Mike Johnston, a former teacher and principal whose sweeping tenure-reform law is a national model. “We can debate facts at particular schools but you just can’t deny that some places are getting phenomenal results -- results that should be celebrated, not called out as fraudulent.”

Except that Ravitch does deny it. And just because she's cynical doesn't mean she's wrong. That's not an argument: it's an insult coupled with a flat-out contradiction.

Let's take the case of Bruce Randolph School. Here's what they have to say. I apologize for the lengthy quotes, but I want to get their arguments right next to each other on the page so you can see what's going on.

Ravitch:

True, Randolph (originally a middle school, to which a high school was added) had a high graduation rate, but its ACT scores were far below the state average, indicating that students are not well prepared for college. In its middle school, only 21 percent were proficient or advanced in math, placing Randolph in the fifth percentile in the state (meaning that 95 percent of schools performed better). Only 10 percent met the state science standards. In writing and reading, the school was in the first percentile.

Alter:

Her so-called evidence that the school is cooking its books is that Randolph’s ACT scores are far below the state average, as if such comparisons to wealthy districts somehow disqualify Randolph’s impressive year-over-year improvement in most areas. (And since when does Ravitch credit test scores?)

Ravitch also goes after the performance of Randolph’s middle school without mentioning that the results from sixth- graders -- one-third of the school -- merely reflect how poorly the students were prepared by the schools they previously attended, a significant though hardly atypical example of her misuse of statistics.

I'd like to point out first that the ONLY before-and-after statistic that we have for this school from either of these two is the graduation rate, which is going up. Ravitch cites low test scores, but how do we know that the low test scores aren't actually a vast improvement? Ravitch is a frackin' professor writing in the NYT. She should know better.

But Alter doesn't really claim improvement in test scores -- he makes vague claims about year over year improvements in "most areas", whatever that means. For all I know, it could be finger painting and plays well with others that have seen year over year improvements. He sure makes it sound like the test scores are improving, but no competent attorney would let a wishy-washy, noncommittal statement like that pass in deposition.

Maybe the test scores are going up. But the real question is this: are the test scores going up enough to justify using a term like "phenomenal results"? If they are, then Ravitch really does seem to be making the untenable argument that the "reform" she's critiquing isn't justified unless the worst schools turn into the best schools, which is ridiculous. On the other hand, if they aren't, then Alter's being somewhat misleading, because I do not read Ravitch as asserting that test scores haven't gone up, merely that the degree to which they have isn't really a cause for joy, celebration, or wholehearted endorsement of certain reforms.

But instead of all this debate, what say we instead have some dialectic? How about some real, actual facts about the schools in question? Here's what I could find:


Bruce Randolph Writing Scores Over Time (2004-2010): There's some signs of a general trend over 5 years upward. Alter would probably proclaim "Proficiency levels are up almost 100%!" Ravitch would probably claim "Proficiency has inconstantly moved from below 10% to below 20%."

I have to give points to Alter on this one, though. There does appear to be improvement. In fact, if things are as Ravitch posits them -- if the problems of poverty are severe and systemic -- then the results are even more impressive. Nothing like arguing against yourself...

(Still, it looks like the school is suffering major attrition -- just watch the "number tested" fall from grade to grade. That makes its graduation rate a lot less impressive, and could affect how we're looking at test scores, too.)

Math Scores Over Time: No question about this -- there's some pretty remarkable improvement. Point Alter.

Reading? Again, definite improvement.

How about Miami Central?

Reading.
Math.

Imrovement in both cases, it seems. Especially if you're looking in the "meets standards" column over on the right.

Are these results "phenomenal"? I don't think so, but I encourage you to go judge for yourself. Don't trust any of the sides of the debate to give you actual facts, even when they're right. In the case of Bruce Randolph, it looks like hard, steady, grinding improvement, with all the sorts of inconstant ups and downs you'd expect of a work in progress. In the case of Miami Central, it looks a little more impressive.

My final conclusion? Ravitch is mostly wrong: the improvements seem nontrivial and wanting of an explanation that could very well have to do with the reforms in question, even if she (and I) wouldn't characterize those improvements as glowingly as some people might. The alleged spike in graduation rates, though, seem disproportionate to the actual learning being accomplished (at least the tested learning). So that's an area that needs to be looked at more closely.

Alter, on the other hand, is apparently a sophistical polemicist who can't even make a point well when the evidence is on his side. Maybe Ravitch is shilling for the unions. I don't care about her motivations: I care about the facts.

So, based on my incredibly unscientific internet-digging, it seems like maybe there's some considerable improvement. And there's definitely reform. That's a correlation, maybe. We should want of control groups if we're going to be serious about this. There could be some new television program out there that's turning kids into geniuses. But let's say Ravitch is wrong, tentatively, on the facts.

NOW we can start arguing about causation. Anyone got some popcorn?

An excellent article for high school students

Megan McArdle, economic policy blogger extraordinaire, is a woman of vast and divers talents. Today she's put up an amazing essay that I think I'm going to start recommending to students, and that I heartily recommend to high school English teachers everywhere.

The essay, which you should go read for yourself, is about the relationships among authors, their works, and their audience. Specifically, her concern is with the audience's relationship with the work in light of their moral evaluation of the author.

The main point is a really sound one: we shouldn't throw out works of art merely because the authors are, in some way, unpalatable. This is a lesson that some progressives would love dearly to teach conservatives, whom they see as discarding a cornucopia of art on the basis of racism, homophobia, etc. But it's also a lesson that some progressives could learn themselves. The fact that Mel Gibson might be a racist isn't really a good reason not to enjoy Braveheart, which is a fine film (gross historical inaccuracies and the wobbly axe aside), and I've heard well-intentioned people say that they would not watch that movie anymore. I think there's a saying about cutting off one's nose...

But there are other important lessons buried in this excellent essay. I was particularly struck by her identification of what makes art, particularly literary art, persuasive:

But when art-as-politics airbrushes out the dead people at the steel works, it can be very convincing, which is why advocates like it; Uncle Tom's Cabin did more for the Abolitionist cause than a hundred thousand lectures. The problem is, it can convince of the bad as easily as the good--Gone With the Wind reached many more people than Uncle Tom's Cabin, in part because--despite its ugly racial politics--it's a much better book with richer characters and more believable action. There are also the heroic misfires, where the author rouses fierce passions about the wrong issue. * * * *

You see the point: what makes a political narrative convincing is not the correctness of its ideas, but power of the characters and the imagery.

Literature, if McArdle is right, when it is in its argumentative rather than merely entertaining mode, is more about non-deliberative manipulation than it is about arguing a point rationally. This doesn't make literature or poetry evil or even morally questionable -- we manipulate people to good ends, and with good effect, and using permissible methods all the time. It merely underlines her point: that something is aesthetically convincing doesn't mean it's true.

That distinction is probably the source of the deepest divide between literature and philosophy, a divide that I often lament. Philosophers as a class are often not interested in poetry, likely for this very reason. The other day I said something about Winnie the Pooh's being lumpy. One of my colleagues said, "That's ridiculous. He doesn't exist. He can't be lumpy." I'm only exaggerating slightly when I say that the typical philosopher's response to "The moon was a ghostly galleon" is "False."

Anyway, that's a lot of talk for what amounts to a simple "Go read this" link, so I'll stop now and just urge you to share this essay with your students.

Homework

Via EducationNews, I learn that there's a district that is considering a "ban" on homework over the weekend and over holidays. Apparently "the homework debate" has picked up in recent years -- what with mounting concerns about children's stress levels and such.

I'm not writing to take sides in this debate, other than perhaps to say that I don't see how a child can learn to write a 10-page paper without actually writing it, and that it seems impossible to both teach how to write such a paper and write it in the same 50-minute increments that make up the typical classroom. Presumably this would carry over to certain other specific kinds of tasks, too.

I'm writing today to talk about the nature and purpose of homework. What's it for? Galloway Township, the district that is the subject of the article, has this to say:

The Board of Education believes that homework relevant to material presented in class provides an opportunity to broaden, deepen or reinforce the pupil’s knowledge. Teachers must use discretion in deciding the number and length of assignments. The board encourages the use of interrelated major homework assignments, such as term papers, themes and creative art projects.

I have to say, that's not terribly helpful. "Broaden, deepen or reinforce"? Well which is it? (Let's put aside the serial comma rule for now.)

Deepen and broaden seem almost to be synonyms to my ear. One deepens one's knowledge of a subject by broadening one's view of what's relevant to it. An example might be a history research paper on a topic only mentioned in class. Perhaps the teacher spent 6 minutes talking about Guadalcanal, for instance, in the course of discussing the island-hopping campaign across the Pacific. Now the student can go write a paper focusing on the strategic value of the airfield or something. The student's knowledge of the battle is being broadened, in that new facts are being added, and deepened in that these new facts are being integrated into his or her view of what was at stake and how things fell out.

Likewise, you might assign students some poems to read and think about for homework. Their overall knowledge is broadening by being exposed to new poetry, and their knowledge of poetry itself is deepening in that these new poems are becoming part of what they think about when they think about poetry.

Reinforcement, on the other hand, just sounds like practice. And practice is really necessary for any sort of skill. If you pay some rice to study kung-fu with the ancient master, for instance, you don't just practice it when you're in his immediate presence. You also practice it when you're by yourself. Presumably you practice because you want to get good at it. Likewise, if you want to get good at math, it's probably a good idea to practice until the operations become second nature. That's how you develop fluency, and expertise. (It's entirely plausible to say that this is a form of "deepening" one's knowledge; that's not how I'd use the term, but I'm hardly the arbiter of semantic content.)

One might be forgiven for thinking that fluency and expertise in a subject is the very purpose of education. On the other hand, smart people have told me that the purpose of college is to make one an acceptable conversationalist at cocktail parties, so go figure.

These are two VERY different roles that homework, according to the board, can accomplish. And it seems to me that they are justified in very different ways. The first type of homework -- broadening/deepening -- is justified in the same way that any other curricular content is justified: it is part of what is being taught. The fact that it is assigned as homework is merely due to the fact that there aren't enough hours in the school day. Otherwise it would be perfectly appropriate to have the students work on their papers in the classroom or in the library.

The justification for the second type -- practice -- seems far less stable to me. Practice in class and practice at home seem like very different things, and the latter is, on my view, wholly dependent on the student's caring about developing fluency and expertise. If he doesn't want to practice, well, he won't do as well on the test. But that seems like it should be his business. Using homework to show that a student has "sufficiently mastered a skill" seems rather backwards to me. That's a thing for exams under controlled conditions. To go back to the kung fu analogy, if you don't practice, you don't get the red sash of the Flopping Dragon school, because the Master won't pass you.

So I can see a reason to have the first type of homework as something assigned. I can only see the second as justified in terms of providing optional opportunities for practice.

I make the conclusions about justification tentatively, and I certainly don't think I've proven anything. But I am certain that the underlying premise -- that the justification for homework depends on its nature and purpose -- is correct. I invite comments, as always.

Yes. I'm really back.

I've been writing such long, extended comments at other people's blogs I decided it's time to get Highered Intelligence up and running. I blogged fairly consistently for three years in my previous incarnation, and so I know the workload I'm taking on. It's time, though. I'm simply too full of myself to keep quiet any longer. I'm going to probably be focusing on longer, more in-depth posts than I was before, but that's just part of how my writing has changed in the intervening years.

I'd like to extend my personal thanks to Joanne Jacobs, Diana Senechal, and Rachel Levy for helping me realize what I've been missing the last few years.

Values Education, Indoctrination, and Methods

This post came out of a comment that I attempted to make on Rachel Levy's excellent blog. It arises out of an exceedingly interesting exchange that she's having with Mr. Yglesias about values education. I've really enjoyed reading it. It started here with Yglesias arguing that Charter schools may be doing necessary work given their context, with Rachel's comment here, then Yglesias responded here, leading Rachel to post this, to which I was writing the comment that led to this post. The disagreement, on its face, is over whether poor kids need to be taught middle-class values. But I think there's something more fundamental under the surface that needs to be addressed.

Now, I've a professional interest in this debate -- it falls pretty squarely in the area Philosophy of Education on which I'm writing my dissertation -- so I hope that my readers will forgive me if I go on at length, and my colleagues will forgive me if I'm abrupt and cursory in some of my argumentation. It's also of paramount importance that you read the back-and-forth posts before continuing. Much of what I say won't make sense if you don't.

I don't think that Rachel is being as charitable as she could be about Yglesias' argument. I certainly don't think that this is because she's being disingenuous in any way, but because I think there's a buried (and true) assumption that Yglesias is making about how values operate that isn't coming across in his postings, and if it were, I don't think the two of them would seem (or be) so at odds. He doesn't make this point explicitly, though. And while it's possible I'm reading way too much into this, here's what I think is going on.

Let's take this paragraph of Rachel's as a starting point:

Undoubtedly, kids learn norms and behaviors in school from one another--that's part of going to school. The value attached to these norms and behaviors all depends on, well, what each individual values. That being acknowledged, it's not my job as a public school teacher to teach social values beyond, say, teaching students how to get along, and how to peacefully resolve disputes that might arise in my classroom. Rather, it's my job to provide an education. Now, I do need to teach the values or habits of a good student, for example, completing assignments in a timely and comprehensive manner, reading as much and as often as possible, participating respectfully in class discussions, listening to teachers and classmates, coming to class on time, not plagiarizing or cheating, and I have no doubt that KIPP teaches their kids to have the habits of good students. But ultimately, to get students to practice these habits, I need to show them the value of what I'm teaching and that I value their time and effort.

So, we're given that there's some set of values or habits that she wants to teach to her students. Now, while 'habit' and 'value' are distinct concepts, the difference between a value-in-action and a habit isn't always clear: one way to think about values is as certain types of attitudes, that is, as habits of decision-making. You can tell that I "value" my group identity (or, put another way, that group loyalty is one of my "values") because when I have a decision in which group interests can focus as a reason, I am inclined to give such reasons more weight in my deliberations.

This is different, though, than mere behavioral habits that aren't expressions of deliberation (scratching my head when I'm trying to decide between two options, for instance, or swishing my soda around in my mouth before swallowing).

Now, I take it that if pressed, Rachel would say she wants to teach students to value good student habits in the sense of the word "value" that I just used, and not just in the raw sense of thoughtless habit. That's not only admirable, but, I think, the proper attitude for an educator. I also think she is absolutely right when she says:

(Y)ou can't teach kids to value education by telling them to value education.

But how does one teach kids to value education, and what does that actually mean? More specifically, what are the success conditions of having taught kids to value education?

On this point, it seems pretty clear to me that success has not occurred if a kid can merely recite to you what it means to value education, and what sorts of decisions he would make if he valued education. It seems like the success conditions of teaching a student to value education are that he actually values education, and that means that at some point in the process, values were inculcated. Another way of saying this -- and I don't mean to bring up the term in any morally charged way -- is that the teacher in order to succeed has to engage in some sort of process of values indoctrination.

Now there are LOTS of ways to to indoctrinate values -- some of which are morally troublesome, some of which aren't. You might think that the "organic" way that kids pick up on values by modeling the behavior of others isn't on its face morally suspect, but that, say, a regimen of suggestibility drugs coupled with torture designed to make you really love (i.e., "value") Big Brother is morally suspect. You might think it's OK to engage in certain types of non-intrusive interpersonal manipulation, and so forth, but not, say, to lie to the kids in the course of inculcating values. (You could even think that the morality of values lies in the realm of content rather than process, and that the ends of indoctrination can justify at least some means. That's another view.)

But one thing that we should take into account - and this is the implicit premise that I see in Yglesias' argument -- is that there's a certain amount of "meta-valuation" that goes on in the shaping of a human personality. We not only value things such as group loyalty and so forth, but we value values themselves. Now we might have all sorts of different reasons for valuing a set of values: perhaps we want to fit in, perhaps we want to get love from our family, perhaps we have some greater value (duty to country, say) that we see as requiring us to take on some other, subordinate set of values (martial values, respect for authority, etc.).

I take it that Yglesias' point, if he were to slow down and think about it, is that poorer kids, by and large, don't have as part of their natural value system the sorts of values that cause them to adopt certain other values, such as valuing education, valuing certain types of work ethics, etc. And I also take it that he thinks that one way to adopt these second order values is the organic, modeling way that kids pick these things up, but that failing that, a certain amount of more heavy-handed (though not, by his lights, immmoral) indoctrination is in order.

Rachel's response to this is, as best I can tell, is to say that she doesn't want to engage in values instruction. But it seems this leads to a necessary contradiction. Let's revisit two sentences:

The value attached to these norms and behaviors all depends on, well, what each individual values.

That seems right, as far as it goes. There are some values, and then there's a meta-valuative structure of other values, and a child's attitude towards the subordinate values is going to be determined by the higher-order values. But then Rachel also says this:

But ultimately, to get students to practice these habits, I need to show them the value of what I'm teaching and that I value their time and effort.

But what is this "showing them the value" if it isn't the actual indoctrination of a higher-order value designed to get them to adopt the lower-order values of "valuing education"? In other words, the course of action she is prescribing just is a certain kind of interpersonal manipulation through example, persuasion, etc. (and I don't mean "manipulation" in a morally charged sense) designed to get them to "buy in" to the values set that both she and Yglesias want the kids to adopt.

In other words, they're both advocating the same thing at a more general level of description: engaging in the imprinting of second-order values. They just disagree about the process that should be used. Rachel thinks that the teacher's role should be more subtle. (To be fair, an opponent might say more "seductive" or "insidious".) Yglesias seems to think that there are two options: the organic way that a child grows into community values and some sort of more structured, focused sort of indoctrination.

But there does not seem to me to be as much daylight between them as either of them thinks there is.