| Wednesday,
February 28, 2007 Is there any reason to
think that the schools are really deteriorating instead of the problem being
incoming students who have lower IQs to begin with (due to higher
percentages of under-performing minorities)?
Is there "IQ-normed" data for school performance that
shows any sort of large difference between the best and the rest?
Schools could well be deteriorating, but the larger
problem is that our methods of measuring school performance are silly and
easily gimmicked. And the measurements aren't really geared toward
intelligence norming the data, which should always be the first step.
Joel
It's a good question. I can only go by what data we
have. In the 1920's there were truant officers, and we tried pretty hard to
enforce compulsory education at least to 8th grade. Enforcement was sporadic
after that depending on the county but up to 8th grade school attendance was
pretty well enforced, and that included both black and white.
What data I can get on rural schools in America in the 1920's show a pretty
high level of instruction up through 8th grade. It's hard to get reliable
data, but it does appear that most were able to learn at least as much as we
hope to teach in the no child left behind tests.
In my case I remember Capleville school in the 1930's with 2 grades to a
room, about 30 kids to the grade, and teachers who were 2 year AA Normal
School grads, not 4 year BA college grads. I know what our 8th grade
curriculum was, and while I certainly was brighter than my classmates, the
curriculum we had was good enough foundation for a much more rigorous high
school at the hands of the Christian Brothers in High School.
I'm no expert on any of this; I don't have access to much of the data. I did
once see some conscription data that indicated that very few found
illiterate by the Army had been through at least 4 years of schooling. That
seems suggestive.
==
From another discussion:
I said, "Chairman Bill does seem to think
that all children ought to get a college prep education. Which is nonsense."
It should be noted that Bill Gates doesn't exactly
have a credible record when it comes to public education. The Gates
foundation messed up a public school in Denver so badly it had to be closed.
Take a look at (
http://tinyurl.com/yr3kwl ) "We can't even spell our own gangs right". A
few quotes
"No wonder the whole city thinks we're stupid,"
Norberto said, addressing a recent turn of events that some on the bleachers
still refused to accept. "Like, that's our education in a nutshell--we can't
even spell our own gangs right."
And
"Attempts to help Manual's students go beyond the
class room:
"Aides rode the bus with pregnant girls, showing them
a school where they could bring their babies, and argued with parents about
the value of a high-school diploma. A band of outreach workers, the
educational equivalents of repo men, arranged part-time jobs and
night-school curricula for other resisters."
"The considerable effort does not translate into
results:"
"Last year, on the tenth-grade math test, only
thirty-three African-Americans in the entire district passed," [Bennet]
resumed flatly..."Thirty-three--in the entire city and county of Denver,
Colorado. And only sixty-one Latinos."
"The decision is made to close Manual High, and its
students are given the opportunity to attend their choice of the other,
better (i.e. less Mexican) Denver schools. Those who think vouchers a
cure-all take note: this causes most of them to drop out of school entirely
(which seems to make no sense, but think about it from the teens'
perspective"
The blog post contain a link to the original article
in the New Yorker (without the pictures). It is a warning of where mass
immigration is taking us and the folly of thinking that these problems can
be easily solved.
P.S. For a more comprehensive article about Gates and
education, see ( http://tinyurl.com/gd96l
) "Bill Gates Gets Schooled" in Business Week Online. They give a him C
grade for his efforts.
PS
=========
I recently checked the California 8th grade reading
scores. Dead last in the nation. No more "Thank God for Mississippi"
excuses. California has finally achieved its long awaited breakout to the
bottom. Actually, DC ranks below California (by far), but is not a state.
Thank you
PS
P.S. Look on the bright side. California soars to 45th
in 8th grade math.
==========
Joys of Cultural Diversity?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/
news/world/asia/article1296184.ece
Ghost brides are murdered to give dead
bachelors a wife in the afterlife
Gang preyed on rural superstition
Undertaker was link with families
Jane Macartney in Bejing
A ring of gangsters who traded in the
bodies of women they murdered, selling them as brides to keep dead
bachelors happy in the afterlife, has been arrested in China.
The arrests have exposed a trade that
places a higher value on women when they are dead than when they are
alive.
Yang Dongyan, 35, was arrested on January 4
in Sha'anxi province as he played cards with his children. In his prison
cell, Mr Yang showed little remorse for committing two murders. He told
the Legal Daily: "I just wanted to make money. It's a quick way to make
money. I was arrested too soon otherwise I had planned to do this
business a few more times."<snip>
=======
Jerry,
It's begun (and look at the news item's author)
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-02-28-voa2.cfm
Climate Panel Recommends Global Temperature
Ceiling, Carbon Tax By Peter Heinlein United Nations 28 February 2007
A panel of scientists has presented the United
Nations a detailed plan for combating climate change. VOA's
correspondent at the U.N. Peter Heinlein reports the strategy involves
reaching a global agreement on a temperature ceiling. A group of 18
scientists from 11 countries is calling on the international community
to act quickly to prevent catastrophic climate change. In a report
requested by the United Nations and partially paid for by the privately
funded U.N. Foundation, the panel warns that any delay could lead to a
dangerous rise in sea levels, increasingly turbulent weather, droughts
and disease.<snip> The panel's recommendations include a series of steps
to cut the rate at which temperatures are rising. Chief among them are a
global agreement on an acceptable ceiling for temperature rise and
finding ways of adapting to cope with the damage already done.<snip>
And next it will be criminal to deny it.
===
Subject: A scientist speaks out against man-made
global warming
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/20/2/2/1
<snip>
A climate of alarm News & Analysis: February 2007
The conventional view among scientists is that
man-made global warming is real and potentially devastating. Climate
physicist Richard Lindzen tells Edwin Cartlidge why he disagrees ...
[F]or Richard Lindzen, a climate physicist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this explosion of interest amounts to
"baseless alarmism". Lindzen, who has studied meteorology and the climate
for more than 40 years, believes the evidence that man is dangerously
overheating the planet simply does not stack up. And he thinks that the
predicted widespread sea-level rises, droughts and floods will not
materialize. Even if these effects were on the cards, he says, attempts to
reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would do
almost nothing to hold such disasters back.
...
"Many programme managers have told me that [my]
funding depends on concern for global warming," he says. "But if that is
true, how can you objectively study the way climate works?"
</snip>
A few get it. A slim few, but maybe, just maybe
they'll be enough. It's hard to stop a juggernaut with a rowboat, but maybe
it can be slowed down enough that it sinks on its own.
On another tangent all together, I absolutely LOVED
what I've read of Inferno 2 and Mamalukes. My only question would be, which
is worse, the agony of reading a small part and then having to wait for the
rest or the agony of waiting without knowing what it's going to be like?
You know you've sold at least 1 copy of each for me
and more that I can give away to friends as presents.
Thanks for your website and for your wonderful books.
I don't drink beer, well not often or Deb yells, so I have to read or else
have no place for my "extra" money.
Braxton S. Cook
=========
Subject: Tribute paid to the imperial overlords,
Jerry
This piece is about the US as the world's hedge fund:
http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IB27Dj02.html
The piece discusses how "the US has managed to earn
more with fewer and fewer net foreign assets than foreigners have managed to
earn with more and more net US assets." And:
"In other times and places, such arrangements have
been referred to as tribute."
Like all mighty empires, Pax Americana has made rich
those who conduct business within its safety. And the subjects of this
empire pay tribute.
How . . . traditional.
Ed
========
Subject: Kling misses the point on IQ
Hi Jerry,
I've been following your comments on IQ and education
and I agree with you and Charles Murray. IQ is definitely a relevant factor
and more importantly, the differences in IQ need to be taken into account.
What seems to be happening, though, in the discussion on IQ in the media is
that the use of IQ tests on individuals is being discussed instead of
discussing the real point which is the need for different levels of
education for people of different IQ levels.
Arnold Kling's article that you cited rightly rails
against rigid tracking and the use of IQ tests as the only determiner of
what skills track a student would be on. However, he misses the point that
in the current educational system there is only one track that is deemed to
be important, the college bound track. How a student would be directed onto
an educational track is irrelevant because we only have one (well, two,
really. College and remedial).
What you've pointed out many times is that our
educational system is designed for Lake Woebegone where all the children are
above average. Our educational system needs to give opportunities to people
of different intellectual capacities and temperaments. The different tracks
can be defined, in general, by the range of IQ's that are expected to be in
them but the manner in which students are directed does not need to be by IQ
test any more than university entrance is by IQ test. Students should be
given the opportunity to move between tracks both up and down as it is found
appropriate for them by both testing and their performance in their classes.
Regards, Dave Smith
========
Subject: Legos and Irony...
Is it just me or is it hideously ironic that teachers
in Seattle are trying to teach our kids the same tricks that have brought
Zimbabwe from food exporter to the brink of starvation?
The leaders in Zimbabwe don't seem to be learning
either: "Everyone who got land must produce". Why produce when you have been
shown that you get land for nothing?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8fbbe56c
-c745-11db-8078-000b5df10621.html
Did Mr. Gono study abroad perhaps? In the Pacific
Northwest? I'd be shocked....
Please withhold my name, I'm busily accumulating my
personal stash of lego-men here while I still can.
========
MIND AND MATTER Is an Economist Qualified
To Solve Puzzle of Autism? Professor's Hypothesis: Rainy Days and TV May
Trigger Condition
By MARK WHITEHOUSE February 27, 2007
In the spring of 2005, Cornell University
economist Michael Waldman noticed a strange correlation in Washington,
Oregon and California. The more it rained or snowed, the more likely
children were to be diagnosed with autism. [Michael Waldman]
To most people, the observation would have
been little more than a riddle. But it soon led Prof. Waldman to
conclude that something children do more during rain or snow -- perhaps
watching television -- must influence autism. Last October, Cornell
announced the resulting paper in a news release headlined, "Early
childhood TV viewing may trigger autism, data analysis suggests."
Prof. Waldman's willingness to hazard an
opinion on a delicate matter of science reflects the growing ambition of
economists -- and also their growing hubris, in the view of critics.
Academic economists are increasingly venturing beyond their traditional
stomping ground, a wanderlust that has produced some powerful results
but also has raised concerns about whether they're sometimes going too
far.
Ami Klin, director of the autism program at
the Yale Child Study Center, says Prof. Waldman needlessly wounded
families by advertising an unpublished paper that lacks support from
clinical studies of actual children. "Whenever there is a fad in autism,
what people unfortunately fail to see is how parents suffer," says Dr.
Klin. "The moment you start to use economics to study the cause of
autism, I think you've crossed a boundary."
Prof. Waldman, who thinks television
restriction may have helped rescue his own son from autism, says many
noneconomists don't understand the methods he used. His paper recommends
that parents keep young children away from television until more
rigorous studies can be done. "I've gotten a lot of nasty emails," he
says. "But if people aren't following up on this, it's a crime."
Is this a turf war?
I have no idea what has caused the
increase in autism; but surely speculations with data shouldn't be condemned
out of hand without consideration? I doubt that using TV as the baby sitter
has done this; there are plenty of kids parked in front of TV who don't
develop autism; but can it be a contributing factor? Is it worth
considering?
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