Tuesday Open Thread
Great op-ed from the NY Times on how basic (and fairly inexpensive) things can make the difference for low-income kids of all ages. When people ask me, "What would you do?" these are the kinds of things shown to work that I support.
- While they were graduate students at Harvard, two young professors designed and tested a program to help students stick to their college plans. Benjamin L. Castleman, now at the University of Virginia, and Lindsay C. Page, at the University of Pittsburgh, set up a system of automatic, personalized text messages that reminded high school students about their college deadlines. The texts included links to required forms and live counselors.
-The same researchers also tested a texting program to keep students from dropping out of college. The problem is important because the graduation rate of low-income college students is dismally low; two-thirds leave without a degree. Community college students received texts reminding them to complete their re-enrollment forms, particularly aid applications.
- Two researchers at Stanford University, Eric P. Bettinger and Rachel Baker, analyzed an innovative counseling program in which a professional academic coach calls at-risk students to talk about time management and study skills.
- Susanna Loeb and Benjamin N. York, both also at Stanford, developed a literacy program for preschool children in San Francisco. They sent parents texts describing simple activities that develop literacy skills, such as pointing out words that rhyme or start with the same sound. The parents receiving the texts spent more time with their children on these activities and their children were more likely to know the alphabet and the sounds of letters. It cost just a few dollars per family.
Why aren’t schools, districts and states rushing to set up these measures? Maybe because the programs have no natural constituency. They are not labor- or capital-intensive, so they don’t create lots of jobs or lucrative contracts. They don’t create a big, expensive initiative that a politician can point to in a stump speech. They just do their job, effectively and cheaply.
What's on your mind?
- While they were graduate students at Harvard, two young professors designed and tested a program to help students stick to their college plans. Benjamin L. Castleman, now at the University of Virginia, and Lindsay C. Page, at the University of Pittsburgh, set up a system of automatic, personalized text messages that reminded high school students about their college deadlines. The texts included links to required forms and live counselors.
-The same researchers also tested a texting program to keep students from dropping out of college. The problem is important because the graduation rate of low-income college students is dismally low; two-thirds leave without a degree. Community college students received texts reminding them to complete their re-enrollment forms, particularly aid applications.
- Two researchers at Stanford University, Eric P. Bettinger and Rachel Baker, analyzed an innovative counseling program in which a professional academic coach calls at-risk students to talk about time management and study skills.
- Susanna Loeb and Benjamin N. York, both also at Stanford, developed a literacy program for preschool children in San Francisco. They sent parents texts describing simple activities that develop literacy skills, such as pointing out words that rhyme or start with the same sound. The parents receiving the texts spent more time with their children on these activities and their children were more likely to know the alphabet and the sounds of letters. It cost just a few dollars per family.
Why aren’t schools, districts and states rushing to set up these measures? Maybe because the programs have no natural constituency. They are not labor- or capital-intensive, so they don’t create lots of jobs or lucrative contracts. They don’t create a big, expensive initiative that a politician can point to in a stump speech. They just do their job, effectively and cheaply.
What's on your mind?
Comments
It appeared from the article that they were pretty much exclusively talking about preschool teachers, and not K-12, although the rating organization does have some additional work on K-12. The article was very carefully written to imply that these ratings went all the way through PreK-12 while using only examples from preschool. A casual reader would probably miss that it didn't apply to the entire school system.
Most people don't know about this additional $50 million dollars per year extra layer of administration.
PSESD What?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/23/oregon-sexual-assault-lawsuit_n_6732782.html
A great read:
Blinders on the education policy horse
By Richard Phelps
https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/nathan-hale-high-school-says-no-to-the-common-core-standards-sbac-test/
David Edelman
HP
Are Learning Styles a Symptom of Education's Ills
Some of the reader comments are terrific.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/25/corinthian-15-student-loans_n_6739016.html
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/guest-lift-the-1-percent-cap-on-property-tax/#comments
-Downtown Dad