Substantially Improving Education
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[edit] Introduction
There are three fundamental questions being addressed on this page:
- With their current level of resources, can our informal and formal educational systems be a lot better (be a lot more effective) than they are currently?
- If "yes," what can the various stakeholders—such as students, parents, teachers, educational administrators and school boards, business people, and governments—do to substantially improve informal and formal education?
- If "no," what level of resources is needed, and how should they be used, to substantially improve informal and formal education?
[edit] Have We Reached the Limits of Human Learning Capabilities?
We know that the answer to this questions is "no." The work of Benjamin Bloom showed the power of individual tutoring. With good individual and small group tutoring, an average "C" student in school can perform at the "A" level.
We also have a lot of evidence that "good" teachers make a significant difference.
We know about other major factors, such as that exposure to poisons such as lead and mercury damage a person's brain, decreasing the ability to learn. Mal nourishment does the same thing.
Thus, we know a number of ways to improve education. We have not reached the limits of human capability. The issue becomes one of what are the most cost effective ways to improve education?
[edit] Analogy With Athletic Performance
Consider an analogy with track and field performance.
We are used to the idea of highly trained athletes setting new local, regional, state, national, and world records. It is big sports news when the world record in the hundred meter dash is broken by a few hundredths of a second. This is an improvement of less than .1%.
However, here is a different way to view this same situation. Suppose that we timed how fast average people (not well trained athletes) at various age levels can run the hundred meter dash. This would give us baseline data for the performance of average people.
We could then think about education and training that would lead to an increase in performance for people in various groups, such as all precollege students. We know that with a modest amount of training, we could improve average performance by a significant amount, such as a 5% to 10% (or more) decrease in time to run a hundred meters.
Now, back to education. We could take some small piece of education, measure students' current average performance level, provide better education in this area, and measure possible improvements. For example,consider speed and comprehension in reading. Can an average student learn to read 5% to 10% (or more) faster without any decrease in comprehension? Better still, can both speed and comprehension be improved?
But wait! It is relatively easy to measure speed of reading. But, how does one measure comprehension? Aha! The analogy with track and field performance is not too good. However, it does point to the need for good measures of performance.
Let's continue the athletics analogy. There are a number of tests that one can use to determine the physical fitness of a person. These tests can be applied to large numbers of people in order to produce baseline data for various groups. We can implement wide scale programs (including food, shelter, medical and dental care) that contribute to improved physical fitness. We can integrate more physical education activity into our schools.
So, how well does this analogy work with mental eduction? Here is an obvious example. On average, children who are malnourished and living in extreme poverty suffer a decrease in IQ. Children who are exposed to lead, mercury, and other toxics suffer a decrease in IQ. Children who have poor or no medical and dental care may suffer decrease in cognitive ability related to various health, disease, and injury issues.
This is a work in progress.
The next two sections of this document are merely stubs for two large, open ended topics. Readers are invited to contribute their ideas relevant to the sections, and to edit the ideas of others. Keep in mind that various stakeholders have differing opinions of appropriate goals for informal and formal education, and they have differing opinions on how to achieve these goals. Please be respectful of diversity in opinions and thinking.
[edit] Ways to Improve Education with Current Resources
Each person reading this document likely has their own opinions on this question. However, rather than just sharing opinions, let's try to share solid evidence to back up the opinions.
Improvement can be at the level of an individual student, a group of students such as a cohort or a class, a grade level, a school, a college, a school district, a state, a nation, or the world.
Focus on what individual members of the various stakeholder groups, as well as the collective membership of a stakeholder group, can be doing.
For example, Seymour Sarason is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Yale University. He is the author of over forty books and is considered to be one of the world's most significant researchers in education and educational psychology. He believes that education can be substantially improved by giving more power to students and their teachers.
Some ideas on this approach are presented on the IAE-pedia article Empowering Learners and Teachers.
[edit] Ways to Improve Education with Significant New Resources
The Head Start program has been designed to improve the early childhood education of children growing up in poverty. There has been substantial very long term research on the effectiveness (or, lack there of) of this program. Thus, a careful analysis of this research, separating out what works well from what doesn't, would be appropriate content for this section. Current levels of federal funding for this program are insufficient to meet the needs of eligible candidates for participation. Thus, one can argue that improvements in how the funds are used and improvements in funding levels would substantially improve education in the United States.
[edit] References
Baigorri, Manuel (7/8/08). Wave of the future: Navy stokes students' interest in math, engineering study. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7/10/09: http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=83335c581d66407cb3a60d5bc286f778&siteid=nwtpf&sguid=DbwxsyMvBEWXLqX7F-4--Q.
Bloom, B.S. (1984). The 2 Sigma problem: The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational Researcher. v13, n6, pp4-16.
Mellon, Erika (12/7/07). Gates funding gives boost to HISD program. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 12/9/07: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5359262.html. Quoting from the newspaper article:
- The Houston school district's push to grade teachers on their students' progress got a $4.5 million boost Thursday from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
- The grant, the second multimillion-dollar award the district has received for this effort in recent months, will help fuel what school and foundation leaders call a major reform plan to improve teaching and ensure that all students are prepared for college.
- "This project is about helping teachers help kids perform at their highest rates," said Steven Seleznow, an education director for the Seattle-based foundation started by the Microsoft Corp. chairman and his wife.
Comment by David Moursund: Teacher evaluation is an ordinary part of the functioning of our educational systems. However, it remains controversial (especially at the precollege level) to base pay increases of bonuses on such evaluations. (In higher education, many colleges and universities select outstanding teachers and give them appropriate awards and rewards.)
At the precollege education level, there is an increasing amount of data being collected on student performance. In terms of incremental improvement over a period of time, it is clear that teachers make a difference. The Houston project is attempting to develop instrumentation that is fair, valid, and reliable in measuring the contribution that teachers make to her the academic learning of their students.
See also: Battelle for Kids. This is a non-profit company studying issues of "Value Added" in educational setting.
See also Dr. William L. Sanders. He is Director of the Value-Added Research and Assessment Center at the University of Tennessee.
Science education standards in Asian countries.
Math education standards in Asian countries.
Adequacy, and Equity in Education Technology.
[edit] Author or Authors
The initial version of this article was written by Dave Moursund.
