Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Freak info you should know
Which of these statements is true?
- The more highly educated the parents, the higher the kid’s standardized test scores.
- The more wealthy the parents, the highest the kid scores.
- The child of a woman who was 30 or older when the child was born tends to have higher scores.
- Children with low birth weight tend to have lower scores.
- Children score higher if their families speak English at home.
- An adopted child tends to score lower.
- PTA parents see their kids score higher.
- High scoring kids tend to have lots of books at home.
- An intact family with two parents has no impact on test scores.
- A stay at home mom from birth to kindergarten has no impact on scores.
- Attending Head Start has no impact on scores.
- Frequent museum trips have no impact on scores.
- Watching lots of television has no impact on scores.
- Spanking or not spanking has no impact on scores.
- Reading to a child every day has no impact on scores.
According to the popular new book, Freakonomics by economist Steven Levitt and writer Stephen Dubner, all of these statements are true. These are conclusions they drew from reviewing a giant collection of data called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study undertaken by the U.S. Department of Education.
Freakonomics doesn’t sound like a parenting book, but it is. Two chapters are focused on parenting and one on teachers. Parents should read it.
All the test score arguments are debatable. The data set they studied is certainly large, but the conclusions still are based on just the one study. Even so, some of the conclusions may make you re-think some of your parenting conventional wisdom.
Just looking at that list screams one lesson to me loudly and clearly — you can’t put too much stock in test scores. Test scores tell us who the kids are as much as what they know and can do. The book says as much. And the scores aren’t great indicators of success in life. Lots of kids from good homes meet failure in life. And a poor kid or adopted kid can surely succeed.
Even so, the authors have important information for parents to think about.
Consider this — which is more dangerous, to let you child go over to play with a friend who’s parents own a gun or a friend who’s parents own a swimming pool?
Levitt and Dubner say it’s the swimming pool by a long shot.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By Chris
September 7, 2005 11:43 PM | Link to this
Scott - the tangible benefits mentioned in the review (I have not read the book) were not always about test scores. Some were more positive feelings about school and teachers that might lead to better scores or at least better attendance. Basically, people feel better about their schools where vouchers are used and this leads to better feelings about education in general (yuck - feelings!)By Scott E
September 6, 2005 12:53 AM | Link to this
Chris: I haven’t read Jay Greene’s book but I can tell you the research on vouchers is very much split. The best study I know, by John Witte of Milwaukee’s voucher system, showed vouchers students scored about the same as non-voucher kids in public school there. And there certainly are studies showing small class sizes raise test scores. Perhaps Greene simply disagrees with them. ScottBy Chris
September 5, 2005 11:35 PM | Link to this
Another book that I read a review of might have relevance to this same subject - namely education myths. The book is “Education Myths” by Jay Greene and the review was by Maggie Gallagher. Myths she mentioned from the book are “Teachers are underpaid” (the $30.75/hour average salary compared well with other professions), “Schools are underfunded” (school funding has increased by every measure for decades), “Smaller class sizes are better” (No study shows this is true), and “Vouchers are bad for education” (Every study shows tangible benefits from vouchers). Many of these “facts” are merely propoganda from the Teachers Union. School boards and administrators are reluctant to counter the union as that could open them to criticism of their own bloated infrastructure.By wally
August 31, 2005 2:24 PM | Link to this
“Test scores tell you one thing and only one thing: How much money the parents make.” This is just plain silly. I had great test scores coming from a lower middle class family. Test scores are a predictor. If you take SAT/ACT scores, you will some people who did relatively poorly on the test but very well in school, and some who did very well on the test but relatively poorly in school. However, I am convinced that you will find that if you divide the test scores into groups (for example, those in the 90-100 percentile, 80-90 percentile, 70-80 percentile, etc.) you will find that the higher the percentile the higher the average grade point and the higher virtually every other indicator of “success”. There will be exceptions, but ON AVERAGE the higher the test score the better the performance in whatever the test was supposed to evaluate.By Lea
August 30, 2005 11:05 AM | Link to this
Naw, some parents have jobs and still don’t take care of their kids, and some parents get laid off and are desperately trying to find a job. It’s more like, identify the “baby factories” and take care of them. If a parent takes care of their kids, no matter how many they have, kudos to them, because taking care of a child is much more than food, clothing and a roof over their head!By Chris
August 30, 2005 6:44 AM | Link to this
Even better idea; If parents don’t have a job, take their kids and sterilize the parents. We pay too much money for these baby factories anyway.By Doug
August 29, 2005 8:53 PM | Link to this
I loved reading Frekonomics. I was very interested in this list. We know a parent’s education and wealth can lead to a child’s achievement. But I guess we can let our kids watch go ahead and watch tv. But let’s cut head start and put the money into adult education for the moms and dads mired in poverty.By Cheryl
August 29, 2005 12:25 AM | Link to this
Test scores tell you one thing and only one thing: How much money the parents make.