All children are above average

Joseph Ganem, "The Common Core can't speed up child development"

Recent evaluations of the state's preschoolers have determined that only 47 percent are ready for kindergarten, compared to 83 percent judged ready last year. This drastic drop isn't the result of an abrupt, catastrophic decline in the cognitive abilities of our children. Instead it results from a re-definition of kindergarten readiness, which now means being able to succeed academically at a level far beyond anything expected in the past. For example, a child entering kindergarten is now expected to know the difference between informative/explanatory writing and opinion writing. The concern is that preschoolers without that knowledge will not succeed at meeting the new higher-level Common-Core standards. However, I think a more pressing concern is: Why do we have educational standards that are not aligned with even the most basic facts of human development? Clearly these test results show that the problem is with the standards, not the children.

 The people who wrote these standards, and think they're appropriate are nuts.

Maybe...stop treating men like predators - Updated with 2013

(This post updated with 2013 numbers--also from the Census. - 3/21/2015)

Via Meadia

Colleges are facing a problem they haven’t faced in nearly a decade: declining enrollment. New Census Bureau data reports that college enrollment dropped by about a half-million last year for the first time since 2006. Some of this may simply be a result of students who went to school in the late 2000s to avoid the recession finally graduating.

But college administrators are clearly worried that this may be the sign of a long-term trend. A recent survey of industry leaders found that over one-third are now concerned that they won’t be able to keep enrollments steady with tuition prices where they are now...

Mead didn't run the numbers, I did. The entire decline in enrollment can be attributed--almost perfectly--by the change in the number of men and women attending college.

Male enrollment 2011 = 9,123,000
Male enrollment 2012 = 8,602,000
Change = -521,000 / -5.7%

Female enrollment 2011 = 11,256,000
Female enrollment 2012 = 11,327,000
Change = +71,000 / +0.6%

Since overall college enrollment declined by 449,000; all but 1,000 of it can be attributed to the decline in men's enrollment.

(links for data from this page: http://www.census.gov/newsroom... )

A decline of over 5% of male enrollment should set off alarm bells, and would if the genders were reversed. The stories of schools treating men like predators abound, with men treated as guilty and needing to prove their innocence instead of the other way around. Perhaps men are getting the message that college is enemy territory and not for them.

Colleges should wake up and not turn away this cohort with their discriminatory anti-male policies.

------------

Update:

Some changes once 2013 is added. The men held fairly steady, but the women tanked. They went from 11.3 million to 10.9 million from 2012-2013:

Male enrollment 2011 = 9,123,000
Male enrollment 2012 = 8,602,000
Male enrollment 2013 = 8,536,000
Change 2011-2012 = -521,000 / -5.7%
Change 2012-2013 = -66,000 / -0.8%
Change 2011-2013 = -587,000 / -6.4%

Female enrollment 2011 = 11,256,000
Female enrollment 2012 = 11,327,000
Female enrollment 2013 = 10,931,000
Change 2011-2012 = +71,000 / +0.6%
Change 2012-2013 = -396,000 / -3.4%
Change 2011-2013 = -325,000/ -2.9%

Difference between men and women, 2013:  2,395,000 more women than men, or 28% more women.

The Banality of Deeper Learning

Quotes from:  The Banality of Deeper Learning | Brookings Institution

Teachers have been taught not to teach actual information, but to try to get kids to learn how to learn--like that isn't innate. A simplistic version of teachers' thinking is that with all the information in the world at their fingertips, all kids really need to know is how to Google.

However, most parents aren't fooled; some can afford remediation, some can't (from "Banality"):

The premise is simple.  If public schools don’t teach algebra or chemistry or history or great literature or how to write well—the old-fashioned learning that has been around for centuries and remains high status knowledge in most cultures—rich kids will get it somewhere else.  Poor kids won’t.

From the same "Banality" article:

The first graders were being taught addition of two-digit and one-digit numbers using word problems. [...] Three acceptable strategies were shown for solving the problem.  All involved “chunking” the numbers into groups (in the case of fifteen, three groups of five or one group of ten and another group of five), with each group presented in a circle or box.  The groups are then added together.  The addition must be shown graphically.

One unacceptable strategy was also shown:[...] Please do not have your child stack numbers [traditional algorithm]. 

[One kid's parents] were alarmed that the standard algorithm for addition was being discouraged, let alone not being taught as the simplest, most efficient method for solving addition problems. [...]

A compromise was struck [with the school].  Solutions using standard algorithms would not be marked wrong, the parents were told, but their son would be required to “illustrate his understanding” through graphical representations of math problems.  In his blog, [the parent] includes a worksheet that shows the laborious process his son went through, drawing with the uncertain strokes and still developing fine motor skills of a first grader, to prove that three tens make a total of thirty and three fifteens make a total of forty-five. 

This is another reason why boys tend to lag girls right from the start. In general, girls' fine motor skills develop before those of boys. Boys have more trouble sitting for laborious tasks, have poorer pencil control, and report more hand pain than girls (see Ralph Fletcher's "Boy Writers"). 

 In the case of the particular child discussed above:

The [parents] observed several classrooms using CGI for math instruction at the school.   They eventually withdrew their children and sent them to private school.

Which goes back to the first point: parents with options, who are generally wealthier than those without options, will exercise them, leaving poorer kids stuck and left behind.

Math inequality

This is about twice as long as it needed to be, but it's worth watching:

From Mark Perry at Carpe Diem, why do boys outscore girls on the math SAT?



(cross-posted on Saltzafrazz)

No irony here

In a story about a college kid forming a men's group on campus:

[ Chicago Tribune ] Jessica Pan, president of Women in Business and a fourth-year student, questioned whether Men in Power's goals were being met by existing student groups.

"I'm not sure we really need another student organization that focuses on pre-professional development for men," Pan said, noting that, in just the area of business, there were five or six students groups that were gender-neutral.

Women in Business: You go girl!!!
Men in Power: Horror!!!

Boy readers. And Percy Jackson

Tech Central Station, which I suppose changed it silly name to the initials TCS a while back (not much of an improvement) reports on boys' reading problems and the fact that they have been scoring substantially below girls on standardized tests for 30 years:

[ TCS ] The good news is that reading scores for 9 and 13-year-olds are the highest ever according to results released this week from the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The bad news is that boys trail girls in reading performance at all age levels. The gap at age 9 is 8 points, at age 13 is 8 points, and at age 17 is 11 points. This is not a new trend—boys have been scoring lower than girls on U.S. Department of Education reading tests for more than 30 years.

The reading gender gap spans every racial and ethnic group, and categorically finds boys underperforming girls regardless of income, disability, or English-speaking ability.

The article talks about one way to change this:

One of the best ways to get boys reading is to offer them reading material that motivates them to want to read. Boys enjoy reading: nonfiction; stories with action and adventure; stories with male protagonists; and a wide variety of reading materials, including books, magazines, newspapers, how-to manuals, Web sites, comic books, and graphic novels.

Many teachers do not offer boy-friendly reading material because they view it as substandard. They believe it's better to require boys to read books that meet high literary standards, even if boys find those books unappealing. The fallacy of this line of reasoning lies in the results:many boys are poor readers.

The consequences of creating future generations of boys who hate to read are far worse than the consequences of succumbing to the natural reading interests of boys. The first priority should be to get boys excited about reading so they will become lifelong readers. Broadening their literary palates comes second.

I've been reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books lately (Lightning Thief, Sea of Monsters, Titan's Curse, Battle of the Labyrinth, and yesterday's release of The Last Olympian.) They are very, very boy friendly. It's all about being a hero (literally), being there to fight beside your friends, fighting the good fight, etc.

I actually had a strange reaction to one thing in the books. The stories revolve around a group of "half-bloods", or in mythological terms: demigods. Kids with one normal, mortal parent, and one god parent...as in Olympian gods, like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, and etc. The kids are unabashedly referred to as "heroes" throughout the books. Just being a demigod means that it is their place in life to fight monsters and help their god-parents, making them naturally-born heroes.

But I've lived in a post-modern and liberal world all of my life. My high school, college, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, all of it was on the cultural and political left. I think I've been so ingrained against the idea of anyone ever being an unapologetic "hero" that my mind actually skips a step when I see the kids in the books being referred to that way. It's really a sad commentary, I think, that we can no longer simply accept the heroic without qualifying it and without suspicion.

In the end, Percy Jackson proves himself to be a true hero, and even the greatest hero of all the Greek myths. Nearly every feat of every hero from antiquity was thrown at him, and he survived "against all odds." But it is not only his fighting ability that makes him a hero, but two choices he makes in particular (neither is the one from the Great Prophesy.)

Choice #1: I've always felt one of the most powerful stories in Greek mythology was that of Odysseus and Calypso. If you don't remember: Odysseus washes up on Calypso's island. She's beautiful, she's perfect, the island is perfect and peaceful, he could be immortal on the island with her, no more war, no more odyssying around the Med for 10 years. But it isn't enough. He can't stay because he is human. He must strive and struggle and fight if he is to remain human and to remain Odysseus. So, he leaves her and the perfect life behind. In the words of Tennyson:

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little

In the books Percy is placed exactly in Odysseus's place. He has the same choice to make, and makes the same one. There is a war going on in the outside world, he won't leave his friends to fight it without him, and he certainly won't leave the girl he cares about out there without him.

Choice #2: (Spoiler Alert!!) The gods, in the end offer to grant Percy one wish. Greek Mythology is filled with heroes acting selfishly, and the point is made again and again in the books that heroes are selfish and not to be trusted in the end. Almost every old hero is held up as wanting from Orpheus to Hercules. But again, Percy passes the test. When he is offered anything, he chooses to use his wish to help others...pretty much stunning the gods by doing that. But he's a complete hero, a superior fighter as well as a friend and honorable young man.

One of the kids we carpool with is a 9.75 year old boy, and he has been reading these as well and loves them. I've given copies to my niece's classroom as well. They are really great boy books. Full of heroism and sacrifice and standing firm against the odds.

I highly recommend them to anyone.

Wait a minute...Reverse that...Thank you.

Because we have a 3rd grade girl, we know, roughly, where our 1st grade boy should be academically. A few months ago, we looked at the school work that he was bringing home and were disappointed.

Much of it was not done. Often what was done was wrong. When things were done wrong, there was no attempt by the teachers to offer instruction or correction.

In short, the work, particularly in writing, was shoddy.

So, my sister asked for a conference. The teacher was able to show her enough other work to satisfy us that he was doing better than the things he brought home led us to believe.

Still, my sister stated her worry that his writing wasn't as good as it should be, and wasn't anywhere near where his sister was at a comparable time.

At that point the teacher said: "Well, he's a boy, and boys aren't as good at writing."

At that point, my sister's jaw just about hit the floor.

Image a teacher saying this: "Well, she's a girl, and girls aren't as good at math."

It would never happen. NEVER. But a first grade teacher with a masters in education spewed the opposite at us.

This is what boys are up against. Expectations that they can't be expected to be as good as girls, a lack of interest in getting them to be as good as girls, and an acceptance of their second class status in the classroom.

No wonder boys are doing so very badly; this stuff starts as soon as they pick up a pencil.

Why "boys being boys" is so damaging

This recession is pummeling undereducated men more than any other group. The unemployment rate for people without a high school diploma stands at about 12%, the rate for people with a college degree is about 4%. When you seasonally adjust the numbers, the no-high school unemployment rate tops 14%

A hugely-disproportionate number of undereducated people are men.

Here's a great post on Carpe Diem with the data.

Bottom Line: Women (men) are getting an increasing (decreasing) share of college degrees, and the gap between jobless rates for college grads vs. workers without a high school degree has been widening for the last year. Those two trends could help explain why: a) 82% of the job losses over the last year have been jobs held by males, and b) the gap between the male jobless rate (8.3%) and female jobless rate (6.7%) widened to 1.6% in January, the largest male-female jobless rate gap in BLS history (back to 1948).

I would add a note to say that illegal immigrants compete against this same undereducated demographic more than any other. So, not only are the uneducated losing out in a complex world, they are also getting hit by having more competition for jobs and lower wages because illegals act as "scabs" undercutting wages of legal workers.

Gender gap

Every time a president is elected who has young children, the big question is: will they send them to the DC public schools? or will they do what every other president has always done and sent them to private school.

I've long thought there was an easy solution to that question. Send the kids to public school...but do it from Camp David. There in rural Maryland is a nice safe family-friendly place to keep your kids--away from the madness of Washington, and within a couple of miles from very fine public schools.

So, I went looking for what the schools are like in that part of Maryland, and I discovered that Maryland very helpfully breaks down their student test scores by gender. The gaps between boys and girls are pretty stark--in both math and reading. (Click on the Male and Female boxes on the right to break it down by gender.)

Here are the results. The numbers are the percentage of kids testing at "proficient" or "advanced"--in other words at grade level or above:

Grade 3:  Math      Reading
Boys..... 81.9      79.7
Girls.... 83.4      86.5
Gap......  1.5       6.8

Grade 4:  Math      Reading
Boys..... 87.6      86.0
Girls.... 89.6      91.0
Gap......  2.5       5.0

Grade 5:  Math      Reading   Science
Boys..... 79.5      84.2       64.6
Girls.... 81.6      89.3       63.2
Gap......  2.1       5.1       -1.4

Grade 6:  Math      Reading   
Boys..... 73.7      78.4           
Girls.... 78.0      85.4           
Gap......  4.3       6.0

Grade 7:  Math      Reading   
Boys..... 65.7      77.1           
Girls.... 70.9      85.5           
Gap......  5.2       8.4

Grade 8:  Math      Reading   Science
Boys..... 59.8      68.4       61.5
Girls.... 64.0      77.6       61.4
Gap......  4.2       9.2       -0.1

So, by the time kids get to high school, there are about 32 boys to every 22 girls below grade level in reading.

Though the state breaks down the pass-rates by ethnicity for the high school level, it does not break it down by gender. So, a similar chart can't be made for the upper grades.