Inverting Risk: misdescription for the sake of punditry.

The children involved with the Atlanta schools cheating scandal are “the victims of … massive fraud, the helpless pawns of adults who callously overlooked the needs of their charges and focused on preserving their careers.” -- C. Tucker, 4/10/13 Phila Inquirer, A18

Punditry tempts one to great (see) moral hazard. Once you have a newspaper column that guarantees an audience, you can, if you wish, sacrifice fact and logic for the sake of seducing sympathy for your latest enthusiasm. (Besides, getting to ride the high horse of moral superiority is so delightful!)

First, let’s give but short shrift to the likely false assumptions in Tucker’s diatribe:

a. Did any students or their parents, relatives etc. protest against the high scores announced before the “scandal” broke? (Not likely.)

b. Did the adults involved, i.e. school staff, “callously overlook the needs of their charges? (More likely they did so with trepidation and feelings of guilt. Educators are, to my taste, entirely too sensitive to what kids and their parents claim to want or need.)

c. Which “needs” is Tucker talking about? Is there much agreement as to what they are and which among them takes priority? (Disregarding slogans for the consumption of the ill-informed, the answer is NO. See The Need for and Possibilities of Educational Reform)

d. And, horrors! What kind of adults might overlook the “needs” of others (children included) and focus on preserving their careers? Not just teachers and principals and school superintendents; but, also, presidents, popes, preachers, corporate CEO’s, as well as you, me, members of Congress, definitely, and even pundits! (But see The Mea Culpa Culture in Public Education.)

Now that we are fatigued from wagging our fingers, let’s consider a deeper issue: the degradation of our natural sense of logic and experience by the persistent hammering in of emotional confusions.

By the time a normal child is ten years old, he or she has learned through experience the following three rules for survival:

Rule 1: A sure bet is definitely not the same as a distant possibility;

Rule 2: Sure bets are lower, much lower, risks than distant possibilities; from which follows

Rule 3: Avoid betting things you value on distant possibilities, unless the payoffs are proportionately (inversely) unequal, i.e. massive payoffs may be worth an increased risk, even though small or equal ones are not.

As the headmaster of a private, academic school, grades seven through twelve, I attempted to solicit financial support for our programs from corporations around the Philadelphia area. I was never successful in the face of the reasons given by almost every one of those who refused: “High school kids are too distant a prospect for us to bet on. Too much can happen before they get to us. We only contribute to programs for upper-class students in college, because we’ll see them presently.”

No dummies, they! They have retained their childhood knowledge of Rules 1-3 given above. They put their money on the surer bet.

But, in this cruel world we live in, who in their right mind -- unless well-endowed (or a hopelessly optimistic educator) -- makes a bet on the future prospects of a school kid at the much surer risk of destroying their career? That is, discarding a career they have poured much time, sweat and money into, along with the pension they cannot recover through new employment? Tucker seems to think this would have been the reasonable option for the educators involved.

“Reasonable” for educators, but not a newspaper columnist, I am sure.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Illogic and Dissimulation in School Reform


Cordially
--- EGR

Cheating & Plagiarism: Rational? Often So! Immoral? Maybe not.

"The rational incentives to cheat for college students have grown dramatically, even as the strength of character needed to resist those temptations has weakened somewhat,"
--.David Callahan, author of "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead" (Harcourt, 2004)

Holy Hypocrites, Batman! Who with any knowledge of history can delude themselves believing that strength of character in this Land of the Free and Home of the Brave has weakened somewhat over the years since our Founding Fathers ….blah, blah, etc.

Strength of character, if it means doing what is morally right at the cost of ignoring what is expedient, has always been rare. The extirpation of Indian nations, slavery and Jim Crow proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I’m not sure what it is in the education of teachers that develops such strong feelings against cheating and plagiarism since:

a. so many of them did it themselves in college*; and
b. they have been for so long blind to bullying, both physical and mental; and
c. they go along with the stupidest “educational innovations” with seldom a peep of protest; and
d. they set up or support the “rational incentives” that present their own students with the choice of either being stupid or being “of low character.”

It was Aristotle, I believe, who suggested that justice for a group was achieved when the ends of the group and the ends of the individuals in it were compatible.

Justice is rare, especially in schools.

To examine these issues further, see Conjecture Pollution: Poisoning Educational Practice

Cordially
--- EGR

* On the other hand, the low college GPA for education majors may indicate that, compared to the rest of the student body, they are less likely to cheat. Whether this is from fear of being caught, or "strength of character," I don't know.

Gaming the System: a Great Tradition Continues!

As I’m sure you know, even the hint of testing irregularities and misconduct in the test administration process could call into question school reform efforts and undermine the State accountability systems that you have painstakingly built over the past decade. --- Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education June 24, 2011, Policy Letter

Forty years ago, during the 1970’s, the Great Panacea for the ills of American public schools was “performance contracting.” Adventurers of all kinds, as long as they called themselves “entrepreneurs” and not “educators,” were invited by celebrities of various stripes, our “social and moral leaders,” to step into the public schools and mess with the kids in the name of educational reform.

And so they descended, with assorted gimcracks and geegaws (careful always to call them “curricular innovations” or “new programs”). If they could show improvements, they got paid. Their trick was to show results, take the money and run, before those results could be examined carefully to see if they were real improvements or not.

You can judge the success of these pioneer reformers by the fact that “ A Nation at Risk” was published in 1986 shrieking that American education was a disaster, a kind of “unilateral disarmament.” And only a few years later America 2000 was published with it own jumblebag of cures for ailing public schools.

Today, school people, parents and children continue to struggle with No Child Left Behind. Near magical results have been announced from this program. But there have been misgivings. Michelle Rhee’s contributions to the building of the American Intellect have come under suspicion. (See When standardized test scores soared in D.C., were the gains real?)

In Georgia, investigators are looking into the possibility of criminal behavior involving falsifying school testing. (See In Georgia, test-answer erasures triggered criminal probe)

It seems that some school administrators and teachers, rather than sit passively by and be fired because they can’t weave straw into gold, have gone so far as to doctor test results, to monkey with evaluation procedures. Imagine that. Such effrontery! Do they think they are Wall Street investment counselors? Do they imagine they are producing drugs to be reviewed by the FDA? Are they trying to avoid the costs of anti-pollution equipment?

Poor babies! Some such educators will likely confess, with a heavy heart, to having resorted to such underhandedness. (See The “Mea Culpa” Culture in Public Education) But why don’t they just take hint from college students they once upon a time gave inflated grades to: cheer up! You do what you have to to stay in the game. We understand. It’s just good business sense. It’s leadership for survival.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Contracting a Real Performance


Cordially
--- EGR

Testing Fraud in School?!!! Is It Even Imaginable?!!!

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. -- Thumper’s Mommy

I won’t mention any names or locations, lest enthusiastic casino owners with enthusiastic hair-dos label me a terrorist, but I read recently in my local papers that accusations have been tendered that standard test results in a local school district have been “adjusted” to raise the averages.

Of course, school officials deny any such manipulations, invoking Brotherly Love to attest to their righteousness. That doesn’t impress me, you see, since I, personally, witnessed, on several occasions during my career in that school district, the “reconfiguration” of data to avoid “negative interpretation” by “outsiders.”

More than one principal has recounted to me how their appointments and promotions were contingent upon “re-evaluations” that satisfied their superiors. Teachers, too, told how they were instructed to fill blackboards with test-relevant information in the very rooms where standardized tests were given.

But, of course, I and my confreres might have been mistaken: it’s hard to keep your head clear when alarms go off at random during the school day and fluorescent bulbs buzz, blink and wriggle incessantly, year in, year out.


If you wish to pursue these delusions further, see CONTRACTING A REAL PERFORMANCE


Cordially
--- EGR

The Dangers of Diplomas

updated 4/11/19

If you ask adults going for a degree the question, “Why are you going to school?” they tend to respond in these ways:

1. In order to make more money;
2. In order to raise my station in life, that is, gain respect;
3. In order to speak with authority, that is, more easily persuade others to accept what I say;
4. to learn more about things I am interested in;
5. to improve my character or acquire wisdom.

Educational institutions of all kinds focus their advertising on such goals, emphasizing them in the order given above, particularly items 1, 2 and 3. Items 4 and 5 are left for faculty, counselors and late-night campus bull sessions to address informally, if someone appears to be receptive to them.

But although recruiting advertisements proclaim there is a correlation between higher degrees and life-time income increases (With which degree? In which field?) events have shown that for the randomly selected graduate student (you, me or our friends) the link between degree and well-paying job is tenuous.

I began taking graduate courses because, as a public school teacher, state and school district requirements mandated that I take courses to maintain my licensure. Contract incentives moved me to enter a Master’s degree program. It took me more years to make back the money I spent on tuition than I received by my salary increase for the higher degree.

However I did learn some interesting things and meet some interesting people as I worked at the university, but mostly, by luck: by just being around when things came up. That meant I had to spend substantial time away from my family to take advantage of such opportunities. The short-term tradeoff was not encouraging. Long term advantages were post-schooling circumstances: things happened.

Two not uncommon results of acquiring higher degrees are

a. overblown self-esteem, a pride that outstrips capability, even in one’s speciality (the The Curse of Knowledge vs The Dunning-Kruger Effect) and
b. a sense of entitlement based solely on possessing the sheepskin.

Everyone vaguely associated with a college or university knows some pompous twit with a doctorate who constantly complains about being underpaid. But there are corporations that will not hire from certain highly reputed business schools because “all their graduates really know how to do is expect a beginning six-figure salary.” (People in basic education can look forward to the likelihood that wherever they are hired, a large number of people will treat them as overpaid ignoramuses.)

If you have acquired a higher degree, ask yourself, “Did it make a difference in who you are? Can you honestly say you’re a better person for it? Or did you just learn to keep your opinions to yourself unless you could flatter someone higher up on the food-chain with them?”

There is a bizarre correlation to consider: cheating and plagiarism in high schools and colleges are reputed to be at an all-time high. So are applications for admission to all kinds of higher education. Has someone found the real road to success?


To examine these issues further, see KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD: some misgivings


Cordially
--- EGR

Dishonor Awards: a national society expands accessibility

Three juniors in a local high school were found to have downloaded substantial parts of papers for two different classes and submitted them without citation. When the teachers brought this to the attention of the academic dean, she punished them by giving them detentions, which they accepted without protest. The matter was then dropped. One of the three students was her daughter.

The sponsor of the school chapter of the National High School Honor Society removed the plagiarists' names from the list of nominees for induction. Their parents complained and hired a lawyer who informed the School Board that the criteria for plagiarism were so vague as to make them vulnerable to lawsuit. Exhibiting the courage of capon, steer or gelding the Board caved in and directed the sponsor to submit the students' names for induction.

Those of us who in our own time were inducted into the National High School Honor Society can no doubt be proud that we now belong to the National High School Plagiarism Society.

To examine these issues further, see Conjecture Pollution: Poisoning Educational Practice


Cordially

--- EGR