Wrong again

COOK: What are you looking into now? Where do you see the field going in the future?

PENNEBAKER: One of the most fascinating effects I’ve seen in quite awhile is that we can predict people’s college performance reasonably well by simply analyzing their college admissions essays. Across four years, we analyzed the admissions essays of 25,000 students and then tracked their grade point averages (GPAs). Higher GPAs were associated with admission essays that used high rates of nouns and low rates of verbs and pronouns. The effects were surprisingly strong and lasted across all years of college, no matter what the students’ major.

To me, the use of nouns -- especially concrete nouns -- reflects people’s attempts to categorize and name objects, events, and ideas in their worlds. The use of verbs and pronouns typically occur when people tell stories. Universities clearly reward categorizers rather than story tellers. If true, can we train young students to categorize more? Alternatively, are we relying too much on categorization strategies in American education?

The Secret Language Code
Psychologist James Pennebaker reveals the hidden meaning of pronouns
By Gareth Cook

Number one: most college applicants seem to write personal narratives. As far as I can tell.

Number two: most college composition textbooks applaud the use of verbs, caution against overuse of nouns, and condemn nominalization (non-nouns turned into nouns) with zeal.

The world is topsy-turvy.

Onward and upward

Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system.

The number of kids behind the 8-ball is the highest in years, CBS2′s Marcia Kramer reported Thursday.

Officials: Most NYC High School Grads Need Remedial Help Before Entering CUNY Community Colleges | Basic Skills Like Reading, Writing And Math Need To Be Re-Learned | March 7, 2013 10:55 PM

Core-Plus Students at Michigan State

In summary, our data show a clear decline in the level of Michigan State University mathematics courses taken by Core-Plus graduates. The existence of that decline is statistically significant at any reasonable level. The decline in course level is accompanied by a decline in average grades for all but the very top students, as well as a decline in the percentages of those who eventually passed a technical calculus course. These trends occur in data that include students from a variety of communities. The data from individual high schools show that the timing of these declines corresponds precisely to the implementation of the Core-Plus program.
A Study of Core-Plus Students Attending Michigan State UniversityRichard O. Hill and Thomas H. Parker Thomas Parker

global shmobal

Still trying to persuade my district to adopt college readiness as a goal.

A couple of years ago, when our then-superintendent was writing her second Strategic Plan, I lobbied the administration to include the words "college preparation" on the Plan. No dice.

Our high school's publicly stated philosophy: "It's better to be happy than to get into a selective college." When I say "publicly stated," I mean publicly stated: the high school principal says these words publicly. It's more important to be happy than to get into a selective college. Last spring, one of the two candidates for school board - the candidate we did not support - quoted the h.s. principal at the candidates' forum. The candidate said he'd spoken to the principal of the high school, and the principal had told him it's more important for students to be happy than to get into a good college "no matter how much parents obsess over it."

He won in a landslide.

Westchester school districts aren't too interested in college readiness, and there's no pressure on them to change.

'Writing, writing, writing' - a skill lacking among too many college graduates

Jeff Selingo wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about what he learned from employers who are having a difficult time finding qualified employees to hire among recent college graduates.  This was just one problem he found.

Writing, writing, writing. We keep throwing around the word “skills,” but it seems the one skill that almost every job requires is the ability to write well, and too many graduates are lacking in that area. That’s where many of the recruiters were quick to let colleges off the hook, for the most part. Students are supposed to learn to write in elementary and secondary school. They’re not forgetting how to write in college. It’s clear they’re not learning basic grammar, usage, and style in K-12.

Why are students not learning to write before they get to college?  Maybe a different type of writing instruction is needed?

Related:  The Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’

(Cross-posted at Cost of College)

Education Quick Takes on College Board reading list

books AP students read

A view from computer science college professors

I hear from a friend who teaches college computer science that many CS educators agree on the following:

1. There is too much emphasis on calculus, and more focus should be placed on discrete mathematics (graph theory, logic, automata theory, etc) and statistics.
2. K-12 education places too much emphasis on memorization at the expense of conceptual understanding.  This leaves college students ill-prepared for their computer science course work.

Interesting.

Cross posted at Education Quick Takes

what do parents think?

This is interesting:

Overwhelming numbers of the public link job opportunities and economic success to education preparation, but almost one-half of parents believe today's graduates are less prepared for work or college than they were.
2010 survey - PDK (pdf file)

Wow.

I would have predicted that the general public feels this way but not necessarily parents specifically.

I wonder if a majority of parents say students in their local schools are better prepared than students coming out of other schools --- ?

Bostonian on college readiness & state tests

"College readiness" is not a binary but a continuous measure, as Pondiscio says. Why doesn't New York state have all high school students take the SAT I (reasoning) and three SAT II (subject) tests, report the results on transcripts (including percentile equivalents), and let students, parents, employers, and colleges use the results as they see fit?

State universities should create online calculators predicting a student's chance of graduating based on his SAT scores and high school grades, based on their experience with past students, so that potential students can make informed decisions before enrolling in college.

Robert Pondiscio on college readiness

at the Irvington Parents Forum:

It seems to me that there is an obvious and probably unresolvable tension at work here.  Tie a high school diploma to a high and meaningful standard and you will have boxcar numbers of children who will not measure up now or in the foreseeable future.  Keep it low and you're essentially misleading a similar number to believe they have achieved a level of preparedness they have not.  Advocate for a two-tier system, and you risk (as others have noted) a return to the bad old days.

At present, "college ready" is little more than a bumper sticker.  The fact that only one in four kids (as based on the most recent ACT results) are prepared to do c-level college work in all tested subjects is ample proof that it's not an operative goal for high schools anywhere.  Given the range of colleges, it's a slippery concept.  Harvard ready is not the same as Hostos ready.  The only possible solution of which I can conceive is for state assessments to give families meaningful feedback not on the equally ephemeral concept of "on grade level" but whether or not a child is on track for acceptance within that state's university system--and guarantee a seat if so.  New York can't say I'm Harvard material.  But they certainly should be able to say if I'm SUNY material.

Education: Preparing Americans

I'm concerned that WEAK Common Core Math Standards
(especially regarding "authentic" Algebra 2) will diminish our students' preparedness to achieve their personal goals.

Here's why..

Adelman, C. 1999. Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor's Degree Attainment.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

In the "selected findings" section, you'll find:
"Of all pre-college curricula, the highest level of mathematics one studies in secondary school has the strongest continuing influence on bachelor's degree completion. Finishing a course beyond the level of Algebra 2 (for example, trigonometry or pre-calculus) more than doubles the odds that a student who enters postsecondary education will complete a bachelor's degree"

The Toolbox Revisited "Reiterations" [p. 108]

First, there was a story about curriculum, the content of schooling, that was compelling in its secondary school dimensions in the original Tool Box, and is even more compelling now on both secondary and postsecondary stages. What you study, how much of it, how deeply, and how intensely has a great deal to do with degree completion.

Second, this curriculum story, joined by nuances of attendance patterns that turn out to have significant leverage, continues into higher education.

It’s not merely getting beyond Algebra 2 in high school any more: The world demands advanced quantitative literacy, and no matter what a student’s postsecondary field of study—from occupationally-oriented programs through traditional liberal arts— more than a ceremonial visit to college-level mathematics is called for.

The Toolbox Revisited: Paths to Degree Completion from High School Through College

Common Core Standards

The U. S. Coalition for World Class Math has posted their
comments on the Common Core Standards Initiative HERE

AP science & math

from Education Week:

Begun in the 1950s to let gifted students undertake college-level work in high school, AP courses, in Mr. Sadler’s words, have since become “the juggernaut of high school education.” Growing at a rate of 9.3 percent a year in the past two decades, enrollment in AP courses well outpaces the 1 percent yearly increase in the number of students graduating from high school, the book says.

[snip]

...some students elect to retake the AP course they took in high school by enrolling in an introductory-level course in the same subject in college.

In his study, Mr. Sadler and his research partner, Gerhard Sonnert, look more closely at the retakers in 55 randomly selected colleges across the country.

Their aim was to see whether students who took and passed high school AP courses had an edge over their college classmates in the same subject, after controlling for differences in students’ academic backgrounds or previous science coursework. (AP course-takers typically have more extensive science backgrounds and better grades than non-AP students.)

The answer, judging by the students’ grades in the introductory-level college classes, was yes. The former AP students didn’t ace the classes—their grades fell on average in the range of B to B-plus—but they did better in their chemistry, physics, and biology classes than peers without any AP experience.

That was not the case, though, for students who had previously failed an AP biology test; they fared no better in that subject in college.

Grade Bump

In another study featured in the book, Mr. Sadler also applies some systematic analysis to the GPA-boosting “bonus points” that high schools often assign to AP-course grades. College-admissions officers also use similar methods to add weight to AP-course grades when comparing students’ grades.

To find out if the extra points were warranted, Mr. Sadler asked college students in 113 introductory biology, physics, and chemistry courses about the level of high school science courses they had taken and the grades they received in them. He then compared the results with professors’ reports of their students’ grades in those introductory science classes.

Mr. Sadler found that students who took honors or AP courses in high school science added an average of 2.4 grade points, on a 100-point scale, to their college science grades for each additional level of rigor. Based on that calculation, he figures that students who take honors courses ought to receive an extra half-point on a grade-point-average scale of 1 to 4, while AP courses ought to be worth an extra point, and an extra 2 points if students pass the exam.

Book Trains Critical Eye on AP Program's Impact
By Debra Viadero
Published in Print: March 17, 2010, as Book Eyes Impact of AP Classes and Exams
Education Week

A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program
Edited by Philip M. Sadler, Gerhard Sonnert, Robert H. Tai, and Kristin Klopfenstein

momof4 on college planning

momof4 says...

I have always felt that the preparation for high school is too little and too late, both in terms of academics and of advance planning. Especially in a system where APs have prerequisites, kids and parents need to know that so they can plan coursework accordingly.

All of the schools my kids attended waited until 8th grade - usually spring -to address the HS plan. Parents need to know the critical nature of the usual sixth grade test, which determines who gets on the top math path, which will also determine eligibility for AP Physics BC (calculus is a co-requisite). There is just far too much mush and wasted time; kids without aware parents who are able to supplement are hosed before they hit 7th grade.

BTW, I've found it fairly common for a shared MS-HS campus, so taking some classes at the HS may be possible. Also community colleges, universitites etc - whatever is available.

The market steps in

As the parent of children in the public school system, I receive many solicitations for tutoring services. This pitch for a summer school session, in particular, caught my eye.

Math Facts Boot Camp
Pre-Algebra
Algebra I
Algebra II
Geometry
With the new emphasis on “real world” or “integrated” math, many educators agree that the skills that go into solving math problems, pure and simple, are being lost. Chyten’s math Facts Boot Camps are comprehensive and intensive courses in which the ability to solve equations is brought back to its rightful position, front and center in a student’s math mind.
Five 2-hour session

Although many of our government schools seem to be more focused on making sure students are “engaged” and “love learning” rather than on actually teaching vital skills and concepts, at least it’s reassuring to know that the private market has stepped in to help. Well, it can help those families that can afford to pay $550 [edited to correct price] for this “boot camp” class.

I notice that these boot camps are targeted to middle- and high-school students. For many, this is when the sh*t hits the fan, and parents may be ready to part with their hard earned money as they come to realize what vital skills their children have not yet learned (were not taught, perhaps?) in school.

http://www.chyten.com/ces/site/global/ads/summer_catalog_09.pdf

'switched on Mom' says they're rolling out initiatives down Montgomery County way

"Once a child is identified as being three years behind it shouldn't matter whether they are purple, from the planet Ork; they need placement that is appropriate to get them back on track. Anything less is just child abuse disguised as political correctness."

And yet where I live (Montgomery County, MD) the drive is precisely toward heterogeneous classrooms, and away from homogeneous grouping. They they are rolling out something called The Seven Keys to College Readiness. Benchmarks are being set that are unrealistic for some students, and too low for others. Advocates who call for more homogeneous grouping and a differentiated gifted curriculum are painted as elitists and even racists.

Elitists and racists, no doubt. Parents are stinkers.

Still and all, it could always be worse (and, if experience is a guide, it will be). At least the concept of college readiness has caught the attention of the folks running Montgomery schools.

Unlike here. The folks running my own district (per pupil spending: $26,718) will have no truck with college readiness.

Last fall I asked the administration to include "college preparation" on the new 21-page Strategic Plan.

They said no.

Actually, they didn't even say 'no.' What they said was:

The strategic plan does not have specific mention of college readiness or international benchmarks. However, as a practice we are reviewing the Standards for Success—which you know is based on University preparedness.

Yes, indeed, I do know. I happen to own the book. Also, I possess all of the pdf file downloads that comprise the book, and I know where to find them on my hard drive. Ed read the history standards & says they are sound.^*

So this is a terrific resource, and we can all sleep soundly at night knowing it is being "reviewed." But it's not on the Plan.

You can find all of the Standards for Success material here. (Click on "ordering information" for pdf files.) College work samples in English, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Second Languages here.





Universities Push to Influence State Tests for High School Students
Understanding University Success
review of College Knowledge by David Conley

^* for passersby: Ed is a historian