Comments on: Should stim-bucks be linked to school test scores?

By: PoxyHowzes

PoxyHowzes — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:24:35 +0000

Greg @ #3:

These comments are a bit muddled for you. In what sense do you believe that Modern Humans should work, tooth and nail, to exempt themselves from evolutionary pressures? In what sense do you believe that they can succeed? (Or is what you sloppily or sarcastically called “Darwinian process” meant to convey just that thought?)

And in modern “Pro-America,” I see little, if any, attempt to “enhance” the middle class. Since 2000, and unfortunately continuing into the Obama/Gaithner/Summers/Bernanke administration, all “enhancement” has gone to the Ultra-Upper class, and all f**k has embraced poor and middle-class alike.

By: Freds

Freds — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:52:57 +0000

I find it ironic that the administration of our first black President is pushing a school curriculum that will train poor and minorities in narrow, low level skills while the better off will bail from a dysfunctional public school system. It stuns me that President Obama supports a school education that discriminates against poor blacks.

By: Scotlyn

Scotlyn — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:37:57 +0000

hibob – that sounds a bit sophisticated. Too many variables. The fittest evaluation system will prabably be one that is easiest to implement and least administratively taxing.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:35:09 +0000

These are good questions. We do not really want a Darwinian process here, and we do not want to simply enhance the revered middle class and fuck the poor again, as per usual.

Well, we can do that if we want to, but it would be un-American.

By: hibob

hibob — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:29:11 +0000

Is the scoring going to be a value added model or just straight performance? By value added, I mean that for each teacher/school, they are graded on how much their students improve compared to comparable peers. If a kid starts the year at the 25th percentile and leaves at the 35th, he improves your ranking while the kid who comes in at the 95th and stays there has little effect. If implemented correctly, there would be no bias against any poor performing group of students – if they are improving compared to their peers, the teacher is doing an excellent job.

By: Scotlyn

Scotlyn — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:13:27 +0000

Think of it as the application of selective pressure. Teachers and schools will compete for funding. The fittest schools will be those who can successfully attract students who are likely, because of their “initial conditions,” to perform better and who can successfully discourage or reject poor-performing children with – for eg. learning disabilities, language and speech disabilities, cultural backgrounds biased against learning, poor socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. The fittest teachers will be those who teach children to do well on tests – and to do well on tests. The effect will be to greatly impoverish the schools that the most education-needy children will end up attending, and to greatly impoverish the quality of education, as well as the diversity of students in the fittest schools. Possibly, the fitter schools and the unfit schools may diverge to the extent of becoming separate species.