The Ratio Programmer needs to review his basic facts

Maybe this is the same guy that programmed the progress bar? From XKCD:

Regression Data and those "Found" pictures

When I teach regression or curve-matching, I like to use real-life stuff for most of the examples. Linear is easy but some of the others can be difficult to find right off the top of my head. Kids have a tougher time.

I think it's counter-productive to let them misfit curves to the real-world. I don't send them off to take random pictures and I won't accept a physically inappropriate curve fit to the image of a cloudbank, like this. Firstly, there isn't a curve there. Second, it's not a cubic. It isn't, won't and never will be.

Continued below the jump:

I know that the curve is domain-restricted and it's kinda close, but clouds don't operate that way and neither should we. A cubic? Importantly, regression needs a step before "monkey push button". We need the "think" stage and I believe that if the data doesn't physically follow the curve-type chosen, we shouldn't use it, at least not when TEACHING regression or polynomial curves.

I suppose, at the end of the year during June, when everyone wants outside and you're accomplishing nothing anyway, then this project can be a filler - slightly humorous and gee-whiz, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Here we have this bell tower which is so not curved. I realize that students are trying to fit a curve, but come on. There are a whole bunch of straight lines here. The red parabola isn't even close, really.

"What's the big deal? They're using math." No, actually they are playing mindless games with technology. There's both a circle and an ellipse there, ignored. I'd believe those arches are parabolic if you wanted to try and convince me. How about the moon?

This is akin to graphing the world record times for the mile-run and then using a linear regression. So the world record will be 32 seconds some time in 2015. Duh.

It isn't and that's not the way regression should be used -- or at least, the kids should be taught to recognize when the regression just isn't right. "I call Bullshit. If we extrapolate (or interpolate) to here, we get stupid answers."

That's how I use regression in the real world. We shouldn't give up a perfect WCYDWT situation in favor of lazy pictures.

I would much rather give the kids data that does, or should, fit a particular regression and let them discover the regression. I like using stop-motion for parabolics:

There is a physical law being followed here. Go find it.
Hang a lightmeter (now that I'm using digital cameras, I have no other real use for it!) on the board and move the projector back and forth. There is a physical law here. Go find it.
Here is temperature data for my teacup. There is a physical law here - GFI.

I would much rather have photographs of a hanging chain and a suspension bridge, try and fit the obvious parabola to both. Then we'll find that one fits but the other doesn't quite so well and we can talk about why.

Maybe it's just me: the cover of the TASCO catalog had a picture of the Gateway Arch and a smarmy looking guy holding a placard with a quadratic on it. AHHHHHHHH!

Sheesh.

Regressions on the TI

Kate Nowak was asking about data for Regressions on the TI and I added a few:

Linear: temperature vs. volume of gas in a closed container
10oC, 500 ml; 20oC, 520 ml; 30oC, 531 ml; 40oC, 558 ml;
What I like about this one is extending the line backwards until V=0. The resulting temperature is very close to absolute zero. These are kid-found numbers and yet we get within 10o of the accepted absolute zero. That's definitely cool.

The freestyle skiers and motocross users have a program that allows a video to be converted into stop motion or for two videos to be superimposed, called Dartfish. They use it at the Olympics to show two racers running a course simultaneously. Search Google images for Dartfish and racers and then combine the pictures and a grid. Make sure to tell them to mark the centers of gravity. Or not. Make it interesting with one of Dan's Pictures that doesn't have the complete arc.

Then, here's a set of points. Figure out which regression gives you the highest value of R^2 -- 2nd catalog > Diagnostics ON
x: -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3
y: 3, -8, -7, 0, 7, 8, -3

An additional note for anyone using TI: In all of these, I have them put the equation into the y= list. I let them retype a couple times, then mention that (Stat, Calc, 4) LinReg (VARS, Y-Yars, Y1) Y1 will automatically put the equation into Y1 if it is empty. Use a different Y if Y1 isn't empty. Then you can have the points and the regression showing together. This stunt works with any of the regressions.

I got into the spirit and wanted a total list for future reference so I copied the comments from folks who chimed in. I kept those who provided links or a different thought and trimmed the rest. I did not check the links and did some editing ...

Read more below the jump:


Kate: This is the best of what I have so far:
* period vs length of a pendulum (quadratic)
* square footage vs price of residential real estate in Manlius (messy, but linear)
* the growth of the population of Facebook (exponential)
* time vs distance and cost vs distance of various airline flights (linear)

Calculus Dave said...
A teacher at my school uses the pseudoscience of "biorhythms." Kids can then find their own and follow it up with keeping track of "good days" and "bad days."

Dan said...
Percentage of the moon illuminated vs. calendar day. [data]
Duration of a plane flight v. miles traveled. [data]

Sue VanHattum said...
I use minutes of daylight in trig class. [Data is here.]

Scott said...
Sunrise/sunset times. The available data might be "too accurate" for your taste. I had kids record data one year, but I didn't keep up with it well enough and we had to fill in with newspaper stuff. Anyway, it came out pretty nice, and we talked about daylight savings (a transformation!) and latitude. Another thing about sunset is that kids can decide if they want to hang on to hh:mm (for ease of communication) or instead go for minutes since midnight (for ease of functional notation).

samjshah said...
An idea related to that, that I had this year (but didn't get to do) was going to be called something like: "FORREST GUMP, SLOW DOWN AND WALK"
1. Have students go on Google Maps and plot WALKING directions from the school to like 25 destinations -- maybe 1/3 near and 1/3 in the state and 1/3 far. Disneyland. The local pizzeria they love. Mt. Rushmore. The state capital. Etc. Then they plot the DISTANCE vs. TRAVEL TIME.
Talk about why the data is linear, what the slope means, what that means Google is assuming about walkers, what a proper domain is for that function, what doesn't fit the pattern, what's a good way to graph all these different distances (feet vs. miles) etc

samjshah said...
Also, they can find data for Moore's Law!
http://samjshah.com/2009/02/24/moores-law/

David said...
Force vs. displacement of a spring?

nyates314 said...
Potentially exponential (or maybe logistic if resources are running out?) - world or US population. The US page has a link to historical population estimates. I used the US data for a logistic growth regression as part of a project.

As part of a different project, I have students model Olympic speeds or distances with a linear regression (speeds getting faster with time). It's often interesting to compare men's and women's regression lines for the same sport.

Terry Kaminski said...
Using the internet, students need to find data on tide levels at 2 different locations in Canada. Go to a search engine and search for Tide Tables. Look for Canadian Tide Tables. Need to find data that is sinusoidal (This is important. Not all tidal data is sinusoidal). Create a table of the data for each location for a 24 hour period, a graph of the data, form a sinusoidal regression.

Jasmin Loire said...
I don't exactly know how you'd gather the data, but I'm thinking (with my science teacher mind) that something like Wein's law may be useful. It states that the intensity of light or heat drops as 1 over the square of the distance from the light/heat source.
Perhaps a thermometer and a nice roaring fire and taking temperature data and various distances out (not up)?
Or if you had a photometer, then light intensity as you moved away from a flashlight.
It would certainly explain patterns that they wouldn't even realize they see.
I forget if this works the same for sound decibels or not, but it would then explain why you need to be close to the earbuds to hear the song.

Terry Kaminski said...
You can also look at the average monthly temp. for a city in Canada, Northern Europe or Northern US. There is enough of fluctuation in this data over 12 months that it makes for good sinusoidal data.

Mrs. H said...
Kate, two things my kids have found interesting are the relationship between "dog years" and "human years" and another one that generated a lot of discussion was the relationship between birth year and life expectancy. We found data from 1900 to present and had a good time discussing the data. One interesting thing I discovered was an article that stated that the current generation is the first generation which will have a lower life expectancy than their parents. I think they were blaming it on obesity.

Sarah Cannon said...
To add to Nick's population, my kids were fascinated by Breathing Earth last year. It's running on equations and all already, but at least could be an exercise in deriving them. (Okay, really, this probably motivates more of writing an equation given pieces of info, but I saw population and got excited.)

Cal said...
For sinusoidal I give them my natural gas bill from my house; it gives the volume used and is typically a good fit. I also have the death numbers for our province, also sinusoidal.

samjshah said...
Another idea... for those who like chemistry... atomic number vs. atomic mass.... linear...ISH.

Frank Noschese said...
If you have the time and/or resources, I would have the kids generate data via experiment. You can check out some great ones here:
http://jwelker.lps.org/labs/index.html

Simpler ideas...
Linear: Superball bounce height as a function of drop height. Why is the slope less than one? What does the slope mean?
Inverse: Length vs. width for a paragraph of text. See Measuring Paragraphs from eeps.com
Quadratic: Length of hanging slinky vs. number of hanging coils
Inverse Square: Do this experiment (perf board version), but put the perf board on an overhead projector that's on a cart. Wheel the cart from one end of the room to the other and take data as you go.
Linear Indirect: Mass of a bag of Starburst candies as a function of how many candies we've eaten. (I'd use Starburst since they are individually wrapped.)
eeps.com has more fun data at their Data Zoo
Re: Pendulum -- Be sure to plot length on y-axis and period on x-axis if you want a quadratic (even though this goes against traditional independent and dependent variable graphing kids learn in science class).

JYB said...
I usually opt for sneaky "value of education" types of graphs or social good stuff. Like years of education vs. income or life expectancy.
Or we do a survey of time spent studying vs. test score.
A few years ago after our kids got their reading level scores we plotted it versus a whole bunch of self reported stuff. Not surprisingly, reading level correlated most highly with time spent reading for fun. Students were astonished.
Got this link from freetech4teachers today.
Then there's gapminder data.
Of course, who can forget the relationship between pirates and global warming.

mgolding said...
Total resistance vs number of resistors in parallel (rational). Get an ohmmeter and a bunch of the same size resistor. String 'em up and measure.

Dan M. said...
There are a bunch of activities that were developed for teaching regression by Statistics Canada - they have been posted around the web in a few places:
http://www.keypress.com/x2812.xml
http://www.teacherweb.com/ON/Statistics/Math/photo1.aspx
Two things you won't like about these: they are Canadian, and they tend to use Fathom (rather than TI) as the technology of choice. Still, I think they are worth a look. It has been a few years since I've used these activities, and I can't say for sure if there is something there that would be useful to you.

Matt said...
You can try the DASL website, they have a lot of data some of it linear.
http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/DASL/

Aniko said...
Measuring reaction time: students create a chain by holding hands and pass a "hand squeeze" along it. The time to reach the last person is proportional to the length of the chain. The slope is the reaction time of one person.

Lsquared said...
My data is your data:
http://www.box.net/shared/zrjxkzpn9z
A couple years back, I collected data with a class where we had CBR's and CBL's: attachments for a TI graphing calculator that let you collect data directly to the calculator. I've got balls bouncing (quadratic) water cooling (exponential) and fluorescent lights flickering (periodic). Enjoy!

Daniel A. Kaufmann said...
1) # of books read in a year vs. # of facebook friends.
2) # of texts sent/day vs. most expensive cell phone bill

Kevin said...
I have not used it, but this looks like a very interesting (and free) way to explore patterns in data:
http://ccsl.mae.cornell.edu/eureqa
Maybe it will get past the problems people were talking about with projecting their TI calculators.

John Gale said...
Crayola's Law?
http://www.crayola.com/colorcensus/history/chronology.cfm
http://www.weathersealed.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/crayons_big2.png

and an argument between Ray Kurzweil and Kevin Kelly on
extrapolations of exponential curves.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

PeggyU asked what I was going to do on my snow day ... Go for a walk!

Pictures below the jump:

Back Deck bird feeder. The snow hasn't started drifting yet.

Heading up the driveway. The oil delivery was just here so we had tracks to follow. It's about a foot so far, but the weather channel has us getting another 12inches - two snow days in a row? Can we be so lucky?

Trees are pretty but the snow is heavy. There'll be some limbs and trees down tonight. If it rains and then freezes, we'll lose a lot of branches and trees. Just like the ice storm of 98.

A whole bunch of these guys hanging out in this treetop:

Looking down the road.  So peaceful in the snow.

Neighbors' out building.

Old, old, old oak.  Showing the signs of the pileated woodpecker that lives near the house.

Dinner there somewhere.

The Mrs.

These solar powered lights aren't turning on any time soon.  Real pretty last night but I think the battery is depleted.  We'll see later.

That's it !

For the bird lovers, here's our friend in better weather. He was damned if he was going to move (that log was crawling with tasty morsels, I guess), so I got my camera and took his picture.

More Snow - Yippee !

Six inches on the ground at the beginning of evening class. Four more by the end of it. The differential on the van is dragging a trail. [insert joke of your choice here].
We've already gotten the phone call. Aaahhhhh.

Can't resist the Humor

From Not Always Right, a customer service horror stories website:
Those Who Definitely Can’t
(Bookstore | Santa Cruz, CA, USA)
Customer: “Hi, can you tell me about your Educator Appreciation Weekend?
Me: “Sure! Teachers normally get 20% off on things they buy for their classroom.”
Customer: “Okay, so how do I prove that I’m a teacher?”
Me: “Do you have a pay stub from your school?”
more:

Customer: “No.”
Me: “Do you have a school ID?”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “Do you have a card from a teacher’s union?”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “Do you have a medical insurance card that shows that you’re on an educator plan?”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “Maybe a vision or dental insurance card?”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “Do you have a business card?”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “Do you have any letters from the school or district to you?”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “Is there a number I could call to verify your employment with a school?”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “Do you have anything, anything at all, with both your name on it, and the name of some kind of school or educational organization?”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “Well, I’m stumped. I can’t think of any other way that you could show that you’re a teacher.”
Customer: “Wow, you really don’t make this easy for us, do you?”

I'd think SpecEd would remember to CYA

They were Suspended for Protecting the Kids. What hooey. I especially love this line, "Since the parents had expressed their opinions to us, we thought this was all that was needed" so they refused to administer the test.

Okaaaay.

Click title to read the rest

You are in the MOST paperwork-intensive department. You develop IEPs following reams of rules and regulations, assessing impacts according to set protocols, and on and on and on. Every time the kid throws up on you, it's a paperwork drill. What on earth made you think you could just blow off the state testing this year with just a shrug and an undocumented phone call (which, by the way, was **last year**)?

Does the line "We protected our special education students from the Washington state test" remind you of anyone? "WSPTotC?" - The Simpsons.

I'm right along with Richard Hess on a lot of these things. It's For The Kids! needs to Go

"one student would start crying every time we got to the part on fractions." Well, then, I guess I'm just a cruel heartless bastard who wants to make children cry. OR maybe ... You ought to try using your IEP paperwork the way you are supposed to -- by writing in these parental requests as part of the team's decisions. Then it has a LOT more power and you don't have to spend ten days out.

And don't forget, this has been in process since last year ... yeah, no pity here.

---

Reposted: Suspended in Seattle

We were punished for protecting our kids.
By Juli Griffith and Lenora Quarto

We protected our special education students from the Washington state test at the request of their parents. For that, our district wants to punish us.

The two of us team-teach 12 students, K-5, in a self-contained classroom for students with multiple disabilities.

In 2007, we were told to administer the Washington Alternate Assessment System to our students in grades 3-5, and we did. It took nearly three months because the test had to be given a little at a time, to each student individually. Meanwhile, our other six children were with our assistants.

Although the test was modified, it measured our students achievement against grade level standards. Because our students are cognitively at ages six months to two years, the assessment was not at their level. It had nothing to do with the goals and objectives designed for them.

Our goal might be to teach them to hold a spoon or recognize their name in print, and the test covered fractions. In fact, one student would start crying every time we got to the part on fractions.

So last year, we described the test to the parents. They said it was ridiculous. One said, “If I had known you were doing this, I would have told you to stop.” Another said, “I’m sick of tests that tell what my child can’t do. I want to see what he can do.”

We did our own research and found that parents do have a right to refuse state assessments. Since the parents had expressed their opinions to us, we thought this was all that was needed. So we didn’t give the test.

The way the district sees it, we were given a directive and didn’t follow it. The reason why held little significance to them.

The district feels we influenced the parents. Nothing could be further from the truth. As teachers, our job is to work with parents and guardians and, with informed minds, determine what is best for their child.

Administration did not contact the parents to ask whether they wanted their children tested, nor did they tell us the parents request had to be in writing — not until our first meeting about suspending us for 10 days without pay.

Once we knew they wanted the refusal requests in writing, we got them. At our second meeting with administration, we and our Seattle Education Association representative presented these letters.

We were confident that once administration saw our parents' wishes in writing, they would know why we did not administer the test. We were wrong.

With support from the Seattle Education Association and the Washington Education Association, we are appealing the district's 10-day suspension.

ChartJunk Redux

You'd think The Business Insider' Chart of the Day could get it right but they have fallen prey to the evils of Chartjunk:
Read more below:

The latest data from comScore says YouTube served 12 billion video views during November, up 137% year over year. Unique visitors to the site are strong as well, up 32%. Even more impressive, YouTube is clobbering the competition. The next nine most popular sites combined only served up a quarter of the total views in November that YouTube served. Their growth is slower too, year over year, they've grown 86%.

Now look at the chart:

Yup. Looks like a stacked area chart until you examine the text and see that YouTube did 12Bn views, up 137%. Those numbers aren't stacked at all. Those areas are actually layered front-to-back.
I took the numbers as best I could from the graph and made a few of my own quickly.

1. Repeat the bad graph for comparison:

2. The least ambiguous would be to NOT use an area chart:

3. Here's what a proper stacked area would look like (Note YouTube goes from 4 to 16 for a total of 12):

4. If they HAD to use layered areas, a little 3D should have been included to make it understandable:

Graphics are meant to inform. "A picture is worth a thousand words." If a few hundred words are needed to explain the graph, then the graph has failed. There should be no misunderstanding as to what the "artist" is trying to say. Let's pick on them a little more.

I. Which kind is this? Stacked or layered?

Layered. You can tell by the way Online Services crosses over Entertainment and Devices. So that means Office profits are 8Bn instead of the 3Bn difference..

II. Stacked or layered?

This one is stacked. They helpfully give you the numerical trends. With a little interpretation and subtraction, you can verify this is stacked.

III. Stacked or layered?

Okay, that was easy ! Of course, three-quarters of the information is hidden by the layers themselves ... Google is, of course, insignificant, if you read this graph.

IV. Stacked or layered?

Stacked, but the only way to know that is to look at the iPhone and realize that it came out in early '07 and so it doesn't show up (green) until then.

Now you know why it's called Generation Y

Thanks to
Buckhorn Road for reminding me that I had these buried in the academic folder. and to Darren for the link to Buckhorn. Note: that second is sourced Flint (MI) Police Department and comes courtesy of the Detroit Free Press. For some reason, the kids don't think it's appropriate. I merely say, "At some point, the powers that be will decide that your 'funny' and 'no big deal' are not and are, respectively. You're nearly adults and people will expect you to behave as such." Not sure it sticks, but it's fun to say.

National Health Care

Darren, of Right on the Left Coast, has posted about socialized medicine.

I have to disagree.

"Our federal system was created so that the states could serve as "laboratories" for democracy, trying out programs and seeing if they work. Three states have tried government-mandated health care, and three states have failed at it. Anyone who thinks such a program would succeed at the national level is a liberal political ideologue or a fool, but I repeat myself."

Interesting Dichotomy. False one, too.

First, our states were not created to be laboratories, they were autonomous states banding together for a common goal. Federalism was at a minimum because they had no intention of giving up rights they perceived to be held by the States. Over the years, that has changed as the Nation decided that local practices were in need of improvement. Civil rights vs slavery, national defense, highways, Rural Electrification ... there are many reasons for national control, some better, some worse.
More:
Second, three states have tried and "failed". I doubt any are abject failures. Programs are probably in trouble more because of the poor economy than program deficiencies - though the US tort system and US style of defensive medicine are major factors. Simultaneously providing health care and having fiscal problems doesn't prove causation.

I am not a liberal political ideologue or a fool, yet I believe in the idea of national health care. I present not the evidence of three states who have attempted it and "failed", but rather of those who are still giving it a go, and those Nations around the world who have somehow made it work.

One of my students was on a trip to France and got very sick. There was no cost and she was well cared for. She returned to the US three weeks late with no bills. If the French can do this ... why the hell can't we?

The real problem is that too many of us are stuck in an idealized vision of capitalism with the hope that companies will always "do the right thing" and will always be responsible to its patients rather than its shareholders. Unfortunately, the interests of patient and insurance company are ALWAYS at odds.

"What about choice?" is usually the next question. What about it? I have no choice as to plans or company ... I can take my nice plan or drop it (with no way to use that money I refused in a plan of my choice). My choice of doctors is limited and the insurance company has limits on who, when, where, and how much.

"Doctors are going broke over Medicare and Medicaid" Bullshit. They choose to work with those patients and I really doubt any of them are going broke as a result. Frankly, if it's so bad, why does everyone still want it?

"The pharmaceutical companies will go broke because the government will impose price caps just like the other countries." Again, bullshit. The companies can make a profit selling that drug to European markets at a tenth the price but somehow doing the same here will cause them to go broke?"

"The government messes everything up." No. it doesn't. It does a lot of things better than the private sector, and for more people. For instance, I like having public education for all, with private options available to any who choose to pay more.

"Immigrants will bankrupt the system." Really? On what planet has this happened?

Cover everyone to a low, basic level. Cover maintenance, typical injuries. Set limits on what is covered and done. Allow anyone to purchase extra coverage of their choosing. Apply tort reform. Allow for physician review by patients and the public.

We have nationalized (or publicly control) quite a bit in the interest of fairness, of allowing all citizens the benefits of our society, without requiring immediate payment (or, in some cases, any payment):

• roads, bridges, other infrastructure, snow removal
• education
• army, navy, coast guard, national defense and all that
• electricity, power, water, sewage (Electrification Act and others)
• rescue, emergency rooms, first responders, fire, police
• Medicare, Medicaid

And finally,

Can anyone, anyone, really expect California to try such a system given its track record of fiscal mismanagement and our current $20 billion or budget shortfall?

Frankly, I couldn't give less of a damn what California does. That state is a mess in so many ways. It has problems with its budget that have nothing to do with health care. California is so unlike any other state (except maybe Texas) that I couldn't bring myself to suggest that anyone imitate it.

NBC sucks

Don't you just love how NBC bitched about how it's losing money on these Olympics when it screws up the coverage so badly? I'm trying to watch the men's moguls - NBC is showing the qualifications right now - instead of the LIVE finals round. All around the world, people are watching it live in their countries - but not Americans. No, we get to watch Bob Costas blather on, see one run down the course from 8 hours ago, then 5minutes of commercials, then two runs, then more stupid-assed commentators, then figure-skating.

The ADHD nation and its ADHD networks.

Thanks a boatload. I hope NBC goes bankrupt over this.

Google logo - cheeky humor.

I wonder what exactly makes up the "oo" part of the Google name?

Moon over Vancouver.

And you thought teenagers' excuses were bad, part 2

from NYTimes, via SlashDot:

Helene Hegemann's first book ... what's interesting now is that she has been caught plagiarizing many passages in the book. Amazingly, she has not denied it, but instead claims there is nothing wrong with it. She claims that she is part of a new generation that has grown up with mixing and sampling in all media, including music and art, and this is legitimate in modern culture. 

Bullshit. "Sampling?" Please.

And you thought teenagers' excuses were bad, part 1

The backstory: a Rutland, Vermont police officer is being charged with viewing child porn on his office computer.  Court papers have been redacting his name until now, but that's over.  The recently-viewed list and other evidence is pretty damning.  He's basically toast but, for some reason, he thought that this excuse might get him off the hook:

Schauwecker admitted to accessing pornographic sites although he told investigators that he went to the sites to research the quality of cameras used by the porn producers.

Um, yeah. And the "multiple racks of pornographic dvds" found in your locker? 

It's not a factory.

Schools matter quotes a letter to the editor of the NYTimes:

"The Times notes that No Child Left Behind was unpopular "partly because it requires schools to administer far more standardized tests …". ("Experts Say a Rewrite of Nation’s Main Education Law Will Be Hard This Year," January 28). Education Secretary Duncan has announced that the Race to the Top national standards plan will include national tests linked to the standards, which means far more testing than we had with NCLB."

Okay. Let's stop here and discuss this for a second. NCLB was not vilified because it required testing, but because it mandated changes to the schools based on those tests, changes that would not fix the issue that those tests were thought to identify but didn't.

more:

You can't fix a school in the way you can fix a car. "My alternator jammed and burned up and I fixed it - I replaced the broken part." The same cannot be said for a school. Which teacher do you "replace because he's broken" if a subgroup didn't perform? Which aspect of that teacher is "broken" in the way my alternator was? Or do you toss the administration out on its ear? (must rethink this last)

Second, education is not an assembly-line with control of the raw materials and control of the process. If there is a substandard material, you can't toss it in the recycle bin. If the parts don't get stamped correctly, you change the procedure. Education, on the other hand, is a long process of stuttering advancement performed for a short time per day at arm's length on willing and unwilling students with varying abilities and desires, minds of their own, part-time jobs and full-time lives.

It's not a true assembly-line if the raw material is fighting you all the way and would rather not be there. The alternator in my car doesn't get to argue that the battery was at fault because it did its homework and that electrical testing equipment is flawed and its mommy was going to complain to the principal.

It's not an assembly line if the product itself, the supplier and the maker can be at odds and don't agree on the best way to make that product better (somehow value-added).

If there is a mistake down the line, you cannot "recall" the product and start over. If you notice something that went wrong, there is no real way to apply those lessons directly to the next batch. Your product research is flawed and rarely gets to you in any meaningful or useful form, anyway.

You can't control the product: it has it's own motivations and desires.
You can't control the preliminaries: other teachers, parents, peers, environment mold that kid before you have a chance.
You can't know the parameters: the "data-driven" decisions are based on data derived by others and is very suspect.

Here's a couple rhetorical questions for you:

1. Can a teacher be responsible for students he's never had? I'm one of many in this department. Every year, they're all new faces with new dynamics.
2. If I'm teaching pre-calculus and calculus, do I bear part of the responsibility for a broken school? My kids have all passed the test (if they cared to). If you give me a calculus class, I'll teach calculus to them.
3. How about placement? How can you consider me "broken" if I got that kid in 10th grade in a course he couldn't handle? Am I responsible for his failing the test?
4. Why is it that math is the touchpoint for success for all students? If you gave those tests to adults, you'd get the same 30% passing rates yet those adults are successful. The art teacher and the history teacher may be a much bigger influence and might be far more important or interesting to that student.

Educationese

I read this on another blog's comments: "My school had meetings this week to brainstorm ideas for ways to incentivize our sophomores to care about the CAHSEE."

Um, maybe they could start by eliminating words like "incentivize"?

I'm for testing - sort of.

Schools matter quotes a letter to the editor of the NYTimes:

"All educators understand the necessity of assessment, but it is our obligation to do the minimum amount of testing necessary, and no more. Every minute spent testing that is not necessary bleeds time from learning, and every dollar spent on testing that is not necessary is stolen from investments that really need to be made in schools. Any new education law should result in less testing, not more. - Stephen Krashen"

Apologies to Stephen but state-wide testing, done right, doesn't bleed anything or "steal money" from anything, really. Using loaded words does get you published but it doesn't make your argument any better.

If I had my druthers, I'd have testing that would happen mid-course and end of course. These would be called Midterm Exam and Final Exam. The exams would not be written by the teacher but by a group made up from the district. Exams should at least be department-wide. Scoring would be be done by the teacher, but with other teachers being able to review the materials. Multiple choice is half. Clearly defined scoring for the student-constructed response section. All teachers aware of the curriculum and of the topics on the exam.

That's it. Two tests. Every grade at the same time.
No assemblies. No illnesses. No field trips. No sports dismissals. No bullying seminars. No peer mediations. No suspensions. No doctor's appointments. No guidance appointments. No excuses.

If you want a nationwide test, that would take place at the same time for every student tested and would count somehow. Like the SAT.

Now that I think about it, giving everyone an SAT in October of their senior year would be cheaper and more accurate than the silly state-written things I've seen so far.

What's a failing school?

These truths I hold to be self-evident:

1. You can't fix a failing school by converting it into a charter school, replacing its administration with a new administration that had been fired from another failing school, or by testing until the kids go bat-crack crazy. (h/t to Ritchie for that expression!)

2. You can't measure a school based on tests that aren't taken seriously.

3. You can't reliably identify a failing school by testing because the criteria were so poorly defined in the first place and because the Law is looking from the wrong perspective.

4. The educational experience of a small fraction of one ethnic group doesn't represent the experience of all of the students in that school any more than my abilities as a teacher can be "averaged" with those of the loser next door and the PhD on the other side.

More:Why should the failure or marginal failure of one subgroup (a significant portion of whom passed) lower the boom on a school?

Looking from the top down, you can measure how the "school" performed, but each student has a different experience. This group may have done poorly because their particular teachers didn't "get" them or were stupid (someone has to fit the stereotype), but those other groups had a great education.

Same building. Same "faculty." Different teachers. Different families. Different education.

As any parent knows, there are good teachers and bad ones but far more good than bad. The bad ones just don't stay - if they do, there's a reason. What not everyone understands is that often it's not a matter of good and bad teaching but of good or weak connection between teacher and student.

If your kid is not capable of "meshing with" or learning from a particular teacher, you ask for a change of section. Every teacher will have kids who won't or can't learn well from them but who magically blossom with someone else -- but there's always a vice-versa. I know, for instance, that some students just enjoy being in my class -- for whatever reason -- and try to set up their schedules accordingly. Often, the older brother counsels the younger to take my class. Others prefer other teachers, whether for their teaching style or gender or height or discipline policy. Many either don't care or know enough to have an opinion. I don't take it personally.

You all have had the experience of sitting in an IEP, SAT, EST, 504, MVP, IPod, or faculty meeting and listening to the others complain about KidX. When it comes to you, you shrug and say "I've never had a problem with him. I called his mother and everything just worked out." Judging by the looks on everyone's faces, you've dropped a bombshell.

The real problem with NCLB is that an entire school feels the punitive effects of the law when as little as 2% - 5% actually experience the school environment that produced those low scores.

All schools have some students who receive a great education. Those schools have a majority of students who get a decent education. The school certainly hasn't failed them. All schools have the mouth-breathing, drug-using lowlifes who really need a life-altering experience before they have a life-ending one - why should the results of the latter reflect on the school of the former?

What's my line? Level 2 certified.

I like this:

Parents of Mississippi public school students now can go online to see whether their children's instructors are licensed in the subject area they teach. The website shows the type of degree an educator has attained, the subject or subjects the person is certified to teach, when the license will expire and whether or not the license is valid.

I'm sure that some people will be upset, but I think this kind of thing is a good way to allow parents to choose the teachers their kids have. Of course, all those Master's Degrees will go up in number, attained with fluff courses and bullshit credits, but at least things are more out in the open.

Maybe the days of an English major in the math classroom are over. I don't know about the Coach in the social studies room, though.

A million points of extra credit

Here’s a classic idea from 360:

Suppose you teach a course and you want to have 3 exams each worth 20% of your grade, homework worth 10%, and a final worth 30%. One way to do this is to set the midterms at 100 points each, the final at 150 points, and homework scaled to 50 points for a total of 500 points in the class.

So far so good, right? The problem with this is that if you offer extra credit you have to be careful not to give too much — you wouldn’t award 10 points for being the first to speak in class, right? (OK, you might, but that would be pretty generous.) So if you want to be able to offer smaller amounts but not have them sound small, you need to have a larger total number of points.

How large? How about 1 trillion points! That ties in nicely to the scale of the national debt, which you can tie together with mathematical literacy and/or an interdisciplinary math/political science activity. Tests are now worth 200 billion points. The final is 300 billion. And now, if a student gives a good answer in class you can off the cuff award them one million points of extra credit! The student feels good — who doesn’t like to receive a cool million points in extra credit? — and you don’t even have to bother remembering to enter it in your gradebook. On the other hand, if there are little errors on an exam that you want to point out but don’t necessarily want to penalize (forgetting to write parenthesis, for example, so that 2·(3x+5) is written as 2 · 3x+5 ) you could take off 50 million points. That’s enough to get anyone’s attention.

I think in some of our classes this would be intimidating, so it’s probably not the best scheme in general. But in other classes, especially the upper level ones, I think our majors would see this as amusing and, perhaps, a help in internalizing the scale of some of these numbers.

Like I said, tempting.

If only gradequick allowed for it.

Make the Super Bowl a National Holiday

Something we can all support is an acknowledgment of the current reality?

When you think about the Super Bowl--it's hard not to, this week--you have to wonder whether maybe it's time that we formally recognized it for what it is: a national holiday. Switch the game to Monday (Americans have become conditioned to watching football on Monday night) and make it a three-day weekend. Congress could pass the usual proclamations, the Postal Service could design a commemorative stamp, and the president could issue a pronouncement about what this day means to the American spirit.

I'm getting chills just thinking about it ... but maybe that's just the weather.

Colleges makes kids Liberal apparently.

The Chronicle quotes a study that college makes students more liberal but not smarter about civics.

I have so many questions, starting with basic methodology, below the fold:

1. Does A cause B, does B cause A or is it C causing both, or nothing?
2. Does the change in liberalism follow the change in civics knowledge or vice versa?
3. Is there a confounding factor, like the changing male-female ratio? or the changing attitude that "All students must go to college" - are we seeing the results of increased perception of need for a college education to make a good living?
4. Are younger people more likely to be liberal anyway, regardless of college?
5. Is civics something colleges deal with, or is this a K-12 thing?
6. Did the researchers control for age and SES? A PhD might have taken HS civics in 1975 and the HS graduate two years ago. Education has changed in the HS setting. (no shit).
7. Does ALL higher education make graduates more liberal or is the choice of college or major an issue?
8. Did the researchers bias their own study by excluding the military academies (like yours truly) and the religious schools like Brigham Young? (by asking 2500 random people that's what they essentially did)
9. Wealthier people take more college - was wealth a factor rather than the years in school?
10. The institute has a "tradition-minded view of issues" - was this the only study they did?& Or did they throw away data that would have changed their results?

I don't like this study. Results seem too pat, too simplistic. Too Glenn Beck-ian.

The survey contained 118 questions: 33 on civic knowledge, 39 on public philosophy, 29 on civic behavior, 16 on demographics, and 1 on popular culture.

Many questions are worded strangely or have answer choices that "guide" the respondent, while some are just odd. "Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas would concur that: ... " -- Maybe it's that I'm not a civics teacher. They were chosen from previous ISI tests, Immigration, and NAEP tests. This makes them perfect survey instruments?

I did find the 33 questions pretty easy - but I was able to read them and consider the answers. A typical telephone survey doesn't allow for consideration or for nuance. How would you respond if you were asked this one over the phone?

Free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government’s centralized planning because:
a. the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends
b. markets rely upon coercion, whereas government relies upon voluntary compliance with the law
c. more tax revenue can be generated from free enterprise
d. property rights and contracts are best enforced by the market system
e. government planners are too cautious in spending taxpayers’ money

The numbers are weird for a random survey, too: this "random telephone survey" of 2508 managed to include 240 people who self-identified as college professors. Really? 10% is very high. And a random telephone survey with all the quits, drops, and lying?

And then, the conclusions. They used regression to determine the effect of more education instead of just measuring it. More civics education meant more disagreement with phrases such as "The Bible is the Word of God," "The Ten Commandments are irrelevant today." "America corrupts otherwise good people." "Public school teachers should be allowed to lead prayers in school." "Homeschooling families neglect their community obligations." "Religion and science typically conflict." None of these correlates with conservative or liberal views and all of them are of the "We'll tell you the good answer" variety - bias built right in.

Oh well. Gotta get back to work.

Here's the article if it gets hidden in archives:

---

College Makes Students More Liberal, but Not Smarter About Civics, Study Finds

By Jill Laster
While many graduates of American colleges cannot answer basic civics questions, a higher education does make their opinions more liberal on controversial social issues, according to a new report issued on Friday by an academic think tank.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an independent group with a tradition-minded view of issues, asked about 2,500 randomly selected people more than 100 questions to gauge their civic knowledge, public philosophy, civic behavior, and demographics.

"The Shaping of the American Mind," the fourth report from the institute on civic literacy, will be formally released on Wednesday.

Richard A. Brake, a co-author of the report, said he and his colleagues had sought to see what civic or social lessons students were learning in college.
The institute found that people who had attained at least a bachelor's degree were more likely than Americans whose formal education ended with a high-school diploma to take a liberal stance on certain controversial social issues. For example, 39 percent of people whose highest level of education was a bachelor's degree supported same-sex marriage, compared with 25 percent with a high-school diploma. The trend continued with advanced degrees: About 46 percent of people with master's degrees supported same-sex marriage, as did 43 percent of people with Ph.D.'s.

Previous surveys have found that, in general, college does not bring students up to a high level of civics knowledge. According to the Institute's 2008 report, based on a survey of 2,500, people whose highest level of educational attainment was a bachelor's degree correctly answered 57 percent of the questions, on average. That is three percentage points lower than a passing grade, according to the survey's authors. (This needed to be said? and quoted? and the reporter scored what? - Mr. C.)

Even earlier surveys showed that years in college were only slightly correlated to civics expertise. For a 2006 report the institute surveyed 14,000 college freshmen and seniors on basic civics questions. It found seniors answered an average of 53 percent of the questions correctly, just 1.5 percent higher than freshmen. (After the 2006 report was released, some experts questioned the study's methodology and focus on a small range of facts.) (And they will again.- Mr. C.)

Mr. Brake said results of the studies in the last four years showed that many universities do not place enough emphasis on civics or the basics of American history. He also called for universities to adopt better-balanced curricula.

"College graduates, whether it be current or graduated in the past, seem to have difficulty knowing basic things about our government and our history," Mr. Brake said. "Does college share all the blame? Of course not — this is a systemic problem, from K through 12 and all the way up. But universities train our teachers and train our leaders, so they play a role." (And newspapers play a role, too. As well as demographics. - Mr.C.)

Civics curricula have drawn concern recently from other critics, such as Bob Graham, the former U.S. senator from Florida who is now based at the University of Florida. He suggested, in an interview last summer with The Chronicle, that colleges be measured based on the number of their current students or graduates who participate in community-service or civic organizations.

One more teacher-bash. Defended.

Joanne Jacobs blogs "Waiting for Superman, a movie bemoaning the U.S. education system, has won the audience award for best U.S. documentary at the Sundance Film Festival." Stewart Nusbaumer on Huffington Post is quoted saying many things, few of them particularly insightful.

"The movie “demystifies” the education system. We have tried throwing a ton of money at the problem, created a litany of newfangled reforms, even passed new laws, but nothing has worked. Our schools remain dismal."

Meh. Maybe they failed because the reformers aren't teachers? That they were clueless as to what makes a good education? a good teacher? But then he has this:

"What Waiting for Superman drives home is to improve our education system requires improving our teachers. Requires demanding our teachers get deep in the trenches, be allowed to be flexible and innovative, persist, and to be held accountable. This the teacher unions and the Democratic Party will not accept, even for the sake of our children."

Darren replies. On his blog, he only links to his own comment. I think it deserves repeating. ;-)
Below the break
quote ...
"First off, unions. California is a “fair share” state with regards to unions, which means the unions are entitled to my money by law, whether I am a member or not, as a condition of employment. Accordingly, the unions should not consider education at all, but should focus solely on my pay, benefits, and working conditions. Legislatures, parents, and school boards can worry about education.
So you want to get rid of unions? You think *that* would fix education? Unions aren’t even the lion’s share of the problem.
So what is? What is the problem?
Oh, you want a silver bullet, one answer–if we could just fix that, life would be good. Dream on.
(Full disclosure here–I’m a teacher.) What is our biggest problem in education? It’s that our schools are a reflection of our society. Our litigious, immediate-gratification, comfortable, responsibility-averse, politically-correct society. If you wonder why kids act the way they do, or why schools are run the way they are, watch tv–or better yet look in the mirror.
Most readers of this site, being reform-minded, probably don’t fall into the categories I listed above–but too many others do. Every time you read about some stupid enforcement of a zero-tolerance policy, remember it’s because administrators don’t want to get sued for exercising any judgement. Every time some parent does homework for their kid so the kid can get into Stanford, remember. Every time a kid cuts and parents write an excusal note so the kid doesn’t get in trouble at school, remember. Every time a school board, as in Seattle, chooses a curriculum that dumbs down instruction in an effort to close the achievement gap, remember. Whenever a parent schedules a vacation to start 2 days before the 2-week Christmas vacation (or any other school break) because “that’s when the cheapest airfares are”, remember. Whenever a school board uses race to place students into schools (think Seattle and Louisville and the Supreme Court cases a couple years ago), remember. When you wonder why schools feed breakfast and lunch to students who otherwise would go hungry, remember. Whenever a kid who can’t read or calculate has his grades changed because he can throw or catch a ball, remember.
Teachers are not the problem with those issues.
I’m not saying there aren’t bad teachers, far from it. There might be a couple at my high school, but certainly no more than that. You could probably get rid of every bad teacher–and yet the problems would remain. The solution here isn’t Superteacher, the solution is taking education seriously–and too many don’t. Again, readers of this site are probably not the problems, but let me assure you, those problems are out there."

Bullying

Once again, the call is made for schools to do what the parents do not (or cannot).

Expulsion from school for something that happened off campus, out of the school's jurisdiction and out of the school's control? Should we expel students who take a summer vacation to Florida and smoke pot on the beach? Or one who steals money from the till at their part-time job? Or one who cyber-bullies over accounts the school did not set up, can't supervise and doesn't control?

Bullying is a problem. The new laws against it aren't a solution that makes sense or that can be applied fairly by schools (by fairly, I mean in ways that don't simply get the school sued every time). Does the school do something if the bullied person is at a different school? Are we just reacting because of a pretty girl who committed suicide - because someone said mean things about her nude photos sent to several teenage boys?

The urge to "Do Something" is strong. The limits on what a school can do are also strong.

The school cannot subpoena anything or anyone and they have no ability under the law to coerce students into revealing anything. They cannot pry into personal matters or demand that you reveal the contents of your computer. They cannot eliminate cellphones, never mind require that boys and girls stop sexting. They cannot stop them dating the "wrong" boys, or getting tattoos that proclaim themselves tramps or sluts or pimps or hos, or stop them from driving too fast, or texting behind the wheel or updating their Facebook page with "I'm a prostitute for him." The kids have rights.

If the new laws were to make it possible to defend the rights of the victims, it'd be great, but I'm not holding my breath. Schools can only react to a "crime" or an offense already committed in the school (or on a school-sponsored trip). The current law is very clear on this. They cannot require that people with histories be removed from their schools to forestall future crimes.

Furthermore, bullying is rarely out in the open where teachers can see it. Only the aftermath is visible to the teachers and even then is often obscured by rage or clothing. Expecting that teachers will be the policemen and investigate off-campus crime is laughable. Do you want me poking around in your kid's life out of school just on the off-chance that I might find an issue? You'd scream and rightfully so.

"Few cases are prosecuted because they are extraordinarily difficult to prosecute," an article says.

When it gets reported, then what? Give them a "detention"? How about a "suspension," which for those in question amounts to a vacation from school. Can you prove it? Do you have actual evidence or just hearsay? Is it a crime to call someone a slut or is it something the kid should shrug off? How about for the twentieth time today? Did he get tripped and punched where someone believable could see it clearly? How much jostling is bullying - or is it horseplay among friends - and who decides? (We've already gone too far this way - a friends punch to the shoulder landed him out for a week).

If the school expels the kid, it's still not over. He goes to another school but he still knows everyone. If the other school won't take him - no wait, they can't refuse - the law says that you have to provide a Free and Appropriate Public Education. Or you contract out to the reform school-type thing - $50k a year for the alternative - and the kid keeps bullying from there. There's still a Facebook. Now, how do we deal with it?

Making a bully get a job is usually the best way to smarten him up - because the adults there won't tolerate it. (Military is just better and quicker at this step.) That's all fine, but will anyone accept a school determining this?

You cannot stop bullying because that is the nature of people in a closed society, which is what teenagers essentially are. I don't want to sound defeatist, but don't expect any law to change fundamentally obnoxious people or save everyone from the bullies.

We still need parents to help their kid get past bullying and be enough of a presence and caregiver that they don't resort to suicide or murder.

Like Arne and Danny and Pat and Rahm ...

I'm not sure I'm in this discussion.

"Trust me, after taxes, a million dollars is not a lot of money."
-- RNC chairman Michael Steele

Screw you, Michael. You and the elephant you rose in on.

"What if a Democrat said this? You pick on Republicans much more than ..."
Shut up. If it's stupid, it's stupid.

Danny Glover: "The earthquake in Haiti was caused by global warming."
Pat Robertson: "The earthquake was caused by a pact with the Devil."
Arne Duncan: "Total devastation from a hurricane is the best thing to happen to New Orleans"
Rahm Emmanuel: "That's f***king retarded."

Yes, Rahm. Yes, it is.