Alright guys. The main complaint of the discussion article was simply "hoax", yelled as loudly or as quietly as the user felt about it. Hopefully this won't get the same treatment. We have been evaluating educational, grant-funded programs for 20 years. Throughout these years, we have witnessed a slow change...
Post will be returning in Main, after a rewrite by the company's writing staff. Citations Galore.
Alright guys. The main complaint of the discussion article was simply "hoax", yelled as loudly or as quietly as the user felt about it. Hopefully this won't get the same treatment.
We have been evaluating educational, grant-funded programs for 20 years. Throughout these years, we have witnessed a slow change in how students are selected for academic services. Traditionally, students were targeted for academic services and opportunities based on demographic characteristics—usually race and, until recently, family income status (based on free or reduced priced lunch). Wealthier, white students are given challenging lessons and tracked into the advanced courses, while their non-white and poorer peers are tracked low and given remediation services. The latter... (read 3382 more words →)
http://www.sas.com/govedu/edu/k12/evaas/papers.html
Quite a few things there. SAS's EVAAS is generally considered the gold standard of bayesian prediction models as educational interventions; unfortunately as SAS is based in North Carolina it has yet to spread outside that particular state. Some states have similar systems being produced by similar companies.
Particularly, if I were you I would read: http://www.sas.com/success/wf_rolesville.html
Please look through the comments where I have replied to criticisms; I have tried to find relevant citations.
I have kids in California public schools.
I have never worked in California, nor New York, and cannot speak for your experience.
Next argument: many of us reading this board, and even being taken in by this post, went through the American public school system ourselves, and by my standards, (I'm 55) many of you went through quite recently. Many of us, I dare say, were in advanced classes. Does the OP fit even vaguely with what you saw with your own eyes? It is miles from my 40 year old experiences.
Really? I myself went through the advanced classes. In my "Calculus AB" class, there were 28 whites, 1 hispanic, and 2 blacks. My... (read more)
I apologize for the late response.
As for the idea that black students do well if the teachers like them there? Please. Teachers have next to no say as to their assignments---it's one area in which principals have a great deal of control.
I do not know where you come from, but I have personally reviewed the math placement criteria of hundreds of middle schools and high schools. Teacher recommendations are always on the list, whereas I have never seen a school which used "principal recommendations". Wake County, NC's placement criteria: http://www.wcpss.net/policy-files/series/policies/5611-bp.html Alamance County's placement criteria: http://tinyurl.com/d35dtfy I will find more if you'd like me to, but teacher recommendations are plainly listed. In my... (read 503 more words →)
The only people aware that the project happened, as far as I know, are myself, my boss, the man in charge, and the 56 students (who were in 6-8th grade at the time, and all from poor black families). The issuer of the grant was the local government, and they issue so many grants that I seriously doubt there's anyone looking at all of them.
You might have seen some of those sketchy advertisements, similar to the "Google will Pay YOU!!! To Work From Home!" ads, which say stuff like "Get Grant Money Here!". At least, I associate those two kinds of ads as being similar.
In any case, the process of finding grants to apply for is very simple. The Department of Education grants are all on http://www.grants.gov/. Pretty much every university's Research and Evaluation Department gives out grants to the local community; check out your local Uni's website. Sometimes large corporations give out grants, sometimes individual people. In general, get in touch with the education department of your county government to find out which grants are being offered nearby and how to apply for them.
Now that I think of it, this is the main request I should have of lesswrongers. I bet anyone on this website could write a damn good proposal for any grant they come across, and I bet their project would be better than the shit I evaluate.
That's interesting.
If this were a hoax, it would certainly appeal to right-wingers. In general, the way the school board is debating this issue, the democrats are in favor of teacher recommendations and "helping the poor black kids", whereas the republicans (although, on the school board, they're all teapartiers) are the ones running with the "Data Driven Decisions D^3" slogan.
Post will be returning in Main, after a rewrite by the company's writing staff. Citations Galore.
Hey Lesswrong.
This is a sockpuppet account I made for the purpose of making a post to Discussion and possibly Main, while obscuring my identity, which is important due to some NDAs I've signed with regards to the content of the post.
I am explicitly asking for +2 karma so that I can make the post.