50 Dangerous Things

Were you a "free-range kid?"

Free-Range Kids are largely left alone to explore the world independently. That includes trying things out, making mistakes, finding joy in exploration and experimentation, getting hurt on occasion, surviving those occasions, learning from errors, and growing up confident and competent in handling oneself.

We boomers were free-range kids. Gone after school until sunset and dinner time, off doing who knows what, who knows where, with whomever we pleased. 

Riding bikes miles away and speeding downhill in t-shirts, jeans, and flip-flops with no helmets (bike helmets weren't yet a thing; we wouldn't have worn them anyway). Cimbing across tall hills, shooting BB guns at soda cans, throwing rocks and clods of dirt at each other (and getting hit, painfully, on occasion). Exploring underground rain tunnels and coming up out of manholes, scaling tall school buildings after dark, hiking cross-country in Boy Scouts with only a map and compass, etc. All this was unremarkable and everyday.

Along these lines, 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) is medicine for modern parental paranoia. 

From the amazon description:

"In a time when children are too often coddled, reminds readers that climbing trees is good for the soul, and that a pocket knife is not a weapon. Full of exciting ways children can explore the world around them, this book explains how to “Play with Fire” and “Taste Electricity” while learning about safety. With easy-to-follow instructions, it includes:

• Activities, like walking a tightrope

• Skills, like throwing a spear

• Projects, like melting glass

• Experiences, like sleeping in the wild

As it guides you through these childlike challenges and more, the book will inspire the whole household to embrace a little danger."

Other recommended "dangerous" activities include learning to whittle, tie knots, make fires, stand on the roof, find beehives, go underground, perform on the street, cross town on public transit, sleep in the wild, make a rope swing, climb a tree, play with dry ice, drop from high places, and more.

Along the same lines, I recommend The Coddling of the American Mind, by Jonathan Haidt.

Haidt's book picks up where 50 Dangerous Things leaves off, and elucidates how unnecessarily frightened helicopter parenting – smothering kids with constant supervision – is actually far more harmful to young people than allowing them to take calculated risks and build confidence and independence in the process.

An important book for over-anxious parents raised by over-anxious parents.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

PreK-12 Curricula

Public and private schools vary greatly in quality, and parents ought to take responsibility for ensuring each child is learning what he or she needs to learn at every stage.

There's a vast ocean of teaching guides and materials available online. Few parents are professional teachers or education experts, and those without such training or experience will find it difficult to separate wheat from chaff. Those looking to monitor the education of their children or who want to teach or tutor their children at home will need help in their efforts.

For such parents, having access to a reliable curriculum guide is essential. Two that I've found useful are the ones found at IXL and World Book.

The IXL platform is used in schools all over the nation, and a paid IXL account may be worth the investment for your family, given the breadth and depth of their PreK-12 course offerings, excellent learning materials, and sterling reputation.

The Core Knowledge Foundation, headed by E. D. Hirsch, author of the acclaimed Core Knowledge book series, provides free curriculum materials for grades 1-8. I'm a big fan of Core Knowledge Books, and recommend them highly. Based on the excellence of these publications, I'm confident the curriculum materials prepared by the Core Knowledge Foundation will be of similar quality. Interested parents can check them out here.

An excellent resource for teaching young children to read is the phonics-based Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I used this book to teach my own daughter (eager learner) to read at age four. Each lesson takes about 20 minutes to complete, and can be broken up into two parts for kids without lengthy attention spans. The method of instruction is so simple that any parent with a good high school education can implement it easily.

Nowadays, it's quite important to carefully monitor what's taught (and how it's taught) in school. Gone are the days when parents can safely take these things for granted.

Fortunately, there's a lot parents can do to ensure their children actually receive a high quality education.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

ACT Perfect Scores Have Been Blowing Up

In the two decades between 1998 and 2018, the number of perfect scores on the ACT increased 34x from .01% to .34%.

Have students preparing to enter college suddenly become 34 times smarter? Unlikely

This explosion in perfect test scores is chronicled in an article on the PrepMaven site:

These are still very low numbers – in 2021, only 4,055 students taking the ACT earned a perfect score. However, the percentage of students getting a 36 on the ACT has gone from less than 0.01% to 0.34% in 2020! (There’s a small dip for 2021, which we can likely attribute to the Covid-19 pandemic.)

The makers of the ACT have assured us that this isn’t because the test is getting easier!

Rather, our hypothesis is that the rise in students getting perfect scores is because more high-achieving SAT “superstars” are now also taking the ACT, whereas before they would have only taken the SAT.."

Plausible? SAT superstars migrating to the ACT?

Perhaps.

In another treatment of the subject, Hannah K. Sparling and Dan Horn of the Cincinnati Enquirer put it this way:

"If the test is essentially the same, why are so many more students acing it?

The most likely answer is a booming test-preparation industry that’s built on the hopes and fears of students and parents who are willing to work – and pay – to get an edge.

They see the investment of a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars in a test prep program as worthwhile if it helps land their child at an Ivy League school or secures a big financial aid package."

Plausible? Anxious parents, hyper-competitive students, and increasing billions spent on test prep?

Definitely could be.

On the same subject, the Applerouth Team said the following:

"Perfection can be a tricky thing. Too much of it diminishes value. Think of little league where everyone got a trophy. Or that Earth Science class where the teacher promised an A+ if her students simply did the work. Not everyone deserves the label of “perfect,” and the same is true for the ACT. A composite of 36 should be reserved for a select few, and too much perfection should raise red flags over the difficulty of the test..."

It's worth noting that, despite a recent dip in perfect scores correlating with the Covid years, numbers of perfect ACT scores (at last count) are still 30 times larger than they were a generation ago.

I concur completely with Applerouth. When grades and test scores are no longer seen as trustworthy, they become worthless as means of assessing merit and rewarding talent and hard work. A 30x increase in perfect test scores is unsustainable and unacceptable.

Grade inflation is real problem, and has been for decades. Although merit certainly isn't everything, life is inherently competitive, whether we like it or not – and refusing to hold back failing students is neither helpful nor compassionate.

I hope we come to our senses sooner rather than later. Denial of reality is never a good long-term solution.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Cart Before Horse

Students in marginalized groups are not doing well in math, and this is hampering upward mobility. But the solution provided in the recently adopted California Mathematics Framework (CMF) doesn’t serve the laudable goal of improving mathematical fluency in under-represented populations. 

In a 11/29/21 article by Joe Hong in Cal Matters, Tom Loveless, a retired math education expert puts it in a nutshell: “The way you get social justice in mathematics is to teach the kids math … not by dressing up mathematics in social justice.”

In the original draft of the CMF, central author and instigator Jo Boaler actually went so far as to write that mathematical talent isn't a thing, that it doesn't exist. Of course, to say such a thing is nuts. It's ridiculous. Nevertheless, differentiated advanced instruction for gifted students was condemned, at best, in early drafts of the CMF. Palo Alto parent Avery Wang makes the point clear. “Holding back high achievers makes them achieve more? That’s exactly the same philosophy that’s being promoted in the math framework.”

But this is the inevitable, illogical conclusion of woke ideology in math education, and woke ideology, generally: “Our personal differences are of central importance, but despite real differences, we should all achieve equally.”

The CMF is the culmination of a decades-long crusade within math education circles to teach math “constructively" by "discovery” and make math “more relevant” and “more fun." As a long-time member of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, a trade group for math educators that took a leading role in promoting constructivisism the late 1980s, I’ve watched this movement gain steam in recent decades.

Music Theory is not “Music Appreciation.” Those are two entirely different courses. Likewise, “Precalculus” and “Recreational Mathematics” are utterly dissimilar in purpose, method, and scope.

In the article, Michael Malone, parent and math tutor, puts it well: “They’re changing math to make it math appreciation. A part of math is learning things that are not authentic to life.” He then opines that the CMF “does a disservice to historically marginalized student groups by offering them a simplified version of math that fails to prepare them for the challenges of a career in science, tech, engineering or math.” Finally, Malone correctly concludes: “Math is gonna be hard for students who don’t enjoy it as much.”

[Thank you, Captain Obvious.]

In a separate Cal Matters article, UC professor Svetlana Jitomirskaya expresses her exasperation by the decision of the authors of the CMF not to seek much input from from STEM experts who naturally have first-hand awareness of the level of mathematical maturity and training incoming undergrads must have. “The process should have definitely involved STEM faculty from top CA universities with direct knowledge of what is needed for success as STEM majors,” she emailed. “It is absurd this was not done.” 

Jitomirskaya further criticizes the CMF for emphasizing “exploration at the expense of skills development,” and says there’s a “mountain of evidence that similar ideas have consistently failed when implemented at scale, and a rigorous approach — teaching students to back up answers with logic — is the only method known to decrease the [mathematics achievement] gap.”

This has been my own experience as a professional math educator for 45+ years. Sure, it would be nice if each student could reinvent the wheel, and in an ideal world, constructivism would be the best approach to take in teaching mathematics. In a very small class with a genius teacher, highly motivated and gifted students, and two math periods a day, constructivism could play a key role and be an important and highly productive part of the mix. But how many American math classrooms does this describe? As the professor points out, the constructivist idea doesn't scale. It's good in theory, bad in practice. Although both are important ideally, in reality, acquiring mathematical skill is more important than discovering mathematics.

Citing CMF-styled math exercises, Professor Jitomirskaya shows how these problems are illogical, poorly formed, and could introduce "a wrong idea of what it means to solve a problem — something that college professors struggle to undo."

Jitomirskaya states “It is irresponsible to make the entire state a laboratory for very controversial educational theories ..." and concludes that "Social justice, while desirable and necessary, will not come about by abandoning mathematical rigor."

I couldn't agree more. If one is concerned about upward mobility, getting good grades in math isn't what counts. What does count is having genuine mathematical skill and intuition, which cannot be developed simply by watering-down curricula so that struggling students are able to show better marks on their report cards. Masking problems doesn't make them go away. Pretending students are accomplished isn't helpful, and it isn't compassionate. Eventually, the rubber will actually hit the road. Again, quoting Tom Loveless: "The way you get social justice in mathematics is to teach the kids math."

Whatever one thinks of the "social justice" movement, math is still math and chemistry is still chemistry. The derivative of 6x^2 and the atomic weight of boron have nothing to do with “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

If we're smart as a society, we'll make sure the horse precedes the cart.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

White House Fails English

The recent experience of retired English teacher Yvonne Mason echoes the exasperation felt by many of us who spent the first two years of high school English doing nothing but arcane grammar exercises out of a workbook.

It may be too much to ask in this age in which English teachers no longer feel the need to teach grammar (and English majors aren't even required to study it), but shouldn't we expect better than this from the office of the highest governmental official in the land?

Argh. [Facepalm.]

I might suggest these English language resources.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Return of the Daily Quiz

A regimen of low-stakes testing in class – and self-quizzing (reciting notes from memory) while studying – vastly improves learning outcomes and makes high-stakes testing far less daunting.

So says professor Henry L. Roediger III, author of the well-reviewed "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" and an intriguing NYT article on the subject.

This certainly reflects my own experience as a student and teacher. The effort required to recall information does seem to exercise critical brain functions, improve intelligence, and promote academic success in a number of important ways. Well-established learning models like SQ3R and Cornell Notes are classic implementations of this idea.

Though out of fashion pedagogically for some time, memorization is an essential element of learning and an important part of what students should be doing during school hours and while studying at home.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

ADD: Harmful Disorder Or Helpful Variation?

Thom Hartman has extensive experience working with and writing about various aspects of the ADD/ADHD debate.

See Hartman's Web site here and some of his writings about ADD/ADHD here.

Hartman has a lot to say about a number of things, not the least of which is the current state of education in America.

In particular, Hartman formulated the Hunter vs.Farmer Hypothesis to explain the existence of ADHD. In short, Hartman suggests that, far from a harmful disorder, ADHD is simply the chromosomal vestige of mankind's early existence as intuitive, instinctive, impulsive hunter-gatherers, before the agricultural revolution lead (through natural selection) to the birth of an entirely different kind of human being, namely, the logical, careful, patient farmer type.

I strongly endorse his views, and I urge you to visit his site, read his thoughtful and interesting articles, and go on to some of the other links he lists there.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

You Think YOUR Teachers Are Mean

In many parts of the world today, as was the case in America until just several short decades ago, students are routinely subjected to abusive treatment by their teachers. The severe humiliation suffered recently by a student in China drove her to suicide, forcing the Chinese government to consider laws forbidding abusive punishment in the classroom.

My wife, Komang, was raised in Indonesia, and has recounted to me several similarly sad stories from her own first hand experience, including being forced to stand outside and look at the sun, because she gave an incorrect answer in class.

Certainly, no teacher has the right to abuse or humiliate students in his or her charge. Fear and pain are NOT the best ways to motivate students to learn, to say the least.

Neither do students have the right to disobey or threaten their teachers, who must be able to enforce authority and discipline in their classrooms through common sense means such as reseating, docking grades, or expulsion from class.

Abuse, humiliation, cruelty, and violence are features of a sick, dysfunctional culture. Thankfully, we may finally be seeing significant changes occurring throughout much of the world that make such abusive behavior unacceptable and punishable by law.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Fear And Loathing In Academia

It seems that neocon strategists have been hard at work on a new project: to use the left-leaning political biases of most university faculty members as evidence that liberal indoctrination of students is occurring at these institutions.

As it turns out, graduating from college actually correlates with conservative, not liberal, political affiliation. The entire notion that left-leaning professors need to be replaced by right-leaning ones is a solution in search of a problem – another deliberate, politically motivated deception by those on the far right.

A recent editorial in the (conservative) Wall Street Journal brings the issue into the open:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009058.

Apparently, there is something dangerous afoot – but not from an imagined specter of liberal professorial brainwashing. Imagine this: conservative ideologues are now actually creating traction with an idea to ban instructional content that any student claims to be "offensive."

That's right! In order to eliminate a non-existent threat of liberal ideological indoctrination at the nation's colleges and universities, far-right activists want to allow anyone offended by any information presented in any class to have that information stripped from course syllabi. Not taught. Not discussed. Just gone. In true Orwellian tradition, the plan is called the "Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR)."

Let's see ... you find murder offensive, so we can't teach Shakespeare's Hamlet. I'm offended by the notion of public entitlement programs, so we can't talk about Roosevelt's New Deal or compare capitalism to socialism. Someone else takes offense at the notion of evolution, so half the biology courses have to be rewritten to exclude any mention of it. A depressed student is offended by the color blue, so we strip it (along with purple and green) from the color wheel.

Aside from the surreal kookiness and unworkability of such an idea, and the obvious totalitarian implications, what amazes me the most is that this plan is actually gaining support at prestigious institutions such as Princeton and Temple University, which have already adopted versions of the ABOR.

Have we all lost our collective marbles?

Is it just me ... or is this one of the worst ideas ever concocted?

Like many things born on the political fringes, this whole thing would be laughable if it wasn't so scary.

Click here to read an excellent Washington Post article that provides all the details.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Are Our Boys In Crisis?

Growing up has never been easy, but the evidence indicates that it's been getting a whole lot tougher in recent years for boys. While the feminist movement has brought much needed attention to issues facing girls and young women in our culture during the past two decades, a similar commitment to critical issues facing boys and young men has failed to materialize.

One result is that from 1995 to 2005 males 15 to 24 years old were more than five times more likely to commit suicide than were females of the same age.

According to William S. Pollack, director of the Centers for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital (Harvard Medical School), psychological, educational, and other problems affecting male youths have worsened to such a degree that the word "crisis" may well be required to adequately describe them.

Rachael Rettner recently penned an informative and sobering article on this subject for LiveScience.com (excerpts follow):

"... it tends to be boys whose deeper problems are not looked into, and for whom programs that exist are not funded ... that’s absolutely true."

... compared with girls, American boys have lower literacy rates, lower grades, less engagement during school and higher drop-out rates. Boys also have higher rates of suicide, arrests and premature death.

... From 1995 to 2005, the rate of suicide among 20 to 24 year-old boys was 20.7 suicides per 100,000, while the rate for girls was just 3.5 per 100,000. Among 15 to 19 year olds, the rates were 12.5 per 100,000 for boys and 2.8 per 100,000 for girls.

An expert quoted in Rettner's article brings attention to the alarming increase in the gender gap with regard to suicide rates. In 1933 young males killed themselves 1.54 times more often than did young females, but by 2005 the rate among males had grown to 4.63 times the female rate. It's a profound and deeply disturbing fact that in just over 70 years, the suicide gap has fully tripled in size.

These numbers are a real punch in the gut.

How are we so favoring one gender and ignoring the other in so many critical areas that such brutal, heart-bruising statistics could come to reflect reality in our society?



Certainly, our girls and young women deserve all the help and dedicated, devoted attention we can give them. But we've got to start earnestly and deliberately addressing the emergency affecting our young men, who we love no less, and who at present are, apparently, in even greater need of rescue.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

When Math Is Uncool, Other Nations Eat Our Lunch

Since I attended high school in California in the 1970's, things have changed in so many ways. Not the least of these changes has been the gradual draining of rigor from math and science instruction in America's elementary and secondary schools.

As we faced the threat of Soviet domination in critical scientific fields, American schools (and particularly those in California) were second to none, and produced the most reliable stream of super brains the world had ever seen.

Today, national academic goals and priorities have shifted dramatically to raising the academic floor while virtually ignoring the needs of gifted students. The unhappy result is that the full potential of our best and brightest young minds is going to waste.

Below are excerpts from an article on the subject by Sara Rimer appearing recently in the New York Times:

The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.

... in China math is regarded as an essential skill that everyone should try to develop at some level. Parents in China, he said, view math as parents in the United States do baseball, hockey and soccer.

“There is something about the culture in American society today which doesn’t really seem to encourage men or women in mathematics,” said Michael Sipser, the head of M.I.T.’s math department. “Sports achievement gets lots of coverage in the media. Academic achievement gets almost none.”

In America today, intelligence and academic achievement are not only generally underrated; it has now actually become fashionable to deride intellectual prowess and accomplishment. Increasingly, the doltish are hailed as heroes while those with the sharpest minds are ignored or shunned as undesirable.

One needs look no farther for crystal clear evidence of the victory of mediocrity over excellence in our culture than the recently concluded 2008 presidential election, in which a gifted scholar and brilliant orator was framed as "elite" in contrast to inarticulate intellectual super-lightweights who were touted as "true, genuine Americans."

Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber are the new models. Bushisms and mangled communication have become acceptable. Smart just isn't cool, anymore. Math is for Asians ... not for "real" Americans.

Raise the floor, yes, by all means. But don't forget that raising the ceiling is just as important.

Other countries understand this. We ingore it at our peril.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Support Net Neutrality!

A nondiscriminatory, open, equally available internet represents perhaps the greatest advancement in human society since the invention of the printing press. A level playing field for all people, businesses, and ideas has supercharged the possibilities for democracy and real freedom in the world and for vastly improved economies and lifestyles across the globe.

However, the free and equal internet as we have always known it may be nearing extinction.

Telecom conglomerates (ATT, Viacom, Comcast, etc.) are trying to “buy” the internet! Their plan is to create a two-tiered system to maximize their private profits from an internet system originally created by public, government funding: a super fast new fiber optic internet for their best paying customers, and a slow “dirt road” for the rest of us. Only the biggest companies would be able to afford placement on the “super internet,” relegating other medium and small businesses, individuals, and organizations to the uncompetitiveness and obscurity of their internet “slow lane.”

The internet, under this horrible system, would quickly devolve into just another medium of commerce and advertisement for the biggest businesses in America, as happened with television several decades ago. Why would anyone patronize “Mom and Pop" bookstores or get their news at “So and So’s Blog” if using “Borders.com” or “Fox News” was 100 time faster, more convenient, and more reliable?! The critical democratizing aspect – the “level playing field” – of today’s internet, would be dead and gone.

That’s why groups as diverse as the conservative Gun Owners of America and the Christian Coalition on the right, and liberal MoveOn.org and the American Civil Liberties Union on the left, together with companies such as Google and Microsoft that depend on a free, vibrant, healthy internet for their survival, have come out strongly in support of re-enacting legislation to protect internet neutrality (to replace the net neutrality laws that have been in place since the inception of the internet, but which were recently allowed to expire).

Contrary to the deliberately deceitful pronouncements of giant telecoms and their supporters in Congress, the "Net Neutrality" movement does NOT seek to impose new regulations on the internet, but only to keep in place the legal protections and safeguards that have been in existence since the internet began – the very laws which have enabled the amazing growth and innovation that has always characterized the internet, and for the tremendous social and economic advancement that a free and open internet has brought to our own country and to nations and peoples throughout the world.

But unfortunately, the fantastic, miraculous, nondiscriminatory internet as we know it may soon disappear from our lives ... without your support, and that of your concerned friends and associates.

Visit the following site, to get full information on the subject, and to find out what you can do to protect the internet from yet another attempt by “free market” oligarchs to kill competition and build an undemocratic information monopoly:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/.

Many uninformed U.S. senators are still “on the fence” and wavering with regard to this issue, and your calls, emails, letters, and faxes to your senators are urgently needed!

Here’s the link to the United States Senate, where you can find your senators’ individual Web sites and contact information:

http://www.senate.gov/.

And here's an auto-updating "scorecard" where you can see which senators are for, against, and undecided on net neutrality, with current totals:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/=senatetally.

Make no mistake, and don’t believe the “free market” fear mongering of the monopolist wannabes at ATT, et al. Their response to criticism over this issue is: "Don't worry ... we would never discriminate or limit choices to consumers just to pad our own profits." Should we believe them? Should we trust them? Does anyone really think that giant telecommunication conglomerates have ANY overriding commitment to anything BUT their own profits? Under their plan, competition among internet providers will almost certainly shrink, with prices rising sharply as both quality and access to content drop precipitously.

Here's a wonderful site that does an excellent job of presenting the true motives and intentions of the telecom industry, and how bad things could get if they succeed in turning the now public internet into their own private cash cow:

http://www.weownthenet.org/

Note:

In France, a country with strict internet neutrality laws, DSL connections are many times faster than those in America, but cost consumers only $6 per month! Similarly, broadband speeds in Japan are 20 times faster than those in the U.S. – at half the cost Americans pay! Should the fox be allowed to guard the hen house? Leaving self-serving, monopolistic telcos and cable companies to regulate themselves is certainly NO way to guarantee free and open competition in the internet service and content markets or the kind of superior service and extremely low prices that other countries already enjoy.

Please, call/write/email/fax your senators NOW ... while you’re thinking about it!

In addition, you may want to copy this post and send it to others you know (the more, the better).

Thank you, very much.

Pass it on.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

SAT Scores Stratified, In Decline

Newly released results show SAT scores have declined since just before the introduction of the writing section and 2400 point system in 2006. During the fifteen years or so prior to that period, SAT scores had been on the rise.

The new data also show SAT scores sharply stratified according to race and family income, and will no doubt lead to increased criticism of the test as an unreliable, biased measure of academic performance and potential.

A Huffington Post article by Justin Pope goes into detail (excerpts follow):

Results released Tuesday show the high school class of 2009 earned a combined score of 1509 on the three sections of the exam, down two points from last year.

Men also widened their advantage over women by 3 points; men scored 1523 on average compared to 1496 for women. The difference comes mostly from math scores.

Students reporting their families earned over $200,000 scored 1702, up 26 points from a year ago. That group is comparatively small, but the sharp increase could fuel further criticism the exam favors students who can afford expensive test-prep tutoring.

... Asian-Americans, whose average combined score surged 13 points to a combined 1623, while scores for whites fell 2 points to 1581. For black students, average scores dropped 4 points to 1276. Average scores for two of the three categories the College Board uses for identifying Hispanics also declined, and overall ranged from 1345 to 1364.

Whatever Asian-Americans are doing, educators want to bottle it.

"For students who are planning to attend college, there's this one group that's outperforming everybody," said Seppy Basili, senior vice president at Kaplan Test Prep. "So what is it about this group? Can we do something to study it?"

Unquestionably, the SAT is a highly coachable test. It's really no big deal to raise an average student's score hundreds of points after several hours of private coaching and a few carefully critiqued practice tests.

Although I make my living party by training students to improve their SAT scores, I've long been a strident critic of the test. The SAT outlived any true usefulness, if it ever had any, many years ago.

Click here to read another post I've written on the subject of the inequity inherent in the SAT, and what it reveals about the worrisome trajectory of modern American culture.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

The Highest Scores Money Can Buy

It's a sad but salient fact that SAT scores correlate extremely well to family income.

The greater the wealth of one's family, the higher one's SAT scores tend to be, and this discrepancy is most pronounced at the upper and lower ends of the income scale.

The obvious explanation is that affluent families can afford to buy the best in academic enhancements like private school tuition, special programs, tutors, coaches, and other advantages. Amidst increasing economic inequality and decreasing social mobility in modern American, it's increasingly true that money buys academic achievement, higher SAT scores, and attending economic opportunities.

An excellent article in the New York Times goes into detail.

As a professional academic coach, I know this to be so. My students succeed where others fail because they can afford to pay me to help them. Consistent with the law of supply and demand, the most experienced and capable academic coaches charge very high fees that only the affluent can bear.

Isn't it just a bit hypocritical for someone like me, who makes a living by exploiting the unusual ability of wealthy families to hire private teachers to make sure their children are successful in school, to complain about the foundational inequity at the root of the entire private education industry?

Guilty as charged.

Although the complete eradication of social inequality is neither possible nor desirable in a capitalistic society, I do maintain that severely tempering educational inequality would be a very good thing. Basic education at all levels should be much more equally available (and a LOT less expensive) in America. If necessary, I could simply find another job.

America currently finds herself fighting for her life in what Thom Hartmann has described as the self-destructive cancer stage of capitalism ... the final chapter in the story in which greedy, consumptive, parasitic instincts inherent to the capitalist system begin to eat and ultimately destroy the system itself and bring to ruin any society which rests upon it. At this critical point, the elimination of gross economic inequality is not only possible and desirable in our society, but essential for its survival.

Just as we cannot rely on foxes to guard hen houses, markets cannot responsibly police themselves. After the near economic meltdown we've just been through, I think this conclusion should be obvious to all but the most delusional "free marketeers." In the face of such terrifying and overwhelming evidence, even neo-liberal cheerleader and Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan has had to admit he was wrong about the "innate evil" of government regulation.

More and more, success in America requires prior success. We are, in fact, witnessing the death of the American Dream. A society in which achievement and advancement are based largely upon heredity and family wealth is fundamentally incompatible with basic moral, ethical, and democratic ideals such as meritocracy, fair play, and freedom. The rest of the developed world already understands this.

Eventually, we Americans will learn the same lesson. (Perhaps it's more accurate to say "relearn," since this truth was first realized by Americans during the Great Depression of the 1930's.)

I just hope we won't have to learn it (or relearn it) the hard way.

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Learning And Earning: It's About Basics

We all know the importance of getting a college education. A college degree is the new high school diploma. It's amazing just how big a difference it actually makes to one's financial bottom line.

A recent article at washingtonpost.com makes this transparently clear:

"... while families at all educational levels have benefited from rising home values and stock market gains, the better-educated have enjoyed skyrocketing wealth, with college graduates recording an average net worth four times greater in 2004 than that of high school graduates."

The article goes on to report that while the incomes of families headed by college graduates have improved substantially in recent decades, real incomes of families headed by those with only a high school diploma have actually fallen by as much as 11 percent during the same period.

In another article, the Associated Press reported U.S. census data showing that, on average, college graduates in America earn almost twice the income of those with only high school diplomas (the ratio increases to nearly three to one for those with advanced degrees).

Nowadays, education is indeed the coin of the realm, and financial security and comfort necessarily require a good, university-level education. However, this in turn now increasingly depends on better elementary and secondary education than that available to most children in America (hence the phenomenal growth of the private practice education industry, of which I'm a part). Our educational system is producing inadequate results at best, relegating more and more young American students to the middle or bottom rungs of the ladder of international academic competitiveness. Because of an accelerating trend toward second-rate achievement in American schools, our teenagers will likely face increasing competition from more capable, better trained, more highly motivated foreign students clamoring to enter top American universities in the coming decades.

Our personal and national economic interests lie, therefore, in providing excellent basic education for our children, and on the rapid resuscitation of failing U.S. public schools. First of all, this means funding of good, public preschool programs for all youngsters in America, since universal preschool is by far the most powerful and cost effective way to quickly improve results in our schools, restore educational parity with the rest of the world, and ensure our future standing in the world economy.

Ultimately, American parents are the ones accountable for the success or failure of their own children. Following the bad examples of governmental leaders, corporate heads, sports figures, and others, Americans are becoming dishonest softies, for whom "playing by the rules" is only for fools, "discipline" and "rigor" are bad words, and "taking the easy way out" is the accepted norm. Parents who care and who know better simply cannot allow their children to fall behind in school. I'm always rather amazed and somewhat disheartened when perfectly capable high school students come to me for academic coaching addicted to their calculators (still not knowing their math facts by heart), unable to hand write legibly or organize their papers, etc. – that such basic deficiencies have been allowed to go uncorrected for so long.

In the current educational climate in America, often characterized by systemic sloppiness, grade inflation, cheating, corner-cutting, and general mediocrity, a good report card no longer guarantees actual competence or real accomplishment. Today, parents simply must take an intense interest in their children's early academic achievement. Without being obsessive, parents should micro-manage the progress of their children through the 6th grade, at least, to insure full mastery of essential academic skills. Otherwise, we as a nation risk losing the race in the new global market place. A cursory glance in the rear view mirror already shows China, India, and a host of other nations quickly gaining on us, threatening to take the lead.

More and more, it's all about basics.

And more than ever, it's more important than ever before.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Writing: It's Back!

Our culture's focus on academic basics (the "Three R's:" reading, writing, and 'rithmetic) shifts in both direction and intensity as the world around us changes.

Buoyed in past decades by the Cold War, the U.S./Soviet space race, and the development of personal computers, "'rithmetic" never falls far out of favor (although recent shifts toward questionable pedagogy and educational policy have contributed to a precipitous drop in America's mathematical competitiveness, leading in the last several years to a desperate hyper-focus on the need to improve math and science instruction in the U.S.; read my post titled "Mediocrity in Math Instruction," here).

Reading returned to prominence about 20 years ago, as the disastrous effects of "whole language" instructional theory became obvious and the specter of a generation that couldn't read lead to crash literacy programs and the return of "old fashioned" phonics.

Now that we've awakened to the new text-based Internet age, and while the need to read well remains unsurpassed, good writing skills are quickly becoming indispensable. As textual information begins to fill our lives more and more, the ability to communicate easily, effectively, and convincingly in writing is taking on an importance similar to that given to speaking and presentation skills during the recent heyday of the telephone, radio, and television. Whereas in the 20th century one strove to cultivate effective personal communication skills and a "good phone voice," what will matter as much or more to the next couple of generations will be the acquisition of excellent remote communication skills and a "good email voice." Those living during the first part of the 21st century will need superior writing skills that combine the powerful vocabulary and grammatical training emphasized during the 1960's and 70's, the informal, easy self-expression popularized during the 1980's and 90's, and the conciseness and brevity demanded during the "age of email" of the 2000's and beyond.

After suffering years of insult, injury, and neglect ... writing is back ... stronger than ever. It's finally time to welcome good, fluent writing skills into the American cultural mainstream once again.

An editorial on the increased importance and essential inter-relatedness of reading and writing appeared recently in the L.A. times – read it here.

Here's to the return of sentence diagramming, choosing the right word, and the crafting of a well-turned phrase!

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Mediocrity In Math Instruction

In an effort to improve the average level of mathematical competence among American students, a new experiment has been under way for several years in our schools.

Called "Whole Group" instruction or "Whole Math" by some, this movement is based on the laudable idea that all students should function at or above a minimum acceptable level of mathematical competence.

What this means in practice, however, is that all students, regardless of innate ability or interest, are made to move at the same pace through the math curricula. Bright students must wait for low achieving students to catch on or catch up, before being allowed to move into other more advanced topics. In this system, the needs of students at or near the bottom are deemed to be more important than those of the top students in class, and advanced pupils with the most talent are held hostage by the least able and slowest moving ones.

Whereas the blatant unfairness and obvious unworkability of this system is recognized in the realm of reading instruction, where students have long been grouped according to ability in order to better meet the widely varying needs of slower and brighter students alike, the same common sense has not, unfortunately, prevailed in the teaching of mathematics. Championed by the current leaders in math education, including the National Association of Teachers of Mathematics, the doctrine of "Whole Group" instruction and "Math for the Masses" has become a sort of political correctness within the math education community. Dissenting opinions and opposition to this crazy idea are stridently fought back as "repressive" and "old school." One would never dream of forcing an advanced early reader to stunt his or growth in a lower level reading group, yet this is exactly what happens in school as children are taught mathematics.

Although the goals of egalitarianism and equal opportunity are very important, so is accepting the reality that not all people are equally talented or similarly motivated in all things. While inflexible, permanent "tracking" is unfair and definitely not the answer, neither is permanent "anti-tracking" that shackles the best and brightest students to the heels of the slowest and least interested ones.

A recent opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer does a good job of dissecting the issue. Read a reprint of the article here.

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Are Hard Times Breeding Language Snobbery?

I confess. It does bother me when I encounter grammatical mistakes in advertisements, uttered nonchalantly by media personalities, or written on public signs or forms.

Perhaps that's to be expected ... I am an academic coach, after all.

But are heightened levels of stress and anxiety due to the current world economic crisis making irritated and obnoxious language snobs out of more regular folk?

Obsession with others' language blunders may, in fact, to be on the rise. As personal circumstances fall increasingly beyond our own control, it can be strangely consoling for many to know the "right way" to say or write something and even to browbeat others into adopting correct usage and orthography.

A recent piece at msnbc.com explores this idea more deeply:

But while blunders and bloopers have ever exasperated the spelling snobs and grammar grunions of the world, our recent woes — housing foreclosures, massive layoffs, rising debt and war — may be ratcheting up the pressure some feel to seize control of something (anything!), even if it’s just a properly placed comma.

“Hanging on to some kind of rule might be comforting to people,” says Bethany Keeley, a grad student from Athens, Ga., who runs The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. “People are looking for something they can control and ‘What should we do about our foreign policy?’ is a lot more complicated a question than ‘Should the period go inside or outside the quotation mark?’”

While it's obvious that too much language nagging is too much, I think it's clear that sloppy usage can go too far as well.

In recent years, leaders and role models in government and elsewhere have practically made a career out of mangling language ... and seem almost proud of it, denigrating those who prefer to speak or write with care and skill (See Bushisms and Palinisms).

The moral?

Neither a language snob nor slacker be.

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No Child Left Behind – Except The Gifted Ones

I admire the liberal, egalitarian goal helping all America's children to achieve academic success. Unfortunately, in our zeal to leave no child behind, we may in fact be leaving the entire nation behind.

With our limited resources, common wisdom now dictates that the special needs of gifted students be sacrificed in order to provide for those of lower achieving kids. Programs and energies previously directed at nurturing the best and brightest in our schools have now all but dried up, blown away by the erratic and often irrational winds of political correctness.

Certainly our culture benefits by raising the floor, but doesn't it also benefit by raising the ceiling? Isn't it just as important to make sure that the next generation's great thinkers, planners, inventors, and creators in all fields be given the educational stimulation and support they need throughout their early academic careers to fully develop their special abilities? Is it not the extraordinary capabilities of these individuals at the far right end of the bell curve – when their exceptional talents are not allowed to atrophy as in our current educational environment – that create many or most of the breakthroughs powering the progress of nations? Do we not still need to rely on the promise of such breakthroughs in fields such as medicine, computer science, energy production, etc. if our country is to continue to remain a world leader?

From a recent Washington Post article by Joann DiGennaro:

The ugly secret is that our most talented students are falling through the cracks. Not one program of such major governmental agencies as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation or NASA specifically targets the top 5 percent of students who have demonstrated academic excellence and have the greatest potential for becoming our inventors, creators and groundbreaking scientists. An international assessment of math problem-solving skills of 15-year-olds in 2004, along with more recent studies, found that the United States had the fewest top performers and the largest percentage of low performers compared with other participating countries. By the time students reach 12th grade in math and science, they are near the bottom or dead last compared with international competition, according to the Education Department. These are the critical years for supporting students in science and math, for it is when they make career-determining decisions for college studies.

The blade must be strong, but the cutting edge must also be sharp in order for a tool to be truly useful. Sacrificing one necessary outcome for the sake of another is a foolish strategy, one that's bound to fail.

We as a nation should be willing (eager, in fact) to invest the resources necessary to accomplish the twin goals of leaving no child behind and holding no genius back.

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Top Universities Liberalize Financial Aid Policies

The outrageous cost of higher education in America just got knocked down a few notches.

In tow with Stanford University, both Yale and Harvard have recently announced plans to make tuition at their institutions much more affordable for Americans with low and middle incomes.

At Stanford, students whose parents make less than $60K per year will soon pay no tuition and nothing for room and board, while those those whose families earn up to $100K per year still still pay zip for tuition.

Under the new plans, the average student attending Yale will pay half what he or she paid before. Students at Harvard with less than $60K in annual parental income will now pay zero to attend (though work study will be required), and parents with incomes up to $180K will pay only 10% of their combined incomes for each child in attendance.

Other major universities nation-wide are following suit, increasing aid to middle and low income families and substituting grants for student loans so students can graduate without having to shoulder a crushing debt burden.

On Planet Earth in 2008, access to higher education divides countries that "have" from those that "have not." While other developed nations offer a free college education to any citizen who can cut the mustard academically, here in the U.S. the unmanageably high cost of college has been shutting off economic and cultural advancement to large segments of our population for some time, now.

It's about time this untenable situation was addressed and remedied. Let's hope the recent trend toward making higher education affordable for all qualified students in America continues and accelerates. Fixing this problem is clearly a matter of national economic competitiveness, and therefore, ultimately, a matter of national security.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.