THIS AND THAT FOR NOVEMBER
About Those National Merit Semi-Finalists...
As we've written previously. 47 of the 95 2017 Idaho National Merit Semi-Finalists go to school in the Boise District. For sure, these are some very bright and talented students. But they have also worked very hard to get where they are. These students are now seniors, and here is some information about their cumulative accomplishments:
Average Grade Point Average: 4.18 (weighted)
Average number of Advanced Placement classes: 10
Average EBRW SAT Score: 738 (Possible Score 800)
Average Math SAT Score: 743 (Possible Score 800)
Average Composite SAT Score: 1481 (Possible Score 1600)
Additionally, the vast majority of these stellar students somehow make time for pursuit in the arts, whether it be band, orchestra, art, or other coursework. A truly special group of students.
What Do Vouchers Accomplish? Not much.
Writing in Politico, Stephanie Simon has published an article entitled "Vouchers don't do Much for Students" in which she reports the research related to the controversial program.
Simon writes, "Ever since the Obama administration filed suit to freeze Louisiana’s school voucher program, high-ranking Republicans have pummeled the president for trapping poor kids in failing public schools...But behind the outrage is an inconvenient truth: Taxpayers across the U.S. will soon be spending $1 billion a year to help families pay private school tuition — and there’s little evidence that the investment yields academic gains.
Simon also indicates that voucher programs benefit private schools and homeschoolers, writing "Also, voucher recipients aren’t always trapped in failing public schools; in fact, some have never even tried the public system. Fully two-thirds of students in Wisconsin’s Parental Choice Program were already enrolled in private schools before they received the tuition subsidy — and another 5 percent were home schooled, state data show."
Conflicting Research on Pre-K
David Loewenburg writes in The Atlantic an article about the holdout of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota on preschools, and attempts to explain why the phenomenon exists. In "Why the Mountain West is Still Holding out on Preschool" Loewenburg attributes the cause of Pre-k resistance to philosophical underpinnings: "The unique blend of conservatism and libertarianism embraced here manifests itself in a collective exaltation of personal freedom, privacy, and a general skepticism of the government’s role in their daily lives."
Loewenburg writes about the resistance in the face of a growing body of research supporting the pre-k investment. But there is a new source of disagreement.
A new report from the Brookings Institute reports that research done in Tennessee that initially showed progress for over 1000 students enrolled in preschool there not only lost the academic advantage by the first grade, but scored lower than the control group by the end of 3rd grade.
Our favorite Pennsylvania English teacher Peter Greene responded critically to the Brooking report with his own article, entitled "Is Pre-k a Waste of Time?" in which he points out that the report was based solely on achievement testing, and not on more important measures of effectiveness.
Green writes, "There are two unexamined assumptions behind all of this foolishness.One is that education for the littles can only count if it is somehow converted to data that adults can feast on, and the other is that getting a head start on academic achievement and test-taking is more important than getting a head start on being a human being."
