Conversations over incinerating meat ...

They should warn you at teachers college that when you start teaching it won’t be too long before you are bailed up at a bar-b-cue by a parent wanting you to share your “insider knowledge” on the schools that will academically advantage their kids.

It doesn’t matter how the conversation over the pre-cooked sausages and lamb chops starts it always ends up with the parent asking you to finger a school that will guarantee the fruit of their loins “academic excellence”.

Teachers who are persuaded to join these conversations over incinerating meat must blur the distinction between what schools are and what schools do ... .

Ever since I spent 10 years of my life trapped in a sandpit with preschoolers I have known that “the quest to advantage your own” would make a  fascinating academic study ...

... and given that independent school enrolments in New Zealand (read private school enrolments) have risen by 25% between 2000 and 2007 (Joy Quigley, Executive Director of Independent Schools of New Zealand ) compared to state school rolls increases of 4.87% over the same period – now seems like a great time to launch into a PhD in clarifying the belief systems influencing parental choice in NZ Schools for their 21st Century Loiners

Apparently our private schools are also seen as best “bang for bucks” option for foreign students 

New Zealand's private schools are knocking their British counterparts off the top of the global league table for English-speaking education, international research suggests.
The findings could give New Zealand an edge over Britain among wealthy Asians seeking the best education for their children - particularly since New Zealand's top schools are generally cheaper, London's Financial Times newspaper reports.

All of which makes my summer holiday reading more pertinent – I have just finished Levitt and Dubner’s  “Freakonomics” – it is a great vacation read – a book that you can relax into and be entertained and educated by in equal measure - and it has some very smart analysis for anyone interested in schools and teaching.

I enjoyed the first chapter on “What do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?  where the authors claim that “Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more for less” and reveal that “... teacher cheating is rarely looked for, hardly ever detected, and just about never punished.”  They go on to expose the incentives for teachers to cheat when high stakes testing is introduced and describe an algorithm used to detect a cheating teacher’s classroom in the Chicago Public School System database of test answers “for every CPS student from third grade through seventh grade from 1993 to 2000.” -  a sample of results from 30,000 students per grade level per year

I know we track student cheating in New Zealand and occasionally we read media reports about teacher cheating but these are always represented as the isolated actions of mavericks in the system.  Levitt and Dubner’s data makes me wonder if teacher cheating is more widespread than we imagine.  The chapter catalysed many questions - I wanted to ask - how prevalent is teacher cheating in enhancing student results in New Zealand schools? How would we know? How hard are we looking for teacher cheating?

It is such compelling analysis of teacher cheating that it makes me wonder if our systems are as vulnerable to teachers who wish to inflate their students test performance.  Our secondary students commonly gain better grades in NCEA internals than externals.  What is the cause of this difference? Is the incentive to inflate student assessments greater in internally assessed courses than externally assessed courses? And given the growing competition between primary schools in Auckland with each school looking to market itself – each school promoting its point of difference over its neighbour – I wondered what happens when the incentives are great enough for schools misrepresent student ability to inflate their own status.

Then I wondered if the significance of teacher cheating was inversely proportional to the number of teachers doing it?   Does cheating in fact matter more when fewer teachers do it? – If we did find a wide spread practice of inflation in student assessment across all primary and secondary schools will its impact on how we understand student abilities be reduced?

And all of this came from the first chapter in Freakonomics - I had more questions than I had space to think.

However, Chapter 5 “What makes a perfect parent?” has the stuff that will make provocative conversation when shared with the parents who sidle up to me at the bar-b –cue.

In Chapter Five the authors look at the regression analysis of data from the US Department of Education Early Childhood Longitudinal Study ECLS – into “the academic progress of more than twenty thousand children from kindergarten through to fifth grade. The subjects were chosen from across the country to represent an accurate cross section of American schoolchildren.”

The study found eight ECLS factors that were correlated with school test scores (note correlation not causality) and eight factors that are not.

The eight factors that are correlated with school test scores:

• The child has highly educated parents.
• The child’s parents have high socioeconomic status
• The child’s mother was thirty or older at the time of the first child’s birth
• The child had low birthweight
• The child’s parents speak English at home
• The child is adopted
• The child’s parents are involved in the PTA
• The child has many books in his home

The eight factors that are not correlated with school test scores:

• The child’s family is intact
• The child’s parents recently moved into a better neighbourhood
• The child’s mother didn’t work between birth and kindergarten
• The child attended Head Start
• The child’s parents regularly take him to museums
• The child is regularly spanked
• The child frequently watches television
• The child’s parents read to him nearly every day.      

Levitt and Dubner offer the following response to the regression analysis

To overgeneralise a bit, the first list describes things that parents are; the second things that parents do.  Parents who are well educated, successful, and healthy tend to have children who test well in school; but it doesn’t seem to matter whether a child is trotted off to museums or spanked or sent to sent to Head  start or frequently read to or plopped in front of the television.

For parents – and parenting experts – who are obsessed with child rearing technique, this may be sobering news.  The reality is that technique looks to be highly overrated. (p161)

This chapter’s use of  The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study ECLS Program data makes me wonder if the high test scores reported for independent (private) schools, could be looked at in a similar way – Perhaps the correlation between independent (private) schools and high test scores is more to do with what these schools are in terms of their student population, than what the schools can do for the students they have enrolled.

However, I will admit that the bar b cue parent is unlikely to be swayed by the conversations in Chapter 5 ... they seldom state it openly across the sizzle of sausages but high test scores are only part of what they seek ..    

Comments

[Graham Wegner]

Arti, I haven't been this way for a while, not because I haven't been reading but more that I haven't had anything significant to say. That doesn't mean that this will be significant either but that I've decided to break the drought. My wife and I are both teachers and know the phenomenon of being quizzed about schools by relatives and friends who want to "make the right choice." So many are also shocked that two teachers who surely must have all the good inside oil about where the good schools are (and get preferential treatment too) then choose to just send our kids to the local state school.

I've heard enough of these conversations to know that school choice has nothing to do with learning and everything to do with status, nice uniforms, keeping up with the well-to-do rellies and family expectations. I've heard of Catholic schools being chosen because the parents want their kids to learn more about the faith they can't be bothered following. I've heard academic programs being touted and in the same breath talk about how much Kumon their kids are doing after school. Most of all, parents are reliving and correcting (in their minds) the perceived slights of their own educational experiences.

And everyone wants their kids to go to uni, too.

[Luke]

why pre cooked sausages, thats where it all went wrong, the remueraites will be throwing up from the first sentence. http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/characters/maggie.shtml the local school will do.... yeah right even i didnt have the courage to go there, instead choosing the catholic school with the faith i cant be stuffed teaching.
i think you might be onto something re what schools are rather than what they can do. but one might question the entrance criteria to remain "on top". an associate payed 100k to get in. perhaps he should read your article, he misses on 5 of the criteria.
the more worrying for me is the primary schools proving how good they are through results. im interested in finding a primary school who can produce data that hasnt got more holes in it than a george bush plan.
schools need to take themselves a little less seriously. and send some books home. i think Duff was onto something with books in homes, it seems that is the only factor we can influence.

i find the local butcher will do the damage. you cant have a bar b without the split snag and the mini fat fire. recommend omak in kamo. long way to go if your not in whangarei
http://www.finda.co.nz/business/ace/whangarei/food-drink/map/7/

[Artichoke]

Thanks for the tip about the Omak Butchers Luke - next time we are on a road trip up north I will insist on a detour to collect some Omak meat - and I hadn't picked up on the important class distinctions evident in what one places over the flames - I reckon you could write a piece for Principals Today on - "Social groupings in New Zealand schools as determined by what's sizzling on the bar b cue"

The intensity of parental interest seems to be growing Graham - just read something about the increasing involvement of parents in young adults lives - cannot find it again but this piece on helicopter parenting in the Telegraph captures the gist of it

Update: Ahh found it again Graham - try this link from the Guardian helicoptering parents of graduates

[Tony Forster]

http://tinyurl.com/2ryz7u
PISA 2006 Science Competencies for Tomorrow's World

On average across the OECD, students in private schools outperformed students in public schools in 21 countries, while public schools outperformed private ones in four countries.
The picture changed, however, when the socio-economic background of students and schools was taken into account. Public schools then had an advantage of 12 score points over private schools, on average across OECD countries. That said, private schools may still
pose an attractive alternative for parents looking to maximise the benefits for their children, including those benefits that are conferred to students through the socio-economic level of
schools’ intake.

[Dorothy]

Those sausages are indeed the key.... and you don't need to drive to Kamo Luke. A visit to GI and Avon's butchery will sort you out. Farm cured sausages that can only be beaten by sending your own beast in to Walton Meat packers (out of Matamata). And curiously, now that Nosh has arrived in Glen Innes, suddenly the 'good' school crowd has descended in droves. And they bypass Avon (opposite the railway line) for their sausages, and spend 4 times as much at Nosh on an inferior product. At this stage I could move on to the fish situation, but it would be boring because the story is identical (except the place to buy is Marsiks in GI). Too often I think those folk who ask the questions over the barbie don't want to hear that they are being diddled by shopping in the wrong place for their kids' education too! Happy New Year folks!

[Artichoke]

Thanks for the OECD research link Tony ...it is increasingly apparent that in focussing on the choices parents make over private versus state education (or Avon versus Nosh sausages Dorothy) we miss the important factors - the perceived benefits conferred by mixing with a socioeconmic intake higher than your own - and it won't matter how much OECD research you publish and share if the tilt factor is not academic but rather all about social networking and the connect connect connect factor.

Am off to try some of those Avon sausages Dorothy - GI counts as local when compared with Luke's Omak's in Kamo

[Bill Kerr]

I came here from the more recent discussion about Bette Davis and her kissing habits

"To overgeneralise a bit, the first list describes things that parents are; the second things that parents do ... For parents – and parenting experts – who are obsessed with child rearing technique, this may be sobering news. The reality is that technique looks to be highly overrated"

My interpretation is that some of the items on the lists are thin descriptors (eg. watching TV) and others are thick descriptors (high education, high socio-economic status). It would be better if the survey was done by living in the homes of a few families and observing closely.

Parents who value and have succeeded in education will watch more TV with their children, discuss it - they will be constantly intervening in their children's habits in all sorts of ways - many of them subtle. In that sense a thin descriptor like frequency of TV watching is worthless. Parents who have not been successful in education may value it but they don't really know what to do.

I wouldn't accept the implied generalisation that what parents are does not affect what parents do.

Nevertheless, some things on the lists I can't explain. eg. maybe there was not enough Head Start, more would have worked. Books in the home is a good correlator; reading them to children is not. Hard to figure.

My general point is that thin descriptors are pretty much useless. An intensive study of a few households would reveal much more.