Helping Some Students May Harm High Achievers

palegray.net writes "According to a new study performed by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, increased emphasis on helping students with a history of lower academic achievement results in lower performance for high achievers. This trend appears to be related to the No Child Left Behind Act. Essentially, programs designed to devote a large number of resources to assisting students who are deemed to be 'significantly behind' leave little room for encouraging continued academic growth for higher-performing students."

Comments

Death Coil

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sorry to say it but DUH. Anybody who has ever gotten decent grades could tell you this. Not really new news.

Re:Death Coil

[nine-times]

Yeah, I think lots of people have been saying this for years. It's completely obvious, but unfortunately some people won't listen to even the most obvious things until you can say, "a study proved it." And of course, you never hear about any studies that prove obvious but politically-incorrect ideas.

Anyway, yes, of course, kids don't simply raise themselves. Smart kids, dumb kids, it doesn't matter, they need people to pay attention to them, teach them, tell them what to do, be given examples of what to be, etc. Attention is a limited resource, and the more attention to pay to some kids, the less you pay to others. So if you pay all your attention to the problem kids and the dumb kids, the well-behaved kids and the smart kids suffer.

And no, really, the smart kids don't take care of themselves. All kids need attention.

Re:Death Coil

[konohitowa]

This was true when I was in school 20+ years ago. The reason this is deemed news is because it makes people with an axe to grind (i.e. people who are against NCLB) all warm and angry inside.

Re:Death Coil

[ryanemitchell]

It's completely obvious, but unfortunately some people won't listen to even the most obvious things until you can say, "a study proved it."

I don't think this is quite true -- if it were, there wouldn't be so many morons rubbing organic garlic on their feet to try to get rid of their headaches. "Obvious" is subjective, and can often be misleading. If there were more people that evaluated studies before making a decision, the world would be a much better place (and, no, we wouldn't have the "No Child Left Behind" act.

Re:Death Coil

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

The plural of anecdote is not data, if you think that we should lead our lives by what we consider common sense, then you're really barking up the wrong tree. Common sense is neither common nor sensible.

Re:Death Coil

[fprintf]

This is common, but from a kid's perspective, most would rather be sitting quietly or reading a book than doing more *work* than everyone else has to do.

My son is in 6th grade and has been at the top of his class since he joined school. He finished the No Child Left Behind mastery tests usually in 20 minutes or less even when the test was supposed to take between 60 and 90 minutes. Even given that, he scored in the 97th - 99th percentile for scores for the last three years (4th, 5th, 6th grade). He gets his smarts from his mother, but gets his motivation, or lack of it, from me. :-)

I say all this because my experience with him and some of his classmates is exactly as described. In fact, we worry that the smart kids are rushing to get done just so they can get to the free time or reading time that much earlier. It almost becomes a race. If it wasn't for the fact that my son's scores are high, we'd have done somethign about it. The thing is, he was asked to be in an academically gifted program and he hated it, not because it wasn't interesting, but because it was more work!

I can see your point, but until we return to a policy of creating "smart kid" classes and "not-so-smart kid" classes, instead of the enforced homogeneous classes we have nowadays, it is unlikely that teachers will be able to cope with students that move at such different speeds. They try all kinds of strategies, like pairing the smart kids together into challenging reading groups, or assigning targeted homework, but 80% of the day is done together with everyone.

Re:Death Coil

[mrand]

I can see your point, but until we return to a policy of creating "smart kid" classes and "not-so-smart kid" classes

But ... but ... but, that's not fair! No kidding. It most certainly is not fair to the smart kids to be stuck in a classroom where the teacher is forced to spend all their time trying to get the struggling kids up-to-minimal level.

Re:Death Coil

[Temujin_12]

Get someone to say on TV that "studies have proven" it, and everyone will do it. Sorry, I had to chime in on a pet peeve of mine. What bothers me about this is that it seems like a significant portion of the population abandon all critical or independent thinking once the magical phrase "studies have proven" or "they've proven" is used, even when no context describing the "study" or who "they" are is given. I know several people who liberally weave these phrases into conversation or debates with the implied meaning that since "they've proven it" the matter is beyond debate. If you stop them and question who "they" are and/or the validity of the "proof" they become very defensive (even when your questioning is genuine and non combative). It makes for very narrow-minded and frustrating discussions.

Now, if a scientific study has been made and has conclusive results (which happens less often than we'd like to think), you should initially have reason to believe it. But stopping there is just intellectually lazy (or ignorant). You should look into the context of the "study". Find out who "they" are (and more to the point, who's funding them). Find out how strong the correlation was (you've studied statistics haven't you?). Find out if there is a consensus in the scientific community about this "study". Find out if there are any conflicting studies. Etc.

I'm not saying you need to detailed analysis on every study you come across. All it takes is a few minutes of searching to gain a better understanding of the context that surrounds a "study" (assuming the referenced "study" even occurred in the first place). Doing this, you can avoid many of the conspiracies or frauds out there that prey on the intellectually lazy.

Re:Death Coil

[mblase]

He gets his smarts from his mother, but gets his motivation, or lack of it, from me. :-) ... The thing is, he was asked to be in an academically gifted program and he hated it, not because it wasn't interesting, but because it was more work!

Sounds like this one is your department. :-) Take it from me, he can run on natural smarts for a good number of years but sooner or later he'll need to learn to work hard, too. I nearly sank myself in college because I was used to coasting through high school, and never learned the value of visiting my teachers outside class, collaborating with other students, or studying together with my classmates.

Re:Death Coil

[DrgnDancer]

Common sense isn't very common, but it is sensible. For the most part, common sense means logic applied at an everyday level. The problem is that logic applied at the everyday level is not always sensible because we often lack the evidence to make a reasonable conclusion. The obvious example of this is policy like "no child left behind". It may seem quite logical to a person with limited experience in schooling children to assume that trying to push the the worst performing students is more important than trying to push the best performing students. After all, the worst performing students are failing to meet the minimum standard, and the best performing students are not. It makes sense to oil the squeaky wheel after all. The smart kids can take care of themselves. Except that is clearly not the case from inside of the educational system. Smart kids may be easily able to maintain the minimum with very little attention, but they are never going to reach their potential. If our best and brightest fail to meet their potential, we lose in the long run even if we do bring more of our students up to a minimal acceptable level.

To personalize it let's look at an issue in which both sides claim to have common sense on their sides. Gun control:

Typical Gun Control Position Common Sense: It's common sense that we limit ownership of guns after all. In my personal experience most people don't know how to use them properly and are more likely to hurt themselves than an attacker. Making guns available easily and their unlicensed possession anything other than a crime simply encourages criminals to have them. Plus they are a danger in houses with small children. There is just no good reason for people to own some guns. Hunting rifles and maybe shotguns, sure, but assault rifles and handguns?

Typical Non-Gun Control Position Common Sense: It's common sense that we allow unrestricted access to firearms. Most of the people I know are comfortable with their weapons and have been using them for years. If we make guns illegal, then only criminals will have guns. Taking away my ability to defend myself makes much less sense than trying to keep criminals from getting guns that they are clearly going to get their hands on anyway. My kids know better than to mess with the guns. I've been teaching them to respect (and use) weapons since they were old enough to talk and walk.

Both of these position are perfectly valid from the point of view of the person stating them. They're common sense based on logic and the evidence that the person in question sees day to day. Common sense is not always common, and even when it seems sensible to you, or you and your friends, it may not always seems so to an outsider.

No Child Left Behind

[dintech]

It's all about finance really. If you pay more teachers to teach smaller classes, most of these issues go away. The other thing is that children with learning disabilities get taught by themselves or in small groups because they are a special case. I would say the same should be available to gifted children.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[janeeja]

If you want the epitome of this 'one-size-fits-all' approach and witness its results upclose then please come to europe.

This fear of a middle-ages class-based school system that is encoded in every administrators head, has forged a bond inbetween civil servant and teacher so strong that they cannot be distinguished from another.

In fact this bond is so strong now that even the slightest form of desire for exellence is not just seen as an attack on the schoolsystem itself but also on the very fundaments of the society it's supposed to serve.

One giant self fulfilling prophecy if you ask me.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[nine-times]

No, really, it is largely about finance. You need a greater teacher/student ratio than most schools have.

See, because even if you want to separate kids out based on their gifts, you need someone to evaluate which kids are gifted at what. You can give them tests, but that will only tell you which kids do better on tests.

What it doesn't tell you is which kids are smart but unmotivated or bored, and therefore not bothering to try. It doesn't tell you which kids might have skills and assets that don't show up well on tests. It doesn't tell you which kids are just nervous and don't do well on tests. It doesn't tell you which kids are smart but have learning disabilities-- yes, 'learning disabled' has become code for stupid, but there are real learning disabilities.

For anyone to really know all that about students, someone needs to know the students. You can't really get to know the students well enough when you have 45 minutes a day per class with a class of 40 kids. You'd improve our education system immensely if teachers were given a couple hours a day with a class of 15 kids, maybe with opportunities for private tutoring.

Of course, you can't accomplish that without hiring loads of new teachers, and you can't hire loads of new teachers without spending a lot more money. Plus, in order to attract good teachers, you might have to pay them better. I think I'd probably like being a teacher, but not if it means I'll get paid 1/4 of what I get paid now.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Teran9]

Education isn't about challenging the students or paying teachers more. It is about imparting the ability to acquire and process information in order to understand and create knowledge.

Few teachers are taught how to think much less how to teach that ability so all they can pass on is WHAT to think.

When students do not have the thought processing skills to understand what they are being told they get frustrated or bored and the transfer of knowledge fails.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[stewbacca]

I've lived and taught in Europe (Germany and England) and those school systems are much better than the US. What you described as being a problem in Europe, the fear of a class-based school system, is not a problem at all when compared to the US system. In the US, we are too afraid to say, "your child is done with school at age 16, because he/she needs to be a blue collar worker the rest of his/her life". They have no qualms doing that in Germany, and in England you have to pass the exams to continue past 16. No such thing here in touchy-feely US schools. EVERYONE should go to college, even if they don't have even 1% of the ability to do so.

I thought this was common knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

No Child Left Behind is equivalent to No Child Gets Ahead.

This has always been blatantly obvious.

Re:I thought this was common knowledge

[Slashidiot]

I think every education policy needs to be aware of this: Gaussian Function. No matter how you do it, ALWAYS, there will be some brilliant children, some dumb children, and lots of mediocre children. And parents should be aware of this, children are just like any other group. A few winners, and a whole lot of losers, to quote George Carlin.

Just accept that not every child will be the next Nobel prize, and accept that maybe your child is one of the dumb ones, and will have to do simple manual work all his life.

If we leave some children behind, we can run much faster. Sad, but that's life.

Re:Schools award mediocrity

[Swizec]

Never understood the issue with making people not feel inferior when it's so very fucking obvious that some people are simply superior to other people. It's just the way it is and always have been. Why are we trying to make everyone feel so bloody equal these days anyway?

I mean, if you're stupid or fat doesn't matter, you're still a good chap and there's nothing wrong with you. But if you're rich, smart or successful then you're a fucking pig for making everyone else feel inferior ... what the hell!?

Except when it comes to sports!

[Peter Cooper]

Interestingly, these sort of braindead policies never seem to apply to sports in schools. The focus is definitely on pushing and supporting the most athletic and physically skilled students, while those who are not good at sports are left to flail around and just do time. This makes a lot of sense, since not everyone /needs/ to be a hot football or tennis player.. but for some reason society feels that "everyone" has to be of average intelligence, which is just wrong (and totally impossible statistically).

Re:Better educate the masses

[Opportunist]

While generally a good idea, it is basically a tool to keep the poor poor. Why? Allow me to elaborate.

What schools do participate in something like NCLB? Public schools. Why? Because they get no money if they don't. Why can private schools simply ignore it and continue a policy of pushing gifted pupils? Because they don't care about pennies from the state, they care about big bucks from mom and dad.

So what happens to someone who is bright but poor? He's in a NCLB school, being bored and finishing with a degree that ain't worth jack because the dunce next to him has the same degree. Sure, the dunce had to work hard for it while the bright child spent most of his time slacking, the net result is the same: A worthless degree.

Re:Schools award mediocrity

[tyler.willard]

You shouldn't get an award because of your genes, but because of the work you put in. According to who? And why?

Actually, I shouldn't be arguing; if you're correct then I should be able to get a Nobel Prize just by trying really hard.

Re:Fits with my experience

[Psiren]

Surely the parents should play a part here too? I wasn't exactly a genius at school, although probably above average. But my parents did their best to support my interests, ensuring that I had ample opportunity to apply myself. I'm not talking about financially here, although having money helps. I'm talking about spending time with your kids, helping them to help themselves. If I had a "high achieving" child, I certainly wouldn't expect the school to take on full responsibility for their education. That's just lazy parenting.

Re:Schools award mediocrity

[Opportunist]

You shouldn't get an award because of your genes, but because of the work you put in.

When was the last time this worked anywhere in the real world, outside of a school. I can't remember a boss saying "Well, John, you really got us that million dollar contract, but I'll still promote Jeff over there, he didn't make the closing but he worked really hard on it for a month, you persuaded your customer in just a day, that's hardly an effort."

Re:Better educate the masses

[Opportunist]

The problem is that his degree is seen as worthless by a potential employer because every dimwit can get it. Actually, if the general population was well educated, any degree would instantly be worthless, because it could no longer be used as a measurement of your skill.

But that is not the case, it has never been and it will never be. Not all people are equally good at learning. And to make matters more complicated, not everyone is equally good at learning the same skills. That's what a degree should show.

When everyone can get the same degree, no matter whether they can actually acquire a certain skill, the degree is no longer useful as a tool to determine whether someone has certain skills, making the degree worthless. Especially when there are people who have a degree (from a private school) that can be used to measure whether someone has the skills. Because this school can actually "leave children behind" and avoid passing pupils that shouldn't pass.

Re:Also in the news

[SpeedyDX]

I realize this was meant to be a semi-serious funny comment, but I disagree with it. "No shit" beliefs change throughout time, and I don't think we are fit to judge what should and should not be studied. By condemning these types of studies, you are advocating a form of restriction in the freedom of academic scholars to pursue their academic interests. This is never a good thing.

Further, this isn't really a "no shit" issue. The theory behind helping struggling students is that struggling students need help, while those who excel can manage to do well by themselves. In fact, many people in /. post that when they were themselves in high school, they had levels of knowledge above and beyond their high school teachers. What significant, tangible benefits could these excelling students have in their high school teachers giving them more attention? These excelling students have already proven themselves to have a willingness and affinity to study subjects beyond course material on their own.

So while I realize that your comment was supposed to illicit some humour out of the submission, I don't agree with the particular stance conveyed. Academic freedom is highly treasured and should not be curbed in the name of "usefulness" by some arbitrary measure. This study did provide some insight - that excelling students do need encouragement and that the current strategy is not working. While this concept may have seemed "obvious" to some, that opinion is meaningless without some evidence to back up that stance. This study provides that evidence.

Re:Stupid and lazy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the same AC so I can only reply on the first question:

I was both, that is having an easy time in school and often being in fights (both starting and defending). I totally agree that violence is not something that should be in schools, but I don't think for a second that separating the "stupid" kids from the "bright" kids helps.

Also, really smart people often have a really hard time in school and kids with good/great marks != geniuses.

I think a bigger problem (and with a less obvious solution) is how to spot the bright people, and keep them motivated and interested during schools. I mean, high school teachers aren't members of that group of people and tend to see creative solutions as failure rather than brilliance.

Also in the news

[Chrisq]

When sharing a cake, if you give more to the hungry students the portions for those who aren't hungry have to be smaller

Intelligent students are more empowered today...

[blahplusplus]

... the intelligent kids have fewer and fewer excuses with places like MIT offering their challenging courses for FREE - http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

I'm getting tired of the "all the intelligent people are victims", what really needs to be done is to have good guidance counsellors and to know about these internet resources, many intelligent kids can get the help they need from professors on the net and whatnot now. They have all the ability, what they need most is to have a map to be pointed in the right direction.

How do you measure the success of teachers?

[wrook]

I just started teaching this year. I'm not young either. I gave up my programming job to teach English to Japanese students.

Here on /. we love to complain about bad programmers who can hide in a large organization, spewing out horrible code while management gives them raises. But think about teaching for a bit. Here you have a profession where the success of the students (and hence the teacher) can literally be manipulated by the teacher. You can intentionally give them questions they can't answer (because you never taught them) or you can give them all the answers to the test the day before.

So to combat this you get standardized testing. If too many people fail the standard tests, then the teacher is bad. But what does that do? It means that the smart teacher will teach only what's on the test. And they will ensure that each student can score well on the test, ability be damned. It's all about the test.

This creates a curriculum which is meaningless. Just a bunch of hoops to jump through in order for the teacher to get their bonus (they get bonuses here in Japan... Does that happen other places?) Got a bright student that actually wants to learn something relevant? -- "Shut up kid. Talking to you costs me my bonus. You can already pass the test." Got a student struggling that needs to understand? -- "Just frickin' memorize this damn thing, OK? I don't care that you can't use it in real life. You only need it for the exam. Got it?"

The gaming potential here is enormous. I'm actually surprised that my school doesn't operate like that. Although we are one of the lowest ranked schools in the prefecture. So perhaps lack of need to achieve test results makes life better here. Most of the teachers are amazing, actually.

But it really begs the question. How the hell do you measure the success of teachers? They hold all the cards and there's no obvious objective measure that I can see....

Re:Schools award mediocrity

[Swizec]

The problem with your line of thinking is assuming inferiority is absolute. It can only be judged in comparison with another individual. For example at maths I am inferior to my maths professor and so on.

Re:Schools award mediocrity

[tyler.willard]

Define "working hard". Then please illustrate why it should be the highest standard.

Especially since you bring up "genetic lottery". If succeeding for certain people in certain endeavors is effortless, does that make their successes any less valuable?

And how about the ancillary benefits to talented individual's achievements:

If Salk didn't find it difficult to find a polio vaccine would that diminish its utility?

If Homer just sat down and bashed out the Illiad in a weekend does that lessen it value?

While I personally laud "hard work", this idea of elevating effort over value smacks of the Protestant Work Ethic run amok.

Re:Schools award mediocrity

[Tranzistors]

But if you're rich, smart or successful then you're a fucking pig for making everyone else feel inferior ... what the hell!?

Problem with awards is that they promote certain qualities. Being smart suddenly becomes more important than being, for instance, helpful. Thus not-so-bright kids are demoralized. So, are these awards necessary?

Another problem is that reward becomes the motivation - ideally everyone wants to get the reward, but only the top few get it. So, if I am realistic and see, that I will only get near the top if I learn 16 hours a day, I fall in despair and see no motivation to be even good, because, it is "gold or bust" situation. Imagine that in your workplace only top 10 workers would get all the salaries and only way to get anything would be becoming one of them. Would you accept the system?

Spend money on teachers, no administration

[Shivetya]

Damn if I type this a thousand times.

Compare any big city school system, take the total dollars spent and divide it by the number of students. For some reason many consider that unfair and want to reduce the dollars used. Do the same for some county schools. If its anything like where I live the city is nearly 3x the cost per student and the grades are worse.

Why?

Admin and feel good people. In other words not hiring teachers but hiring more cronies of friends of politicians, family members, and feed good skill sets that have no bearing on real education. Some places have more grief counselors than nurses! Look at their class sizes compared to the county schools. If they are higher in the city and they are spending more money per student then start asking questions. Considering the disrepair some city schools are in its hard to believe it gets eaten up by building maintenance.

Then we hit the fairness wall. Its not fair to give the better achieving students more, let alone let them be separate from those who cannot or WILL NOT learn. Throw in lots of zero tolerance rules about scissors, aspirin, and the like, and money is diverted to troubled schools who have more students than ever before. In some systems its not fair to celebrate the high achievers! It also isn't fair to test some students now because of race. Apparently race makes people incapable of being tested, I never knew math could form allegiances.

NCLB isn't the problem. The problem is school systems who game the system. They divert money and attention from where it should be.

Re:hungrier kids?

[CastrTroy]

I agree. If we continue on with the cake analogy, we have to change it a little bit. Let's assume we have a cake eating contest, and that the goal is to eat the entire cake as fast as possible. It would make sense to give the largest pieces to those who can eat the most cake. For those that don't want to eat as much cake, they can still help out by eating a little. But they shouldn't be given the biggest helping, because it won't help you win the competition. Assuming cake eating is the goal, you shouldn't lower the standards for everyone to make the non-cake eaters feel like they are doing a better job. I'm not so sure I'm ok with the way things are going with kids. We have to treat all the kids like they are the best at everything. When that simply isn't true. When I was a kid, and I played baseball, I always played the field, and was always near the end of the batting lineup. What I learned from that, was that I just wasn't a good baseball player. And I'm ok with that. I was always encouraged to practice, and I wasn't put down. But there was no way I was going to get a chance to play pitcher or shortstop. You see these people on American idle that sing like a cat in heat trapped under a truck, and they think they can sing. That's because everybody has hid the truth from them. That they really can't sing, but people are too afraid to hurt their self esteem.

Re:Also in the news

[Lijemo]

Shhh, remember that people born into a safe home and with a high IQ have a God-given right to succeed. Low achievers were surely bad in a former life. Caste^Wclass^Wmeritocracy is just, because it allows the fortunes of the mightiest to trickle down to the ungrateful average. Please, Sir, can I have some more?

Actually, it's the smart kids that DON'T come from well-off homes with attentive parents that suffer more from lack of attention from the teacher. The well-off kids will get the attention from their parents, and possibly from private tutors, or maybe even private schools. The smart kids who's parents are struggling just to get by, on the other hand, are VERY much in need of the teacher's attention. They are the ones who suffer the most from the "give all the time-attention-resources to the slower kids" policies.