Set Our Teachers FREE!

Again I have a story from the New York Times. This was written by Michael Winerip and reports the results of a new study by the Educational Testing Service (E.T.S.), which develops and administers over 50 million standardized tests annually, including the SAT. The study, entitled “The Family: America’s Smallest School” concludes that a lot of the low scores are explained by factors that have nothing to do with schools, rather what goes on in individual homes.

The E.T.S. study says there are four variables, beyond the control of schools, that account for the discrepancies in achievement.

• The percentage of children living with one parent




• The percentage of eighth graders absent from school at least three times a month




• The percentage of children 5 or younger whose parents read to them daily




• The percentage of eighth graders who watch five or more hours of TV a day

Here is the kicker:

“Using just these four variables, the researchers were able to predict each states results on the federal eighth-grade reading test with impressive accuracy.

“Together, these four factors account for about two-thirds of the large differences among states.

“Which gets to the heart of the report: by the time these children start school at age 5, they are far behind, and tend to stay behind all through high school. There is no evidence that the gap is being closed.

Duh! Where do I apply to get the money to do a study? I mentioned in an earlier post, one can take any hypothesis and find facts to back up that hypothesis. This study is another perfect example.

First of all, there are single parent families that provide an enriched environment for their child, so I can only believe that the study was NOT ‘lumping’ all types of single-parent families into one category. Then I wonder how anyone can accurately report how many hours ANY child watches TV. And doesn’t it make a difference WHAT they watch, whether it’s cartoons, MTV, The Discovery Channel or Nova? And what about underprivileged children who just ‘hang out’ on the corner, because they don’t have TV?

It seems that the major premise of the study, “. . .by the time these children start school at age 5, they are far behind, and tend to stay behind all through high school” comes from the fact that children start out with parents who don’t read to them daily and then continue without encouraging learning all through the child’s school years.

We’ve already covered all of the points brought out in the E.T.S. study in“Set Our Teachers FREE! A Plan to Save Public Education” by Don Kingsland. The Kingsland Plan takes all of these variables into account and provides a workable solution that has been PROVEN to be effective.

How many more studies do we need to PROVE that our children are failing? Why won’t educators and bureaucrats look at the solutions instead?

Get your copy of “Set Our Teachers FREE!” today and start agitating for SOLUTIONS NOT STUDIES.

Brennan

Filed under: Education Reform