Does Head Start Work?

In article
,
Beliavsky wrote:

On Dec 10, 12:40 am, wrote:
I have been reading a book on early brain development. It was talking
about how programs like Head Start are not proven to improve learning
in children because they begin after age three.

I think they cannot improve learning because they cannot raise
intelligence, and starting earlier would not change that.

Error in logic. Learning and intelligence are not the same thing. Learning
involves a set of skills. The reason that many gifted children drop out late
in high school or in first-year Uni is that they have never learnt to learn;
everything has come easily to them because of their advanced cognitive and
superior memory ability. When those abilities fail them, they simply give up.

Secondly, you seem to be assuming that the quality of teaching has no impact
on the level of learning achieved by a person -- is that really what you
believe?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

On Dec 13, 2:44 am, Chookie wrote:

snip

Secondly, you seem to be assuming that the quality of teaching has no impact
on the level of learning achieved by a person -- is that really what you
believe?

No, but I don't think differences in the quality of teaching account
for much of the variance in learning among students. However, most of
the differences in performance across schools can be explained by non-
school variables, according to a study by the Educational Testing
Service. Looking at the four variable listed below, I think they are
largely proxies for the intelligence of parents and their children. I
searched "intelligence" in the PDF file and got no hits, so I think
the study authors are trying to evade reality, consciously or
unconsciously.

ETS study
http://www.ets.org/Media/Education_T...ort_School.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/ny...parenting.html
In Gaps at School, Weighing Family Life
by Michael Winerip
New York Times, December 9 2007

'THE federal No Child Left Behind law of 2002 rates schools based on
how students perform on state standardized tests, and if too many
children score poorly, the school is judged as failing.

A new study by the Educational Testing Service -- which develops and
administers more than 50 million standardized tests annually,
including the SAT -- concludes that an awful lot of those low scores
can be explained by factors that have nothing to do with schools. The
study, "The Family: America's Smallest School," suggests that a lot of
the failure has to do with what takes place in the home, the level of
poverty and government's inadequate support for programs that could
make a difference, like high-quality day care and paid maternity
leave.

The E.T.S. researchers took four variables that are beyond the control
of schools: 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, and the percentage of eighth graders who watch five or
more hours of TV a day. Using just those four variables, the
researchers were able to predict each state's 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," the report said. In other words, the
states that had the lowest test scores tended to be those that had the
highest percentages of children from single-parent families, eighth
graders watching lots of TV and eighth graders absent a lot, and the
lowest percentages of young children being read to regularly,
regardless of what was going on in their schools.'


--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

Hi --

There's a very interesting article on IQ and race in the current issue
of the New Yorker magazine. People interested in this thread may be
interested in reading it. The article is relatively short,
well-written, and the magazine is available at many public libraries if
you don't want to purchase it. (And you get to read the cartoons,
too. :-)

--Beth Kevles
-THE-COM-HERE
http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic
Disclaimer: Nothing in this message should be construed as medical
advice. Please consult with your own medical practicioner.

NOTE: No email is read at my MIT address. Use the GMAIL one if you would
like me to reply.

Wow. The NYT article quoted is a *powerful* argument in favor of Head
Start. Head Start treats the whole family, and has been shown to
decrease student absenteeism, and also teaches parents the value of
reading to their young children, and how to do so in a way that both
parent and child will enjoy.

Thanks for posting it,
--Beth Kevles
-THE-COM-HERE
http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic
Disclaimer: Nothing in this message should be construed as medical
advice. Please consult with your own medical practicioner.

NOTE: No email is read at my MIT address. Use the GMAIL one if you would
like me to reply.

'THE federal No Child Left Behind law of 2002 rates schools based on
how students perform on state standardized tests, and if too many
children score poorly, the school is judged as failing.

A new study by the Educational Testing Service -- which develops and
administers more than 50 million standardized tests annually,
including the SAT -- concludes that an awful lot of those low scores
can be explained by factors that have nothing to do with schools.

I don't disagree with you that failing schools do tend to have an awful
lot of factors that are not related to the schools, they may even
account for the entire difference, but I don't think that means that by
changing the school, you're not going to have any chance of changing
outcomes for the kinds - if you have a group of kids all from poor home
settings, then all sorts of things happen, you get less parent
involvement, less fundraising etc. but someone somewhere can make the
decision that a school therefore needs more staff, more assistant
teachers, they can also inject one off sums of money to do something
like replace all the desks, something that might have been done through
fundraising. In the UK there has been an awful lot of things like this
done to "failing schools", the vast majority do turn around and results
improve, not such that they suddenly become a top school. If it doesn't
turn around then they close the school, sometimes bizarrely reopening a
school on the same site, other times they will study the area and try
and place a new school such that it's catchement area changes, so that
instead of a failing school in the middle of a sink estate, the
boundaries will be rejigged so some go to different schools and some go
to the new school along with children from other areas that aren't so
affected by the various disadvantages. So even though you can't change
something like number of kids from single parent families, it doesn't
mean you can't work with it.

Cheers
Anne