<p>But if you read the article – you’ll see that the remedial path doesn’t work – apparently it is demoralizing and simply reinforces feelings of inadequacy among the students who are sent down the path. The point is that with support aimed more at confidence building and metacognitive skills seem to be enough to enable students like Vanessa to perform on a par with more privileged students. The Chemistry teacher gave the same lectures and the same exams to his TIP group as he did to the large class - and they ended up getting the same ranges of grades on the exams. So the bimodal grade distribution was converted to a standard bell curve by a program which essentially was morale-building, not remedial. </p>
<p>When you look at an ACT score as a representing a test of ability, you are buying into the “entity theory of intelligence” that the researchers in the article have refuted – not by offering an alternative theory, but by gathering data from thousands of students. </p>
<p>The idea of giving the low SES students more remedial support as a prerequisite to university entrance seems to make sense on an emotional level – but the evidence is that it simply doesn’t work. If you put yourself in the position of the student being offered the “help”-- you can see how such measures actually work to erect additional barriers to the student., and simply reinforces the barriers they are starting out with. </p>
<p>I would assume that there’s a certain level of hype in the NYT article – the picture probably isn’t quite as rosy as it is made out – but the bottom line is that they are gathering statistical evidence that supports their approach-- and I think the stats tell a very different story when students like Vanessa are redirected toward remedial programs. </p>