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A new study argues that the nation’s focus on helping students who are furthest behind may have produced a Robin Hood effect, yielding steady academic gains for low-achieving students in recent years at the expense of top students.</p>
<p>The study, to be released on Wednesday, compared trends in scores on federal tests for the bottom 10 percent of students nationwide with those for the top 10 percent and said those at the bottom moved up faster than those at the top.
<p>I hardly see the conclusions as so damning of NCLB. The fact that the bottom is improving faster than the top is a rather trivial observation, as the article reluctantly admits. After all, that was the goal of NCLB.</p>
<p>I would be concerned if the study showed a decrease in achievement for the top 10%. But that is not what they found. The top is still getting better, just not as fast. </p>
<p>BTW, the slower rate of improvement at the top could well have nothing to do with NCLB, and be entirely due to things like ceiling effects.</p>
<p>I wonder if they are going to do a follow-up study, showing that students scoring in the bottom 10% on the SAT tend to show a large improvement in their scores after tutoring, while students scoring in the top 10% don't seem to show as much of a post-tutoring bounce.</p>
<p>Or wait, maybe they could do a survey on how households that waste lots of water tend to see their water use drop significantly when educated about low-flow showerheads and toilets, and about cutting water use. By comparison, households that use little water don't seem to achieve the same types of savings when given the same water-saving information.</p>
<p>At least, it's not around here. Isn't it kind of common sense that this happens?</p>
<p>I mean, let's take English classes for example. If the teacher spends half the year going over essay-writing because that's where a MAJORITY of the kids struggle most, the kids who don't need any help get bored and start doing other things. Then when the teacher FINALLY moves on, the kid is easily distractable and has lost enthusiasm for the class. (Yes, that happened to me.)</p>
<p>The phenomenon that the headline suggests--that a focus on intensive remediation (either at the classroom level, or at the funding level) will slow the progress of high achievers--might very well be true, but this study does nothing to prove it. </p>
<p>I read another paper's version of this article this morning, and have had several conversations today about what a piece of b.s. that study seems to have been.</p>
<p>we saw this very thing happen at our local middle school.........due to state assessments.........the teaching emphasis is on the students with lower proficiencies.......high ability students suffer and they are in real trouble if there are high numbers of low proficiency students in the class. who wouldn't be bored? hisgracefillsme has it exactly right !</p>
<p>the district is trying to address the problem with "differentiation" methods but it seemed to us that teachers were resistant to change. seems like the elementary school teachers were much more open to "differentiation." fortunately, at the h.s. level, there are honors classes and ap classes. </p>
<p>the issue of the state assessments are of great concern.</p>
<p>In my opinion, it's not that the focus on low achievers is directly harming the high achievers, it's more that schools and teachers are being provided with incentives for improving the performance of low achievers (and penalties if they don't), while the performance of high achievers is basically being ignored.</p>
<p>If you ignore something, it isn't likely to get done.</p>
<p>Let's see - focusing energies on one group helps it, not focusing on another deprives it. Gee! I wonder how much $ it cost to "find this out"???????????????</p>
<p>HisGrace is right. You do lose your enthusiasm for a class quickly if a teacher must spend weeks on the same subject area. Happened this year to one of my sons. He got the math concepts right away. His teacher had to explain the same problem six or seven different ways, and still, some kids did not get it. This was an advanced math class, too, so the kids had to test to get into it. My son came home complaining that so many kids did not belong in the class, that they had not mastered the basics to be successful in the class. Those who had were bored. Fortunately, my son still loves math, but he maintains such enthusiasm because we surround him with others who also love it.</p>
<p>Previous posters have done a much better job of saying "Well, Duh." than I can. (Who approves the money for such nonsense research anyway?) </p>
<p>There has been an effect in our local HS, which used to be one of the better academic high schools in the state. When "good education for all" became "focussed education for those further behind" the academically oriented students began voting with their feet. Fully a quarter of local 8th graders leave the shool system to attend private high schools.</p>
<p>Guys! No one doubts the dynamic you are talking about!</p>
<p>It's just that this study, which is trumpeted as "proving" it, doesn't. If anything, it provides evidence to the contrary: Despite an admitted focus on raising performance of the worst-performing students, and despite meaningfull success in that endeavor, the top-performing students continued to improve their performance as well. They didn't improve their performance as much, of course. (For one, the layer of top performing students who maxed out on their test scores COULD NOT have improved at all.) But the study is not at all consistent with the hypothesis that efforts to help poor performers are actually harming high performers.</p>
<p>i think that's why we are seeing more and more online schools (virtual) and also growth at private schools. families who see the problem with state assessments are leaving when it's an option that is available to them. every year we receive more and more advertisements for online schools and many of them are at no tuition cost it seems as they are run through school districts within the state. the student enrolls in them rather than in their own school district. some online schools emphasize that the student can learn at their own pace.</p>
<p>we are sending our youngest to private middle school rather than public because of this very issue. some middle schools just aren't set up to accommodate the students with higher abilities. The focus is on state assessments and bringing up the low proficiency students. when there are large numbers of low proficiency students in the class.......it's a disaster for the high ability students. it appears that the teachers are teaching several grade levels below the current grade in order to meet the needs of the low proficiency students.</p>
<p>We are still pleased with our h.s. as it does offer AP and accelerated classes. They are set up to better accommodate the needs of the higher ability students.</p>
<p>THis is a big issue with me. My daughter was very high achieving in elementary school and teaching other students for 6 years and did not get paid. They threw her a couple of gifted courses to appease us but....in reality she knew all she did going into Ele. that she did when she left.</p>
<p>Teaching to the bottom only helps the bottom tier.
Requring the top to bring the bottom up only reduces the bottom and does very little to help bring the top up higher.</p>
<p>We took her to a private in middle which was very challenging, great education....and then returned to a public for H.S. which has enough AP & IB courses to keep her interested. Still ridiculous attitude of the education.</p>
<p>It got 100 times worse when no child left behind was implemented. Now the states had money on the line.....so ALL resources went to the bottom while the middle and the top sat and waited.</p>
<p>i think it's a big issue with many and that's exactly why we'll see more and more families with higher ability students pulling out of the public schools when that option is available to them.</p>
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that's exactly why we'll see more and more families with higher ability students pulling out of the public schools when that option is available to them.
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<p>I disagree, but only with the "more and more" words. Public schools have ignored high ability kids for years (make that decades) and NCLB has not changed this one bit. After all, why should a PS pay attention to high ability kids? They are a minority, they are perceived to be privileged, and they tend to do OK (at least by the low bar PS set for them) anyway.</p>
<p>So parents have been pulling kids out for many years. But, the sad fact is that many private schools are not a whole lot better. It is true that some, those that have high admissions standards, set the bar a bit higher, sometimes quite a bit higher. This may work for a lot of kids. But it often fails for true high ability kids. </p>
<p>This is the reason we moved our D from one of these high standards private new england prep schools back to our local public school for HS a few years back. It was the best move she ever made. And if she was hurt academically by the move, it has not shown up in her subsequent performance, as she just graduated last weekend from U. Chicago not just PBK but with an academic honor/scholarship that without question put her at the top of her class. </p>
<p>So yes, this is a complex issue. But I don't think NCLB is affecting high ability students much. Schools have ignored them for years, throwing a token "gifted" program their way - a bone that is neither gifted nor much of a program.</p>
<p>"gifted" pull out programs do not help these kids in their "regular" classrooms. what would be more beneficial is for the classroom teacher to meet their "needs" through differentiation in instruction but there is no incentive to do that..........the incentive is to meet the "needs" of the low proficiency students and to raise their assessment scores to the average and to show improvement. sadly, we found that some regular classroom teachers did not have training or experience in meeting the needs of the high ability student. sometimes, they did realize the student needed more challenge but outright did not address the need. there is no incentive for them to do that.</p>
<p>I think the nature of the education at ele and middle levels does not allow for the flexibility that is necessitated. School at your own level on computers would be MUCH more effective until H.S. The levels could go all the way to college level adn kids should be able to advance at their own pace. I have said for years, this is the same method that would work with bottom students....pass and you go system.....and if you want to take 12 years to get to 4th grade, that is what you get.....Kids should also be able to go to summer school online for free if they want to to contiue to pursue their education....some sit idle and bored which leads to lots of issues.</p>
<p>Our superintendent was hired to bring standardized test scores up. This means that the bulk of $$$, time and effort is being spent on the "upper" lower kids. These kids are most likely to show a boost in scores with help.</p>
<p>HIgh end kids take care of themselves with AP classes. Low end kids may take a lot more $$, time, etc. to get a small increase. Not a lot of bang for the buck.</p>