Since 66% of our jobs require no additional formal education beyond high school, curriculums for many should be made more life/career skills oriented. For example, studies show that those people with self-control do better in many aspects of life and it is something that can be taught. RSA Animate – Empathic Civilization is just one example of the new areas that limiting concentration to one's special intelligence will allow.

 

Change 5 Schools should be academically demanding for those who may fill the
                   22% of the job openings that requiring a bachelor's degree or higher. 
                   Elementary and secondary school curriculums should not so demanding that a substantial number
                   of students drop out or lose confidence. Pre-algebra should only be in the curriculum of student
                   possessing high mathematics intelligence. A nursing student should not have to take statistics
                    (a course I taught for 35 years) because they might someday go on for a master's degree. 
                    Nursing isn't about mathematics, little mathematics is required.  Nothing is gained and the
                    terror it creates in the non-mathematical. See German Education System
Change 6 Maslow's hierarchy of needs should be enhanced by education.
                   A) Esteem is a requirement for self-actualization and is important goal of human development and
                       must not be compromised. Testing should be changed from being a limiting factor to a career
                       determination  factor. The result should be expressed as a student being above, at or below
                        grade level for their school.
                   B) Students, especially in the Primary Grades, should advance at their own pace. 
Change 7 Tech-based Education  would spread to college education immediately but
                   hopefully to secondary education. This does not mean investing in computers.  
                    Education Week: Reading, Math Software Found to Have Little Effect on Scores

Summary: We must maximize the minimum for students with average special intelligence
while maximizing the maximum for students with really high specially intelligence while
minimizing the maximum regret which our current system does not do as demonstrated
by drop outs who don't think of education as the gift of opportunity.

Please         

Sources: Global Economic Intersection, The Economist, Seeking Alpha
Businessweek, The Week , USA Today  Business Insider ...          author's bio

Appendix 1 Advantages of Proposed Change

Ambitious Students could take courses in both session or use the time to participate in projects like First Robotics Competition, First Tech Challenge, and First Lego League.  P-Tech uses the extra time to help students earn an associate's degree while earning a U.S.. diploma, all in four years.

This system would be advantageous for vocational HS as it provides time for students to work. Two talented students might even combine for a full time job. A lower minimum wage for part time students not requiring payroll taxes would help.

Sports would benefit as one sport might go in the morning and practice in the afternoon and a second sport would do the opposite  thus making much better use of facilities. Two varsity sports might constitute a course. My friend Paul is happy.

School systems could retire older facilities and free rooms could be rented to people wanting to run morning and afternoon day care for working parents.

Teachers and HS students could work in day care programs for a reasonable fee.  Students wishing to graduate early could take extra courses during a different session for a fee. 1/30/13

Appendix 3 Fix public education immediately.

      1. Treat academic all stars like sports stars, see
           vanderbilt.edu/peabody/smpy/WaiJEP2005

      2. Stress  the economic and personal skills enhancement of those in the middle

      3. Follow the lead of the cities like Baltimore in keeping kids from dropping out  
 
      4. Require the library of every school receiving federal funds keep a copy of
          Educational Outlook Quarterly on reserve and another copy with current
          periodicals.  Edited 1/22/13 

Appendix 2 The Effects of Summer Vacation on Achievement Test Scores:
 A Narrative and Meta-Analytic Review Source

Please   ShareThis

E-mail or antonw@ix.netcom.com
the retired teacher/editor/author Walter

Staying Current

1) John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy  covers post-secondary issues.
2) The Rising Value of a Science Degree
College Degree Value: 
3) P-Tech Early College High Schools are vocationally oriented.
4) Why Motivation Beats Raw Intelligence 
'Almost Every Time'
5) Race Against the Machines that total good jobs requiring an education are losing out to machines. Editor's Note:  This is good news as machines don't eat standard of living will rise dramatically and this means education has new, important issues to deal with that requiring well educated human development specialists.
6) Oversupply of Teachers means systems can choose the best.

7) Head Start Doesn't Work

A recent Opinion article in the Villages retirement paper picked up an editorial featuring the reported 2010 Head Start Impact Study that stated thee and four year olds participants in Head Start were no better prepared for first grade than non-participants. This is the nth such article/report I've read in thirty years. There have been many studies and none have shown Head Start improves academic performance. The normal curve rules and those who think it can be changes will have to wait for generic engineering. But the normal curve applies to other important characteristics and it is these our education system must foster.

Popular but Incorrect Neuromyths' from online.wsj.com/
    We use only 10% of our brains.
    A high stimulus environment improves the brain of preschool children.
    Using a student's preferred learning style improves learning.
The Thousands of Californians Who Failed The Bar Exam Are Going To Hate This Guy
is an example of how college can teach them but can't learn them. I wonder if college law schools are required to publish Bar Exams pass rates

Data from Iceland indicates that younger students in a class do poorer in standardized test through seven grades and other studies have shown that 10% of younger HS graduates go to college. The Economist, 12/7/12, p21

Watch Videos and Understand
Formula for changing math education
Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity
Elizabeth Gilbert On Genius

E-mail or antonw@ix.netcom.com the retired teacher/editor/authorWalter
 

edited and written by Walter Antoniotti, 
copyright 21st Century Learning Products   
All Rights Reserved 

Sundry Items of Interest

1) Non-academics students possess Characteristics of success
2) School Reform Stay Focused a book review of
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough from The Economist Magazine 1/19/13

3) Head Start leads to nonacademic value that will lead to economic and social success.

4) The Wage Affect of Offshoring examines data from Denmark to look at the connection between globalization, inequality and the value of a college degree. “With stagnating wages and lingering unemployment, income inequality is back in the headlines. Is globalization to blame for this inequality? Is more education a solution? This column argues that focusing on university education misses important effects. It presents evidence that wage effects vary markedly among those with degrees depending on their specific skill sets, and that globalization can often benefit workers without degrees.”
For an economic analysis see Pure Competition Edited 1/30/13

5) Tradable goods are producing high paying jobs that require more education Germany does best at manufacturing tradable goods. She is avoiding high unemployment with job sharing, called discussed unemployment. I'm betting the recovery will bring back higher wages but hours work will stayed reduced as robots and computers do the work

Return to Class of Educating 2030

Please                                                                                 

Appendix 4

The Story of Joan

An attempt to learn about the real estate business brought me in contact with Joan, middle aged women who had been a million dollar salesperson in her first year. She was well dressed, attractive, very ambition and had a talent for selling. Joan was famous for her answer to a question from prospective buyers who were aghast when they saw a foot of water in the basement of a home they might buy. “Well, think how lucky you are to know about the water. Now you can bid $3,000 lower and fix the problem for $1,000. Joan was correct; they bought and were very happy with the property. This was the middle 1970's when new starter homes were small, about 10,000 square feet, had one bathroom, three bedrooms, and cost about $40,000.

Joan wanted to be a real estate broker, but fail the test because of her poor mathematical skills. Math required for the license was using formulas, a little geometry, and multi-step word problems. Some of this was necessary for commercial developers but for what Joan wanted to do, little math was needed. But testing is a way to limit supply of brokers thus keeping commissions high.  Much of what I did was build her confidence that if she did the easy questions, a missed the few difficult questions, she would still pass. Needless to say, she passed the exam and years later, was still queen of the hill.

Joan was one of the most confident people I've encountered in many years of education. She went to school before testing sapped the vitality out of people who were not above average in both mathematic analysis and verbal understanding.  Interpersonal intelligence, easily the most important in the real world kind of intelligence, isn't considered important by our academic educators. 

The Rest of the Story

Joan had a secret to her success. She belonged to the Friday 7:00 AM Howard Johnson Breakfast Club. Two or three plus salespeople from ten or so local real estate companies met, talked a little business, and created a network. If you needed something for sale at one of your competitors, you called your friend from Friday mornings. They would call you. The more people you helped, the more people who would help you.

I once had the world's greatest house listing, A+ condition, location, and price. Two or three sales were stopped by parents coming to visit.  I had guaranteed the owner who was leaving for Venezuela it would be sold and he was nervous, but not me. With two weeks to go I called Joan and agreed to split the listing commission and it was sold the next day. Some people think Joan should go to college, I think school should be designed to maximize her special intelligence. edited 1/21/13

e-mail comments to antonw@ix.netcom.com

Battlefield Reflections of a
Life-Long Statistic Teacher

The Normal Curve Rules

Teaching Statistics to Open Enrollment
Evening College Students by  Walter

Introduction: After years of traditional teaching I switched to Quick Notes Statistics a programmed type text and its companion Excel Statistics Lab Manual. With all the problems and their data sets written in Excel, much of the calculation requirements were removed as an obstacle to learning. Many students were familiar with the text as they had used Quick Notes Financial Accounting and/or  Economics Interactive Class Notes with Links in previous courses. These books were concise two-page outlines per chapter with practice problems and complete solutions.

Methodology: Class one began with a 30 minute summary of material covered on the first computerized take-home or in the lab test. We then adjourned to the lab with some of the better students leaving to do the work at their own convenience while the  others joined me in the lab learn to use Excel to  calculate measures of central tendency. Lectures/lab sessions followed. The class before the computerized test using Excel was a comprehensive hour or so review where I again saw the better students and after the review a few were off to the lab to finish their computerized  lab set due before the test. This procedure was followed for tests on probability and on hypothesis testing/correlation/regression.

Result: 1) Being an honor system take-home on a computer exam resulted in the same grade distribution as for traditional in class with a large note card exams. 2) More material was easily covered with less work and anxiety.  3) But only the better students learned more, much more. Students, as they had for over 35 years at four different average at best colleges, divided themselves into four groups.

Group one never really learned to use Excel to do much of anything and passed with low grades because of easy grading procedures.

Group two calculated some  statistics correctly but ran into trouble deciding which Excel menu procedure  to use for each of the eight different problems on the take home final. I had warned them that grades would go down with each tests, many would be disappointed. Some of these adults worked really hard but having to choose between finite and normal distributions, large and small samples, then between one sample and two samples eventually led to mistakes.

Group three often got the statistic correct but then had difficulty determining to accept or reject the no change null hypothesis.  All the studying in the world doesn't help because they had never really figured out what hypothesis testing was all about.

Group four had one final hurdle, explaining what the answer meant. They had correctly accepted or rejected the null hypothesis but what did it mean? They needed to write in the analysis section that the new procedure was faster or had less defects or the new diet was better or else it was back to group three and a lower grade. Less than six from a class of twenty-five got almost everything correct and got a 4 grade on almost every problem. A very few got everything correct.

copyright 21st Century Learning Products   
All Rights Reserved 

edited and written by Walter Antoniotti, 
 

Data from Iceland indicates that younger students in a class do poorer in standardized test through seven grades and other studies have shown that 10% of younger HS graduates go to college. The Economist, 12/7/12, p21

Watch Videos and Understand
Formula for changing math education
Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity
Elizabeth Gilbert On Genius

Need Material for this space

e-mail   antonw@ix.netcom.com

Epilogue: The Cost of a Misdirected Education

My Keene State College 1990 Economics 101 class was given data showing that average college graduates make much more than high school graduates. They had seen it before. That is why most of them were in college. Then I showed them median income of college graduates. They were disappointed with the lower number. I explained how some really high earners make the mean higher than the median. Then I showed them data indicating the bottom quarter of college graduates earned about the same income as high school's top-quarter. They became more unsettled. Then I gave them the lowest income statistic of all,  median income for those with just a bachelor's degree. Those with higher degrees were left off. From the back of the room I heard  "you mean they are ripping us off.  

It took about twenty years, but I pleased to report that, because of the Great Recession,  mass media coverage of the decreasing economic return from a college education is no longer sporadic . But like any unwelcome news, parents, teachers, and politicians will be the last to react properly. The collateral damage has been immense. It will continue to be so unless some responsible mass media helps makes an educational system that improves the well-being of all students . Here is the collateral damage of our love affair with college.

College graduates who can't find a job and dropouts owe over one trillion dollars in outstand college loans and are finding they do not have the skills to earn a positive economic return from their investment.

Disgruntle U.S. graduates and dropouts whose needs were not met by their investment of many years in school and from whom society receive little support. In fact, many need society's support.

But some took the path less traveled. 

My fourteen year-old nephews announced he wanted to attend a neighboring carpentry high school. Four years of getting up early and getting a ride from his father to grandmother's house where he waited for the school bus to take him to a new, strange school. At fourteen! After school he walked the three miles home from grandma's house. No one told him from anyone, he just didn't like academics and decided on a vocational education. Now a successful small contractor, his biggest problem is convincing his wife they don't need a new Volvo every two years.

His younger brother was much more academic, but found school a waste of his lazy, but conniving mind. He dropped out early in the 9th grade, eventually went in the military, kept looking for a good job in corrections until he found a unionized one working for the state. No one had to tell him that investing in a 40K in addition to the state retirement plan was a good idea. He also bought car mortgage insurance a year before not being able to pay said liability.  

Epitaph: Many of our best and brightest did make a proper investment in college and there are enough of them to maintain our nation's well-being. Imagine a country where the school system maximizes all kinds of all Special Intelligence rather than maximizing the math/verbal intelligence of everyone including those with whose learning disabilities requires special attention. Edited 1/30/13

Older Generations Accumulate, Younger Generations Stagnate
CHANGE IN AVERAGE NET WORTH BY AGE GROUP, 1983–2010 from http://www.businessinsider

Quotes

" The mind is not a vessel to be filled , but a fire to be kindled."  Plutarch The Week Magazine 11/02/12 p199

Edited 1/30/13

Obama Wants to Move U.S. Up

Early Years  Education The Economist Magazine 2/9/13
 

"Finland on top (it scored direly in the OECD study). At least 98% of children aged five or six are in pre-school education there. Finland also dominates the overall league tables for education performance, so perhaps the scope for improvement is slight. Other enthusiastic providers of pre-school education like Sweden, Norway, France and Belgium and Denmark do not score particularly highly on attainment in later education, whereas Japan, which combines early-years provision with a fiercely competitive exam culture, excels. So too does South Korea, where the state until now has provided under half of pre-school places. So pre-school is no panacea, says Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the OECD’s big triennial PISA report on educational attainment. “Drilling children” in early years does not lead automatically to learning gains, he says."

Editor's Note: I'd trade two more years of early childhood education for two less years of high school in a second. Academic kids not mature enough to leave home for college could go to junior college or work for a while, maybe as workers in a vast public/private pre-school industry.