Yong Zhao: New article: Build back better: Avoid the learning loss trap - Education in the Age of Globalization

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New article: Build back better: Avoid the learning loss trap

Abstract

A dangerous trap exists for educators and education policy makers: the learning loss. This trap comes with a large amount of data and with sophisticated projection methods. It presents a stunningly grim picture for education and it invites educators and policy makers to make wrong decisions and invest in wrong things. The article identifies a number of undesirable outcomes that their concerns could lead to. It also suggests several productive actions when the pandemic is controlled and schools reopen. My article Build back better: Avoid the learning loss trap published in Prospects on March 4 2021. Below is the abstract and you can read here.

A dangerous trap exists for educators and education policy makers. This trap comes with a large amount of data and with sophisticated projection methods. It presents a stunningly grim picture for education. This trap invites educators and policy makers to make wrong decisions and invest in wrong things.

The learning loss

The trap is the so-called learning losses during the Covid-19 pandemic. A number of organizations and individuals have put out various estimates about what students have lost due to school closures and remote learning during the pandemic. For CONTINUE READING: Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » New article: Build back better: Avoid the learning loss trap

Where Is It Safe To Reopen Schools? New Research Offers Answers | 89.3 KPCC

Where Is It Safe To Reopen Schools? New Research Offers Answers | 89.3 KPCC

Where Is It Safe To Reopen Schools? New Research Offers Answers

Since the beginning of this pandemic, experts and educators have feared that open schools would spread the coronavirus further, which is why so many classrooms remain closed. But a new, nationwide study suggests reopening schools may be safer than previously thought, at least in communities where the virus is not already spreading out of control.

The study comes from REACH, the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice, at Tulane University. Up to this point, researchers studying the public health effects of school reopening have focused largely on positivity rates. As in, did the rate of positive coronavirus tests among kids or communities increase after schools reopened?

The REACH researchers worried that testing in the U.S., especially among children, is still too varied and unpredictable. Instead, Susan Hassig, a Tulane epidemiologist who worked on the study, says they focused on hospitalization rates as a more reliable indicator of virus spread. It's easy to imagine infections going undetected in communities with spotty testing, Hassig says, but "if you get infected with coronavirus and you become substantially ill, you're going to become hospitalized." Mining nationwide data from 2020, she and her colleagues looked to see if more CONTINUE READING: Where Is It Safe To Reopen Schools? New Research Offers Answers | 89.3 KPCC

A NEVER ENDING STREAM OF CONFUSION – Dad Gone Wild

A NEVER ENDING STREAM OF CONFUSION – Dad Gone Wild

A NEVER ENDING STREAM OF CONFUSION

“The good news for the Washington Federals is they do not have a quarterback controversy. The bad news is they do not have a quarterback.”― Jeff Pearlman, Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL

On Friday, after I first flipped through the recently released CREDO study focusing on learning loss, I fully intended to spend the weekend reading through it and painstakingly taking notes. After all, this is the study that Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn had cited as a basis for her dire warnings about a pending crash in proficiency scores.

Luckily, I read teacher Peter Greene’s piece first. Greene reminded me of why the CREDO study is…he says baloney…I say, bullshit. I consider it such because it’s rooted in a made-up measurement that attempts to standardized something that can not be standardized. Per Greene,

Second, you know that this “report” is baloney because it leans on that great imaginary measure, the “days of learning.” Students during the pandemic will “lose” X number of days of learning. “Days of learning” is actually a measure that CREDO made up themselves, based on some “research” in a 2012 paper by Erik Hanushek, Paul Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann. And if “days of learning” seems like a bizarro world way to measure of education (Which days? Days in September? Days in March? Tuesdays? Instructional days, or testing days, or that day we spent the CONTINUE READING: A NEVER ENDING STREAM OF CONFUSION – Dad Gone Wild

LET’S SEE WHAT CREDO HAS TO SAY – Dad Gone Wild

LET’S SEE WHAT CREDO HAS TO SAY – Dad Gone Wild

LET’S SEE WHAT CREDO HAS TO SAY

“Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.”― Galileo Galilei

One of my more pleasant discoveries since I began writing this blog is the willingness of people in the education profession to share their knowledge. I know that should be self explanatory, after al,l most are teachers at heart, but stil,l people reach a certain stratosphere of success where it becomes easier to limit your engagements. Over the years I’ve been very priviledged to talk with and learn from some of the smartest people in the field. An access I certainly don’t take lightly.

Since last Thursday’s Chicken Little announcement by Commissioner Penny Schwinn that the state could see student proficency scores drop by 50% in ELA, and 65% in math, there have been a lot of questions about how those numbers were derived at. In a follow-up email sent to state superintendents by the commissioner last Friday, she cited a recently completed study by CREDO as the source of those predictions.

The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) is housed at Standford University and has been doing extensive research in the field of public education for over two decades. Wether they have an intentional bent or not, over the years CREDO has become the go to source of data for those making the case of charter schools over public schools.

Founded by Margaret (Macke) Raymond and Eric Hanushek, both of whom had experience in the realm of political science but no classroom experience. Since inception their research has been cause for much public debate over education policy. Given her history, and his procolivity, it’s not surprising that Penny Schwinn and Governor Lee chose a CREDO study in which to fuel their individual agendas.

Despite Schwinn’s follow up email to state superintendents, there still remains a lot of questions CONTINUE READING: LET’S SEE WHAT CREDO HAS TO SAY – Dad Gone Wild