A Modular Approach to School Choice, Student Services in Online Education, and Implications of the Replicability Crisis in Psychology
Issue 6 of 7Plus, an education news and critical theory bulletin
This week’s issue covers a modular approach to school choice, an update on previously discussed issues such as the Philadelphia Beverage Tax and financial aid/handicap, shortcomings of online education, the impact of the replicability/reproducibility crisis in psychology on education, and whether private schools can help cultivate public good.
Local Education News
Local Colleges Maintain the Status Quo on Affirmative Action on Admissions
July 19, 2018 | Hannah Melville | The Notebook
Summary While the Trump Administration has rescinded affirmative action policies, local colleges and universities, including Swarthmore College, Temple University, Haverford College, and Drexel University, have responded affirming their continued stance on maintaining diversity in an academic setting and, signaling they are unlikely to change any admissions procedures.
Significance It is reassuring that most higher education institutes are continuing with their diversity practices, as that will ensure that a more disenfranchised students will be able to access quality higher education and career pathways post high school.
Regional Educational News
How School Choice Is About to Fundamentally Change
July 16, 2018 | Mark A. Elgart & Belle S. Wheelan | Education Week
Summary Research has consistently shown that school choice disproportionately underserves the needs of underprivileged students (see ‘Buying homes’ in Issue 3), with where students live determining most of their options. The authors believe that there will soon be a shift in school choice, driven not by policies but by what parents want and by improvements in technology, from the selection of a single school of best fit to customized educational experiences at course granularity. They illustrate the example of a high school student being able to participate in sports at the neighborhood public school while taking advanced math classes at a nearby charter school and foreign language and college level classes online. Given the onset of this trend, the authors stress the need for continued efforts to improve transportation options, manage student records, as well as improve parent access to information.
Significance Should this modular approach to school choice become more salient, there will hopefully be more opportunities for marginalized students in underfunded schools to access high quality courses and resources. This would balance out the quality of education within the stark difference in funding between schools. However, this difference would also present a challenge to actualizing this approach, as it might be hard to incentivize schools that are more well off to open their doors. It seems that for this to happen, schools with the most resources need to lead the movement in sharing their resources and start a ripple effect of generosity and focus on the public good that will reach the most disenfranchised.
Why 20-Somethings Make Terrific College Counselors for Low-Income Students
July 17, 2018 | Goldie Blumenstyk | The Chronicle of Higher Education
Summary One challenge students face when completing financial aid applications in in getting necessary family income information from their parents. Nicole Hurd, the founder and chief executive of the College Advising Corps, has observed that these parents seem most comfortable opening up to 20-something advisors, as they do not seem as “judgy”. Blumenstyk also covers
- how more than two-thirds of fresh college graduates who are spending two years in the advisory corps plan to work in education after their contracts (encouraging given teacher shortage covered last issue),
- the confusing nature of tuition and financial aid information (as covered in issue 2) and Google’s upcoming net-price listing for college search results as a potential counterbalance,
- the advising corps continued focus on high school students to avoid mission creep, but also on spending more time with parents, and
- the dangers of overaccommodating e-sports activities following the classification of video game addiction as a mental disorder (as covered in issue 3).
Significance It seems beneficial for 12+ to continue recruiting its fellows from the 20+ age bracket if it does help with the financial aid process. The work that 12+ fellows engage with along with the nurturing environment here also seems to have a similar effect in retaining individuals in the education sector, which bodes well given the plummeting teacher supply. Evidence around fellows’ subsequent career paths could perhaps be collected and used to acquire more support and funding for staffing and programming if there is in fact a significant effect size. The other issues that were mentioned were covered in previous issues, as respectively linked.
Does Online Education Help Low-income Students Succeed?
July 17, 2018 | Robert Ubell | EdSurge
Summary While online education has broadened access for lower income and underrepresented students to get higher education certification, as well as engage students in active learning, research has found online students perform more poorly and are more likely to fail or withdraw as compared to their residential or face-to-face counterparts. A key factor to this discrepancy might be equivalent difference in the availability of student services.
Significance It is important to be aware of these shortfalls of online education, such as the deficiency of student services and other factors that might cause the increased rate of failure or withdrawal, along with reduced opportunities to network, before we recommend them to the students we work with. However, should these issues be rectified, or properly managed, online education remains a promising avenue for cheaper certification.
Other Relevant News
Pennsylvania High Court Backs Philadelphia Beverage Tax
July 18, 2018 | Scott Calvert | The Wall Street Journal
Summary The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld Philadelphia’s beverage tax (following coverage in issue 1), which has been championed by its proponents, including Mayor Jim Kenney, as a means of raising money for pre-K and community schools as well as facilities for students such as libraries, parks, and recreation centers.
Significance While the tax has raised about $110 million in the past year and a half, contributing to high-quality early education for more than 2,700 3- to 4-year-old children and creating more than 11 community schools, the primary goal of the tax is to reduce purchase and consumption of the taxed beverages; if successful, this would mean less tax dollars over time to fund these educational causes. Those opposed to the soda tax may also be right that it will drive money out of Philadelphia, which could end up reducing funding for education in the long term as well. Nevertheless, a short-term boost in revenue for educational infrastructure could be what is necessary to revitalize education and education services in Philadelphia, especially in the face of teacher shortages and organizational restructuring.
Psychology Itself Is Under Scrutiny
July 16, 2018 | Benedict Carey | New York Times
Summary The replicability crisis within psychology continues with further assault on three landmark studies:
- the Stanford prison experiment, which demonstrated how situational pressures and expectations, as opposed to intrinsic personality qualities, might be responsible for cruel behavior;
- the marshmallow test, which demonstrated how those who could delay gratification had greater education achievement years than those who could not;
- Case Western Reserve University’s study on self-control, which demonstrated the concept of ego deflation, the idea that willpower is like a muscle that can be built up and tired out.
Failure to replicate these studies with similar effects could be, as with the other studies that have been drawn into question, a result of a failure to replicate the same conditions in their original ones, or, more worryingly, indicative that the original studies did not discover or evidence an actual effect.
Significance As many education theories and approaches are based on psychological research, whether the research findings are representative of actual effects poses a huge concern to their effectiveness as well. For instance, if delayed gratification does not have a demonstrable effect on academic achievement, educators might want to focus on teaching different concepts or skills that do. Similarly, if willpower does not in fact function like a muscle, strategies around teaching kids about motivation and how to work effectively might need to be modified. A larger point to be cognizant of however, is that “the study of human behavior will never be as clean as physics or cardiology — how could it be? — and psychology’s elaborate simulations are just that. At the same time, its findings are far more accessible and personally relevant to the public than those in most other scientific fields”. We should not be quick to completely dismiss certain findings because of a failure to cleanly replicate something, but instead dive deeper into the nuances of different correlations or effects.
Examining Education Critically
Private schools are anti-democratic. Can they be redeemed?
July 10, 2018 | Jack Schneider | Aeon
“No school, if it is to realize its full potential, and if it is to foster the public good, can be conceived of as private, parochial or even independent. These terms imply ownership, competition, disunity, disconnection. Schools with the most freedom to act and the greatest power to affect change must not be fortresses and silos. They must be laboratories and lighthouses. And all of us, wherever we send our children, must begin to see ourselves as caretakers of all that the light can shine upon.”
Summary Schneider argues that not only are private schools as they currently stand incompatible with the public good, it also negatively impacts the privileged. This happens in two ways. Because education becomes a positional good, which means that it has no inherent worth but only value in relation to what is possessed by others, it [1] renders the content of education and learning less important than providing credentials that are perceived as more valuable that the ones others have, and [2] requires most young people to lose out for there to be some winners of status. Schneider believes that private schools need to focus on three targets in order to cultivate public good: they need to [1] focus on educational practices as opposed to status-based outcomes, [2] prioritize diversity and deep learning, and [3] prioritize innovation and sharing of best practices.
Significance While there is always an underlying tension between the private and public goods of education in the larger sociocultural landscape currently, reformers that want to reestablish education as a public good might benefit from working within private education systems as opposed to a more Marxist approach focused on stripping them of power. Employing a more anarchist approach of tweaking practices to focus on learning as opposed to status, increasing and maintaining diversity in the face of the administration’s reversal of affirmative action, and in sharing best practices, can be vital is paving the way towards a more equitable education aimed at the public good.
Please share this with education equity actors you know that would find it useful; as always, feedback and comments on how I can make this more useful are much appreciated!
