Rachel Bishop
Seminar Preparation # 8
Reading Educational Research
October 24, 2006
“This is one of the few places in the book where Bracey cannot resist making a
political point. He suggests that making NAEP the definition of proficiency for
the nation could be used to make public schools look bad so our education system
could be privatized by right-wing zealots.” Pg ix
This quote is from the foreword to the book. It is not written by the author but comes
from a review of the book in the Washington Post. In the section of the book that we have
read, Bracey has not yet made this point. But it does not surprise me that it is coming. It
seems like it is in fact often that the author “cannot resist making a political point.”
““Most of the time, most people simply accept statistics without question.” One of
the reasons we do so is that we are often not in the position to do otherwise. We
lack the information to challenge the figures.” Pg xiii
Certainly having the knowledge to be critical of the information that one is inundated
with is important in contemporary society. As teachers one of our roles is to help give our
students the tools to be critical questioners.
“Statistics, the language of data, are human constructions and must be interpreted
by other humans for the numbers to have meaning.” Pg 2
Because statistics are interpreted they can be interpreted in different ways. As Bracey
suggests they can be twisted or they can be presented in more accurate ways. But still
they must be interpreted.
“Yes, personal experiences have two qualities. They are wholly compelling to the
person who has them, and they are often wrong. They make a terrible base from
which to generalize. That is why we invented something that doesn’t depend
solely on personal experiences. It’s called science.” Pg 8
Personal experience and anecdotal evidence are very persuasive. Research shows that
they tend to be more persuasive then data driven arguments. This can lead to inaccurate
conclusions. But perhaps with the tools to understand and be critical of statistical data,
this will be less of a problem.
“A set of test scores won’t tell you why groups differ, but it can point to group
differences that might need exploring. NCLB, for example, forces schools to look
at differences among groups. That might be the only good feature, in my opinion:
schools cannot obscure the failure of some groups to achieve as high as others by
pointing to high schoolwide averages or ignoring subgroups.” Pg 10
Here Bracey starts to get political. This is the first of many instances. This type of
comment seems very out of place in a book that’s premise is to teach the skills to be
critical consumers of statistical information. On one hand the author is trying to convince
us to be critical and use our understanding and judgment. On the other hand he is clearly
trying to convince the reader of his viewpoint on educational research and testing.
“... the fact that that error made it all the way to publication reveals something
related to a principle of data interpretation, something I call the Neurotic Need to
Believe the Worst. If the numbers, any numbers, show public education in a bad
light, the find much easier acceptance than numbers indicating something good or
something improved.” Pg 22
Is it true that we have a “neurotic need to believe the worst,” or is it that the media has a
“neurotic need to portray the worst.” Because really bad news is more compelling.
“An analysis by the Washington Post revealed that teachers would get about
enough to buy a new TV, while someone making $1,000,000 a year would get a
tax break about twice as large as the average teacher’s annual salary.” Pg 43
Isn’t this just the type of twisting of statistics to be salacious and persuasive that Bracey
is so critical of?
“Of course, the stated goal of NCLB is to wipe out the impact of those family and
community variables—to close the achievement gap between rich and poor,
majority and minority. It won’t happen, if only because children, from birth to age
eighteen, spend only 9 percent of their lives in school.” Pg 51
This is an important thing to understand. School is only one factor that contributes to a
students achievement. As pointed out earlier by Spring in the American School schools
have long been expected to solve social and economic problems. But it is not necessarily
true that they can do so.
In sum, passing rates tell you nothing about what is happening to any achievement
gap. Bet it remains quite likely that those who fail the exit exam, or fail to
contribute to the school’s making adequate yearly progress under NCLB, will
spend more time learning the tasks that are on the test while those who pass go on
to learn new material. The achievement gap has increased. Pg 57
This is a perspective on the achievement gap that I have not heard before. If students are
given extra help then the achievement gap widens because they are studying the same
things in order to pass tests while the high achieving students move on to harder subjects.
Is the achievement gap inevitable then? Perhaps schools can not solve the problem by
themselves and more systematic changes will be necessary so that students can enter
school in a more equal place.
In some despairing moments, I am tempted to found the National Association for
the Abolition of Correlation Coefficients. Although the correlation coefficient can
be a useful statistic, it causes a great deal of mischief. It creates havoc because
people so often misinterpret it. I think that we tend to misinterpret the correlation
coefficient because our brains are hardwired to do so. Pg 74
Something about a correlations makes it so easy to just to a casual relationship. Its as if
this is the only way we can understand what a correlation is. The idea that our brains are
hardwired to see patterns and jump to these type of conclusions is one that is consistent
with what I have learned about the brain previously. I would have liked to see a reference
for this comment though.