Tag Archives: Education

Monday’s Mtg: Common Core education standards – A big deal, but do they work?

By DavidG on | Leave a comment

At our last topic committee meeting, Nile’s teenage son, Konstantine, looked at the list and asked, “How are most of these relevant to young people?” A good point. We will do college loan forgiveness on January 13 and Generation Z (those born since 2000) on February 3. Monday, at Konstantine’s suggestion, we will look at the major changes in U.S. education brought on by the Common Core K-12 educational standards.

As you probably know, developing and getting the states to adopt Common Core was a major effort in the mid-2000s. Basically, it was an attempt to create de facto national standards in reading and math for American school children. After decades of concern over mediocre educational outcomes, the National Association of Governors, the association of state Superintendents of Education, experts in and out of govt and in non-profit groups developed the standards and urged states to adopt them. California uses them as do 41 other states.

Common Core took about seven years to develop and test, starting in 2007. So, large-scale implementation is only a few years old, even in California, which made the decision to adopt in 2010 but only fully phased them in in about 2015.

Common Core is the main nationwide effort to improve American education that is still standing after the ideological education wars of the last 15 years. President Bush’s controversial No Child Left Behind law from 2002 was unpopular and has been repealed, although its annual standardized tests for grades 3-8 remain. Obama added a couple of major grant programs. Trump made big promises favored by the Right but has not done big things (see link). Most of the action is where it always has been: The state and local levels.

We have discussed other education fixes and fads, like charter schools and vouchers. They are still going and conservatives have vowed to keep going. But, results of both on student performance have been mixed. Common Core is the big policy change of the last decade in U.S. education – and they effect almost every American K-12 student every day.

Common Core standards are:

  • Not a federal govt program or requirement, although conservatives hated them because they thought they were or a sinister prelude to a federal takeover of education. Wrong as usual. But, President Obama controversially did try to pressure states to adopt Common Core by conditioning some federal education grants on the adoption of state standards that mimicked common core.
  • Standards only; i.e., ends not means. Common Core states the goals for what children should know and know how to do in each grade. They do not mandate (or even officially approve or disapprove) any specific curricula, method of instruction, or textbook.
  • Voluntary: Initially, 46 states adopted common core (that is, they pledged to adapt their K-12 standards for math and reading to Common Core’s). . Four states refused (inc. TX and VA) and 4 more have pulled out since. So, we’re down to 42.
  • Alterable. A number of states have modified their K-12 standards to ty to fix some of what they don’t like about Common Core.
  • Controversial for reasons other than right-wing ideological objections. These include allegedly overly-complex math standards, too-high expectations for very young students, and the continued use of constant standardized testing. The articles below explain more.

Describing education policy, much less measuring outcomes, is very complicated. CA’s standards in math and reading comprise hundreds of pages, and every state is different. Here are a few articles on Common Core, objections to it, and a good summary of our state’s math and reading standards.

I will see if I can describe the standards to open our meeting, then moderate the discussion as usual.

BUT FIRST, I will have one important administrative matter to discuss.

OPTIONAL BACKGROUND READINGS –

NEXT WEEK, Dec. 23: What is the state of inter-faith religious relations in the United States today?

Posted in: Education, Mtg Announcements | Tagged: ,

Monday’s Mtg: Critical Thinking – How can it be taught and/or learned?

By DavidG on | 1 Comment

How can democracy function if the public lacks the ability to think critically about what it sees and hears and reads? This question, along with the fact that critical thinking skills are crucial to many of today’s well-paying jobs, has led to an explosion of interest in teaching critical thinking skills at all levels of education. Our current political crisis has led many to wonder if a lot of Americans are incapable of thinking critically and whether such abilities as they do have an be unlearned or turned against them with skilled propaganda.

Penny asks, is it realistic to believe that critical thinking is a stand-alone skill that can be taught to kids or even to adults? What about to those Americans that either grew up in environments that discouraged independent truth-seeking or as adults self-marinate in political or social propaganda that is untethered to objective truths?

American schools are all over this issue in recent years. They are said to spend a lot of time and resources emphasizing the teaching of basic critical thinking skills. (Of course, education content is highly decentralized in the USA, so generalizations are hard. On December 16th we will discuss the Common Core educational standards that were create as de facto national edu standards. They heavily emphasize teaching critical thinking and analytical skills.) How are they doing? Can successful techniques be used on adults? See the discussion questions, below, for more.

To make this meeting meaningful and relevant to our times, I believe we must be willing to discuss honestly one thing above all else: The effectiveness of the deliberate assault on citizens’ ability to judge facts and arguments of the last 20 years. Especially, of course, in the last three hundred years of the Trump presidency.

My short remarks to open our meeting will just ty to introduce and frame this vital issue. Then we can debate. As with any topic related to education, there is a TON of stuff on the internet about it and how to teach it. I link to a few, but it is hard for me to judge their quality.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS –

  1. What does “critical thinking” really mean? Are there different definitions? How do they define it for pedagogical (teaching) purposes?
  2. How does critical thinking ability relate to (1) intelligence, (2) psychological makeup, and (3) age and experience?
  3. Teaching it: How can critical thinking be taught to young people that lack the factual or experiential context to help them? How do they measure or observe progress in learning critical thinking?
  4. Bubble dwellers: Many of us live in “epistemological closure,” closed circles where questioning revealed truth is discouraged (some religious communities, Fox News junkies, bigoted families, etc.  Liberals are not immune.) As we discussed in our mtg on cognitive bias, others find learning contrarian or conflicting information uncomfortable.
    — How can their bubbles be penetrated?
    — What will make them listen or at least be open to new facts?
  5. Propaganda: How much damage has fake news and deliberately deceptive propaganda done to our:
    — Critical thinking skills.
    — Democracy? Does a functioning democracy require a consensus on a common set of facts and trust sources of information?

OPTIONAL BACKGROUND READINGS –

Related CivCon mtgs –

  • 2019: Fighting fake news.  2016: The “Fox News effect.”
  • 2019: The power of cognitive bias. Key concepts.
    2016: What should kids be taught about U.S. history?

Critical thinking and its teaching –

NEXT WEEK: Time travel: Where/when would you like to visit and why?

Posted in: Civics 101, Education, Mtg Announcements, Philosophy, Social Policy/Social Science | Tagged: , ,

Monday’s Mtg: Whose problem is Americans’ ignorance of other nations and cultures?

By DavidG on | Leave a comment

I don’t have much time this week. Luckily, this topic idea by Peter is a good one, and, even though I will be there, the discussion should practically run itself. Americans have long been famous the world over for our lack of knowledge of other countries and cultures. A famous novel, The Ugly American, lampooned it in the 1950s. In those halcyon days of American hyper power, public ignorance about what went on in Europe or Asia or Africa was more of a source of amusement for foreigners than an actual problem (at least for Americans).

American foreign policy back then was run by elites with very little input from regular citizens. These elites knew far more about the rest of the world than other Americans. Yet, their ignorance of how other countries really work, along with hubris, led to many a catastrophe. The general public’s lack of knowledge of the world did much matter much on way or the other.

But, now? Today 13% of our population is foreign-born, the highest level it’s been in a century. There is a lot of tension between (some) native-born Americans and immigrants – especially those native-born that do not live in big cities where people are used to immigration and are comfortable with (and a bit more knowledgeable of) cultural diversity.

Also, our Cold War/post-Cold War bipolar/unipolar world is morphing into a multipolar world. America cannot push other countries around (or lead them benignly, if you prefer) like we could before. Maybe this makes the need to understand other countries greater than before. Moreover, our country’s’ problems have gone global to an unprecedented extent. Issues like climate change, terrorism, and organized crime require international cooperation like never before, too. We still think we understand post-conflict and failed states when we don’t.

Finally, and not to be too blunt about it, our political leaders at the very top tell a lot of straight-up lies about other countries these days. NATO member countries “owe” us money. Russia isn’t interfering in our elections. Iran wants war. Climate change is a plot to weaken America. And so on. Arguably, the ugly American and/or the innocents abroad can afford to be neither, these days.

Below are a few articles on Americans’ lack of knowledge about their own and other countries. Our question will center on whether and to what extent this really matters, especially compared to the past and going forward. After all, I don’t know how my computer works, but who is really harmed by that?

OPTIONAL BACKGROUND READINGS –

NEXT: The science and social rewards of good looks.

Posted in: Education, Foreign Policy, Mtg Announcements | Tagged: , ,

Monday’s Mtg: How much of government should be privatized?

By DavidG on | Leave a comment

We hear so much about the wonder or evils of privatizing government. What does it mean? Here is useful definition for our purposes (source):

“Broadly speaking, [privatization] means the shift of some or all of the responsibility for a function from government to the private sector. The term has most commonly been applied to the…sale or long-term lease of a state-owned enterprise to private investors. Another major form is the granting of a long-term franchise or concession under which the private sector finances, builds, and operates a major infrastructure project. A third type involves government selecting a private entity to deliver a public service that had previously been produced in-house by public employees. The latter is increasingly called outsourcing”

So what? In the last 20 years a major battle has been waged to privatize a lot of government in the USA at both the federal and state and local government levels. A lot of privatization has been achieved, much of it bipartisan, good government efforts to improve the quality of government services and lower their costs. Almost every function of government has seen some privatizing experiments, including

  • Criminal and civil justice systems: Prisons, parole, courts, tort reform.
  • Military: Logistics, combat support, espionage.
  • Education: Charter schools, vouchers, for-profit colleges.
  • Health care: Medicaid, Medicare, mental health services.
  • Transportation and infrastructure.
  • Financial (de-) regulation.
  • Space exploration.

Thanks to these experiments arguably a lot has been learned about what works in privatizing government and what doesn’t. The devil is in the details. Success depends on little things like contract language and oversight. Still, some basic principles for getting privatization right (and wrong) are emerging.

Great. Do what works. Well, unless you have been living under a rock since 1995, politics-wise, you know that privatization also has been a major tool in conservatives’ ideological crusade to shrink government. President Bush did a lot (esp. as part of fighting the Iraq War and War on Terror) and tried to do a lot more (like privatize Social Security).  The Trump Administration has big plans. It wants to privatize the Veterans Administration, national parks, air traffic control, Medicaid, and even the U.S. postal service. Progressives and Democrats are determined to prevent it, and some of their motives are not so evidence-based and noble, either.

My motives for this mtg are modest. I hope we can gain a basic understanding of

  1. What privatization means, where it’s been tried, and why.
  2. Pros and cons and lessons learned, including about some actors’ ulterior motives.
  3. GOP plans for more privatizing and insights to help us judge the merits.

OPTIONAL BACKGROUND READINGS –

NEXT: What makes a religion tolerant or intolerant?

Posted in: Conservatism, Criminal justice, Economy/Economics, Mtg Announcements, Politics | Tagged: , , ,

Monday’s Mtg: Privatizing U.S. education – Solution, scam, or in between?

By DavidG on | Leave a comment

Public and private educational systems have existed side by side in the United States since its founding, both at the K-12 (elementary and secondary) and university levels. Many of our most prominent universities were founded as private religious institutions. In K-12 the growth of private schools has come in waves. For example, in the late 19th century Catholic immigrants formed their own network of private schools to avoid Protestant-dominated public schools. A century later southern evangelicals created private schools to avoid desegregating education.

But, public schools still dominate American education. Only about 10 percent of American students attend private schools.

Some people want to change that. Since the 1990s, a “school choice” movement has bloomed. It has become a dominant POV among conservatives and a significant minority of progressives. The movement has used mainly these tools:

  1. Charter schools.
  2. Vouchers,
  3. Tax credits and savings grants.

Charter schools are publicly funded, free to attend, and privately run. They operate according to a charter from the government. They can be non-profit or for-profit institutions and typically are exempt from many if not most local and state educational regulations. Vouchers, are subsidies that students (mainly low-income) can use if they want to transfer from their assigned public school to another school, often a private religious school. Sometimes very few strings re attached. Education tax credits and savings grants also subside private education.

The motives for the school choice crowd depends on who you ask. Maybe it’s all about giving parents more choices for their kids’ education, helping trapped students to escape failing public schools, and improving public education by spurring more competition.  Or, maybe it is a trick by conservatives to defund public education, shovel public money to private religious and for-profit schools (and campaign donors), and undermine teachers’ union, all under the guise of giving a damn about poor minority kids.

(Re: Higher ed. For-profit universities enroll about 10 percent of all college students. They are highly controversial and we discussed them in 2015.)

The results of K-12 privatization has been…mixed, according to what I’ve read. Charter schools have achieved some successes. Voucher programs have not, although maybe they could if they were better designed. The optional readings, below, discuss some of these findings and lay out the basic theoretical pros and cons.

This will remain a live national issue. Many parents support having this kind of increased flexibility. The Trump Administration loves this stuff. It has eliminated most of the regulations that Obama slapped on for-profit colleges and expanded a big tax credit for private school savings used mainly by rich people. Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, comes out of the privatization movement and wants Congress to pass a nationwide, universal voucher program.

I will open our meeting with a little primer on vouchers and charter schools and the basic arguments for and against them.

OPTIONAL BACKGROUND READINGS –

Some background on U.S. education –

School Choice / privatization –

NEXT: China’s future – How powerful, how democratic?

Posted in: Education, Politics | Tagged: ,

Monday’s Mtg, Part 2: Pros and Cons of 2018 San Diego Ballot Propositions

By DavidG on | Leave a comment

Here are some good and SHORT summaries of the county and local propositions.  For state props., see the next post down.

Here is a bit more on some that caught my eye as being significant.

COUNTYWIDE MEASURES –

Measure D election dates: Puts all county elections in November.

  • Currently, county elections have a primary in June and the two top winners go on to November (unless someone wins over 50% in primary).
  • Prop. D moves these [non-partisan] elections to November.
  • Progressives put this on the ballot so they could finally win Board of Supervisors + other county offices.
  • Pros: Ultra-low turnout primaries should not determine who wins – Nov. better reflects public’s will. City elections are already in November.
    And: Democrats will win more since primaries favor the shrinking GOP.
  • Cons: Democrats will win more. November ballot already includes ALL propositions, making it already overcrowded.
  • Pros and cons in more detail are here.

Measure E + Measure G – Chargers stadium:

Measure H – Term limits for school board

  • Limits Board members to three, four-year terms starting in 2020.
  • Pros and cons: The usual ones surrounding term limits.
  • ALSO: This would keep the elections at-large, meaning only a district’s voters choose the primary winner and in November the entire city votes on each Board member. Republicans wanted district elections for both. Usually, the parties are on opposite sides on the at-large v. district elections issue, but in this case at-large ones elect more Democrats and vice versa.

Measure K – Term limits for city council members –

  • Change to two, four-year terms. Partial terms count as one.
  • They already are chosen by individual districts.

Next Week: What one event in U.S. history would you change?

 

 

Posted in: Mtg Announcements, Politics | Tagged: , ,

Monday’s Mtg: Are kids made or born?

By DavidG on | Leave a comment

In Civilized Conversation we’ve done a fair number of romance- and relationship-related topics. We’ve done others concerning changing cultural norms and issues of personal morality.  We have several more of these in our new August – December schedule, which Jenn and Rich and I are working on and which will be posted this weekend and in hard copy on Monday.

But, we never do topics related to parenting. This is kind of an omission, I‘ve always felt, since raising children is the biggest endeavor of most people’s lives. It is true that some of us have had kids and others haven’t. Either way, most of us have some personal experience in dealing with children and the mysteries of how they turn out in spite of their parents’ best (or worse) intentions. Some of us may even have been children ourselves.

So, this topic is for everybody. We can focus on either our opinions about how kids turn out in ways that are surprising to those that raise them, based on our personal observations. Or, we can talk about the psychology, biology, sociology, etc., of the nature versus nurture debate.

Link hunting, especially on topics that are way outside of my knowledge base, is time consuming. So, here are a few that seemed interesting, plus some specific discussion questions that I will use in the meeting to keep us focused on the topic.

I’ll see you Monday with new topics.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS –

  1. How often in your personal experience have you seen children turn out in ways that surprised you, given their parents and upbringing? To what did you attribute these differences?
  2. What about you? What do you think caused you to be the way you are? Were you born to be a certain way or raised to be? Were there pivotal influences or events? Were you lucky or unlucky?
  3. Science and social science: What do they say about nature v. nurture? Are there new findings you’ve heard about or debunked CW? Is some of the pop science about nature v. nurture wrong?
  4. Specific traits’ origins: Nature/nurture effects on –
    a.  Intelligence?
    b.  Judgment?
    c.  Talents and abilities?
    d.  Sociability and anti-social behavior?
    e.  Morality, ethics, empathy?
    f.  Sexuality?
    g.  Success in life and in relationships?
  5. Traumas: How crucial are childhood traumas to development? What have you observed/experienced + what does the science say?
  6. What is your advice to new parents – and to ex-children?

SUGGESTED BACKGROUND READING –

NEXT WEEK: Affordable housing in California.

Posted in: Education, Mtg Announcements, Science, Social Policy/Social Science | Tagged: ,

Monday’s Mtg: Should children be raised with gender-neutral expectations?

By DavidG on | Leave a comment

For some reason this group never does parenting or children-related topics, except indirectly via some of our education discussions. So, I am glad Bruce thought of this one. We can ask Bruce, but I believe concern over “gender-neutral” parenting styles is of concern to many conservatives and traditionalists. Some kind of worry about messing up kids with liberal social engineering theories, undermining biologically-determined gender norm, and/or devaluing masculinity, I think.

I guess it depends on what raising kids in a “gender-neutral” way means. I don’t think very many people are actually trying to rear their children without a gender identity. But, a lot of young parents seem to be interested (at least rhetorically, to researchers and pollsters) in raising their kids in a more gender neutral environment in the sense of:

  • Not passing on harmful gender role stereotypes.
  • Not hooking their kids on gender-stereotyped clothing, toys, play activities, etc.; and
  • Not instilling sexist cultural norms.

I am in a mood lately to broaden the range of topics we discuss. Our political discussions are very high-quality, IMO. But, maybe next schedule (TBD, for March – June or July) we can experiment with some new areas. Here is a little introductory material on what gender-neutral parenting can entail and a few pro and con discussions.

SUGGESTED BACKGROUND READING –

 

NEXT WEEK: How should government incorporate scientific advice?

Posted in: Social Policy/Social Science | Tagged: , ,

Monday’s Mtg: The Uses and Abuses of “Pop Economics.”

By DavidG on | 3 Comments

Rich suggested this topic. I wish I had, because I think it is one of our most important topics in years. The way basic, introductory-level economics has been abused to make bad national policy has been a pet peeve of mine for many years.

Sure, all rhetoric in politics is kept sound bite and bumper sticker-friendly. (Not to a fourth grade level like Trump’s rhetoric, perhaps, but still.) And, everybody does it. “Our borders are unguarded/open.” Liberals aren’t patriotic. Neoconservatives love war.

But, when it comes to rhetoric –and policy, too – concerning economics, something much, much more pernicious goes on. It has been called the problem of “Econ 101ism” or “Economism.” Economism, to quote the coiner of the term, is “the misleading application of basic lessons from Economics 101 to real-world problems, creating the illusion of consensus and reducing a complex topic to a simple, open-and-shut case.” For years I’ve seen way too many politicians (and their pundit and journalist enablers) use over-simplified – and thus often inaccurate – Econ 101ism as a kind of Gospel that fully explains how the world really works. They use its “lessons” to show what correct government policy has to be and anybody that disagrees doesn’t understand economics.

Everybody does Economism sometimes. Liberals sometimes indulge in it when thinking and talking about international trade and, less often IMO, about macroeconomics (govt spending levels). But, as the articles below explain better than I will on Monday, there is something about Econ 101’s easy, breezy, oversimplified analysis of how markets work that easily seduces conservatives.  All those pretty supply and demand curves leading to ideal equilibriums without ever a need for government interference.

Again, I don’t mean this topic to be about economic polices and rhetoric that I think are wrong.  I mean it to be about those that are wrong for one particular reason: They are based on a belief that the highly simplified textbook explanations of how markets work should tell us all we need to know about what policies should be.  Econ 101ism, to me, is too often a shield for preferences that based on other things, like ideology and moral beliefs. .

I’ve tried to keep the linked readings fairly easy and, well, breezy. They oversimplify, too, but get the idea across.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS –

  1. What does Econ 101 teach about how markets and govt interference in markets work? What important things does it gloss over?
  2. In what big ways can well-meaning political advocates misinterpret the lessons of Econ 101?
  3. How do the lessons of Econ 101 get misused by politicians; i.e., what is Economism?
  4. What are some good examples of Economism in action on the Right and Left?
    –> In tax policy? Financial regulation? Trade? Wages and labor markets? Health care? Education?
  5. How can seductive rhetoric based on Economism be effectively countered?
  6. What’s the “other side” POV here? Is Econ 11ism not a big thing?

SUGGESTED BACKGROUND READING –  

Conservative use of Econ 101ism –

Liberals use of Econ 101ism –

Special Topics in Econ 101ism –

NEXT WEEK: What beliefs have you changed since you were young?

Posted in: Economy/Economics, Mtg Announcements, Social Policy/Social Science | Tagged: ,

Monday’s Mtg: What does “cultural literacy” mean?

By DavidG on | Leave a comment

Sometimes my topic ideas are not too well thought out. This one came out of several articles I read recently (in the links) that argued we should revive the idea of a shared American cultural literacy.  Cultural literacy is the common knowledge necessary for good citizenship and mutual understanding in a society. Promoting it would involve our educational system focusing on teaching young people a certain set of facts and concepts about history and civics/government, art and literature, religion, geography, and so forth. Adoption of the Common Core and other educational standards spurred this renewed debate over the merits of a common cultural literacy, as have rapid shifts in American demographics, the rise of social media, and other factors. I thought it would be a nice break from our polarizing political topics.

Oopsie.

It’s not just that the cultural revanchist Donald Trump got elected president by promising to speak for (some) Americans that feel culturally disrespected and to restore a decidedly pale-hued lost national greatness. I had forgotten that the concept of cultural literacy was controversial when it was first introduced in a book by a British American academic in 1987. Some progressives opposed the idea flat out, arguing that anything that smacked of a state-sanctioned list of approved cultural knowledge would be more oppressive than instructive. Conservatives, already up in arms over the rise of multiculturalism and historical revisionism, pushed back.

We got a taste of how this conflict still rages a few weeks ago when we discussed what U.S. school children should be taught about history.  I am sure that any movement to revive cultural literacy in today’s political climate would get sucked right into the culture wars.

Complicating cultural literacy further is the way we share cultural information (and values and resentments) these days via social media. Maybe cultural norms and changes get transmitted faster or more efficiently. Maybe it’s liberating and promote tolerance. Ha, ha. As those of us that have lost Facebook friends over Trump’s election can attest, the Internet also Balkanizes culture (especially resentments).

Given all of these crosscurrents, I’m not sure yet how Civilized Conversation should approach the idea of a 21st century American cultural literacy. Ponder these discussion questions and I will see you on Monday.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS –

  1. What is “cultural knowledge?” Whose culture / what knowledge? Can cultural values be separated from mere facts?
  2. What is cultural literacy and why did Hirsh argue its importance? Why the furious opposition and ardent defenders?
  3. Is there really a big conflict between cultural diversity and common cultural literacy?
  4. Are the ways we transmit cultural values and knowledge changing nd does it matter?
  5. What principles do you think should guide search for common cultural info/concepts/values? Who should decide?

SUGGESTED BACKGROUND READING –  

Next Week (Nov 28):  How do progressives interpret the Constitution?

Posted in: History, Mtg Announcements, Politics | Tagged: ,