I read somewhere, don't remember where, that when a business isn't going well, people start grasping at "process improvements" like it will bring about a huge transform in the way business is going. In reality it doesn't, but it's the sort of busy-work that makes people feel like they are being useful.
I think it's very similar in education. There are vast swaths of the education system that are doing absolutely terrible. Much of the problems are outside of school administrator's control (broken families, gangs, poverty, etc), so they reach for "process improvements" and hope that makes a difference.
> [a study looked at] the relationship between eighth grade enrollment [in Algebra] and National Assessment of Educational Progress math exam scores at the state level. In short, they didn't find one... [In a different study], they found that early exposure was actually associated with a net decrease in average student math score exams within a given district.
Maybe we're looking at the wrong metrics. Obviously introducing the average kid, whose average abilities change much more slowly than "process improvements," would have a decrease in today's math exam.
Maybe there's something wrong with the exam! And not in the sense of what questions it asks, but more like, who the hell cares?
I know what the answer is, I'm not stupid. But eventually, we'll have to square away the multitudes sitting inside of parent's brains: that they want their kids to actually learn something, while simultaneously having the highest scores / grades / metrics possible. The two cannot be true and honest at the same time.
But the tension isn't learning versus evaluation. It's honest versus dishonest. Under the early algebra scheme, you get a more honest evaluation (students perform worse at harder, more realistic material) and more learning (they're not rehearsing stuff that's easy for them).
The real dynamic is that no one is going to enroll their kids in a school with low test scores.
Haha, my dad advised me to sell stock in companies that embark on a massive headquarters project. It's not just a curse - management spends their effort designing the HQ rather than working on the business.
I think it's very similar in education. There are vast swaths of the education system that are doing absolutely terrible. Much of the problems are outside of school administrator's control (broken families, gangs, poverty, etc), so they reach for "process improvements" and hope that makes a difference.