The evidence indicates that throwing more effort/money at how we do education does not improve IQ scores (for which SAT scores are a thinly-veiled proxy, except that every decade or so they make cosmetic changes to the SAT methodology) or student outcomes. Attempts to rethink education have failed. And IQ is generally useful enough that it is strongly correlated with outcomes we want.
If you’re used to the tech sector with rapid change every decade, moving into the human services sector is going to be a very depressing experience. The low-hanging fruit was picked centuries ago and there hasn’t been any real progress in the last 50 years.
Or at least the particular set of reforms discussed in that article has failed? Even within the context of the US, there do seem to be occasional educational interventions that work, e.g.:
In a state once notorious for its low reading scores, the Mississippi state legislature passed new literacy standards in 2013. Since then Mississippi has seen remarkable gains. Its fourth graders have moved from 49th (out of 50 states) to 29th on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationwide exam. In 2019 it was the only state to improve its scores. For the first time since measurement began, Mississippi’s pupils are now average readers, a remarkable achievement in such a poor state.
Ms Burk attributes Mississippi’s success to implementing reading methods supported by a body of research known as the science of reading. In 1997 Congress requested the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Department of Education to convene a National Reading Panel to end the “reading wars” and synthesise the evidence. The panel found that phonics, along with explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, fluency and comprehension, worked best.
There have been dozens of stories like that; George W Bush got elected on the strength of his education “reforms”. Long-term experience justifies a strong belief (confidence over 90%) that the results will ultimately turn out to be due to a combination of selection bias (cherry-picking) and test fraud. The links are just examples; I’ve been offhandedly following education research and reform for decades. There’s a lot more evidence where that came from, and it tells a very consistent story.
Education simply isn’t a green field—the space of potential solutions has been fairly thoroughly explored (for the set of non-medical solutions that are broadly consistent with Western values and American cultural practices). If you are active in this space without learning that history, you are almost certain to repeat it.
The evidence indicates that throwing more effort/money at how we do education does not improve IQ scores (for which SAT scores are a thinly-veiled proxy, except that every decade or so they make cosmetic changes to the SAT methodology) or student outcomes. Attempts to rethink education have failed. And IQ is generally useful enough that it is strongly correlated with outcomes we want.
If you’re used to the tech sector with rapid change every decade, moving into the human services sector is going to be a very depressing experience. The low-hanging fruit was picked centuries ago and there hasn’t been any real progress in the last 50 years.
Or at least the particular set of reforms discussed in that article has failed? Even within the context of the US, there do seem to be occasional educational interventions that work, e.g.:
There have been dozens of stories like that; George W Bush got elected on the strength of his education “reforms”. Long-term experience justifies a strong belief (confidence over 90%) that the results will ultimately turn out to be due to a combination of selection bias (cherry-picking) and test fraud. The links are just examples; I’ve been offhandedly following education research and reform for decades. There’s a lot more evidence where that came from, and it tells a very consistent story.
Education simply isn’t a green field—the space of potential solutions has been fairly thoroughly explored (for the set of non-medical solutions that are broadly consistent with Western values and American cultural practices). If you are active in this space without learning that history, you are almost certain to repeat it.