However, this work has been built on rather extensively by other researchers who have shown, rather convincingly, that time is not just time. The Carroll model, like the Goldstein model here, is too simplistic for application in schools.

Cooley and Leinhardt, and David Berliner, wrote about the differences in how time was used in instruction. Basically, all time spent in a math lesson is not equal. So is better to have an hour long math lesson taught poorly, or a 30 minute lesson taught well?

There is some evidence that time matters a lot in terms of school year, and there is evidence that for disadvantaged students more time in school each day may be less about teaching and learning, and more about avoiding some other activities that are detrimental to learning.

The biggest factor is critical mass; it is the percentage of traumatized kids in one location.

As I will explain in the Quick and Ed, our school and another of our three neighborhood high schools just tied for the lowest ACT scores (15.3) in urban Oklahoma. But hundreds of poor Black kids in our zip code attend a school that is ranked in the top 50 nationwide, and several attend a school that is typicall ranked in the top five (31+ average ACT). There is no comparison between our weakest faculty and the weakest of those high flying schools. Year in and year out, about of a third of our classes have subs or people who should have never been allowed in a classroom. But compare the top third of our teachers, and perhaps the top 2/3rds and we are every bit as good. After all, a large number of their teachers left us in exhaustion, and came back to life when they were allowed to teach without the obstacles we face.

Our young talent is just as good as theirs, but it is virtually impossible for a young teacher to survive in our school. (even though we have two that are awesome) Why? the complete lack of disciplinary backing is the prime reason.

I admire teachers, young and old, neighborhood or magnet, who find a way to be effective. I understand, given the stressful nature of our job and the ego investment involved, why teachers who are successful will distance themselves from teachers who are less successful. But on the other hand, I always wonder why – if they are so confident – they are so quick to judge others. Of course, I might just be talking noise also.

Its easy to claim that any of us are working miracles. We need data driven decision-making as a corrective. But if people like the Ed Trust were so confident that their policies can raise all boats, why do they use so much bogus data? Why not apologize about their most discredited studies?

And if we really want to help poor kids, why get stuck in this cycle of recrimination? How are we going to recruit new talent to a system that is so good at eating its young? Lets put more work into the hard work of improving schools and less in distributing blame.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Lots of interesting observations you make.

One small note: I was careful to note “Same 20 kids” — ie, 20 kids who walk from 9th grade math down the hall to 9th grade science. The same 20 kids wouldn’t walk from Freshman Math to your upperclassmen class on Black History, right?

My point there was that holding all other factors constant (lesson plan, kids), some teachers — and some schools — are more effective at lowering the Misbehavior Tax.

1. Yes. So let’s say you created a 4-hour per day math class. Time would rise. But kid effort would plummet. Misbehavior Tax would increase. Some elements of “Quality of Class” would decrease.

So if we search for optimal time, we have to balance all the factors — all other things being equal, more time = more learning, but all other things are not equal, which I think the formula accounts for.

2. Per above, perhaps I should have had said “Let’s try to create a production function that measures learning but only examines factors that the school can at least partially influence. Two factors schools cannot easily influence are hereditary aptitude and baseline academic skills.”

3. Thanks for recommending the Zig book. I will check it out.

Veronika, actually, I think those can be separate variables, Misbehavior Tax and Quality Of Classroom.

In other words, imagine 2 teachers with the same lesson plan.

To use your phrasing, “boring, teacher centered.”

Would you agree it’s possible to imagine very different levels of misbehavior among those kids, holding the lesson plan constant, with simply different teachers?

Or even imagine your preferred “student-centered” lesson plan. This time, pretend it is taught by the same teacher to similar kids in 2 different schools, with very different schoolwide cultures.

Again, can’t you imagine very different outcomes in terms of misbehavior?

Several observations:

1. Time and effort are going to have some sort of relationship to each other, in that past a certain amount of time, there might be some burn out and reduced effort.

2. You completely leave out student aptitude (some kids take less effort to get to the same point)

3. The misbehavior tax is partially related to quality of teaching. Kids often misbehave out of frustration from poor teaching. The misbehavior tax could be significantly reduced if reform starts at the earliest grades. Zig Engelmann talks a lot about this misbehavior tax in his recent manuscript on the history of Project Follow Through and Direct Instruction.

4. If the misbehavior tax is that critical, doesn’t it lead to the conclusion that misbehaviors should just be excluded from classes with non misbehaviors?

Thanks for your comment. So, keep in mind, I’m narrowly measuring “Classroom Learning.” Another way to say that is NOT “Total Academic Skill Level” but only “GAIN in Academic Skill Level over baseline.”

So another formula which I did not show, but perhaps should have:

Students Academic Level = Baseline + Gain Over Baseline.

Vocabulary level entering school is HUGELY powerful. But assuming a bunch of kids who have very low baseline vocabularies, the job of a school is to generate the Gains. Certainly, meanwhile, “society” can work on the Baseline.

In my visits to grossly underperfoming schools, one thing that really popped my eyes was how much time teachers spent trying to keep order in the classroom. Often, the better part of a 45 minute period was spent telling Johnny to “please sit in your seat,” and Susie “to quit talking.” Is it any wonder that achievement levels at these schools were so low? A school where unruliness is the norm seems unlikely to be a school where most kids will learn much.

The big question is: how to train teachers so that they are equipped to handle unruly students, to stop a slightly boisterous classroom from tipping into anarchy?

Cheers,

KRK