The nature and focus of teacher training

One of the striking things about my university teaching education is the emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity. Much of the time in class is spent focusing on the issue of equity – aiming to help those different from most students gain the same level of access to education as the mainstream. This is a worthy goal, but it puts the cart before the horse. The university courses focus on difference, without teaching much about the mainstream. What does the researcher community have to say on IQ, for example? We didn’t learn that. But if we are considering the extent to which we can improve the educational attainment of underachieving students, surely an understanding of the basics of IQ would be a good starting place? Unfortunately, this is not the case. It is presumed that educational attainment and IQ is sufficiently malleable to achieve the noble aims of the government and it’s education institutions. A future blog post will ponder the extent to which our educational attainment can keep up with the demands of the workforce for ever-higher human capital.

On another note, one of my lecturers mentioned the outcomes we needed to achieve as being dictated by government priorities. It is a worry that those in research, who are supposed to be the experts, are being guided by politicians and bureaucrats, on the advice of well-meaning but often misguided technocratic advisers. Granted, this way the government is an intermediary between schools and universities, and if there is no feedback to universities from schools on the quality of university graduates, the government can play a bridging role. But surely an even better way to gain accountability and appropriate skills would be for schools to be able to directly hire people wishing to become teachers, who then complete on-the-job and university or equivalent training, while increasingly taking up more teaching responsibilities. The schools would choose the training that best equipped their teachers, and the government would fund this training. It would help if schools had choice over other issues as well, such as the priorities they considered worthy of investing in, rather than what the government of the day fancies. However, such a system requires not only autonomy, but school choice. And therein lies a tricky issue for another time.

Should education be compulsory?

If there’s someone that’s going to put up an interesting argument against compulsory education, it’s the late libertarian economist and philosopher Murray Rothbard. While it doesn’t seem like he had much involvement with schooling, his perspective is so different to mainstream thought that it’s worth discussing here. When I’ve previously read Rothbard, I’ve been both stimulated and disappointed by his work, but it always makes you think, and the clarity of his exposition is rarely matched. If he’s wrong, we will all see it.

His political philosophy centres on the use of force, and particularly his opposition to the government’s monopoly thereon. He also employs a priori reasoning to create a theory, through which he then views events. Bearing these considerations in mind, we know we will get a certain perspective in this text. But therein lies the interest for me.  Below is a short summary and discussion of the first chapter of Rothbard’s Education: Free and Compulsory.

Rothbard starts with a child’s process of growing up, involving developing goals (ends) based on the individuality of the self, and a growing understanding of how to achieve them (means). Forming this rational means-ends framework is the process of growing up, and there is much useful knowledge to be gained in this process, of which formal instruction to convey intellectual knowledge is but one part. This involves reason and observation, and once these basic skills are learnt (through reading, writing, arithmetic), the learning of science, moral sciences (economics, politics, etc) and imaginative studies (literature) can occur. Outside of this, people formulate ideas about the world, how people relate to each other and how to achieve subjectively-determined ends within this world.

(There is much of this type of perspective in Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions and Knowledge and Decisions, wherein distinctions are made between ‘articulated knowledge’ such as that which is formally taught in schools, and other, less- or non-articulated knowledge, which is not formally taught. One can position Rothbard as respecting both sets of knowledge, while those whom Rothbard criticises later, as wishing to design a system based on their conceptions of useful knowledge, ignore unarticulated knowledge. Importantly, though, Rothbard criticises such people more for their willingness to control people through emphasising articulated knowledge, the instruction of which they control.)

Rothbard notes the individuality of children and people is a natural phenomenon, and that the growth of civilisation, brought about through specialisation (a form of knowledge creation), makes us more unequal. The push for uniformity to achieve equality of outcomes will stifle a student’s individuality and societal progress. Instead, equality should be emphasised by allowing students to develop their faculties and personalities, and to do so, they must be free from coercion and equal before the law. (One can also include freedom from economic constraint, one of the bases upon which a different strand of liberalism is underpinned. One can thus see the underlying tensions inherent in debate about free schooling – it depends upon one’s conception of liberalism.)

Therefore, Rothbard favours individual instruction, provided by parents, as the best means to educate children. It is voluntary, context-dependent, utilising the fullest knowledge of the individuality of the child, and not being burdened by the uniformity inherent in classroom teaching. Economic means are required to provide this education, and without such means, voluntary, individualised group-based schooling, focusing on the particular needs of the child, and without central direction backed with the use of force, will enable the individuality of a child to emerge, and allow a greater accountability mechanism to be used (exit). (Again, economic constraint is an issue here. Inherent in Rothbard’s analysis is that economic means can buy a better education. While some will argue this is bad for poor students, the lack of school choice now  – even when it’s free – has a similar effect.)

Rothbard provides other reasons for favouring voluntary educational methods: education can occur at appropriate paces, thereby tailoring education to a specific child’s needs; the level at which subjects are taught can be tailored to the specific capabilities of the child; the subjects that are taught can be tailored to the particular strengths of children;the amount of schooling can be tailored, allowing some students who have strengths in other areas to pursue their learning in those areas [this relates again to Rothbard’s (and Sowell’s) belief that there are many valuable forms of knowledge that can be attained, through various means].

Rothbard does not consider the downside of individualised instruction – the lower average ability of the teachers as more become involved in teaching. Rothbard seems to value the individualised instruction more than the average quality of the tuition, placing the emphasis of his argument on individualisation. It seems that a good middle ground is private schooling, and Rothbard is in favour of this.

Compulsory schooling laws, Rothbard argues, constitute an injustice on children, even those in private schools, by imposing by force standards of instruction that do not respect, and cannot consider, the individual needs of the child. The result is to move instruction to a lower academic level. To the extent that compulsory schooling laws allow for differentiation, this does not seem correct, but in reality, many schools, particularly comprehensive schools, seem to suffer from mixed abilities in one classroom, preventing appropriate differentiation. Indeed, my postgraudate teaching degree emphasised the need to differentiate within a lesson to cater for all needs, an impossible task that nonetheless is barely recognised as such. Good intentions often dominate over realism. Perhaps it is the best response we have to the system we are to work in. Try your best to differentiate.

Rothbard’s argument really centres on the uniformity and bluntness of centralised, compelled education. Each child is different, yet the force of law is going to force children into a situation that is not best for them. Rothbard also points out that the state, in assuming responsibility for education, is substituting itself for the parents in the child’s life, thereby stripping the family of the dignity of choice and responsibility, while imposing an inferior authority into the child’s life, one that does not have the incentive nor the information to do right by the child. In exercising it’s responsibility, the state will inevitably seek to control the child. Rothbard compares the horror of public education to the concept of a nation-wide chain of publicly run newspapers, with everyone compelled to read them. Naturally, this would be opposed by most people, and yet public education stirs but a few opponents. The ‘domain dependence’ in this type of thinking is revealed.

While Rothbard doesn’t consider some of the benefits of public education, he makes an interesting case against it. Human dignity and differentiation, and confidence in parents, form the basis of his perspective, as does his repulsion against the use of force. I tend to see myself as more utilitarian with respect to force, and am less offended by it than Rothbard. But Rothbard makes a good, albeit narrow case. If one accepts his premises on differentiation, dignity and force, it may be difficult to mount a counter to his argument. Expedience may be one. And of course the underlying notion in society that education is a human right and must be provided or at least funded by the state is an ideology that is not going anywhere fast. It is tied up in the notion of formal equality of opportunity (although it could be argued that substantive equality of opportunity is also a goal of public educationists, by stripping students of unearned advantages). While the intention to provide formal equality of opportunity is admirable, I wonder what the benefits of stripping the government of it’s role entirely, including of funding, would be on the education system? Perhaps greater inequality but an overall improved situation? One’s level of aversion to inequality will be critical in how one thinks of this type of situation, but as Rothbard quite rightly notes, people are different, ability and interest in education differs, so should we be aiming for equality at all, or is it an arbitrary, utopian vision that ignores the very nature of man? Indeed, the type of liberalism that will impede deregulated education from occurring is underpinned by the notion that humans are malleable and perfectible. This is inconsistent with reality.

Don’t sit that exam, you’ll bring the school average down

Background 

The Age reported yesterday on the tendency for some schools to discourage less academic students, who may harm the school’s test scores, from taking the final exams that allow students to qualify for university straight out of school. The article specifically concerns students in Victorian (Australia’s second most populous state), who can complete a vocational program (the VCAL), or an academic program (the VCE), the latter providing an option to finish with or without a score. If without a score, or if completing the VCAL, the school’s average is not affected as students do not receive an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). The article notes that students who do not receive an ATAR feel a lack of self-worth – they feel like ‘failures’ and ‘rejects’.

One of the students who continued with his academic studies, despite pressure from his school not to, received an ATAR of 53 (with 100 being top of the state and most degrees requiring substantially higher scores than 53).

Another student did not sit the exam, despite studying the academic program. He sat out the exams at the urging of his school. One teacher reportedly told him that he ‘was not cut-out for the high-stakes exam’.

According to one teacher, the process of urging lower achieving students from getting an ATAR was ‘sophisticated scheme’ to ‘weed out’ underperformers.

Comment

There a number of issues to discuss here:

The obsession with results over learning. In their current form, schooling causes an obsession with marks and results in senior school, with the students’ grades a ticket to university. For those hoping education would be an end in itself, the system would kill that hope. For those seeing it as a means to an end, the end is questionable. Too many students are attending university, and are not getting enough time working and gaining employable skills. Unfortunately, university is still a strong signal to employers of human capital.

It is true that many students are not cut out for the rigours of university. As Charles Murray wrote persuasively in Real Education, only 10-20% of students really have the aptitude to go to university and do it well. So, despite the seeming underhandedness of the schools’ urging of students to not gain university admissions ranks, the pressure for lower-achieving students to shift into vocational study is not a bad idea, particularly if strong avenues exist for them. This is in contrast to the advice from David Roycroft, principal of Oakwood School:

“He [Roycroft] says while VCAL is “terrific” in building vocational skills, it should not be the default option for students with low grades.

“If the student is thinking that they are heading towards tertiary study, then they should be doing a VCE program, regardless of their grades.””

Currently, I side with Murray on this. Murray argues that its better for someone to move into a vocation and earn a strong living than finish university near the bottom of the cohort and try to compete for jobs in a saturated market. The educated labour market may not pay-off for these students, and they should consider other pathways. The trouble here is that schools are urging these students to do vocational courses without a proper institutional or social backing for such an education. It is deemed less successful if a student learns a trade instead of attends university, and attention in schools is on the ATAR, so naturally less academic students feel marginalised. No wonder students who probably should be learning a trade are instead sitting the VCE and getting an ATAR of 53. (Admittedly, the student who scored 53 had aspirations of being a director and missed out on his desired course by only one mark. So perhaps it was the right call – he tried and failed, but good on him for having a go. Failure is ok! The question of whether a student should be at university with an ATAR of 53 (and universities accepting students with such scores) is another matter. Perhaps it is fine if the degree is not overly academic in nature (given that the ATAR is determined mainly by academic study)).

Despite the above comments, the student that studied the VCE but was discouraged from sitting the exams and getting an ATAR, has been done a tremendous disservice by his school. If the student was not overly academic, he should have been encouraged to go into vocational study much earlier. It is cruel to say to this student that, after all the study he had done, you are not good enough to sit the exams. The point of the exams is to determine if the student is good enough. Not the teacher. Making this decision at such a late point is a let-down for the student. It suggests the school did not have the student’s interests at heart.

Time spent focusing on growth of the individual outside of school, or finding other avenues after school other than university, could be time well spent. Students can unschool themselves – a process of ridding the strictures and focus of schooling from the person, to enable them to become the person they should be, not the person the schooling system channeled them towards. Working and exploring passions are ideal ways to do this. Earning a living and transitioning into the adult world with a flourishing hobby are rewarding and productive ways of entering adulthood, and should make those who do it, happy. Given the rise of mental health issues, this is no mean feat.

Conclusion

Overall, the article is a reflection of our obsession with the school-university-graduate job track in life. That track may well fall apart as we find better signals of human capital and learning becomes increasingly separate from schooling. The effect of this system on students and schools is detrimental. Students should have choices to enable them to flourish, and our obsession with schooling is getting in the way of that.

 

 

 

Real Education by Charles Murray

“This book calls for a transformation of American education – a transformation not just of means but of ends. We need to change the way the schools do business. We also need to redefine educational success….The educational system is living a lie. The lie is that every child can be everything he or she wants to be. No one really believes it, but we approach education’s problems as if we did.” – Charles Murray, Real Education

Last year I raced through Charles Murray’s Real Education. The book’s message is unpopular, at least not in teaching departments at mainstream universities. Which is why it is important to consider.

Short summary

Students vary in ability. Children of lower ability will not be able to do the work required in schools, nor are they capable of sustained, substantial academic improvement. Meanwhile, gifted students are not fulfilled. Too many students who are not capable of going to uni are doing just that, but will not be prepared for life due to a weak primary and secondary education and poor ranking in their uni class. On the other hand, gifted students are not getting the liberal education needed to make wise and virtuous decisions that affect many in society. Murray recommends higher standards, greater matching of students’ abilities to their education, school choice, certification instead of degrees to signal aptitude and skills to employers, and a more exclusive, higher standard and more liberal BA.

Longer discussion

Ability varies

Ability varies, and many students with below average ability are not going to do well at school, no matter what money or attention are thrown at them. I found this contestable, but to his credit, he proposes conducting a major study to prove or disprove this perspective in the last chapter.

Multiple intelligences

Murray invokes Gardner’s multiple intelligences (linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal) and notes that they are not equal. Only linguistic, mathematical-logical and spatial intelligence correlate highly with academic ability, and academic ability tends to predict which students get into and do well at college, and which go onto top jobs. Other intelligences – eg bodily-kinesthetic and musical – are not highly correlated with academic ability and do not have great employment opportunities. With students gifted with different ability in each of the seven intelligences, there will be students simply not able to do well academically and go into top jobs.

Half the students are below average

Murray notes the fact that half of the students are below average. This is obvious, but he wants us to really consider what this means. Most of the readers of Real Education will be academically able and may not have witnessed the struggles of a below average student. He notes the number of students who cannot answer basic questions (eg, 77.5 per cent of eighth graders did not know the answer to a question involving adding 10 per cent to 90). He just isn’t optimistic that we can sustainably and substantially improve these students’ scores. When students with such differences in ability are in a class with academically-gifted students, he calls it effectively a difference in kind, not a difference in degree. Reading this, I considered my ability to do art. I was woeful, and quite a gap from the gifted students. The degree of difference was so vast it may have well been a difference in kind. I may have improved with a lot of help, but this would have been very costly, and not aligned with my natural gifts or interests, so why bother? This line of thought gets a tad depressing, but I wonder to what extent students of low ability in academics are similar to me in art. Surely more than a few. This does seem to dent what Murray calls the “Utopians” in education. But the obvious answer to “why bother” is the very notion that linguistic and mathematical-logical skills are relevant to work, and therefore the “why bother” becomes “how can you not bother?” It does makes you wonder though: if art were the majority of the curriculum instead of subjects testing linguistic and mathematical-logical intelligences, what kind of a student would I have been, and in this instance, what would be the best option for me to maximise my time?

Some issues

Reading Murray’s perspective made me consider a few other issues. How does one explain excellent relative performance in South Korea, China, etc if Murray is correct? It may be that their education system is less liberal, more focused, with more rote learning and teaching to the test, more time in the classroom, and a greater culture of learning. In other words, they pay a price for their achievement. But then of course there’s Finland. Putting this aside, these examples seem to undermine Murray’s point.

Another perspective is the changeability of IQ. Thomas Sowell writes about the shifting IQ of different groups in society over time, indicating that things like culture and educational attainment and access can affect IQ in no small way.

I’m also made to think about the claim that academic achievement varies more within schools than between them (I hear this not infrequently in my teaching degree). Academics take this to mean that the teachers within a school vary tremendously, particularly as it is teachers that have the biggest ‘effect size’ (influence on attainment) after the student itself. But to me, this seems like evidence of the variety of ability between students, which in comprehensive schools will be vast within the school, but may even out across schools.

The benefit of school choice

Interestingly, Murray does not blame the schools for these outcomes, but in the nature of the children themselves. Despite this, he does go onto advocate school choice. But here he makes a fascinating point: ignore the maths and reading scores when debating school choice. These scores relate mostly to students ability, and both private and public schools face the difficulty of lifting students’ scores. Private schools are desirable because they offer a better education for students that is not picked up by reading and maths scores.It is schools that are more free to act and respond to the needs of the attendees that will provide them with the particular education they need.

Too many go to university

After considering the abilities of the students, Murray then claims that too many students attend college. Only 20 per cent (or more realistically, 10 per cent) of students have the ability to do a four year degree and do it well. Murray examines random passages from introductory books in survey courses for first year students, and indeed, they are challenging passages! A four year college degree should provide a rigorous liberal education for the future bankers, lawyers, doctors, etc who tend to get the top jobs. Less academic students can achieve a liberal education in primary and high school, where a more traditional and rigorous curriculum should be used. These students should be taught the basics for living a good life and being a citizen, and basic skills for getting a job. It is the philosophically devoid elite that need a rigorous, liberal college education, because while they may be smart and nice, they are not wise and virtuous. These attributes are required, in Murray’s opinion, if they are assuming powerful positions in society that affect many lives. I agree with Murray that many ‘educated’ people are well-trained but not really educated, and this is to our detriment. We are crying out for wisdom, philosophy, and virtue.

A hypothetical

Murray is strong when he considers a hypothetical high school student, facing a decision faced by many. The student, gifted with his hands and some spatial ability, but only in the 70th percentile for academic ability (remember Murray consider only 10-20 per cent of students should go to college). Should he do a trade, or go to university and then attempt to enter a business management role after graduation? The encouragement from authorities and intellectuals is to attend college, but how well would this really pan out? Aside from the debt incurred, the student, in attending college, would not compare will with his peers at university and may not perform very well in the graduate market. On the other hand, if he were to learn a trade, he would not only be doing what he is gifted at and thereby get pleasure and satisfaction from his work, but he may also earn more than in management by being atop a profession that pays reasonably. This analysis seems right, and it’s a view that seems to be growing, despite the push for more higher education. Murray argues that encouraging university as the be-all-and-end-all makes it punishing for those that do not graduate or attend college. The more widespread is the degree, the more worrisome it is for employers if an applicant does not have one.

Murray’s proposals

Murray finishes with some proposals:

• Perform a massive experiment to once and for all address the issue of student ability and the changeability of it.
• Discover what is possible so we can focus on what is possible.
• Assess each students’ ability in order to better tailor education to students’ needs.
• Teach core knowledge to every student (a liberal education).
• Let gifted children go as fast as they can. Improve discipline and standards of behaviour.
• Expand choice – through voucher, private schools, home schooling, curricula, etc.
• Use certification to undermine the power of the signal that is the BA – the labour market is plagued with the issue of discovering who is skilled and motivated, and who is not. The BA is a signal, but it is flawed  and certification can provide a “known, trusted measure of their qualifications that they can carry into job interviews”. This is a topic for another post.

Conclusion

This book was mostly beautifully argued and challenging to the orthodoxy. For that, it deserves great credit. But, from my relatively uninformed perspective, it seemed to have some questionable views that require more investigation. Other parts were music to my ears – it’s so refreshing to read a social scientist who also sees the bigger picture, steeped in philosophy. Murray himself is illustrative of his argument – that our top students need to be taught to be citizens, not just to enter professions.

Can education keep up with technology?

It’s become clear that the US has splintered by class; cultural, social and economic gaps are growing. Couples are increasingly formed between people of similar socioeconomic status (‘assortative mating’), economic and social inequality is increasing, and the political divide is stark, drawn along cultural, educational and class lines. I view the US as a clear and well-documented example of a phenomenon I think is happening across the Western world, including Australia . It seems that these trends are likely to worsen, and education will play a major part in ameliorating them.

The link between education, technological advance and income inequality is becoming clearer by the day. A major book in this literature, hailed by economist Tyler Cowen as “The most important book on modern U.S. inequality to date”, is The Race Between Education and Technology by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz of Harvard University. Goldin and Katz argue that we are not increasing educational attainment fast enough to keep pace with the demand for skilled workers, leading to greater inequality. Those with elite skills can demand a premium in the labour market as they lack competition in getting top jobs, while a glut of unskilled workers has emerged, thereby reducing their returns relative to highly skilled workers. But, as they note, this wasn’t always the case.

In the first three quarters of the twentieth century, the supply of skilled workers was relatively strong, which reduced income inequality. Education was outpacing technology and the associated demand for skilled workers. The opposite has occurred in the last three decades, leading to greater returns for skilled workers and increasing inequality.

The implication is that we need to increase educational attainment to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated economy and the associated demand for highly skilled labour. However, I have a concern with this idea, derived from Charles Murray. Murray argues that many students are simply not equipped and motivated to do higher study to the level and rigour necessary for higher education (he thinks only 10-20% of high school students actually have the aptitude). Therefore, it follows that as the demand for high skilled workers grows, inequality will continue to increase; perhaps the economy is getting so sophisticated that the population simply isn’t capable enough in large enough numbers to participate at the top level. There is only so much we can squeeze from education.

One of the implications is that we should increase high-skilled immigration into countries with high demand for skilled workers (such as the US and Australia) as a means of supplying the economy with the workers it needs and thereby putting a lid on inequality. Australia seems to do this already, which is perhaps why inequality has only risen mildly in the last few decades (and wealth inequality has actually gone down since the 2008 financial crisis).

But perhaps more pertinently for education policy, we need to start considering a more appropriate education system, one where students are more engaged, learning useful stuff and gaining more experience to enable them to build relevant skills and useful networks. The current education system seems to have hit it’s limits with respect to supplying ample numbers of skilled workers. It’s time for an overhaul.