Posted on 07/28/2010 6:02:22 AM PDT by reaganaut1
...
[A group of university researchers] examined the life paths of almost 12,000 children who had been part of a well-known education experiment in Tennessee in the 1980s. The children are now about 30, well started on their adult lives.
On Tuesday, Mr. Chetty presented the findings — not yet peer-reviewed — at an academic conference in Cambridge, Mass. They’re fairly explosive.
Just as in other studies, the Tennessee experiment found that some teachers were able to help students learn vastly more than other teachers. And just as in other studies, the effect largely disappeared by junior high, based on test scores. Yet when Mr. Chetty and his colleagues took another look at the students in adulthood, they discovered that the legacy of kindergarten had re-emerged.
Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.
All else equal, they were making about an extra $100 a year at age 27 for every percentile they had moved up the test-score distribution over the course of kindergarten. A student who went from average to the 60th percentile — a typical jump for a 5-year-old with a good teacher — could expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than a student who remained at the average. Over time, the effect seems to grow, too.
The economists don’t pretend to know the exact causes. But it’s not hard to come up with plausible guesses. Good early education can impart skills that last a lifetime — patience, discipline, manners, perseverance.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Chetty's presentation slides for the paper "•How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project STAR" are here .
Once upon a time, parents imparted those skills.
Color me really, really skeptical here. I’m sure there were a lot of variables in these people’s lives (aside from the Kindergarten teacher) that influenced their trajectory.
Studies by social scientists....of educators....in the NYT = I need a bath.
When I see the letters “N Y TIMES”, I read the word “AGENDA”. With talk about a congress/current-regime “stimulus” for teacher unions goes around, articles in the usual leftist front groups will tout the virtues of small class sizes (article makes honorable mention to 13-17 kids) and, especially, beefed-up salaries.
I am guessing it was education by television. Sesame street, etc. Once they hit the school system, it started downhill.
This is all about a push for government control of toddlers - more money, more power, more indoctrination, and less parental control.
Really makes you wonder how civilization managed to progress before the teachers union-run public schools appeared.
Mmmm..I think throwing spitballs in class and rocks on the play ground, and just being an little hell raise in general is worth loosing 1K per year at 27. Just eliminate the Starbucks and arugula to make up the difference.
NYSlimes is commie crap, period.
This would only be a viable study for the efficacy of kindergarten if they also did a study on a comparable group who didn’t go to kindergarten.
I didn’t read the whole study but did they compare the children particular teachers or just whether groups of kindergartners learned more. If not then the children could have just had higher IQs to begin with.
Did they account for the social and cultural causes? Did children who lived in poverty and learned a lot in Kinder do as well as those who lived in upper middle class families?
My daughter had a really great pre-K teacher who taught her how to read and work hard in school. I am convinced that the lessons she learned then are as important as anything she has learned since.
This woman was well underpaid, working in a private day-care facility. She did it for the love of the children. We were very lucky to have her.
From log cabins and peeing in a drinking water to walking on the moon. The we took GOD out of the classrooms. And we have lost ground ever since.
“I am guessing it was education by television. Sesame street, etc. Once they hit the school system, it started downhill.”
Everyone forgets the parents that sit their child in front of the TV instead of helping them with their homework or interacting with them. It’s not always the kindergarten teacher that fails the child, they just are easier to blame than looking in the mirror.
Until this study is peer reviewed, we won't know if the conclusions were based on an improper sample size or makeup, or some other defect.
Sorry, if it’s got a “NYT” attached to it, I stop reading.
There, intellect is a despised option.
Couldnt agree more. Almost choked on my morning coffee when I got to this sentence:
the classes had fairly similar socioeconomic mixes of students and could be expected to perform similarly on the tests given at the end of kindergarten.
That's the kind of stupidity you expect from a ninth grade term paper. "Fairly similar" doesnt cut it. Moreover this is far from a sufficient basis to decide that you are dealing with two groups that do not differ from each other in any significant way.
You're not supposed to ask those kinds of questions!
This is sacrosanct - it's the New York Times!!!!
(Do I really need a sarcasm tag here?)
CA....
Ok, since excelling at teaching kindergarten results in those kids growing up to make more money, then give the teacher pay commensurate with her effectiveness. I bet the teacher unions will go along with that! </sarc
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