Achievement Gap Discovered

Add Florida middle schools to the list of locales that have officially discovered the achievement gap and are sweating over what to do about it. As last week's Orlando Sentinel reported, many middle schools are offering high school level classes to their students, giving them an opportunity to take more challenging course work. It turns out that those classes are made up predominantly of white students. And the achievement gap has been discovered.

Here's the part that makes me shake my head. Now that Florida officials have discovered the achievement gap, they're trying to decide what to do about it. One of the solutions they're apparently considering is doing away with this program. What? Talk about treating the symptom without going to the root of the problem.

The real issue (as I read the article) is not that this advanced classes program is so discriminatory in who it accepts that only white kids get in. Far from it. Rather, the problem is that by the time the kids reach the age of eligibility for the program there's already a gap in academic preparedness that favors white students. Getting rid of the program is not the answer, academic and social interventions that prevent the achievement gap from opening is where the answer lies.

Look at it this way. If I get on the scale and think that I weigh too much, I shouldn't just throw the scale out. I should focus on eating better and exercising more. Getting rid of the scale doesn't solve my problem, it just keeps me from being reminded of it.

Getting rid of these advanced level courses doesn't close the achievement gap, it just hides it. The real problem would still be there.

A Stitch in Time

The St. Petersburg Times (Florida) ran a story last week about the effects of the Florida policy that has mandated that thousands of third graders repeat third grade after failing to meet the standards the first time. Apparently, minorities are more likely to be held back and that those students who are held back tend to do much better in school as a result of their retention. If you just read the first two (or even 12) paragraphs, it seems like a solid blow against that unspeak bugaboo, the dreaded social promotion.

For the purposes of this post, let's set aside the issues of minorities being more likely to be retained. This is apparently true even when you compare students of similar socioeconomic backgrounds and academic performances. That's interesting, but not what I'm looking at today.

Instead, I want to draw your attention to the 13th paragraph of the story which slips in that Florida law mandates that retained children get extra help including 90 minutes of extra reading instruction each day. No wonder the kids do better as a result. They get an extra hour and a half of reading instruction every day.

First of all, this is retention done right. Forcing kids to repeat a grade without providing extra help just proves that old definition of insanity (repeating the same action but expecting different results). If you're going to retain kids, you have to do something different to try to help them. An extra 90 minutes of reading instruction would do that trick.

If we were serious about educating kids instead of just showing how tough and "accountable" we're being, we might even say that it makes sense to try to be a little proactive about this stuff. Every school has a pretty good idea of who the kids are who aren't going to pass the test. Teachers know who's struggling in the classroom. So instead of waiting for the kids to fail and then retain them with the extra help, why not just give them the extra help. Intervene earlier to help close the knowledge and achievement gaps before they're really able to open. It just makes sense.

Solomon and the DNC

The DNC Rules Committee sat down over the weekend and made perhaps the most predictable move in this entire campaign. Faced with two rogue states holding out of season primaries, now turning out to be important, and having lots of people upset, the Democrats basically copied the Republicans. The grand Solomonic compromise they reached was to seat all the delegates from the states and award them a half vote each. In other words, cut the delegates in half.

Brilliant, eh?

This essentially leaves the campaign exactly where it was. Obama is still unreachably far ahead in the delegate count. Clinton is still using some pretty twisted logic to show she's ahead in the popular vote. Obama supporters are whining that Clinton hasn't dropped out yet. Clinton supporters are making crazy claims that they'll vote for McCain if Clinton isn't the nominee.

All in all, not the best weekend for the Democratic party.

The thing is, at this point there's really nothing left to do. The DNC can't plausibly reinstate all the delgates from the two states with full votes if it wants to have any authority in future elections (or even this election). So that's out. They certainly won't go back to excluding all the delegates, so that's out too. So here we are, right where we're going to stay.

On Tuesday, the last states will hold their primaries. Obama is polling ahead in both of them and regardless of the outcome, will lead in delegates, states, money, and reasonably counted popular vote. Then it will be time for Clinton to decide whether or not she's in this race for herself or the greater good. It will also be time for her supporters to take a similar look in the mirror.

Of Rules and Revotes

All the sturm und drang regarding the Florida and Michigan primaries has made me think about an interview I heard once with a Major League Baseball umpire. The interviewer asked what was the hardest call the umpire had to make. The ump replied, "Throwing the coach out of the game when he comes out to argue my bad call." What a great answer, I thought. The ump knows that you can't back down and try to change the rules midway through the game, even if it was a bad call. Once the call is made, it's made. Anything else leads to anarchy.

Which brings us to Florida and Michigan. Just in case you haven't been paying attention this year, those two states lost their delegates to the Democratic convention by scheduling primaries too early in the year. They were trying to increase their own importance in the process by getting in the game early. The DNC stripped both states of their delegates and the candidates agreed not to campaign there. Clinton won both primaries (though with only about 55% of the vote in Michigan, shocking since hers was the only name on the ballot) and now says that either the votes should be counted or that some sort of revote should take place. Not a terribly surprising stance for her to take given the increasing desperation with which she needs to win delegates.

I hear the arguments that the Democratic Party shouldn't alienate two battleground states right off the bat and should probably try to come up with some sort of compromise. I also agree that stripping the states of all their delegates was probably not the wisest move Howard Dean and his crew could have made. But I can't shake the feeling that the rules are the rules. I say this not just as an unashamed Obama partisan, but also as someone who thinks we have to actually abide by the rules we agree to abide by.

The fact is, Michigan and Florida tried to cheat. Now, maybe they're right that the system is wrong to invest so much importance in Iowa and New Hampshire. But that's not a justification. Just because the SAT may be culturally biased doesn't mean we should let poor and minority kids cheat on it. These two states knew the rules and tried to beat them for their own ends. Now that they got caught and suffered the consequences, they want a do-over. This do-over would likely give them more clout than had they been allowed to vote early when their primaries were scheduled. Is that fair? You can bet that some super Tuesday states sure wish right now that they hadn't rushed to the front and could hold a crucial, late in the game election on a day all to themselves right now. Should we allow them to hold a re-vote?

The fact is that 48 states followed the rules for better or worse. And the thing about rules is we can't go around bending or breaking them when it's convenient. Then we don't have rules at all. We have anarchy.