States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

[McNamara, Laura A]

Ah, there's something that a model might be able to explore...

________________________________

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Martin C. Martin
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:52 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest


How do people on this list feel about school vouchers?  Would the
problems with vouchers make it worse than the current system?  Or, on
balance, do you think things would get better?

- Martin

Luciano Oviedo wrote:

        To, All:
       
        I agree. The problems are well discussed. The entire system is
in the ICU
        and on life-support.
       
        How about a new thread on the real challenge - what are WE doing
(and/or
        going to do) about it?
       
        Regards,
       
        Luciano
       
       
        -----Original Message-----
        From: Friam-bounces at redfish.com
[mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf
        Of McNamara, Laura A
        Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:02 PM
        To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
        Subject: Re: [FRIAM] States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest
       
         

                   If you really want to be depressed, check out where
Los Alamos and
                Bernalillo County rank, nation-wide, for education and
realize how bad
                the other counties must be to drag the state down to
#50.  The
                variance in quality of education in this state is
exceptionally large.
               
                 --
                   

       
        Hi all,
       
        I'm a list newbie and what a topic to begin with - I come from a
family of
        New Mexico educators and this ranking doesn't surprise me one
bit.  My
        family would have plenty to say about education in New Mexico.  
       
        If anecdote counts for anything, here's a graphic illustration
of the
        disparity:  My sister taught for one year at Santa Fe High
School before she
        was recruited to California, where she's now principal of a
large urban high
        school in the Bay Area.  She's one of those people who was born
to teach
        high school - she speaks three languages (Spanish, English and
Thai), is
        triple certified in ESL, History and English, and just completed
her
        masters' degree in educational administration.  Kids both fear
and adore
        her.  Just what you'd want our state to keep, right?
       
        We didn't have a chance.  While at SFHS, she had to purchase
light bulbs for
        her classroom. The district ran out of money and the high school
was forced
        to send report cards home with the kids because it couldn't
afford postage.
        You can imagine what happened to the report cards... The heat
routinely
        broke in the mobile unit she was teaching in, and the legs on
her desk
        shattered one day when she placed a pile of books on it.  One of
her kids
        was an 18 year old with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome who routinely set
fire to the
        bulletin board; he was in her classes because special ed had run
out of
        room. She bought lunch daily for another kid whose parents had
kicked him
        out of the house - he was living in his car and working at
Denny's overnight
        while finishing high school.  She saw her principal once in the
entire
        school year.  
       
        Here's the kicker: at this point, she was an UNPAID INTERN at
Santa Fe High
        School.  She got no support, zero, from the administration or
the district,
        and she was working for free.
       
        Well, when California recruited Amy in 1999, she'd had enough
and she left -
        for a $50K starting salary and a signing bonus.  When the
students and
        parents at SFHS found out that Amy was leaving, they started
writing letters
        to the school begging them to keep her. The school's response?
They offered
        her 17K to start.  Amy considered it - until she found out that
her district
        had just created a $70K/year position for a director of
diversity in the SF
        public schools.  
       
        California is just a few rankings above us, and Amy's in one of
the toughest
        schools in the Bay Area - but at least she makes a decent wage,
and she
        doesn't have to buy light bulbs for her teachers now.  
       
        Laura
       
       
       
       
       
         

                Ray Parks                   rcparks at sandia.gov IDART
Project
                   

        Lead          
         

                Voice:505-844-4024 IORTA Department
Fax:[phone]
                http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288
               
               
       
============================================================
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        Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations Lecture schedule,
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        unsubscribe, etc.:
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        Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
        Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
        http://www.friam.org
       
       
       
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[Luciano Oviedo]

Or, how about a model exploring all forms of education such as at home,
voucher, magnets, public, private, etc?

 

Luciano

 

 

  _____  

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of McNamara, Laura A
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:56 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

 

Ah, there's something that a model might be able to explore...

 

  _____  

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Martin C. Martin
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:52 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest

How do people on this list feel about school vouchers?  Would the problems
with vouchers make it worse than the current system?  Or, on balance, do you
think things would get better?

- Martin

Luciano Oviedo wrote:

To, All:
 
I agree. The problems are well discussed. The entire system is in the ICU
and on life-support.
 
How about a new thread on the real challenge - what are WE doing (and/or
going to do) about it?
 
Regards,
 
Luciano
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of McNamara, Laura A
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest
 
 

   If you really want to be depressed, check out where Los Alamos and
Bernalillo County rank, nation-wide, for education and realize how bad
the other counties must be to drag the state down to #50.  The
variance in quality of education in this state is exceptionally large.
 
 --
   

 
Hi all,
 
I'm a list newbie and what a topic to begin with - I come from a family of
New Mexico educators and this ranking doesn't surprise me one bit.  My
family would have plenty to say about education in New Mexico.  
 
If anecdote counts for anything, here's a graphic illustration of the
disparity:  My sister taught for one year at Santa Fe High School before she
was recruited to California, where she's now principal of a large urban high
school in the Bay Area.  She's one of those people who was born to teach
high school - she speaks three languages (Spanish, English and Thai), is
triple certified in ESL, History and English, and just completed her
masters' degree in educational administration.  Kids both fear and adore
her.  Just what you'd want our state to keep, right?
 
We didn't have a chance.  While at SFHS, she had to purchase light bulbs for
her classroom. The district ran out of money and the high school was forced
to send report cards home with the kids because it couldn't afford postage.
You can imagine what happened to the report cards... The heat routinely
broke in the mobile unit she was teaching in, and the legs on her desk
shattered one day when she placed a pile of books on it.  One of her kids
was an 18 year old with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome who routinely set fire to the
bulletin board; he was in her classes because special ed had run out of
room. She bought lunch daily for another kid whose parents had kicked him
out of the house - he was living in his car and working at Denny's overnight
while finishing high school.  She saw her principal once in the entire
school year.  
 
Here's the kicker: at this point, she was an UNPAID INTERN at Santa Fe High
School.  She got no support, zero, from the administration or the district,
and she was working for free.
 
Well, when California recruited Amy in 1999, she'd had enough and she left -
for a $50K starting salary and a signing bonus.  When the students and
parents at SFHS found out that Amy was leaving, they started writing letters
to the school begging them to keep her. The school's response?  They offered
her 17K to start.  Amy considered it - until she found out that her district
had just created a $70K/year position for a director of diversity in the SF
public schools.  
 
California is just a few rankings above us, and Amy's in one of the toughest
schools in the Bay Area - but at least she makes a decent wage, and she
doesn't have to buy light bulbs for her teachers now.  
 
Laura
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ray Parks                   rcparks at sandia.gov IDART Project
   

Lead          
 

Voice:505-844-4024 IORTA Department            Fax:[phone]
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288
 
 
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at
ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org
 
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at
ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org
   

 
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations Lecture schedule, archives,
unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org
 
 
 
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org
 
 
 
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org
 
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[Stephen Guerin]

Martin writes:
> How do people on this list feel about school vouchers?  Would the problems
with vouchers make
> it worse than the current system?  Or, on balance, do you think things would
get better?

Spiro Margulis presented a cool preliminary model of voucher dynamics at this
year's Lake Arrowhead Conference.
If there's a workshop on Education Models brewing here, we might want to invite
Spiro or Uri down to present...

Name: Spiro Maroulis and Uri Wilensky
Affiliation: Northwestern University: Center for Connected Learning and
Computer-Based Simulation
Email Address: spiro at ccl.northwestern.edu
Web Address: ccl.northwestern.edu

TITLE
School Districts as Complex Adaptive Systems:  A Simulation of Market-Based
Reform

ABSTRACT
Much controversy surrounds market-based reforms in education.  On one hand,
proponents of choice-based reforms claim that giving parents the ability to
choose the school their children attend provides both access to better schooling
to the disadvantaged populations as well as the incentives necessary for school
reform (Chubb and Moe 1990).  On the other hand, opponents of school choice
claim that choice-based programs will not bring about the hoped for improvements
in schools, but instead only drain resources from troubled schools that can
least afford to lose them (Marshall and Tucker 1992).  One particular
choice-based reform effort - government subsidized school vouchers - has
received considerable attention, as it provides tuition subsidies to
disadvantaged students who wish to attend other, usually private, institutions.

This paper studies the effects of market-based educational reforms using the
iterative construction of a computational, agent-based model in the NetLogo
programmable modeling environment (Wilensky 1999). By conceptualizing a school
district as a complex adaptive system of interdependent families and schools, we
create a computational environment that allows for a type of controlled
experimentation that has not yet been possible with small pilot choice programs.
The agents in this particular model are families with heterogeneous preferences
and imperfect information deciding where to send their children to school, and
schools responding to changes in enrollment patterns and other environmental
pressures. This simulation highlights impact of information quality, the
dynamics of school enrollment patterns, as well as the distributional
consequences of choice programs. The current challenges and future possibilities
of using agent-based modeling to understand educational system reform are also
discussed.


-Steve

_____________________________________________________________________
Stephen.Guerin at Redfish.com
www.Redfish.com
624 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
mobile: [phone]
office: Santa Fe, NM [phone] / London, UK [phone]




-----Original Message-----
From: McNamara, Laura A [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:56 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] States Ranked: Smartest to Dumbest


Ah, there's something that a model might be able to explore...

[Tom Carter]

For what it's worth, Yaneer Bar-Yam has a new (little) book out --  
"Making Things Work: Solving Complex Problems in a Complex World"  
which has some discussion on educational systems, and what might help  
them work better.  Over all, I think it's a pretty good book  
(although there are some parts I'm not too sure about . . .)

tom

On Oct 11, 2005, at 1:19 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:

>
> Spiro Margulis presented a cool preliminary model of voucher  
> dynamics at this
> year's Lake Arrowhead Conference.
> If there's a workshop on Education Models brewing here, we might  
> want to invite
> Spiro or Uri down to present...
>
> Name: Spiro Maroulis and Uri Wilensky
> Affiliation: Northwestern University: Center for Connected Learning  
> and
> Computer-Based Simulation
> Email Address: spiro at ccl.northwestern.edu
> Web Address: ccl.northwestern.edu
>
> TITLE
> School Districts as Complex Adaptive Systems:  A Simulation of  
> Market-Based
> Reform
>