{"id":3357,"date":"2012-11-04T22:18:06","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T21:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/?p=3357"},"modified":"2012-11-04T22:18:06","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T21:18:06","slug":"review-of-real-education-charles-murray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/2012\/11\/review-of-real-education-charles-murray\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Real Education (Charles Murray)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Murray – Real Education<\/a> free, ebook, download, pdf<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Its a short, accessible (for non-experts), clearly written book about some of the things that is wrong with modern education, with a focus on the US system. Some of the things surely apply to other countries as well. For that reason the book is worth exploring for people interested in the issue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some quotes:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In short, just about every reader understands from personal and <\/span><\/p>\n

vicarious life experiences what below average means for bodily- <\/span><\/p>\n

kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal ability, and for <\/span><\/p>\n

the aspects of spatial ability associated with hand-eye coordination <\/span><\/p>\n

and visual apprehension. You may think you also know what below <\/span><\/p>\n

average means for linguistic ability, logical-mathematical ability, and <\/span><\/p>\n

spatial abilities associated with mental visualization because you<\/span><\/p>\n

know you are better at some of these intellectual tasks than at others. <\/span><\/p>\n

But here you are probably mistaken. It is safe to say that a majority of <\/span><\/p>\n

readers have little experience with what it means to be below average <\/span><\/p>\n

in any of the components of academic ability.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first basis for this statement is that I know you have <\/span><\/p>\n

reached the second chapter of a nonfiction book on a public policy <\/span><\/p>\n

issue, which means you are probably well above average in <\/span><\/p>\n

academic ability\u2014not because getting to the second chapter of this <\/span><\/p>\n

book requires that you be especially bright, but because people with <\/span><\/p>\n

below-average academic ability hardly ever choose to read books <\/span><\/p>\n

like this.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

lol’d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Therefore the first task is to understand what below average <\/span><\/p>\n

means when it comes to academic ability. The best way is to show the <\/span><\/p>\n

kinds of test questions that people with below-average academic <\/span><\/p>\n

ability have trouble answering. I take them from items that have been <\/span><\/p>\n

used on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, <\/span><\/p>\n

pronounced \u201cnape\u201d), the program used by the federal Department of <\/span><\/p>\n

Education since 1971 to track student accomplishment. It is adminis\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

tered periodically to nationally representative samples of students in <\/span><\/p>\n

the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades. It is a test designed to test <\/span><\/p>\n

what has been learned, not academic ability, and is regarded as the <\/span><\/p>\n

gold standard for measuring academic achievement at the elemen\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

tary and secondary levels. The examples I will use are from the test <\/span><\/p>\n

for eighth-graders. I begin with a simple mathematics problem:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Example 1. There were 90 employees in a company last year. This <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

year the number o f employees increased by 10 percent. How many <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

employees are in the company this year?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

(A) 9 (B) 81 (C) 91 (D) 99 (E) 100<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By eighth grade, it would seem that almost everyone should <\/span><\/p>\n

be able to handle a question like this. Children are taught to divide <\/span><\/p>\n

and to calculate percentages in elementary school. Dividing by ten is <\/span><\/p>\n

the easiest form of division. Dividing a whole number by ten is easier <\/span><\/p>\n

yet. Adding a one-digit number (9) to a two-digit number (90) is <\/span><\/p>\n

elementary.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is a problem based on a simple mathematical concept, using <\/span><\/p>\n

simple arithmetic, requiring a simple logical interpolation to get the <\/span><\/p>\n

right answer. It is an excellent example for starting to think about <\/span><\/p>\n

what below average means in mathematics\u2014because 62 percent of <\/span><\/p>\n

eighth-graders got this item wrong. It does not represent an item that <\/span><\/p>\n

below-average students could not do, but one that many above-average <\/span><\/p>\n

students could not do. Actually, more than 62 percent did not know <\/span><\/p>\n

the answer, because some of them got the right answer by guessing. <\/span><\/p>\n

To estimate the total percentage of students who did not know the <\/span><\/p>\n

right answer on a question with x alternatives, multiply the total <\/span><\/p>\n

percentage of students who chose one of the wrong alternatives <\/span><\/p>\n

by x \/ ( x\u2014 1). There are more sophisticated ways, but this one is <\/span><\/p>\n

close enough for our purposes. In this case, the estimated proportion <\/span><\/p>\n

of students who did not know the right answer is (.62 X 5\/4), or <\/span><\/p>\n

77.5 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

sigh<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Example 2. Amanda wants to paint each face o f a cube a different <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

color. How many colors will she need?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

(A) Three (B) Four (C) Six (D) Eight<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Twenty percent of eighth-graders did not choose C. Approximately <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

27 percent did not know the right answer.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

wtf<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Example 3. How many o f the angles in this triangle are smaller <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

than a right angle?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

[showing a triangle]<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

(A) None (B) One (C) Two (D) Three<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thirty-one percent of eighth-graders did not choose C. Approxi\u00ad<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

mately 41 percent did not know the right answer.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and so on with a few more examples.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Coleman Report documenting how little difference the quality of <\/span><\/p>\n

the school makes, the negative evaluations of Title I, the sparse results <\/span><\/p>\n

of NCLB\u2014there are many reasons to accept the reality of limits. To <\/span><\/p>\n

continue to assert that major improvements are possible in the aca\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

demic test performance of the lower half of the distribution through <\/span><\/p>\n

reform of the public schools is more than a triumph of hope over expe\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

rience. It ignores experience altogether. It is educational romanticism.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Often, the rewards will come after college. A person who has dis\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

covered that he enjoys the challenge of difficult books is a person <\/span><\/p>\n

who, years later, is open to picking up a biography of George Mar\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

shall at the bookstore and becoming a World War II expert, or a <\/span><\/p>\n

person who decides to give War and Peace a try and ends up reading <\/span><\/p>\n

the whole Tolstoy corpus. As evidence that this happens, I appeal to <\/span><\/p>\n

readers: How many of the avocations that have absorbed you as an <\/span><\/p>\n

adult, and in which you have become quite knowledgeable, have any\u00ad<\/span><\/p>\n

thing to do with the content of a course you took in college?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

well, never, but im a special case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Murray – Real Education free, ebook, download, pdf   Its a short, accessible (for non-experts), clearly written book about some of the things that is wrong with modern education, with a focus on the US system. Some of the things surely apply to other countries as well. For that reason the book is worth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1839,1879,1921],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychometics","category-education-politik","category-sociology","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3357"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3360,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3357\/revisions\/3360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}