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Re: AP scores and teacher pay



I just heard Paul Krugman in conversation with Larry Bensky discuss,
inter alia, the present monetization of everything.

To misquote Wilde: They know the price of everything and the value
of nothing.

bc

Richard Hake wrote:


cut


In my post of 13 August 2004 titled "Re: AP scores and teacher pay,"
[Hake (2004a)] I discussed Jay Mathews (2004) provocative Washington
Post article on large monetary rewards being doled out in Dallas for
students (and their teachers) who do well on AP exams.

Mathews wrote: "many educators agree with writer and lecturer Alfie
Kohn (1999) that such payments are ill-considered bribes that
eventually kill the love of learning that should be at the heart of
good teaching. . . . Has all the emphasis on payoffs killed the love
of intellectual discovery for the participating students? It is hard
to tell. No one has surveyed the high schoolers on this question.
Will Robison took 12 AP tests in high school and got passing scores
in all, although he was not paid for the social studies tests. He
said he liked the program because of the bonuses and because of the
many credits that will help him when he enrolls this year at the
University of Texas - Austin. When I asked him if all these
extrinsic rewards had wiped out more natural motivations, such as
curiosity, he gave me the following answer, which you hear often in
high schools these days: 'I think the pure joy of learning has been
gone from our school systems for a while and I don't think paying for
AP is the reason for that.' "

I agree with Will Robison. IMHO, the prime stealers of the "pure joy
of learning" are the Direct Instruction (DI) grinches who control
many state educational bureaucracies. On 10 March 2004, the CA State
Board of Education (CSBE), bending to INTENSE pressure from teachers,
scientists, professional organizations, and LEADERS OF CA HIGH-TECH
INDUSTRIES & higher education amended the California Curriculum
Commission's (CCC's) demand [Strauss 2004)] that "instructional
materials adopted in CA must comprise NO MORE than 20/25 % hands-on
activities" to read "instructional materials must comprise AT LEAST
20/25 % hands-on activities."

In response, Samuel Rock, in an EvalTalk post of 13 August wrote:

"Richard [and others], might be interested in . . .[Adelson (2004)].
. about David Klahr's work at CMU on DI vs. discovery in science
learning. If you are [or are not] a member of the APA you can . . .
. still read it on-line [as of today - it may be taken offline in the
near future]."

For my take on Adelson (2004) and David Klahr's research [Klahr &
Nigam (2004)] see Hake (2004b,c).

What is the meaning of DI ("Direct Instruction") and "discovery" in
Rock's post? In Hake (2004c, pages 20-21), I discuss the near
universal failure to OPERATIONALLY DEFINE terms such as "direct-,"
"discovery-," and "hands-on-" instruction, and the different meanings
used by various groups who often talk past one another in the
"needless war between traditionalists and progressives" [Bickman
(2004)].