Education – General

Literacy and Policy Book Club: The GED “and the Role of Character in American Life”

/ The Old Crank

Heckman-GEDbookThe Politico article I referenced in my last post noted the January 9th release of a new book, The Myth of Achievement Tests: The GED and the Role of Character in American Life, co-edited by  Nobel Prize-winning economist and longtime GED critic James J. Heckman. Heckman’s economic arguments in favor of investing in early childhood education have been highly influential, with both policy people and those in the business community. He has often coupled those arguments with critiques of our adult education and job training investments—particularly the GED program.

The book’s promotional material outlines the authors’ basic case against the GED:

The Myth of Achievement Tests shows that achievement tests like the GED fail to measure important life skills. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars offer an in-depth exploration of how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, the authors show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health. The authors show that the differences in success between GED recipients and high school graduates are driven by character skills. Achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity. These skills are important in predicting a variety of life outcomes. They can be measured, and they can be taught.

Using the GED as a case study, the authors explore what achievement tests miss and show the dangers of an educational system based on them. They call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue. (my emphasis)

I  expect the book’s discussion of “character” skills may stir up some controversy among those in the adult education field (although, obviously, it’s unwise to judge the book’s arguments based on the publisher’s brief description). In any case, because Heckman is attached to this book, I think it has the potential to be pretty influential among policy makers. Based on the description above, I don’t think there is a lot here that Heckman hasn’t argued before, but its publication in book form may bring those arguments to a wider audience, at a time when both the GED test and adult skills are  getting slightly more national attention.

Shifting Corporate Attitudes

/ The Old Crank

One of the problems with the minimum wage debate (whether to raise it, by how much, what will the effects be on hiring, etc.) is that it pushes this much more fundamental issue into the background. I don’t personally understand why it’s not a given that it’s immoral to pay your employees so little that they can’t afford to eat, and why this is not a major topic of public discussion.

But I also think we have to deal with the fact that that’s apparently where we are.

Cappelli’s argument is focused on wages, but it seems to me that the shift he describes is reflected in corporate attitudes towards employee education and training as well. Corporations increasingly don’t see this as their problem. Likewise, Cappelli contends that corporations’ former sense of obligation to pay employees a decent wage had both strategic and altruistic motivations, and I think that was probably true about training as well. But whatever altruistic motivation there was behind some corporate training investments in the old days has all but disappeared. Corporate leadership today more typically looks at training exclusively in terms of return on investment back to the corporation.

You can be morally outraged by all this—or not—but either way, it does have an impact on policy. What is the role of government in an environment where corporations see less of a moral obligation to their employees—not just in terms of wages, but in terms of supporting the education and training needs of our workforce?

Caveat on PISA Applies to PIAAC Too

/ The Old Crank

This caveat about the recently released 2012 PISA scores (aka the Program for International Student Assessment) is really important. The same caveat applies to the PIAAC numbers on adult skills that were released in October:

Do not confuse correlation with causation. This is a point we’ve made repeatedly with national and international test results, but it’s worth reiterating here. Since PISA was released this morning, I’ve gotten dozens of emails from advocacy groups saying the results bolster or repudiate whatever policies they support or eschew (the Common Core State Standards, early childhood ed, high-stakes testing, poverty-reduction efforts, teacher preparation, etc.). But, as several sources point out in my story, the results do not explain why particular countries performed a certain way, only that they did. Even the experts most skilled at talking about PISA test scores can quickly fall into the causation trap, so please take this caveat to heart. (my emphasis)

This point has been rarely made during the many PIAAC presentations that I have endured had the pleasure of viewing. Assessments like PISA and PIAAC tell you the “what” (assuming you find them credible) but not the “why.” Responses to such assessments should be based on reasonable evidence as to the “why,” otherwise they are essentially shots in the dark.

This Town

/ The Old Crank

From an Education Week/Politics K-12 blog post on a Q&A with U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education James H. Shelton at the National Conference of State Legislature’s forum in Washington on December 6th:

Challenged by a state lawmaker over the idea that teachers were facing a stress on competition at the expense of collaboration, Shelton stressed that the two were not in fact incompatible in the profession. And he stressed the need for teaching to become a more prestigious profession. As an example of that last point, he said that when he attended parties in Washington, he saw that people often had the same awkward, muted reactions when they met teachers as when they met stay-at-home moms. (my emphasis)