“He argued that the declining effectiveness of American schools was a leading indicator for the shrinking income of the American middle class. The evidence today suggests that he was right. The decline in the educational productivity of our schools tracks our decline in income equality. For 30 years after 1945, Stiglitz observes, economic equality advanced in the United States; after about 1975, it declined.”

Although not mentioned, others have noted as the educational productivity have declined, the number of voters hitting the voting booths have declined, along with the declined of civil political debate, and settling for the one line messages and talking points. Participation in a democracy has declined.

When I went to school, and as well in the community and homes, students had vocabulary assessments starting in grade 3, and continued right up to grade 12. The vocabulary assessments took place at the start of new school year, and students were informed about their scores a week after. What the educators did with the tests, I have no idea, but one of the outcomes in high school, I got stuck in the creative writing, poetry and other high-end English learning based on the vocabulary scores. No matter how much I complained, the response was always the score on the vocabulary assessment. I always hated English classes, because I had to put on my thinking cap using formal academic language and my vocabulary. In the same way, in the community and at home, kids were expected not to used slang, more formal language, and were corrected if dirt was used, when soil should be used. My parents were sticklers for it, and likewise I raised my children the same way. The school even more of a stickler, in the way the students went about their school work.

Another common response from the adults, when children inevitable complained about incorporating new vocabulary in their everyday verbal and written work and activities, was the social implications. The first memory of it was in grade 3. The teacher, a red head who worn 3 inch heels, said to one and all, “What would you do, if any of you met Queen Elizabeth and did not have the vocabulary to understand the Queen?” Each year a new story with the same theme, of places and people who were much higher up the food chain, and the importance of having a strong vocabulary to understand the world and people around you.

Back to the paper, “Vocabulary doesn’t just help children do well on verbal exams. Studies have solidly established the correlation between vocabulary and real-world ability.”

It sure comes in handy, to understand the edubabble of the education official, or the poetic prose of ideology in the pedagogical tracks, or to engaged in a conversation with a person who is high up the food chain of the education system.

That said - the paper concludes: “Educators and policymakers should inform themselves about the critical importance of factual knowledge and about the need for a specific and coherent yearly curriculum to impart that knowledge and language effectively. That won’t just improve students’ vocabularies; it will help restore the Jeffersonian ideal of equality of opportunity.”

I agree, and would change my position regarding all day junior kindergarten as well if the curricula specified building strong vocabulary:  it would indicate to me that educrats actually understand what’s important for proper child development.  Currently we’re at the opposite end of the spectrum:  educrats have thrown out phonics, drill and memory work, cursive handwriting, grammar, writing skills, learning multiplication tables, algorithms, and the union is fighting to get rid of tests.  From what I’ve recently read, but I’m not sure if it’s true, educrats want to stop teaching fractions altogether and only teach decimals.  In place of the curricula that has been stripped bare is explicit and graphic sex education for very young children (six?) encouraging them to masterbate and experiment with vegetables.  This sex curriculum was implemented by Kathleen Wynne (who is currently running for the provincial Liberal leadership) when she was Ontario’s education minister. 
I’ve drifted from the topic of this blog, but I will say that the way I see our state-run system is that it is so utterly lost that bringing in younger children is scarey.

Poor children arrive at school with an average vocabulary of500 words while middle class kids average around 1000 words and the gap continues to widen. The answer of course is ADJK in poor areas, much smaller classes in poor schools, more resources, reading consultants,nobody needs testing to know exactly which schools these are. When we did all the things Bev advocates, problems were far worse.

It is almost totally an SES issue.

“Later, another Cornell scholar, the sociologist Donald Hayes, showed that the decline of the verbal SAT scores was indeed correlated with a dumbing-down of American schoolbooks. Following the lead of the great literacy scholar Jeanne Chall, Hayes found that publishers, under the influence of progressive educational theories, had begun to use simplified language and smaller vocabularies. Hayes demonstrated that the dilution of knowledge and vocabulary, rather than poverty, explained most of the test-score drop.”

It is the dumbing down - simplified languages and smaller vocabularies. I notice it big time with my own children.

Interesting that you still believe that when the test evidence and pretty much all research since Coleman points to poverty. You are in a very tiny group that believes that curriculum and pedagogy are the problem. The vast majority of successful students get the same program delivered in the same way.

”  “The more privilege you have, the more opportunity you have. The more opportunity you have, the more responsibility you have.”

To which brings to mind the policies of the public education system, with the accompanying belief systems, agendas holding the keys to funding, authority and knowledge. The latter, knowledge that dwells on insider knowledge of the public education system.

Joe/Doug statement is just another example of the divisiveness employed by a minority in key positions, convincing the troops - educators, parents and politicians - its all about the SES and poverty theories. And the education theories continue to multiply ten fold carrying the themes of SES, poverty theories, progressive pedagogies and policies related to the operations of the education system that all will work for the best interests of the educators, their pocketbooks, at the expense of society.

To my dismay, although early because I have yet to find all of the evidence to firmly cement the connections to the Ontario policies of ECE. Based on the 1997 personal events of my youngest child, and how she acquired the label of special needs, when children like her normally do not qualified.Children with single issues such as a speech delay.  The children services came knocking on the door one day, and told me otherwise.

I never thought much of it back in 1997, and I really did not pay attention to the politics of the day, or even the criteria processes for having a child being special needs, I did learn a few things from the professionals in the various government agencies. The Harris government wanted more inclusive policies to include children with singular cognitive and behavioural issues under special needs. This direction went out the window under the Liberal government, and in its placement a series of watered-down programs in some areas, and longer waiting lists to access the programs.

The ECE program of 2 billion dollars plus, have essentially locked the access gates, having all users requiring pass keys of the SES kind. Leaving many with one-sized-fits-all and watered-down programs.

If one put the time in reading the 2003 report, even Mustard, including the other heavy weight researchers that has close relationships with the public education ivory tower,  has more or less stated that SES variables count, but not as much as the the 30 percent of pre-school population, crossing all social-economic levels.

On page 10 - “Most Ontario children do not suffer from either behavioural or cognitive problems in development, and most enter school ready to learn.  However, a significant minority, close to 30%, have either behavioural or cognitive problems or both.  The very partial information we have about school readiness suggests that a similar proportion score poorly on readiness-to-learn measures.  A careful
analysis of the data from the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth finds that prevalence of behavioural and cognitive problems is not strongly
concentrated in low-income families but is spread throughout Ontario’s income groupings.  This suggests that remedial measures which are targeted by income are unlikely to reach most vulnerable children.  This same evidence finds that
parenting is very important to children’s development, and that institutions and
neighbourhoods will also have a significant influence on children’s development.”
http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/investing/reports/rp24a.pdf

Just the beginning and as one reads the reports, the evidence to support the statement above on page 10 of the report, further weakens the poverty theories, where SES variables rules the day.

Why spent billions of dollars in ECE, by the government, when the government nor the education ministries are NOT committed to ensuring all children have access to the programs in health, pre-schools, day care that are a good fit for the families and ensured positive outcomes for children and give all the kids a future without having SES passkeys to access the education opportunities in the K to 12 education

http://www.childrenofthecode.org/cotcintro.htm

Ontario has one of the most successful education systems on Earth. Delegations from the USA and beyond come here to understand and attempt to emulate the Ontario system, the most successful system in the English speaking world. The Ontario system has never been more successful than it is today.

Correct Jo Anne. The American problem of a highly economically polarized nation. More equality in SES would change these results in dramatic fashion.

Sadly, the American economy is structured on the hyperexploitation of the poor to the advantage of the 1% crowd. As a direct result, the education data is terrible.

Joe you’re saying that public schools don’t matter because they do not achieve their objective: to help the kids from disadvantaged backgrounds catch up.

Then obviously you need to advocate taking money away from public education - since it doesn’t matter anyway - and invest them in the social measures that do work.

I disagree with to your belief that public schools don’t work! 
They do. I’ve seen it in another time and another place. Public schools do work if they are accountable based on results, if they follow curriculum and teaching methods that work, if they demand discipline and hard work from students, if they employ competent teachers.
Most of the above happens only sporadically today in Ontario so it is not rocket science that a high school diploma today means absolutely nothing not even being able to read, write and do basic math.