Studies on "integrated schools"

[Anonymous]

I agree with the OP. It drives me nuts when people cite things that are poorly researched and not rigorous. I can buy a book on alien abduction, contacting ghosts in the afterlife or telekinesis and cite these studies until the cows come home and the information is still meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the OP. It drives me nuts when people cite things that are poorly researched and not rigorous. I can buy a book on alien abduction, contacting ghosts in the afterlife or telekinesis and cite these studies until the cows come home and the information is still meaningless.

Love this quote and OP great thread. I work full time so I don't have the bandwidth to fight all this crazy stuff. Thank you for being the voice of reason.

[Anonymous]

Studies that are not perfect/rigorous are not necessarily worthless. It's very difficult to do rigorous studies in the area of education because you can't necessarily force people into "control" and "experimental" groups - parents and kids have opinions about their educations, and want to have a say in what group they are put into when the groups are receiving different services/education models, etc.

I think it's worthwhile for people to bring up imperfect studies, and it's also worthwhile to recognize their limitations. It's also not necessary to have excellent evidence in support of a particular course of action when trying to address a problem. Lack of excellent evidence to support a proposed solution is not necessarily a good reason to sit back and do nothing.

Recognizing the limitations of the data we have is beneficial. Using the lack of strong data/consensus of data to argue for just doing nothing is questionable.

I think the data is fairly robust that concentrated poverty has a host of negative consequences. Attempting to limit the occurrence of concentrated poverty in neighborhoods and schools is a good thing. How to do it, and what "concentrated" v. "diverse" means is eminently debatable. Will every HS be exactly the MCPS average of every demographic group and percentage FARMs? No. Can we do better than what we have now? Probably.

What I would additionally like to ask is - do we have models of successful diverse schools that families and students are happy with? If you look at the MCPS high schools, they are absolutely not all "segregated." Many are quite diverse. Are there schools we should be holding up as models of how diversity can be done well? I think giving parents a vision of what a high quality diverse school looks like would be helpful, and get people out of focusing on their biggest fears.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the OP. It drives me nuts when people cite things that are poorly researched and not rigorous. I can buy a book on alien abduction, contacting ghosts in the afterlife or telekinesis and cite these studies until the cows come home and the information is still meaningless.

You're comparing studies about integrated schools to studies about alien abduction, ghosts, and telekinesis. Why?

[Anonymous]

research studies?

according to whose philosophy? If I'm at a Waldorf school, I have tenets that guide me. Montessori? different criteria, different philosophy

Accreditation processes are internal studies. But w/o a philosophy, vision, mission, belief statements and plans of action, there is no monitoring. And even IF these components are present, if schools w/in a larger system are not familiar with these specifics - the root of a system - any study will lack merit.

MCPS - https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/about/mission/

one core value: WE BELIEVE that we must engage every student, every day; learning is achieved by cultivating curiosity and encouraging determination, focus, and hard work; and adult learning and engagement are key to student learning.

lovely words - But w/o strong criteria to back them up, they are meaningless.

So I can go into System X and conduct a study - as long as all of the schools involved are familiar with these beliefs and attempt to put them into practice.

all BS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

DP: just look up "evidence-based practice."

The standards are pretty clear

That's for medicine. Are you ok with it if we include your children, at school, as test subjects in experimental studies like that?

Oh my.

Nope, that's not just for medicine. Look it up.

Kids. Yours. Experimental test subjects. In school. You ok with it?

I don't think you understand what "experiment" means. I'd be delighted if my kids were part of a good study comparing the value of A vs. B.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

DP: just look up "evidence-based practice."

The standards are pretty clear

That's for medicine. Are you ok with it if we include your children, at school, as test subjects in experimental studies like that?

Oh my.

Nope, that's not just for medicine. Look it up.

Kids. Yours. Experimental test subjects. In school. You ok with it?

I don't think you understand what "experiment" means. I'd be delighted if my kids were part of a good study comparing the value of A vs. B.

I think he/she understands that perfectly. That PP was simply trying to reorganize words to make perfectly normal things look strange. Not really worth responding - he/she knows the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

DP: just look up "evidence-based practice."

The standards are pretty clear

That's for medicine. Are you ok with it if we include your children, at school, as test subjects in experimental studies like that?

Oh my.

Nope, that's not just for medicine. Look it up.

Kids. Yours. Experimental test subjects. In school. You ok with it?

I don't think you understand what "experiment" means. I'd be delighted if my kids were part of a good study comparing the value of A vs. B.

Really? Then you're in a minority. If I had a nickel for every time I've read "I don't want my child to be a guinea pig" on DCUM, I'd have a lot of nickels.

[Anonymous]

16:49 - off topic- here but are you the rabid Curriculum 2.0 supporter from several years ago?

Your desire to deflect from the point of the post is so familiar! I remember years back that there always was this one poster who would post nonsense turning words around and acting clueless to disrupt the barrage of negative posts about the curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16:49 - off topic- here but are you the rabid Curriculum 2.0 supporter from several years ago?

Your desire to deflect from the point of the post is so familiar! I remember years back that there always was this one poster who would post nonsense turning words around and acting clueless to disrupt the barrage of negative posts about the curriculum.

(I don't think I've ever used that emoji before)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:research studies?

according to whose philosophy? If I'm at a Waldorf school, I have tenets that guide me. Montessori? different criteria, different philosophy

Accreditation processes are internal studies. But w/o a philosophy, vision, mission, belief statements and plans of action, there is no monitoring. And even IF these components are present, if schools w/in a larger system are not familiar with these specifics - the root of a system - any study will lack merit.

MCPS - https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/about/mission/

one core value: WE BELIEVE that we must engage every student, every day; learning is achieved by cultivating curiosity and encouraging determination, focus, and hard work; and adult learning and engagement are key to student learning.

lovely words - But w/o strong criteria to back them up, they are meaningless.

So I can go into System X and conduct a study - as long as all of the schools involved are familiar with these beliefs and attempt to put them into practice.

all BS

Yep

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:research studies?

according to whose philosophy? If I'm at a Waldorf school, I have tenets that guide me. Montessori? different criteria, different philosophy

Accreditation processes are internal studies. But w/o a philosophy, vision, mission, belief statements and plans of action, there is no monitoring. And even IF these components are present, if schools w/in a larger system are not familiar with these specifics - the root of a system - any study will lack merit.

MCPS - https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/about/mission/

one core value: WE BELIEVE that we must engage every student, every day; learning is achieved by cultivating curiosity and encouraging determination, focus, and hard work; and adult learning and engagement are key to student learning.

lovely words - But w/o strong criteria to back them up, they are meaningless.

So I can go into System X and conduct a study - as long as all of the schools involved are familiar with these beliefs and attempt to put them into practice.

all BS

I don't really know whether people truly believe these studies. Yet many still quote the reporting articles of these studies (note: the "reporting articles", not the studies themselves) when they make their arguments.

OP shows clearly that in many cases, these "reporting articles" are just BS (if not the studies themselves).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thhere will never be studies that are "rigorous" enough to satisfy the people (like OP) who insist that there must first be rigorous studies, because

1. People aren't molecules.
2. It's not ethical nor feasible to experiment on children.

Even if the greatest study ever done were cited, they would dispute the conclusions when they didn't like the outcome. It has nothing to do with facts and everything to do with property values and segregation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thhere will never be studies that are "rigorous" enough to satisfy the people (like OP) who insist that there must first be rigorous studies, because

1. People aren't molecules.
2. It's not ethical nor feasible to experiment on children.

Even if the greatest study ever done were cited, they would dispute the conclusions when they didn't like the outcome. It has nothing to do with facts and everything to do with property values and segregation.

So? If it were really the "greatest study" and correctly cited, you should have been able to easily defend it if someone disputed the conclusions.

Apparently you don't care about facts (or just don't have the ability to discuss those?).

All you do here is to make assumptions on people's motivations.

[Anonymous]

Here’s rigorous study: the students that stay in school, work hard, stay out of trouble, and challenge themselves do better than the students who are absent a lot, don’t study hard, don’t stay out of trouble, and cut corners.