Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - interview with david simon (creator of the wire)

sapiens · 04-21-2009, 07:55 AM

I enjoyed the interview. Thanks for posting it. It was compelling. It was also very depressing. What is to be done about the decline of journalism? What is to be done about corruption in state and local legislatures? What is to be done about the drug war? What is to be done about "juking the stats" in crime and education? I don't know. It seems hopeless.

I appreciated how he connected the war on drugs, to politics, to education, to the perpetuation of an economically superfluous underclass. I don't have much to say at that level of analysis.

I do agree with Simon's general point that education in the US is seriously fucked up. I'm not a big fan of No Child Left Behind and Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) standards. They neglect the student in the seat in the classroom. I have concerns about "teaching to the test" "juking the stats" within schools, and disincentives to teaching low performing and high performing students. I also have concerns about a complete lack of measurement and standards in the classroom. Newer testing models, especially the growth models coming out of Colorado, focus more on student level progress. Hopefully, those new models will reduce some of the testing problems that NCLB has created. I do think that some form of testing is necessary.

I work for a non-profit organization that, among other things, researches the regulatory bodies that oversee schools. I don't know as much about education policy as many of the people I work with, but I do no a reasonable amount about research methods and statistics. I have often run into situations where my reaction was "you can't say that. we don't know that." It might be corruption or "juking of the stats", but it's also very intelligent, well-meaning people that don't understand statistics or research methods.

I don't know what the answer is. I'm inclined to think that a complete overhaul of schools of education and massive pay raises for teachers might help.

04-21-2009, 07:55 AM	#2 (permalink)
sapiens Junkie Location: Some place windy	I enjoyed the interview. Thanks for posting it. It was compelling. It was also very depressing. What is to be done about the decline of journalism? What is to be done about corruption in state and local legislatures? What is to be done about the drug war? What is to be done about "juking the stats" in crime and education? I don't know. It seems hopeless. I appreciated how he connected the war on drugs, to politics, to education, to the perpetuation of an economically superfluous underclass. I don't have much to say at that level of analysis. I do agree with Simon's general point that education in the US is seriously fucked up. I'm not a big fan of No Child Left Behind and Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) standards. They neglect the student in the seat in the classroom. I have concerns about "teaching to the test" "juking the stats" within schools, and disincentives to teaching low performing and high performing students. I also have concerns about a complete lack of measurement and standards in the classroom. Newer testing models, especially the growth models coming out of Colorado, focus more on student level progress. Hopefully, those new models will reduce some of the testing problems that NCLB has created. I do think that some form of testing is necessary. I work for a non-profit organization that, among other things, researches the regulatory bodies that oversee schools. I don't know as much about education policy as many of the people I work with, but I do no a reasonable amount about research methods and statistics. I have often run into situations where my reaction was "you can't say that. we don't know that." It might be corruption or "juking of the stats", but it's also very intelligent, well-meaning people that don't understand statistics or research methods. I don't know what the answer is. I'm inclined to think that a complete overhaul of schools of education and massive pay raises for teachers might help.