An Interview with Dr. Gene V Glass about Myths and Hoaxes in Educational Psychology

2015

Interviewed on behalf of the North American Journal of Psychology
by Michael F. Shaughnessy, Eastern New Mexico University

Dr. Gene Glass earned his Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin in 1965. He has been a distinguished faculty member at several universities, including the University of Illinois, University of Colorado at Boulder, and is a professor emeritus from Arizona State University. He is a former president of the American Educational Research Association, and the winner of numerous scholarly honors, including election into the National Academy of Education. Perhaps most famous for a presidential address and a book in which he described the term, “meta-analysis,” he has written 22 other books and a staggering total of 250+ articles. He is currently a senior researcher at the National Education Policy Center. Dr. Glass maintains a blog in which he comments on current issues in K-12 education (http:ed2worlds.blogspot.com). Here he discusses some myths and hoaxes about American public education, with particular emphasis on the movement toward private and charter schools.

NAJP: Professor Glass, first of all, what led you and Dr. Berliner to write the book about 50 Lies and Myths About American Education?

GG: Actually, we put “myths” first and “lies” second. And as we contemplated the project, I was uncomfortable with the idea of accusing anyone of being a liar. It seemed to me that there are many opportunities to misperceive reality or delude oneself when studying something as complex as schooling, and that this is different from willful distortion. So I wanted to keep the word “lies” out of the title of the book. What caused us to write the book? Outrage! Outrage at the corruption and malfeasance we were observing every day in the charter school movement and across the entire spectrum of modern-day education reform.

NAJP: Let's start with some general questions, then focus on some statistics. Private schools are "better" than public schools - True or False-and where is the evidence?

GG: False. The evidence is right here in a book entitled The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools by Christopher A. Lubienski and Sarah T. Lubienski, published by the University of Chicago Press (2013). (Editor Note – Also see Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Schools, by Ravitch, 2013)

NAJP: Home-schooled kids do better across the board than kids in the public schools. Lie, hoax or truth?

GG: Language is important. What exactly does “do better” mean? Does it mean, a) “given two hypothetically identical twins, one of whom is home-schooled, the other educated in a traditional public school, the home-schooled child will learn more,” or, does it mean b) “children whose parents choose to school them at home score higher on achievement tests irrespective of where they learn”? The answer to a) is “No, home schooling is not more effective.” The answer to b) is “Yes, the population of home-schooled children is more advantaged and higher scoring than students in general. ”So let’s ask the relevant question: An individual parent faced with the decision to home-school or not, should that parent expect the child to learn more at home or at school? The vast majority of parents who try home schooling have answered: “I might try teaching reading and a couple other things at home, but by the time my child reaches middle school, I don’t know enough math, science or even social studies to compete with professional teachers in real schools.”

NAJP: One variable that seems to be beaten to death--The teacher is the most important factor or variable in student success. (Or should we be thinking univariately in a multivariate world)?

GG: What appears on the surface to be a compliment proves eventually to be a set-up. If teachers are this powerful, then if anything goes wrong (i.e., if the child scores low on a paper-pencil achievement test), it’s the teacher’s fault – not the fault of absent parents, illness, unsafe neighborhoods, poor diets, and a host of influences that deprive so many children of a chance to succeed in life.

NAJP: Students succeed because teachers know their subject matter – or teachers succeed because teachers are well trained in pedagogy? Which is it?

GG: John Dewey was the master of exposing these false dichotomies. Iti s both. There can be no learning without learning something – content; and no content is learned unless it is competently taught.

NAJP: Class size is a crucial variable, and what does multiple regression tell us about class size (if anything)?

GG: The second meta-analysis ever performed was performed on the corpus of studies of school class size and achievement discussed in a book entitled School Class Size: Research and Policy (Glass, Cohen, Smith, & Filby, 1982). Is “class size” crucial? No. In the effective range of possible reduction in class sizes (let’s say, from 25 to 20), the increase in learning would be negligible. But it is a sign of the basic Puritanism in how we treat teachers and schools that the “class size question” is always cast question of increased achievement test scores and not for what it truly is: a matter of teacher workload. Name one other profession that would tolerate suggestions that its workload be increased by 25%. There is none, nor should teachers ever tolerate such.

NAJP: Hypothesis: If we implement zero tolerance, all test scores will increase. Can we accept or reject this hypothesis?

GG: Zero tolerance, three-strikes-and-you’re-out, no-parole ... these things were started by legislators being lobbied by private prison corporations. This way of thinking has no business when discussing the education of children.

NAJP: Pre-school and kindergarten are the most important beginning factors or variables in education. Or is there absolutely no correlation between these things and later student success?

GG: As a society – and even as educators – we are too often obsessed with “success.” This would hardly be a problem if our concept of success possessed any depth whatsoever. But unfortunately, the “success” we seek is all too often a Philistine self-satisfaction based on acquisitiveness and greed: higher education at the best schools followed by high paying professional jobs and a second home in the sunbelt. The fundamental fact about pre-school is that a very high percentage of school age children have no parent at home full time (Christensen, Schneider, & Butler, 2011; Employment Characteristics, 2014). That is, 1 in 7 children have at least one parent at home to care for them during the day. More than 40% of births are to unwed mothers, and a huge proportion of these mothers are children between the ages of 15 and 19 (Martin, Hamilton, Osterman, Curtin, & Mathews, 2015). We have arrived at a culture and economy in which adults other than parents care for the vast majority of children for significant periods of time each day. I want my grandchildren in the care of professionals who can keep them safe and healthy and can nurture their development as individuals. Given that, I couldn’t care less whether what they learn at age 4 will get them into Harvard.

NAJP: More of an opinion question than a factual one: Is there any real data or evidence that schools have been "dumbed down" due to inclusion and mainstreaming?

GG: National Assessment Educational Progress (NAEP) scores have never been higher. I saw a high school chemistry test the other day that I couldn’t have passed after three semesters of college chemistry. If anything, content is being pushed further and further down the ladder into earlier grades. Is this a good thing? I doubt it. In the race to defeat the Finns, or the Chinese, or whichever nation threatens our economy, reformers are setting higher and higher content goals for younger and younger children. Unfortunately, that is being done without regard for what might be developmentally appropriate.

NAJP: Success in AP classes predicts college success at the .05 level of significance- True or False?

GG: I have no doubt that it does. But what is driving the huge increases in enrollments in Advanced Placement (AP) courses is the desire of parents to reduce the absurdly spiraling costs of college. If a high school student can earn 15 AP credits before graduation that will translate to a $10,000 savings in tuition and fees for the freshman year of college. Unfortunately, AP tests are just another slap in the face for minority students. The College Board makes a weak gesture toward equity by waiving the cost of the test for many minority students, and then those same students fail the test because they go to schools that do not offer AP classes.

NAJP: A high school diploma absolutely prepares all procuring it success in life and college and university- Truth, overgeneralization, sloppy thinking, or irrational belief?

GG: A high school diploma is a license or the lack of it a stigmata. What actually happens in high school is largely irrelevant to “success.” The curriculum is so absurdly outmoded and distant from anything a young adult in the world of work might need to know that acquiring the content of the typical high school curriculum is an irrelevance. “Success” in life will depend on staying off drugs, not smoking, eating right, learning to control anger and how to deal with one’s emotions, knowing one’s legal rights, knowing how to control sexual urges and prevent unwanted pregnancies, and many more things. Isosceles triangles don’t really fit into the picture.

NAJP: The U.S. comparisons to Finland have been flawed because Finland is a very homogeneous country and the United States is a more heterogeneous country. (And does anyone out there really understand these two concepts and how they apply to education and statistics?)

GG: I have never been to Finland and have no plans to go there. From what I have heard, a favorite pastime in Finland is dancing the tango. Perhaps if more Americans would dance the tango we would score higher on international achievement tests. Scholars like Pasi Sahlberg think that other countries attempting to emulate the Finnish school system are stupid: Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? (Sahlberg, 2011). Yong Zhao has argued convincingly that comparing countries on international achievement tests is a cruel joke: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World (2014).

NAJP: Class size. Is there any way to really conduct research on class size when there is such diversity and such heterogeneity and developmental differences K-12 in America?

GG: Well, averages are averages. Sometimes they are all that we have and we are forced to use them. Sometimes they tempt us to think superficially and we suffer the consequences.

NAJP: Last question- what have I neglected to ask? Or do readers simply need to read your book and where can they get it?

GG: There is so much more we need to know. Who is calling the shots these days? How has Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission enabled corporations to pass dark money through ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) to legislators who dutifully pass laws that place money directly into the pockets of those same corporations? Why did Noam Chomsky recently say, “Educational reform is a euphemism for the destruction of public education”?

REFERENCES

Berliner, D. C., & Glass, G. V. (2014). Fifty myths and lies that threatenAmerica’s public schools. New York: Teachers College Press.

Christensen, K., Schneider, B., & Butler, D. (2011). Families with school-agechildren, 21(2). Available from www.futureofchildren.org.Employment Characteristics of Families Summary. (April 25, 2014). UnitedStates Department of Labor. Available: www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm

Glass, G. V., Cohen, L. S., Smith, M. L., & Filby, N. N. (1982). School classsize: Research and policy. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Lubienski, C. A., & Lubienski, S. T. (2013). The public school advantage: Whypublic schools outperform private schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Martin, J. A., Hamilton, B. E., Osterman, M. J., Curtin, S. C., & Mathews, T. J.(2015). Births: Final data for 2013. National Vital Statistics Reports, 64(1).

Ravitch, D. (2013). Reign of error: The hoax of the privatization movement andthe danger to America’s public schools. New York: Knopf.

Sahlberg, P. (2011). Finnish lessons: What can the world learn from educationalchange in Finland? New York: Teachers College Press.

Zhao, Y. (2014). Who’s afraid of the big, bad dragon?: Why China has the best(and worst) educational system in the world. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.