Half Changed World

Ben Adler at the New Republic interviewed a bunch of conservatives about their opinions of evolution, intelligent design, and what should be taught in public schools. It’s quite a fascinating read.

I was particularly struck by James Taranto’s casual reference to public schools as "government schools" — a subtle echo of Grover Norquist’s more agressive statement that "The real problem here is that you shouldn’t have government-run schools." 

I was also dumbfounded by David Frum’s statement — after saying that he does believe in evolution — that "I don’t believe that anything that offends nine-tenths of the American public should be taught in public schools. … Christianity is the faith of nine-tenths of the American public. … I don’t believe that public schools should embark on teaching anything that offends Christian principle."

Ok, but does that mean that he thinks teaching evolution offends most Christians?  I think the vast majority of Christians agree with the theory of evolution and have no problems with it being taught in schools.  Interestingly, I argued the same point last week over at Raising WEG, in response to Mia C’s question "But will any of the religious parents be discussing evolution and atheism with their children?"

***

Updated: Via Right Magazine (found by following my inbound traffic), I’ve learned that Frum says he was misquoted.  He writes: "I have no idea what proportion of Americans object to the teaching of evolution, but I very much doubt that it’s 90% or even 50%."

That’s a relief. 

Anyone who spends any time at a playground will discover that even at a very young age, gender differences start to show up between boys and girls in how they play. I’ve written before about how — in spite of the non-traditional gender roles in my family — my sons are both into traditional "boy things" like trucks and trains.

I also think that adults often notice behaviors that reinforce their preconceptions more than the ones that challenge them; we’ve gotten some odd looks from other parents when we point out what a spitfire some of the girls in D’s preschool class are.  I’ve commented before on how different personalities D and N are.  It must be very easy it is for parents of opposite gender kids to assume that the differences between their children are due to gender differences. (And as families get smaller on average, fewer have multiple kids of each gender.)

It’s clear that societal and cultural factors contribute a great deal to both gender differences and the perception of them.  Jo(e) wrote recently about the shoes that girls wear, which limit their ability to climb and run.  Mieke picked up on this theme, quoting a friend’s description of how other adults interacted with her daughters:

"They would talk about Rachel and Sarah’s clothes or their hair or call them "cute" and almost always, ask Rachel and Sarah if they had boyfriends (as I said this started at three). It was kind of a default question that adults had when they didn’t know what else to say to the girls. When the girls said no, the adults seemed stumped by what else to talk about, if they said yes, they would ask all about the boy."

But it also seems that there are some differences that can’t be so easily dismissed as cultural.  There seems to be a broad consensus  that boys tend to talk later and to be potty-trained later.  Boys are more likely to be diagnosed with autism and related disorders as well as with ADHD.  (I recognize that there are cultural factors involved in how these disorders are manifested as well as in what behaviors get boys v. girls referred to a psychologist.) 

Dawn and her very thoughtful commenters at This Woman’s Work had a wonderful discussion a few weeks ago about children, gender identity, and transgenderism. Like Dawn, my fundamental goal is to allow my children to pursue their interests and enjoy their desires whether or not they conform with traditional gender roles.  That means buying D "lipstick" when he asked for it after seeing one of his classmates with it (although I wimped out and bought chapstick rather than lip gloss — he was thrilled with it anyway), but it also means letting him play endless games about shooting "bad robots" (robots because we told him he couldn’t shoot people).  And yes, I probably struggle more with the latter than with the former.

But I also agree with Dawn that

"I don’t have a problem with a boy playing like a girl or even wanting to be a girl. But I start feeling challenged when a boy says that he feels he is a girl because of these girlish interests."

This past year, the principal at the local elementary school split the 4th graders by gender for their reading period.  Her argument was that the boys were more interested in nonfiction (e.g. books about cars, animals and sports) while the girls were more interested in fiction.  Such programs — which are increasingly common — make me intensely uncomfortable.  I worry about the boy who wants to read stories, or the girl who loves baseball.  But the truth is, the regular way was clearly failing the boys — the previous year, something like 30 percent of the boys passed their reading tests, compared to 80 percent of the girls.  That’s not acceptable.

While I wrote about the preschool application process yesterday, these days I spend more time trying to figure out what we’re going to do about elementary school in a year and a half.

As I’ve written before, we’re probably going to start out by sending D to the local public elementary school, which is exactly 2 blocks from our front door.  I’m a big believer in public schools, and it would make our life immeasurably easier to send the boys to a school that’s so close, but this is still not an easy decision.  Even though we live in a pretty affluent area, this elementary school serves an overwhelmingly low-income population — about 85 percent of the kids qualify for free lunches*. Free, not free or reduced price.  As is the case with most schools serving low-income kids, the test scores have been atrocious.  So I worry about teaching to the test, I worry about whether D (who is already starting to read) is going to be bored, and I worry about whether there’s going to be peer culture that says its uncool to be good in school.  I also don’t like to think about the arguments we’re going to have when many of his classmates’ parents allow them to roam around the neighborhood without adult supervision at what I think is absurdly young ages. 

But I like the new principal and I’m impressed by the teachers I’ve met.  We went to the open house a couple of weeks ago, and we practically had to carry D home because he didn’t want to stop exploring the classrooms.  The kindergarden classes only had 13 kids per class this year (with a teacher and an aide), which is a big plus.  And they’re talking about trying out multi-grade classrooms for the K-2 students to allow for more individualization of the curriculum.  So I think we’re going to give it a try.  But I second-guess myself on this all the time.

Bitch PhD wrote an interesting post yesterday about the life lessons she learned from attending academically mediocre inner-city schools:

"I learned how to be comfortable with people from the wrong side of the tracks, to think critically about race and class and how they play out in subtle ways, and that there is a really major difference between intelligence and privilege, though the two are usually confused."

Those are lessons that I’d like my kids to learn, but not at the cost of academic skills.  Dr. B argues that she got those at home regardless.  I think that’s probably true of most of what kids learn in elementary school, but I’m not convinced it’s the case in the upper grades.

Toronto Mama has also been worrying about schools, and she points out that the safety issue can be the trump card when looking at urban schools:  "I do not want my babies to be afraid to go to school."  Fortunately, I don’t think that’s an issue here.

* The houses here are small, and the upper-income residents typically don’t have kids, or move further into the suburbs before their kids hit school age.  And many of those who do have school-age kids send them to either private school or the "traditional" magnet school.   

I’ve read some interesting posts recently about the process of applying and choosing preschools.  Moxie wrote about the preschool interview process in New York City — and she swears that this is the low-key version.  Yikes.  Toronto Mama wrote about the preschool they didn’t get into — and the one they did.  Julia is having second thoughts about her choice of preschools.

We actually had a pretty sane preschool application experience by contrast.  We didn’t apply to any of the schools that have people lining up at 4 am to turn in their applications, in part because we weren’t clued in enough to know that we had to line up to have a shot at getting in.  The preschool that was our first choice — because we liked it, and because it was walking distance from our house — turned out to have exactly ONE slot open that year for kids who weren’t siblings of current students or children of alumni.  Of course, no one mentioned this to us until after we had already given them our $75 application fee. 

As it turns out, the preschool D attends didn’t even have a waiting list.  I think that’s because it’s a Jewish preschool and many non-Jews don’t even consider it an option.  We’re very happy with it.  D looks forward to going to school, has lots of friends, and is learning to sit quietly when it’s appropriate and take turns and things like that.  That’s all we were really looking for.  At the parent "orientation night" they gave us a big speech about why they have a "play-based curriculum" and recommended Einstein Didn’t Use Flash Cards.  I didn’t need to be convinced.

That said, someone posted to the DC Urban Moms email list a few weeks back on the verge of hysterics because she had been waitlisted at every single preschool she had applied to.  A lot depends on geography around here — traffic is so miserable around here that you really need to stick to places right near your home or work if you don’t want to spend an extra 2 hours a day sitting in traffic.

I have a theory that these preschools that are so hard to get into are the major incubators for "mommy madness."  It seems likely that if you make parents jump through hoops to get their kids enrolled, you’re selecting for high intensity parenting; the same people who were willing to line up at 3 am to get into the school are also going to make lots of calls for the fundraising auction and push for all organic snacks.  Even at our laid-back preschool, I sometimes feel guilty for not being more involved; I hate to think what I’d feel like in one of those pressure cookers.

Last week, following a reference in the NY Times magazine, I tracked down a remarkable study, the 40-year followup of the original Perry Preschool cohort.

The Perry Preschool study is famous among social policy researchers.  In the early 1960s, a sample of low-income African-American children who were assessed to be at high risk of school failure were randomly assigned to two groups, one of which received two years of high-quality preschool and one of which did not receive a preschool program.  The group that received preschool services scored higher on IQ and similar tests while in preschool and for a year or two afterward, but this achievement gap faded over time.  However, the group that received preschool services continued to score higher on school achievement tests and be more likely to complete school, more likely to be employed, and less likely to be arrested, even decades later.

The full report of the 40-year followup doesn’t seem to be available yet, but a summary report including Q and As is available on the web.  It’s a fascinating read, and makes some interesting points.

• Almost all of the impact on high school graduation is driven by the women.  84 percent of the women in the preschool group graduated from a regular high school compared to 32 percent of the non-program group.  (This is an impact so large as to be almost inconceivable — social service interventions typically move impacts by a few percentage points.)  The researchers suggest as a possible explanation that boys were more likely to be held back or assigned to special education because of behavioral issues, not just academic delays.
• Almost all of the cost savings, however, are driven by the reduction in arrest and incarceration, which is concentrated among the men.  The researchers estimate that each dollar invested in the Perry Preschool program returned over $17 — almost $13 for society as a whole, and $4 for the participants.  Of the return to society, 88% came from the reduction in crime.
• This study was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Head Start program, and is still cited as one of the main pieces of evidence in support of the program.  However, the researchers note that most Head Start programs are not as good as the studied program — especially in regard to the educational background of the teachers.
• The researchers also caution against using this study to argue for universal preschool.  They say that this study shows that "educational productivity in early childhood settings has a large influence on young children’s subsequent lives."  The Perry Preschool was dramatically more "educationally productive" than the homes and neighborhoods in which these poor kids would have spend their days otherwise.  But the researchers argue that neither home nor preschool settings are inherently more educationally productive.  So, while these children benefited greatly, "young children from educationally productive homes who attend less educationally productive early childhood programs would suffer negative effects on their development."

In response to Monday’s post about the federal appropriations process, in which I vented a bit about cuts to the education budget, Jen asked me whether I’m still considering sending my kids to public school.

I do expect to send my kids to public school.  I’ve been very impressed by the new principal at my local elementary school, and I’ve heard enough positive experiences from parents that I think I’m willing to give it a try.  If that doesn’t work out, we’d probably try an out-of-boundaries public school (allowable both because the local school is a magnet or "focus’ school, and because of its low test scores under No Child Left Behind) and then consider moving to another school district, before turning to private school. 

With two kids, it’s hard to imagine coming up with the private school tuition for 13 years of K-12 education for each of them, certainly not without both my husband and I working for pay.  I earn enough that we’d be unlikely to qualify for much financial aid; plus, even if we could scrape the tuition together, I worry about the consumption expectations set by more affluent classmates.  (By contrast, at the local elementary school, we’d be among the wealthier families, which I realize has a set of issues of its own.) 

There’s always homeschooling, but I don’t think either my husband or I is really cut out for it.  And it’s hard to imagine my highly gregarious older son thriving in that environment.  I could may be see us "unschooling" in high school for kids with enough self-motivation, but that’s a long ways off.  (I went to grad school with the publisher of New Moon magazine, and her unschooled daughters were among the most impressively thoughtful and poised teenagers I’ve met in my life, far ahead of where I was at that stage.)

In thinking of my kids — rather than all kids across the country — I’m not especially worried about the budget cuts.  Most education spending is still from local dollars; federal budget cuts don’t make much difference in affluent communities like mine.  Rather, the impact will be felt in places where local taxes can’t make up the difference.  I’m more worried about No Child Left Behind (at the federal level) and the Standards of Learning (SOLs, in Virginia) forcing teachers to teach to the test to the exclusion of all else; I don’t know a single teacher who  doesn’t think that the overriding emphasis on standardized testing is a disaster.  But I assume the pendulum will swing back somewhat in the other direction in the next few years.

I’m a reluctant convert to school choice, meaning both charter schools within the public school system and even vouchers.  I don’t think it’s a panacea to everything that’s wrong with the American educational system, but I do think it provides a life raft to some kids who would otherwise go down with the sinking ship of disastrous urban schools.  The liberal argument against school choice has traditionally been that by giving some kids an escape route, it undermines support for and funding of public schools. I’ve come to the conclusion that this argument is essentially hostage taking, and I’m no longer willing to take kids hostage.

Plus, it doesn’t work.  People like me already have escape routes even without "school choice" — whether moving to suburbia or sending our kids to private school.  The only kids being held hostage are those whose parents have the ambition to take advantage of a school choice program, but not the money to escape otherwise.  And that’s not enough of a base to change public policy.  We’re never going to improve inner-city public schools until we make a convincing case that it’s in all of our interest to do so, not just the interest of those whose kids attend them.