I throw out the perspective of the tried and true Nittany Lion alum, fan, supporter, or current student. They are incapable of objectivity because they are too close to the scene.
I throw out the perspective of the haters. They have had an agenda for quite awhile, and it is grounded in their distaste for the perspective of the group identified in paragraph one.
I also have to throw out the perspective of the talking heads, the pundits, the radio and TV hosts: their viewpoint is too heavily influenced by the need to be 1) politically correct, or 2) outspoken enough to get ratings.
I believe Joe's legacy will ultimately be only marginally blemished by the Sandusky scandal. Sixty years of altruism, philanthropy, integrity, and honor will not be eradicated by association with someone else's crimes, someone else's negligence, and someone else's moral turpitude.
Joe's legacy can be tainted only if the facts disclose that he made a conscius decision to cover up the crimes, or that he was asleep at the wheel when the facts related to him reveal that he had a duty to report directly to the police, thereby subverting the principles his institution reasonably expected him to follow.
In simple terms, the grand jury would have held him accountable if what they learned suggested he were culpable. Those on their high horses have conveniently discounted the judgment of those who have all the facts, and who have gone out of their way to declare that Paterno was not named to the list of PSU officials who were guilty of either shirking their duties or deliberately creating a mechanism for abandoning them.
I don't think Joe was guilty of anything except not being suspicious or jaded enough. In many instances where players or people within his program were guilty of actions contrary to the principles he espoused, he responded decisively. In some cases, he was accused of responding too harshly. Of course, he chose unwisely in a few instances, but so has everyone when faced with information that doesn't dictate a clear choice.
Here's what I think happened. McQueary witnessed a heinous crime, but lacking the courage to live up to his responsibility he turned it over to Joe. Like a coward, he deliberately presented a sanitized account of what he saw, so that the mantle of responsibility did not fall on him. Burdened by an inexplicit report, Joe turned the case over to the proper authorities. Since he either didn't know or understand the severity of the situation, Joe relied on the people 'in charge' to take care of the business.
I refuse to believe that Joe never bothered to ask the AD or the administrator of the university police, perhaps unofficially, for an update on the report he filed. If those officials have any scruples, they will ultimately tell the truth: they did as much as they could to keep Joe in the dark. My guess is that they told Joe that the proper authorities were doing a full investigation, even encouraging him to not throw his weight around. Remember, if Joe had used his influence to force the details into the open, Sandusky would have been guilty until proven innocent.
Naturally, I don't know all the facts. I could be wrong. However, the spin that the media has put on the case doesn't jibe with any of the facts about Joe's character that preseded this scandal. I don't remember in forty years of following Penn State any instances of Joe putting the program or his image above his ethics. Were he a hypocrite, I suspect that one or more of the haters would have screamed to the heavens. Joe's tenure has spanned decades where the public has paid extravagantly to hear the sordid details of any and all discrepancies between image and fact. We are to believe that as his tneure drew to an end, Joe made the misguided decision to risk undermining everything he had stood for over more than sixty years? Sorry, this doesn't make sense.
I think the legacy may always come with an asterisk. The scandal that came at the end is real, and disgusting, and disheartening. Nevertheless, I truly believe that the facts will eventually vindicate Joe. I know from experience how ruthless people can be, and to what lengths they will go to hide an ugly truth to protect themselves. I simply don't believe that Joe Paterno was one of those people.
I measure the man by the gifts he gave, and I do not mean the monetary contributions. Joe recruited boys to play a game, and turned them into the best of men more often than not. How can someone make a more valuable contribution than that?
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Data Driven Decision Making
I don't know if the TV show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader," is still on the air, but I hope that the audience here has seen it or heard of it, since I plan to use the premise of the show to make a larger point.
Adults are brought on to the program and are tested by questions that are integral content points of a typical 5th grade classroom in the US. The adult contestants are usually productive citizens who have found a way to contribute to their families and communities. The premise itself speaks loudly about the importance of 5th grade content. You see, if the content were critical to an adult's efficacy, the adult contestants would answer every or most questions correctly. Instead, the contestants rarely know all of the answers because the material is not critical in and of itself. What fifth graders need to know as it applies to adulthood and citizenship is not really represented by the 5th grade curriculum.
In short, the information covered in 5th grade is inconsequential to the productive adult. He or she can be very high functioning in his field without knowing very much material that is covered in 5th grade. This is true because the knowledge imparted in 5th grade is chosen on the basis of what the 5th grade mind can process. In other words, the skills are more important than the content.
This principle remains true at all levels of education, although to different degrees. I personally completed a BA at a private liberal arts college, and an MS at a well-respected university. The importance of most of the raw content I processed in these programs is dubious. I would venture a guess that I have maintained a knowledge base that includes about 10% of the information I have been asked to learn and to know.
What this has to do with Data Driven Decision Making, as it applies to secondary education, is as follows: Data Driven Decision Making has the potential to make a mess of education.
Presupposing that the date collectd presents a genuine reflection of the knowledge imparted and acquired by a given student (and such a supposition is itself questionable), the data collected is based on knowledge that is dubious in and of itself. To be a productive citizen, does every person need to have a facility with chemistry, with biology, with literature, with geometry? The question is rhetorical. We all know the answer?
The composition of the high school curriculum is generally formulated on the basis of exposure to ways of thinking. The type of thinking that is integral to an uderstaning of chemistry is peculiar to the chemistry classroom. Similarly, the type of thinking that is critical to the successful navigation of a literature lesson is peculiar to the literature classroom. The raw content in each and all cases is inconsequential and relatively unimportant.
In case I haven't been clear in pulling all of these points together, chew on this. Schools across the counrty are currently engaged in implmenting data teams, and RtI programs, as well as school specific programs, that are dedicating enormaous amounts of money and time to the creation of assessments which are supposed to provide diagnoses and prescriptions which will 'cure' learning ills. Because the data being collected is itself dubious, the resultant 'interventions' are dubious to the 2nd power.
I will end with a simple example. A 10th grade English teacher finds that one of her classes hasn't yet mastered an understanding of figurative language. The test item asked students to say what is meant when a character is described as 'cold as ice.' The assessments all agree that such facility is necessary. What does the teacher do? Tutoring? Remediation? Collaborative learning? More work sheets?
What if the test item itself is flawed? What if the students answered incorrectly because the context used in the assessment was unfamiliar and unrelated to their classroom curruculum materials? What if this question came up on the fourth consecutive day of standardized testing, and the students were disinclined to care?
Hopefully, the above was clear enough in touching on all of the concerns associated with data driven decision making. More information is almost always better than not enough information. But operating in response to information that is not what it purports to be sets off an expensive chain reaction where gobs of time and energy are expended in attacking a problem that may not be there, or in treating an illness that is merely a symptom.
More later.
Adults are brought on to the program and are tested by questions that are integral content points of a typical 5th grade classroom in the US. The adult contestants are usually productive citizens who have found a way to contribute to their families and communities. The premise itself speaks loudly about the importance of 5th grade content. You see, if the content were critical to an adult's efficacy, the adult contestants would answer every or most questions correctly. Instead, the contestants rarely know all of the answers because the material is not critical in and of itself. What fifth graders need to know as it applies to adulthood and citizenship is not really represented by the 5th grade curriculum.
In short, the information covered in 5th grade is inconsequential to the productive adult. He or she can be very high functioning in his field without knowing very much material that is covered in 5th grade. This is true because the knowledge imparted in 5th grade is chosen on the basis of what the 5th grade mind can process. In other words, the skills are more important than the content.
This principle remains true at all levels of education, although to different degrees. I personally completed a BA at a private liberal arts college, and an MS at a well-respected university. The importance of most of the raw content I processed in these programs is dubious. I would venture a guess that I have maintained a knowledge base that includes about 10% of the information I have been asked to learn and to know.
What this has to do with Data Driven Decision Making, as it applies to secondary education, is as follows: Data Driven Decision Making has the potential to make a mess of education.
Presupposing that the date collectd presents a genuine reflection of the knowledge imparted and acquired by a given student (and such a supposition is itself questionable), the data collected is based on knowledge that is dubious in and of itself. To be a productive citizen, does every person need to have a facility with chemistry, with biology, with literature, with geometry? The question is rhetorical. We all know the answer?
The composition of the high school curriculum is generally formulated on the basis of exposure to ways of thinking. The type of thinking that is integral to an uderstaning of chemistry is peculiar to the chemistry classroom. Similarly, the type of thinking that is critical to the successful navigation of a literature lesson is peculiar to the literature classroom. The raw content in each and all cases is inconsequential and relatively unimportant.
In case I haven't been clear in pulling all of these points together, chew on this. Schools across the counrty are currently engaged in implmenting data teams, and RtI programs, as well as school specific programs, that are dedicating enormaous amounts of money and time to the creation of assessments which are supposed to provide diagnoses and prescriptions which will 'cure' learning ills. Because the data being collected is itself dubious, the resultant 'interventions' are dubious to the 2nd power.
I will end with a simple example. A 10th grade English teacher finds that one of her classes hasn't yet mastered an understanding of figurative language. The test item asked students to say what is meant when a character is described as 'cold as ice.' The assessments all agree that such facility is necessary. What does the teacher do? Tutoring? Remediation? Collaborative learning? More work sheets?
What if the test item itself is flawed? What if the students answered incorrectly because the context used in the assessment was unfamiliar and unrelated to their classroom curruculum materials? What if this question came up on the fourth consecutive day of standardized testing, and the students were disinclined to care?
Hopefully, the above was clear enough in touching on all of the concerns associated with data driven decision making. More information is almost always better than not enough information. But operating in response to information that is not what it purports to be sets off an expensive chain reaction where gobs of time and energy are expended in attacking a problem that may not be there, or in treating an illness that is merely a symptom.
More later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)