Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Learning English: Serious Business

I just read an interesting article in The New Yorker about English instruction in China which I thought I'd share with you. The article's focus is on Li Yang (李阳), who claims to have taught 20 million people how to speak English, and holds English classes in stadiums. It's a fascinating read.

The part I personally found most interesting, though, was this paragraph, which I think really gives us an insight into how big a deal learning English has become for Chinese:

China has been in the grip of "English fever," as the phenomenon is known in Chinese, for more than a decade. A vast national appetite has elevated English to something more than a language: it is not simply a tool but a defining measure of life’s potential. China today is divided by class, opportunity, and power, but one of its few unifying beliefs—something shared by waiters, politicians, intellectuals, tycoons—is the power of English. Every college freshman must meet a minimal level of English comprehension, and it’s the only foreign language tested. English has become an ideology, a force strong enough to remake your résumé, attract a spouse, or catapult you out of a village. Linguists estimate the number of Chinese now studying or speaking English at between two hundred million and three hundred and fifty million, a figure that’s on the order of the population of the United States. English private schools, study gadgets, and high-priced tutors vie for pieces of that market. The largest English school system, New Oriental, is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
It's hard to say whether Li Yang himself is a quack or a pedagogical genius, so I won't pass judgement on his methods. I do think it's rather strange and extremely interesting how excited (though obsessed might be a better word) the Chinese seem about learning English.

One thing I have pointed out before in the comments of another post on this blog is that it seems to me we in Malaysia have a bimodal distribution of English proficiency. We have one huge population of Malaysians whose English skills are poor to non-existent, and a smaller but sizable population whose English skills are very good. (I help answer questions from international students for my university's admissions office, and the quality of English in most emails - yes, even those from China - is abysmal compared to the English in emails we get from Malaysian applicants.)

To confirm if my initial impressions were right, I looked up the number of English speakers in Malaysia (Wikipedia makes it easy by compiling international figures from a number of sources). Apparently, Malaysia is 14th in the world when it comes to the number of people who speak English as a first language (such as myself), with about 380,000 native English speakers. We are 19th overall when it comes to total population of English speakers, with another 7 million Malaysians who can speak English as a second language. There are about 27.5 million Malaysians, so only about 25% of us can speak English, with the rest largely cut off from the world of opportunities English can open.

Our educational policy should try to cater to these vast differences instead of covering them up and adopting a one-size-fits-all philosophy. To me, it makes no sense to assume a level of English that most Malaysians clearly don't have, and neither does it make sense to hold back those Malaysians who speak English well just because most cannot speak English.

The main reason teaching English in science and maths was a foolish idea in the first place is that most of our schools fail at preparing students to use English properly, and that most of our teaching institutions fail at preparing teachers to use English properly. Many students probably cannot understand enough English to follow science and maths lessons given in English, and most teachers probably don't have good enough English to give those lessons. It is crazy to argue that the policy of teaching science and maths in English can bring up the overall quality of English when you have teachers with poor English often teaching pupils with poor English.

At the same time, it is hard to argue that we should permanently confine English to English classes; especially at the higher levels, it is probably more useful for students to familiarise themselves with English terminology at an early stage. The proper thing to do is neither to permanently roll back the policy nor to pretend that it is working; the right thing is to improve the quality of our English instruction, and give schools a choice about using English and other languages in the classroom so that the schools can adapt to changing circumstances.

Chinese educationists (the ones in China, not here) take English seriously enough to require a strict minimum standard of English for university entrance. How seriously do we take English? We're so lackadaisical about it that we let the standards for SPM English fall to the point that on our SPM certificates, we give a separate grade for papers marked according to GCE O-Level standards, because we all know an A for SPM English is mostly meaningless. How can we hope to introduce let alone expand the use of English in our school system when we are so complacent about learning English?

For the vast majority of Malaysians, the focus must be on improving the quality of English instruction, and allowing schools to opt to use the mother tongue in the classroom. This way, as the schools and parents become more confident in the conditions required for a successful transition to English instruction, schools will naturally switch over. On the other hand, if the government fails in fixing the core problem of learning English, the schools can just keep doing their own thing.

For the minority, we should likewise allow more extensive use of English if the schools find it desirable or necessary. There is no reason to hamper the promotion of advanced English skills amongst those who have already learned some English. We should encourage them to find schools where they can practice their English and improve it, instead of forcing all schools to conform to a uniform policy of either all-English or all-mother tongue.

Some proponents of teaching in English might object because they believe parents and schools will be too short-sighted to recognise the benefits of English. I think that just calls for improving awareness about the importance of English; I don't see the need to force a decision on anyone. There's no use forcing students to learn in English when they barely understand the language; the important thing is to help them learn English first.

If the schools or parents want to block English learning, that's a different story; the government should impose rigorous standards for English instruction. English, like Malay, should be a mandatory subject which all SPM, PMR and UPSR candidates must pass; the grading standards should also be tightened. That's the very least the government could do if it wants to improve the standard of English.

Ultimately, we need to take English seriously. It's an important language to learn, and one few people can do without. China has looked to English as a source of empowerment; we look at English and become complacent. There is no quick fix to the problem of English in Malaysia, but neither can we ignore the problem and hope it goes away. The government needs to recognise that most schools are not ready to teach science and maths in English, and implement a system which will facilitate a gradual transition based on improving standards of English.

Letting schools decide for themselves will ultimately be the best compromise. We cannot ignore the 80% of the country which can hardly speak English, nor can we ignore the 20% which speak it very well; the only solution must be to let both sides decide for themselves which language to use in their local communities. The ultimate objective should be to improve the quality of English among those 80% so that eventually they will be ready to use English in subjects like science and maths.

We have to treat the problem as a serious matter, instead of airily dismissing it, as both the Education Ministry and mother tongue education proponents often seem to do. We can neither keep the status quo by forcing the use of English in science and maths, which assumes we know more English than we really do, nor can we permanently return to the old status quo ante of mother tongue education, which assumes we don't really need to know much English. The situation calls for new and bold measures to uplift the quality of English across the board.

Higher Ed Cop Out #3


Today's topic: Score Choice

The College Board's decision to give SAT test takers the power to choose which test score they want to send colleges after they've taken the test multiple times was reportedly based on the desires of students. No surprise there--the College Board is always looking for happy customers, especially after their latest set of embarrassments in recent years. According to the New York Times, "the College Board surveyed more than 3,000 high school students from a range of income groups and ethnicities...It also surveyed 700 counselors from a diverse group of high schools across the country, and 70 percent favored Score Choice..."

This is a policy designed to make a certain set of consumers happier. It might surprise some to know that 50% of all SAT test takers repeat the exam, with 10% taking it 3 or more times (source). There is an empirically proven tendency for students to get higher scores when they retake the test.

But Score Choice will help to secure additional advantages for the already-advantaged kids. An analysis by Jacob Vigdor and Charlie Clotfelter reveals that several groups are more likely than others to retake the test: "those with low initial scores, women, Asian Americans, those who rate themselves as average or below in ability, and those who live in less affluent, rural, or predominantly black neighborhoods." As the authors state, "On their face, these simple correlations seem to dispel any notion that retaking is the exclusive or even preponderant domain of the affluent or urbanized." Good news, right?

Well, not so much. Vigdor and Clotfelter's multivariate models show that "the effect of holding constant previous scores and other variables is to reveal that retaking is indeed associated with greater affluence and parental education, among other things... Those whose parents made more than $60,000 had a 1.5 percentage point higher probability of retaking the test than those whose family incomes were below $40,000. Conditional on taking twice, applicants from these higher-income families were between 3.3 and 7 percentage points more likely to take the test a third time."

We shouldn't be surprised. Not only does the test come with direct costs (which, yes, can be waived if one knows that is available), but also incurs the opportunity costs of time spent sitting through the exam instead of doing other activities (such as working, or helping the family). Taking the test more than once requires knowing that such an option exists, and taking advantage of Score Choice requires similar kinds of knowledge. And college preparation (courses, and more informal activities) are unevenly distributed.

I don't doubt there was student demand, but while the description of the College Board's methodology implies that low-income kids wanted Score Choice as well, it is misleading. We do not know the percent of survey respondents who were low-income, nor do we know whether the stated preferences of poor kids differed from those of more advantaged kids. Furthermore, since when do high school students dictate what kinds of information about them get sent to colleges?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of the SAT- I don't think it predicts college success particularly well, and it acts as a gatekeeper. But I think if you take the tests, your schools should be shown to your college if the college wants them-- all of them.

Let's Carnival!

The 204th edition of The Carnival of Education (hosted this week by Bellringers) has opened-up its midway!And don't forget to drop-in on the homies over at the 157th version of The Carnival of Homeschooling.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Murray's Prescription for the Obama Generation


It's a weird feeling when a lefty academic finds herself even partly agreeing with the likes of Charles Murray. But to my great surprise, he got it about 10% right in Sunday's op-ed in the New York Times. What should Obama do for his generation? Murray argues, undermine the "college for all" ethic.

Because it makes me happier, let me start with where he's totally off-base-- his major argument, that some people are simply unqualified to attend college and we're doing them a disservice by encouraging them to enroll. Of course this reeks of Murray's prior work, and also of opponents to affirmative action, who contend that we'll hurt black kids by admitting them to schools where they're in 'over their heads.' Plenty of empirical evidence, including a very nice study by Sigal Alon and Marta Tienda, disproved that notion.

I wish Murray would ask himself the question: what goes into making someone "drawn towards academics?" I guess he'd say innate intelligence, when of course I'd argue that preferences of all kinds are shaped by opportunities and experiences that are unevenly distributed. Kids who've enjoyed positive experiences in high school are far more likely to be eager to attend college than those who've not been well taught, well treated, or even respected by their schools. Are we surprised that young black men rarely ever find their way to the college classroom? Is it because they're not innately intelligent enough? Oh please.

But where Murray's got a least some of my support is when it comes to the need to bust up the perpetual myth that a bachelor's degree from an elite university alters the course of one's life, ensuring success. With the intense stratification of opportunity for higher education, it's near impossible to compare the outcomes of elite college-goers with the appropriate counterfactual-- otherwise comparable kids who attend college elsewhere. Sure, plenty of studies have tried to do this in quasi-experimental ways, but unobservables abound. Those differences, not accounted for yet likely meaningful, could well explain any notable differences in outcomes associated with attending an elite school. Only through a true experiment, where we can randomly assign some kids to attend an elite school and others to go elsewhere (I can actually envision this happening if only colleges had the cojones to join such a study and prepare for the results...). Let's be honest--what attending an elite school gets you is an elite group of friends, pure and simple. Any resulting wage premium is likely due to that, not a "better" education.

Murray, of course, isn't on exactly that page-- he wants to change labor market responses to the BA-- or so he says. My sense is that underlying his call for a move to certification tests is a strong desire to maintain inequality, and keep certain folks out of the middle class. Give them options that "interest" them, work they're "better suited for"-- if only it didn't sound so utterly self-serving...

Blog tips: "Wild about math!"

Sol Lederman has a very nice blog about mathematics, and the focus is on "making math fun and accessible". The blog itself is called "Wild About Math!", and it is definitely worth checking out!

Sol has written much about learning mathematics by doing mathematics, and he appears to have a special interest in solving mathematical problems. One of the things Sol often writes about is the so called Monday Math Madness problem from the Blinkdagger blog. Lots of people already subscribe to the blog, and you can too! It's easy!

A good idea for starters would be to read some of Sol's featured articles. The first five are:

Blog tips: "Wild about math!"

Sol Lederman has a very nice blog about mathematics, and the focus is on "making math fun and accessible". The blog itself is called "Wild About Math!", and it is definitely worth checking out!

Sol has written much about learning mathematics by doing mathematics, and he appears to have a special interest in solving mathematical problems. One of the things Sol often writes about is the so called Monday Math Madness problem from the Blinkdagger blog. Lots of people already subscribe to the blog, and you can too! It's easy!

A good idea for starters would be to read some of Sol's featured articles. The first five are:

Majority of PMR Science Answers in English

Headline in the Star today - 51.2% of candidates chose English and English only to answer their PMR Science exam compared with 30.8% who answer in Malay and 18% who used a combination of the two. In the previous year, only 21.5% used English and only English. This is a pretty big jump. I would have liked to see the breakdown for Math as well to see if there was a similar jump. Perhaps this may be a sign that there will not be a complete reversion to the previous policy of teaching S&M in BM or mother tongue at the primary school level? I suspect that a compromise decision may be made. Either continue teaching S&M in English at the secondary school level or start after Primary 3.

Carnival Submissions Are Due!

Entries for the 204th edition of The Carnival Of Education (Hosted this week over at Bellringers.) are due. Please email them to: mybellringers [at] gmail [dot] com . (Or, easier yet, use this handy submission form.) Submissions should be received no later than 8:00 PM (Eastern) 5:00 PM (Pacific) Today. Contributions should include your site's name, the title of the post, and the post's URL if

Monday, December 29, 2008

Freedom to Our Schools: Decentralisation and Autonomy

One interesting thing I noticed about the roundtable that the Education Ministry held to discuss the issue of teaching science and maths in English is that they mentioned decentralisation of the school system as a possible solution. In my column for The Malaysian Insider a couple of weeks back, I suggested that we let individual schools decide what languages to use in the classroom. Permitting schools to decide on an individual basis how to operate would let school administrators and educators tailor their approach to the needs of individual communities, and permit greater feedback from communities.

There are naturally some administrative difficulties involved in moving from a highly centralised school system such as ours to a less centralised one, but it is important that we give this issue some thought. Treating students the same wherever they are is not a very reasonable approach, and tying the hands of schools when it comes to responding to local needs is a very bad idea. While full decentralisation is almost certainly impossible, we need to start looking into giving our schools more independence and autonomy.

The Chinese schools are a pretty good example of how independent school governance might work. Because the federal government largely ignores them, the Chinese educationists have become adept at running schools and tailoring them to the needs of different communities. Independent school boards comprising respected figures hold administrators accountable for their performance.

So one way to free our schools would be to give principals a little more independence in structuring their curricula - the Education Ministry would still set some standards and list out the minimum material which must be covered, but principals would be allowed to decide how to cover them - what textbooks to use, and so forth. Instead of being accountable to a civil servant, principals would now be held accountable to elected school boards. While I am not sure how our present administrative framework would deal with this, if there was enough political will to devolve school administration, it would not be terribly difficult to accomplish. The school board idea is merely one possibility - there are others. The important thing is to somehow permit greater diversity in our school system.

How will the schools function? Well, the Education Ministry will still be in charge of setting standards for schools to meet. The SPM and other exams will still remain, but now schools will truly be free to approach different ways of preparing students for them. At the moment, we use almost the same textbooks throughout the country; this is a huge racket for the publishers of the textbooks, which are not very good, as you can tell from how almost any student with some money usually has supplementary books which cover the same material but in more effective ways. Likewise, teachers work more or less the same way throughout the nation, giving more or less the same lectures. If schools had some autonomy in these areas, we would see a more effective approach to teaching and learning, one adapted to the needs of specific students.

If we wanted to take this further, we would allow principals to hire and fire teachers, and maybe even vary the pay of teachers depending on ability. Instead of the Education Ministry maintaining a central pool of teachers which it allocates out to schools Soviet-style, we could let schools pick their own teachers. At the moment, the teaching profession is insulated from market forces, which is quite bad for everyone. Teachers are stuck with lousy pay doing a difficult job; schools can't reward excellent teachers or really get rid of people who have no business teaching. Permitting some freedom in the employment process would benefit everyone, since there is really no reason to be tying the wages of our teachers to the wages of civil servants.

Now, how would we prevent administrators from making bad decisions? After all, many will no doubt grouse, what's keeping a principal from picking lousy textbooks or hiring lousy teachers? This is where having an independent school board as a check comes in. The board should be allowed to overrule the principal's decisions, or potentially even hire and sack the principal. Assuming the board is elected by the community, or even just randomly selected from the parents of students at the school, it will do its best to make decisions for the good of the students and the school. If the board has teeth, the principal will be afraid of its bite, and in turn do the right thing.

The Education Ministry should still have a role to play, of course. But the primary purpose of the Education Ministry should be to facilitate good decision-making, not to impose centralised decisions. The Education Ministry could commission studies of different schools across the country and publish its findings as a list of best practices which schools could adopt or reject depending on suitability. It could publish rankings of schools based on different metrics so everyone would know where their local school stands compared to its peers. The Education Ministry should facilitate the flow of information so that good ideas can spread and bad ideas can be checked. But otherwise, its role in running schools should be limited as much as possible; parents and teachers will always be better judges of the kind of education their pupils need.

The only serious objection I can foresee to this admittedly wide-ranging proposal is that it seems a little too radical. We're far too used to a centralised school system, and this is not good. Why should a school in the mountains be conducting the same science experiments as a school near the beach, when they have acces to different ways of illustrating the same scientific principles? Why should a community of rich English-speaking kids have to teach its children in Malay or Chinese or Tamil, and why should a community of primarily poor Malay speakers have to teach its children in English? A centralised decision-making system treats every school and every student as the same, which is simply not sensible.

My proposal is not very likely to be taken up any time soon by the government, though I hope Tony or one of his colleagues can one day put it forward for serious consideration. But I think the principle behind it is sound: We must reduce the bureaucracy and centralisation choking innovation and adaptation in our school system. And if we can start by just letting schools decide for themselves whether to teach science and maths in English or the pupils' mother tongue, that would be good enough for me.

One retort to the suggestion that we let schools decide which language to use to teach science and maths was that schools would make the obviously wrong decision. This is essentially saying, "We're going to let parents throw their kids' lives away by teaching them in English/their mother tongue!" I don't think that is going to happen. Parents are the best judge of what is best for their children; if that is not so, then we should not be letting parents take care of their children. Make as much information available to parents as possible - bombard them with leaflets about the various pros and cons of English and mother tongue education. But let the parents and schools decide which approach will work best for them. It is clear that one single approach will not work for all.

Wonkitorial: Cutting To The Front Of The Lunch Line

All of her adult life, Caroline Schlossberg Kennedy emphatically stated that she wanted to be a "private" person, and therefore completely out of the public's eye but free to attend countless social events with her pals from New York City's Social Register.But now, JFK's deep-blue-blooded daughter has changed her mind and wants to claim what some would believe to be her rightful inheritance by

Our Unconscious Brain Makes The Best Decisions Possible

Fascinating study about the probabilistic operation of our unconscious.
Pouget's extensive earlier work . . . suggested the human brain is wired naturally to perform [statistical] calculations. . . .

"We've been developing and strengthening this hypothesis for years—how the brain represents probability distributions," says Pouget. "We knew the results of this kind of test fit perfectly with our ideas, but we had to devise a way to see the neurons in action. We wanted to see if, in fact, humans are really good decision makers after all, just not quite so good at doing it consciously. . . . It's weird, but people rarely make optimal decisions when they are told the percentages up front." . . .

Shadlen's team watched the activity of a pair of neurons that normally respond to the sight of things moving to the left or right. For instance, when the test consisted of a few dots moving to the right within the jumble of other random dots, the neuron coding for "rightward movement" would occasionally fire. As the test continued, the neuron would fire more and more frequently until it reached a certain threshold, triggering a flurry of activity in the brain and a response from the subject of "rightward."

Pouget says a probabilistic decision-making system like this has several advantages. The most important is that it allows us to reach a reasonable decision in a reasonable amount of time. If we had to wait until we're 99 percent sure before we make a decision, Pouget says, then we would waste time accumulating data unnecessarily. If we only required a 51 percent certainty, then we might reach a decision before enough data has been collected.

Our Unconscious Brain Makes The Best Decisions Possible

Fascinating study about the probabilistic operation of our unconscious.
Pouget's extensive earlier work . . . suggested the human brain is wired naturally to perform [statistical] calculations. . . .

"We've been developing and strengthening this hypothesis for years—how the brain represents probability distributions," says Pouget. "We knew the results of this kind of test fit perfectly with our ideas, but we had to devise a way to see the neurons in action. We wanted to see if, in fact, humans are really good decision makers after all, just not quite so good at doing it consciously. . . . It's weird, but people rarely make optimal decisions when they are told the percentages up front." . . .

Shadlen's team watched the activity of a pair of neurons that normally respond to the sight of things moving to the left or right. For instance, when the test consisted of a few dots moving to the right within the jumble of other random dots, the neuron coding for "rightward movement" would occasionally fire. As the test continued, the neuron would fire more and more frequently until it reached a certain threshold, triggering a flurry of activity in the brain and a response from the subject of "rightward."

Pouget says a probabilistic decision-making system like this has several advantages. The most important is that it allows us to reach a reasonable decision in a reasonable amount of time. If we had to wait until we're 99 percent sure before we make a decision, Pouget says, then we would waste time accumulating data unnecessarily. If we only required a 51 percent certainty, then we might reach a decision before enough data has been collected.

Educating Goldfish: Multiple Lines of Intelligence Evolution

From Scientific American:
As is the case with many traits—complex brains and sophisticated cognition have arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the earth’s evolutionary history.

Educating Goldfish: Multiple Lines of Intelligence Evolution

From Scientific American:
As is the case with many traits—complex brains and sophisticated cognition have arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the earth’s evolutionary history.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Higher Ed Cop Out #2


As promised-- an ongoing series!

Cop-Out #2: Conditional financial aid


There's been plenty written about the unfortunate shift to merit aid, a shift that disproportionately benefits the middle-class. But I've got my eye on another, related yet distinct trend-- "conditional" aid. Last week's New York Times magazine included an article on conditional cash transfer programs that provides nice background here. But in a nutshell, this is aid allocated based on performance-- maintaining full-time enrollment, a certain GPA, etc. The best example, to date, is the program MDRC is running with a lot of support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-- after demonstrating (very, very small) effects at two New Orleans community colleges, MDRC has ramped up their demonstration in multiple states.

Here's the theory of action: Low-income kids need aid, but also need some accountability requirements in order to do well in college. This is akin to the new paternalism guiding the 1990s welfare reform-- it equates purely need-based aid with a "nanny state" and aid conditional on performance with a "daddy state." If successful, simply because it works it threatens to take over, replacing need-based aid entirely.

So what's the problem-- isn't a successful program a successful program?

I'd argue NO. The move to conditional aid is premature, because we do not yet know whether strictly need-based aid-- given on need, not performance-- is effective at increasing attainment. Moreover, we do not know if current levels of performance are reflective of the underfunding of need-based aid-- the Pell has never been funded at the intended levels, and analysts have been far too quick to jump to the conclusion that it is therefore ineffective.

I'm not surprised at MDRC's involvement in this one-- after all, they're also testing NYC's conditional cash transfer program, and their evaluations were strong impetus for the welfare reforms. But I have the privilege, as an academic, of considering both theory and evidence-- and I'd say the theory thus far -- that simply providing the aid necessary to pay for college-- has not been disproven. Why, then, take a paternalistic approach to requiring things of our low-income college kids that we do not require of the middle-class kids?

Full disclosure: I'm currently co-directing a random assignment evaluation of a need-based aid program. But trust me, this is not simply because the opportunity presented itself, but because this is a strategy I think needs to be tested BEFORE we move to conditional aid "reforms." From an empirical standpoint, not doing so doesn't constitute putting the cart before the horse, but I think from a political and ethical standpoint it unnecessarily opens up a can of worms that need not be opened just yet.

At this point, conditional aid appears to be a cop-out-- a way, perhaps, to gain more middle class support for aid. But might we be just as persuaded by hard-core, gold-standard evidence of large effects of need-based aid? I say, let's start there.

Addendum:

My original post wasn't that well done, I admit. So let me clarify: I call conditional financial aid a cop out not because the current strategy (need-based aid) hasn't yet been shown to be cost effective but because it follows on, and is part of, a potentially dangerous trend whose origins seem to be well-intentioned. This is a trend towards removing social supports and replacing them with the similar (or lesser) supports combined with accountability. Yes, it's true (as Lashawn points out in the comments) that MDRC's program awards new aid attached to performance requirements on top of existing need-based aid (to the extent that existing aid isn't reduced because of aid rules). My fear is that as we've seen in the past, programs like these are too easily misinterpreted--even before results appear. Opening this can of worms makes it so much more likely that the results of a positive evaluation will lead schools, states, and feds to simply attach conditions to the existing aid students get, rather than ADD new aid with conditions. That means aid becomes performance-based funding, not performance based incentive funding, and I'm opposed to that as a mechanism for enhancing the performance of disadvantaged students and schools.

Some other forms of conditional cash transfer provide money that one would otherwise not receive--without taking away existing resources. For example, Oportunidades pays poor moms a stipend if they take their kids to the doctor. I've got no problem with that. Similarly if welfare reform had involved giving the poor more financial support with conditions, instead of adding additional requirements to their existing aid, I would've been for it.

So in sum-- my concern is with the signals sent by these conditional aid programs, and evaluations of them-- which I think, in 5-10 years we'll see resulting in opening a gateway for policymakers to believe they have hard evidence to treat low-income college students as they do welfare recipients, requiring performance in exchange for aid. I do not find fault with MDRC's well-designed evaluation or their goal of building on their past findings (and their own theories of action), nor do I fault the Gates Foundation for funding what appears to many to be a promising program. I highlighted this program to draw attention now to the broader implications of these conditional aid programs, to note how similar programs have been used and misused in the past, and therefore issue a warning that researchers and funders alike need to pay close attention to the assumptions supported by their work.

I realize my original posting wasn't quite this nuanced or that well-articulated, and for that I apologize-- I hope that clarifies my point.

Seeking Public Feedback: S&M in English

I know that this issue has been flogged to death but I had a thought about this yesterday. Regardless of the outcome, there will be groups that will be unhappy. But one thing which I commend the Ministry of Education for is that they did expend time and resources to seek feedback from different groups. This is a far cry from the way this policy was implemented which was basically a executive decision with little or no debate.

According to a Star report, MOE has held 5 roundtable meetings thus far soliciting feedback from different 'stakeholders' including representatitives from PTAs, NGOs and academics. In addition, MOE also presented some of their internal papers and analysis on the UPSR results to some of these stakeholders which I thought was a progressive way of allowing the stakeholders to evaluate the findings of the MOE and then discuss those findings.

In addition, the MOE was flexible enough to put different proposals on the table.

The proposals are:

> Stick to Mathematics and Science in English;

> Revert to Bahasa Malaysia;

> Let primary schools teach both subjects in the mother tongue and secondary schools use English;

> Let primary schools decide for themselves;

> Mathematics and Science be taught in Bahasa Malaysia and mother tongue for Years One to Three and in English from Year Four onwards;

> A combination of mother tongue in the first three years and a choice of mother tongue or English after that; and

> The two subjects will not be taught in Years One to Three and instead be integrated into other subjects.

Some may criticize the fact that putting these options on the table is just for show that the Ministry has already made up its mind but I do think that there was a serious effort on the part of the MOE officials to incorporate at least some of the feedback they received from the different stakeholders into their thinking process.

Ultimately the decision will probably be influenced by political as much as educational motivations but I think the MOE should be commended for the way they approached this issue. Especially when you consider the manner in which this executive decision was 'imposed' on Malaysians 6 years ago. The Minister, his Deputy and the DG of MOE should be commended for this.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Atomic Number and Mass Number of Atom (Nomor Atom dan Nomor Massa Atom)

Every element have a different number of protons. The number of protons is atomic number. Beside protons, in an atom consist of electrons and neutrons. In neutral atom, number of protons is equal to number of electrons. The number of electrons determine the properties of atom.
the number of protons and neutrons which located in nucleuscalled as mass number of atom. The mass of protons and neutrons is atomic mass because the mass of electron is too small, so can be neglected. The atom of an element expressed by the following symbol:

where:
X = the symbol of atom
A = mass number of atom
Z = atomic number
Example: the symbol of C atom given by , so:
mass number of atom = A = the number of protons and electrons = 12
atomic number = the number of protons = the number of electrons = 6
the number of neutrons = A - Z = 12 - 6 = 6

========================================================

Setiap atom memiliki jumlah proton yang berbeda. Jumlah proton yang kita sebut sebagai nomor atom. Selain proton, di dalam atom juga terdapat elektron dan neutron. Dalam atom netral, jumlah proton sama dengan jumlah elektron. Jumlah elektron inilah yang menentukan sifat-sifat suatu atom.
Jumlah proton dan neutron yang terletak dalam inti atom disebut sebagai nomor massa atom. Massa proton dan neutron dianggap sebagai massa atom karena massa elektron terlalu kecil sehingga dapat diabaikan. Atom suatu unsur biasanya dilambangkan sebagi berikut:

dimana:
X = lambang atom
A = nomor massa atom
Z = nomor atom
Contoh: atom C memiliki lambang , maka:
nomor massa = A = jumlah proton dan neutron = 12
nomor atom = jumlah proton = jumlah elektron = 6
jumlah neutron = A - Z = 12 - 6 = 6

Isotope, Isobar and Isoton (Isotop Isobar dan Isoton)

Jika kita berbicara tentang massa atom relatif dan nomor atom, ada tiga konsep penting yang harus kita ketahui, yaitu isotop, isobar dan isoton.


1. Isotop
Isotop adalah dua atom atau lebih atom unsur yang memilki nomor atom sama tetapi nomor massanya berbeda. Contoh:
, dan adalah isotop karbon.
dan adalah isotop nitrogen.
2. Isobar
Isobar adalah dua atau lebih atom unsur yang memiliki nomor massa sama tetapi nomor atomnya berbeda. Contoh:
dan adalah isobar.
dan juga merupakan isobar.
3. Isoton
Isoton adalah dua atau lebih atom unsur yang memiliki nomor atom dan nomor massa berbeda tetapi jumlah neutronnya sama. Contoh:
(n = 12 - 6 = 6) dan (n = 13 - 7 = 6)adalah isoton
(n = 13 - 6 = 7) dan (n = 14 = 7 = 7) juga merupakan isoton.

If we talk about relative atomic mass, there are three important concepts which must be known, those are isotope, isobar and isoton.
1. Isotope
Isotope is two or more element atoms having the some atomic number but differing in mass number. Example:
, and are carbon isotopes.
and are nitrogen isotopes.
2. Isobar
Isobar is two or more element atoms having the same mass number but differing in atomic namber. Example:
and are isobar.
and are isobar too.
3. Isoton
Isoton is two or more element atoms differing in atomic number and mass atom, but having the same number of neutrons.Example:
(n = 12 - 6 = 6) and (n = 13 - 7 = 6) are isoton
(n = 13 - 6 = 7) and (n = 14 = 7 = 7) are isoton too.

My Goodness

And now it seems as though women aren't supposed to use the "L" Word first.Heh. Are we supposed to teach that in our schools?

Friday, December 26, 2008

Higher Ed Cop Out #1


The first in what I intend to be an ongoing series, these briefs will document practices that colleges and universities employ to supposedly accomplish an honorable goal, but are in fact practices that promote inequality and do long-term damage to higher education....

Cop Out #1: Need-Sensitive Admissions Practices

Definition: The practice of taking a student's financial need into account when determining whether to admit her. Said to only be used for "marginal cases" and with attention paid "with one eye open" this is generally used with the excuse that resources are tight and it's better to fully fund all admitted students than to partially fund a larger number.

Examples: In the past, elite universities such as Brown, Bryn Mawr, Johns Hopkins, Carleton, Oberlin and Vassar among others have admitted to this. Most recently, Beloit College in Wisconsin joined in.

The downsides: (1) This is a policy driven by an untested assumption-- that students with 100% of their need met are more successful than those with a lower percentage of need originally met. No solid research exists to back this. (2) Given the correlation between high school academic performance , test scores, and financial need, this will inevitably result in the decision to not admit greater numbers of low-income students. (3) A reduction in economic diversity of the campus could have lasting consequences-- in future prospective pools of students (low-income students, even the most talented, may well count themselves out when made aware), in the eyes of the public, in the eyes of U.S. Department of Ed and others concerned with student composition as an accountability measure. (4) Finally, there is no guarantee of real lasting cost-savings, or the relative effectiveness of this policy compared to other options.

In sum, a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem. Don't get me wrong-- I am completely sympathetic to tuition-dependent colleges who without state support are highly sensitive to fluctuations in enrollment. I really doubt Beloit's decision was independent of their recent loss of 10% of their staff after a drop in their enrollment yield of only 36 students! (Public universities considering forgoing state support in favor of private dollars ought to keep this in mind.) But the solution does not lie in this form of enrollment management which threatens to undermine a principle goal of higher education, a route to social mobility. In this day and age, a move to need-sensitive admissions would likely only exacerbate gaps in college attainment and perpetuate growth in income inequality--leaving a greater swath with even more need.




The Carnival of Education: Week 203

Welcome to the midway of the 203rd edition of The Carnival of Education.Unless clearly labeled otherwise, all entries this week were submitted by the writers themselves.Folks interested in hosting a future edition of the C.O.E. should please let us know via this email address: owlshome [at] earthlink [dot] net.Visit the C.O.E.'s early archives here, later archives there, and our latest entries

Foreign students - socialising with the locals?

To build on Kian Ming's points about students from Botswana, I thought I would relate my own experience from spending one-and-a-half years at a local college with many foreign students, especially from Botswana.

As I mentioned before, I did my A-Levels in KDU College, an institution that has attracted many foreign students interested in pursuing degrees in law, engineering, and other disciplines. My foreign classmates were mostly from the Maldives, India and Bangladesh, and most of them had no problem integrating with the locals.

At the same time, there were often a lot of students from other countries in other programs - guys from Botswana, Mauritius, places in the Middle East. One thing I observed is that most of the African students kept to themselves in their own cliques, while students from other places mixed with the locals freely.

To some extent this can be attributed to racial attitudes. People from the Indian subcontinent look like locals, and so we probably have an easier time relating to them than we might with someone from the Middle East or Africa. A lot of my friends, especially the girls, were frightened of or otherwise not interested in mixing with African students. So I can see where the Botswana government is coming from when they worry about their students having a hard time integrating into Malaysian society.

But I think the real and main problem is one which Malaysians who study abroad might have noticed themselves: we stick to groups we are familiar with, to people we feel an existing kinship with. In UK universities for example, you often find colonies and cliques of Malaysians and Singaporeans who don't really talk to people outside their group. The experience of being in a foreign country and mixing with different people is largely gone because we climb into our own shells.

The same, I think, has happened with students from Botswana. Because their government sends them over in such big groups, they clump and stick together in their own groups; they feel no need to approach locals and befriend them, and the locals feel intimidated at the thought of entering a large group of people they are completely unfamiliar with. Students who have come over because of their own private initiative, by themselves, don't seem to encounter such problems finding a group of Malaysians to hang out with.

Looking back, one remarkable thing about many of my friends from other countries is how quickly and enjoyably they adapted themselves to Malaysian student life. Many of them mamaked and DOTAed in cybercafes with the Malaysians as if they had been doing this their whole lives; they made the most out of the Malaysian experience. And the cultural exchange went both ways; we learned Mauritian creole and the politics of the Maldives from our international friends. When foreign students mingle with local students, everyone benefits.

Now, I cannot say for sure how justified the complaints of some foreign students like those from Botswana are. Maybe the true reason for their difficulties in adjusting is something besides their social isolation. Without an empirical study it is hard to say. But I can see why students from Botswana would complain about this, and if we want to address this, we must understand the social dynamics international students encounter. Cliquing is prevalent wherever international students are; it even exists to a large extent at Dartmouth in the US, where I am studying. But if we want internationals to make the most out of their studies and stay here, we must figure out a way to integrate them better into the mainstream of student life.

About Google Search

Usually we just using google to search document or anything we need. In fact google have a lot of excess which almost never been used. Ok, let's playing with google.

If we want to know the weather in a place, we just type weather [place] at input box. Then google will show you the weather information in that city. For example, we type weather Jakarta, will be result here.



To see the time, you just need to type time [place]. Fore example time Jakarta will result.


If we want to see the score match of a sport game, type [club]. Example Juventus will be result.








Selama ini google lebih sering atau bahkan selalu kita gunakan untuk mencari sesuatu yang kita butuhkan di web. Ternyata, google mempunyai banyak kelebihan yang jarang atau bahkan hampir tidak pernah kita gunakan. OK, kita bisa bermain-main sebentar dengan google.

Jika Kita ingin mengetahui cuaca di suatu tempat tinggal kita ketik weather [nama tempat] di kotak input. Maka akan ditunjukkan informasi cuaca di kota tersebut, misalnya kita ketik weather Jakarta, akan muncul hasilnya seperti gambar.javascript:void(0)



Untuk melihat waktu, kamu tinggal ketik time [nama kota]. Contoh time Jakarta. Hasilnya:


Jika kamu ingin melihat skor pertandingan olahraga ketik [klub]. Contoh Juventus, hasilnya

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Botswanan students have it hard?

Maybe I was jumping the gun in saying that Malaysia is a good place for international students to come to especially those who are from Muslim majority countries. The Star reported that the Education and Skills Development Minister of Botswana, Jacob Nkate, said that they would be cutting down the number of students sent to Malaysia because they were not acclimatising well to life in Malaysia.

The Minister's decision was influenced partly because of the social issues some of the Botswanan students have encountered while studying in Malaysia. Two of them died after falling from their apartment balconies and another was killed in a road accident. It was reported that the students blamed the hostile environment they encountered in Malaysia that forced many of them to turn to alcoholism and other anti-social behaviour.

This is not the first time I've heard of the challenges faced by foreign students in Malaysia. The ugly head of racism usually rears its head partly because we don't have a long history having foreign students in our universities, especially our private universities and colleges. I'm also guessing that many of these foreign students especially those from Africa also have to deal with racism on the part of shopkeepers, taxi drivers and the like.

This is not to say that Malaysian students going abroad don't face these kinds of challenges. I myself had one or two racist comments thrown at me while I was doing my Masters in Cambridge. But most Malaysians are used to the idea of going overseas to study and many of us have good support systems when we go abroad. Also, a majority of us end up in universities where foreigners comprise a significant proportion of the student population. Many of the professors and lecturers and administrators in these universities are also more used to dealing with foreigners. All these factors help us adjust more easily to life abroad.

My sense is that the onus should fall firstly on the administrative and management staff of our private colleges and universities, where most of the foreign and I'm guessing Botswanan students end up. If they haven't already, they need to set up structures and support systems which can identify and help foreign students who are having problems adjusting to life in Malaysia. In addition, they should 'recruit' their own local students to help these foreign students adjust to academic life in Malaysia. I'm sure that many of these universities and colleges are already doing these things already. But this is a good reminder that these efforts should continue or be stepped up. After all, the management staff are the ones with a more direct incentive to make sure that agencies such as the Botswanan government keeps on sending their students to our private colleges and universities.

Ideally, MOHE might do some coordinating activities to ensure that some of the best practices in terms of dealing with different foreign students can be transferred between the different colleges and universities, both private and public.

Of course, there are limits to how much the university administrators can do. (Remember the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech?) But try they must.

P.S. I know that Botswana is not a Muslim majority country. But the points made here should be applicable to other foreign students who are from Muslims majority countries. Just because they come to a Muslim majority country like Malaysia does not mean that they will not encounter challenges like racism as well as the many temptations to 'let loose', so to speak.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

A Little Bit (Lot?) About Me, John Lee

Thanks for the introduction, Kian Ming! I think a lot of you might have stumbled across my personal website, Infernal Ramblings in the past, or perhaps read one of the weekly columns I write for The Malaysian Insider. Although I am of course interested in political affairs, I would just like to emphasise that I remain politically unaffiliated, and that I think a vigorous debate about education in Malaysia should be encouraged, because fewer things can be more important than the future of our country and our people. For my first post, I thought I would introduce my educational background and give you a better idea of where I am coming from, and why I care so much about education.

My parents are both graduate degree-holders, and actually met when they were pursuing their Masters degrees. I was born in Japan while my dad finished his post-doctoral work, and then moved to Singapore, where my father taught at Nanyang Technological University for about six years; two of my siblings were born there. My family moved back to Malaysia when I was six, just before the economic crisis. In 1997, I started primary school at SRJK(C) Damansara, and my youngest sister was born.

Damansara was where my love-hate affair with education probably began. I had not attended kindergarten, so I was probably less prepared than many of my peers for primary school, especially in a Chinese-medium setting. I had been a prolific reader as a child, and had actually read some of my father's old secondary school textbooks by the time I was seven, so it was not for a lack of smarts that I had a hard time. I think I found it difficult to cope with the adjustment, and the new languages - Malay and Chinese - I was being exposed to.

So, halfway through the school year, my parents transferred me to Sekolah Sri Kuala Lumpur, a private school in Subang Jaya. I was not happy there either. Although I did well in my classes, I was picked on by my classmates, and spent most of my free time reading books I borrowed from the well-stocked school library; I would borrow a book during the first recess period, read it between classes, and return it and borrow another during lunch period. Two of my clearest memories from this time are the librarian's frequent shock that I could read books so quickly, and how happy I was every time we had library period on Thursdays. I also remember my intense exposure to Malay during this time - the school enforced a strict policy of speaking in Malay during classes, and so I was forced to pick up the language quickly. Ultimately, because I could not relate well with my mainly upper-class and expatriate classmates, and because my parents could not afford the tuition, I transferred again to a public school, SK Bandar Utama Damansara, at the end of primary two.

Of all the schools I have attended, I can confidently say that SKBUD was the best, without question. I made some of the best friends of my life there, and enjoyed the attention from some of the most dedicated teachers I have ever encountered. The headmistress, Datin Fatimah, ran the school with what some might call an iron fist. Unlike many other SKs, the student body was by and large disciplined, and the school made an effort to treat all students fairly, regardless of race.

I was rather surprised when I left the school and found that other schools stream students into classes based not only on academic performance but also race, and that all delegations for interschool competitions had to be "racially balanced"; in SKBUD, you sunk or swam based on your performance, and nothing else. Our school was never the best on any objective scale; most of our students came from poor families and it was considered a stunning success if more than two classes in any year had a 100% pass rate for all subjects. But looking back, I can easily say that my formative years in SKBUD are what made me the idealist I am today about education, and what made me believe that we can do so much more for our students.

I began my secondary schooling in SMK Tropicana. The Tropicana student body was an odd one; I think there were few students from middle class backgrounds. Most students were either from the low-income Kampung Cempaka, or the very high-income suburbs surrounding the school. The teachers, although very nice people, did not always seem dedicated. A lot of them often seemed to be unavailable because of training, and there was a high turnover rate, with teachers frequently joining and leaving the faculty. The main bright spot of my time at Tropicana was my involvement in scouting; I joined the scout troop there, and enjoyed it thoroughly. But ultimately, my parents transferred me yet again; the roads leading to the school were poorly planned and constantly jammed at rush hour; it was just too stressful to drive me to and from school.

The last school I attended, and the one I am most attached to after SKBUD, was SMK Bandar Utama (3). Unfortunately, it made a rather opposite effect on my perception of education: if SKBUD made me see the promise education holds, SMKBU3 made me see how terrible a school system can be if things do not go the right way. The teachers - again, all really nice people - often seemed uninterested in students and more interested in doing whatever suited them. Teachers often only went through the motions of teaching classes, and I think most of us who understood what was going on only did so because we learned from tuition or the textbooks. More than one teacher remarked to us that they were hardly needed since most of us just went to tuition classes anyway. While I had some good teachers - Puan Rozita made moral education, one of the most stupid and worthless subjects ever, worth our time - I had a lot of horrid ones too. One science teacher marked me down as wrong for citing the white fur of polar bears as an example of adaptation, because it was not the answer given in the book. She left the school soon after, and the temporary teacher who replaced her marked me down for describing white blood cells as part of the immune system, because in her words, "red blood cells protect from sick."

My time at SMKBU3 was also marked by a lot of harebrained schemes that can only be described as petty corruption. The school attempted to force all students into taking additional tuition classes and computer classes, and duly charged parents for this. Only official school tracksuits, socks and labcoats could be worn - again, parents were charged for the privilege, at prices much higher than those outside. The year after I left the school, a minor scandal erupted when some teachers attempted to appropriate funds raised for a charity. Of course, the teachers didn't just abuse parents and charities; students got their share too. That same year, a student hit his head against a pole while playing football after school hours; the impact was such that you could actually see the bone of his skull. Although teachers were still on campus, for some reason (possibly legal issues) they refused to take him to the hospital; a student ended up driving him instead.

To top it all off, I have to say that SMKBU3 was one of the most racially polarised schools I have ever seen. The Chinese-dominated administration and faculty often emphasised Chinese interests and issues; the student body followed suit. My classmates who had attended other SKs for primary school, who were and are not some of the most openminded people in the world, even remarked on how racist many of our Chinese-educated classmates seemed, and often made an effort to distance themselves from them. I did not encounter this when I was in Tropicana, not to the same extent; some of my best friends when I was in form one there had been Chinese-educated, and no such barriers seemed to exist. Meanwhile at SMKBU3, those from other racial backgrounds retaliated; one Malay teacher infamously told her students that non-Malays were hopelessly disloyal and could never be trusted to defend the country. As far as I know, she was never disciplined and the incident was hushed up, because we never heard of the matter again.

Now, these were all reasons why I decided to drop out of school rather than transfer yet again, but the main impetus, really, was this: I had had enough of the system. We hear a lot of complaints about rote learning in our schools; about incompetent or lazy teachers; about racial polarisation; about the lack of emphasis on extracurriculars; about how exam-oriented our schools are; so on and so forth. These are all problems with the system; I do not blame my teachers for the way they have acted because as far as I am concerned, they are products of a school system that does not respect them either. (I always thought it was ridiculous that besides teaching, teachers have to worry about filling out menial paperwork and angry parents, all for an insanely low salary; of course they would rather devote their time to creating other streams of income and avoiding work as much as possible.) I could have transferred to a less horrid school, but to what end? I might have marginally better teachers, possibly more active extracurricular groups to join, but I would be working from the same syllabus and curriculum from within the same system - a system that I saw and still see as horribly broken.

When I was in form three, I decided I wanted out. I did not know where to begin in getting out, though, and neither did my parents. My father knew, however, that American universities rely on the SAT to gauge the abilities of prospective entrants; he suggested I take it. When the results came back, I was near the top percentile in every category. So, we began to look around, and asked local colleges what it would take to accept me for a diploma or pre-university program of some sort; all required the SPM or equivalent. The equivalent, then, was the GCE O-levels. I took seven subjects for my O-levels, and studied by myself for the next four or five months, sitting for the O-levels around the same times as my PMR.

After I got my results back, I registered for the A-levels at KDU College. My experience at KDU was something altogether different, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. As a college student, you have a lot more freedom and independence than you would ever have in form six or secondary school. My lecturers were dedicated and friendly with their students, and although I do have some complaints (I would not recommend KDU as your ideal option), it was a breath of fresh air after all those years in the school system. I finished my A-levels almost two years ago, and left shortly afterwards for Dartmouth College, where I am presently majoring in economics.

There is fortunately not a lot to say about my university life so far, except that I am enjoying it, and that I enjoy the greater freedom the American liberal arts philosophy gives to students. I have taken classes in English, Chinese (my Chinese has a rather pronounced Beijing accent as a result), history, and political science; I even have the option of majoring in any of these subjects, if I really want to. Dartmouth has provided me with financial aid allowing me to attend even though my family cannot afford the high tuition fees and other living costs. This is why I am a strong advocate of American education for anyone interested in pursuing their studies overseas; I think it is something not enough Malaysians consider as a choice.

So, now that we've come to the end of my life story (as far as education is concerned), I hope you have a better idea of why it is I think the way that I do. A lot of the things I have written about education on my own website and in my column for the Malaysian Insider have proven controversial, and that is because I am coming from a rather controversial and unique background. I have explored almost every kind of education possible; I have been to a Chinese school, a private school, an SK, two SMKs, and I have even been homeschooled if you count those four months I spent teaching myself for the O-levels. I have had friends who went to Chinese independent schools, missionary schools, and MRSMs. I believe any and all of these paths are viable ones to take, but at the same time, through my experiences and those of others, I have also found that they all have their imperfections and deep flaws.

My hope is that through dialogue and debate, especially on this blog, we can delve further into the successes and failures of the different educational streams and choices in this country; that we can figure out how to fix what is rotten and retain what is excellent. I believe that at a very fundamental level, our national public school system is failing our students, and that there are ways to fix it; I also believe that at a very fundamental level, many of our alternatives to the public school system have been succeeding, and that there are ways to learn from them in rehabilitating and repairing our public school system.

My future posts will usually not be this long, but I hope you've been able to bear with my recounting of the experiences which have shaped how I see our education system today. Although you and I may (indeed, probably) disagree about the best way to reform our school system, I look forward to having a productive dialogue about the successes and failures of the different streams of education in our country, and how to learn from them.

Gándara and Contreras: Rescuing the American Dream

I just finished the new book, The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies, by Patricia Gándara and Frances Contreras (HUP, out in January). Written in an accessible style but with copious footnotes and references for those so inclined, the book documents where we are now, and where we might go, in our education, and care of, the Latino population. Fast-growing and largely neglected, this population's characteristics are documented in the book with charts, tables, statistics, and heart-wrenching stories about dreams deferred and aborted. I was particularly struck by the portraits the authors make of a number of Latino and Latina youths who overcome barriers, and of those who do not.

In the last few pages of the book, Gándara and Contreras outline a policy agenda to address the need.
  • Better health care and access to social services
  • Subsidized preschool programs
  • Housing desegregation and stabilization initiatives
  • Target recruitment and better preparation for teachers
  • Immigration policy reform
  • Support for dual-language education
  • Dropout prevention and college-access programs that support the connection between school and home

The buzz on this book is palpable, and I expect it to be discussed and widely reviewed. I have tapped one of my colleagues to review it for Education and Culture.

Gándara and Contreras: Rescuing the American Dream

I just finished the new book, The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies, by Patricia Gándara and Frances Contreras (HUP, out in January). Written in an accessible style but with copious footnotes and references for those so inclined, the book documents where we are now, and where we might go, in our education, and care of, the Latino population. Fast-growing and largely neglected, this population's characteristics are documented in the book with charts, tables, statistics, and heart-wrenching stories about dreams deferred and aborted. I was particularly struck by the portraits the authors make of a number of Latino and Latina youths who overcome barriers, and of those who do not.

In the last few pages of the book, Gándara and Contreras outline a policy agenda to address the need.
  • Better health care and access to social services
  • Subsidized preschool programs
  • Housing desegregation and stabilization initiatives
  • Target recruitment and better preparation for teachers
  • Immigration policy reform
  • Support for dual-language education
  • Dropout prevention and college-access programs that support the connection between school and home

The buzz on this book is palpable, and I expect it to be discussed and widely reviewed. I have tapped one of my colleagues to review it for Education and Culture.

Welcome JohnLeeMK

There's a new addition to the blogging team here at Education in Malaysia. Tony has been really busy with his responsibilities as an MP and I anticipate that I'll have to restrict my blogging activities as I try to finish up my PhD next year. Also, we thought that it would be good to bring in a fresh perspective. Someone younger and who would look at things from a different angle. The new member of our team is John Lee Ming Keong, a sophomore at Dartmouth. I first met John at a blogger's meeting in Subang Jaya a few years back. This was before he left for the US to start his undergraduate degree. He came across as a precocious and idealistic young man then and his interest in things to do with Malaysia including the education arena has not waned even as he has immersed himself in the US education experience. You can read more about him on his personal blog. I'll leave him to introduce himself on this blog. Welcome JohnLeeMK!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Revisiting the Moynihan Report

The Moynihan Report Revisited: Lessons and Reflections after Four Decades

Summary
Douglas S. Massey and Robert J. Sampson

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 6-27. [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
James Q. Wilson

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 28-33. [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
William Julius Wilson

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 34-46. [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Harry J. Holzer

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 47-69. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Devah Pager and Diana Karafin

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 70-93. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Frank F. Furstenberg

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 94-110. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Sara McLanahan

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 111-131. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Linda M. Burton and M. Belinda Tucker

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 132-148. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Kathryn Edin, Laura Tach, and Ronald Mincy

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 149-177. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Andrew Cherlin, Bianca Frogner, David Ribar, and Robert Moffitt

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 178-201. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Frank D. Bean, Cynthia Feliciano, Jennifer Lee, and Jennifer Van Hook

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 202-220. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Bruce Western and Christopher Wildeman

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 221-242. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Lawrence D. Bobo and Camille Z. Charles

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 243-259. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Robert J. Sampson

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 260-280. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]
Ron Haskins

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2009 621: 281-314. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]