Ben Guest’s Blog

Data

2008-05-03T22:47:37Z

Good article by the Freakonomics guys on the use of stats in basketball, specifically with the Celtics:

What’s the most efficient shot to take besides a layup? Easy, says Zarren: a three-pointer from the corner. What’s one of the most misused, misinterpreted statistics? “Turnovers are way more expensive than people think,” Zarren says. That’s because most teams focus on the points a defense scores from the turnover but don’t correctly value the offense’s opportunity cost — that is, the points it might have scored had the turnover not occurred.

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Time and Attrition

2008-03-05T14:13:48Z

Posts on attrition here and here. Here are the posts on low pay, classroom management, intensity, administration, outside issues, and promotion.

Last week's issue of Time had a cover story on "How to Make Better Teachers." Included in that article is a survey, not available online, of former teachers as to why they left the profession. I have now purchased said issue of Time (for $4.95, which seems incredibly high to me. In fact, I bought an issue of Newsweek as well and the total came to more than ten dollars), and reproduce the results here for you (and while I'm not the smartest person in the world, I'm assuming teachers polled could cite more than one reason as these numbers add up to way more than 100):

Top Reasons Teachers Cited for Leaving the Profession in 2001

Lack of Time to Prepare-60%

Too Heavy a Teaching Load-51%

Class Size Too Large-50%

Poor Salary or Benefits-48%

Student Behavioral Problems-44%

Lack of Influence in School-42%

It is interesting to note that Student Behavioral Problems (or, put another way, classroom management) is second to last.

Of course, the overarching point is that all of the reasons are in relation to the pay. In other words, 50% leave the profession because class size is too large in relation to the pay. If the first-year teaching salary was a million dollars teachers leaving the profession would plummet and quality people entering the profession would skyrocket. It is all about incentives...

Cheating Redux

2008-02-22T23:34:56Z

Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, has a Q and A with the readers of his blog. Here is one part:

Q: The “cheating teacher” analysis in Freakonomics was an elegant piece of work. Has it been used outside the original sample space, and applied to the nationwide testing effort?

A: A non-academic friend and I once had the idea of taking my cheating detection tools and turning them into a business to help school districts across the country. It turns out, however, that school districts don’t really want to catch cheaters. Cheating detection makes the districts’ test scores go down, and leads to problems with teachers’ unions. As such, no one wanted to buy our services. It made me realize how lucky I was that Arne Duncan was the head of the Chicago Public Schools. His view, when I first showed him the work, was that cheating was hurting the students, and all he cared about was helping the children in his care.

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IQ and Race

2007-12-11T00:02:43Z

I've read two good articles recently.

The first is Malcolm Gladwell's piece on IQ and race. This fits in nicely with the debate I've been having about talent, and whether people are born with certain gifts (more thoughts on that debate, and on Gladwell's piece, here). The Gladwell piece is primarily about the Flynn Effect, which shows that IQ scores have been rising, across the board, over the last century. To quote:

"And, if we go back even farther, the Flynn effect puts the average I.Q.s of the schoolchildren of 1900 at around 70, which is to suggest, bizarrely, that a century ago the United States was populated largely by people who today would be considered mentally retarded."

The second piece is a NYT profile of Roland Fryer, a 27 year old African-American who grew up dirt poor in Florida. After embarking on a criminal career in his early teens, Fryer had two close brushes with the law. He is now an economics professor at Harvard and a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard (sometimes called "Harvard's Harvard"). His research focuses on race and intelligence (and is, in this way, linked to Gladwell). Fryer's goal as an economist: to create a unified theory of Black America. The profile is written by Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics fame.

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Talent

2007-11-08T16:01:27Z

Caution, more thoughts on "natural teachers" ahead!

Question: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Answer: Practice.

The prevailing theory is that some people are born with certain genes that give them the capacity for more talent (in some areas) than others, whether this be music, math, or teaching. At the elite end of the spectrum are geniuses, people who are simply born with an extraordinary talent. Now, it turns out, that research is proving this theory to be false. Turns out the old chestnut about Carnegie Hall is much more accurate.

The leading expert on this subject is Anders Ericcson. Here is a good article that sums up his research (AA, I think you will especially enjoy this article because it starts with an anecdote about futbal). Here is one of Ericcson's academic papers on the subject.

This being the wired age, David Shenk, a writer working on a book about this subject, has a blog, titled, appropriately enough, "The Genius in All of Us."

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