Why?
Harvard told me so.
Well, not "Harvard" as in the university issued a formal statement, but Harvard as in an Assistant Professor in the Kennedy School of Public Policy -- Professor Joshua Goodman -- told me in this study, complete with a now standard cutesy title ("Flaking Out"): http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/articles/new-study-examines-the-impact-of-snow-days-on-student-performance
I became aware of this study when my good friends at Oakland Schools "tweeted" it a few days ago.
Now, of course, I really didn't need Professor Goodman's study to tell me that a few extra snow cancellation days this year wouldn't unduly hurt my kids' education. Neither will the three days my kid missed with a cold.
But having a study "from Harvard" to buttress my impressions doesn't hurt. Indeed, much social science research does not tell us anything we don't know. Rather, much social science research attempts to confirm or disavow standard perceptions and so, while incredibly valuable, is subject to simple parody: "I didn't need a study to tell me that!"
Just helping you get y'all "college ready" or, in this case, I should say, "University ready."
You see, folks at the Michigan House of Representatives, Michigan State Board of Education and the Michigan Department of Education -- following the lead of education reformers nation wide -- have begun worrying that my kids won't be "college ready" (a term from the folks at ACT referring to test score data that supposedly shows how a student at the end of a jr. year will do at the end of their freshman year in college) without a few make-up days in June or even July.
But I have some serious, serious doubts about what education reformers, the Michigan State Board of Education, the Michigan Department of Education and so on know about actual colleges or universities, their function, their core values, etc.
Frankly, I have doubts about the good people at the ACT in Princeton, NJ of all places.
What is this university or college we are or are not "ready" for? We are not ready for college or university we say all the time now? But we don't spend much time talking about what a college or university actually is. Does the university have a Common Core curriculum kindergarteners can start preparing for now?
I can't get at this all in one blogpost, of course, but here is a start:
The American university system that has become the envy of the world has -- at its heart -- what could be perceived as a dirty little secret. The institution is really not about "teaching" or not teaching in the sense most understand the term via their K-12 experience (and 97 % of Americans now claim expertise in K-12 teaching!).
The American university is first and foremost about research and faculty. Universities thrive by hiring top faculty to conduct research in assorted fields or disciplines and, as part of that research process, disseminate that information to undergraduate and graduate students. That dissemination of information process in the course of conducting research is what aligns best with what most think of as "teaching." But the real job, you can see, is to conduct research to change and improve the world, a holdover notion from the Humanists of the 16th century. Correspondingly, most university faculty have little training in pedagogy (teaching). They get hired based on their research abilities, and they get tenure and promotion and raises (either through grants or in house funding) based on their research production. Some Professors are certainly better at engaging undergraduates in ongoing research than others, just as some Professors are ultimately more productive researchers than colleagues. There used to be a myth that high end researchers weren't good in the classroom. Certainly there are some cases like that. Overall, however, faculty who are good at the main part of the job are very good, too, at other parts.
Teaching? Or what we tend to call teaching? Students are welcome and encouraged to learn by participating in that world shaping process.
Readers might have some sense of this difference in "teaching" if they recall their own Professors at University. Taking classes was a quite different experience than K-12, no?
There is a reason for that.
Let's try to get at this, perhaps, by going back to Professor Joshua Goodman of the snow study (perhaps I already have moved too far away from "snow day" discussions to hold any parents' interest!).
Here are some bits from his already impressive academic cv, available as are most academic cvs on the University website.
I have bolded the part that an academic or academic administrator would look at first if reviewing him for a potential hire and I have italicized one interesting piece of info -- he spent two years as a math teacher in Watertown, MA that would come up, perhaps, over lunch during a campus interview:
Ph.D., Economics, Columbia University, honors, 2004-2009
M. Phil., Education, Cambridge University, 2000-2001
B.A., Physics, Harvard University, magna cum laude, 2000
Professional Experience:
Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, 2009-present
Math Teacher, Watertown High School (Watertown, MA), 2001-2003
Academic Affiliations:
Program in Education Policy and Governance, Harvard Kennedy School
Inequality and Social Policy Group, Harvard Kennedy School
Center for Education Policy and Research, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Teaching and Research Fields:
Labor Economics, Public Economics, Education Policy
Research Grants:
U.S. Department of Education, “Doubling Up: the Impact of Remedial Algebra on Students' Long-run Outcomes,” $291,164, Principal Investigator, 2012-2014.
Honors, Scholarships and Fellowships:
2008-2009
Dissertation Fellowship
Columbia University
2008
Best Graduate TA, Undergraduate Elective
Columbia Economics
2007-2008
Lewis A. Sanders Fellowship
Columbia University
2007
Vickrey Prize, Best 3rd Year Paper, Runner-Up
Columbia Economics
2006-2007 Ralph Erdman Holben Fellowship Columbia University
2004-2006 Faculty Fellowship Columbia University
2000-2001 Harvard-Cambridge Scholarship Harvard University
2000 Phi Beta Kappa Harvard University
1997-1999 Derek Bok Awards for Excellence in Teaching Harvard University
Publications:
“A Double Dose of Algebra.” Education Next 13, no. 1, with Kalena Cortes and Takako
Nomi, 2013.
“Parental Socioeconomic Status, Child Health, and Human Capital.” International
Encyclopedia of Education 2: 253-259, with Janet Currie, 2010.
“Skills, Schools, and Credit Constraints: Evidence from Massachusetts.” Education Finance
and Policy 5, no. 1: 36-53, 2010.
“Who Merits Financial Aid?: Massachusetts' Adams Scholarship.” Journal of Public
Economics 92, no. 10: 2121-2131, 2008.
Working Papers:
“Intensive Math Instruction and Educational Attainment: Long-Run Impacts of Double- Dose
Algebra.” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP13-009, with Kalena Cortes
and Takako Nomi, 2013.
“Merit Aid, College Quality and College Completion: Massachusetts’ Adams Scholarship as
an In-Kind Subsidy.” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP13-005, with Sarah
Cohodes, 2013.
“Bankruptcy Law and The Cost of Credit: The Impact of Cramdown on Mortgage Interest
Rates.” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP12-037, with Adam Levitin,
2012.
“Gold Standards?: State Standards Reform and Student Achievement.” HKS Faculty
Research Working Paper Series RWP12-031, 2012.
“The Labor of Division: Returns to Compulsory Math Coursework.” HKS Faculty Research
Working Paper Series RWP12-032, 2012.
“The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation.”
HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP12-002, 2012.
Professor Goodman has what could be termed a pure academic pedigree, pure as a freshly fallen snowflake.
From his cv one notes immediately: He made it to Harvard as an undergrad in a STEM field (physics), looks to have taken a year abroad at Cambridge for teaching degree (Homerton College?), then taught high school for two years before powering through Grad School at Columbia in 5 years. Along the way he has garnered his real academic credentials: grant money and published articles in what look to be respected journals in an established and growing field.
Moms, as bright as Professor Goodman is, though, he might not get to stay at Harvard! Harvard, like other top schools, tends not to tenure its Assistant Professors (although I haven't taken the time to look up the Kennedy School process in particular). Generally speaking, though, to get tenure at Harvard you have to have a major, international reputation. And that is hard to do in six or seven years even if you move fast like Professor Goodman.
Consequently, Professor Goodman might have to move on to another university -- perhaps here in Michigan -- and Harvard will hire a senior person. Who knows? May be he doesn't want to pursue an academic job. I am just reading the cv as another academic would.
Nasty, competitive business academia, in a global marketplace. Professor Goodman isn't just competing against Phds from all across the country, he is competing against Phds from across the world. It is this kind of competition -- really something the business market place struggles to match -- that produces knowledge at such a rapid rate.
Some distance from Watertown, MA and high school math, right? But in that Professor Goodman -- by contrast to most university academics -- has a profound connection with K-12 education.
That, and his work on snow days. More to come as the weather continues.
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