Powerpoint and Policy

On Friday I went to a seminar on how to close the "Achievement Gap" - which is educational speak for the low level of college attendance (and K-12 performance) that is particularly troubling for some groups based on income and ethnicity. California's achievement gap is compounded because even our highest performing students are not as good as they should be - scoring in middling ranges for the best students. There are lots of ideas about what causes this problem and even more about how to solve it. One of the annoying problems in any academic seminar like this is the need for everyone to speak in a special language. There were a ton of special definitions which were then translated into acronyms. I guess the presenters thought that would formalize some of their observations, but I find such devices tedious and unnecessary.

As in any profession there are a lot of silly notions that continue to get perpetuated. The "crisis" in the schools or universities is something that public policy types love to hype. For the last couple of years, we've heard an incessant drumbeat about the number of Chinese engineers that are turned out every year compared to American universities. Jay Mathews, the education writer for the Washington Post, has an excellent article in the Wilson Quarterly called "Bad Rap on the Schools" which debunks the numbers (actually on a per capita basis we produce more real engineers than China) but also suggests some alternative ways for us to think about how to get the most out of our schools. But from my perspective, we continue to do an inadequate job in assuring that every student is developed to their best potential.

The morning session was taken up by a series of research papers. As is normal now each presenter had a powerpoint presentation. The photo is from one presentation (which was one of the best slides) explains something which I believe is critical for presenters today. My concern here came on many levels - first, there is too much text on the slide - these things should supplement what the speaker is saying. Most of the presenters thought they would duplicate their comments from their speech on the slide. Second, and again, this is one of the best, many of the slides had terms which may have meant something to the researcher but which sounded like jargon to me. What are "mathematical habits of mind?" Most presenters who use the technology seem to give little thought about how it can aid in conveying their point.

The best paper of the morning was one presenter who argued, in my mind quite clearly, that the best performing schools were generally smaller (or divided into more manageable units) and had leaders who had a set of clear ideas about what was trying to be accomplished at the school. That argues against standardization efforts like No Child Left Behind. It also argues that when training administrators we need to think more about a clearer understanding of management issues. The best schools of education are doing that these days - but many still emphasize the bureaucratic secrets of schools.

The final concern about Friday, was translation. With about ten papers, I came away with one very good idea (leadership counts with some good demonstration of how that happens) and a lot of jargon. I also came away with the continued recognition that we need to do better both on policy and powerpoint.