Email discussion with Gary Rubenstein about his analogy of students and their parents being lamps, and schools/teachers being bulbs

Here's the first, in which I respond to his analogy of students and their parents being lamps, and schools/teachers being bulbs.  Here's an excerpt from what I wrote and the full text is below:

 

Excerpt from his email: It's like when a lamp isn't working so you replace the bulb and the lamp still doesn't work.  It means that the lamp is the problem.  This isn't to say that it is impossible to increase the standardized test scores of those kids.  It just means that with limited resources it is nearly impossible.

 

My reply: I've been thinking about your lamp analogy.  If I flip the switch on a lamp and it doesn't turn on, I assume that it's a bad bulb (I.e., ineffective adults in a school) (and will be correct 99% of the time).  Put a different, better bulb in and, voila, there's light!  I'm loving this analogy!

 

But you are claiming that NO bulb will ever work -- not even a tiny flicker -- because the lamp is broken -- in other words, the kids and their parents are so incorrigible and/or beaten down by life that NO school and NO teachers can move the needle for them (at least within any realistic spending levels).  Do you seriously believe this???

 

The real problem with your lamp analogy is that you assume that the light is either on or off -- nothing in between.  Yet in your very next email, you said that even at schools with the worst test scores, there's learning going on.

 

So, if we're going to use a lamp analogy, let's talk about a lamp with issues, one in which a bad bulb will flicker very faintly and erratically, a normal bulb will produce a weak somewhat flickering light, but then there are rare and special new bulbs that manage to produce a bright, steady and long-lasting light, even when placed in the lamp with issues. The problem is that these special bulbs, while not costing any more than normal or even bad bulbs, are REALLY hard to manufacture, so they are in terribly short supply.

 

So, what should our strategy be?  Well, that's obvious, isn't it?  1) Do everything humanly possible to ramp up production of the special bulbs. Shower money on the people who've developed the new bulb technology, remove regulatory barriers, etc.  And 2) Replace the bad bulbs with the special bulbs as fast as the latter can be produced (and, in the meantime, replace the bad bulbs with at least the normal bulbs).

 

Ah, but what about the manufacturers of the bad bulbs, dominate the market currently?  They know that they produce a high number of defective bulbs, but rather than fix the problem, which would involve painful changes for their employees, they instead tell themselves that it's not really their fault – the bulbs are fine, it's just that that are so many defective lamps.  To fight change, they use their enormous financial and human resources to cleverly win vast, unrivaled political power, aiming particularly at utterly destroying the small, entrepreneurial folks making the special bulbs -- sadly, with a great deal of success.  Isn't it obvious that our policy should be to stop this outrageous and self-serving behavior?

 

But, you'll reply, it's hard to tell what type of bulb it is until it's placed into the lamp -- and given that the lamp has issues, sometimes the new bulb is no better than the bad one it replaced.  True enough, so again here the strategy is obvious: only replace the very worst bulbs, only do so when you have a reasonable degree of confidence that a better bulb exists, and lastly, have reasonable expectations. There will be some failures, and even the improved bulbs still might be weak and flicker a bit (but a lot less than before).

Email discussion with Gary Rubenstein about his analogy of students and their parents being lamps, and schools/teachers being bulbs

 

Excerpt from his email: It's like when a lamp isn't working so you replace the bulb and the lamp still doesn't work.  It means that the lamp is the problem.  This isn't to say that it is impossible to increase the standardized test scores of those kids.  It just means that with limited resources it is nearly impossible.

 

My reply: I've been thinking about your lamp analogy.  If I flip the switch on a lamp and it doesn't turn on, I assume that it's a bad bulb (I.e., ineffective adults in a school) (and will be correct 99% of the time).  Put a different, better bulb in and, voila, there's light!  I'm loving this analogy!

 

But you are claiming that NO bulb will ever work -- not even a tiny flicker -- because the lamp is broken -- in other words, the kids and their parents are so incorrigible and/or beaten down by life that NO school and NO teachers can move the needle for them (at least within any realistic spending levels).  Do you seriously believe this???

 

The real problem with your lamp analogy is that you assume that the light is either on or off -- nothing in between.  Yet in your very next email, you said that even at schools with the worst test scores, there's learning going on.

 

So, if we're going to use a lamp analogy, let's talk about a lamp with issues, one in which a bad bulb will flicker very faintly and erratically, a normal bulb will produce a weak somewhat flickering light, but then there are rare and special new bulbs that manage to produce a bright, steady and long-lasting light, even when placed in the lamp with issues. The problem is that these special bulbs, while not costing any more than normal or even bad bulbs, are REALLY hard to manufacture, so they are in terribly short supply.

 

So, what should our strategy be?  Well, that's obvious, isn't it?  1) Do everything humanly possible to ramp up production of the special bulbs. Shower money on the people who've developed the new bulb technology, remove regulatory barriers, etc.  And 2) Replace the bad bulbs with the special bulbs as fast as the latter can be produced (and, in the meantime, replace the bad bulbs with at least the normal bulbs).

 

Ah, but what about the manufacturers of the bad bulbs, dominate the market currently?  They know that they produce a high number of defective bulbs, but rather than fix the problem, which would involve painful changes for their employees, they instead tell themselves that it's not really their fault – the bulbs are fine, it's just that that are so many defective lamps.  To fight change, they use their enormous financial and human resources to cleverly win vast, unrivaled political power, aiming particularly at utterly destroying the small, entrepreneurial folks making the special bulbs -- sadly, with a great deal of success.  Isn't it obvious that our policy should be to stop this outrageous and self-serving behavior?

 

But, you'll reply, it's hard to tell what type of bulb it is until it's placed into the lamp -- and given that the lamp has issues, sometimes the new bulb is no better than the bad one it replaced.  True enough, so again here the strategy is obvious: only replace the very worst bulbs, only do so when you have a reasonable degree of confidence that a better bulb exists, and lastly, have reasonable expectations. There will be some failures, and even the improved bulbs still might be weak and flicker a bit (but a lot less than before).

 

Thanks for getting me thinking about this...

 

His reply: > So there is a lamp bulb combination that is producing hardly any

> light.  There are two options:  fix the lamp or change the bulb. 

> 'Fixing' the lamp (tackling all the effects of poverty) is extremely

> costly, much more than we can afford.  Better bulbs produce more light

> with this lamp, but the potential seems to be limited by some constant

> in physics that we are running up against.  It is, at least,

> theoretically possible that there could be a bulb that will produce a

> lot of light without fixing the lamp, but the cost of producing that

> bulb is also more than we can afford, perhaps even more costly than

> fixing the lamp itself!

>

> How can it possibly cost more to make a bulb (improve the

> adults) than to fix the lamp (cure the poverty of the kids)?  Well (to

> exit the analogy for now), I asked one of my good friends who is a

> principal at a public middle school in the South Bronx.  I asked if he

> had an infinite budget, what would it take to get his students to all

> pass the standardized tests.  He said he'd need mental health services

> for half the parents.  He'd need translators and English teachers for

> parents who don't speak English.  He might need to quadruple his

> teaching staff.  You asked in an earlier e-mail what do I mean by

> limited resources.

> Now, I'm not a businessman at all, so this is just hypothetical, but

> people are always saying 'we doubled the amount we spent on education

> and it didn't make any difference so more money is not the answer. 

> It's like (here's a new analogy) if there's a fire and you tried to

> put one cup of water on it and it didn't extinguish it,  so you

> doubled it to two cups, when you really needed hundreds of gallons. 

> So I'm suggesting that the better lightbulb while perhaps not as

> expensive as fixing the lamp, could still break the bank.  It may be

> that we can't afford to do either.

>

> So this brings us to the question of what can we afford to do.  Some

> districts try to get a little gain by changing lightbulbs.  This isn't

> shutting down a school, as you make your analogy, but when you fire

> the principal and the staff and 'reconstitute' the school.  Miami

> Central, one of Ravitch's miracle schools did this.  It didn't work.

> Though it got them mentioned by Obama and Jeb Bush, that school was

> recently slated for closing and replacement with charters for lack of

> improvement.  The ed commissioner saved the school for another year. 

> It is an ironic epilogue to that story.  Yes, better staffs will get

> some improvement.  But the question is whether it is worth the

> upheaval to get it, if the gains aren't that much larger.

>

> This brings us back to KIPP.  KIPP is a bulb that works well with a

> particular lamp.  That lamp has some factors in common with those

> lamps that work so poorly with any known bulb.  Both schools have poor

> minority kids.  So it seems like if we can't find any bulbs that work

> with the real problem schools, perhaps we can take a model that is

> producing light with a 'similar' lamp and try to pump money and

> attention onto that.  But I don't think the lamps are as similar as

> wealthy funders want to believe.  Yes they have poor minority

> children, but there are many different types of poor minority

> children.  There are kids with mild to severe learning disabilities. 

> There are kids with behavioral disabilities including ADD and ADDHD.

>

> One last factor is that bulbs can be 'improved' through support and

> training.  So I think that just as many gains -- with a lot less

> disruption to the system could be made if teachers are supported

> better with things like really usable lesson plans and activities.

>

> I don't think that any charter system is willing to put their

> reputation on the line and attempt to take over a failing school by

> keeping all the same kids.  But it won't be until that happens (Did

> KIPP try to do that with a school in Denver, but just gave up?  I

> heard something like that, but don't know if it is true) I don't agree

> that we should invest heavily in the KIPP lightbulb that works on a

> lamp that may look the same to most outsiders.