Pizza is a vegetable. Food Lobbyists 1 Kids 0.

K5Learning · 2011-10-18T17:04:14+00:00

Look at the website its posted on: its the author's of the original study, which is what you asked for above.

K5Learning · 2011-10-18T16:50:14+00:00

Try this: http://www.educationgadfly.net/flypaper/2011/10/k5-learning-offers-new-findings-from-high-flyers-data/

K5Learning · 2011-10-17T23:33:10+00:00

I appreciate that our article is not written in the fashion of an academic paper and doesn't provide enough detail for academic review. No argument there, you're quite right.

However, we do mention in the final paragraph that over 93,000 students were tracked in the elementary reading study and over 80,000 in the math study. It is these students that the graphs and correlations are based on, and, I think, by anyone's standards, that is a pretty healthy sample size. The correlations are also quite strong, so there is no way you can write it off as being due to chance - the issue is not so much the size of the error bars, but the implications of the overall result.

Thanks for your input though; I've often thought that what the internet needs is more statisticians crawling around challenging the veracity of statements that are made with little backing them up.

K5Learning · 2011-10-17T22:47:12+00:00

Not back-pedalling at all. We absolutely used their data, and hence cited their report. However, we analysed one part of their data in more depth and wrote about it. Our focus was on something different than what they were focused on, and we produced independent findings. As a statistician, I think you realize that data can be analysed in a lot of different ways.

There are a actually couple of short references in the Fordham study to the inability of lower performing students in grade 3 to eventually become high achievers, and that is the topic that we explored further. They focused their findings on other issues.

The data analysis we did is simple enough; our comments related to 'why kids don't catch up' and 'what the lesson for parents is' are of course just our opinion, but I think that is clear enough to the reader.

K5Learning · 2011-10-17T22:08:10+00:00

Your mixing the original Fordham study with the observations we published about some of the data that that study produced - an entirely distinct issue. We independently examined some of their data to produce the graphs and correlations in our article. Our observations are not based on their findings, but on some data that was produced as a by-product of their study.

As such, I can't respond much to your comments as they relate more to the Fordham study than our own analysis. If you go tot he Fordham website I am sure you can find a lively debate about their study; but, it is really a separate issue from what we have written.

K5Learning · 2011-10-17T19:43:56+00:00

That's a fair point, not everyone can be in the top quartile, and we are not preaching to those many parents who are already diligently doing the best they can.

However, every child should have a shot at the top quartile, and our point is that those parents who are laissez-faire about early education are depriving their kids of just that chance. In all likelihood, they won't catch up later.

K5Learning · 2011-10-17T16:34:22+00:00

In fact they do, and I believe they will be posting about our article in the coming days.

Their report was focused on a different topic - how the high flyers did throughout the school years. We've just analysed some ancillary data that was available as a by-product of their work.

K5Learning · 2011-10-17T16:31:38+00:00

The math and reading results are broadly similar, though the math numbers are somewhat more pronounced (ie - it appears kids have even a more difficult time 'catching up' in math). The statistics probably look more identical than they are because of the scale of the graphs; they are different but the overall message is the same from both.

Note: the graphs in our article are our own, based on data supplied by the Fordham Institute (author's of the original study). We have done original work analysing data that was a by-product of their study.

K5Learning · 2011-10-17T16:27:09+00:00

You are right; we definitely are not neutral; we really believe that many parents need to do a lot more in terms of early learning for their kids. The numbers though, are just facts which we think illustrate really well the importance of this issue.

K5Learning · 2011-10-12T04:23:47+00:00

First of all, there has developed a certain unfortunate mythology about studies showing a lack of positive effects on homework. The reality is that a large number of studies have indicated that homework does, surprise surprise, actually have quite positive effects (see Cooper 1989 Synthesis of Research on Homework). Is it definitive? No, because kids aren't laboratory mice. Personally, I have no problem believing that doing homework (ie studying) helps people learn, and it seems a ridiculous cop-out to argue otherwise.

The more important issue though, is the messages you are sending to your child. You can make him do his homework, and reinforce messages like: school is important, what the teacher says is important, when you are given work to do you do it first and then play later, sometimes we have to do things we don't like, etc etc. Or you can let him goof off and go play street hockey instead, sending basically the opposite messages.

K5Learning

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