by David Safier
This isn't a big deal and I planned to ignore it, but it's been rankling me for the last few days, so it's worth a little time and a few pixels to vent.
Once again, the Goldwater Institute has put out one of its emails that begins from the conclusion it wants to promote, then works backward to find the information that fits, ignoring pesky facts that get in the way. The problem is, G.I. has been getting away with this for years and has maintained its undeserved credibility as a genuine think tank instead of being treated as the propaganda mill it actually is. The media regularly quotes G.I. "experts" and the slanted writings they put out with far less scrutiny than they would give to the pronouncements of an overtly political group, even though G.I. deserves the same level of informed skepticism.
Today's piece of Fool's Gold is Thursday's Daily Email. Its basic claim is that online education is superior to traditional classroom education. I recognize that online learning will become a growing part of the educational landscape and I hope it develops into a viable option, but there is no serious study indicating online learning at the K-12 level is superior to the classroom.
Matthew Ladner, who wrote the email, implies there is evidence. Doesn't state it, mind you, but leaves that clear impression.
Here is the relevant passage. Read it and see if you get the impression the study he cites is a validation of the value of online K-12 education.
Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile.
Nine national percentile points, or an 18 percent margin, is a very large difference. Need more proof? The Arizona public school with the largest value-added learning gain scores in both math and reading is a charter school in Yuma called Carpe Diem E-Learning Community.
Ladner talks about the superiority of online learning to the classroom. He uses an example of a K-12 charter school. No mention of college or adult education. If I hadn't read the NY Times article earlier, I would have assumed it said online performance for K-12 students beat classroom performance.
But I had read the article, so I knew Ladner left out the very relevant information in the second paragraph:
The studies were mostly of college courses and adult ed, places where young and older adults, who have more maturity and intrinsic motivation than the average K-12 student, choose to further their educations. Ladner could have mentioned that in a short sentence ("Though most of the studies were done with college students and adults, the results show the promise of online education for K-12 students as well" — something like that), but that would have diminished the impact of his conclusion. In typical G.I. fashion, he left out any qualification that might have lessened the punch of his message.
When it comes to G.I., the watchword should be caveat emptor: let the buyer beware. I would add to that, caveat media: let the media beware — OK, I never took Latin, but you know what I mean. Rather than swallowing G.I. media releases whole and writing about them as if they were fact, reporters should always seek out an expert on the subject and get a second opinion.
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One child – one screen which contains/imparts information – hmmmmm! sounds like we won’t need people anymore, just those who prepare the information for the online learning source. Learner wants to ask questions? Well, methinks they’ll have canned responses. Anyone who thinks this is education has a much narrower interpretation of education than I have. I will always remember Mr. Sarno, my high school current events teacher, who always thought we should be able to support opinion with fact – that part of “education” is totally eliminated from the kind of online education described in this article. Rather, I would call this indoctrination – which is antithetical to thinking and having to support an opinion with facts/data. No interaction with a machine. This is education??? Please, I don’t want any and I don’t want to see a generation of young people “programmed” with whatever the person who prepares the screen wants to program their minds with!!!!
YUK!!!