To Intervene or Not to Intervene

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To Intervene or Not to Intervene

• Steve Ceci

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Two Competing Needs Facing America

• Increase international competitiveness
• Narrow achievement gaps

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Dilemma Do We

• Elevate workforce productivity
• OR
• Elevate achievement of top students

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Too few American students perform at the highest
level in science. (Brent Staples, 5/25/06, New
York Times, p. A26)
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• A hot topic of conversation around Washington
  since the release in late 2005 of the National
  Academies of Science (NAS) report, Rising Above
  the Gathering Storm Energizing and Employing
  America for a Brighter Future is the degree to
  which the United States can remain competitive in
  the international community. This report formed
  the basis for President Bushs American
  Competitiveness Initiative announced in his 2006
  State of the Union address.

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of Seniors Taking Calculus
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Elevate the achievement of Americas top math and
science students

• Top 10 Top 25 among trading partners
• Closer to Thailand and Italy than to Japan, China
  and Germany

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Science Achievement Scores
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• Econometric analyses point to reduced
  productivity because of falling achievement
  levels
• Proposals include reinstatement of accelerated
  learning, more AP coursework, more challenging
  curricula, end social promotion

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What About Narrowing achievement gaps?

• The gap separating Black, White, Asian, and
  Hispanic students is anywhere from 2/3rds SD to a
  full SD or more. Similarly, the gap between rich
  and poor is great. The policy implications of
  such large gaps represents one of Americas most
  urgent national problems

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Some Statistical Examples

• 84 percent of White children will perform better
  than the average African-American child
• if a class that is 50-50 Black-White is divided
  into high- and low-ability groups, White students
  will constitute approximately 70 percent of the
  higher group
• if only the top 5 percent of students in such a
  class is eligible for gifted/talented programs,
  such programs will have many times more rich than
  poor (Hedges Nowell, 1998 show that the
  overrepresentation of whites in the top 5 is
  nearly 5-to-1, even after controlling for
  differences in socioeconomic variables)
• if the lowest 5 of students is eligible for a
  special ed. programs this will mean classes that
  are predominantly poor and/or African-American
  even though they may comprise only a small
  fraction of the student body

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Closing Gaps Top Concern

• When superintendents of large urban school
  districts were surveyed recently, they rated
  achievement gaps between minority and nonminority
  students as one of their top concerns.
• Source Huang,G.,Reiser,M.,Parker,A.,Muniec,J.,
  Salvucci,S.(2003).Institute of Education Sciences
  findings from interviews with education policy
  makers. Arlington,VA Synectics. Retrieved 7/
  27/04 www.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/findingsr
  eport.pdf

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So, How Can We Do Both?

• If we do all we can to elevate the best students,
  this will inevitably widen the achievement gaps
  in math, science, and reading
• If we make a concerted effort to narrow gaps,
  then this can only be achieved by targeting
  interventions that could, if opened to all
  students, elevate top students even higher

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Papierno Ceci, 2005 Ceci Papierno, 2005

• Hope scholarships
• G.I. Bill of Rights

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For unto every one that hath shall be given, but
from him that hath not shall be taken away even
that which he hath. (Gospel of Matthew)
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(No Transcript)
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Total meta-memory scores of gifted and non-gifted
children prior to, and following, cognitive
strategy training.(data provided by Borkowski
Peck, 1986). Meta-memory totals scores were
calculated as the sum of transformed (z) subtest
scores in order to weight the subtests equally.
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Content Scores of 6th Graders Exposed to Summary
Street Intervention vs. No Intervention Controls
as a Function of Teacher-Rated Ability