Welcome
In this week’s CommenTerry, I examine a provocative article by Professor Pat Rubio Goldsmith. He asks if peers in minority-concentrated (and white-concentrated) schools create offsetting advantages and disadvantages. If so, this would suggest that the impact of peer effects on educational outcomes is trivial. I can already hear the chants of "heresy!" from the education schools.
Bulletin Board
- The John Locke Foundation and the Triangle Lawyers’ Chapter of the Federalist Society will host The Honorable Gregory Katsas for a discussion of the major cases from the October 2010 term of the United States Supreme Court. The event will be held on Tuesday, July 19 at Noon at the John Locke Foundation office in Raleigh. Register online or call 919-828-3876.
- The John W. Pope Civitas Institute will hold its monthly poll luncheon on Thursday, July 21 at 11:45 am at the Clarion Hotel in downtown Raleigh. Speakers include John Rustin and Jonathan Kappler from the North Carolina FreeEnterprise Foundation. To register, call 919-834-2099 or go to http://www.nccivitas.org/events/.
- Join Dr. Roy Cordato on Friday, July 29 at 12 p.m. for the annual Friedman Legacy Freedom Lecture. Dr. Cordato will be discussing Milton Friedman’s theory of social responsibility of business. The event will be held at the John Locke Foundation office in Raleigh. Register online or call 919-828-3876.
- The John Locke Foundation is looking for a Director of Fiscal Policy Studies. JLF’s Director of Fiscal Policy Studies researches, writes about, and comments on spending and tax issues in North Carolina. These include the state budget, tax reform, government employment and compensation, and local spending trends. For further information on duties and requirements, please visit the announcement posted at Talent Market. (Note: One of the implicit duties of the Director of Fiscal Policy Studies is working with me. I am sure that this aspect of the job will dissuade some of you from applying. Sorry.)
- The North Carolina History Project would like educators and homeschool parents to submit lesson plans suitable for middle and high school courses in North Carolina history. Please provide links to NC History Project encyclopedia articles and other primary and secondary source material, if possible. Go to the NC History Project website for further information.
- Visit the "Disney World of Research," also known as JLF’s research newsletter archive.
CommenTerry
In the June 2011 issue of the prestigious American Educational Research Journal, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee sociology professor Pat Rubio Goldsmith published a fascinating article, "Coleman Revisited: School Segregation, Peers, and Frog Ponds." The title declares that he is dealing with some touchy issues. (By the way, "frog pond" is a theoretical model; I’ll get to that in a minute.)
"Coleman" refers to James Coleman’s 1966 government report, "Equality of Educational Opportunity" (later called the Coleman Report). The Coleman Report was one of the most significant education research studies of the twentieth century. Coleman concluded that the socioeconomic status and family background of students were greater determinants of educational outcomes than school factors like per pupil spending. In practical terms, he argued that schools with middle class students will perform better than schools with low-income students because students will perform in ways that are comparable to their peers.
Many scholars have considered, reconsidered, and reformulated the Coleman thesis, but Professor Goldsmith takes a novel, albeit controversial, approach to the issue. Whereas most scholars have argued that low-income/minority peers are liabilities, he asks whether same-race peers also could be assets. Similarly, the conventional wisdom is that peers in predominantly middle class/white schools are assets, but Goldsmith asks if they may also be liabilities.
This is where the concept of "frog ponds" comes into play. Professor Goldsmith explains,
Frog-pond models suggest that students benefit from standing out among their peers, making less selective schoolmates an advantage. Frog-pond effects may benefit students in minority concentrated schools by raising their optimism, improving their class rank, and making their course work more rigorous (Attewell, 2001; Crosnoe, 2009; Espenshade, Hale, & Chung, 2005; Marsh, 2007). Frog-pond models suggest that students in minority-concentrated schools are an asset, not a liability [sic]. (p. 509)
After incorporating tests for frog-ponds effects in his statistical model, Goldsmith found that, in general, advantages and disadvantages from peer interactions cancel each other out. Put another way, the well-known disadvantages of attending minority-concentrated schools are offset by the advantages — the benefit of standing out among peers, raising optimism, improving class rank, and making coursework more rigorous. Because institutions of higher education use one or more of these factors to make admissions decisions, college-bound students at minority-concentrated schools may have an advantage over peers that attend white-concentrated schools, which typically lack frog-pond effects. Indeed, students at white-concentrated schools may benefit from the company of their peers, but they also may get "lost in the crowd" academically.
Goldsmith’s takeaway is that educators and policymakers may have focused too much on peer effects. If we want to know why white-concentrated schools typically outperform minority-concentrated schools, then the explanation must lie elsewhere, he concludes. Professor Goldsmith speculates that variations in resources, teacher quality, social capital, or expectations may better explain the differences, but these subjects are beyond the scope of his impressive study.
Those who have followed Wake County’s student assignment/busing debate have witnessed, perhaps unknowingly, a contemporary dispute about the validity of the Coleman’s theories. Regrettably, busing proponents often assume that white, middle class peers are preternaturally beneficial and believe that minority, low-income peers are chronically detrimental. Goldsmith’s study questions these flawed assumptions.
Random Thought
Rebekah Brooks, the News of the World editor who was arrested for cell phone hacking and bribery, has epic hair.
Facts and Stats
During the 2009-10 school year, 21 percent of North Carolina’s public schools (526 out of 2,534) had an economically disadvantaged student population of 81 percent or more.
Mailbag
I would like to invite all readers to submit announcements, as well as their personal insights, anecdotes, concerns, and observations about the state of education in North Carolina. I will publish selected submissions in future editions of the newsletter. Anonymity will be honored. For additional information or to send a submission, email Terry at [email protected].
Education Acronym of the Week
NELS — National Educational Longitudinal Study
Quote of the Week
"The different advantages and disadvantages that schoolmates impose on each other suggest that the totality of peer effects in schools may be small in general. Having high-achieving and high-attaining peers is an advantage because students tend to become like their peers. But schools rank, sort, and sift students, too, making it more difficult for students to be academically recognized when their peers are high achieving and high attaining. The net effect of the two countervailing forces will be small as long as they are equally efficacious."
-Pat Rubio Goldsmith, "Coleman Revisited: School Segregation, Peers, and Frog Ponds," p. 531
Click here for the Education Update Archive
