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Upward Bound Advocates Call for ‘Corrections’ to Report on Program’s Outcomes

January 18, 2012, 4:45 pm

Upward Bound advocates are asking the Education Department to make changes in a three-year-old report that they say has resulted in years of stagnant funds for the federal college-preparation program. In a “request for correction” submitted today, the Council for Opportunity in Education argues that the report, in which Mathematica Policy Research Inc. dubbed the program “ineffective,” was plagued by design flaws and group-bias issues.

The request is being supported by several researchers, as well as the Education Department leader whose unit conducted the study (now a researcher at the Council for Opportunity in Education).

The longitudinal study, which the Education Department commissioned 20 years ago, has prompted a continuing debate about the goals of Upward Bound, a college-prep program for low-income and first-generation students that has been around since the mid-1960s.

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  • maricueta

    It is interesting that the report is summarized with the 1-sentence conclusion that the program is ineffective, when the actual report is not that simple.  This is evident in the discussion, also, for e.g., the report that ,” Disadvantaged students who seek out intensive programs like Upward Bound represent a strongly motivated segment of the target population. As a result, they are able to access needed services, graduate from high school, enroll in postsecondary institutions, and complete postsecondary education at rates consistent with the youth population as a whole.”  Does that mean they don’t need programs like Upword Bound.  Perhaps they would not have been as successful, despite their strong motivation, w/o such a program.  And yes, maybe there should be other, probably different programs for the “less-motivated,” but that is a different issue altogther.

  • willfitzhugh

    The College Board can “score” 16,000 student writing samples in 20 seconds. The National Writing Board takes three hours on each high school history research paper it assesses. The difference? The National Writing Board takes content and meaning into account. Slows things down.

  • cleverclogs

    You could show this to students from the “About” page of EssayTyper:

    “EssayTyper uses a patented combination of magic and wikipedia to help you write your essay – fast! That said, please don’t ever try to use this legitimately. The magic part is not real… and that’s plagiarism.”

  • badke

    Surely there are enough words out in cyberspace already.  Why don’t we take a further step and not have students write anything?  They could simply copy/paste/submit their favorite Wikipedia entry and thus help to slow the expansion of knowledge.  Aren’t we already overloaded? (looking at my comment, I feel myself becoming the heir of Jonathan Swift)

    Seriously, though, writing can only be taught effectively if it is evaluated by real professors with real human brains.  If robot writing like EssayTyper can be robot graded and passed (I’m assuming it could), then grading is, indeed, too mechanical. If we can’t maintain real human grading of student writing, students will write like machines, and EssayTyper may well do a better job.

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