The headline of this post refers to the famous experiment on self-control that tested which children could resist eating a marshmallow for five minutes. If they did, they would get a second one, and those who resisted were documented to have long-term benefits. I’ve written about how I’ve used this experiment as a lesson in my classes — see “I Like This Lesson Because It Make Me Have a Longer Temper” (Part One).

I wonder how Arne Duncan and so many other school “reformers” would have done in this test because they so often insist on quick solutions to the challenges facing many schools. They’re searching for the magic bullet, as Larry Cuban writes today in his blog.

This lack of patience has most recently been shown by the demand that principals be replaced within two years if they have not successfully “turned around” a school. Superintendents and School Boards have challenged that kind of a short time-frame.

Also, a study came out today concluding that “When faced with a choice that could yield either short-term satisfaction or longer-term benefits, people with complete information about the options generally go for the quick reward.” It may feel good to the “shaker” to quickly shake things up, but that does not necessarily mean it will result in effective long-term improvement.

Yesterday’s death of Jaime Escalante also brings to mind the numerous miracle teachers who are portrayed in the movies as quickly changing things around in their schools. However, you can read a more accurate story about the length of time it took Mr. Escalante to make those changes happen (thanks to Alice Mercer for the tip).

Yes, sometimes a situation calls for immediate change.

More often than not, however, I’m reminded of my own actions years ago:

My wife would rightly push me to clean-up the small area of dirt between the street and sidewalk in front of our house. I didn’t have the patience to plant grass there. Instead, I bought some wood chips and poured them on top of the dirt. I got immediate satisfaction from seeing how nice it looked.

However, our house was at the end of a road with a slight downward tilt, and had a storm drain in front. Every time a big rain would come, debris would float down the road and block the drain. Water would then flow over the curb and take all the nice wood chips away. The dirt space would remain.

And then I would pour some more chips there.

I knew what would eventually happen, but I liked that immediate gratification more.

I hope that Arne Duncan eventually decides to plant some grass instead of pour wood chips.

I’ve just posted in my other blog, Engaging Parents In School, about the fight a group of parents is waging to be able to create a PTA in a Texas school district. The headline of the post is a quote from one of the parents.

You might want to read “You go to the school, you sign up to do a job, they tell you what to do.”

Last September, I wrote a post titled Conditional Cash Transfers, Parents, And Schools in my other blog, Engaging Parents In School. It talked about a new program that was becoming fashionable called conditional cash transfers. These are payments made to families to encourage them to do things like go to doctor appointments, and to children for increased school attendance and higher standardized test scores.

In my post, I shared that, though I thought these funds could be used more effectively to fight poverty in other ways, I really couldn’t complain about putting a few more bucks in the hands of poor families — for non-school related efforts. I wrote about how I thought it was damaging to children and schools when it was connected to education benchmarks, and my post connected to studies that showed that. In another post, I wrote more specifically about my objections to paying students for increased test scores.

New York City had started a heralded, and expensive, conditional cash transfer program heavily focused on school-related objectives. The program just announced the results of an evaluation of the program and it didn’t work, particularly for the school-related goals. They’re shutting it down. You can read about it in the New York Times article City to End Program Giving Cash to the Poor.

Surprise, surprise.

I wonder what the results would have been if they instead had put that $40 million into supporting family engagement efforts that do work, like teacher home visits to listen and build relationships, and connect parents with others who have similar concerns so they can act together on them; family literacy projects initiated and led by parents; the development of parent/school community gardens; and encouraging parent and school participation in community-wide organizing efforts to improve neighborhoods.

I’ve posted already about a good PBS interview with Diane Ravitch on the new Obama Administration’s Blueprint for re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In that same post, I shared the National PTA’s critique of its minimal focus on parent engagement.

Thanks to Teacher Ken, I’ve just learned about a very thorough analysis of the Blueprint written by Richard Rothstein titled A blueprint that needs more work. If you were going to read one analysis of the proposal, this would be the one I’d recommend.

Mary Ann Zehr at Learning the Language is interested in hearing comments related to the proposal’s sections on English Language Learners.

Here is the comment I left in response:

I don’t pretend to much of a education policy wonk, so I don’t feel like I can make a whole lot of comments. I do see that the Blueprint requires each state to “Implement a system to evaluate the effectiveness of language instruction educational programs.”

That sounds reasonable. However, my experience with our state (California) trying to do that a few years back raises big questions in my mind.

The legislature approved funds to identify successful ELL programs, which it then wanted to promote throughout the state. However, in order to be considered a successful ELL program, it had to be located in a school that wasn’t in Program Improvement.

That requirement obviously dramatically limited the number of ELL programs the state would consider successful — generally to more suburban ones with very small numbers of ELL’s. Our school, for example, was in PI at the time (as you know we later exited it, but now we’re back in), so even though few, if any, other schools in the state have an ELL program that is as successful as ours, we weren’t even considered.

So, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

I’d be interested in hearing other people’s perspective on what the Blueprint says about ELL’s, too….

You can read the Blueprint in its entirety here.