The Two Million Minutes Blog

$60 Million High School Football Stadium

In the catergory of "Society Gets What It Celebrates" - Allen Texas is making a huge celebratory investment - construction has started on a new $60 million, 18,000 seat football stadium for a high school of 3,900 students.

In apparently unrelated news - High school science fairs are being eliminated around the U.S. due to budget cuts. "We had to cut somewhere," stated District Officials across the country.
NY Times: "Science Fairs Struggle to Survive."

Daniel Pink's Insights on "Pay for Performance"

Reasonable Questions About "Pay for Performance"

Five myths about paying good teachers more

Thomas Toch     

Education Secretary Arne Duncan says paying public school teachers based on their performance is his "highest priority," and he plans to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars to states and school systems that embrace the idea.

In the District of Columbia, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has made such reform a cornerstone of her agenda -- and a backdrop to her recent move to lay off 229 teachers in response to budget cuts. But school reformers have been trying unsuccessfully to introduce performance pay in public education for decades.

If today's reformers want to break the deadlock, they're going to have to let go of several myths hanging over the debate:

1. Merit pay has a strong track record.

2. Teachers unions are the biggest barrier to merit pay.

3. Principals are good judges of teacher talent.

4. Student test scores offer a simple solution to the evaluation problem.

5. Teachers are most motivated by money.

I would disagree with #2, but otherwise I believe these points should be thoroughly discussed.

Carmel High School Student Newspaper Responds: "Well-Roundedness Trumps Intellectual Rigor"

The HiLite, Carmel High School's student newspaper, published its reaction to the film Two Million Minutes on March 14th.

"Carmel High School students were recently featured in a documentary titled “2 Million Minutes,” a film that follows six students from around the world as they prepare themselves for college. The project, while it may be rooted in some basic truth, wrongly focuses the importance of high school education on regimentation and long hours of studying. Although this is an integral part of a successful student’s life, the documentary fails to show the importance of being well rounded and socially aware for a career in the working world. In this way, the two Carmel students in the film were unfairly categorized as not serious and unprepared for college and their future. But before Carmel community members jump headlong into fixing this perceived problem, they need to pause and take a deeper look into the reality of our educational system and take time to realize the benefit of Carmel’s type of high school experience.

Despite the uneven interpretation of our high school life, the film does make valid points concerning the future global economy. Students from the United States will be made to compete with not only other students within the country, but students worldwide as the economies and businesses of the world continue to mesh and collide. But although this maybe true, statistics indicate that CHS students will be fine. Last year 701 students here took one or more AP tests with a total of 1,347 exams total. During the 2006-07 school year, 86 percent of students who took an AP exam passed with a three, four or five. Impressively, 88 percent of students who attend Carmel end up going to college.

Additionally, Carmel has proven itself as an achieving school in all areas, even math and science. For example, students here have been honored with the Siemens Award, which recognizes students who achieve top AP scores within the state and nationally. The opportunity for our students to be in AVID, a college preparation program, is further proof of our concern for the advancement of our students.

The documentary raises an interesting point about the importance of being cultured, socialized and well rounded in order to succeed in the international economy. However, it puts too much emphasis in students’ future success by their ability to do well only in math and science courses, work long strenuous hours and sacrifice other aspects of their life in order to complete tasks. This is a narrow and impractical way to look at the future for young adults. It is an advantage, not a detriment, that Carmel provides the opportunity for its students to expand beyond these requirements. To get to the working world, of course, our students will have to be competent enough to complete the necessary skills; but to have success in this world other skills, skills that our students will have had the opportunity and time to acquire, are essential.

It is important for our students and the community to retain confidence in our form of education despite questioning from the documentary. Different is not necessarily bad, and in this day and age, different just might push our students ahead of the rest."

Much like the faculty at Harvard, Carmel's editorial staff is confident that the U.S. education system is more than adequately preparing its students for the knowledge-intensive, globally competitive careers of the 21st century - by producing the mythically powerful "well-rounded , socially aware" American.

Student Stress - US vs China & India

One of the most common objections I hear from US audiences about the Indian and Chinese emphasis on study during the two million minutes of high school is how much "stress" and "pressure" Indian and Chinese parents put on their children.

There is no doubt students in those countries feel parental, peer and community pressure to set high academic goals and to perform at a high level intellectually.

But I think as Americans we should be a bit cautious about throwing the "stress stones" without examining where we put pressure on our teens. In our glass house, athletic achievement is the pressure point for high school students - peer pressure to make the team, parental pressure to earn the scholarship and community pressure for athletic recognition.

The New York Times article "College Athletic Scholarships:Expectations Lose Out to Reality"
(Monday 3-10-08) offers insight into the stress and pressure Americans put on high school students and where a large portion of US teens' Two Million Minutes are spent.

More than 6.4 million US high school students participate in competitive high school sports. Today, to play on the football, basketball, baseball, track, hockey and other sports teams requires a very high level of effort, with almost year round training and practice - an enormous commitment of time and of money - the school's money for facilities and coaches; the parents money for outside coaches, camps and travel to competitive events.

As the article details, many parents and students justify the time, effort and expense with the expectation that a lucrative college scholarship is waiting for the student at the end of high school.

The sad reality is only a tiny fraction of high school athletes receive a college scholarship - about 1 out of every 90 athletes - and often the scholarship money is dwarfed by the money parents invested in the student's athletic career.

One student discussed in the article was Pat Taylor, who started playing soccer at 4, but didn't earn a scholarship. "...if I had it to do over, I would have skipped a practice every now and then to go to a concert or a movie with my friends. I missed out on a lot of things for soccer. I wish I could have some of that time back.”

Indian and Chinese parents are generally baffled by our emphasis on athletic achievement.  In their countries this time is spent on study and academic effort that leads to college and to a well-paying career.

Several Indian parents have remarked to me that they read with astonishment about the injuries US high school athletes suffer. "Mr. Compton, every year we read of 2-3 US boys dying of heat stroke during summer football practices. Why do American parents put such stress on sports to the point they kill their children."

I had no adequate response.

I am in no way saying we should do away with high school athletics, my daughters both play high school sports and they benefit from the exercise, commitment and teamwork that comes from athletics. I do advocate, however, that the portion of each student's two million minutes in high school that are devoted to sports should be in proportion to their benefit - both short term and lifetime - and should be secondary to the time and effort spent on academics. A smarter child is always a winner in the long term.

My take on the blog post by Lynn...

I mentioned in my earlier post that Lynn - one of the participants in the webcast of Two Million Minutes (on Dec 11, 2007) posted on her blog following the webcast.

While I take no issues with her observations, I do want to respond specifically to her one comment -

The US still produces an impressive number of graduates in science, engineering and information technology the majority of whom earn bachelor degrees. China and India have roughly four times the population of the US.

One should remember that a very high number of enrollments in the under-graduate, graduate and doctoral programs come from countries such as India, China, Vietnam and of course, the European nations. We should not forget the 'second crisis'  (maybe, I can convince Bob to embark on a 2MM sequel) that might be taking place - and that crisis being, many foreign students (typically) come to the US for higher studies. With the excellent infrastructure our universities offer and the generous financial assistance qualified students can get, the competition to get into 4-year engineering programs, and 2 year masters' program and the 6 year doctoral program is ONLY increasing.

In my numerous trips to India, I often find many bright engineers deciding to return to India - when I get into discussions about 'quality of life' , 'access to capital', career growth etc - their answers are strikingly different from the days I made the trek to US. India and China are 'welcoming' these ex-patriots. Just by way of an example, let me make my point - my dad was 50 years old when he was able to 'take a home loan' in India. He was repaying the loan well after retirement. That was 25 years ago. Now, young professionals in India can get a car loan, home loan (second home loan) -so, if one is able to put up with a bit of infrastructure nuisances, quality of life and professional career growth in India is VERY appealing to returning engineers.

I personally know several dozen Indians who decided to return to India in the past 3-5 years. This reverse-migration only increases the challenge for the American economy - the few venture capital investors I have spoken to in Bangalore readily admit there is a "wealth" of GOOD managers in India - and if you trace the route of these, these are silicon valley managers/entrepreneurs that were 'educated' in our best engineering schools and then decided to move to India. One can easily understand the economic loss in a situation such as this.

A casual scroll down the halls of universities such as MIT, Stanford, Purdue would (anecdotally) reveal the number of foreign faces in each of the classrooms.

So, in closing, while I respect the report authored/supported by Vivek and Duke, I invite the readers to consider the following:

1. What the % of foreign students enrolling in the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs - specifically related to Engineering, Science and Math?
2. Hypothetically speaking, if the answer to #1 happens to between 30 and 40%, should that raise an alarm again on the preparation of our K-12 children? - if we don't increase 'supply' of good / well educated 12th graders, won't the enrollment at the college level drop off for the Americans?
3. What happens to these 40% foreign nationals that obtain advanced degrees ? Should we as Americans create an environment where these nationals can stay here in the US and contribute to the growth of our country?

One final point - as I traveled through the schools for the film, I often heard the seniors say "Oh, we have many entrance exams to prepare for" - a typical student like apoorva or rohit will prepare for : 1) their high school final exams, 2) entrance exams for IIT, 3) entrance exams for Medicine/Dental fields of study, 4) entrance exams for GRE (Graduate Record Exam), TOEFL (Test of English as Foreign Language). It was clear to me that higher education in US is still a sought after path for these 18-somethings.

I hope this sparks more discussion on the 'second' part of the crisis - at the College / Advanced education level.

America's First Challenge - Parental Responsibility

As you view Two Million Minutes one of the most obvious differences seen in India and China in the education of children has nothing to do with the school system whatsoever.

In India and China, parents take primary responsibility for their child's education. Parents set high expectations for academic achievement, they require studying be done, they make academic excellence the most important aspect of life at home.

Indian and Chinese parents organize their own lives around making certain their child is studying, getting extra tutoring, developing their intellectual skills to the highest level possible. They invest a lot of time, energy and money in their own child's education.

Indian and Chinese parents treat academics the way many American parents treat sports. In America, it is common for parents to spend money on extra coaching or a sports camp or better equipment. Parents get engaged on their child's sports program - traveling to games, volunteering to help coach, donating money for better athletic facilities. And they celebrate athletic achievement with pride, compliments and encouragement.

Indian and Chinese parents put the same emphasis on academics and intellectual preparation. As the father of the Indian student Aproova so eloquently puts it - "My responsibility as a parent is to ensure that my daughters are globally competitive and that they can face the world fearlessly and able to compete."

How many American parents, when asked what their role is in their child's education would answer "to ensure that they are globally competitive"?

How many American parents have given much thought to their role in their child's education and then taken concrete action?

In India and China, parents are deeply involved in their child's education - and that seems to make a profound difference in how much their children learn in school.