SBLAC 3: But don’t get me started on the Third Grade Brain . . .

I had a conversation with Allan Goldin, President of Kinetic Learning, Inc., a couple of years ago. We were discussing the use of Power Reading in the freshman curriculum of the Air Force Academy High School. He mentioned that most people read using the same techniques they had mastered in grade school. Of course, he said, most of them who go on to post-secondary education and/or become avid readers have continually honed a variety of reading skills and increased both their speed and their ability to comprehend complex literature. The point, however, was that they are doing it with the techniques they learned in grade school. And without discussing the relative merits of Allan’s Power Reading program, the illustrative nature of the Third Grade Brain is clearly evident.

Take the typewriter for example. Or the slide rule. I don’t use a typewriter or a slide rule anymore. I still know how to use both and I could use either if I wanted or needed. But I don’t want to or need to use a typewriter, electric or manual, or use a slide rule, period. Such is a Third Grade Brain’s approach to reading. It’s a typewriter. As long as it accomplishes the mission to the standard we’ve set, who is to say that it is not sufficient? A good secretary in the 1960’s could knock out some pages of typewriter prose with amazing speed and accuracy. Advanced models in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s stored 15 to 30 lines of type, let you review and edit, and then whip it out like nothing you’d ever seen before. It was pretty phenomenal. But it was a Third Grade Brain. Soon after, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the rest of the personal computing brain trust forced an evolutionary change that has made the typewriter all but obsolete. Computing innovations by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments and others have sealed the deal on both the typewriter and the slide rule. This is a technological triumph.

But the Third Grade Brain is an evolutionary anomaly. A great many metacognitive processes begin to shut down at about the time the third grade graduate realizes that he/she has the capacity to survive the world. There is no immediate imperative. A third grade graduate now has the skills and knowledge to ensure his/her own existence. The house is built. Wittingly or unwittingly, the child now has a tool kit with a slotted screwdriver, a pair of pliers, a ¾ lb. hammer, and, if he/she has been paying attention, a Phillips-head screwdriver. To a Third Grade Brain, what else do you need? This child can wash and clothe him/herself, find a store, buy groceries, make change, cook a simple meal, adjust a thermostat or find a blanket, manipulate electrical appliances and read simple recipes and directions. Complete independence, to a third grade graduate. Yet they make you go to school day after day, week after week, year after year. For what? “I don’t care about Argentina.” “I don’t care about exponents and fraction conversion.” “I don’t care about conjunctions and subject-verb agreement.” “And I really don’t care about cell mitosis.”

In 1950, 60% of employed Americans were working in jobs considered unskilled labor(1). These were mostly factory and construction jobs. A trainable Third Grade Brain was adequate. By 2000, the percentage of unskilled labor workers in American was closer to 15% and has been dropping since (and now down to about 12% or less). The 45% differential has been largely assumed by skilled labor which requires a close approximation of a “meets/exceeds” high school graduate. The WorkKeys® test (day two of the Prairie State Achievement Examination) draws that line at a score of 5/5 for Reading for Information and Applied Mathematics, respectively. In Chicago, less than a third of the graduates meet that standard. Most high schools are currently below 30%. Graduates are accepted into college these days but have to take basic math and English classes just to enter a program of study. The Third Grade Brain has devastating effects on higher education.

The basic premise is that when one realizes that he/she can read, process basic mathematics and arithmetic, feed, clothe and wash him/herself, acquire food and shelter and basically get from point A to point B, of what necessity is further education? Piaget might refer to this level of thinking as Concrete Operational which begins to manifest itself in early elementary. The conversion to Formal Operational requires conceptual understanding which also requires both teaching and learning but of a different sort. Of course, most of us continue to become more learned. Aside from being legally mandated, it seems common sense to realize that there is much more to learn to have a chance at a satisfying life. But do not believe for a minute that every single person agrees with the government on this one. High schools across the country are filled with kids who cannot for the life of them figure out why they are being put through all this mental torture and they actively resist.

Much of the phenomenon lies in the motivation of the Third Grade Brain to go beyond what is essential to survival. Some come from survival-oriented environments wherein this mentality is prevalent. I have witnessed situations in Chicago where high school students are literally persecuted for learning. Good students have been bullied for no reason other than their desire to study and get ahead. There is also a basic laziness which stipulates that anything beyond minimal effort is over-exertion. Some children come from families which mistrust the school system and promote a sort of non-compliance for whatever reason. Rationale for the Third Grade Brain is plentiful. Suffice it to say that plenty of folks do not give a hoot about “book learnin’.”

The United States Department of Education Institute of Educational Sciences tells us that in 2007 a whopping 81% of 4th graders were at or above basic math achievement levels(2). Interestingly, only 70% of 8th graders were at or above basic math achievement levels. My own calculations indicate that only about 50% of U.S. high school graduates meet their states’ math standards. Nationwide, less students are meeting the standards in math and science in the 8th grade than were meeting the standards in the 4th grade. As a percentage, state-by-state, we lose about 10% of our students meeting the standards between the 4th and 8th grades. That relative loss in the percentage meeting the standards grows as children enter high school. This is the phenomenon of the Third Grade Brain.

The effects of the Third Grade Brain are indeed devastating for our nation’s productivity. If one believes that a high school education is important to our nation as a whole, consider that in 2008 we had over 224 million people 18 years of age and older, of which 192 million had graduated from high school(3). That leaves 32 million adults that we know have not graduated from high school. Of these, we know 11 million (more than a third) are walking around with a Third Grade Brain as they never made it out of grade school.

Please don’t fool yourself into believing that the high school dropouts are walking around with eighth grade brains. In fact, a significant proportion of high school graduates have not yet achieved that significant milestone. As we promote children for showing up in class and doing their homework (turning it in is often the same as doing it yourself, regardless of who actually does the homework) we give credit regardless of whether or not the child has a clue. To wit: only about 30% of Chicago high school juniors meet minimal state graduation standards and most dropouts have left by the 9th and 10th grades. If you think that the remaining 70% who have not met state standards by spring of the junior year pick up the pace in their senior year than you are a true optimist. And ask any 9th grade teacher in Chicago Public Schools if the rank and file freshmen are fully prepared for ninth grade work. The answer is cleary, “no.”

But getting back to the 32 million adults without high school diplomas, that’s a few million shy of the total population of Italy and about ten million more than the population of all of Scandinavia. These people, for all intents and purposes, are dropouts. More than a third of them never made it into high school much less graduated from high school. The number of folks who have graduated from high school but have not progressed beyond the Third Grade Brain can only be imagined. We can begin an estimate by examining the data relative to meeting/exceeding the state standards (for whichever state you choose), whether they’re officially published as graduation standards or whether they are NCLB standards established to show whether or not a state has any standards at all (or in the first place).

In Illinois there is the PSAE. This is the state self-imposed assessment metric to determine whether or not high school students are meeting the self-imposed learning standards. The two day test takes place in the spring of the junior year of high school. Statewide, only about 52% of the test takers meet the minimal standards(4). As mentioned earlier, in Chicago the rate is closer to 30%. But even the higher rate is an admission that nearly half of our young adults, our own high school graduates have not met our self-imposed minimal requirements. And of course, this does not include those who have given up already.

Thus, keeping in mind that most high school dropouts have left before they get a chance to take that test, the number of adults voting, driving our highways, owning our firearms and drinking in the bars, all with a third grade brain, is just a little disconcerting. Yet we want them to find increasingly technical problem-solving jobs to be productive citizens. If the Illinois meets/exceeds rate is similar across the country, of the 192 million high school graduates in the nation, about 95 million did not meet state requirements. Add to that the 32 million dropouts and suddenly in a nation with 224 million adults, 127 million of them probably cannot pass minimal state learning standards – an interesting extrapolation. It appears Jay Leno is right; we are a nation of fools.

There seems to be a lot of disinterest in our lack of intelligence. I am quite perplexed that when we are confronted with the results of standardized assessments, our knee-jerk response is to profess outrage at the test. The Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) is a classic tale of institutional obviation when faced with organizational incompetence. The “high-stakes testing” smokescreen, either consciously or subconsciously, is a tool to divert attention from the basic truth: Our current educational system is incapable of educating all children to any type of instructional standard. Those who express contempt or disdain for the standardized testing of NCLB are mere apologists for mediocrity. Feeling good by not confronting our incompetence is an ostrich approach to problem-solving.

(1) See http://www.aces.edu/crd/workforce/publications/9-22-00-new-econ-defined.PDF, http://www.ceonetworkaustin.com/maxproductivity/March_2003.PDF,
and others.
(2) See http://nces.ed.gov/quicktables/result.asp?SrchKeyword=&topic=Elementary%2FSecondary&Year=2007.
(3) See http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/cps2008/Table1-01.csv.
(4) See http://webprod.isbe.net/ereportcard/publicsite/getReport.aspx?year=2009&code=1501629900795_e.pdf.