幼兒園影響

哈佛研究報告：五歲看老
收藏 發給朋友 來源： 文匯博客 發佈者：中國醫學前沿網
瀏覽1277次 【共2條評論】【我要評論】 時間：2010年8月04日 11:20
幼兒園老師和同學對你一生有多大影響？

此前，經濟學家們普遍認為影響不大。好老師和早期教育在短期內有很大影響，但這種影響一般會逐漸消退。以考試成績為標準，到了初高中階段，接受過優秀早期教育的孩子與類似（背景）但沒有接受過此種教育的孩子相比，並沒有明顯優勢。更令人洩氣的是，進一步人們會問：幼兒園和幼兒園教師到底有多大作用？


但是消退效應有一個致命的軟肋。那就是，這些研究主要基於考試成績，而不是更廣泛的衡量標準，比如孩子的健康，或是最終的收入水平。如哈弗經濟學家拉茲·切提所說：「我們不在乎考試成績。我們在乎的是孩子長大成人後的成果。」


Early this year, Mr. Chetty and five other researchers set out to fill this void. They examined the life paths of almost 12,000 children who had been part of a well-known education experiment in Tennessee in the 1980s. The children are now about 30, well started on their adult lives.
今年早些時候，切提與另外五位學者開始致力於填補這一空白。他們研究了一萬兩千名孩子的成長軌跡。這些孩子是一九八零年代田納西一項著名教育實驗的研究對象。研究中的孩子們現在大約正當進入而立之年。

On Tuesday, Mr. Chetty presented the findings — not yet peer-reviewed — at an academic conference in Cambridge, Mass. They』re fairly explosive.
本週二切提在麻省劍橋的一次學術會議上公佈了尚未接受同行審議的研究結果。這一結果頗讓人震驚。

如同其他研究，田納西實驗發現，與其他教師相比，有些教師能夠讓學生們學到多得多的東西。也如其他研究結果，基於考試成績，這種影響到初中階段就消退了。然而切提和他的同事們進一步研究了學生們的成人生活。他們發現，幼兒園的饋贈又回歸了。


Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.
在幼兒園階段所學更多的孩子，與類似背景的其他孩子相比，更有可能進入大學深造。這些孩子成為單親父母的機會也更低。進入成年後，他們更可能為退休進行儲蓄。而最引人注目的是，他們掙得更多。

All else equal, they were making about an extra $100 a year at age 27 for every percentile they had moved up the test-score distribution over the course of kindergarten. A student who went from average to the 60th percentile — a typical jump for a 5-year-old with a good teacher — could expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than a student who remained at the average. Over time, the effect seems to grow, too.
所有其他條件等同的情況下，在幼兒園期間的測試成績分佈每上升一個百分點（譯者註：某個孩子的成績分佈６０％，就是說６０％的其他孩子成績比她差），到二十七歲時這個孩子的年收入大約提高１００美元。通常一個好老師會讓一個五歲孩子從平均線躍升到６０％，這意味著二十七歲時這個孩子與幼兒園平均水平的孩子相比年收入會高出１０００美元左右。隨著時間，這種影響似乎還會加大。

The economists don』t pretend to know the exact causes. But it』s not hard to come up with plausible guesses. Good early education can impart skills that last a lifetime — patience, discipline, manners, perseverance. The tests that 5-year-olds take may pick up these skills, even if later multiple-choice tests do not.
對於確鑿的原因，經濟學家們並沒有強作結論。但並不難做出合理的猜測。優秀的早期教育會培養影響人一生的能力－－如耐心、約束、舉止、堅韌等。五歲孩子接受的測試可能檢測出這些能力，而初高中階段的多項選擇考試卻忽略了它們。

Now happens to be a particularly good time for a study like this. With the economy still terribly weak, many people are understandably unsure about the value of education. They see that even college graduates have lost their jobs in the recession.
在現在這一時刻，這樣的研究成果尤其有益。經濟狀況仍舊相當糟糕，可以理解很多人此時會懷疑教育的價值。他們看到，就算大學畢業，在經濟衰退之際仍然會失業。

Barely a week seems to go by without a newspaper or television station running a report suggesting that education is overrated. These stories quote liberal groups, like the Economic Policy Institute, that argue that an education can』t protect workers in today』s global economy. Or they quote conservatives, like Charles Murray and Ramesh Ponnuru, who suggest that people who haven』t graduated from college aren』t smart enough to do so.
幾乎每週都會有報紙撰文或電視報道稱，教育的價值被高估了。這些報道會引用自由主義團體（如經濟策略學會 Economic Policy Institute）的言論，稱在當今的全球經濟中，教育難以為就業者提供保護。他們或者又會引用保守主義者（如查爾斯·穆雷和拉梅什·珀奴盧），稱那些沒拿到大學文憑的人，反正本來就不夠聰明。

But the anti-education case usually relies on a combination of anecdotes and selective facts. In truth, the gap between the pay of college graduates and everyone else grew to a record last year, according to the Labor Department, and unemployment has risen far more for the less educated.
但這些反對教育的言論大多基於道聽途說的個例和有限的事實。事實上，基於勞動部的數據，大學畢業生和沒有大學文憑者的收入差異，去年再創新高。對於教育程度不高的人群來說，失業率上升的程度也高得多。

This is not simply because smart people — people who would do well no matter what — tend to graduate from college. Education itself can make a difference. A long line of economic research, by Julie Berry Cullen, James Heckman, Philip Oreopoulos and many others, has found as much. The study by Mr. Chetty and his colleagues is the latest piece of evidence.
這不僅僅是因為聰明人－－那些不管怎樣都會做的很好的人－－更傾向於去獲得大學文憑。教育本身也會產生影響。Julie Berry Cullen, James Heckman, Philip Oreopoulos 等人所進行的經濟學研究，都支持這一觀點，切提及其同事的研究只是最新的證據。

The crucial problem the study had to solve was the old causation-correlation problem. Are children who do well on kindergarten tests destined to do better in life, based on who they are? Or are their teacher and classmates changing them?
而這一研究所回答的關鍵問題是這樣一個因果關係：幼兒園階段成績優秀與成人之後美好未來的關聯，是由於孩子自身的背景，還是老師和同學對其產生了影響呢？

The Tennessee experiment, known as Project Star, offered a chance to answer these questions because it randomly assigned students to a kindergarten class. As a result, the classes had fairly similar socioeconomic mixes of students and could be expected to perform. similarly on the tests given at the end of kindergarten.
這個被稱為「小星星項目（Project Star）」的田納西試驗為回答上述問題提供了可能。這一試驗將學生隨機分到幼兒園不同的班中，因此，每個班級學生的社會經濟背景組成基本類似。以此類推，在幼兒園結業時，其學業表現也應當相近。

Yet they didn』t. Some classes did far better than others. The differences were too big to be explained by randomness. (Similarly, when the researchers looked at entering and exiting test scores in first, second and third grades, they found that some classes made much more progress than others.)
但結果並非如此。有些班級的學業表現遠遠超出其他班級。其差異之大，已無法用偶然情況來解釋。（相類似，研究顯示小學一、二、三年級入學和結業考試在班級之間也有很大差異。）

Class size — which was the impetus of Project Star — evidently played some role. Classes with 13 to 17 students did better than classes with 22 to 25. Peers also seem to matter. In classes with a somewhat higher average socioeconomic status, all the students tended to do a little better.
「小星星項目」的一個原動力是研究班級人數的影響，這個參數確有影響。13-17人的班級比22-25人的班級表現更出色。同班同學似乎也有影響。平均社會經濟階層偏高的班級，所有學生的表現都會稍好。

But neither of these factors came close to explaining the variation in class performance. So another cause seemed to be the explanation: teachers.
但這些因素都不足以解釋學業表現的差異。這額外的因素似乎就是：教師。

Some are highly effective. Some are not. And the differences can affect students for years to come.
有些老師的教育非常有效，有些則差一些。而這種差異會對學生產生多年的影響。

When I asked Douglas Staiger, a Dartmouth economist who studies education, what he thought of the new paper, he called it fascinating and potentially important. 「The worry has been that education didn』t translate into earnings,」 Mr. Staiger said. 「But this is telling us that it does and that the fade-out effect is misleading in some sense.」
在採訪中，達特茅斯大學的經濟學家道格拉斯·斯泰格認為這一研究極其出色，並可能產生重要影響。「此前人們懷疑教育能否轉化成收入。」斯泰格稱「這一研究給我們肯定的回答。此前的消退效應，在一定意義上是一種誤導。」

Mr. Chetty and his colleagues — one of whom, Emmanuel Saez, recently won the prize for the top research economist under the age of 40 — estimate that a standout kindergarten teacher is worth about $320,000 a year. That』s the present value of the additional money that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers. This estimate doesn』t take into account social gains, like better health and less crime.
切提和他的同事們（其中伊曼紐爾·塞茨最近還獲得了40歲以下經濟學家獎）還估計，一名出色的幼兒園教師當值年薪32萬美元。這一估計是根據全班學生可額外增加未來收入的現值總和計算的。這一估計還不包括其社會價值，如健康水平的提高和犯罪率的降低。

Obviously, great kindergarten teachers are not going to start making $320,000 anytime soon. Still, school administrators can do more than they』re doing.
當然，在短期內優秀的幼兒園教師是不會掙到32萬美元年薪的。但教育主管部門應該對現狀有所改變。

They can pay their best teachers more, as Pittsburgh soon will, and give them the support they deserve. Administrators can fire more of their worst teachers, as Michelle Rhee, the Washington schools chancellor, did last week. Schools can also make sure standardized tests are measuring real student skills and teacher quality, as teachers』 unions have urged.
他們應當增加最優秀教師的薪水－－如匹茲堡市很快將實施的，並給他們更多支持。教育主管部門還應當如華盛頓州教育主管米歇爾·李上周所做的那樣，解雇最差的教師。如同教師工會所要求的，還應該確保標準化考試被用來衡量學生的真實能力和教師的水平。

Given today』s budget pressures, finding the money for any new programs will be difficult. But that』s all the more reason to focus our scarce resources on investments whose benefits won』t simply fade away.
在當今的預算壓力之下，確實很難獲得資金開啟新的教育項目。但我們是否更應當把有限的資源投入到那些持久的價值中呢？