ACUHO-I Opening Keynote Presentation: Roland Fryer

The 2011 ACUHO-I conference opening keynote was delivered by *Roland Fryer.  Professor Fryer opened up his keynote with a rousing story from back in the day.  Growing up, Roland was raised by his grandmother in both Texas and Florida state.  As his grandmother was an educator, he discussed that some of his favourite childhood trouble-making memories were often the result of "teacher in-service days" (PA/PD Days to those of you within the Ontario education system). Roland recounted the time when on one particular day, he stumbled upon a razor that was in his washroom, and proceeded to shave his eyebrows off, as any curious child would do.  When his grandmother returned home, she had a sneaky suspicion that Roland was lying to him as he had said that he "tripped, and they must have came off".  Roland's humour had the audience gripped, and proceeded to discuss more about his childhood. When Professor Robert M. Beren (the name Roland's goes by at Harvard University) was a freshman in high school, most of his family was in prison for drug related offences. At the time, his family was likely the largest distributor of crack cocaine in the state of Florida.

In beginning to understand where Roland "came from", he began to discuss how his current career began.  He went into economics because he liked it and was good at it.  He was tutored by an economics professor that had taken the opportunity to act as a mentor for him.  After several years, Roland arrived at Harvard University, worried that he "wouldn't be smart enough".  Although he was intelligent and able to keep up academically, Roland joked that he was socially unprepared - much like a bad "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" episode.

It was there at Harvard that Roland decided that he had enough of people saying that he had "beat the odds". "8 out of 10 of my friends are in prison", he said.  At that point, it was more important for him to focus on how we could change the odds for his friends and people in this situation.  He further discussed that he wanted to use economics to tackle difficult problems, such as incarceration rates.  "There are about 2 million people incarcerated every day", he said, "1 million of those people are black". He also spoke about the achievement gap that is currently prominent within the United States.  Roland informed us that "there's not a major city within the entire country, where there is more than 25% proficiency in both reading and math, amongst children of different ethnic backgrounds...this is a huge problem."

The discussion led into a talk about assessment. In assessing our programs as housing professionals, Roland discussed that it was important that we don't use the "Cardiac Test". That is, we don't go by our feelings or heart in determining whether something is successful.  We need to be assessing accurately.  To back up this belief, Roland discussed that currently, the US government has spent lots of money on education in the form of Teacher's Professional development studies.  He stated that this year, there are approximately 900 studies that were conducted on this topic.  Of these 900, only two used student outcomes to determine success.

Roland discussed an experiment with the group next, one where he decided to determine whether incentives could help close the achievement gap. The experiment?  Let's pay kids to learn.  The results were fascinating, indicating that contrary to economic theory (i.e. to be paid based on output), input-related incentives produced noticeable learning.  Output related incentives on the other hand, had no result.  There was no learning when children were paid to produce an expected result (increased grades).  This was suggested to be due to the fact that there was no idea on the part of the children, as to how to complete the tasks.  They didn't know how to raise their grades! However, if children were paid to read books (input), it resulted in their reading comprehension to raise by 3 months!

Roland next discussed another experiment, in which he had determined what makes the difference between good and bad schools.  This was primarily done by coding a large amount of classroom video.

1. The amount of time spent in school.
2. Human Capitol.
3. Differentiated Instruction.
4. How data is "used" to drive instruction.
5. Language and setting high expectations of children.

Probably one of the most interesting thoughts that hit home for me during this discussion, related to a comment that Professor Roland noted about the difference between the medical field and education. As his wife is currently working on cancer research, Roland mentioned that he had been discussing a community to his wife, where results in a 6th grade classroom had indicated that they had "defied the odds". He had learned that it was possible to have a closure of the achievement gap. When suggested that he "must be almost done" then by his wife, Roland was shocked.  He had never mentioned that he was almost done.  His wife explained to him the fundamental difference in the medical community.  If they had found two hospitals that had treated cancer successfully, people from around the world would "swoop" in immediately to learn what they were doing there.  Unfortunately stated Roland, this is not the case with the education system.  Roland left us with the fact though that "We can do this...we have to want to do it though". Overall, the opening keynote message was incredibly relevant and motivating.  It was well received by many, and started of the conference on a great note!

Professor Roland Fryer speaks at 2011 ACUHO-I Conference in New Orleans

*Excerpt from 2011 ACUHO-I Conference Program


Freakonomics, Roland Fryer has received praise from an array of sponsors, from universities and lecture series to insurance and financial groups, for his seasoned and engaging perspective on economic issues facing the nation. Roland Fryer is Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University.  In addition to being affiliated with Harvard University he maintains offices at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the DuBois Institute. In January 2008, at age 30, he became the youngest African-American to ever receive tenure at Harvard. 


In this speech rising economic star Roland Fryer draws on his research, which contributed to the success of the phenomenal bestseller Freakonomics, to give audiences insights into why businesses, individuals, and governments make decisions and how social pressures and societal trends might influence future policies" 


Interesting Links - The Colbert Report: Roland Fryer