The Education Gadfly Weekly

RAND 2001

RAND's Drug Policy Research Center has recently completed a project aimed at reviewing the structure and performance of the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA), which was signed into law in 1986 as the first coordinated federal effort to curtail teen drug use and is up for renewal as part of ESEA this year. This report contains material drawn from a literature review, focus groups, commissioned papers, and a conference, all focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the Act and its implementation. Some problems with the enactment of SDFSCA that are identified by the researchers include: a severe lack of funds, poor appropriation of resources, vague goals and evaluative criteria, poor training for teachers dealing with drug abuse and prevention, and a lack of coordination with other federal and state programs. The authors credit the Clinton administration with improving accountability in the program, but note that the reforms failed to boost program capacity, the targeting of resources, or cost effectiveness. The study recommends a range of reforms, including changes in the way funds are allocated to states, efforts to assess the need and capacity of the districts receiving funds, enhancements to the content of individual programs, and clear standards to judge program performance. To read a summary of the findings, go http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1328.1/MR1328.1.pref.pdf. Paper copies of this 187-page report can be ordered for $20 by surfing to http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1328.1/ or contacting RAND at (310) 451-7002 (phone); (310) 451-6915 (fax); or e-mail, [email protected]

Commission on High Technology Workforce Development August 14, 2001

The nation's teacher shortage-one that is not found in all school districts and all subjects, but which is particularly acute in math and science-is very much in the news as students and teachers head back to school. But it's not just schools that are having a hard time filling math and science positions; the scientific, engineering and information technology labor markets as a whole are experiencing a severe shortage of skilled workers. Last year, The New England Council formed a Commission on High Tech Workforce Development to examine the issue, placing special emphasis on the teacher labor shortage since schools' inability to hire qualified teachers restricts their ability to impart to students the knowledge necessary for high tech careers. A study of the teacher labor market in Massachusetts, conducted on behalf of the Commission by researchers at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies, revealed that teacher employment in the Bay State is actually quite stable, with a job vacancy rate of less than one percent. How can Massachusetts be suffering a severe teacher shortage if vacancy rates are so low? The report's authors explain that, "unlike other labor markets, teacher labor shortages do not manifest themselves through either rapid wage growth or high job vacancy rates. Instead of quantitative changes in supply-demand relationships that occur in most other labor market segments, the teacher labor market adjusts to shortages by reducing teacher quality." Thus, if highly qualified applicants are unavailable, schools will resort to hiring uncertified or less-qualified teachers to fill vacancies, in contrast to high-tech firms who "prefer to let jobs remain unfilled rather than hire workers who lack the skills required to do the job." Although the schools' practice is disturbing, it should be noted that the study defines a reduction in teacher quality as an increase in the number of uncertified teachers hired, under the mistaken assumption that certification is synonymous with quality and competency. The real cause for concern, then, is the body of "idiosyncratic institutional rules" that governs the teacher labor market and insulates it from corrective market forces and solutions-like differential pay-that could alleviate the "shortage" of qualified teachers if given the chance. Anyone seeking a greater understanding of the economic complexities behind the teacher shortage can order a free copy of the report by calling the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University at 617-373-2242 or e-mailing them at [email protected] (they'll e-mail you a copy).

Department for Education and Skills (UK) August 2001

Seeking to end a labor dispute that forced some schools to adopt a four-day schedule, the British government hired consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to analyze the workload of teachers and head teachers (principals) and suggest ways to improve their efficiency. In an interim report for the Department for Education and Skills, PwC explained their findings, which are based on fieldwork in 48 schools. Among the consultants' observations: teachers and head teachers work longer hours than many other occupations, though the volume of work is comparable to other professions when spread out over a year (adjusting for the typical 9 month school calendar); teachers welcome efforts to professionalize their field through greater accountability and higher expectations, yet they feel they are not given the support needed to meet those challenges (despite higher spending per pupil); and teachers' workloads are made excessive by having to perform tasks that could be carried out by other staff, by having inadequate technical support, and by wide variations in head teachers' and managers' effectiveness in managing workload. Nearly absent from the study, which contains all sorts of statistics and measurements relating to teachers' current working conditions and practices, is analysis of how these variables are affecting student achievement. Perhaps PwC's final report, to be released in November with recommended solutions for lessening teachers' workload, will shed some light on this most crucial element of the academic equation. In the meantime, if you'd like to read the interim report, request a free copy by emailing [email protected]

My older sister lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, for many years and her six children attended the public schools there. Her oldest child, my niece, took most of her public schooling in Texas and is now a teacher in Florida. The rest are graduates of the Arizona school system. Whenever I visited her, which I especially liked to do in the winter, I always talked to my nieces and nephews about what they were doing in school. My most memorable exchange was about a dozen years ago, with my nephew Steve.

I asked Steve what book they were reading in his high school English class. He replied that they were "doing Captains Courageous." I said, "How much of it have you read?" And he replied, "Well, we don't actually read it, we saw the movie and we are discussing it." That, plus similar conversations, left me with concerns about the quality of education in Arizona at that time.

When Lisa Graham Keegan was state superintendent, she tried to shake up this lax approach and put in its place a system of standards, assessments, and accountability. The hallmark of her reforms was the development of AIMS (Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards), the state test required for graduation.

Failure rates were high on this test, but the test questions were not particularly difficult. In one question, for example, students were given a map with a weather forecast for the state of Arizona, then asked a series of factual questions based on the map, like which of four places was warmest on December 28.

In math, the students were asked to answer the following: The table below shows the distance five students live from school. Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the information?

A All the students live less than 2.0 miles from school
B All the students live less than 0.5 miles from school
C All the students live more than 2.0 miles from school
D All the students live between 1.0 and 2.0 miles from school

A typical essay question asked students to write to a college requesting information about admissions. Students who can read and write can pass the AIMS tests in these subjects.

Keegan fought off efforts to dumb down or kill the test. However, she left office a few months ago, and her successor decided to make peace with her critics. Last week the new state superintendent Jaime Molera announced a series of moves to water down the requirements for graduation, mainly by deferring the consequences of failing the exam and by allowing students to avoid taking the state test.

Under current policy, the class of 2002 must pass the reading and writing portions of AIMS to graduate, and the class of 2004 must also pass the math portion of the state exam. However, failure rates have been high, especially among minorities, and opposition to the test has grown. Parents whose children were in danger of not graduating have successfully demanded delays in implementation; legislators have threatened to withdraw funding; civil rights groups have threatened lawsuits; organized education groups let it be known that they did not like the test and the graduation requirements.

Molera plans to delay implementation of the graduation requirement so that it would not affect anyone until the class of 2006 (and it could always be deferred yet again, perhaps forever). In addition, students who cannot pass AIMS will be able to graduate by taking an extra course or completing a writing project, perhaps a book report. Allowing students to graduate who cannot demonstrate their ability to read and write on an independent assessment will gut the graduation requirement and allow everyone to relax. Students will still be required to take the test, but they won't be required to pass it. That certainly removes any incentive for students to prepare for the test.

The state test shined a bright light on academic failure; it forced everyone to pay attention. It compelled the system to come up with better ways to prepare students who were not learning to read and write well enough to function independently in our society. Take that bright light away, and everyone can go back to business as usual.

Critics of the test say that the money spent on testing should be devoted to the classroom instead. One, who filed a civil rights complaint against the test, claiming that it was unfair to minorities, admitted that it was valuable to know how far behind minorities actually are in meeting the standards. If such critics eventually succeed in eliminating the state test, they won't even have the information on which to base their future legal challenges nor any means of knowing whether the gaps are growing smaller or larger.

The new superintendent's goal is to make everyone happy. Or at least to calm the loudest critics. According to the story in the Arizona Republic, Molera announced his changes at a press conference where he was surrounded "by the same educational leaders once scorned by his predecessor."

Says Superintendent Molera about his plan: "The system we propose mirrors the conviction Arizonans hold for our public education system." He's right about that. The changes he is proposing will secure once again the status quo ante. It will restore to parents, teachers, and administrators the system that they knew and with which they were very comfortable, one that allowed students to graduate without having to pass a state test, one in which the massive failure of minorities and disadvantaged kids was quietly ignored.

It's back to the kind of system that failed to educate my nephew Steve and his brothers. Steve is a clerk in a hardware store, just the kind of job that his Arizona education prepared him for. One of his brothers drives a wrecker truck; another works on a farm. The youngest, a girl, went to college, but none of the boys did. None of them was encouraged to use their brains and to raise their aspirations. They attended school in a system of low expectations, and that system is now planning its comeback. Too bad.

For details on developments in Arizona, see "Tamer AIMS on the Way," by Pat Kossan, Arizona Republic, August 24, 2001, http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0824aims24.html

Almost 75 percent of new teachers in the Cleveland Municipal School District either were considering leaving or were unsure whether they would stay, according to the results of a survey administered this spring. The teachers considering leaving cited the following reasons: student misbehavior (48%), lack of materials or supplies (47%), school is poorly run (38%), student apathy (32%), and lack of support from parents (30%). Much lower on the list were "class size is too large" (17%) and "want higher salary" (12%). The survey was administered by Catalyst: For Cleveland Schools, which is published by a local nonprofit to analyze and support school improvement in Cleveland's public schools. Several articles in the August/September issue of Catalyst take a close look at what new teachers want and how teachers who planned on staying were different from those who were thinking about leaving. You can read the issue online at www.catalyst-cleveland.org or call 216-63-6320 to request a hard copy.

Can you think of anything more fun than chaperoning 76 junior high school kids on a bus trip across America? Seth Kugel, who accompanied the KIPP Academy String and Rhythm Orchestra on a 17-day tour this summer, shares his diary with Slate readers at http://slate.msn.com/code/story/actions/print.asp?strURL=/XML/diary/01-08-20/diary.xml&iMsg=1

I read the results of the summer school program in New York City with a growing sense of dismay, in part because so many kids gained so little from the experience, but also because I had predicted this would happen in a New York Times op-ed a year ago, when the school system rashly threatened to send 325,000 kids to summer school. My guess at that time was that the system was incapable of managing a tightly targeted summer remediation effort. For the sake of the kids, I hoped I was wrong; I was not.

Some 72,000 kids were ordered to attend summer school because of their academic deficiencies. Of that number, 8,000 did not go. Some showed up irregularly. Most students who went to summer school failed their end-of-course exams in reading and math, but were promoted anyway. Two-thirds showed little or no improvement in math, and nearly 60 percent failed to improve in reading.

Improvements were greatest among the youngest children, especially children in third and fourth grades. Average reading scores actually dropped for eighth graders, both last year as well as this one.

Nearly three-quarters of the eighth graders scored in the lowest level of performance in reading and math at summer's end, which means that these students do not have the literacy or computational skills for high school work.

It would be interesting and probably depressing to calculate how much was gained for the $175 million that the summer session cost. One is tempted to think that more might have been gained per pupil if each student had an individual tutor.

The newspaper accounts have blamed truancy as the culprit in student failure, and no doubt this is right. However, more should be learned from this petri dish experiment in concentrated learning. If a student spends four or five weeks trying to improve in reading or math, the school system should be able to document more (or something) about "what works" and what doesn't.

Next time around, summer school should be planned with a strong research and evaluation component. We need to know what methods teachers were using; whether certain practices were more effective than others; what professional preparation teachers need to be successful with the low-performing students who are assigned to go to summer school. We need to learn more about the causes of success and failure among different age groups.

In addition to being a learning opportunity for kids who have fallen behind, summer school should also be a learning experience for educators, an opportunity to identify what the most successful teachers are doing and to identify the approaches that work best for the kids who need the most help. And frankly this would be a good opportunity to contract out some of the classes to companies that have a lot of experience in teaching reading and math.

The US has the finest scientists in the world but the rest of the population is abysmally ignorant of science. Why? Because science education in the US today exists as a kind of mining and sorting operation in which existing scientists search for diamonds in the rough who can be cut and polished into elite scientists, according to David Goodstein, a professor of physics at Caltech. In elementary school, few children ever come into contact with a scientifically trained person; in high school, many teachers say their greatest satisfaction is not in preparing all students to thrive in an increasingly technical world, but in finding those diamonds in the rough; in college, students may satisfy science requirements with a single fun course that does little to prepare them for the 21st Century. The solution, according to Goodstein: make teaching attractive to people with science degrees by paying them more and treating them with professional respect. To read "Science Education Paradox," a two-page column that appeared in the September 1 issue of Technology Review, surf to http://www.biotechknowledge.com/showlib.php3?uid=5620&country=uk

Since 1975, the percentage of young adults who have gotten their diploma through the GED program has risen from less than 3 percent to 12 percent. Since the Census Bureau includes GED holders as high school completers, these statistics mask a steady rise in the nation's dropout rate. But does the GED measure up as a high school equivalence exam? In a 10-page story in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Bruce Murphy traces the history of the GED and investigates claims made on its behalf. He reports that studies have found that GED holders are far less likely to succeed in college than high school graduates and more likely to drop out of the military. Astonishingly, some studies have found that GED holders have more job turnover and lower pay than even high school dropouts without a GED. Nobel Prize winner James Heckman is leading a team of researchers who have been documenting the poor performance of GED holders and raising questions about our use of the certificate. His research shows a 25 percent increase in high school dropouts since 1975. Back then, only one in 7 dropouts (age 18 to 24) had gotten a GED; today, half of all dropouts are GED holders. Some argue that raising the cut score for the GED would reduce the dropout rate. Others propose a return to the original rule that requires that test takers be 20 or older. Still others say that what is really needed is for states to stop the fiction of treating the GED as comparable to a high school diploma. For more, see "Shortcut to failure?" by Bruce Murphy, Chicago Tribune Magazine, August 5, 2001. You can retrieve the article from the Chicago Tribune archive for $2.95 by surfing to http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/ and searching for "Shortcut to Failure"

Charter schools have come under criticism in some quarters for failing to realize one of the goals emphasized by proponents: that they would serve as laboratories in which novel ideas and methods could be tested and best practices identified for dissemination among traditional public schools. For example, a recent study of California charter schools concluded: "... the charter schools we observed ... were not serving as models of innovation from which educators in other schools could learn." A new study of personnel policy in charter schools by economists Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky suggests just the opposite conclusion. In the areas of recruitment and staffing, pay flexibility and incentive pay, and staffing flexibility they find evidence of major differences between charter and traditional public schools.

The authors surveyed administrators of charter schools that had been in operation at least two years. They focused on seven states with relatively strong enabling legislation, exempting charter schools from many state regulations and freeing them from collective bargaining agreements unless the charter school faculty chose to unionize. While their our conclusions pertain only to those states, they certainly suggest that when given the opportunity, charter schools will pursue innovative personnel policies differing in key respects from those of traditional public schools.

In what ways did charter schools differ? Charter schools employ more teachers and aides relative to the number of students than do traditional public schools. In states where it is permitted, charter schools recruit significant numbers of uncertified teachers. In fact, many charter school administrators in their survey identified the ability to recruit uncertified teachers as an important source of recruitment flexibility.

Very few charter schools grant tenure to their instructors. Most teachers work under one-year contracts or are employees at will. In sharp contrast to traditional public schools, very few charter schools are covered by collective bargaining agreements. The average length of the teacher work day and work year are longer in charter schools. Dismissals of teachers for unsatisfactory performance are commonplace in charter schools.

Rather than adhering to traditional salary schedules, many charter schools raise salaries of teachers in hard-to-recruit subjects such as math and science. Nearly one-half of charter schools report using merit or performance-based pay. Many charter schools have broken with the common practice of awarding increases based on seniority or the accumulation of advanced degrees and college credits.

Given the modest size of their sample, it was not possible to conduct an extensive statistical analysis to determine which charter schools are most likely to adopt innovative policies. Nonetheless, their limited investigation suggests that schools in which teachers are unionized are less innovative. In addition, schools that are chartered by local school districts generally pursue more traditional personnel policies than do schools chartered by outside agencies such as state boards or higher education institutions.

Charter schools are a recent phenomenon. The practices identified by these authors may undergo further change as charter schools expand and mature. Many charter schools rely heavily on the services of relatively inexperienced teachers. Even private schools, which generally have younger teachers than public school systems, are not so dependent on teachers with less than three years' experience. Nonetheless, at the present time, personnel policies in charter schools more closely resemble those in private as compared to traditional public schools.

Personnel Policy in Charter Schools, by Michael Podgursky and Dale Ballou, The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, August 2001, http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=19

In recent weeks, the Chancellor of the New York City public school system has been heavily criticized, especially about cost overruns in school construction. The sharks have been circling, and the New York Times ran an editorial defending him (a sure sign that he is in big trouble). I'd like to say a few things in his behalf.

Harold O. Levy, as everyone knows by now, is from the business world. He is a lawyer who worked for a major banking firm with global interests. He has a passionate commitment to education and to kids. He brings a different perspective to the job of chancellor because he still has the capacity to be amazed when things go wrong and to insist that they go right.

I have appreciated his love of literature, poetry, music, and the arts, and his unembarrassed insistence on quoting Plato or some other classic writer to make a point.

He is not a company man, and it shows in his readiness to jump in and try to make things happen.

Although I have not spoken to him in a long while, I have a sense that he has had a long and rude awakening; that he discovered that the chancellor is not able to make things happen quickly; that good will and intelligence go only so far when faced with entrenched interests and bureaucratic inertia; that the chancellor is in some sense a flea on an elephant, and that the elephant outlives many fleas.

Forgive me if I express an unabashed affection for this man who has tried so hard to show that one man can change the system. And forgive me too for a somewhat cynical belief, born of long study of the history of this school system, that the system will not be changed by tinkering and that it will survive virtually intact despite the best efforts of one good man.

Commission on High Technology Workforce Development August 14, 2001

The nation's teacher shortage-one that is not found in all school districts and all subjects, but which is particularly acute in math and science-is very much in the news as students and teachers head back to school. But it's not just schools that are having a hard time filling math and science positions; the scientific, engineering and information technology labor markets as a whole are experiencing a severe shortage of skilled workers. Last year, The New England Council formed a Commission on High Tech Workforce Development to examine the issue, placing special emphasis on the teacher labor shortage since schools' inability to hire qualified teachers restricts their ability to impart to students the knowledge necessary for high tech careers. A study of the teacher labor market in Massachusetts, conducted on behalf of the Commission by researchers at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies, revealed that teacher employment in the Bay State is actually quite stable, with a job vacancy rate of less than one percent. How can Massachusetts be suffering a severe teacher shortage if vacancy rates are so low? The report's authors explain that, "unlike other labor markets, teacher labor shortages do not manifest themselves through either rapid wage growth or high job vacancy rates. Instead of quantitative changes in supply-demand relationships that occur in most other labor market segments, the teacher labor market adjusts to shortages by reducing teacher quality." Thus, if highly qualified applicants are unavailable, schools will resort to hiring uncertified or less-qualified teachers to fill vacancies, in contrast to high-tech firms who "prefer to let jobs remain unfilled rather than hire workers who lack the skills required to do the job." Although the schools' practice is disturbing, it should be noted that the study defines a reduction in teacher quality as an increase in the number of uncertified teachers hired, under the mistaken assumption that certification is synonymous with quality and competency. The real cause for concern, then, is the body of "idiosyncratic institutional rules" that governs the teacher labor market and insulates it from corrective market forces and solutions-like differential pay-that could alleviate the "shortage" of qualified teachers if given the chance. Anyone seeking a greater understanding of the economic complexities behind the teacher shortage can order a free copy of the report by calling the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University at 617-373-2242 or e-mailing them at [email protected] (they'll e-mail you a copy).

Department for Education and Skills (UK) August 2001

Seeking to end a labor dispute that forced some schools to adopt a four-day schedule, the British government hired consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to analyze the workload of teachers and head teachers (principals) and suggest ways to improve their efficiency. In an interim report for the Department for Education and Skills, PwC explained their findings, which are based on fieldwork in 48 schools. Among the consultants' observations: teachers and head teachers work longer hours than many other occupations, though the volume of work is comparable to other professions when spread out over a year (adjusting for the typical 9 month school calendar); teachers welcome efforts to professionalize their field through greater accountability and higher expectations, yet they feel they are not given the support needed to meet those challenges (despite higher spending per pupil); and teachers' workloads are made excessive by having to perform tasks that could be carried out by other staff, by having inadequate technical support, and by wide variations in head teachers' and managers' effectiveness in managing workload. Nearly absent from the study, which contains all sorts of statistics and measurements relating to teachers' current working conditions and practices, is analysis of how these variables are affecting student achievement. Perhaps PwC's final report, to be released in November with recommended solutions for lessening teachers' workload, will shed some light on this most crucial element of the academic equation. In the meantime, if you'd like to read the interim report, request a free copy by emailing [email protected]

RAND 2001

RAND's Drug Policy Research Center has recently completed a project aimed at reviewing the structure and performance of the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA), which was signed into law in 1986 as the first coordinated federal effort to curtail teen drug use and is up for renewal as part of ESEA this year. This report contains material drawn from a literature review, focus groups, commissioned papers, and a conference, all focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the Act and its implementation. Some problems with the enactment of SDFSCA that are identified by the researchers include: a severe lack of funds, poor appropriation of resources, vague goals and evaluative criteria, poor training for teachers dealing with drug abuse and prevention, and a lack of coordination with other federal and state programs. The authors credit the Clinton administration with improving accountability in the program, but note that the reforms failed to boost program capacity, the targeting of resources, or cost effectiveness. The study recommends a range of reforms, including changes in the way funds are allocated to states, efforts to assess the need and capacity of the districts receiving funds, enhancements to the content of individual programs, and clear standards to judge program performance. To read a summary of the findings, go http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1328.1/MR1328.1.pref.pdf. Paper copies of this 187-page report can be ordered for $20 by surfing to http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1328.1/ or contacting RAND at (310) 451-7002 (phone); (310) 451-6915 (fax); or e-mail, [email protected]