The Education Gadfly Weekly

Parents, be aware: The “proficient” designation that your child received on her state science test may not signify much. This new report from Change the Equation (a STEM-advocacy outfit) and the American Institutes for Research evaluates the proficiency cut scores of thirty-seven states’ eighth-grade-science assessments, comparing their rigor to that of the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The upshot? Fifteen states set their bars for proficiency below NAEP’s basic designation. Virginia is the worst of the lot—setting its cut scores far below the rest of the pack—and repaying itself with a 91 percent proficiency rate on its state exam. Only four states (New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Louisiana) expect their students to be at or above NAEP’s "proficient" threshold. (Feeling a bit of déjà vu? This report is a lot like Fordham’s own Proficiency Illusion blockbuster from 2007, in which we drew similar conclusions about reading and math.) A word on the forthcoming common science standards: This work is necessary—and hugely important. But, as we are reminded time and again, it is not sufficient. A failure to link quality standards to rigorous assessments with balanced cut scores is akin to swiping the legs of any common science-standards initiative, just as it’s learning to walk.

Change the Equation and the American Institutes for Research, All Over the Map: Comparing States’ Expectations for Student Performance in Science (Washington, D.C.: Change the Equation and the American Institutes for Research, December 2011).

In this book, MacArthur “genius” Lisa Delpit offers an interesting follow-up to her acclaimed Other People’s Children, tackling the continuing challenge of boosting minority student achievement. Using innumerous anecdotes and the occasional data point, Delpit weaves through the complexities of race, class, and culture in America’s schools—and society. In the end, she finds a racial “expectation gap” that pervades our present system. To counter it, educators must develop a “no excuses” attitude (though not necessarily the KIPP-like model of how to implement it), and fight the “responses to oppression” that foster chronic underachievement. The read is quick and enjoyable, and she covers a number of issues, from malnutrition myths to stereotyping to the squishy meaning of “basic skills.” While we don’t always agree on the means of reaching the end, we can definitely get behind Delpit when she says “There is no simple recipe, and the only real solution is for humans who care…to confer, collaborate, argue, ponder, and act to fashion a space for real dialogue and understanding.” Educators and reformers alike would be wise to give this book a look (it’s now available on pre-order)—Delpit adds grounding, and some color, to a discussion that is often arid and unproductive.

Lisa Delpit, “Multiplication is for White People”: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children, (New York, NY: The New Press, March 2012).

Few issues as serious as the pension crunch are equally as dull. Addressing unfunded liabilities and implementing defined-contribution plans simply aren’t compelling calls to arms, despite the widening consensus that the balance sheets of public-sector retirement-benefit systems pose grave threats to state budgets. That’s why the clarity and concision found in this recent “solution paper,” penned by Josh McGee for the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, are so valuable. The piece may be light on detail, but that’s part of the point: It doesn’t aspire to wonky analysis. Instead, it aims right at policymakers and the public in explaining why the set payouts of the traditional defined-benefit (DB) retirement-benefit structure are unsustainable. McGee efficiently makes the case that irresponsible pols inevitably underfund DBs, explains the challenges in projecting their costs, and lays out how they incentivize expensive (and counterproductive) employee behaviors. He then outlines the major cost-saving alternatives on the table—including defined contributions, cash-balance plans, and “stacked hybrids.” (OK, it’s just a little wonky.) There’s far more to this complex topic than McGee includes in this brief paper (case in point: Fordham’s recent study of successful pension reforms), but as an accessible introduction to a vital issue, it’s hard to beat.

Josh B. McGee, Creating a New Public Pension System (Houston, TX: Laura and John Arnold Foundation, 2011).

Mike and Daniela go edu-meta, asking whether the accountability era has run its course, what the role of for-profits are in digital education, and how state-run districts and schools may reshape governance. Amber investigates the science “proficiency illusion” and Chris channels the Grinch.

Whether you consider this week’s New York Times article on K12.com a “hit piece” (Tom Vander Ark) or a “blockbuster” (Dana Goldstein), there’s little doubt that it (and the recent crop of other pieces like it) will have a long-term impact on the debate around digital learning. Polls show that the public in general and parents in particular are leery of cyber schools, and this kind of media attention (sure to be mimicked in local papers) will only make them more so.

But just as these criticisms aren’t going away, neither is online learning. That genie is out of the bottle. So how can we go about drafting policies that will push digital learning in the direction of quality?

This is something we at Fordham are busy pondering. To that end, we’ve published three papers (so far) in our series Creating Sound Policy for Digital Learning: Rick Hess on quality control; Paul Hill on funding; and Bryan and Emily Hassel on teachers. And in January, we’ll publish an analysis by the Parthenon Group of what high-quality fulltime online learning really costs.

Set aside for a moment the Times’s extremely selective use of data, expert opinion, and evidence. Where the article landed a punch, in my view, was around the perverse incentives at play today. Clearly K12, and its well-paid CEO, Ron Packard, face strong incentives to boost enrollment at their schools. Unfortunately, states haven’t figured out a way to create similar incentives around quality. And that needs to change.

First, a short digression. I worked at K12 many moons ago, just after its creation. (I believe I was employee number ten.) I needed a job, and I convinced Bill Bennett to create a role for me in which I would figure out how to take K12’s rich resources and make them available for poor kids. (After-school tutoring programs seemed to be particularly promising venues.) Our basic assumption was that K12’s model—which relied on parents or other caretakers doing most of the instruction—wouldn’t be feasible for kids living in poverty, most of whom would need the custodial care offered by traditional public schools.

To be honest, I didn’t make much progress. The learning materials weren’t even created yet, and so I had few “partnerships” to offer to communities; I left after nine months.

But what a difference a decade makes. One of the real surprises of the online-learning movement is that lots of poor families are choosing to give it a try, and that explains (to a large degree) why K12’s test scores are lagging. (Yes, poverty and achievement are linked, at least for now.)

	Schools of all kinds should only get paid for the days of instruction that kids actually show up (or log in) for.

And the impression painted by the Times article is that online education companies like K12 have every reason to sign up as many parents as possible—poor, rich, whatever—regardless of how prepared they are to tackle the challenge of home-based instruction. Because of some states’ sloppy finance systems, the schools can keep the money if the families change their minds and head back to traditional schools. And, as has been true for all public schools since the beginning of time, the online schools get paid whether their students are learning or not.

Solving the payment problem is the easier challenge. Schools of all kinds should only get paid for the days of instruction that kids actually show up (or log in) for. But is it time to consider performance-based funding, too? To pay companies like K12 more or less depending on how their students perform on state tests or depending on their graduation rates?

In his paper for Fordham, Paul Hill dismisses the idea, arguing that:

Pay for performance would create a harsh environment for all education providers. Conventional, virtual, and hybrid schools might spend money on a student’s instruction for a whole course or semester yet receive nothing in return. Online vendors of all kinds, who have little control over their students’ effort or persistence, could be even more at risk. In general, this approach would limit the unproductive use of public funds and quickly destroy any vendor that could not demonstrate good results. It would favor providers with deep pockets, e.g., district-run schools and online vendors supported by large foundations. Performance-based payment as defined here could create a lethal environment for smaller-scale innovators.

He’s probably right about smaller-scale innovators, but I still think it’s worth a try, at least for full-time online schools. (It might be harder in the “blended learning” setting, where a child might be taking just one or two subjects online.)

What if K12 only got paid for every student that made at least a year’s worth of progress on the state test? Some argue that this would create its own perverse incentives, encouraging the company to cherry pick students who are most likely to succeed. But if the measure is student growth, and if the test being used is a good one (the latter being a big if, admittedly), then all kids but those with severe cognitive disabilities should be seen as contenders.

Instead of signing up students willy-nilly, K12 would then have a reason to vet each family’s situation to make sure they are ready for the rigors of online learning. They would invest, up-front, in assessing whether the child’s parents or other caretakers are up to the task of instructing the student, and whether they have a home situation conducive to success. And then K12 would work like the dickens to make sure every student makes strong progress over the course of the year.

Personally, I’d like to see performance-based pay for all schools. That may not fly anytime soon, but performance pay for online learning (at the least the full-time, virtual-charter-school version) could. Which state is ready to give it a try?

This piece originally appeared (in a slightly different form) on Fordham’s Flypaper blog. To subscribe to Flypaper, click here.

The power of the voodoo. Who do? You do. Do what?
Photo by Juha-Matti Herrala

2005’s hurricane catalyzed one of the largest governance experiments in American education to date, as Louisiana implemented its Recovery School District law under which it took responsibility for the worst schools in the Big Easy (and a few others throughout the Bayou State). While other state-takeover initiatives have seen mixed results, Louisiana’s push has yielded big upticks in student-test scores. Two reasons why Louisiana’s initiative has fared well: It doesn’t get bogged down in the schools’ day-to-day operations. (It offloads that responsibility onto school leaders—where it belongs.) And it scraps the current edu-governance system (no more school boards, locally elected or otherwise), giving site management over to charter networks and other external providers. The idea has some converts: Michigan (with its Education Achievement System) and Tennessee both recently announced the creation of their own “recovery school districts” (though both remain in the pilot stage). This slowly widening movement holds much promise: States can offer management know-how and dedicated resources and can skirt district contracts that stymie creative school models—without getting bogged down in local politics or bureaucracy. Successful state takeovers of failing districts are elusive—often written off (including by us) as a lost cause. But this 2.0 model sure is promising.

Talk is fine. But it's now time to walk the walk.
Photo by Gustavo Verissimo

Seven days ago, the National Education Association (NEA)—long dormant in matters of education reform—began to stir. The nation’s largest teacher union unveiled a plan to promote teacher effectiveness last Thursday. Some of the NEA's ideas we’ve heard before (the union has long endorsed teacher-residency and peer-assistance-and-review programs, for example). But many are worthy new ideas—new, at least, to the NEA. For prioritizing these, the union should be commended. (Gadfly readers might find the appeal for a career ladder for teachers, with differentiated pay and responsibility, to be a reasonably mainstream idea, but remember who’s doing the talking here.) To be sure, old-school NEA thought does seep into the reform plan in places: While it’s a good notion to disallow inexperienced teachers from leading the classrooms of our neediest students, the back-handed knock at Teach For America inherent in this recommendation is unnecessary. Further, the union’s avoidance of linking teacher evaluations to additional teacher compensation is short-sighted. Overall, though, nice start, NEA. The question now looms: How will you turn these recommendations into reality? Might we offer a suggestion? Find a partner district—we think Columbus might do the trick—and get to work piloting these initiatives, lest the worthwhile ideas set forth by the committee remain just so (as they did with last summer’s promising NCATE announcement calling for revamped education-school models).

“NEA Stakes a Claim in Teacher Effectiveness Debate,” by Liana Heitin, Education Week, December 8, 2011.

Parents, be aware: The “proficient” designation that your child received on her state science test may not signify much. This new report from Change the Equation (a STEM-advocacy outfit) and the American Institutes for Research evaluates the proficiency cut scores of thirty-seven states’ eighth-grade-science assessments, comparing their rigor to that of the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The upshot? Fifteen states set their bars for proficiency below NAEP’s basic designation. Virginia is the worst of the lot—setting its cut scores far below the rest of the pack—and repaying itself with a 91 percent proficiency rate on its state exam. Only four states (New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Louisiana) expect their students to be at or above NAEP’s "proficient" threshold. (Feeling a bit of déjà vu? This report is a lot like Fordham’s own Proficiency Illusion blockbuster from 2007, in which we drew similar conclusions about reading and math.) A word on the forthcoming common science standards: This work is necessary—and hugely important. But, as we are reminded time and again, it is not sufficient. A failure to link quality standards to rigorous assessments with balanced cut scores is akin to swiping the legs of any common science-standards initiative, just as it’s learning to walk.

Change the Equation and the American Institutes for Research, All Over the Map: Comparing States’ Expectations for Student Performance in Science (Washington, D.C.: Change the Equation and the American Institutes for Research, December 2011).

In this book, MacArthur “genius” Lisa Delpit offers an interesting follow-up to her acclaimed Other People’s Children, tackling the continuing challenge of boosting minority student achievement. Using innumerous anecdotes and the occasional data point, Delpit weaves through the complexities of race, class, and culture in America’s schools—and society. In the end, she finds a racial “expectation gap” that pervades our present system. To counter it, educators must develop a “no excuses” attitude (though not necessarily the KIPP-like model of how to implement it), and fight the “responses to oppression” that foster chronic underachievement. The read is quick and enjoyable, and she covers a number of issues, from malnutrition myths to stereotyping to the squishy meaning of “basic skills.” While we don’t always agree on the means of reaching the end, we can definitely get behind Delpit when she says “There is no simple recipe, and the only real solution is for humans who care…to confer, collaborate, argue, ponder, and act to fashion a space for real dialogue and understanding.” Educators and reformers alike would be wise to give this book a look (it’s now available on pre-order)—Delpit adds grounding, and some color, to a discussion that is often arid and unproductive.

Lisa Delpit, “Multiplication is for White People”: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children, (New York, NY: The New Press, March 2012).

Few issues as serious as the pension crunch are equally as dull. Addressing unfunded liabilities and implementing defined-contribution plans simply aren’t compelling calls to arms, despite the widening consensus that the balance sheets of public-sector retirement-benefit systems pose grave threats to state budgets. That’s why the clarity and concision found in this recent “solution paper,” penned by Josh McGee for the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, are so valuable. The piece may be light on detail, but that’s part of the point: It doesn’t aspire to wonky analysis. Instead, it aims right at policymakers and the public in explaining why the set payouts of the traditional defined-benefit (DB) retirement-benefit structure are unsustainable. McGee efficiently makes the case that irresponsible pols inevitably underfund DBs, explains the challenges in projecting their costs, and lays out how they incentivize expensive (and counterproductive) employee behaviors. He then outlines the major cost-saving alternatives on the table—including defined contributions, cash-balance plans, and “stacked hybrids.” (OK, it’s just a little wonky.) There’s far more to this complex topic than McGee includes in this brief paper (case in point: Fordham’s recent study of successful pension reforms), but as an accessible introduction to a vital issue, it’s hard to beat.

Josh B. McGee, Creating a New Public Pension System (Houston, TX: Laura and John Arnold Foundation, 2011).