The Education Gadfly Weekly

Institute of Education Sciences
U.S. Department of Education
February 2006

When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, it also required production of a National Assessment of Title I that would evaluate both the implementation and results of the program's major provisions. This is the first volume of the interim report (a final report is due out in 2007), and it focuses on implementation. Within it, key Title I components-such as those related to state assessments, school choice and supplemental educational services, achievement scores, and teacher quality-are closely examined. Some results are shameful. For example, a whopping 49 percent of districts notified parents about their children's supplemental services and school choice options after the school year had already begun. On average, notification occurred five weeks following the first day of classes. This is unacceptable, and it helps explain why only 38,000 students (out of an eligible 3.9 million) took advantage of school transfers in 2003-2004. Some in Congress noticed this massive failure, and they've sounded the alarm. The new chairman of the House Education & the Workforce Committee, Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA), said, "I'm particularly concerned that parents are not being informed quickly enough if their child's school is not making adequate yearly progress. In fact, this late notification seems to be impacting a parent's ability to take advantage of school choice and supplemental educational services options under the law." Indeed it is. Another disturbing item showed that, when parents and students are alerted about their eligibility for free tutoring, they often have little information to help them choose among providers (see here). Nor can they be confident that the tutors have any sort of "good housekeeping" seal of approval. According to the report, "as of early 2005, 15 states had not established any monitoring process [of tutoring providers], 25 states had not yet established any standards for evaluating provider effectiveness, and none had finalized their evaluation standards." Of course, there were some bright spots. From 2000 to 2005 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, black fourth graders gained 10 points in reading and 17 points in math. Hispanic fourth graders gained 13 points in reading and 18 points in math. Youngsters are responding to the reforms of No Child Left Behind. Imagine what the numbers could be like if the law was actually implemented faithfully. The report is available here.

Jane L. David and Larry Cuban
Education Week Press
2006

Cutting Through the Hype is true to its title. This book is for those befuddled by edu-jargon, or simply unfamiliar with the latest in education policy. It's a primer that gives good background information and, for the most part, smartly evaluates recent education reforms such as standards-and-accountability and school choice. The authors explore three key questions: What are the realistic expectations of these highly touted reforms? What trade-offs do they involve? and, What can be done to increase their successes? Each of the three major sections-system of schooling, school organization, and teaching/learning in the classroom-provides an easy, readable walk through some of education's major reform movements. Curriculum reform, professional teacher development, and declining academic achievement in middle schools (among many other topics) are given a fair, brisk treatment. The authors acknowledge that standards-based reform, test-based accountability, and school choice (all hallmarks of No Child Left Behind) have brought about some successes, but they believe the right blend of reforms has yet to be achieved. For them, successful reform is about balance-coupling high standards with strong curricula and teaching, holding schools accountable while providing adequate funding and support, and giving school choice options to low-income families. At times, the recommended solutions state the obvious without providing concrete suggestions. For example, the authors conclude that the achievement gap is best closed by "providing funds and keeping pressure on schools...without setting unrealistic expectations and punishing schools." Most would agree with that sentiment, but the book offers no implementation strategy or evidence to back it up. But it does recognize that most reforms are easier said than done, and that even the most balanced policies are plagued by problems when they are eventually implemented in schools. This is no hard-driving report laden with quantitative data or research, but it is a fairly comprehensive, even-handed introduction to education reform. In fact, if you're teaching a class on education policy, it might make a nice supplement to No Child Left Behind, A Primer. You can order a copy here.

Astute observers of urban political campaigns know better than to be surprised when candidates "play the race card"; but how often does this happen when both opponents are black? Cory Booker is the frontrunner to take the reins of Newark, New Jersey from longtime Mayor Sharpe James, but Booker's catching flack from his closest competitor, Deputy Mayor Ronald Rice. Rice has charged that Booker's support of school vouchers makes him the "New Jersey point-person of the far-right Christian wing of the Republican Party," and he called Booker a proxy for "ultra-white, ultra-conservative" power. Never mind that Booker is a black Democrat. Thankfully, those demagogic tactics don't seem to be working. The Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, executive director of the Black Ministers' Council of New Jersey, says, "I think a majority of citizens in Newark want school change by any means necessary." Surely that goes double for impoverished parents fed up with shoddy public schools. So Booker can count on the support of Newark's families; Rice can keep spewing venom and count on the local teachers union.

"Voucher Issue a Touchy Topic in Newark Race," by Damien Cave and Josh Benson, New York Times, April 17, 2006

It seems that the cultivated Old Europe ennui of countries such as France and Italy has migrated from the continent, hitched a Chunnel ride, and taken a foothold in the land of Thatcher, Disraeli, and Burke. The Independent reports that British teachers are embracing boring lessons as "preparation for life" and have called for more of them. At a recent conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, supply maths instructor Zoe Fail garnered loud cheers when she said, "Children are not bored enough.... Being bored encourages thinking skills and imaginative play." Barry Williams, a lecturer from Cambridgeshire, agreed, and he told a reporter that those who find his teaching dull simply miss its many "nuances and subtleties." Brits, beware this trend. The French and Italians can embrace stasis because their countries and cultures are rife with things to do when bored (painting water lilies, say, or making love) and relaxing locales. But Bournemouth Pier is not Cote d'Azur, Newcastle is not Bordeaux, and fish and chips is not gnocchi alla Romana. The UK's students need to be entertained in class, if only to keep them from gazing out the schoolhouse windows at acres of fog-shrouded peat bogs. Come on, England! You started the Industrial Revolution-now don't go wobbly.   

"Boring lessons 'are preparation for life'," by Oliver Duff, The Independent, April 14, 2006

This is the first in an occasional series of articles about state-level education reform and its national implications. To write an essay on your state, please contact Liam Julian.

As immigration debates heat up in the U.S., so, too, does education's role in the discussion. Can our current public education system-which already does a poor job educating its young population-be expected to handle the surging numbers of non-English-speaking youngsters? Can the growing number of charter schools and other schools of choice create enough opportunities for those who need it? A look at Arizona provides some early answers. 

The Grand Canyon State's education system faces two major challenges. The first is the state's rapidly growing population. Between 2000 and 2003, Arizona's total population grew by 450,000 people at a rate three times the national average. And over the past five years, public school enrollment has soared 13 percent. Major increases in Hispanics largely explains both trends. The result? In 1992, the state's public schools were 60 percent Anglo and 27 percent Hispanic. In 2002, they were 49 percent Anglo (and falling) and 37 percent Hispanic (and rising). Arizona's public school population is a "majority minority."

The second problem is the state's continuing failure to arm students, particularly its non-Anglo population, with the skills necessary to succeed in the modern economy. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows that 63 percent of Arizona's Hispanic fourth-graders failed to demonstrate basic literacy skills in English, while 67 percent of its black students also score below basic. A nothing-to-write-home-about 30 percent of Anglos didn't meet the mark, either. What the demographic and NAEP data suggest is that Arizona schools suffer not from a changing demographic profile so much as from a general inability to educate non-affluent children.

This seems surprising, especially since Arizona has been in the forefront of choice-based education reform. It enacted the nation's strongest charter school law in 1994 and now has 449 charter schools educating over 96,000 youngsters-approximately 10 percent of the state's public school students. It ranks first on the Manhattan Institute's "educational freedom" index. Moreover, the data show those choice-based reforms have been effective for students and schools.

In their study of charter school achievement, Lewis Solomon and Pete Goldschmidt found that charter students made greater academic progress than students in Arizona's district public schools. And Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby demonstrated that, when faced with charter school competition, Arizona public schools made stronger than average academic gains (see here).

With such solid evidence of choice-based improvement at the micro (student and school) levels, why aren't aggregate scores improving faster?

Because the benefits that competition brings-in aggregate-are being dulled by the burgeoning student population. That increase is effectively blunting the competitive impact of existing school choice programs.
 
Thus, some of the worst-performing public schools in the state remain relatively unaffected by school choice. Consider the Roosevelt Elementary District. Of 18 Roosevelt schools, 14 scored in the bottom 10 percent in reading, math, or both, on national norm-referenced tests. Yet now, even after losing children to newly opened charter schools, Roosevelt still enrolls a few hundred more students than it did years earlier, because there are so many new students who need a place to attend school.

In theory, inter-district choice and charter schools should provide options to distressed parents in districts such as Roosevelt. In reality, area charter schools have long waiting lists, and neighboring school districts lack space for transfers (or covertly will not accept them). Thus, Roosevelt's schools have been abysmal for years, but many of the district's parents have nowhere else to go. In short, even Arizona's aggressive education reforms haven't kept up with the needs of the state's swelling student population.

State lawmakers can do more. The obvious solution is to create many more charter schools and other schools of choice to meet growing parental demand. At the same time, they should untie the hands of traditional public schools so that they can serve additional students and become more competitive. Lawmakers could start by realizing that top-notch teachers-not small classes-are the key to student success, and by making teacher quality one of their top priorities. Let the best teachers-those whose students have demonstrated consistently high academic performance on a value-added scale-teach larger classes, and pay them more. If the demand is there, supply shouldn't limit the options for Arizona's students. Make teacher performance data available to parents and give them not just a choice between schools, but also between teachers.

Such reforms will face strenuous opposition from the usual suspects. But as student populations rise throughout the nation, citizens will not be able to confront new education setbacks with old solutions. Arizona is experiencing a student population boom, and lawmakers have embraced school choice to offset the growing numbers. But they must do more-starting with a reexamination of the way classes are taught, and a reexamination of who's teaching them. America's education reformers should keep one eye on the Grand Canyon State. Its successes and failures may soon be those of the nation.

Weighted student funding isn't just a topic for wonkish debate anymore-regular citizens are starting to get interested, too. Reason's Lisa Snell profiles parents and students who have benefited from San Francisco's school funding program, which allocates public education dollars based on individual student needs. Those dollars then follow each child to the public school of his or her choice. Some successful variations of the formula are currently in place in other cities as well, including Seattle, Cincinnati, and Houston. It's notable that this school finance system, which decentralizes power and instills greater parental choice among city public schools, is so staunchly supported in San Francisco. Frisco parents typically "don't support education tax credits or school vouchers" and are generally opposed to charter schools. Yet this initiative has the (worthwhile) potential to make the regular public schools more charter-like. And as a forthcoming Fordham Institute manifesto will demonstrate, weighted student funding is starting to win favor with policy thinkers of all stripes. You might even call it a seismic shift in education policy, San Fran style.

"The Agony of American Education: How per student funding can revolutionize public schools," Lisa Snell, Reason Magazine, April 2006

Institute of Education Sciences
U.S. Department of Education
February 2006

When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, it also required production of a National Assessment of Title I that would evaluate both the implementation and results of the program's major provisions. This is the first volume of the interim report (a final report is due out in 2007), and it focuses on implementation. Within it, key Title I components-such as those related to state assessments, school choice and supplemental educational services, achievement scores, and teacher quality-are closely examined. Some results are shameful. For example, a whopping 49 percent of districts notified parents about their children's supplemental services and school choice options after the school year had already begun. On average, notification occurred five weeks following the first day of classes. This is unacceptable, and it helps explain why only 38,000 students (out of an eligible 3.9 million) took advantage of school transfers in 2003-2004. Some in Congress noticed this massive failure, and they've sounded the alarm. The new chairman of the House Education & the Workforce Committee, Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA), said, "I'm particularly concerned that parents are not being informed quickly enough if their child's school is not making adequate yearly progress. In fact, this late notification seems to be impacting a parent's ability to take advantage of school choice and supplemental educational services options under the law." Indeed it is. Another disturbing item showed that, when parents and students are alerted about their eligibility for free tutoring, they often have little information to help them choose among providers (see here). Nor can they be confident that the tutors have any sort of "good housekeeping" seal of approval. According to the report, "as of early 2005, 15 states had not established any monitoring process [of tutoring providers], 25 states had not yet established any standards for evaluating provider effectiveness, and none had finalized their evaluation standards." Of course, there were some bright spots. From 2000 to 2005 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, black fourth graders gained 10 points in reading and 17 points in math. Hispanic fourth graders gained 13 points in reading and 18 points in math. Youngsters are responding to the reforms of No Child Left Behind. Imagine what the numbers could be like if the law was actually implemented faithfully. The report is available here.

Jane L. David and Larry Cuban
Education Week Press
2006

Cutting Through the Hype is true to its title. This book is for those befuddled by edu-jargon, or simply unfamiliar with the latest in education policy. It's a primer that gives good background information and, for the most part, smartly evaluates recent education reforms such as standards-and-accountability and school choice. The authors explore three key questions: What are the realistic expectations of these highly touted reforms? What trade-offs do they involve? and, What can be done to increase their successes? Each of the three major sections-system of schooling, school organization, and teaching/learning in the classroom-provides an easy, readable walk through some of education's major reform movements. Curriculum reform, professional teacher development, and declining academic achievement in middle schools (among many other topics) are given a fair, brisk treatment. The authors acknowledge that standards-based reform, test-based accountability, and school choice (all hallmarks of No Child Left Behind) have brought about some successes, but they believe the right blend of reforms has yet to be achieved. For them, successful reform is about balance-coupling high standards with strong curricula and teaching, holding schools accountable while providing adequate funding and support, and giving school choice options to low-income families. At times, the recommended solutions state the obvious without providing concrete suggestions. For example, the authors conclude that the achievement gap is best closed by "providing funds and keeping pressure on schools...without setting unrealistic expectations and punishing schools." Most would agree with that sentiment, but the book offers no implementation strategy or evidence to back it up. But it does recognize that most reforms are easier said than done, and that even the most balanced policies are plagued by problems when they are eventually implemented in schools. This is no hard-driving report laden with quantitative data or research, but it is a fairly comprehensive, even-handed introduction to education reform. In fact, if you're teaching a class on education policy, it might make a nice supplement to No Child Left Behind, A Primer. You can order a copy here.