The Education Gadfly Weekly

Tom Wolfe, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2004

Gadfly rarely reviews fiction, as the narrative possibilities of K-12 education reform are skimpy. I Am Charlotte Simmons, however, deserves a look, not just from education reformers but from just about everyone. Much is going on in this 600+ page story about an innocent young woman who leaves the evangelical hills of North Carolina for fictional Dupont University, which has the academic standing of Harvard, the sports program of Michigan, and the bacchanalian social life of Florida State. In the deepest sense, I Am Charlotte Simmons is about whether there is a "soul" or "being" separate from our determined genetic nature. (As always, Wolfe impishly leaves the question unanswered, though I suspect he wants the soul to exist - and is deeply saddened that he sees no proof of it.) What has attracted the reviewers' attention, of course, is Wolfe's portrayal of the orgiastic culture of contemporary college life, where sports stars reign supreme, academic work is secondary to fun, and buff young men sample freely from the sexual favors of nubile women, like chimps grazing from fruit trees. The world Wolfe describes is clearly exaggerated for effect, but not so exaggerated that those who care about education ought not to pause and wonder what has gone wrong with the American university. How did it happen that many of the nation's future elite spend four (or four-and-a-half, or five, or more) years partying - especially since the tab for this bacchanal now exceeds $100,000 for most students? I Am Charlotte Simmons is a must-read for education reformers and policymakers, though not a Christmas gift recommendation for your 70-year-old aunt. And if you're an undergraduate or recent college grad, you might want to keep this book away from your parents. Check it out here.

Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence
November 2004

Kentucky's well-regarded Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence prepared this short (22-page) report for the ill-regarded National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. (The report misnames NCTAF, replacing "and" with "for.") The short version: Kentucky thinks it's making progress on a variety of teaching fronts but has a distance yet to go on all the paths favored by NCTAF. Which means Kentucky is moving ever-deeper into the clutches of the cartel, with its teacher "standards" aligned with the daffy curricular notions of the NCTM and IRA, its preparation programs under the thumb of NCATE, its definition of "professionalism" written by NBPTS, and its so-called "alternative certification" programs squarely in the hands of the ed schools. Pity. If you want to read this litany of folly for yourself, you can find it here.

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement
November 2004

The U.S. Department of Education's gutsy little Office of Innovation and Improvement published this 60-page briefing on alternative-certification pathways for K-12 teachers. It describes four essential elements of such programs and profiles six actual programs. In Secretary Paige's words, "We scoured the country looking for programs that had stood the test of time and were showing signs of positive results." These turned up in Georgia, Florida, Texas, New York City, Kansas and California. They're wonderfully varied in duration, scope, focus, and cost, but they all lead to full certification and none requires an aspiring teacher (so long as he/she possesses a bachelor's degree) to spend forever in a university classroom before entering a school and beginning to draw a paycheck. What's missing from this report, unfortunately, is consistent, comparable, objective data on how these alternatively certified teachers turn out - and how effective they are (or aren't). You will, however, find here a wealth of subjective evidence about the programs' general success in creating paths into public education for able people, reducing district reliance on "emergency" personnel, and meeting innumerable school needs. You can find it here.

Education Week has a collection of articles this week called "No Child Left Behind Taking Root." Taken together, they provide a basic understanding of where states are in compliance with NCLB's testing, accountability, and teacher quality requirements, and of reaching the goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading, math, and (soon) science. Bess Keller questions whether the teacher corps will look much different at the end of 2005-6 (the deadline for having a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom) than it did three years ago when NCLB was enacted. (For more on states skirting that requirement, click here and here.) Erin Fox discusses the variation among "report cards" by which states tell parents how their child's school is doing. According to Fox, "Nineteen states have more than one [report card] per school," making it hard for parents trying to parse the data. Finally, Lynn Olson's piece gives a general overview of how NCLB "has become implanted in the culture of America's public education system." Among other things, she sounds the alarm for schools that have yet to meet AYP, despite increased flexibility from the feds and revisions to state accountability plans that made it easier for schools to meet their targets. "The number of schools that do not make adequate yearly progress could jump significantly next year," Olson explains, "when the performance targets rise substantially in most states for the first time since the law was enacted." Also troubling: as we pointed out nearly two years ago (click here), the number of schools not reaching AYP each year will likely continue to increase over time, since many states have backloaded their achievement gain expectations into the last few years of NCLB implementation.

"Taking root," by Lynn Olson, Education Week, December 8, 2004

"'Qualified' teachers: A victory on paper?" by Bess Keller, Education Week, December 8, 2004

"Report cards provide more, or less, data," by Erin Fox, Education Week, December 8, 2004

It's on everyone's lips: the NEXT BIG THING in education reform is a serious focus on high school. That's what the President wants to do, what the Gates Foundation wants to do, what a vast array of think tanks and education groups want to do. "Redesigning the American high school" is this year's focus for the National Governors Association, which will co-host a "National Education Summit on High Schools" in February. A week back, the Education Department held its own high-school "leadership summit." This tide is rising fast.

Much, in fact, has already happened. The feds held at least two earlier conferences. (They produced some interesting papers; click here and here.) Worthy outfits like Jobs for the Future have also gathered in the multitudes and batted ideas around. (Some of these can be found in Double the Numbers.) Gates has been plugging away for several years, especially with its "small schools" strategy. We at Fordham joined with Achieve and the Education Trust in the American Diploma Project. Even the Aspen Institute has made this a recent focus of its high-altitude meditations.

To date, however, the results are slim. Much of American high-school education remains sorely afflicted, both by sky-high drop-out rates and by weak academic achievement among those who stick it out. (Check out the latest PISA results—discussed below—for further confirmation and expect more bleak news in coming days from TIMSS.)  It's past time for concerted attention to these problems and nothing we've done yet has made a big difference.

But no consensus has even emerged on what changes are needed. So let's begin by sorting out the options. As I deconstruct a cornucopia of ideas for high-school reform, they group themselves into six broad themes. (Mind you, many projects and programs mix and match them like post-modern pizza chefs.)

1. Strategy: Extend standards-based reform to high schools by holding them to account for their students' achievement, completion rates, etc. A number of states have begun to do this and the President has proposed, in effect, to bring high schools more fully under the umbrella of No Child Left Behind.

Problem definition: Schools aren't accomplishing all that they could because they haven't been accountable for their results.

Theory of action: Get the standards and assessments right, then hold schools (and districts, states, etc.) responsible for their performance, forcefully intervening (and perhaps allowing school choice) in the event of failure.

2. Strategy: Establish high-stakes graduation tests that students must pass to earn their diplomas. This, too, is a results-based accountability system, but it bears down primarily on the kids rather than the institutions. Join "tough" with "love" via positive inducements to succeed in high school, such as state-funded college scholarships for those with B or better averages.

Problem definition: Students aren't working hard enough, taking the right courses, or learning enough because it doesn't "count." Today, all they must do is go through the motions and rack up the course credits.

Theory of action: Incentivize them with a judicious mixture of carrots and sticks.

3. Strategy: Prevent drop-outs and maximize completions by making the high-school experience more appealing: individualize it, eradicate boredom, let students move at their own pace, etc. This is the thrust of Ohio's new task force report on "High-Quality High Schools," of the President's proposed $200 million "Performance Plan" fund, and of private-sector programs such as Amer-I-Can. Also create new education options for "out of school youth" and drop-out recovery programs for those who have fallen off the turnip truck.

Problem definition: Too many kids are turning off, tuning out, and dropping out. If they don't stick around, there's no way they'll learn.

Theory of action: There are two, really, but closely related. One says that if young people like school more (and, presumably, succeed at it), they'll hang in there. The other says that well-conceived specialty schools and programs can re-engage young people who have had it with formal education of the conventional sort.

4. Strategy: Devise new institutional forms for secondary education: "Early college" high schools, small high schools, schools-within-schools, charter schools, "KIPP" high schools, virtual high schools. Much has been said and done on this front, and the innovations take many shapes, as do the choice schemes whereby young people and their parents can access the version that works best for them.

Problem definition: The circa-1950s, one-size-fits-all, "comprehensive high school" is dysfunctional and off-putting for many, besides being an inefficient, out-moded vehicle for teaching them what they need to learn.

Theory of action: Create new options for delivering and receiving secondary education, using technology, modern organizational theory, out-sourcing and the like, then give young people choices.

5. Strategy: Beef up the curriculum. Make "AP" courses ubiquitous and propagate the International Baccalaureate. Strengthen state academic standards. Re-do the textbooks. Team up with colleges in K-16 programs. Make college-prep the "default" curriculum. Blend higher ed's expectations with those of "modern" jobs, á la the American Diploma Project, and work backward through the K-12 grades.

Problem definition: They're not learning because the courses are easy, boring, pointless and ill matched to the real world's demands.

Theory of action: Stretch their minds, make it worthwhile and they will learn it.

6. Strategy: Get practical. Focus on "Tech Prep" programs, ventures that join high schools to community colleges, work-study, schedules that blend school with jobs, voluntarism and community service, and kindred ways of tapping into the "affective," pecuniary, and social sides of young people.

Problem definition: Academic work and intellectual activity are no way to the adolescent heart.

Theory of action: Realize that what animates teen-agers is reality, not theory; things with tangible rewards and sleeves-rolled-up engagement, not textbooks.

One could slice these six strategies differently, one might even turn them into seven or eight, but you get the point. Observe how disparate they are, arising from divergent conceptions of the main problem and warring assumptions about what needs to change and how to go about it. Recall the blind men and the elephant. Each thought he was dealing with a different beast, depending on which portion of the creature he was touching. High school reform in America is not the work of blind folks, but today it resembles a cafeteria of radically different schemes based on dissimilar theories and rival diagnoses.

To put the best face on it, we're in a period of experimentation, mixing and matching, combining and refining, arguing and trying. Perhaps we're wise to pursue all these strategies and their permutations on grounds that one size truly doesn't fit all and that we don't yet know what, in the end, will work best for whom. But let us also recognize that this is a formula for much confusion—and new tensions if, for example, Washington moves to clamp a single policy regimen upon all of it.

How to make one's way through all this? Perhaps the summiteers will sort it out. Meanwhile, your thoughts are cordially invited.

"Demanding more of our high schools," by Mark Warner, Education Week, November 17, 2004  (registration required)

"Bush's%20school%20agenda%20will%20get%20a%202nd%20term," By Erik W. Robelen and Michelle R. Davis, Education Week, November 17, 2004

"Educators in California set their sights on improving high schools," By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week, November 3, 2004

"High scores on Mass. tests will lead to help with tuition," By David J. Hoff, Education Week, November 3, 2004

By now, you've read the bad news from the quadrennial Program for International Student Assessment (PISA): the math skills of American 15-year-olds are sub-standard and falling, compared to their international peers. In fact, the U.S. is outperformed by almost every developed nation, beating only poorer countries such as Mexico and Portugal. This is depressing enough, but if you look closely at the results, things get worse. The achievement gap between whites and minorities persists, and a full one-quarter of American students performed at the lowest possible level of competence or below - meaning they are unable to perform the simplest calculations. (Scores for reading and science were better, but still below average, while scores for "problem-solving" were worse than those for math.) No doubt, this is a disaster for industry, which is panicked by the thought of having to deal with future employees who are mathematical dolts. (Attention Bangalore: here come the jobs!)  On NPR's Marketplace, one businessman said he thought of this problem "in apocalyptic terms," while Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable called for a "Sputnik-like" urgency to tackle the problem of declining math skills. Keep an eye out for the TIMSS report next week and Fordham's upcoming State of State Math Standards in January, both of which look likely to add additional bad news to this report on K-12 math expectations and achievement.
 
"Economic time bomb: U.S. students among the worst at math," by June Kronholz, Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2004 (subscription required)

"In a global test of math skills, students behind the curve," by Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, December 7, 2004
 
"U.S. students fare poorly in international math comparison," by Sean Cavanagh and Erik W. Robelen, Education Week, December 7, 2004
 
"Johnny can't do the numbers," Marketplace on NPR, December 7, 2004 (audio link)

One more piece of interesting data from the recent PISA test: Two German researchers found that students who use computers at school frequently (i.e., several times a week) perform "sizably and statistically worse" in math and reading than pupils who use computers (at school) seldom or never. The researchers responsibly factored in home and school affluence to arrive at their conclusion, and theorize that frequent computer use comes "at the expense of traditional learning methods." The optimal computer use seems to be somewhere between a few times a year and several times a month - which might come as a surprise to techno-utopians (and computer marketers).

"Study: PCs make kids dumber," by Robin Lettice, The Register, December 7, 2004

An interesting vignette in the Rocky Mountain News this week, about two staffers from the Education Trust sitting down with teachers and community activists from one of Denver's most troubled high schools. True to the Ed Trust style, the two lay it on the line: yes, kids are affected by what happens at home. Yes, poverty makes teaching difficult. But you can't control what happens outside the classroom, only inside the classroom, and you have to teach kids at the appropriate level and fill in the gaps in skills as you encounter them. "You [can't] remediate kids up to standard," says the representative from Ed Trust, "We've been doing that for 30 years, taking a sixth grader and giving them third grade reading. It doesn't work." The conversation grew out of an invitation to the Ed Trust from North High's principal, for an assessment of what was and wasn't working at the school. (Would that all school leaders were so open to external evaluation!) The author will return to this topic to report on what recommendations Ed Trust made, and return to North High in the future to see whether the effort makes a difference. Stay tuned to see what happens when committed ed reformers collide with a real school.

"Burden placed on teachers," by Tina Griego, Rocky Mountain News, December 6, 2004

Last week, Education Week published an appalling commentary from LouAnne Johnson assailing the most common deterrent to student misbehavior: detention. She complains that "using detention as a catchall cure for student misbehaviors is like using one medicine for every physical ailment." We don't expect one pill to cure colds, bronchitis, etc., she argues, "yet schools assign detention for tardiness, fighting, daydreaming, forgetfulness, laziness, defiance, profanity, truancy, overexuberance, drunkenness, stealing, cheating, lying, or being the object of physical assault." (One hopes most schools have a different plan of action for the most severe among those infractions!) Rather than assigning such miscreants to detention, Johnson contends, we must ask "What are we not teaching [these children]" so that we can find out "why students misbehave and help them correct their mistakes." Additionally, she insists that "unless students are physically aggressive or dangerous to classmates, remedial reading classes would be much more effective than detention or in-school suspension." You gotta understand these kids, see? (Gee, Officer Krupke.) Students only misbehave when they are frustrated with school, right? Well, no. The truth is, many students act out because that's what teenagers do - they test limits and create mischief and push back against authority. And, having a clearly defined consequence for specific actions is one way to set the explicit limits that they need - and need to have enforced. By setting such limits and holding all kids to them, you can learn which among them are just testing the limits - because they'll likely respond to the deterrent - and who needs more individualized attention.

"Down with detention," by LouAnne Johnson, Education Week, December 1, 2004

Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence
November 2004

Kentucky's well-regarded Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence prepared this short (22-page) report for the ill-regarded National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. (The report misnames NCTAF, replacing "and" with "for.") The short version: Kentucky thinks it's making progress on a variety of teaching fronts but has a distance yet to go on all the paths favored by NCTAF. Which means Kentucky is moving ever-deeper into the clutches of the cartel, with its teacher "standards" aligned with the daffy curricular notions of the NCTM and IRA, its preparation programs under the thumb of NCATE, its definition of "professionalism" written by NBPTS, and its so-called "alternative certification" programs squarely in the hands of the ed schools. Pity. If you want to read this litany of folly for yourself, you can find it here.

Tom Wolfe, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2004

Gadfly rarely reviews fiction, as the narrative possibilities of K-12 education reform are skimpy. I Am Charlotte Simmons, however, deserves a look, not just from education reformers but from just about everyone. Much is going on in this 600+ page story about an innocent young woman who leaves the evangelical hills of North Carolina for fictional Dupont University, which has the academic standing of Harvard, the sports program of Michigan, and the bacchanalian social life of Florida State. In the deepest sense, I Am Charlotte Simmons is about whether there is a "soul" or "being" separate from our determined genetic nature. (As always, Wolfe impishly leaves the question unanswered, though I suspect he wants the soul to exist - and is deeply saddened that he sees no proof of it.) What has attracted the reviewers' attention, of course, is Wolfe's portrayal of the orgiastic culture of contemporary college life, where sports stars reign supreme, academic work is secondary to fun, and buff young men sample freely from the sexual favors of nubile women, like chimps grazing from fruit trees. The world Wolfe describes is clearly exaggerated for effect, but not so exaggerated that those who care about education ought not to pause and wonder what has gone wrong with the American university. How did it happen that many of the nation's future elite spend four (or four-and-a-half, or five, or more) years partying - especially since the tab for this bacchanal now exceeds $100,000 for most students? I Am Charlotte Simmons is a must-read for education reformers and policymakers, though not a Christmas gift recommendation for your 70-year-old aunt. And if you're an undergraduate or recent college grad, you might want to keep this book away from your parents. Check it out here.

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement
November 2004

The U.S. Department of Education's gutsy little Office of Innovation and Improvement published this 60-page briefing on alternative-certification pathways for K-12 teachers. It describes four essential elements of such programs and profiles six actual programs. In Secretary Paige's words, "We scoured the country looking for programs that had stood the test of time and were showing signs of positive results." These turned up in Georgia, Florida, Texas, New York City, Kansas and California. They're wonderfully varied in duration, scope, focus, and cost, but they all lead to full certification and none requires an aspiring teacher (so long as he/she possesses a bachelor's degree) to spend forever in a university classroom before entering a school and beginning to draw a paycheck. What's missing from this report, unfortunately, is consistent, comparable, objective data on how these alternatively certified teachers turn out - and how effective they are (or aren't). You will, however, find here a wealth of subjective evidence about the programs' general success in creating paths into public education for able people, reducing district reliance on "emergency" personnel, and meeting innumerable school needs. You can find it here.