The Education Gadfly Weekly

Governor's Committee on Education Excellence
November 2007

The final report of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Committee on Education Excellence (see here), released last week, finds that California's education system "turns common sense on its head." It blames this system for the Golden State's educational woes and notes that school leaders who achieve success have had to work around the rules and bypass the system. The Committee developed a series of inter-related priorities to "create a constantly escalating cycle of continuous improvement" in the state. In the area of teaching and leadership, the report recommends implementing merit pay, adding extra compensation for math and science teachers, and creating more professional advancement opportunities for teachers who want to stay in the classroom. The second "priority": funding. The report criticizes California's "categorical" system of financing, which distributes funds through over 100 discrete categorical programs and thus causes a maze of bureaucracy that distracts principals from their roles as "instructional leaders." The third priority is about streamlining governance and strengthening accountability. It emphasizes data collection. A "reality gap" between what Californians think is occurring in schools and what is actually occurring leads to complacency (from citizens and government) about education-reform efforts. The Committee repeatedly emphasizes that all of its reforms should be implemented as a package; piecemeal, a la carte tweaking, the authors write, may do more harm than good. This report is far-reaching and doesn't mince words. Will Californians follow its lead? Find it here.

Jack Benniga, Mary Diez, Erskine Dottin, Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Peter Murrell, Hugh Sockett
Teacher Education as a Moral Community
February 2008

This short paper exemplifies the kind of soft-hearted but hard-headed thinking that pervades so many discussions about teacher education. The particular topic under discussion here is whether ed schools should inculcate and evaluate teacher "dispositions," which the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) put at the center of its standards in 2000. Dispositions, according to NCATE, are the "values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behaviors toward students, families, colleagues, and communities and affect student learning, motivation, and development as well as the educator's own professional growth." Nothing could be vaguer, of course, but many observers saw the language as a ploy to insert left-leaning morals training into ed school curricula. (In response to a paper by William Damon, NCATE removed from its standards the mention of "social justice.") What do the authors of this report think? They like the concept but believe it needs some fine-tuning. For instance, dispositions shouldn't be thought of simply as "attributes of an individual like beliefs or attitudes," but as "embedded in a context of action and activity." Furthermore, dispositions have a place in ed schools "as an aid cultivating aspects of ethical and moral teaching practice, and not as the inculcation of those aspects." Got that? All this opaque talk stems from the authors' belief that "the task of educating all children well is as much a question of collective will as it is one of resources and expertise." This is a common refrain. If we could only get teachers to care more and in the right way, to teach from their hearts, etc., our schools would be so much better. But teaching kids is not a challenge that requires us all just to commit, damnit, to turning things around. We'd be much better off if, instead of recruiting the same underqualified bunch and trying to rally them to alter their dispositions, we simply provided the incentives to recruit a better bunch. Read the paper here if you must.

Just like many education philanthropists, education reporters tend to tread carefully around issues of curriculum and pedagogy. It's not hard to understand why; anyone who spends their working lives outside of the classroom is naturally leery about appearing to tell teachers how to do their jobs (myself included).

Perhaps out of this concern, some reporters revert to a simple, if simplistic, journalistic approach: when covering debates around the teaching of math or reading or other subjects, they present the story as a struggle between opposing camps. And their preferred narrative is the truce: the two warring factions, each with extreme views, find middle ground in a common-sense approach that even your average newspaper-reader can understand.

So it was with the media's coverage of the National Math Panel's final report, released last week. The Wall Street Journal even put this narrative in its headline: "Education Panel Lays Out Truce In Math Wars." The New York Times said the report "tries to put to rest the long, heated debate over math teaching methods."

Many papers quoted Larry Faulkner, the panel's chairman, who declared, "There is no basis in research for favoring teacher-based or student-centered instruction. People may retain their strongly held philosophical inclinations, but the research does not show that either is better than the other."

But is this narrative true? Was the math panel's report a compromise? Hardly. The report is a major victory for math traditionalists, with its advocacy for "procedural fluency" and "automatic recall of facts," its concerns about an over-emphasis on teaching estimation and probability, and its caution that "to the degree that calculators impede the development of automacity, fluency in computation will be adversely affected."

So how to explain the misleading reporting? Easy. The proponents of "reform math" have convinced the press and the public that the "back to basics" crowd only cares about arithmetic, and ignores the importance of problem-solving and conceptual understanding-in the same way that the whole language crowd has argued that proponents of "scientifically based reading instruction" only want drilling in phonics and nothing else.

But this is ridiculous. It's impossible to imagine a math traditionalist like Tom Loveless arguing that all students should do is memorize their math facts, that they should never touch a word problem or be stretched for deeper understanding. Similarly, reading guru Reid Lyon would never say that students shouldn't be exposed to great works of literature once they master decoding skills. In fact, the "traditionalists" have adopted the "consensus" view all along-students need arithmetic and conceptual understanding; they need phonics and a rich vocabulary.

It's the progressives who have made the "either/or" case, raising concerns that students will somehow be harmed if made to practice their multiplication tables or sound out words. Consider the views of Ruth Parker, CEO of the Mathematics Education Collaborative: "By the time we have drilled them on ‘the basics,' we have convinced most students that mathematics is a subject to be memorized not understood, or worse yet, that it is a deadly boring subject to be feared and avoided."

That's an extreme view-one that has no pairing on the traditionalist side of the spectrum. And it's a view that the math panel rightly rejected.

I do hope last week's report signals the end to the math wars, or at least a cessation. If so, history will show that it wasn't a truce, however. In this round at least, the traditionalists won.

President Bush's "Pell Grants for Kids" proposal was dead on arrival but may nonetheless have a positive impact. Education Week reports that Illinois Democratic Congressman Rahm Emanuel "is developing a plan that would allow parents of children attending low-performing schools to enroll their children in a charter school-or any other public school-and the federal government would supplement the budget of that school." Emanuel's plan even has the same name as the president's. It ain't perfect, of course. Sister Dale McDonald of the National Catholic Educational Association called it a "stimulus package for charter schools" that does nothing for struggling private institutions. But even on its best day, when the sun is shining and the cherry blossoms blooming, the current Congress won't allow federal funds to flow to parochial schools. Emanuel's plan targets the same disadvantaged youngsters that the president's proposal would and it offers them expanded educational options. Charter schools, which currently receive only 78 percent of the money regular public schools do, would also get a financial boost. Gadfly is eager to learn the specifics. Consider his interest piqued.

"Key Democrat's Plan Would Boost Charter Schools," Education Week, David J. Hoff, March 13, 2008

Florida state Senator Don Gaetz is pushing a bill that would grade high schools by measures other than just the state test, the FCAT. Gaetz, a Republican, said that "only about half of high-school students take the FCAT in any given year, yet the grade for the school is determined by what half the students do." The proposed bill would base 50 percent of high-school grades on the FCAT while adding other accountability measures to the mix: a school's graduation rate, student participation in AP and IB courses, and SAT or ACT results. It has bipartisan backing, and Governor Charlie Crist indicated his support, saying, "It sounds like a smart thing to do." Indeed it does, but one wonders how Florida will ensure, for example, that its graduation-rate calculations (notoriously sketchy) are valid, that schools are not manipulating the numbers, and that the inclusion of SAT scores won't create a perverse incentive for schools to dissuade students of middling academic achievement from taking college entrance-exams. In short, lawmakers must be wary of unintended consequences. Done right, Gaetz's proposals will strengthen Sunshine State accountability. Enacted thoughtlessly, though, his changes could weaken it.

"Gaetz: Alter school performance measure," by Donna Vavalla, Panama City News Herald, March 13, 2008

"Lawmakers look to lessen schools' reliance on FCAT," by Gary Fineout, Miami Herald, March 13, 2008

The Washington Post reported Monday that No Child Left Behind has pressured schools to raise the achievement of students with disabilities. The mother of Stephen Sabia, who has Down syndrome, explained that "he's been exposed to literature and other academics at a level I don't think he would have without [NCLB]." But by Tuesday, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings had announced a "pilot program" that could ease this constructive pressure, at least in the states that choose to participate. Her idea, which has some merit, is to "differentiate" between really bad schools that fail across the board, and mediocre schools that fail one or two of their subgroups-such as special-education students. The Department of Education promises that "differentiated accountability is not about lessening the focus on all students reaching grade level in reading and mathematics." Let's hope so, because without strong oversight, this approach could take us back to the 1990s, when suburban schools got a clean bill of health from state accountability systems even when they failed to educate their poor, minority, or special education students. For the sake of the Stephen Sabias of the world, here's hoping that doesn't happen again. (See this "Fordham Factor" video-cast for more.)

"Law Opens Opportunities for Disabled," by Maria Glod, Washington Post, March 17, 2008

"U.S. Eases ‘No Child' Law as Applied to Some States," by Sam Dillon, New York Times, March 19, 2008

Buckle up and hold on. Not only has Baltimore's schools chief Andres Alonso pushed through plans that would slash the number of his district's central-office jobs, but he also won approval last week to create five new combined middle/high schools (which will be run by outside operators) and require the staff at three other Baltimore schools to reapply for their jobs. In addition, Alonso put forth a budget that diverts money from the central office to classrooms and that allows principals to manage their own schools' dollars. His strategy is to plow forward at full-steam. At a recent City Council meeting, he quoted the racer-car drive Mario Andretti: "If you're driving and you feel you're in control, you're not going fast enough." In urban settings, where the problems besetting schools are legion, it's often insufficient to tackle one setback at a time and plod along methodically. Big-city superintendents have short tenures, so if they want to see change happen, they need to do a million things at once. That's how Paul Vallas went about his work in Philadelphia, for example: "Do things big, do them fast, and do them all at once." Baltimore's schools demand such treatment, and Alonso appears determined to administer it. Let's hope he doesn't crash.

"Schools chief races ahead with initiatives," by Sara Neufeld, Baltimore Sun, March 16, 2008

Despite enormous efforts to improve high schools, progress has been slow and uneven. But one important educational innovation, virtual schooling, can greatly accelerate the pace of reform.

Nationwide, virtual schools are popular and growing rapidly. Over 700,000 k-12 students took virtual courses during the 2005-06 school year-almost double the estimate of students taking online learning courses just three years earlier. Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and South Dakota recently became the latest of the two dozen states to establish state-run, virtual high school-programs. And, for most students, virtual schooling doesn't replace traditional high schools, but integrates with and enhances what they have to offer.

Though online education is controversial in some circles, research shows that it can be as effective as traditional classroom-learning. More importantly, the best virtual schools excel in areas that reformers have already identified as crucial to high-school improvement: more personalized learning environments, highly qualified teachers, challenging coursework, and relevant learning opportunities. A recent analysis of k-12, distance education research published by Learning Point Associates, an educational research organization, underscores that point: "Virtual schools may represent the best hope for bringing high school reform quickly to large numbers of students." 

But in many states and districts, virtual schooling initiatives are not included in systemic high-school improvement strategies. For example, many states are attempting to raise graduation standards and increase the level of rigor in their schools' curricula, but they neglect to consider how virtual schools can help. Importantly, virtual schools can also give a boost to students who struggle in class. As John Bailey, former director of the U.S. Office of Educational Technology, points out, virtual schools serve students "at both ends of the bell curve-not just AP students but also those needing remediation." 

High- school reform is challenging. But policymakers, educators, and advocates will have their best chance to accelerate and deepen it if they develop purposeful strategies to integrate virtual-schooling options. Some solutions are only possible with the help of virtual-schooling resources. For example, one Kentucky high school, intent on improving the quality of instruction for its ninth-grade, at-risk students, shifted its best instructors-the Advanced Placement teachers-to these students. This shift was only possible because the school could augment its highly qualified teaching force with high quality, virtual AP teachers and courses.

Additional examples for using virtual learning to support high school reform include:

• Reformers looking to add rigor to high school curricula, especially in advanced science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects, can use virtual-schooling options to ensure access to such courses for rural and otherwise underserved schools.
• Small schools can use it to maintain the broad menu of subjects offered by large, comprehensive high schools. To enhance personalization, online options allow students to customize pace, sequencing, and interests to fit their particular needs.
• Educators focused on improving students' transition to college can use virtual learning to help youngsters experience the more self-directed, collaborative form of learning often found at the post-secondary level. They can also work closely with early-college programs and post-secondary institutions to offer online courses that bridge the high school/college gap.
• To prevent drop outs, schools can use virtual classes to offer rapid remediation and credit recovery-before the year ends and a student fails a course.

Virtual schooling will continue to grow and become increasingly common. It's up to state and local policymakers to determine whether it becomes a powerful innovation that helps to drive critical reforms in high schools throughout the nation.

Governor's Committee on Education Excellence
November 2007

The final report of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Committee on Education Excellence (see here), released last week, finds that California's education system "turns common sense on its head." It blames this system for the Golden State's educational woes and notes that school leaders who achieve success have had to work around the rules and bypass the system. The Committee developed a series of inter-related priorities to "create a constantly escalating cycle of continuous improvement" in the state. In the area of teaching and leadership, the report recommends implementing merit pay, adding extra compensation for math and science teachers, and creating more professional advancement opportunities for teachers who want to stay in the classroom. The second "priority": funding. The report criticizes California's "categorical" system of financing, which distributes funds through over 100 discrete categorical programs and thus causes a maze of bureaucracy that distracts principals from their roles as "instructional leaders." The third priority is about streamlining governance and strengthening accountability. It emphasizes data collection. A "reality gap" between what Californians think is occurring in schools and what is actually occurring leads to complacency (from citizens and government) about education-reform efforts. The Committee repeatedly emphasizes that all of its reforms should be implemented as a package; piecemeal, a la carte tweaking, the authors write, may do more harm than good. This report is far-reaching and doesn't mince words. Will Californians follow its lead? Find it here.

Jack Benniga, Mary Diez, Erskine Dottin, Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Peter Murrell, Hugh Sockett
Teacher Education as a Moral Community
February 2008

This short paper exemplifies the kind of soft-hearted but hard-headed thinking that pervades so many discussions about teacher education. The particular topic under discussion here is whether ed schools should inculcate and evaluate teacher "dispositions," which the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) put at the center of its standards in 2000. Dispositions, according to NCATE, are the "values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behaviors toward students, families, colleagues, and communities and affect student learning, motivation, and development as well as the educator's own professional growth." Nothing could be vaguer, of course, but many observers saw the language as a ploy to insert left-leaning morals training into ed school curricula. (In response to a paper by William Damon, NCATE removed from its standards the mention of "social justice.") What do the authors of this report think? They like the concept but believe it needs some fine-tuning. For instance, dispositions shouldn't be thought of simply as "attributes of an individual like beliefs or attitudes," but as "embedded in a context of action and activity." Furthermore, dispositions have a place in ed schools "as an aid cultivating aspects of ethical and moral teaching practice, and not as the inculcation of those aspects." Got that? All this opaque talk stems from the authors' belief that "the task of educating all children well is as much a question of collective will as it is one of resources and expertise." This is a common refrain. If we could only get teachers to care more and in the right way, to teach from their hearts, etc., our schools would be so much better. But teaching kids is not a challenge that requires us all just to commit, damnit, to turning things around. We'd be much better off if, instead of recruiting the same underqualified bunch and trying to rally them to alter their dispositions, we simply provided the incentives to recruit a better bunch. Read the paper here if you must.