The Education Gadfly Weekly

Achieve
July 2008

It was Al Gore who once told an audience, by way of a mistranslation rich with Freudian undertones, "that we can be E Pluribus Unum--out of one, many." Not quite. Achieve has more success with the concept in this fine new report which depicts how several states (it evaluated English standards in twelve, math in sixteen) have successfully created a "common core of standards in English and mathematics." As the authors write: "This report demonstrates that state education policymakers--focusing on their own goals, working with their own constituents and on their own timetables--will put in place rigorous, competitive standards that prepare all students for college and careers." (To be sure, those states had plenty of help from Achieve and its American Diploma Project.) What's really important here is the evidence that similar if not identical multi-state standards are attainable in these United States--and Achieve wants many more of them. Sans federal interference. Sounds right to us. Read Achieve's analysis here.

Ocean's 11 has come to Fairfax County, Virginia. Its school district estimates that during the 2007-2008 school year, $1.2 million of cafeteria food was pilfered from under the watchful eyes of the lunch ladies. This brazenness is epidemic, apparently: Penny McConnell, the district's director of food and nutrition services, conducted an anonymous survey of 10,000 pupils and found that nearly 9 percent "said they had taken food without paying." Fairfax, facing a big budget crunch and rising food prices, has decided to install in certain cafeterias surveillance cameras to deter the temptable and nab the undeterrable. This is more promising than the district's previous approach (signs in the hallways inform about pocketing hot pockets, "It's stealing and it hurts everyone," which of course it doesn't), and we wish Fairfax luck. Perhaps, though, this is yet another reason for schools to jettison unhealthful fries and pizzas in favor of vegetables and fruits. What 15-year-old would risk suspension for zucchini sticks?

"Fairfax Fed Up With Lunch-Line Thieves," by Michael Alison Chandler, Washington Post, August 4, 2008

Survivor and The Real World attract millions of viewers, but the reality TV cognoscenti know where to find the most delicious fare: the televised actions of elected political bodies (see here and here). In Miami-Dade County, for instance, the school board's proceedings have, since February, garnered up to 28,500 viewers at any given hour. Angry teachers, arguments over the ever-slimming budget, and political rivalries among the nine board members have produced a level of drama that few scripted shows can rival. In one recent episode, an attempt to oust Superintendent Rudy Crew intensified the action. (Crew held onto his job, but just barely--the board voted on Monday 5-4 against terminating him.) Mario Artecona, executive director of the Miami Business Forum said, "The meetings are like a train wreck. You know it's going to be a mess, but you can't look away." Justin Koren, a teacher, compared the proceedings to "a soap opera on steroids." Too bad this isn't a soap opera, though. It's the unfortunate reality of how one big, urban district enrolling some 400,000 children is presently governed.

"School drama: Board meeting spats lure viewers," by Kathleen McGrory, Miami Herald, August 3, 2008

"Legal grounds for firing Crew weak, Dade School Board told," by Kathleen McGrory and Laura Isensee, Miami Herald, August 4, 2008

"Dade schools superintendent hangs on by one vote," by Kathleen McGrory, Laura Isensee, and Jennifer Lebovich, Miami Herald, August 5, 2008

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland is in the midst of a 12-city "Conversation on Education" that he says will inform his long-awaited education plan, currently expected in early 2009. I attended his invitation-only event in Dayton, and the governor came across as charming, caring, even grandfatherly. He was patient with everyone and showed a real sense of humor. His political talents are tremendous; he clearly likes working a crowd and the Dayton bunch obviously liked him. No wonder his name has been tossed around as a serious veep candidate (a job he says he doesn't want).

He's an obvious up-and-comer in the Democratic party and he currently presides over an important swing state. What he thinks and does about education in that state could be a portent of things to come far beyond its borders--besides being super-important to Buckeyes.

To date, however, it's impossible to determine what Strickland's own specific plans for K-12 education will look like (and by the time he unveils them he'll be halfway through his gubernatorial term). While in Dayton, he emphasized that he was not presenting any ideas of his own or of his administration. He insisted that he wanted to hear the ideas of others, and to share ideas that others had previously voiced to him.

This obviously makes it hard to pin down what he believes or where he is headed--and indeed it's possible that he doesn't yet know. What's unfortunately clear, however, is that many of the ideas being shared with him are self-interested and/or ill-conceived, at least in terms of Ohio's real 21st-Century education needs, which are mighty similar to those of the country as a whole.

Most participants in the Dayton "conversation" were members or fellow travelers of the public-education "establishment"--and nearly every one of them wanted more of something, starting (and often ending) with more money. I counted at least 13 unique requests for more money for items ranging from pre-K education to the arts to school libraries to rising district fuel costs and so forth. These weren't pleas for overdue education reforms, for higher standards or better curricula, for kids to learn more or teachers to teach better, for parents to have more high-quality education options or for existing schools to become more effective and school systems more efficient. They were, at bottom, demands for more of the same.

The governor also shared some previously voiced ideas and policies that he evidently thinks have merit--and, while several of these surely have potential to do good things, almost every one of them comes with new costs, too. They include:

• A longer school day and/or year
• Compensating teachers for improving student achievement
• Universal pre-K and all-day kindergarten
• Replacing the Ohio Graduation Test with other measures of performance

Where is the additional money to come from, particularly in a state racked by grave economic challenges (see here and here)? Ohio already faces an estimated $700 million budget shortfall, a problem shared by many states today. (Note, too, that over the last quarter century the Buckeye State has added an average of $760 million annually to K-12 education, meaning its real per-pupil spending has risen by more than 40 percent [see here]. Even this fails to satiate the "more" crowd.)

No doubt because educators make up so large a share of Strickland's "conversations" audience, lots of time-worn educator notions are also reaching the governor's ears, nearly all of them with some lineage back to John Dewey and education "progressivism" and "constructivism." Perhaps because of his personal experience as a psychologist, he seems sympathetic to this way of thinking about schools. Consider the rich array of muddled ideas aired at the "Institute on Creativity & Innovation in Education" that he hosted a few weeks back (see here and here).

What he may not fully grasp is that (as E.D. Hirsch and Diane Ravitch, among others, have shown time and again) this approach to education works well enough with middle- and upper-middle-class kids who get plenty of structure in the rest of their lives, but it's disastrous for poor and disadvantaged kids who rely on teachers and schools for all the structure they can get. The Ohio youngsters who most urgently need to learn more are best served by a strong core curriculum, teacher-led classes and a coherent system of standards, assessments and accountability. They're also well served by being furnished the kinds of school choices that middle- and upper-middle-class families already have--and thus being liberated from broken schools that too many are otherwise trapped in.

In recent years, Ohio has, in sometimes confused and imperfect ways, built itself the right education policy framework (centered on standards, assessments, accountability, and lots more school choice) to address the needs of its poor and minority youngsters and its inner cities. With some considerable tweaking, that framework would also enhance the state's prospects of boosting all its young people to a higher plateau of skills and knowledge (and creativity and innovation) that would advance their own and their state's and nation's economic competitiveness in the 21st Century.

What a shame--no, what a disaster--it will be for the Buckeye State if the governor's "conversations" lead to weakening rather than strengthening and improving that policy framework in response to the predilections and interests of the lopsided crowd with which he is chatting.

What an even larger shame--no, disaster again--it will be if the sorts of conversations Strickland is having and the sorts of self-interested demands and scatterbrained ideas they are eliciting turn out to influence the national agenda as well.

A Boston Globe op-ed tells us that, long before he was governor of Massachusetts, the young Deval Patrick "earned a scholarship from A Better Chance, an organization that provides educational opportunities to young people of color." That scholarship transported him from Chicago's South Side to Boston's Milton Academy and eventually through the fabled iron gates of Harvard Yard. But despite the incalculable benefits Patrick received from such promising educational options, his newish Readiness Project (a ten-year plan for improving public education in the Bay State) does not provide for others the opportunities that he himself enjoyed. Authors Charles Chieppo and Jamie Gass note that the Readiness Project is "silent on charters" and that Patrick's administration "has even floated the possibility of freezing them" in certain districts. What a missed opportunity. Patrick would do well to amend his education plan--using his own experiences as a guide.

"Ready for more educational choices," by Charles Chieppo and Jamie Gass, Boston Globe, August 5, 2008

Achieve
July 2008

It was Al Gore who once told an audience, by way of a mistranslation rich with Freudian undertones, "that we can be E Pluribus Unum--out of one, many." Not quite. Achieve has more success with the concept in this fine new report which depicts how several states (it evaluated English standards in twelve, math in sixteen) have successfully created a "common core of standards in English and mathematics." As the authors write: "This report demonstrates that state education policymakers--focusing on their own goals, working with their own constituents and on their own timetables--will put in place rigorous, competitive standards that prepare all students for college and careers." (To be sure, those states had plenty of help from Achieve and its American Diploma Project.) What's really important here is the evidence that similar if not identical multi-state standards are attainable in these United States--and Achieve wants many more of them. Sans federal interference. Sounds right to us. Read Achieve's analysis here.