The Education Gadfly Weekly

Tom Loveless
The Brookings Institution
February 2009

This slightly tardy report offers a trio of unrelated but highly engaging--indeed downright provocative--studies. First up is PISA, and whether using it as a model for national or state benchmarking efforts is a good idea. (More on this in a bit.) Second, Loveless looks at the 1990s' aggressive push to get more kids into eighth grade algebra (enrollment has nearly doubled since 1990) and the deleterious effects of doing so. (The Brown Center already released this part back in September.) Finally, Loveless contemplates the performance of city school districts compared with other districts in the same states and finds--encouragingly--that 29 of 35 city districts narrowed the gap between their test scores and state averages from 2000 to 2007 (New Orleans posted the biggest gains). But it's the PISA study that should warrant the most attention, since NGA and other national groups have viewed that test as the holy grail of international standards and assessment*. Loveless presents a stinging indictment of PISA's political correctness and manipulative approach to student attitudes--wholly inappropriate for a test of science. This is because PISA asks lots of questions about self-efficacy in science, as opposed to science content itself. While PISA finds the correlation between the two positive, Loveless finds otherwise--the more confident its kids are in their science abilities, the lower that nation's scores. But who cares? This isn't a test of confidence. It's supposed to be about what 15 year olds know about math and science, not what they think they know. Loveless explains: "The danger is acute in PISA because the attitudinal questions elicit students' beliefs about issues, not their knowledge of issues...[and] history teaches us that beliefs untethered from knowledge can make for some rather unscientific decision making." Indeed. Let's hope those interested in PISA as an international benchmark clean the smudges off those rose-colored glasses. You can find all three reports here.

*The NGA has asked us to clarify that it doesn't view PISA as the "holy grail of international standards and assessments." PISA was mentioned in its recent benchmarking report as one of several international exams that states might look toward when developing more rigorous, and more common, standards and internationally benchmarked assessments. (Corrected on February 27, 2009)

Chapter 5, "Bureaucracy Can't Teach"
Philip Howard
W.W. Norton & Co.
January 2009

Although much attention has been paid to the unique cultures of high-performing charter schools (see here and here, for starters), Philip Howard applies a new lens: legal. Why, the accomplished attorney asks, can't teachers more easily instill a "Work Hard, Be Nice" (à la KIPP) culture at any school? His answer: legal regulations. They are, he concludes, the ultimate hurdle to creating a strong school culture. Howard first walks the reader through the sea of rules governing everything from pedagogy to classroom cleaning procedures. As he shows, legal considerations often prevent teachers from disciplining and removing students. Teachers' lack of control over routine and classroom management leaves them demoralized, disengaged, and unable to support a larger school culture. What would he do differently? Let teachers manage their classrooms and couple that independence with a system of thoughtful accountability, such as setting out criteria for student discipline. Not a bad start, but let's keep our eye on the objective data. As David Whitman showed us in Sweating the Small Stuff, there's no zero-sum game at these high-performing charters when it comes to academic quality--as measured by test scores--and a strong culture; instead, the two go hand-in-hand. You can buy the book here.

Geoffrey Goodman et al.
Alliance for School Choice and Advocates for School Choice
February 2009

This second edition of the Alliance's Yearbook mainly updates its inaugural publication without adding significant new content. And prospective readers should note that the authors answer the question "What is School Choice?" in a specific (and perhaps limiting) way: "To us, school choice puts parents in charge of their children's education by letting them choose the best schools for their kids, whether public or private." Thus, charter schools and public-sector open enrollment programs are not tabulated. Still, it's useful for what it is: a trove of data, charts, and details on vouchers and tax credits. In the 2008-09 school year, for example, an estimated 171,000 children are participating in 11 voucher programs and seven scholarship tax credit programs, spread across 10 states and the District of Columbia. Digging in, we find that these programs have grown modestly in the last year (8 percent more students) but tremendously since 2004 (nearly doubling). State profiles offer details on each program, and the resources include organizations that can help the curious politician draft choice legislation. Even as threats loom to kill the extant D.C. voucher program, the authors offer an upbeat prognosis for the future: Democratic support, they say, is growing; school choice bills are sprouting up in nearly every state (if not often becoming law); and even teachers support choice (as first reported in Education Next). In fact, the whole report is implausibly cheery. Still and all, the Yearbook remains a useful reference for anyone who cares about these issues and, as we said last year, it's "a shot in the arm to school choice advocates." You can find it here.

Katherine K. Merseth et al.
Harvard Education Press
January 2009

With 4,000 diverse charter schools scattered across the land and with critics, opponents, and analysts leveling forests to publish criticisms of charter schooling as a failed experiment, it's refreshing and heartening to find another thoughtful analysis of successful charters. (Of course, David Whitman's analysis came first.) The Harvard ed school's Kay Merseth, with a platoon of research helpers and fueled by a federal research grant, spent a lot of time examining five high-performing (urban) charters in the Boston metro area to see what makes them tick--and what they have in common. The resulting book is first rate--insightful case studies of individual schools followed by analytic chapters on "cross-school themes." Perhaps unsurprisingly, these themes include school culture, leadership, personnel, "structures and systems," and curriculum and instruction. It's no cookbook or instruction manual; it doesn't tell you how to create a successful charter from scratch much less how to turn around those that are lacking. But it lucidly describes, depicts, and explains the crucial elements that these five schools have put into place that very likely account for their success. You can order a copy here.

President Obama's address to Congress is earning plaudits for its honesty, candor, and can-do/will-do/must-do spirit. Rather than just picking out scapegoats to pin our economic woes on, the President took pains to explain that we're all responsible, that "we managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before." And he announced that the "day of reckoning" has arrived.

Tough talk and tough choices percolated through other parts of the speech as well: health care, foreign affairs, the upcoming budget, and more.

When he turned to education, however, that kind of truth-telling and trading-off of vexing options mostly melted away. Yes, he correctly pointed out that "countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow." Yes, he punched various poll-test buttons with well-timed mentions of "reform" and "teacher performance," of "innovative programs" and "high standards," of "achievement gaps" and "charter schools."

But the thrust of his education remarks was the historic "investments" (a.k.a. spending) he's directing toward schools and universities--in order to expand early childhood education, make college more affordable, and "prevent painful cuts and teacher layoffs that would set back our children's progress."

This is classic Obama, straddling the Democratic divide on education, just as he did so deftly during the campaign, striving to placate both the reformers within the party and the teacher union bosses. As with his approach to "nationalizing" (or, if you prefer, not nationalizing) the banks, he's trying to have it both ways. We already know that in the finance sphere this pushmi-pullyu strategy confuses the markets, mystifies investors, frustrates bankers, and costs taxpayers a bundle. So, too, will it fail in the education domain. Straddles and waffles don't work except in gymnastics and pancake houses. Sooner or later, he's going to have to pick sides on the toughest issues in education. He'll actually have to decide rather than appease. 

If he already has, he didn't let on Tuesday evening. In the course of a generally frank and direct speech, one might expect the President to explain honestly why American education is lagging. It doesn't need "more investments," it needs more "efficiency" and greater productivity--like our health care system. It's no accident that our schools aren't producing enough well-educated graduates; that's because the system has been designed to place the needs of adults over the needs of kids. But saying any of that would put him at odds with the education establishment, which he doesn't appear to want to cross. 

In the spirit of truth-telling, why not talk about our country's misguided obsession with smaller class sizes over the past fifty years, which has made education dramatically costlier and gotten us nothing in return, achievement wise? In that time, our K-12 student population has risen some 50 percent while the teacher corps has tripled. If instead we had simply hired enough teachers to keep pace with enrollments, we would now be paying the average teacher upwards of $100,000. But of course that would mean many fewer dues-paying union members. 

Why not discuss the pension promises we've made to teachers, and how we can't afford them? Why not talk about seniority protections and tenure rules and "last hired, first fired" policies that keep our public schools from laying off ineffective instructors when times get tough?

In other words, for all of the "pain" he's asking Americans to share, where's the pain for the education system? What sacrifices is he asking of the NEA, other than to accept the radical notion that some of its members will get paid more money than others? Sure, his budget will propose scrapping a few little programs, and Congress will ignore him. Then what? When will the "day of reckoning" arrive for our schools?

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama and his Congressional friends are shoveling $100 billion into our faltering public-education system in the name of economic "stimulus." One can readily see why this makes superficial sense from a job-maintenance perspective. American K-12 education may not be good at causing children to learn but it's great at employing adults. Not necessarily employing them productively, mind you, recruiting them effectively, deploying them efficiently, or culling them on the basis of performance. But with three million-plus teachers on the rolls, and about the same number of aides, clerks, bus drivers, and other workers, it's a jobs program extraordinaire.

So if the point is to keep current employees earning paychecks, making mortgage payments, and spending money, propping up America's public schools is a slam dunk sure-fire winner. It's just too bad that, as with the stimulus package as a whole, our children will wind up paying for it. That's because what they need aren't more teachers but better teachers.

If we really wanted to "put children first," we would let our most ineffective teachers go, allow class sizes to rise, and use the savings to pay our best teachers more. In normal times, such an approach would be political suicide, as teacher unions defeat any and all layoffs. But these aren't normal times. With states and districts facing major budget shortfalls, it could be a rare opportunity to trim the least effective workers from those swollen rolls. Then, when the economy recovers and school budgets resume their long-term growth, the new money could be used to enhance teacher quality.

That opportunity is now evaporating, thanks to the "State Fiscal Stabilization Fund," a part of the stimulus that provides about $40 billion to plug school budget holes. Congress should have called it the Status Quo Stabilization Fund, because it locks in place the same old inefficient, ineffective ways. If schools don't jettison burned-out teachers and superfluous staff now, they never will.

So first with the stimulus and then with his address to Congress, President Obama missed opportunities to extract real reforms from the education system. Maybe reform's day is still coming. Or maybe it's already come and gone.

A version of this piece also appeared on National Review Online.

Once upon a time, little Susie was sent to the office for the errant spitball or wayward paper airplane landing in Ms. Beasley's coiffed beehive. Fast forward to 2009 and Susie--or in this case, a 14-year-old troublemaker from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin--has instead landed herself in the pen for a misuse-of-technology infraction. Her offense? Refusing to stop sending text messages in class after repeated requests by her teacher to cease and desist. Next came the school's police officer, who demanded that she surrender the offending electronic device; to keep it out of reach, the technology-addled adolescent shoved it down her trousers. Suffice to say, it only got uglier from there (lying to The Heat, subsequent arrest, and unrepentant court appearance for her nimbled-fingered obsession). If that weren't enough, the persistent teen figured out how to sneak back into school twice (who says our kids don't know how to problem solve?), only to get slapped with a couple of bon voyage trespassing tickets. Which all leads us to conclude: kids are quite adept at 21st century technological skills, thank you very much. Now they just need to learn where and when their application is appropriate.

"Teen arrested for texting in class," by Michael George, TMJ4 Milwaukee News, February 24, 2009

If you lead a charter school that's about to be closed for poor performance, how do you fight back? Well, you might misrepresent successful schools on the editorial page of your local newspaper. Sounds bizarre that but that's the tactic employed by Michael Mayo, executive director of Uphams Corner Charter in Massachusetts, whose charter has been revoked by the state. He tries to excuse his school's low test scores by taking a swing at paternalistic schools--and David Whitman's characterization of them in Sweating the Small Stuff--in the Boston Globe and wildly misses. According to Mayo, "In some of these schools, students don't speak from the moment they get off the bus until they get back on again" and others order students to "shun" those who are disobedient. We're not sure which schools he may have in mind but he's not describing any of the six profiled by Whitman. KIPP instructs students to talk only to teachers as a disciplinary measure but that's a far cry from Mayo's description. Nor do we suspect that any schools that would actually implement such short-sided strategies would enjoy long-term success. Further, he accuses these paternalistic charters of overdoing "compliance and routine" while sacrificing meaningful "robust relationships," "nurturing boundaries," and "enormous support." We're stumped; can you give us a page number reference, Mr. Mayo? Too bad about your school--and we don't doubt the number of challenges you faced. Boosting student achievement in the face of grinding poverty is no simple thing. But it can be done without turning schools into Mr. Gradgrind's classroom. Read Whitman's book and you'll see what we mean.

"Lessons from a 'failed' charter school," by Michael K. Mayo, Boston Globe, February 22, 2009

In 2006, Fordham published a report with the playful name To Dream the Impossible Dream, which outlined several plausible paths to national academic standards. That dream seems less impossible today. As No Child Left Behind's flaws increasingly come to light, the winds behind the national standards movement gain force. They were gale-like on Monday, at least, at our very own event about The Accountability Illusion. The panel of four Fordham trustees disagreed about plenty but they did agree on this: it is time--past time, even--to revisit the idea of national standards. But how do we get from here to there?

Three years ago, we saw four options: have the federal government take the lead and mandate state adoption of national standards (a.k.a., "the whole enchilada"); have a non-governmental body create the standards and let states opt in ("if you build it, they will come"); get states to collude in a bottom-up approach ("let's all hold hands"); and tap into the power of "sunshine and shame," i.e., maintain separate standards on the state level but make comparisons with national and international standards a lot more feasible and prominent.

Fast forward to 2009 and the "let's all hold hands" approach is gaining steam. Achieve's American Diploma Project already provides a voluntary third party auditing system for states wishing to up their standards to a nationally-accepted college readiness level. And just a few days ago, the National Governors Association unanimously approved an effort to work toward a "common core" of standards (paralleling December's NGA, Achieve, and the Council of Chief State School Officers report, Benchmarking for Success). Under this approach, the states will drive the process and join voluntarily. Uncle Sam, meanwhile, will sit in the back seat, perhaps providing incentives (money, regulatory relief) but otherwise butting out.

It's clear that a revamped version of Achieve's ADP standards will rest at the heart of this state-led effort--revamped after some "benchmarking" to include a look at TIMSS, PISA, NAEP, and even ACT for inspiration. (Tom Loveless would take PISA off that list; see more below.)

Our event this week surfaced more contenders, however. Susan Sclafani, a former Bush Administration official now with the National Center on Education and the Economy, proposed the Cambridge (England) University standards, which are used in 150 countries and thus would truly provide us with international comparisons. Diane Ravitch suggested we might reach back in time and tap the comprehensive and rigorous College Board Exams of the early 20th Century.

Of course, a bottom-up, state-led effort is still only one way to skin the cat. There are other options. Senator Chris Dodd has suggested turning the NAEP into a national, kid-level test. Donald Langenberg, who once led the University of Maryland, suggested at our event that perhaps the National Institute for Standards and Technology could take the lead--the same apolitical federal agency that ensures a mile in Massachusetts is the same as a mile in Oklahoma. (Whether curricular standards are as cut and dried as weights and measures is unclear.)

Or consider this: let big cities secede from their state accountability systems and join among themselves to develop a set of standards. We suggested this last week, and were validated in so doing when the Council of the Great City Schools' Mike Casserly responded that his members were contemplating exactly that approach. 

All such options have cons as well as pros, risks as well as potential rewards. But one thing is for sure: it's time that the national standards conversation focused on "how" rather than "whether."

Districts and states across the land are all making changes to save some change. A few are even eyeing the long-sacred cow of small class sizes. A few weeks ago it was Schwarzenegger taking some heat for proposing district flexibility to take class size reduction funds and use them for other purposes (unfortunately the measure didn't make the final budget); this week it's Florida and New York City, the former contemplating and the latter having already increased the classroom nosecount. This makes sense. Reducing class size by a few students--from 27 to 23 for example--has never been shown to have much effect on student achievement but it's enormously expensive. Undoing it, even partway, saves big bucks. University of Washington's Dan Goldhaber reasons this practice comes from a desire for easily measurable classroom changes--anyone can count the number of students in a room. "We know that teachers are the most important thing, but teacher quality is not stamped on someone's forehead," he explains. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg agrees: "If you have to have smaller class size or better teachers, go with the better teachers every time." Let's hope more states and districts jump on this bandwagon.

"Officials May Ease Rule on Class Size," by Christine Armario, Associated Press, February 22, 2009

"Class Sizes Makes Biggest Jump of Bloomberg Tenure," by Jennifer Medina, New York Times, February 17, 2009

"Class Size in New York City Schools Rises, but the Impact Is Debated," by Jennifer Medina, New York Times, February 21, 2009

Chapter 5, "Bureaucracy Can't Teach"
Philip Howard
W.W. Norton & Co.
January 2009

Although much attention has been paid to the unique cultures of high-performing charter schools (see here and here, for starters), Philip Howard applies a new lens: legal. Why, the accomplished attorney asks, can't teachers more easily instill a "Work Hard, Be Nice" (à la KIPP) culture at any school? His answer: legal regulations. They are, he concludes, the ultimate hurdle to creating a strong school culture. Howard first walks the reader through the sea of rules governing everything from pedagogy to classroom cleaning procedures. As he shows, legal considerations often prevent teachers from disciplining and removing students. Teachers' lack of control over routine and classroom management leaves them demoralized, disengaged, and unable to support a larger school culture. What would he do differently? Let teachers manage their classrooms and couple that independence with a system of thoughtful accountability, such as setting out criteria for student discipline. Not a bad start, but let's keep our eye on the objective data. As David Whitman showed us in Sweating the Small Stuff, there's no zero-sum game at these high-performing charters when it comes to academic quality--as measured by test scores--and a strong culture; instead, the two go hand-in-hand. You can buy the book here.

Geoffrey Goodman et al.
Alliance for School Choice and Advocates for School Choice
February 2009

This second edition of the Alliance's Yearbook mainly updates its inaugural publication without adding significant new content. And prospective readers should note that the authors answer the question "What is School Choice?" in a specific (and perhaps limiting) way: "To us, school choice puts parents in charge of their children's education by letting them choose the best schools for their kids, whether public or private." Thus, charter schools and public-sector open enrollment programs are not tabulated. Still, it's useful for what it is: a trove of data, charts, and details on vouchers and tax credits. In the 2008-09 school year, for example, an estimated 171,000 children are participating in 11 voucher programs and seven scholarship tax credit programs, spread across 10 states and the District of Columbia. Digging in, we find that these programs have grown modestly in the last year (8 percent more students) but tremendously since 2004 (nearly doubling). State profiles offer details on each program, and the resources include organizations that can help the curious politician draft choice legislation. Even as threats loom to kill the extant D.C. voucher program, the authors offer an upbeat prognosis for the future: Democratic support, they say, is growing; school choice bills are sprouting up in nearly every state (if not often becoming law); and even teachers support choice (as first reported in Education Next). In fact, the whole report is implausibly cheery. Still and all, the Yearbook remains a useful reference for anyone who cares about these issues and, as we said last year, it's "a shot in the arm to school choice advocates." You can find it here.

Katherine K. Merseth et al.
Harvard Education Press
January 2009

With 4,000 diverse charter schools scattered across the land and with critics, opponents, and analysts leveling forests to publish criticisms of charter schooling as a failed experiment, it's refreshing and heartening to find another thoughtful analysis of successful charters. (Of course, David Whitman's analysis came first.) The Harvard ed school's Kay Merseth, with a platoon of research helpers and fueled by a federal research grant, spent a lot of time examining five high-performing (urban) charters in the Boston metro area to see what makes them tick--and what they have in common. The resulting book is first rate--insightful case studies of individual schools followed by analytic chapters on "cross-school themes." Perhaps unsurprisingly, these themes include school culture, leadership, personnel, "structures and systems," and curriculum and instruction. It's no cookbook or instruction manual; it doesn't tell you how to create a successful charter from scratch much less how to turn around those that are lacking. But it lucidly describes, depicts, and explains the crucial elements that these five schools have put into place that very likely account for their success. You can order a copy here.

Tom Loveless
The Brookings Institution
February 2009

This slightly tardy report offers a trio of unrelated but highly engaging--indeed downright provocative--studies. First up is PISA, and whether using it as a model for national or state benchmarking efforts is a good idea. (More on this in a bit.) Second, Loveless looks at the 1990s' aggressive push to get more kids into eighth grade algebra (enrollment has nearly doubled since 1990) and the deleterious effects of doing so. (The Brown Center already released this part back in September.) Finally, Loveless contemplates the performance of city school districts compared with other districts in the same states and finds--encouragingly--that 29 of 35 city districts narrowed the gap between their test scores and state averages from 2000 to 2007 (New Orleans posted the biggest gains). But it's the PISA study that should warrant the most attention, since NGA and other national groups have viewed that test as the holy grail of international standards and assessment*. Loveless presents a stinging indictment of PISA's political correctness and manipulative approach to student attitudes--wholly inappropriate for a test of science. This is because PISA asks lots of questions about self-efficacy in science, as opposed to science content itself. While PISA finds the correlation between the two positive, Loveless finds otherwise--the more confident its kids are in their science abilities, the lower that nation's scores. But who cares? This isn't a test of confidence. It's supposed to be about what 15 year olds know about math and science, not what they think they know. Loveless explains: "The danger is acute in PISA because the attitudinal questions elicit students' beliefs about issues, not their knowledge of issues...[and] history teaches us that beliefs untethered from knowledge can make for some rather unscientific decision making." Indeed. Let's hope those interested in PISA as an international benchmark clean the smudges off those rose-colored glasses. You can find all three reports here.

*The NGA has asked us to clarify that it doesn't view PISA as the "holy grail of international standards and assessments." PISA was mentioned in its recent benchmarking report as one of several international exams that states might look toward when developing more rigorous, and more common, standards and internationally benchmarked assessments. (Corrected on February 27, 2009)