The Education Gadfly Weekly

Sol Stern, Encounter Books
May 2003

This superb book by City Journal contributing editor Sol Stern is a vividly evocative account of why many public schools and school systems simply don't work very well - and what must be done to rectify that situation. Between adult interests that are placed first, deadening bureaucracy, silly ideas, ridiculous union contracts, and, above all, the fact that they are near-monopolies under no pressure to change, they don't do right by many pupils. The children they do serve well are often those with savvy and aggressive parents like Stern and his wife, who navigated the shoals of the New York City system on behalf of their kids. The most finely wrought (and true) stories in this 250-page volume are three chapters about the Stern children's schools and the difficulties encountered by this astute, educated family as it strove to see that their kids fared well despite the system. One can only wince for the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who have nobody running such effective interference on their behalf. Then three chapters show how the system has gotten itself tangled in its own lingerie. All of this leads Stern to press for school choice as a way to crack the monopoly, exert pressure on the system, and create alternatives for children who need them. Chapter seven is a tour of Catholic schools that work; chapter eight visits "the schools that vouchers built" in Milwaukee; and the concluding chapter analogizes today's fight for school choice to yesterday's civil rights movement. A first-rate piece of work. The ISBN is 1893554074, the publisher is Encounter Books, and you can get more information at http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/brfr/brfr.html.

Alliance for Excellent Education
April 2003

Most people are so focused on NCLB's requirements for grades 3-8 that they don't realize the law also has implications for high schools. In fact, there are four categories of requirements that high schools must meet under NCLB: teacher quality, testing, graduation, and adequate yearly progress. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, it's no surprise these provisions get scant attention, since most school districts focus their federal dollars on elementary schools. The authors judge that No Child Left Behind is right to hold high schools responsible for improving student outcomes, but fault it for failing to provide the needed resources. To view this report, click http://www.all4ed.org/policymakers/NCLB/index.html.

Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose
Century Foundation
March 2003

This study makes the case for modifying college admissions programs to include greater consideration for those of low socioeconomic status (SES), in addition to existing affirmative action plans. Its authors rely partly on idealism - rewarding those who overcome hardships - and partly on public opinion (surveys show broad support for such policies). Their report analyzes hypothetical applicant pools for selective colleges under five different sets of admissions policies, four of which it knocks down. Pure meritocracy, it is said, would reduce diversity. The public won't put up with a simple lottery. Relying on class rank would admit too many ill-qualified students if it didn't incorporate a minimum SAT score - and would yield too little diversity if it did. Left standing is their proposal to employ economic affirmative action. In the end, their argument boils down to the conviction that colleges have many qualified but poor applicants and "once high-performing students from low-SES families get the chance, they are able to succeed." This may be a worthwhile cause, but the authors don't subject their own recommendation to the same scrutiny as those they dismiss. What happens once we combine racial and economic affirmative action? Do poor students do as well in college? At what rate do they graduate? How much preference should they be given? The authors don't say. For a free copy, visit the Century Foundation's website at http://www.tcf.org/Publications/White_Papers/carnevale_rose.pdf.

Kevin Bushweller, Project Editor, Education Week
May 8, 2003

Among the annual series of tabloid-size publications from the editors of Education Week is one devoted to technology. The newly released 2003 edition focuses on computer-adaptive testing and other ways of harnessing technology to the challenges of assessment. Though not exactly gripping, it's informative, especially regarding computer-assisted grading of essays and the pushes and pulls exerted by No Child Left Behind. (It turns out to be quite a challenge to do efficient computer-adaptive testing when everybody's results must be scored against a single standard.) There is much information about the extent of states' technological preparedness and, as always, some troubling gaps appear. For example, several western states have their students-to-instructional-computers ratio down below 3, while in California, Alabama, Nevada, and Louisiana it's above 5. Several states assert that, in every one of their public schools, at least half the teachers have (school-based) email addresses, while in New York and Massachusetts that's the case in fewer than two-thirds of the schools. This is more a reference work than report or study, but you may want your own copy if you don't already have one. For further information, surf to http://www.edweek.org/sreports/TC03/article.cfm?slug=35exec.h22.

Report of the National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges
April 2003

Good writing is hard to find. It's even harder to produce and, as "The Neglected 'R" notes, few high school or even college students can write a paper that goes beyond "rudimentary and fairly run-of-the-mill prose." In fact, "more than 50 percent of first-year college students are unable to produce papers relatively free of language errors." Why are American students such poor writers, and what can be done about it? The Commission's answers run the gamut from astute to goofy. Johnny can't write, the report notes, because he spends too much time "drilling on facts, details, and information"; spends far more time watching television than reading or writing; because not enough money is dedicated to his education; because his teachers don't have a good "theory of writing instruction"; because tests don't test writing; and because Johnny and his parents simply don't care. The proposed solutions are standard fare. The Commission - made up of college presidents, school administrators, and teachers - argues for more money, more time, more teacher training in writing theory and practice, more technology, more money for more comprehensive tests, more support from colleges and universities, more support from policy makers and politicians, and more support from parents and society generally. The Commission is right to blow the whistle on America's writing crisis, but much in this report is driven more by ideology, dubious theories of learning, and conventional nostrums than by hard facts about how kids learn to write. To check it out, go to http://www.writingcommission.org/prod_downloads/writingcom/neglectedr.pdf.

Last week, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report on the costs to states of implementing the testing requirements of No Child Left Behind. Not surprisingly, this doesn't seem to have settled any of the NCLB funding fuss. The report estimates that, over the next seven years, states will shell out anywhere from $1.9 billion (if all states use machine-scored multiple choice tests) to $5.3 billion (if they use a combination of multiple choice and open-ended questions that must be scored by hand). Critics of NCLB's testing requirements quickly brandished the report as evidence of the inadequacy of the $4 billion (over six years) that NCLB guaranteed to cash-strapped states to cover testing costs. Supporters respond that the money is ample, so long as states use the more economical (and equally valid and reliable and NCLB-compliant) multiple-choice tests. Further blurring the situation, the Department of Education and the Education Leaders Council criticized GAO's methodology and contend that the report exaggerated the costs of implementation by ignoring budget dollars already committed by states to existing testing programs.

Characteristics of tests will influence expenses; information sharing may help states realize efficiencies, General Accounting Office, May 8, 2003

"New GAO report shows reform opponents are exaggerating state 'No Child Left Behind' testing costs," House Education and the Workforce Committee Press Release, May 8, 2003

"GAO overestimates mandated testing costs under NCLB," Education Leaders Council Weekly Policy Update, page 3, May 9, 2003

"GAO adds fuel to the education funding debate," by Pamela M. Prah, Stateline.org, May 9, 2003

Last August, when New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg brought in Joel Klein as schools chancellor to help implement his Children First reform initiative, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten came out in support of the mayor and his education plans. [For more information about Mayor Bloomberg's reforms, go to http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=8#368.] Now, after Klein has made the inevitable tough decisions - including imposing a uniform (if ill-chosen) curriculum on failing schools and a proposal to cut 864 full- and part-time classroom aides - Weingarten has jumped ship. "The UFT simply cannot continue to lend its support to a program that, in these tight fiscal times, costs a quarter of a billion dollars and does so little for our children," she said. Weingarten's preferred "reform" proposal is a city ballot initiative that would require class size reductions throughout the system.

"Teacher's union president turns against schools reform plan," by Abby Goodnough, New York Times, May 11, 2003

The war in Iraq got columnist Michael Barone thinking: America's military is chock full of the underskilled, undereducated graduates produced by so many schools. What happened in the intervening years to turn them into the determined, competent soldiers who toppled Saddam's regime? In fact, why is it that this country tends to produce "incompetent 18-year-olds and remarkably competent 30-year-olds?" Barone says it's because many kids spend their school years in "Soft America," which is marked by little or no competition or accountability and generous doses of ego massage. By contrast, most colleges, workplaces and the military are "Hard America," which sorts and measures people along meritocratic lines. Invoking Diane Ravitch's Left Back, Barone identifies the education system as the mushy center of Soft America, with its "mistrust of testing and competition and ... yearning to protect children from their rigors." Barone applauds education reforms that seek to stiffen the backbone of Soft America.

"A tale of two nations," by Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, May 12, 2003

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown went to the California General Assembly last week to lobby for a bill that would allow nonprofit groups, colleges and universities, and mayors to authorize charter schools in that state. (Presently California charters are almost all sponsored and overseen by local school boards.) Many other charter experts and reformers favored passage of this bill, considering the hostile attitude toward charters of many school boards. It perished in committee, however, though not before Hizzoner directed some very un-Moonbeamesque comments at opponents. "This is a matter where people want a particular kind of public education and others want to deny them their legal and constitutional rights," he remarked about the bill's opponents, which included the California Teachers Association and the school boards association. Brown also blasted Democrats who opposed the bill on grounds that it would remove money from regular district schools for "following another agenda that often doesn't surface in a very honest or explicit way&. I think the people who fight this have a lot of explaining to do." (In a few weeks, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute will release the first-ever evaluation of charter authorizers and the charter-school policy environment in dozens of states - including California. Keep watching.)

"Jerry Brown battles the unions he once nurtured," by Daniel Weintraub, Sacramento Bee, May 13, 2003

"Brown leads charter school charge," by Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, May 8, 2003

Last week I began to "debate myself" about the No Child Left Behind act, covering five NCLB issues that make me, and many others, ambivalent about this ambitious undertaking. [http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=21#125]That was not the end of it. Five more issues warrant pro-con examination.

Just Three Subjects?

The focus on reading, math, and science is right on target. They're the curricular core in every state and ought to be the center of instruction in every school. They're the subjects with the greatest consensus about what's important for all children to learn. They're the subjects where states have worked hardest to set standards. And they lend themselves to fairly reliable testing.

No, they're not the whole curriculum, nor should they be. In fact, other subjects are where schools may best distinguish themselves from the pack - an art and music magnet, say, or a Spanish immersion charter school. But it's clear that every school ought to cover the same core skills and knowledge in these basic subjects, and clear that states should focus their testing and accountability systems on these three. Let community pressure, educator professionalism, and parental demand see to the rest.

It's a fantasy to say schools are welcome to add history, art, music, or geography to the NCLB subjects. If there's any certainty in education, it's that what gets tested is what gets taught. Schools will focus on the things they're accountable for. All of NCLB's pressure is concentrated on reading and math and, a few years hence, science. It doesn't even talk about writing, history, or geography. In theory, a school could meet all its requirements and still graduate students who couldn't compose a paragraph, find North America on a map, or identify Abe Lincoln. With all the attention placed on a school's performance in just three subjects, nobody will even notice if the rest of the curriculum gets short shrift. And it doesn't help to say, "We'll get to these other subjects later." What about the millions of sixth graders who will pass through while we're waiting? This could lead to the worst curricular distortion ever.

Why Those Draconian School Interventions?

Forcefully intervening in failing schools is the only way to ensure that they change. Sure, it's prescriptive, but that's what accountability means. Otherwise, what's to keep unsuccessful schools from staying as they are? Somebody needs to trigger palpable, even unpleasant reforms in faltering schools and districts lest they continue to gyp children of a proper education.

Who is that somebody? Public schools in America are creatures of their districts, and districts are creatures of their states. So, unless you can picture a vast army of federal interveners fanning across the countryside, districts will have the responsibility to fix broken schools and states will have to deal with faltering districts. NCLB is prescriptive, yes, but it gives districts and states leeway to fit the cure to the disease.

Get real. Most failing schools are failing because districts let them get that way. It's no surprise that dismal schools are concentrated in dismal districts. If districts knew how to fix their schools, they would have done it already. Nor is it likely that a state with dozens of faltering LEA's will have the know-how or horsepower to set them right - even if the states weren't facing major budget crunches, which makes it hard to bring in a bunch of turnaround experts. What's more likely is that most failing schools and districts will stay that way because nobody in authority has the capacity or know-how to set them right.

The Precursor to Vouchers?

Giving kids the right to exit - or take some of their Title I money to private providers - is better than keeping them trapped in failing schools. If schools remain immune to repair, and particularly when the children most directly affected are poor and minority, we must do something to give them a break. Letting them go to better schools seems obvious-as does letting them use federal money to seek compensatory services from competent private providers. Let children learn from schools and programs that can do right by them.

In any case, this is a very limited program, a far cry from the Florida-style "exit voucher" approach that President Bush first proposed. Under NCLB, choice is restricted to other public schools within the same district. And only a fraction of a school's Title I money can be redirected into "supplemental services" from state-approved providers. It's a reasonable, cautious, limited approach to choice.

It's certainly limited and cautious, but it's already showing signs of not working. How foolish to confine a child's options to schools in the same district. We saw last fall that many failing Title I schools are in districts with few good schools for students to turn to - and most of those are bursting at the seams. Worse, the LEA is responsible for organizing and publicizing the choices. Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. It's not in a district's interest to help students change schools and thus no surprise that many districts delayed, obscured, and otherwise minimized families' opportunities to exercise their rights. If Congress is serious about letting children exit bad schools, it needs to put someone in charge other than the operator of those schools - and the choices need to be real.

Teacher Quality

The key ingredient in an effective school is the quality of its teachers. NCLB's authors were smart to specify "highly qualified teachers" in every classroom and to create a timetable for getting there. Otherwise, the neediest kids will continue to get the worst teachers, and states and districts will keep on filling classroom slots with warm bodies instead of people who know their subjects and are effective instructors. Sure, it'll be a challenge for states to comply. But here, too, the point is to trigger change. This is the one school "input" that NCLB is prescriptive about, but it's hard to argue with it. America has a lot of terrific teachers but needs a whole lot more of them if we're going to meet the achievement demands of NCLB.

This is another of those sound impulses that leads to a nightmare of regulation and homogenization while ignoring reality. School systems don't want to hire unqualified teachers, but they have to hire from among those who apply. So the people who end up teaching in the most troubled schools - with honorable exceptions, yes - are apt to be those with the fewest alternatives.

If we didn't have uniform salary schedules and bargaining contracts, and if the federal government wanted to pump in billions more for teacher salaries, this marketplace might be altered for the better. But nobody is offering more money. Laying down additional regulations won't change a thing, except maybe aggravating existing teacher shortages.

Excess Behaviorism or Needed Overhaul?

The whole point of NCLB is to change results by altering behavior - in schools, educators, students, etc. - so it's appropriate that its prescriptions are "behaviorist," with rewards and punishments, sanctions and interventions, in pursuit of this needed overhaul. If behavior doesn't change, results won't change and we'll still be at risk twenty years hence. Nobody likes to alter their accustomed ways, however, so we must expect dissent, resistance, and grumbling. But the underlying premise is that the status quo isn't working and so we must do whatever is necessary to leverage the reforms that will actually boost outcomes.

American education didn't become the way it is because of mean-spirited people trying to keep kids ignorant. It's a layer cake of differing priorities and local idiosyncrasies. It's a vast, decentralized enterprise involving thousands of institutions and millions of people. It doesn't change quickly and won't change just because a few folks in Washington think it should. At the very least, you would think, if the feds were going to push for all these changes they would put up the money needed to make them. But funding isn't the key concern. What's most troubling is the hubris and na??vet?? of folks in Washington - the insistence that all kids and teachers and schools must act in the same ways and produce the same results on the same timetable, even though every situation is different.

*****

Americans will doubtless debate NCLB for years to come. Meanwhile, it is the law of the land and we must do our best to comply with it. Perhaps it will work as intended. Nobody doubts that its intentions are noble.

The latest edition of Education Next, released yesterday, includes several articles that challenge two common education beliefs: that teachers are underpaid and that smaller classes boost student achievement. The conclusions are complicated, though. It seems that great teachers are underpaid but most teachers are not underpaid, relative to what they could earn in other occupations. As for class size reduction, while it's logical to assume that a teacher could be more effective with fewer students, shrinking classes across the board often forces schools and districts to hire scores of ineffective teachers to fill the extra slots, which hurts students more than having a few extra classmates. This edition of Education Nextalso contains interesting articles on schools in New York City, including one by Sol Stern (whose bookBreaking Free is reviewed in today's Gadfly) showing the detrimental effect of district and union staffing policies on such highly regarded schools as Stuyvesant High. Another piece examines the tremendous cost of keeping large urban high schools safe.

Education Next, Summer 2003

Alliance for Excellent Education
April 2003

Most people are so focused on NCLB's requirements for grades 3-8 that they don't realize the law also has implications for high schools. In fact, there are four categories of requirements that high schools must meet under NCLB: teacher quality, testing, graduation, and adequate yearly progress. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, it's no surprise these provisions get scant attention, since most school districts focus their federal dollars on elementary schools. The authors judge that No Child Left Behind is right to hold high schools responsible for improving student outcomes, but fault it for failing to provide the needed resources. To view this report, click http://www.all4ed.org/policymakers/NCLB/index.html.

Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose
Century Foundation
March 2003

This study makes the case for modifying college admissions programs to include greater consideration for those of low socioeconomic status (SES), in addition to existing affirmative action plans. Its authors rely partly on idealism - rewarding those who overcome hardships - and partly on public opinion (surveys show broad support for such policies). Their report analyzes hypothetical applicant pools for selective colleges under five different sets of admissions policies, four of which it knocks down. Pure meritocracy, it is said, would reduce diversity. The public won't put up with a simple lottery. Relying on class rank would admit too many ill-qualified students if it didn't incorporate a minimum SAT score - and would yield too little diversity if it did. Left standing is their proposal to employ economic affirmative action. In the end, their argument boils down to the conviction that colleges have many qualified but poor applicants and "once high-performing students from low-SES families get the chance, they are able to succeed." This may be a worthwhile cause, but the authors don't subject their own recommendation to the same scrutiny as those they dismiss. What happens once we combine racial and economic affirmative action? Do poor students do as well in college? At what rate do they graduate? How much preference should they be given? The authors don't say. For a free copy, visit the Century Foundation's website at http://www.tcf.org/Publications/White_Papers/carnevale_rose.pdf.

Kevin Bushweller, Project Editor, Education Week
May 8, 2003

Among the annual series of tabloid-size publications from the editors of Education Week is one devoted to technology. The newly released 2003 edition focuses on computer-adaptive testing and other ways of harnessing technology to the challenges of assessment. Though not exactly gripping, it's informative, especially regarding computer-assisted grading of essays and the pushes and pulls exerted by No Child Left Behind. (It turns out to be quite a challenge to do efficient computer-adaptive testing when everybody's results must be scored against a single standard.) There is much information about the extent of states' technological preparedness and, as always, some troubling gaps appear. For example, several western states have their students-to-instructional-computers ratio down below 3, while in California, Alabama, Nevada, and Louisiana it's above 5. Several states assert that, in every one of their public schools, at least half the teachers have (school-based) email addresses, while in New York and Massachusetts that's the case in fewer than two-thirds of the schools. This is more a reference work than report or study, but you may want your own copy if you don't already have one. For further information, surf to http://www.edweek.org/sreports/TC03/article.cfm?slug=35exec.h22.

Report of the National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges
April 2003

Good writing is hard to find. It's even harder to produce and, as "The Neglected 'R" notes, few high school or even college students can write a paper that goes beyond "rudimentary and fairly run-of-the-mill prose." In fact, "more than 50 percent of first-year college students are unable to produce papers relatively free of language errors." Why are American students such poor writers, and what can be done about it? The Commission's answers run the gamut from astute to goofy. Johnny can't write, the report notes, because he spends too much time "drilling on facts, details, and information"; spends far more time watching television than reading or writing; because not enough money is dedicated to his education; because his teachers don't have a good "theory of writing instruction"; because tests don't test writing; and because Johnny and his parents simply don't care. The proposed solutions are standard fare. The Commission - made up of college presidents, school administrators, and teachers - argues for more money, more time, more teacher training in writing theory and practice, more technology, more money for more comprehensive tests, more support from colleges and universities, more support from policy makers and politicians, and more support from parents and society generally. The Commission is right to blow the whistle on America's writing crisis, but much in this report is driven more by ideology, dubious theories of learning, and conventional nostrums than by hard facts about how kids learn to write. To check it out, go to http://www.writingcommission.org/prod_downloads/writingcom/neglectedr.pdf.

Sol Stern, Encounter Books
May 2003

This superb book by City Journal contributing editor Sol Stern is a vividly evocative account of why many public schools and school systems simply don't work very well - and what must be done to rectify that situation. Between adult interests that are placed first, deadening bureaucracy, silly ideas, ridiculous union contracts, and, above all, the fact that they are near-monopolies under no pressure to change, they don't do right by many pupils. The children they do serve well are often those with savvy and aggressive parents like Stern and his wife, who navigated the shoals of the New York City system on behalf of their kids. The most finely wrought (and true) stories in this 250-page volume are three chapters about the Stern children's schools and the difficulties encountered by this astute, educated family as it strove to see that their kids fared well despite the system. One can only wince for the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who have nobody running such effective interference on their behalf. Then three chapters show how the system has gotten itself tangled in its own lingerie. All of this leads Stern to press for school choice as a way to crack the monopoly, exert pressure on the system, and create alternatives for children who need them. Chapter seven is a tour of Catholic schools that work; chapter eight visits "the schools that vouchers built" in Milwaukee; and the concluding chapter analogizes today's fight for school choice to yesterday's civil rights movement. A first-rate piece of work. The ISBN is 1893554074, the publisher is Encounter Books, and you can get more information at http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/brfr/brfr.html.