This 105-page study, prepared by Robert J. Marzano of the McRel (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) regional lab under contract to the U.S. Department of Education, is an important, albeit rather technical, synthesis of 40 years of research on the characteristics of effective schools and effective teaching.
This 105-page study, prepared by Robert J. Marzano of the McRel (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) regional lab under contract to the U.S. Department of Education, is an important, albeit rather technical, synthesis of 40 years of research on the characteristics of effective schools and effective teaching. Marzano writes that early studies were pessimistic about the impact schools could have. The 1966 Coleman Report and a 1972 study by Christopher Jencks and colleagues concluded that achievement is primarily a function of student background, but later studies found that schools could make a significant difference in student achievement, particularly schools with strong leadership, high expectations for students, an orderly atmosphere, an emphasis on basic skills, and effective monitoring of student achievement. Daringly, Marzano estimates that the percentage of variance in student achievement accounted for by different variables can be quantified as follows: 80.00% student background, 6.66% school variables, and 13.34% teacher variables. Marzano claims that his model finds that "[E]xceptional performance in terms of school-level factors overcomes the average performance of teachers, but not the ineffective performance of teachers" and that "[E]xceptional performance on the part of teachers not only compensates for average performance at the school level, but even ineffective performance at the school level." In addition, the author suggests that even background characteristics might be altered in a way that enhances student achievement by (1) providing parents with information, resources, and techniques to make the home environment more conducive to academic achievement; and (2) providing students with interventions aimed at increasing their understanding of a general academic knowledge base. Marzano's calculation of the explanatory power of different variables aside, this report is worth having on your bookshelf as a reference guide to four decades' of student achievement research. To order copies, contact Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, 2550 S. Parker Road, Suite 500, Aurora, Colorado 80014; phone (303) 337-0990; fax (303) 337-3005; e-mail [email protected]. You can also download the report at http://www.mcrel.org/products/school-improve/new_era.pdf.
With annual testing at the heart of President Bush's education plan now nearing the end of its Congressional journey, testing has never been a hotter issue in national politics. It is also generating plenty of heat at the state and local levels as more test-and-standards-based accountability systems kick in. Business leaders have been among the strongest advocates for higher standards and greater accountability for results, but lately some members of the business community seem cowed by vocal parents and teachers opposed to any test with real consequences. To aid standards supporters and reformers inside and beyond that business community, the Business Roundtable (BRT) has published a guide that is chock full of practical advice and illuminating opinion research. Included are results from two studies by BRT and Public Agenda that found overwhelming support among all demographic groups for standards-based reform. BRT advises standards advocates not to back down in the face of opposition. This does not mean ignoring critics but, rather, engaging and working with them to fine-tune standards and generate support for the "novel" message that "virtually all children can learn at much higher levels than have been expected of previous generations." Once those lines of communication are open, standards advocates can work with teachers, parents, and others to maximize the benefits of testing for improving instructional efficacy and student achievement. All who are involved in the battle over testing will want to read this report. Free copies are available from The Business Roundtable at 1615 L Street, NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 872-1260; www.brt.org.
In the past several days, you may well have read assertions by U.S. Senators, explaining their vote against the Gregg amendment to include a voucher pilot program in the big elementary/secondary education bill, to the effect that there is no evidence that such programs work. (Of course they were voting against a demonstration intended to find out whether such programs work!) But they were wrong. Paul Peterson and his team at the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) have created a veritable cottage industry of voucher studies, including careful evaluations of a number of the privately funded programs that have recently proliferated. Some of those studies include information on student achievement. Others don't. Two recent ones that don't look at achievement are nonetheless illuminating on many other fronts. In January, the Harvard team published its evaluation of San Francisco's BASIC Fund Scholarship Program. In March appeared a review of the national Children's Scholarship Fund. More are in the pipeline. Based on phone surveys of parents and students, their great contribution is comparing the experiences, attitudes and satisfaction of those who used a private scholarship to move from public to private school with those who did not. Both these studies are based on one-year effects. Both are full of interesting data and valuable insights. They abjure general conclusions and sweeping generalizations. On the whole, however, it appears that families making the public-to-private move end up more satisfied with their new schools on sundry dimensions, even though those schools lack many of the facilities and services that the public schools offer. Discipline problems are fewer. Teachers are more attentive. And so on. None of these studies is dispositive, but the cumulative evidence buttresses the widely held opinion that Terry Moe reports: private schools do a better job on multiple fronts. If you'd like to see the latest Peterson work in this area, contact PEPG at Taubman 306, Kennedy School of Government, 79 J.F.K. Street, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138. Phone (617) 495-7976; fax (617) 496-4428. Or surf to www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/
Terry Moe's important new Brookings book has a title meant to recall his and John Chubb's influential 1990 work (also published by Brookings), Politics, Markets, and America's Schools. This volume should have an impact, too. Based primarily on a massive 1995 survey, it analyzes U.S. public opinion on vouchers more thoroughly and exhaustively than anyone has ever done. While opinion is not the only proper basis for policy, in a democracy it's mighty influential. Moe's findings are not easily summarized in politician-style sound-bytes, however, because on these matters the American public feels several different ways at the same time. It certainly believes in public schools and, for the most part, is satisfied with its public schools. Yet it also thinks private schools do a better job and, if money were no object, many people bent on seeking the best schools for their children would move to them. Hence they'd welcome vouchers. But they care not just about the abstract "market principle" of vouchers. They also have strong views about how a voucher program should work. Perhaps their two most important opinions are (a) that a voucher program should include church-affiliated schools but (b) all schools participating in a voucher program should be subject to "basic regulations...that hold them accountable for quality and proper management." As you can see, there's plenty here to provide grist not only for every side of this fractious debate but also for fair-minded people wondering why it's all so fractious! This sizable tome runs 450 pages. Its ISBN is 0815758081. You can obtain it from the Brookings Institution Press, 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036; phone 1-800-275-1447 or 202-797-6258; fax 202-797-6004, attn: Publications Order Dept., or surf to http://www.brook.edu/press/books/schools_vouchers.htm. For a thoughtful critique of Moe's book (and the voucher movement itself) by education historian Diane Ravitch, go to http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/ravitch/20011008.htm.
In Washington, DC, where the high school graduation rate is only 57 percent, what happens to the other 43 percent? Many later try to earn their diplomas by passing the GED, but only 34 percent of those taking the GED exam in DC pass it (compared to 70 percent nationwide). In this week's Washington City Paper, Garance Franke-Ruta puts a human face on these glum statistics in a long cover story on dropouts trying to turn their lives around.
"Filling in the blanks," by Garance Franke-Ruta, Washington City Paper, June 8, 2001. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/cover.html
The recent domination of U.S. spelling bees by home-schooled students isn't hard to explain: many of their parents see rote memorization as a valuable learning technique, while this old-fashioned practice is frowned upon by most teachers who learned their craft in schools of education. John Derbyshire explores how indispensable memorization is to advanced learning in a National Review article that's loaded with clever mnemonic devices (e.g. "One idle damn Sunday, Dad killed cheating thief and lied to cover it," as a way to remember the Ten Commandments).
"Thanks for the memories," by John Derbyshire, National Review, June 25, 2001. Article not available at www.nationalreview.com.
Senator James Jeffords may have made special ed reform even less likely when he let it be known that the White House's refusal to boost spending for this program was part of the reason for his decision to leave the GOP, writes Michelle Cottle in this week's New Republic. She explains why real change is unlikely and why that's most unfortunate for children.
"Reform school," by Michelle Cottle, The New Republic, June 18, 2001.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Japan is overhauling its elementary-secondary education system. According to the Education Ministry, explains Craig Coley, "in place of 'overemphasizing intellectual education' schools will teach more 'zest for living.' The curriculum will stress creativity and independent thinking."
This is great news for America and bad news for Japan. Just as the U.S. shows signs of recovering from the excesses of progressivism, Japan plunges in. Perhaps its children can now look forward to an overdose of "relevance," encouragement to learn whatever they like, teachers who see their roles as "guides on the side," and nobody held responsible for meeting external academic standards.
When that day dawns, we'll no longer feel that Japan has superior schools. U.S. children will surpass their Japanese age mates on international assessments of math and science. And Japan will ooze deeper into the fever swamps of goofy education ideas.
Perhaps I exaggerate. It's difficult to imagine a land as top-down, buttoned-down, homogenized and precise as Japan ever turning its kids loose to learn whatever tickles their fancies. Not, in any case, until Japanese trains stop arriving at the precise moment and place that the timetable dictates.
Still, the Education Ministry's Rainbow Plan, aka Education Reform Plan for the 21st Century, indicates that Japan is headed in the direction we are emerging from. (You can see an English language summary at http://www.mext.go.jp/english/topics/21plan/010301.htm.)
Based on a commission's recommendations, the seven-part plan includes such gems as "foster youth into becoming open and warm-hearted Japanese" and "improve learning environment to one which is enjoyable and free of worries." It also includes more conventional reform goals such as reducing class size (to 20), dealing with "problematic behaviors among children" and "promot(ing) the establishment of new types of schools to fit the needs of the different communities."
Why is this happening now, asks the Journal's Coley? Because Japan's leaders have persuaded themselves that it's an economic necessity. "Japanese acknowledge the country's 'economic miracle' relied on a workforce with a high average competence in language, math and science. But for as long as 30 years, some business leaders...have been calling for graduates with creativity and diverse skills. Catching up with the West required diligent, proficient workers; surpassing the West, they reasoned, demanded innovators instead of followers." Yet the old system was so entrenched that no reform consensus formed as long as the economy was booming. It took a decade-long recession to precipitate action in this direction.
But what a huge gamble they're taking. Suppose that, in pushing their schools to foster creativity and diversity they eradicate the high uniform level of basic skills, knowledge and work habits that the world has come to expect from Japan's education system? I've long seen Japan as the place that proves that indeed "all children can learn" to a relatively high standard and that no child need be left behind. The price, I believed - and still believe - of that kind of attainment was considerable uniformity with respect to standards, curriculum and school organization, as well as highly skilled teachers in essentially every classroom. That's what Japan has. How much of it will they now throw away?
When I arrived at the U.S. Education Department back in 1985 I inherited a bilateral study that Japan and the U.S. had embarked upon. The American team wrote a good analysis of Japanese education, making no secret of our envy of its high standards and performance. The Japanese team wrote an adequate review of U.S. education, making much of our emphasis on freedom, initiative, creativity and critical thinking. It occurred to me then that each country defined "reform" as becoming more like the other already was. It also struck me that the two lands' reform movements might cross like ships heading in opposite directions in the night. Maybe that's now finally happening.
The Journal's reporter does not, however, expect this kind of reform to cause Japan's universities to forsake their exam-based admissions policies and the considerable ripple effects that follow. "The subject matter tested by [those] exams," he notes, "is Japan's de facto national curriculum" and if the "public schools don't teach it, private schools and tutors will." Thus he predicts that one likely outcome of the Rainbow Plan will be even more business for Japan's legion of for-profit cram schools ("juku").
One more observation: I've visited maybe a dozen Japanese schools. At least at the elementary level, their supposed uniformity is greatly exaggerated, both in the western press and by Japan's own reformers. I've seldom seen happier or more cheerful children, engaged in sundry activities under the watchful eye of a caring (and seemingly competent) teacher. These classrooms do not consist of rows of little robots. To my eye, they already embody the best of progressive education. Will they now embrace its excesses, too?
"Still Stuck in Exam Hell?" by Craig Coley, The Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2001
Given the nature of the test, however, the school board fears and journalistic alarms seem unwarranted. Unlike the standardized tests around which the rest of California's accountability system is built, the new graduation test is aligned with the state's academic standards. (The California Senate last week passed a bill that would replace off-the-shelf tests given in other grades with tests tied to the state's standards.) The English part of the high school exit exam covers material that students are expected to learn through the end of their sophomore year and the math test covers geometry, algebra, and statistics. Expecting most students to pass a high school exit exam at the end of their first year of high school shows little faith in the capacity of those schools to teach students much - or indeed in the academic value added by the entire high school experience. (And what is a student who passes the state exit test in 9th grade supposed to do during the rest of his/her time in high school? As a perceptive English teacher put it to a newspaper reporter, "What are we going to have, Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average at the beginning of high school? This is not a minimum competency test. The whole concept behind standards is that you're setting a goal to reach." Given that freshman will have as many as eight more chances to pass this test, many believe that the bar was not set high enough.
"State says D grade gets a diploma," by Jessica Portner and Kate Folmar, San Jose Mercury News, June 8, 2001.
"'Abysmal' exit test results for 9th graders," by Greg Lucas, San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 2001.
"California considering assessment role reversal," by David Hoff, Education Week, June 13, 2001.
One of the real challenges that California faces in implementing its results-based accountability system is ramping up math instruction so that more students can meet the algebra graduation requirement. An understanding of algebra gives students the ability to solve real-life problems and serves as the foundation for higher-level math and science. Many education experts regard it as the indispensable entryway to higher education. Yet just 10 states presently require algebra for graduation. An article in last week's Los Angeles Times looks at how California is facing this challenge.
"Stumped by the X factor," by Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2001.
Inspired by the negative character of most commentary on high-stakes testing in the press and the education literature, University of North Carolina psychometrician Greg Cizek has compiled a list of 10 good things that have been brought about by increased reliance on testing in our nation's schools. While he notes that today's tests do have their shortcomings, Cizek's 11-page essay is a welcome reminder of the positive consequences that follow from these tests, including professional development that is increasingly linked to the curriculum and to effective instructional practices, decision-making based on actual information about student performance, and greater equity in expectations, curriculum and instruction for all students,
"Unintended consequences of high-stakes testing," by Gregory Cizek, posted at www.EducationNews.org on June 12, 2001.
Terry Moe's important new Brookings book has a title meant to recall his and John Chubb's influential 1990 work (also published by Brookings), Politics, Markets, and America's Schools. This volume should have an impact, too. Based primarily on a massive 1995 survey, it analyzes U.S. public opinion on vouchers more thoroughly and exhaustively than anyone has ever done. While opinion is not the only proper basis for policy, in a democracy it's mighty influential. Moe's findings are not easily summarized in politician-style sound-bytes, however, because on these matters the American public feels several different ways at the same time. It certainly believes in public schools and, for the most part, is satisfied with its public schools. Yet it also thinks private schools do a better job and, if money were no object, many people bent on seeking the best schools for their children would move to them. Hence they'd welcome vouchers. But they care not just about the abstract "market principle" of vouchers. They also have strong views about how a voucher program should work. Perhaps their two most important opinions are (a) that a voucher program should include church-affiliated schools but (b) all schools participating in a voucher program should be subject to "basic regulations...that hold them accountable for quality and proper management." As you can see, there's plenty here to provide grist not only for every side of this fractious debate but also for fair-minded people wondering why it's all so fractious! This sizable tome runs 450 pages. Its ISBN is 0815758081. You can obtain it from the Brookings Institution Press, 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036; phone 1-800-275-1447 or 202-797-6258; fax 202-797-6004, attn: Publications Order Dept., or surf to http://www.brook.edu/press/books/schools_vouchers.htm. For a thoughtful critique of Moe's book (and the voucher movement itself) by education historian Diane Ravitch, go to http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/ravitch/20011008.htm.
In the past several days, you may well have read assertions by U.S. Senators, explaining their vote against the Gregg amendment to include a voucher pilot program in the big elementary/secondary education bill, to the effect that there is no evidence that such programs work. (Of course they were voting against a demonstration intended to find out whether such programs work!) But they were wrong. Paul Peterson and his team at the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) have created a veritable cottage industry of voucher studies, including careful evaluations of a number of the privately funded programs that have recently proliferated. Some of those studies include information on student achievement. Others don't. Two recent ones that don't look at achievement are nonetheless illuminating on many other fronts. In January, the Harvard team published its evaluation of San Francisco's BASIC Fund Scholarship Program. In March appeared a review of the national Children's Scholarship Fund. More are in the pipeline. Based on phone surveys of parents and students, their great contribution is comparing the experiences, attitudes and satisfaction of those who used a private scholarship to move from public to private school with those who did not. Both these studies are based on one-year effects. Both are full of interesting data and valuable insights. They abjure general conclusions and sweeping generalizations. On the whole, however, it appears that families making the public-to-private move end up more satisfied with their new schools on sundry dimensions, even though those schools lack many of the facilities and services that the public schools offer. Discipline problems are fewer. Teachers are more attentive. And so on. None of these studies is dispositive, but the cumulative evidence buttresses the widely held opinion that Terry Moe reports: private schools do a better job on multiple fronts. If you'd like to see the latest Peterson work in this area, contact PEPG at Taubman 306, Kennedy School of Government, 79 J.F.K. Street, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138. Phone (617) 495-7976; fax (617) 496-4428. Or surf to www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/
This 105-page study, prepared by Robert J. Marzano of the McRel (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) regional lab under contract to the U.S. Department of Education, is an important, albeit rather technical, synthesis of 40 years of research on the characteristics of effective schools and effective teaching. Marzano writes that early studies were pessimistic about the impact schools could have. The 1966 Coleman Report and a 1972 study by Christopher Jencks and colleagues concluded that achievement is primarily a function of student background, but later studies found that schools could make a significant difference in student achievement, particularly schools with strong leadership, high expectations for students, an orderly atmosphere, an emphasis on basic skills, and effective monitoring of student achievement. Daringly, Marzano estimates that the percentage of variance in student achievement accounted for by different variables can be quantified as follows: 80.00% student background, 6.66% school variables, and 13.34% teacher variables. Marzano claims that his model finds that "[E]xceptional performance in terms of school-level factors overcomes the average performance of teachers, but not the ineffective performance of teachers" and that "[E]xceptional performance on the part of teachers not only compensates for average performance at the school level, but even ineffective performance at the school level." In addition, the author suggests that even background characteristics might be altered in a way that enhances student achievement by (1) providing parents with information, resources, and techniques to make the home environment more conducive to academic achievement; and (2) providing students with interventions aimed at increasing their understanding of a general academic knowledge base. Marzano's calculation of the explanatory power of different variables aside, this report is worth having on your bookshelf as a reference guide to four decades' of student achievement research. To order copies, contact Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, 2550 S. Parker Road, Suite 500, Aurora, Colorado 80014; phone (303) 337-0990; fax (303) 337-3005; e-mail [email protected]. You can also download the report at http://www.mcrel.org/products/school-improve/new_era.pdf.
With annual testing at the heart of President Bush's education plan now nearing the end of its Congressional journey, testing has never been a hotter issue in national politics. It is also generating plenty of heat at the state and local levels as more test-and-standards-based accountability systems kick in. Business leaders have been among the strongest advocates for higher standards and greater accountability for results, but lately some members of the business community seem cowed by vocal parents and teachers opposed to any test with real consequences. To aid standards supporters and reformers inside and beyond that business community, the Business Roundtable (BRT) has published a guide that is chock full of practical advice and illuminating opinion research. Included are results from two studies by BRT and Public Agenda that found overwhelming support among all demographic groups for standards-based reform. BRT advises standards advocates not to back down in the face of opposition. This does not mean ignoring critics but, rather, engaging and working with them to fine-tune standards and generate support for the "novel" message that "virtually all children can learn at much higher levels than have been expected of previous generations." Once those lines of communication are open, standards advocates can work with teachers, parents, and others to maximize the benefits of testing for improving instructional efficacy and student achievement. All who are involved in the battle over testing will want to read this report. Free copies are available from The Business Roundtable at 1615 L Street, NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 872-1260; www.brt.org.
