The Education Gadfly Weekly

When Congress enacted the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), shifting much education decision-making back to the states, many reformers, especially on the left, voiced concern that states would give up on rigorous accountability systems. “Federal pressure is a hard thing for people to swallow,” said Conor Williams, a senior researcher at New America, “but this law doesn’t give enough federal pressure for enough schools and doesn’t define the guardrails we need.”

That worry wasn’t unreasonable. Conventional wisdom indicated that opponents of results-based accountability—the teachers unions, superintendents, and other establishment groups, especially—wield enormous power in the states. With many of the “guardrails” of No Child Left Behind removed, nothing would keep vested interests in the education status quo from dismantling consequential accountability. In correcting NCLB’s flaws, states might throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We’re pleased to report that such fears turn out to be mostly unfounded. So we find and document in Fordham’s new study, Rating the Ratings: An Analysis of the 51 ESSA Accountability Plans. While there’s still plenty about the accountability systems of many states to criticize—and implementation challenges lie ahead for all of them—the school ratings at least represent more of an improvement on NCLB-era systems than a repudiation of them.

We examined the ESSA plans submitted by every state and the District of Columbia, seeking to gauge whether they’re strong, weak, or in-between in achieving three objectives: assigning annual ratings to school that are clear and intuitive for parents, educators, and the public; encouraging schools to focus on all of their pupils, not just their low performers; and fairly measuring and judging all schools, including those with high rates of poverty.

To be sure, accountability is merely one piece of improving academic outcomes for our students. We did not examine standards or the interventions (i.e., “consequences”) states propose to apply to chronically low-performing schools, though we offered some promising strategies on the latter in a report last spring. This analysis was intentionally limited to key elements of accountability that rigorous and well-respected studies have shown can and do drive school behavior.

Most notably, even though states had the option under ESSA to avoid rating most of their schools, the majority decided to continue doing so, and most actually made their ratings clearer and easier to understand. Indeed, more than two-thirds of states earn top marks for using straightforward and intuitive ratings such A–F grades, one to five stars, or user-friendly numerical systems. These labels immediately convey to all interested parties how well a given school is performing, and represent a major improvement over the often-Orwellian rating schemes of the NCLB era. On that score, the reformers won, and the establishment lost.

There’s more. Much of the country is also doing better at signaling that every child counts, not just the “bubble kids” near the proficiency cut-off. States can accomplish this by measuring achievement via average scale scores or a performance index, and by giving substantial weight to a measure of academic growth for all students from one year to the next. Twenty-three states earn top marks from us on this criterion, while fourteen more received credit for improving upon the proficiency-only frameworks that reigned under NCLB.

We found somewhat less progress when it comes to making accountability systems fair to high-poverty schools. Under the NCLB-era accountability regimes in many states, practically every school serving lots of low-income students was eventually designated as failing (“needs improvement”) because the dominant measures of school performance at the time—especially proficiency and graduation rates—are strongly correlated with prior achievement and student demographics. ESSA, however, allows states to focus on what’s within the control of educators: how much students learn while in their classrooms. Although just eighteen states get top marks from us for making growth the main focus of their new accountability regimens, another twenty-four others also made decent progress.

Given all these gains, can anyone be seriously unhappy, considering how many states have made their accountability systems fairer to more kids, fairer to high poverty schools, and clearer to parents, taxpayers and educators? It’s true—and regrettable—that some states have stuck with bad systems. It’s also true that most states should emphasize academic progress even more aggressively. But the ESSA plans as submitted still represent a nontrivial gain compared to decades past.

So now what? None of these plans is set in stone, and we hope that states will continue to refine their systems. There are now several great models to examine and perhaps emulate, especially (in our view) those proposed by Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Washington. Congress probably won’t get around to reauthorizing the law for a decade or more. States need not—and should not—wait that long to make improvements.

But that’s a conversation for another day. For now, let’s celebrate the fact that states, by and large, seized this rare opportunity to make their school accountability systems clearer and fairer. In this time of political dysfunction, that’s no small thing.

The House and Senate have now passed versions of a bill that will overhaul the U.S. tax code for the first time in decades. The GOP will soon iron out differences between the two bills in a conference committee, and then the final legislation will head to President Trump's desk for approval. Regarding education policy, one of the areas that has kicked up the most dust is the expansion of tax-advantaged 529 college savings plans, which will allow families to use the savings for K-12 expenses and not just higher education. Provisions for this expansion are found in both versions of the bills.

Some believe that this expansion ought to be celebrated because it will allow more families to consider more choices when it comes to which school their child can attend. Others, however, worry the change uses scarce political and financial resources to advantage families with enough money to save for private school. Perhaps, they argue, we should instead invest in ways to give poor and working-class families more options.

To explore the issue in more depth, we’ve featured opposing perspectives from a trio of experts. Praising the 529 expansion is Peter Murphy, the Vice President for Policy at the Invest in Education Foundation. And arguing the other side are Nat Malkus and Preston Cooper, the deputy director of education policy and an education data analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, respectively.

Enjoy!

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Expanding 529 plans expands school choice, and that's a good thing
By Peter Murphy
The House Republican tax reform plan, contained in its proposed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, includes a provision to expand the Internal Revenue Code section 529 savings plans to include expenses for kindergarten-through-grade-twelve education and apprenticeship programs. Supporters of educational choice should embrace this proposal and advocate for its inclusion in the final adopted tax bill. Simply put, expanding 529 college savings plans for K–12 education and apprenticeship programs will enable more families to access educational choice before their children enroll in college. Read more.

529 expansion proposal doesn't count as real school choice
By Nat Malkus and Preston Cooper
School choice has long been the centerpiece of President Trump’s education policy platform. Unfortunately, the main provision in the GOP tax reform bill concerning K–12 education falls well short of the administration’s stated goals. This provision would allow families to use tax-advantaged 529 college savings plans for K–12 educational expenses, such as private school tuition. 529 plans are well-suited to pay for college expenses, since earnings can accrue for decades and offer families a large tax benefit. But this same feature makes them ill-suited for K–12 expenses, which families face much sooner than college. Read more.

On this week's podcast, special guest Kristen Soltis Anderson—co-founder of Echelon Insights—joins Mike Petrilli and Alyssa Schwenk to discuss millennials’ views on education. During the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines Florida’s universal preschool program, and you’ll never guess what happens to its academic benefits over time.

Amber’s Research Minute

Luke C. Miller and Daphna Bassok, “The Effects of Universal Preschool on Grade Retention,” Education Finance and Policy (September 2017).

A recent study on career and technical education examines whether taking “CTE” courses in high school has any relationship to dropping out of high school and, conversely, going to college.

Data come from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 and follows a cohort of public school students starting in the second half of their sophomore year (2002), surveying them again in both spring 2004 and spring 2006 when they would have been in their second year after high school graduation. Analysts attempt to control for a wide range of demographic, family, academic, attitudinal, and school-level variables, such as parental education, family income, poverty level of school, college expectations, etc. While they have loads of control variables, the study is nevertheless not causal, in part because it is not able to control for all of the unobserved factors that may make students who enroll in CTE different from those who do not.

The key finding is that taking more CTE courses is linked to a lower chance of dropping out of high school. Specifically, taking any CTE course in high school decreases the odds of dropping out by 1.2 percent for each course, so the more the better, but taking a CTE course in eleventh or twelfth grade is even more beneficial: those same odds decrease by 1.6 percent.

As for on-time graduation, there are positive benefits here too. Specifically, CTE boosts the probability of on-time graduation by 1.6 percent for every course completed, with courses taken in the later high school years showing more significant benefits. Obviously not all students progress through to the next grade (the two follow-up surveys ask them if they dropped out), so keep in mind that we are observing only the “survivors” as the years roll on.

Regarding college-going behavior, analysts found no relationship between CTE course-taking behavior and whether students went to college right after high school.

Last year we published a study by Shaun Dougherty that also found positive impacts of CTE. Specifically, concentrating (taking three or more CTE courses) increased the probability of graduating from high school and of enrolling in a two-year college. The current study did not find post-secondary impacts, which makes you wonder whether concentrating in CTE makes the difference. (Incidentally, our 2016 study also found that concentrators were more likely than non-concentrators to be employed and that low-income students see the most benefits from concentrating.)

Given the considerable interest in career and technical education by students, parents, teachers, researchers, and funders, it’s heartening to see a growing number of studies find positive results. One question that needs more empirical investigation: How can CTE programs be structured to better benefit both students and employers? Stay tuned in 2018 for what we have to say about that.

SOURCE: Michael A. Gottfried and Jay Stratte Plasman, “Linking the Timing of Career and Technical Education Coursetaking With High School Dropout and College-Going Behavior,” American Educational Research Journal (October 2017).

“Collective efficacy” is the sense among group members that they have the capability to organize and execute the actions required to achieve their most important goals. Researchers have, for twenty years, tested it as a key factor in explaining performance differences among groups attempting the same task in areas such as healthcare and manufacturing. The literature on collective efficacy in K–12 education is new and growing, spearheaded largely by Roger D. Goddard of The Ohio State University. A new report by a group of researchers led by Dr. Goddard seeks to unite quantitative and qualitative data on the subject.

The quantitative portion of the analysis was fairly straightforward, looking at the math achievement levels of 13,472 fourth- and fifth-grade students on a mandatory assessment given annually in one large district in Texas. Change between the two years of scores was the sole academic measure utilized and researchers looked at achievement gaps between different school buildings and between black and white students. A measure of collective efficacy was derived using a twelve-item survey, which was administered to 2,041 teachers. The survey rated teachers’ level of agreement on a scale of one to five with statements such as, “Teachers are here to get through to the most difficult students.” Statements addressed each individual’s perception of group competence and “analysis of the teaching task.” A single collective efficacy score for each building was made up of the mean of the twelve aggregated item scores.

After controlling for student and school demographic characteristics, a one standard deviation increase in collective efficacy was associated with a 0.1 standard deviation increase in mathematics achievement—a small but statistically significant predictor. More striking was the finding that a one standard deviation increase in collective efficacy was associated with a 50 percent reduction in the math achievement gap between black and white students. In short, schools whose teachers believe they have the capability of raising the math achievement of their students—all of their students—will apparently do so.

There are, of course, caveats to the findings, including the large Latino student population in the district whose achievement levels were not specifically analyzed (remember: the study looked only at the white-black achievement gap), and the difference between teaching math and less skills-based subjects like English and social studies, which might resist even the highest levels of collective efficacy. But we have seen evidence that odder things than teachers’ belief in themselves, and their students, may influence achievement.

Convinced of the positive connection between collective efficacy and math achievement, the researchers also sought to understand the factors that influenced schools’ relative collective efficacy scores. This was accomplished by way of teacher focus groups held at six selected schools—split evenly between high and low collective efficacy scores. The responses were nuanced and wide-ranging, but collective efficacy scores were most strongly correlated with perceptions of support from school leadership and perceptions of peers’ own efficacy and positive role modeling. The more supportive school leaders were perceived to be of teacher collaboration, instructional improvement, etc., the higher a school’s collective efficacy score. And the more teachers described their peers as having a sustained focus on instructional improvement (increased instructional time, no excuses for low performance, etc.), the higher a school’s collective efficacy score.

Collective efficacy is about “organizing and executing the courses of action required” for a group to achieve a goal. If the group has the sense that they are capable, research seems to indicate that they are more likely to succeed at organizing and executing. If that is true, then it seems like collective teambuilding is probably a better sign of success than, say,, collective bargaining.

SOURCE: Roger D. Goddard, Linda Skrla, and Serena J. Salloum, “The Role of Collective Efficacy in Closing Student Achievement Gaps: A Mixed Methods Study of School Leadership for Excellence and Equity,” Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (October, 2017).