The Education Gadfly Weekly

With the end of the school year fast approaching and the annual testing window closing, we can make some preliminary judgments about what's signal and what's noise in the debate over parents opting their children out of state assessments. There have been missteps and lessons for those on both sides of the issue. Four have struck me hard.

1) Respect parental choice. Education reformers who support testing may not agree with parents' decision to opt out. But it's senseless to argue that parents know best when it comes to choosing their child's school, yet are ill-informed when it comes to opting out. Parental choice is like free speech; the test of your belief is whether you still support it when you dislike how it's used. My fellow U.S. News contributor Rick Hess writes that education reformers have dismissed test refusers as "conspiracy theorists and malcontents." That overstates things, but no matter. Those of us who value testing need to do a better job of explaining to unhappy parents what's in it for them. But we also must respect parental prerogative, whether or not we like where it leads.

2) Don't follow the money. Parents have every right and reason to be concerned with the deleterious effects of testing, particularly curriculum narrowing and excessive time given over to test prep. But the complaint that testing only benefits corporate interests is odd, to say the least. I can't name a single thing in a classroom, from smart boards and textbooks to juice boxes and No. 2 pencils, that isn't sold to schools at a profit. We're a capitalist country, and most Americans are fine with that. "The test prep industry is lucrative," writes anti-testing NPR reporter Anya Kamenetz, who also points to a report that calculated $669 million spent on tests in 45 states, or $27 per student. That's it? The desk on which your kid takes his tests (or carves his name) costs four times that amount.

3) Black test scores matter. If reformers risk alienating parents, the opt-out movement has its own problems with people of color and their interest groups. This week, a dozen civil rights groups issued a statement in support of testing, noting that when parents opt out, even over legitimate concerns, "they're not only making a choice for their own child, they're inadvertently making a choice to undermine efforts to improve schools for every child." Opt-out advocates simply dismissed this worried declaration. "Instead of stimulating worthy discussions about over-testing, cultural bias in tests, and the misuse of test data," responded the anti-reform Network for Public Education in the Washington Post, "these activists would rather claim a false mantle of civil rights activism." Seriously? If reformers need to respect parents' decision to opt out of tests, the opt-out activists might at least assume that groups like the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the National Council of La Raza are qualified to judge their members' interests.

4) Unions are driving discontent. I agree with my Fordham colleague, Mike Petrilli, who attributes larger numbers of test refusals in New York and New Jersey to unions in those states rallying allies, "especially left-leaning parents, to make a statement." I disagree, however, that parents everywhere else are fine with testing. It just might not yet have reached the level of urgency elsewhere.

It's still too soon to gauge whether the opt-out movement is a true groundswell of opposition, a union-driven blip on the radar, or something in between. Empirical data on the depth and breadth of test refusals are hard to come by. But if I had to predict, I'd guess the enduring impact of the opt-out impulse will be to force a measure of clarity on states and localities regarding the role of testing—and a gut-check moment for the education reform movement on its priorities.

Opt-out activists have correctly identified test data as the mother's milk of reform efforts. (That cuts both ways; robbing "the system" of your kid's test data robs you of an objective measure of your child's academic standing.) Those data have driven the contemporary reform movement, lending it the moral authority to push for higher standards, parental choice, and charter schools. The result has been a period of unprecedented school dynamism, especially in educationally neglected inner cities.

Test data also fueled the teacher accountability movement, perhaps the greatest overreach in the reform playbook and surely the source of much of the anger driving the opt-out movement. Hess observed that the reform agenda "was crafted with the troubles of the inner-city in mind…many suburban and middle-class parents have issues when those reforms are extended to the schools that educate their children." He's right. When well-loved teachers at popular suburban schools tell parents, fairly or not, that testing undermines their work and keeps them awake at night worrying about their jobs, reformers cannot expect those parents to sit idly by.

If reformers want the data that testing provides, they may simply have to abandon attempts to tie test scores to individual teachers. Personally, I think that's a fair exchange. Test scores in a single classroom can have at least as much to do with class composition, curriculum, and district-mandated pedagogies as teacher effectiveness. Uncoupling tests from high-stakes teacher accountability to preserve the case for higher standards, charters, and choice might be the reasonable way forward. Ultimately, there may be no other choice.

My advice to my fellow education reformers is to play the long game, remaining mindful of both the sunlight and disinfectant power of student achievement data on the one hand, and of our own rhetoric on parental prerogative and local control on the other. No one is more invested in student achievement than states, localities, and parents. The reform fight is for higher standards and good, transparent data. Preserve those at all costs. If it turns out that schools post mediocre scores and parents aren't spurred to act at least as energetically as they have to the excesses of testing, we are in far deeper trouble than we think.

• With the hue and cry surrounding big policy issues like testing, school choice, accountability, and labor, too little bandwidth remains for district- and building-level ideas that can spark energy in new directions. In the pages of Education Next, Fordham Senior Visiting Fellow Peter Meyer tells the tangled story of one such innovation: New York City’s small high schools. An early fixation of philanthreformers like Walter Annenberg and Bill Gates, the broader movement away from colossal public schools and toward more manageable, specialized academies was for years widely viewed as a failed effort; students could be sorted into the redesigned schools, but curriculum and instruction always seemed to lag. New York’s effort, the brainchild of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein, changed all that by providing institutional backing behind the initiative. Rather than scattering isolated seeds throughout an otherwise unaltered system, the city’s leaders directly engaged educators to develop a broad and resilient base of some two hundred schools. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that breaking up crowded behemoths into fun-sized institutions of learning increases graduation rates for low-income kids, but this tactic is an avenue to academic success that hasn’t been given the recognition it’s due. Thankfully, that’ll change later this year, when an expanded version of Meyer’s essay appears in Fordham’s new volume on upward mobility.
• The recent education triumphs of the commonwealth of Kentucky also deserve more attention. Yes, everyone knows that it’s the home of bourbon, bluegrass, raffish basketball coaches, and the Derby, but they might be surprised to hear that it’s also blossoming on the learning front. A recent Wall Street Journal story chronicled the state’s early and successful implementation of the Common Core. While legislatures across the country hemmed and hawed about whether even to adopt the standards, the Bluegrass State went to work. 2015 marks the fourth year of testing under the new regime, and the results to date are more than promising. The statewide graduation rate now beats the national average, up twelve points from the pre-Common Core era; the percentage of graduates deemed college- and career-ready has also seen a spike; and the list of schools in need of improvement has shrunk. Not bad at all.
• Not all early Common Core adopters have equally good news to report, however. Dedicated readers may remember Long Island high school principal Carol Burris, who authored a book in support of the standards only to abruptly flip-flop on them the very next year. Now she’s taking her unshakeable convictions and bounteous pension into retirement. We have no doubt that she’ll make good use of the extra hours in the day—the long, twilight struggle against high standards is an all-consuming one, and she’ll no doubt be busy penning editorials for the Answer Sheet blog and getting her clock cleaned in public debates. The Gadfly hereby wishes her many sunset years during which to remind her children, and her children’s children, what it was like in America when they were free to be failed by their schools. 

Opting out, poverty and opportunity, presidential candidates’ views on education, and the link between AP exams and college outcomes.    

Amber's Research Minute

Brandon:         Oh, why did you call me that?

Robert:            Let me ask you, do you think that's a compliment or not a compliment?

Brandon:         I mean, I think according to our hockey expert in the office, he's the best goal scorer in the NHL. He did also just call a game. He said they were going to win game seven, which is tonight, even though the Capitals are like four and twelve in games where they can win a series.

Robert:            I'm from New York.

Brandon:         A bit of a risk.

Robert:            In New York, we love our Rangers, and Henrik Lundqvist, the goalie for the Rangers, is eight and 0 in game seven situations.

Brandon:         I believe he also has a below one goals against average. That's pretty good.

Robert:            By the time our listeners hear this, they will know the answer to this. I don't mean this to insult you, but I think Ovechkin, hopefully by the time you hear this, will just be known as a big loser like the Caps. Go Rangers.

Brandon:         Woah. All right.

Robert:            All right.

Brandon:         Fortunately I'm a Red Wings fan so it's all right.

Robert:            Oh, I'm so sorry for you.

Brandon:         They've done pretty good.

Robert:            So far.

Brandon:         Pretty well. Pretty well.

Ellen:               All right. Robert, you recently had a piece in the US News and World Report about lessons we can learn from the Opt Out debate. Will you discuss them?

Robert:            Oh, my. How much time do we have? Look, Opt Out is kind of winding down the. The testing season is winding down in most states and there's been a lot of overheated commentary about what it means. I think at this point we can take a step back and maybe come to one or two conclusions. One, I'll throw this one, I'll lay this at our feet here at Ed Reform. I think we have been a little bit too either inattentive to opt out, a little bit dismissive. How often do we talk including right here in this podcast, about how important it is to honor parental choice? How parental choice is a great lever of ed reform? What is Opt Out if not a form of parental choice? I think we need to be a little bit careful about being dismissive of that.

Brandon:         Yeah. A couple questions.

Robert:            Sure.

Brandon:         One, I'm going to say what a colleague of ours asked about your piece. In point one, you kind of talk about the right to parental choice.

Robert:            Sure.

Brandon:         You use an an analogy, free speech. Free speech, of course, isn't an absolute right. Free speech is usually capped when there is sufficient harm done by that speech.

Robert:            Yeah. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, is the classic example.

Brandon:         Right. Then in your third point, you talk about the harm that opting out does to certain kids.

Robert:            I see where you're going with this, Brandon.

Brandon:         Now, I'm not saying I agree with this point that the question implies, but is there sufficient harm done that it would actually make sense to limit, as you call it, this right?

Robert:            Yeah. That's a really interesting question. In other words, should there be a legal limit or is there a moral imperative? I think those are two different things.

Brandon:         Sure.

Robert:            I hesitate to talk the law around a law school grad like you, but let me try not to embarrass myself. I think it's more of a moral imperative. I think this is why the oneness is on those of us in Ed Reform to make a better case for testing. Look, I've written a lot here at Fordham and elsewhere about not just the abuses of testing, but how the testing tail has wagged the educational dog too much. My hunch is that's a lot of what parents are responding too. Now, the response to that, if I understand your question correctly, is should there be a limit on your ability to opt out because if a kid opts out in the suburbs, that can effect the educational fortunes of a low income black or brown kid in an inner city. Good case. I'm not sure we made it well enough, but is that a legal case that therefore you should not be allowed to opt your kid out because of the harm it's done? That's getting awfully far away from what I would describe as real harm.

Brandon:         Sure.

Robert:            I think it's more of a moral argument than a legal one.

Brandon:         Sure.

Robert:            You agree?

Brandon:         That makes sense.

Robert:            Wow. All right. I passed a Brandon Wright legal test.

Brandon:         All right. I have a second question. At the end of your piece, you talk about the uncoupling of testing from teacher accountability. If we did that, would teacher accountability fall back to just observation? If so, are you okay with that?

Robert:            Am I okay with that? The short answer is yes. Look, I also have this very complicated relationship with testing, which I've confessed to you in the past. I mean, I think it's important. I think the data for those of us who care about Ed Reform is essential and we need to guard it very, very carefully and do whatever it takes to protect it. If that means the price of maintaining the testing regime that we have is to uncouple tests from teacher accountability, one, I'm okay with that. Two, I think ultimately we may not have a choice. When parents complain about the effects of testing, how it's really kind of gotten in the way of education, I don't think they're making that up. I also think that too much testing really damages the education of low income kids, particularly around things like literacy, for reasons that we don't have time to go into right now.

                        I do think that a lot of the overreaction, the reason that testing dominates schooling so much, this is not a particularly original point, is because of teacher accountability. If I told you that your pay raise was going to be dependent on your wearing a collared shirt and shining your shoes every day, what would you focus on every morning when you got dressed? A collared shirt and shiny shoes. Everything else might go away. I think that's just an inevitable price we might have to pay to preserve the data that we need to insure that the Ed Reform movement, charters, choice, all this dynamism around education, that it continues.

Brandon:         Makes sense.

Robert:            Okay.

Brandon:         All right.

Robert:            I'm on a roll.

Ellen:               Yesterday Robert Putnam joined President Obama and AEI President Arthur Brooks at Georgetown University to talk about poverty. What did they have to say? How does it relate to education?

Brandon:         First, you know, three brilliant guys.

Robert:            Sure.

Brandon:         A colleague of ours who doesn't particularly like Obama as a president, I was talking about this with him, and he said something along the lines of, "Wow. You forget how smart Obama is. He was really, really good at the stuff. He could do our jobs. I don't think I could be a president, but he could do our jobs."

Robert:            Well, we might be able to take him on here at Fordham as of January 2017. He'll be looking for work.

Brandon:         He'd be a great hire. He'd be a great hire.

Robert:            Okay. You're in charge of recruiting.

Brandon:         They really talked about poverty and opportunity. Of course, us being an ed policy shop, the big question is how this relates to education.

Robert:            Sure.

Brandon:         Obama made some comments about investing more in these kids. I think he meant time, energy and also financial.

Robert:            Oh, not just money, in other words.

Brandon:         Investments. Yeah.

Robert:            Okay. That gets complicated. Right?

Brandon:         Sure.

Robert:            The knee jerk reaction is always just invest more money. I'm not sure I've seen compelling data to suggest that it's about the money in terms of changing education outcomes. It's about what you spend that money on. I think for what it's worth, you probably have a more nuance view about this than I do, I haven't read the entire Putnam book, but he seems quite solid on education. We will have an essay from Robert Putnam in the Gadfly this week. He's singing a lot from the Ed Reform hymnals. He seems to like charters. He seems to like some of the innovative things that have gone on at Kipp and other charter schools and whatnot.

Brandon:         Yeah. Yeah, that sounds right. In his book, one of his last chapters kind of gives a menu of kind of education reform options that districts can take. He doesn't really advocate for one over another. He definitely demonstrates that he's aware of the reforms and knows about them. In terms of financial investment, Obama specifically mentions Early Childhood Education, which is, I think, a place where some financial investment could be wise. I think we need to get better at Early Childhood Education for disadvantaged kids.

Robert:            Oh, absolutely. As we've discussed here many times, it is not merely a matter of creating an entitlement, throwing more money at this problem, but doing it strategically. It's not about pre-K, it's about quality pre-K.

Brandon:         Right. Exactly.

Robert:            Right.

Brandon:         A big asterisk is when you spend more money, you have to make sure that you spend it well, that you implement any reform well. Just throwing money at a problem isn't going to fix it. You have to throw it smartly, essentially.

Robert:            It never does. We should also mention that Robert Putnam is going to be our guest here at Fordham. This is Wednesday, so this afternoon. By the time you hear this podcast, hopefully there will be a link from here that you can listen to Robert Putnam himself talk about his new book, which is called Our Kids.

Ellen:               Brandon, you've been covering what the presidential candidates have to say about education. What are the takeaways, and who is the most reform-minded?

Brandon:         All right.

Robert:            Great question.

Brandon:         Well, the takeaway so far is that there's a huge Republican pool and a very small Democrat pool.

Robert:            Is there anybody over 35 in the Republican Party who is not running? Let's make that list.

Brandon:         I'm not sure.

Robert:            Yeah.

Brandon:         I mean, eight have officially said they are, but the list of potential ones, I think, is like 20 people long.

Robert:            Oh my lord, it just gets longer by the day. Let me give you credit, Brandon. You have been doing remarkable work in going through the archives to find out in their own words, as they declare what each of the candidates in the one or two Democrats who have declared so far have to say about education. What surprises you? What have we learned?

Brandon:         Well, we have learned some things. I'm not sure that they're surprising. Republicans really dislike the common core. In fact, I think the only one who will is Jeb Bush.

Robert:            He hasn't declared yet, so therefore we have not plumbed the depths of his writings on education.

Brandon:         Speaking of Jeb Bush, if he does run, I think he'll be the most reform-minded person. He started, as you know, The Foundation For Excellence In Education, which advocates for things like Common Core, school choice, et cetera.

Robert:            They do very good work.

Brandon:         In terms of the ones who have officially said that they're going to run, it's kind of a tough choice in terms of who is the most education-minded of the bunch. Pretty much all of them have said a lot, which Is why I could pull at least ten quotes for everyone. Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee stand out for me for K-12 education.

Robert:            Okay.

Brandon:         Rubio has a lot to say about education, but he tends to focus on higher ed. In terms of some of the most surprising stuff, Ben Carson, who is a pretty traditional Republican ...

Robert:            And a brain surgeon.

Brandon:         ... and a brain surgeon, yeah, he was the first one to successfully separate twins conjoined at the head.

Robert:            I've got nothing compared to that.

Brandon:         Yeah. If he becomes president, I'm not sure that will be his greatest accomplishment.

Robert:            He could be his own Surgeon General.

Brandon:         Yeah. He has a surprising idea for redistributive school funding.

Robert:            Okay.

Brandon:         He thinks that most Republicans, or most people, wouldn't mind if you're in a rich district with kind of a surplus of cash, that you take some of that and give it to more cash-strapped school districts.

Robert:            Are you sure that's Ben Carson and not Bernie Sanders who said that?

Brandon:         It is, in fact, Ben Carson.

Robert:            Wow. That surprises me. There was another candidate. Was it Rubio who was talking about funding higher education? I know this is higher education, but funding education by almost selling futures in students. Do I have that right?

Brandon:         Yeah. He calls it a student investment plan.

Robert:            Okay.

Brandon:         He gives an example of a kid who needs $10,000 to pay for college. Instead of taking out a private loan, he says that person could approach approved and certified private investment groups. In short, these investors would pay your $10,000 in return for a percentage of your income for a set period of time after your graduation. Say, for example, 4% a year for 10 years.

Robert:            This really is almost like a futures market in students. Now, on paper you would be a great investment. University of Michigan Law School.

Brandon:         I work for a think tank, so I'm not going to make that much money.

Robert:            Well, I would have lost a lot of money investing in Brandon Wright.

Brandon:         Yeah. I'm not sure how that would work for someone who doesn't get a job.

Robert:            Yeah, yeah. It's a novel solution. I think it's a little crazy, but it's certainly creative.

Brandon:         That was surprising, too, I guess. It's a pretty new idea.

Robert:            It is. Who is yet to come on this? We're waiting for Jeb to declare, we're waiting for Scott Walker, and you'll continue to ...

Brandon:         Yeah, I think we're going to try to put out a Jeb piece this week, probably Scott Walker next, and I actually hear that Lindsey Graham is going to declare at the beginning of June. That's what I've heard.

Robert:            All right. In the meantime, we should start that futures market in students. I have a 17 year old daughter who is looking to line up investors. Thank you, Brandon. Up next, here is Amber with this week's research minute. Welcome, Amber.

Amber:            Thank you, Robert.

Robert:            Here's my question for you. Do you know who Alexander Ovechkin is?

Amber:            He's a hockey player.

Robert:            Good!

Amber:            I do know that much.

Robert:            Okay. Okay.

Amber:            Yes, and he is a really good one, from what I hear.

Robert:            Batting two for two.

Amber:            Yes.

Robert:            Do you want to quit while you're not too far behind?

Amber:            Yeah, and he's been around a little while.

Robert:            Okay.

Amber:            That's about my extent of all I know.

Brandon:         Three for three.

Robert:            That's not bad.

Amber:            He's a nice guy. I actually have heard that. Is he a nice guy?

Brandon:         I think so.

Amber:            I think so. Maybe. We women care about this. If they're nice guys, then we want to root for them.

Robert:            We just care as a New Yorker and a Rangers fan, that he go home unhappy tonight.

Amber:            I see. I see. Okay, well, I've exhausted my Alex Covechkin ...

Robert:            Ovechkin.

Amber:            Ovechkin. One of those guys.

Brandon:         Close. Close.

Robert:            That was pretty good. I'm impressed. I'm impressed.

Amber:            That's all I got on him.

Robert:            Okay. What you got for us research-wise?

Amber:            Research-wise we've got a new study out by Harvard and College Board researchers called Giving College Credit Where It Is Due. It examines various college outcomes relative to taking AP exams. It's kind of a neat study. They use College Aboard and National Student Clearinghouse data. They have student level data from 2004 to 2009. They're looking at graduating high school cohorts during those years. In other words, some of those high school kids we can track for at least five years after they've graduated. About 4.5 million students are analyzed who took AP exams. In order to glean the potential benefits they compare. This is a regression discontinuity design where they look at the nearly identical students who scored just above and just below the threshold of each scaled score. One through five, the kids who scored just above what you had to get a one through five, and then they zero in specifically on the kids who scored just above and below the score you needed to get to have credit at the college that you intended to go to.

Robert:            Which is usually a three. Right?

Amber:            It's usually a three. That's right. Anyway, bottom line is we can assume these kids are similar in demographics, and also similar in their college aspirations. Three key findings. Number one, attaining an AP exam score that counts for college credit increases the likelihood of completing a post-secondary degree within four years by one to two percentage points per exam. It does not appear, however, to impact the probability of completing the degree in the longer term. Once you get into five and six years, they didn't have evidence that it actually enhances the ability to complete it in the long term.

Robert:            Okay.

Amber:            Number two, while students with higher exam scores tend to enroll in more selective four year colleges, that's a no-brainer, they are no less like to attend colleges that provide credit for their AP exam scores.

Robert:            Wait. Say that again. In other words, that's not a deal breaker in terms of their college selection?

Amber:            That's right. That's right.

Robert:            Okay.

Amber:            Yup. They're not more likely to choose colleges just because they know they can get credit for their AP exam.

Robert:            Right. Okay.

Amber:            Nor are they more likely to attend particular colleges because of their AP exam scores. In other words, even though they tend to go to selective colleges, we can't say they go to selective colleges because they got a higher score on their AP exam.

Robert:            It's probably if anything, the other way around. Those who are most likely to get, say fours and fives on the their AP, are probably ticketed for more selective colleges, regardless. Right?

Amber:            Probably. Yeah.

Robert:            Okay.

Amber:            Yeah. That's the bottom line, is we can hypothesize, but we can't really say it's causal for this one.

Robert:            Sure. Of course.

Amber:            Then number three, receiving a score of three over a two when you took your AP exam in your junior year, causes you to take more AP exams your senior year, although it was a pretty small increase. If you take one junior, you do well, you're more likely to take another one.

Robert:            If you're successful and you get credit, why not take another?

Amber:            Yeah. Then they have a little section where they talk about the cost and implications. They basically kind of do this little estimate where they say earning credit from one AP exam could save a student about $900, assuming the student completes 30 hours per year and you go to a four year college with tuition around $9,000. I thought that sounded a little low to me.

Robert:            It does sound low, doesn't it?

Amber:            It's a little low.

Robert:            Yeah.

Amber:            I think they were conservative estimates, given the $9,000 a year.

Robert:            Sure.

Amber:            Then they talk about to take an AP test, it costs you about 91 bucks. If you score high enough to earn college credit, that's a pretty decent return on your investment.

Robert:            Having had my daughter just struggle through AP Physics all year, it's not the 91 bucks that I'm going to miss, it's her 17th year on the planet.

Amber:            Wow.

Robert:            That's pretty much gone.

Amber:            She's just all studying the entire time?

Robert:            Yeah. Yeah.

Amber:            Yeah.

Robert:            I used to have a kid and now I have a kid who takes AP Physics.

Amber:            Yeah. Well, that's impressive. What did I take? I took AP English and AP Biology in high school, and I just really enjoyed it.

Robert:            Oh, now you're just bragging.

Amber:            No, no. I actually feel like I learned so much in those AP courses, because they are just cramming that content down your throat. You feel the pressure, because you're like, "I'm not going to study my butt off and then not get that stinking three." Right?

Robert:            Absolutely. Am I right also to say that far fewer colleges accept AP credits towards your degree as used to?

Amber:            I think that I have read that quite a few times as a trend. Sort of seen as maybe a little elitist to be prioritizing the AP exam score.

Robert:            Yeah. My focus group of one, my daughter and her high school, I think most of her friends tend to take them less for college credit then as a signifier to college, that I'm capable of doing college level work.

Amber:            Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. No, that's interesting.

Brandon:         It seems like you're just trying to go to the best school possible.

Amber:            Yeah. That's right. In my mind, I guess it matters if you're paying for your own tuition. Right? If I knew I was going to get like three credits ... Let's say I just aced three of my AP exams and I wasn't going to have to pay for three college courses, that's a big deal now. Right?

Robert:            Yeah. Sure. Absolutely.

Amber:            I guess it's just not on your radar screen if you're the kid and your parents are paying. Right?

Robert:            Yup.

Brandon:         Or you take out a loan and you know you're going to have $40,000. I mean, who cares about $800 when you're paying $40,000. It seems to be a little more expensive than $9,000 a year.

Amber:            I think so.

Robert:            A lot more. There was a wonderful picture from somebody's commencement. I think it was Wayne State's commencement. A girl had on top of her mortar board in perfect HBO style handwriting, it said, "Game of Loans: Interest is coming."

Amber:            Wow, she crammed all that on the top of that, huh?

Robert:            Brilliant, just brilliant.

Amber:            Anyway, I was happy to do the study. These were College Board researchers, because they've got sort of the clamp on these data that all other research want to get a hold of. We're hoping, just to put a plug in, now that David Coleman is over there, that we're actually going to be able to get our hands on some of these data that have been hard to get.

Robert:            Hear that, David?

Amber:            Granted, this was a great study. It was at NBR and kudos to the College Board for allowing us to dig in to the scores of these 4.5 million kids.

Robert:            We're coming for your data, David Coleman. That's all the time we have for this week's Gadfly Show. Until next week ...

Brandon:         Brandon Wright.

Robert:            I'm Robert Pondiscio from Thomas B. Fordham Institute signing off.

Report release event for School Closures and Student Achievement study. Held in Columbus on April 28, 2015. Dr. Stephane Lavertu of the Ohio State University presented the findings and a distinguished panel discussed the implications. Panelists: Dr. Deven Carlson (University of Oklahoma, co-researcher), The Honorable Nan Whaley (Mayor of Dayton), Tracie Craft (Black Alliance for Educational Options), Stephanie Groce (former member Columbus City Schools Board of Education), Piet van Lier (Cleveland Transformation Alliance). Moderator: Chad Aldis (Fordham's VP for Ohio Policy and Advocacy).

Cohabitation continues between the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). And they don't appear to be practicing birth control, because every year brings one or two new joint products. NIEER's hot-off-the-presses report—the tenth in its series of annual "state of preschool" data-and-advocacy scorecards—was again paid for via a multi-year sole-source contract from the National Center for Education Statistics, and was released at an event featuring none other than Arne Duncan.

Nobody is making any effort to conceal this romance (which is just as well if you believe in governmental transparency).

Its progeny, however, all seem to look alike. This report is more of the same: a celebration of various increases in state-funded early childhood programs, strong recommendations for yet more increases, sundry state-by-state comparisons, and individual state profiles. The only difference between it and the most recent one published by the Education Department itself is that NIEER's policy advocacy is naked while the federal versions at least wear diapers.

Aside from the question of whether Uncle Sam should be paying for this, my biggest issue continues to be NIEER's woeful definition of preschool "quality." At least eight of their ten "national quality standards" are input-centered, based on credentials, ratios, and such. Yes, they also want states to have "early learning standards," but these are so nebulous that all fifty-three state programs are said to have "comprehensive" ones in place—the only category among the ten for which every state gets a checkmark. And while the NIEER standards call for site visits at least every five years, they seem to settle for the mere act of visiting, not for rigorous monitoring of whether these programs actually accomplish anything. More like bean counting and box checking.

I do not doubt that this relationship will last, at least until the present contract between NIEER and NCES is concluded. It's evident that both parties welcome this efficient alignment of their agendas, and they're surely having fun together. But why hasn't anyone in Congress even asked whether celibacy might not be a sounder public policy?

SOURCE: W. Steven Barnett et al., “The State of Preschoool 2014,” National Institute for Early Education Research (May 2015).

Whenever I review compelling research, I end up mentally pairing it with a corresponding work of literature. Maybe it’s the liberal arts student in me (or maybe it’s because I flunked stats and require an alternative frame of reference). Take for example this study of comparative school funding and performance in Nashville, which brought Dickens to mind almost immediately. Compiled by the education advisory firm Afton Partners on behalf of the Tennessee Charter School Center, it makes perfectly clear that for this city’s charters, it’s both the best of times and the worst of times. “Mean academic performance for all grades is significantly higher for charter-managed schools,” it reads, “though MNPS [Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools] spent approximately $100 more per pupil on district-managed schools.”

A measly c-note may not sound like much—in this instance, it’s the difference between roughly $9,800 and $9,700 annually—but that discrepancy only represents one chapter of this twisted tale of two funding standards. The per-pupil analysis doesn’t include a $73 million gap in capital support between district schools and charters. Meanwhile, those same neglected charters are reporting mean scores on the APF (Academic Performance Framework, a statewide metric that includes test scores, graduation rates, college readiness, and other data) that are 56 percent higher than their district-managed counterparts. Metro Nashville charters are fulfilling great expectations in other respects, too, accounting for a disproportionate chunk of the city’s best schools and being held up as a model for other states. So why are they forced, like Oliver Twist, to beg for more?

The solutions put forward in the study seem promising, if sketchy. Among other measures, it pushes for the creation of a longer-term district operating plan and a review of grant allocation practices. It’s hard to know whether these recommendations would suffice, but if Nashville stands pat, its kids will increasingly come to inhabit a bleak schoolhouse of the city’s own devising: Over the next ten years, charter enrollment in Tennessee’s capital is expected to expand by over ten thousand students while district schools lose close to four thousand. Let’s hope these awkward revelations wake up the Scrooges who have thus far denied equal funding to all schools. Otherwise, we can only hope they’ll be visited by spirits in the night.

SOURCE: “MNPS Expenditures and Academic Outcomes: Long Term Opportunities for the District,” Tennessee Charter School Center (April 2015).

This book, an updated edition of Stanford professor Jo Boaler’s seminal 2008 work of the same name, tackles an important if familiar issue: The United States has a mathematics problem. On the 2012 iteration of PISA, the international test administered by the OECD, we ranked thirty-sixth out of sixty-five countries in math performance—and twenty-seventh out of thirty-four among OECD members. More ominously, 70 percent of students attending two-year colleges require remedial math courses—which only one in ten successfully passes.

Boaler argues that American math education is ineffective for three reasons: First, classroom learning is too passive, with teachers lecturing from the blackboard instead of actively interacting with their students. Second, instruction doesn’t emphasize understanding and critical thought, leaning instead on memorization and regurgitation. And third, the contexts in which content is taught don’t reflect the way math is used in everyday life. Take for example the following textbook question: “A pizza is divided into fifths for five friends at a party. Three of the friends eat their slices, but then four more friends arrive. What fractions should the remaining two slices be divided into?” When, in real life, would you need this, when you could just order more pizza? This flawed approach leaves students ill prepared to use what they’ve learned in new situations, leading to both failure on assessments and widespread aversion to mathematics.

Boaler also expertly illustrates that this problem goes beyond poor scores on assessments. America’s math problem endangers the country’s future global competitiveness. For example, she cites research by Cal State/Northridge’s Julie Gainsburg, which concludes that “[t]he traditional K-12 mathematics curriculum, with its focus on performing computational manipulations, is unlikely to prepare students for the problem-solving demands of the high-tech workplace.” 

Boaler praises the Common Core State Standards for their inclusion of mathematical practices such as problem solving, sense making, perseverance, and reasoning. These “ways of being mathematical” are of critical importance for students trying to become successful in math. As she concludes in one chapter, “it is impossible to know exactly which mathematical methods will be most helpful in the future, [therefore] it is so important that schools develop flexible thinkers who can draw from a variety of mathematical principles in solving problems.”

As a former math teacher, I found this book to be a delightful mix of moments of familiarity (“Been there, tried that.”) and moments of clarity (“I really wish I had known that back when…”). And unlike other texts that attempt to define and describe effective math instruction but only serve up platitudes and trite techniques, it offers practical ways to help all math learners. Boaler may not be a popular figure among teachers and reformers who favor a more traditional approach, but everyone else should find her work interesting, readable, and actionable.

SOURCE: Jo Boaler, What's Math Got to Do with It?: How Teachers and Parents Can Transform Mathematics Learning and Inspire Success (New York: Penguin Book, 2015).