The Education Gadfly Weekly

That education in Detroit, like much else in the Motor City, needs a reboot is beyond argument. The city’s students have endured increasing violence in recent decades, along with failed support systems, the absence of working streetlights, and the worst city transportation system in the country. People with the means to relocate have abandoned the city, and most of those who remained understandably sought ways to change the course of their children’s futures. The change of choice was to find a school of choice. Today, 53 percent of Detroit students attend a charter school—about the same as in Washington, D.C., and second only to New Orleans.

The mere presence of charter schools does not mean that Detroit’s education problems have been solved. Most of the city’s students are behind before they even begin. As in any community where poverty reigns, those with the fewest resources face the greatest challenges to overcome in reaching a satisfactory level of achievement. Charter schools have limited resources, but the best of them find success via innovative, student-focused approaches to teaching and learning. And while the city’s dire funding crisis masked the reality of what it takes to reach these kids, charter schools powered through and proved that greater outcomes could be achieved.

Yet Detroit’s charter schools, taken as a whole, are far from where they need to be. An ideal system of choice starts with meeting parents’ needs; but it also goes further to ensure a level of student success that many parents never thought possible. The charter sector must foster that success—and schools that cannot or will not produce it have no place in Detroit. Newly enacted legislation seeks to retool this sector in the direction of greater quality.

Of the original recommendations presented to the legislature by the Detroit Coalition and the governor, all but one was achieved. These aims include paying off the amassed debt of Detroit Public Schools (DPS), providing seed money for the new school district, returning the district to an elected board, preserving all union contracts, and ending the power of the emergency manager. All of these, in addition to other critical reforms that weren’t on the list of objectives, were included in the final legislation passed this month and signed by Governor Rick Snyder Tuesday.

To start, it requires that a new performance system be adopted. The legislation calls for the adoption of the current state system, which is dependent on “Top-to-Bottom” rankings, as well as the creation of a citywide A–F report card or a new statewide A–F system. The only meaningful choice is a statewide A–F system that measures both growth and proficiency. In the spirit of (and in conformity with) No Child Left Behind, Michigan let itself act as if “proficiency” were the only goal of schooling. But when most students are coming from far below that level, it’s progress toward proficiency—and then progress beyond proficiency—that needs to be measured, monitored, and made consequential for schools.

Possibly the most powerful pieces of this legislation are those reforms that were not among the original objectives. The legislation includes authorizer accreditation requirements for the opening of new schools, a ban on authorizer shopping for failing charter schools, and an automatic closure provision with current, clear standards. Also important is the replacement of the Detroit Education Commission with a city-level council tasked with responding to the valid outcry for coordination of school openings and closings. This council, with representation from the traditional and charter public school communities, is charged with providing analysis of school performance, facilities, student demographics, and educational needs in Detroit. This legislative compromise respects the autonomy of charter schools and expectations for coordination.

On the other hand, while the legislation invested over $617 million into DPS, it failed to address funding equity, access to facilities for charter schools, and the non-existence of charter school start-up funding.

As important as this legislation is, the real work begins now. The future of Detroit children is hanging by a thread—the assumption that Detroit stakeholders will collaborate and join forces to develop real solutions. And yes, this means compromise. The kids are depending on it.

Daniel L. Quisenberry is the president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies.

Many education reformers once thought that parental choice was the “ultimate local control.” When opponents of choice programs defended the district monopoly system by rhetorically asking, “Don’t you believe in your locally elected board?” we’d reply, “We want education decisions to be made as close to kids as possible—by families.”

We thought that this was the morally sound answer. But we also thought that it was a political winner. Sure, there’d be opposition from those lobbying on behalf of the districts that stood to lose control. But everyone else would want to empower parents.

Moreover, many of us had read John Chubb and Terry Moe’s seminal Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools, which argued that democratic control was the cause of many of public education’s troubles. Local school boards, many reformers believed, were populated by aspiring politicians with pet issues and petty grievances. They were controlled by powerful interest groups who cared about things other than student learning.

We assumed that school results would be much better, and school politics much reduced, if we dramatically decentralized the system by handing authority to families, educators, and civil society. Teachers could start and lead schools, nonprofits could operate and support schools, and parents could match their kids to the programs that fit them best. We could rid ourselves of all the campaign nastiness and government sclerosis that comes with embedding public education within a political system.

But a curious thing happened along our righteous, electorally watertight path to greater choice: People decided that they liked democracy, too.

So today, in cities with too few options, families clamor for more choice. Charter waitlists overflow, and advocates lobby for new voucher, tax-credit, or ESA programs. At the same time, in cities where charter sectors have blossomed (e.g., New Orleans, Detroit, Newark), communities are demanding more democratic control. How to balance the two has turned out to be one of the most interesting and difficult quandaries in schooling today.

Of course, choice advocates were never opposed to all government activity in public education. The government was obviously needed to ensure that schools were following important laws and that there were standards for what students should know and be able to do. But much of this work could be done by state government or appointed officials.

But authority that is both local and democratic has also been in demand. A community’s voters want to have a say over what types of schools exist, what constitutes “good schools,” who runs them, how an area’s culture and traditions are passed on, and much more. Decisions are more reflective of the public’s will when these issues are litigated through the democratic process. Additionally, we can have faith that the discussion is transparent, that people feel agency, and that the results—even if imperfect—will be durable and respected.

The “local” and “democratic” aspects of school authority can be especially important in historically underserved communities. Because of segregation, redlining, and other unjust policies, many of our fellow citizens don’t merely suffer unfair conditions; they suffer environments they’ve been precluded from changing. They want and deserve the right to have a significant influence over the policies affecting them and their neighbors— especially those related to the education of their kids.

And therein lies our fundamental challenge. Today’s decentralized systems of choice empower families and enable a wide array of options, but they inhibit the community’s ability to shape the contours of the local school system. Yesterday’s district-based system was democratically controlled, but the centralization of authority in a single government body prevented dynamism and choice and produced a half-century of heartbreaking results.

So what in the world do we do?

I’m concerned that policy makers will see the choice as binary. We’ll either try to forever insulate systems of choice from democratic control, or we’ll turn them over to dysfunctional, longstanding, traditional school boards (like NOLA just did). But there is a middle path.

We need to begin experimenting, in earnest, with democratically controlled authorizers. If a city has a large charter sector, state government could create a new authorizer with an elected board (or require existing authorizers to move to elected boards). That democratically controlled authorizer would then have a performance contract with each of the city’s public schools, including those operated by the district.

The city would preserve its diversity of schools and operators, as well as the right of parents to choose schools, through such an arrangement. But voters would have a say in how the system worked. Some traditionalists would be unsatisfied because the elected board wouldn’t own and operate every single public school. Some choice advocates would be unsatisfied because the democratic process would influence the system.

But this approach recognizes the virtues of decentralization and choice as well as democratic control. It gives the community a voice while making it clear that the board’s role is to authorize schools, not operate them.

My book from 2012 started exploring this idea, and Hill and Jochim’s excellent A Democratic Constitution for Public Education did the same. Moreover, there are already examples of democratically controlled authorizers (like Indy’s mayor), so we wouldn’t be breaking new ground.

Fordham just asked reformers to find common ground on contentious issues. This new approach to school accountability offers a way to blend deeply held principles that are currently in tension.

On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli and Alyssa Schwenk discuss education reform’s common ground, the diversity of selective public high schools, and Ohio’s new charter law. During the Research Minute, David Griffith examines the effects of D.C.’s citywide charter school lottery.

On the heels of national research studies that have uncovered troubling findings on the performance of virtual charter schools, a new report provides solid, commonsense policy suggestions aimed at improving online schools and holding them more accountable for results. Three national charter advocacy organizations—NAPCS, NACSA, and 50CAN—united to produce these joint recommendations.

The paper’s recommendations focus on three key issues: authorizing, student enrollment, and funding. When it comes to authorizers, the authors suggest restricting oversight duties for statewide e-schools to state or regional entities; capping authorizing fees; and creating “virtual-specific goals” to which schools are held accountable. Such goals, which would be part of the authorizer-school contract, could include matters of enrollment, attendance, achievement, truancy, and finances. On enrollment, the authors cite evidence that online education may not be a good fit for every child and suggest that states study whether to create admissions standards for online schools (in contrast to open enrollment). They also recommend limits to enrollment growth based on performance; for instance, a high-performing school would have few (if any) caps on growth, while a low-performer would face strict limits. Finally, the report touches on funding policies, including recommendations to fund online schools based on their costs and to implement performance-based funding (an approach that authorities in Florida, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Utah have already piloted for online schools). Interestingly, the report notes how the design of the performance-based funding model varies from state-to-state. New Hampshire, for example, takes a mastery-based approach—with the teacher verifying “mastery”—while Florida requires the passage of an end-of-course exam, as determined by the state, to trigger payment.

Perhaps the paper’s most intriguing idea is that states consider decoupling virtual schools from their charter laws. They write, “States may need to consider governing full-time virtual schools outside of the state’s charter school law, simply as full-time virtual public schools.” Indeed, laws and regulations crafted with brick-and-mortar charter schools in mind may be poorly suited to the unique environment of online schools. Enrollment and funding policies are just two examples of the usefulness of a separate set of rules (e-schools, however, should not be held to different academic standards).

State policy makers, including those in our home state of Ohio (a state with a large e-school sector), should pay close attention to this report. As my colleague Chad Aldis noted, “Virtual schools have become and will remain an important part of our education system.” If policy misalignment is at least partly behind the poor results we’ve observed, employing the recommendations of this report would be a major step forward for online education.

SOURCE: “A Call to Action to Improve the Quality of Full-Time Virtual Charter Public Schools,” National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and 50CAN (June 2016).

A new study evaluates the SEED School of Washington, D.C.—which, according to authors, is the “nation’s first urban, public, college-preparatory boarding school.” Located in Southeast Washington, it serves roughly 320 students between grades six and twelve. Most of the students admitted are African American, low-performing, and economically disadvantaged. The school operates under the assumption that breaking the cycle of poverty requires a holistic intervention that provides students with a safe place to live, regular healthy meals, caring adults, and resources like libraries and extracurricular activities that middle and high-income communities take for granted. Analysts from MDRC analyzed how the SEED program is run and whether being offered a seat impacted student academic and behavioral outcomes.

Because the school is a part of D.C.’s annual admissions lottery—open by law to any student who resides in the city (meaning that the school cannot select its students based on need or demographics)—researchers were able to identify two comparable groups totaling 766 students: those who applied and were randomly accepted, and those who applied and were denied, between 2006 and 2011. Of the accepted group, 80 percent were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and a little less than 50 percent scored at or above proficient on district reading and math exams.

As for the program itself: Students arrive Sunday evening and remain on campus until Friday afternoon. During this time, they learn in an environment that researchers found rich in academic supports during and after the school day. Students receive college counseling and instruction in behavioral, social, and life skills, and high schoolers learn about the transition to college. Students generally reported that they believed these skills to be important for their future. There are also extracurricular activities, as well as health and other support services. For middle school students in particular, the program is highly regimented and scheduled.

To measure the school’s effect on student outcomes, analysts looked at the entering sixth- and seventh-grade cohorts’ short-term academic impact and long-term academic and behavioral outcomes. Because only the students entering the early years of the study had time to graduate before it ended—and because only about half of the school’s students remained through the twelfth grade—the sample size of the long-term analyses was small (two hundred students).

In the short run, the researchers found that being offered a slot increased the seventh-grade cohort’s first-year math achievement by 0.24 standard deviations, on average, compared to students denied admission. That is equivalent to the SEED group receiving an extra three-quarters of a school year of instruction. By the second year, math gains for SEED students equaled 1.5 years of extra growth. Reading impacts were negligible in year one, but they exceeded the growth of those denied admission by approximately one year of growth by year two. As for longer-term academic effects, the SEED group was no more likely to graduate high school in four years or to attend college, and their test scores after four years at the school were not significantly different from those of the comparison group (though they did take more foreign languages and physics classes).

Admission didn’t affect behavioral outcomes like study skills, self-control, alcohol use, or teen pregnancy. SEED kids did spend more time on homework, but they showed an increased likelihood of partaking in negative behaviors, such as skipping school, arguing with parents, and fighting. Admitted students also scored lower on measures of grit or perseverance.

The authors point out that kids who lost the lottery attended a variety of traditional, magnet, and charter schools due to D.C.’s “innovative” choice climate, implying that the comparison group and their schools weren’t too shabby. Moreover, the SEED group’s reported home living environments weren’t significantly worse than the comparison group’s, so perhaps the paucity of observed differences might be due to the fact that the groups were actually pretty similar. (This would not be surprising given that SEED is legally prohibited from selectively admitting students with greater outside-of-school needs). The behavioral outcomes in particular should give school leaders pause and encourage them to evaluate their programs. And the academic effects raise the question of whether the school could be more successful if they could retain kids over their entire middle and high school careers.

SOURCE: Rebecca Unterman, Dan Bloom, D. Crystal Byndloss, and Emily Terwelp, "Going Away to School," MDRC (June 2016).

Teachers don’t agree on much. Ask about curriculum, pedagogy, school culture, or discipline and you’re likely to encounter deeply held and conflicting opinions. But if there’s one belief that unites nearly all of the nation’s three million teachers, it’s this: Professional development sucks.

Indeed, before diving into this report from New America, I posted a note on Facebook asking my educator friends to play a game of word association. The phrase “professional development” quickly generated dozens of responses, including “Pay hike scheme,” “Waste of time,” “Nightmare suckfest run by non-teachers,” “Paid to drink the district Kool-Aid,” and simply “Kill me now.” One response summarized K–12’s relationship with professional development perfectly: “Generally crap. Could be awesome.”

So we agree that it’s generally crap, yet we lavish time and money on it hoping that it will be awesome. Our faith is largely misplaced: Despite an estimated $18 billion spent on PD per year, little evidence exists linking any of it to consistently effective improvement in teacher practices or student outcomes. Enter Melissa Tooley and Kaylan Connally, the authors of this report, who note that it makes no sense to bemoan the execrable state of PD until or unless there is agreement on what it’s for, “Just as diagnosing a health issue is the first step toward treating it.”

The paper identifies several obstacles to effective PD, not the least of which is the lack of a shared vision of what excellent teaching entails. “Despite several efforts within the U.S. to establish a common vision of good teaching practice, a clear, shared vision has remained elusive,” Tooley and Connally note. “But without it, the field lacks a consistent way to even talk about effective teaching, let alone identify development needs.” Another key factor is the failure to include evaluation of teacher PD needs as part of the process of certifying school leaders. “States have generally set a low bar for gaining initial certification as a school administrator that does not require any demonstration of competency as an instructional leader for teachers,” they note.

Along the way, the report also manages to smartly address some standard PD shibboleths, most notably the idea that the best PD is that which teachers choose and direct themselves. That sounds smart and intuitive, but putting teachers in charge of their own professional development runs counter to some key lessons of cognitive science; teachers may not have the data or skills to evaluate where their practice is strong and where they need help. “This is not a specific criticism of educators,” the pair note. “Research indicates that humans, regardless of profession, are inherently not good at knowing what they do not know.”

Finally, the paper also looks at PD through the lens of the professional culture of schools. This is the part that will have teachers nodding knowingly (or ruefully). “Many educators view current development efforts as something to be quietly tolerated so they can get back to their ‘real work’ of teaching students,” they note—a polite translation of the comments I received on Facebook. Other schools are marked by an “egg-crate culture” in which teachers work in isolation rather than collaboratively. More pointedly, the authors cite inflated evaluations given to teachers, which leads to what they dub a “Lake Wobegon” culture where everyone is above average and PD lacks urgency as a result. Alternatively, schools can fall into the trap of having a “complacency culture” where the word improvement is stigmatized “and seen as something one must work toward only if one is a poor performer.”

In sum, the report builds on the findings of TNTP’s groundbreaking report The Mirage, which the authors cite generously. But the biggest takeaway is surely what they describe as “the critical need for a common theory of action and associated PD pathway around which all actors can coalesce.” It can hardly be overstated. We can’t take meaningful steps to improve our performance until we agree on exactly what game we’re playing.

SOURCE: Melissa Tooley and Kaylan Connally, “No Panacea: Diagnosing What Ails Teacher Professional Development Before Reaching for Remedies,” New America (June 2016).