The Education Gadfly Weekly

As my Fordham colleague David Griffith wrote late last year in a post accompanying the release of The Best (and Worst) Cities for School Choice, resistance to the spread of parental choice in education is futile. The genie is out of the bottle, and there’s no going back. That’s not to say that political resistance from some quarters will simply die down, or that we’ll proceed without setbacks. Far from it. But as choice in general and charter schooling in particular continue to grow, they build formidable constituencies. Nobody is marching across the Brooklyn Bridge to defend Common Core or standardized testing. But parents whose children benefit from choice are not going to surrender it without a fight.

The most important questions about school choice are no longer “whether,” but “how” and “where” and “which kinds” and “how many.” And the most interesting debates are no longer waged between choice advocates and opponents, but within the school choice movement itself. Just like the raging family feuds within each of our political parties, the divisions are real. And they run deep. That’s because the movement’s “big tent” now has factions in its various folds and corners that agree on parental choice but little else. On the occasion of National School Choice Week, let me attempt to name and depict the three tribes of the school choice movement.

1. Choice Purists. These folks—mainly freedom-loving libertarians—strongly support two of the three principles that have long defined charter schooling: parental choice and school autonomy. They are all for “parent power.” But they reject results-based accountability because if conflicts with the will of parents and the right of schools to serve their customers as they think best. (It may also warp schools’ approaches to curriculum, coerced as they may be to teach to standardized tests.) Not surprisingly, they prefer the less regulated forms of school choice—Education Savings Accounts and tax credit scholarship programs especially—but are lukewarm on charters. While this clique is best represented in free-market think tanks (and on Jay Greene’s blog), it is increasingly influential in our politics, thanks to gains by the Tea Party.
    
2. Choice Nannies. This second group supports parental choice, and accountability for results, but is only half-heartedly committed to school autonomy. Some of these folks are simply bureaucrats—one-time district officials who now find themselves working in charter school authorizing shops or state policy offices. At the first sign of trouble, their inclinations turn to micromanagement (in the guise of “greater oversight”); when screening charter applicants, they look for the safe and trusted. But a subset of Nannies comes from within the choice movement itself: advocates who espouse “parent power” but also have strong opinions about practices that should or shouldn’t be allowed in schools of choice. (Tough-love approaches to school discipline, especially.)
    
3. Choice Realists. This final group buys into all three principles that have long defined charter schooling: parental choice, school-level autonomy, and results-based accountability. (Many are also eager to apply these principles to vouchers and other publicly funded private school choice programs.) They understand that there are tradeoffs at play. Closing fully enrolled charter schools due to low performance is a violation of parental preferences. But because education is a public good and not just a private one, they contend that such stern actions are not only justifiable, but necessary. They don’t just want happy customers, they want better outcomes for society—especially for its most vulnerable children. At the same time, they worry when regulators cloak their impulse to micromanage in the language of “accountability,” since they’re also concerned that schools maintain true operational freedom and the ability to innovate. They defend the right of schools to engage in practices with which they might disagree, so long as they are getting good results and attracting ample families.

It should be obvious by now that I belong to the tribe of Choice Realists. (I’m also a Reform Realist on federal policy. I love me some realism!) Not surprisingly, I find the arguments of both the other choice factions unconvincing and even dysfunctional. Here’s why.

Start with the Purists. I’m skeptical of all utopian visions, including theirs—one imagining that a full-fledged system of choice (perhaps through universal Education Savings Accounts) will yield greater innovation, productivity, and customer satisfaction—and produce better-educated young people to boot. But I’m also worried, in the here and now, about low-quality private and charter schools that prey on low-income families like payday lenders do. I’m happy to let schools stay open so long as they demonstrate solid outcomes for kids and basic financial responsibility with taxpayer dollars. But for the Purists, that’s a Brooklyn Bridge too far. It doesn’t help their case that some of the most unscrupulous providers in today’s marketplace hide behind the “parent power” language (and organizations) to keep their lights on and profits intact.

As for the Nannies: These folks underestimate the importance of cutting the Gordian Knot that inspired charter schooling in the first place. They seem to believe that the only reason district schools struggle is because of onerous union contracts, or a political atmosphere in which parents have too little power. Solve for those problems, they assume, and the rest takes care of itself. They don’t seem to understand that the web of conflicting mandates that advocates have placed on the schools over the years—usually under the “equity” banner—are what make it next to impossible for schools to truly run themselves, much less innovate: “Do this on special education. Don’t do that with English language learners. Here’s what’s allowed on discipline. Here’s what’s not. Don’t let any of your impacts be disparate. Here’s what you can spend your dollars on. Here’s where you can’t.”

Great schools of choice aren’t government schools with a smidgen of autonomy and some freedom for parents to opt in. They’re truly independent nonprofit organizations that are entrusted to use their judgment about how best to deal with difficult questions of practice.

***

Is there anything to be done about these schisms in the school choice movement? Probably not. We’re better off with a big tent than a pup-tent, and that invariably means pulling in people with different ideologies and interests. As with any dysfunctional family, we have to live with one another, whether we want to or not. But if we can understand each other better, perhaps we can more effectively work together on common cause.

National School Choice Week (NSCW) may fall in January (rather than December), but it seems to herald a season of hope this year. Signs of progress can be seen in the week’s sudden prominence (the first NSCW featured 150 events, while 2016’s features over sixteen thousand) and in the long list of mayors and governors officially recognizing it. But those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Over the last few years, political will seems to have coalesced around the issue. Families and educators are taking to the streets to defend their schools, and local leaders are responding to that pressure with action. As more voters come to value their educational options, it’s starting to feel like every week is School Choice Week.

Still, we should be wary of spiking the football prematurely, given how much work remains to be done in some parts of the country. At the end of last year, Fordham published one of the biggest studies in its history, and certainly the most detailed and wide-ranging survey of urban school choice ever conducted: America’s Best (and Worst) Cities for School Choice. Using an array of indicators touching on everything from funding disparities to the tone of local media coverage, the authors scored and ranked thirty prominent cities on their “choice friendliness.” (Profiles of each city can be accessed at the report page.)

As you might expect, the results suggest that “choice friendliness” varies dramatically between cities. A few reform favorites received mostly high marks, while others struggled to get on the scoreboard. But they also reveal some common challenges—issues the school choice movement would do well to prioritize in the coming year.

Here are three crucial areas of growth for choice in 2016:

1.) Making life easier for parents

Too often, the most daunting barriers to choice are depressingly mundane: lack of information, paperwork, and physical distance. The good news is that, with a bit of effort, these barriers can be reduced.

Take the problem of information access. Every city in the study has some sort of information about schools of choice on both district and state websites; but the quality and accessibility of that information varies widely (something that should be an easy fix). Similarly, in fifteen cities, organizers reach out personally to families to familiarize them with their options. That’s a practice that should be universal.

Reducing paperwork is a bit tougher. In particular, although twenty-seven cities have some sort of common application, only six have managed to incorporate charters—meaning we’re not doing enough to simplify life for parents whose children are applying to multiple schools. Getting that many different institutions to coordinate is obviously challenging, but it is doable (as places like Denver and Washington, D.C demonstrate).

Perhaps the toughest barrier is physical distance. Just nine of our thirty cities provide the same transportation to charter schools that they offer to neighborhood schools (and in two, New York City and Washington, D.C., that “transportation assistance” basically amounts to a metro card). That’s a nightmare for parents, many of whom can’t drop everything to haul across town with three kids during the morning rush. Still, there are signs of progress in places like Boston, which saved taxpayers millions of dollars by synchronizing travel schedules among charters and district schools.

2.) Getting open enrollment right

Charters and vouchers get most of the press from choice advocates. But the most important education decision for millions of American families is actually choosing which school to apply to within a district—either through individual attendance waivers or through a lottery that encourages families to rank their choices. The policies that circumscribe those choices are commensurably important.

In seventeen of the thirty cities we examined, the largest district uses some sort of lottery system; but every city’s lottery is different. For example, Washington, D.C. gives priority to students in a school’s attendance zone, whereas Boston assures them only of a place in one of several schools. Similarly, San Francisco favors students whose local schools have low test scores, while Chicago earmarks seats for students from particular economic backgrounds. These differences have important (but poorly understood) consequences for how students are distributed and which ones can access the best schools, so districts should be less cagey with their data.

Districts without lotteries can also be more or less amenable to in-district transfers. For example, Dallas ISD requires families to reapply for their attendance waivers every year. Such unnecessary restrictions impose a needless burden on families. They should be abolished and (ideally) replaced with a policy of open enrollment.

3.) Expanding vouchers

This one’s pretty simple: You can’t attend the school of your dreams if you can’t afford tuition. Just over one-third of the cities featured in our study are located in states that offer some form of voucher (or tax credit scholarship) for kids to attend private schools. But these programs are rife with limitations: Virtually all are subject to enrollment limits, almost none cover the cost of attending a private academy, and many are subject to strict eligibility requirements.

Of course, vouchers are politically explosive, so any attempt to expand them will be a battle. Still, it’s one that’s worth fighting. It’s terrible to think that working- and middle-class children are priced out of some of the best schools in their areas. Yet in most places, that remains the reality.

Obviously, these aren’t the only sticky issues that need to be resolved. But if we could make some headway in these areas, many more students could find their way to the education they deserve. Here’s hoping 2016 is the year we tackle the tough stuff.

• Career and technical education is one of the best weapons in the reformer’s arsenal. It’s a proven gateway to post-secondary credentials and skilled jobs, which can’t be taken for granted when so many of our high school graduates find themselves unprepared for college and career. The Gadfly was apoplectic when Arizona Governor Doug Ducey green-lit $30 million in cuts to the state’s CTE programs last year, reducing their funding by nearly 50 percent. These classes obviously benefit the ninety thousand students they serve annually, but they’re also a boon to the local and regional economies, which profit immensely from a domestic source of coveted technicians and tradesmen. It’s great news for all, therefore, that veto-proof majorities in both houses of Arizona’s state legislature are ready to pass legislation repealing the cuts. If ever there was a case of government electing to be pennywise and pound-foolish, it was this.
• Republicans and teachers’ unions have always been like peas in a pod. We’re not sure where the love affair started, but it was probably when they spent all those decades impugning and seeking to destroy one another. Okay, kidding aside, we’re all aware of the historic tensions existing between unionized teachers and the GOP. That’s why it’s borderline gobstobbing that the National Education Association, America’s single largest labor union, has issued shiny new grades for federal lawmakers—and some of the best grades have gone to Republicans. Fifty-nine congressional elephants earned grades of either A, B, or C, compared to just eighteen in 2009–10. The upward revision is doubtless a product of Republican initiative in writing and helping pass the Every Student Succeeds Act. In reverting so much authority from the federal government back to the states, the bill allows districts, schools, and individual educators (including unionized ones) greater flexibility in the classroom. Now that the two former rivals are best pals, we can’t wait to see them reach concurrence on issues like charter schools, voucher programs, and labor relations.
• Next time you’re looking to enliven your discussion at a dinner party, forget all about religion, politics, and sex and instead bring up the subject of classroom suspensions. Every aspect of school discipline, from its occasionally glaring racial disparities to the growing (but still tiny) number of toddlers getting tossed from kindergarten, is red-hot right now. Thankfully, we have a universally beloved and uncontroversial public figure to elucidate the subject: Eva Moskowitz! At a speech at New York Law School, the Success Academies honcho gave a robust defense of her charters’ unyielding approach to disruptive and unsafe behavior, which has attracted condemnation from more than her usual cast of critics. “The truth of the matter is safety is the number-one reason parents want out of the district schools, and we believe that our first obligation is for the safety of the children,” she said. “There’s no learning that can occur if we aren’t able to guarantee that.” Well, I guess she put that issue to bed.
• Chicago Public Schools is one of the most battered major school districts in the country. Its gaping budgetary hole led policy makers to shutter dozens of schools a few years ago, and continuing cost overruns are now necessitating layoffs as well. Facing a shortfall in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the district has let go of some 227 people. None of the terminated staff were classroom teachers, but losing critical administrative and special education staff is enormously harmful. Meanwhile, with the schools looking to Illinois’s state government to bail it out, Republican state legislators are proposing a wholesale takeover. (Unless they can win over a truly improbable number of Democrats, the plan won’t come close to passage.) Watching families endure this uncertainty is desperately sad, but it’s worth using the terrible scenario as an object lesson: Districts have to take specific steps to secure their own economic viability, or they risk the same future.

In this week's podcast, Mike Petrilli and Brandon Wright explain the schisms in the school choice movement, defend career and technical education programs, and discuss Eva Moskowitz’s big speech on school discipline. In the Research Minute, Amber Northern describes the effect of teacher turnover and quality on student achievement in District of Columbia Public Schools.

Amber's Research Minute

Melinda Adnot, Thomas Dee, Veronica Katz, and James Wyckoff, "Teacher Turnover, Teacher Quality, and Student Achievement in DCPS," NBER (January 2016).

Transript

Mike:                    Hello this is your host Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute here at the Education Gadfly Show and online at edexcellence.net. Now, please join me welcoming my co-host the snowzilla of education reform, Brandon Wright.

Brandon:             I'll take that, yeah.

Mike:                    You take no prisoners, you pack a punch. You surprise. Especially in New York City.

Brandon:             I'm still causing problems here.

Mike:                    Oh, wreaking havoc left and right.

Brandon:             The sidewalks are blocked and the roads are still one lane. It hasn't snowed in like 4 days.

Mike:                    What? One lane? What are you talking about man? Out in the snowdrifts of the suburbs where I lived, you're lucky if your streets got plowed. That happened to me yesterday, which is why I get to be here, but yeah, it's tough. We are basically waiting for things to melt. That is how things will get back to normal.

Brandon:             It was cold for a few days though.

Mike:                    We've got to wait. We're going to just have to wait, patience Brandon, patience. That's a good segue because sometimes patience pays off such as with the movement for school choice. It is national school choice week.

Brandon:             Hey, hey.

Mike:                    We're going to talk about that today and some other important issues in education reform. Let's get started. Clara let's play pardon the Gadfly.

Clara:                     It's national school choice week and many have noted that when it comes to giving families a choice of schools, it's no longer a matter of if, but how. But Mike you see [schisms 00:01:34] in the school-choice movement, should we worry about them?

Mike:                    Well we shouldn't worry about them but we should acknowledge them because they are there and they are real. I would argue and do argue in this week's Gadfly that these divisions within the movement are just as deep as we see divisions within each of the political parties. We're in this primary season right now where of course these divisions are on full display, I think particularly so in the Republican field. There is a great political scientist, or commentator Henry Olson, friend of mine who has been writing about the four faces of the GOP and he talks about these different categories.

                                Well, I've tried to write now about these three tribes of the school choice movement. You've got the school choice realists, I put myself in that camp Brandon.

Brandon:             As do I.

Mike:                    Who tend to support all 2 pillars of the Charter School movement. It's saying we believe in parental choice. We believe in accountability for results and we believe in school level autonomy, we also are willing to apply those same principles to private school choice. Then you've got the school choice purists, these are the folks who tend to be the more libertarians. They believe in choice, they believe in autonomy, but they're not so down on accountability. They feel like that is second guessing parents. If parents are happy enough with it, so should we, even if the school is not getting great results. Then finally you've got the school choice nannies, I call them. These folks are tension, these is an interesting group, they like choice, but and they're okay with accountability, but they are not so committed to autonomy.

                                These are either the bureaucrats that that want to just micromanage charter schools and other forms of school choice, or sometimes even some other folks out there in the school reform world, who claim to like school choice, but then are against certain practices like tough love on discipline, so they want to micromanage the schools around that. You know, look in the end of course as I said before, we tend to fall on the school choice realist spectrum, but it's important to understand where other people are coming from and Brandon what do you think? I mean, are we better of with this big tent than a pup tent, right?

Brandon:             Yeah. I definitely think the big tent is the best thing for kids which is obviously why we have school choice to begin with, right? Yeah, the entire point is to have better schools for our kids and the best way for that to happen is for school choice advocates in all these different small tents to work well together just as it's important for kids in public education in the country as a whole for the choice sectors and district sectors to find a way to work together well.

Mike:                    Yeah.

Brandon:             Right? We see that in a few places, we see that in Denver, we see it here in the nation's capital. Right so, it's possible right? But we need to find a way to cooperate.

Mike:                    Right, right, right 'kumbaya' instead of 'lord of the flies'. But you know and the other thing is look, I think we have to expect that this means school choice and charter ... Schooling is going to look a little bit differently depending on the political coloration of a given place. For example in Red states, you're probably going to see this libertarian tea party element stronger, the sort of school choice purist, will be more influential there. You know in some of the blue states you might have the school choice nannies are going to be stronger, or they're going to be responding certainly to the protest of folks on the left who for example aren't comfortable with allowing charter schools or other schools of choice to have their own approach to school discipline or admissions policies, and that's okay. I mean we're going to keep fighting for what we prefer and what we think makes sense in terms of policy, but it probably is going to intersect with the politics of a given place to see how that comes out.

                                Okay, Clara topic number 2.

Clara:                     The NewsHour focus this week on high quality career and technical education, an Arizona lawmaker has just restored funding for their state's CTE programs yet many reformers and reform critics alike remain skeptical of CTE. Do they have a point?

Mike:                    Yeah so, Brandon I did an interview, it feels like months and months and months ago that aired this on the NewsHour among others, a nice long 6 minute segment on career and technical education, that was kind of, they pitched it as in the end a debate between myself and Carol Barz, reform critic about whether we should have college for all. I made the case that no we shouldn't. That this high quality career and technical education programs can be quite effective and she was making basically the anti-tracking point that she worried that if we make these decisions too early, that there are young people would have blossomed late and could have done quite well at college and instead we're sending them into these more technical fields, is that right to be worried about them?

Brandon:             I actually side ... I side with you.

Mike:                    No Brandon, just because you work for me doesn't mean you have to agree with me on everything.

Brandon:             No, no, no I mean-

Mike:                    You know what I mean? Let's-

Brandon:             Like right, so at some point it makes sense to choose.

Mike:                    Yup.

Brandon:             To choose your own track and you can always change right? After you do a CTE program if you want, you can go to a college. But when you look at what's actually happening as opposed to what we wish was happening, you see that a lot of kids who graduate and go to college aren't prepared for college and so they don't finish college, yet they had already paid for a few years of college. That's how things are. Like in a perfect world every kid would graduate from high school. They would go to college. They would graduate there and they would get a good job using their college education. That's not the world we are in and I don't think it ever will be.

Mike:                    Well, yeah and I would say and I'm not even not sure that that's ideal right? I mean-

Brandon:             Right.

Mike:                    There's lots of different talents that people have in interest and this economy, thankfully has lots of different opportunities including some good middle class jobs that require technical skills but not necessarily a 4 year college degree. Now, many of those jobs do require some post-secondary education. A 2 year degree or a 1 year credential and it is true that the best career in technical education programs tend to aim to have kids go from those high school programs directly into technical colleges, community colleges to get those credentials. But the Carol Barz our human ... As I read is, well, we want to keep all kids in this general college track basically have no track. Every high school is a college prep high school on a traditional sense, so that we give ever kid every possibility to blossom and have a chance to go to traditional colleges.

                                I just ... Look, as you say, it's not working. And it again buys into this assumption that the 4 year college route is the best route for everyone.

Brandon:             Mm-hmm (affirmative), don't stop.

Mike:                    In my opinion, wait until kids are 18, it's just too long.

Brandon:             Yeah.

Mike:                    You know some people say, "Well, we don't want to make these choices for kids. Let's have a goal that by 18 every child that wants to go college is fully prepared to do that. Again, fine, but what kind of college. If you want to be ready for a technical credential, ion post secondary education, a technical track in post secondary, you need to start working on that probably by age 14 or 15-

Brandon:             Exactly, or you'll be behind.

Mike:                    ... Or you'll be behind and that means giving options. Okay, maybe on this 3rd one Brandon, we will disagree, let's see. Clara, topic number 3.

Clara:                     Success academy's Eva Moscolatz gave a big speech on school discipline this week. Did she put the issue to bed?

Mike:                    No, Brandon.

Brandon:             Oh no. No she didn't.

Mike:                    Ah come on. Okay, then yes, yes, I'll take the yes side. Yes she took the issue to bed.

Brandon:             Okay sure, sure.

Mike:                    You just have to say no. I want you to disagree with me Brandon. Is that clear?

Brandon:             It's such a complicated topic. I don't know how in like a single speech, which was in large part a response right to a Times article that you could just say, oh. School discipline has solved it's no longer a problem. We've figured out the best approach or our approach is always fine or public school's approach is bad, right? It's a complicated topic that affects so many kids be it the kids who are actually being punished or the kids who are in a classroom with a disruptive kid who is or isn't being punished.

Mike:                    Yeah. I mean look this links back up to what we talked about a few minutes ago with these different schisms or camps within the school choice movement. You've got some of us who are willing to say, "Look, let's be honest. Let's be realistic, not every single school of choice is going to be right for every single kid. If there are a group of under-served kids in our schools it surely includes low income kids who are high achieving, or show high academic promise, or who are striving, or however you want to classify them. But kids who are wanting to come to school, work hard, play by the rules, the parents are supporting that. Too many places, those kids when they go to traditional public schools they are in a environment that's chaotic, where they are with kids who are way behind them academically, who are disruptive, and we do not make the strivers the priority.

                                Instead we say, "Well out of equity, we want to make sure we do everything we can to help their peers." No doubt, many of their peers are incredibly disadvantaged and have gone through all kinds of hardship and horrible experiences which explain why their behavior is now where it should be, or why their academic performance is not where it should be. But if you're rich, you're not going to school with those kinds of kids. Why is it that if you're poor we don't, we are going to make you go to school with those kinds of kids whether you want to or not. Isn't there a space within our public education system where those kids can go and get a good education. If that's a charter school or a private school, that partly is a strong place for them because they have the real discipline policy, so be it.

                                But the left just sees that and says it's not fair, it's not equitable, you have to serve everybody if you want to be considered a public school.

Brandon:             Which isn't actually fair to these kids, right? Like you ... It's not fair to the high achieving low income kids.

Mike:                    Yeah, and let's be honest, the public school systems in most cities have programs, at least by high school, many of them have had exam schools for a long, long time that don't serve everybody, right? We have come to peace with that notion.

Brandon:             Right, not every kid is the same.

Mike:                    Because not every kid is the same. This is ... You know Brandon, some of this just seems like such common sense right, and to somebody outside of education.

Brandon:             Yeah, yes.

Mike:                    But man, when you get into these issues, and particularly when you start throwing the word equity around. It just seems like we end up tying ourselves in knots and end up hurting many of the kids that we all want to help. Maybe we can start to untangle those knots and/or cut through them.

Brandon:             With some common sense maybe? Yeah.

Mike:                    With some common sense.

Brandon:             Maybe.

Mike:                    All right, thank you. Well, not a whole lot of disagreement, we'll try it better next time. That's all the time we've got for pardon the Gadfly, now it is time for everyone's favorite, Amber's Research Minute. Amber welcome back to the show.

Amber:                 Thank you Mike.

Mike:                    How did your fair city of Richmond survive snowzilla?

Amber:                 We got 20 inches, is that nuts? Like we weren't supposed to get 20 inches, we were like supposed to get 12.

Mike:                    Is that like a record for the confederacy?

Amber:                 I think it might be.

Mike:                    Yeah.

Amber:                 My husband who's lived there his whole life is like, "What the heck is going on."

Mike:                    Yeah.

Amber:                 Anyway we were in some of the weird area again that got the most snow in Richmond. I'm like, "How do I always end up in the areas with the most snow, no matter where I live?"

Mike:                    Because that was the case when you lived in the Washington suburbs.

Amber:                 In German town, same thing in German town. It follows me around Mike it's crazy.

Mike:                    Well, you know some ski resorts are going to ask you to move to where they are located, just to help them out.

Amber:                 Maybe, I'm not a skier though, I'm just a little ... I'm a tuber.

Mike:                    But just to bring the weather, just to bring the weather, that's all they need. A tuber, you're a tuber.

Amber:                 That's really lame though. It's me and all the 5 year olds tuber, yeah I love it.

Mike:                    That is a little funny. That's when I say, "You can get away with that as a woman." I think if you were a man and you did that, people would think you were creepy.

Amber:                 Well, my husband's right beside me, so make of it what you will.

Mike:                    Make sure-

Brandon:             As long as he's with you.

Mike:                    Yeah, make sure he's always with you. All right, what you got for us this week?

Amber:                 We've got a new study out by Tom D. and colleagues it follows on the heels of a prior evaluation of DCPS' impact teacher evaluation system, just came out yeah, a couple of years ago, now he's following up again.

Mike:                    NBER?

Amber:                 NBER study, you know it baby. This time around they examine the effects of turnover on student achievement, which is presumably prompted by impact, although it's not a colossal study, so they can't say that. Anyway, reminder that impact is a multi-faceted evaluation system that measures student growth, classroom practice to the observations professionalism, I'm not sure what that is, you show up on time I guess, among other areas.

Mike:                    Well and in that you're considered a collaborative et cetera.

Amber:                 Collaborative person, yeah. And there's something about community involvement too?

Mike:                    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Amber:                 It's multi-faceted. Teachers receive scores that range from ineffective to highly effective. The former or "separated from the district", the later are illegible for one time bonuses of up $25,000 and a permanent increase to base pay of up to $27,000 a year. This is not chump change, we know this, but just reminding you. The evaluation has data spinning from 2009 through 2013. It covers 103 schools serving roughly 57,000 students in grades 4 through 8. Okay, it examines the achievement at the school then the grade level for particular years and let's examine whether teacher effectiveness and achievement are higher or lower as a result of these various teachers exiting and entering the system, okay?

Mike:                    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Amber:                 That's a [inaudible 00:15:13] study, once again it's NBER so you've got 15 pages of people doing robustness checks to make sure that this is a solid design. They are trying to rule out like systematic sorting of students, once in response to the turnover. If you're interested in 15 pages of that kind of stuff, it's in there.

Mike:                    With all those formulas, with those fancy Greek symbols that I don't understand?

Amber:                 Yes. All that good stuff is in there, but it's a tight study. All right, bottom line is that teacher turnover in DC was found to have an overall positive effect on student achievement and math, and increase of about 0.08 standard deviation and the effect of turnover in reading, all reading again was positive 0.05 standard deviation, but that really wasn't statistically significant.

Mike:                    And even 0.08, that's not huge, right?

Amber:                 It's not huge, but that's overall. So now we're going to get into the nitty gritty.

Mike:                    Okay.

Amber:                 The overall effect mass, the important differences you were reading my mind, for instance when low performers leave, achievement grows by 21% of a standard deviation in Math, which equates to about a third to two thirds of a year of learning, depending on the grade level and 14% of standard deviation in reading. These numbers [develop 00:16:22]. Interestingly, well that's a hard word, interestingly, more than 90% of turnover of low performing teachers happens in the high poverty schools, but love this, their exit consistently produces large improvements in teaching quality, and student achievement and math, and once again smaller improvements over time and reading, the analyst say, "In almost every year, DCPS has been able to replace low performing teachers with high performing teachers who have been able to improve student achievement.

Mike:                    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Amber:                 But what happens when high performers leaver, right? Well of course we want to know that. It does not influence teacher quality or student achievement, it appears that DCPS is able to recruit replacements who are at least as effective as those who left. Bottom like, whereas we have these other studies that show negative effects of teacher turnover, this one doesn't, but lo and behold it turns out when you have a policy that is specifically intended to change the composition of your teaching workforce, and you have a bunch of money to reward the high performers, lo and behold the workforce improves and the students benefit.

Mike:                    Amber first of all, I think this is an incredible validation of what Michelle did in DC and then Kaya and the various funders that supported there, again let's remember most the time when we look at these rigorous studies of anything we find out that it doesn't work.

Amber:                 It doesn't work.

Mike:                    Right? Or the impacts are very small. I mean, they set out to change the composition of the DC workforce and they have changed it dramatically and it has resulted in big benefits for kids.

Amber:                 It has. That is what they're saying. They deserve credit.

Mike:                    They deserve ... Okay.

Amber:                 This is like ... This is not a one time study apparently they've got a contract to follow these stuff for a while, this is the 2nd or 3rd study, so yeah, they are tracking it.

Mike:                    Now full stop.

Amber:                 Okay.

Mike:                    Here's the problem right? It's what do you do with these findings in terms of other cities, right? The question is, how much of a special snowflake is Washington DC?

Amber:                 Pretty special.

Mike:                    This is a place where you have a ton of money, first of all, thanks to the Federal Government, 2nd of all you have a ton of talent. We all know this. There are a bizillion 20-somethings who want to come to Washington DC and live and work, and DCPS has been able to recruit these people into their school.

Amber:                 And foundation supports, it's not even the-

Mike:                    And there's foundation support and so you say, "How many cities out there have the poor- because this is always the question when we are doing work in our home state of Ohio, and you start pushing for some of these ideas, the question is always, "Hey if you're able to let go of the low performers are [inaudible 00:18:56] has been arguing for, who are you going to replace them with?

Amber:                 Yes.

Mike:                    Right? And look, I think in most places you probably could still replace the very lowest performers with somebody better, but let's be honest, you're not going to have the same talent pool that you're going to have in a Washington DC. There's going to be a handful of big cities where this strategy might work. By all means, let's do it in those cities, but it is going to be hard to apply everywhere.

Amber:                 Because people want to live here too, right?

Mike:                    Yes.

Amber:                 I mean we literary studied their entire system in DC and find that they nationally recruit, like they have people in their personal office who's job is to travel the country and find good teachers. They make it a priority too.

Mike:                    Yeah, absolutely. And so look, I just ... For some of our friends who look at all this and say, "See this is validation for having a Federal mandate on teacher evaluation, or state mandates on teacher evaluation or ... Yeah you know you say, "Well-"

Amber:                 "You've got to have the ego-system, that's [inaudible 00:19:49] right?"

Mike:                    "No, I kind of hope he's right."

Amber:                 Yeah I know, it is a unique, what you call a unique snowboard special snowflake.

Mike:                    A special snowflake, isn't that what the ... All the cool kids are using that phrase these days right?

Amber:                 Yes. I think that is what it is.

Mike:                    But all that said, hey still Michelle, Rick, Kyle Henderson take a bow.

Amber:                 Kudos to you.

Mike:                    And the other folks that are working on this dead gist and the foundation is already behind the scenes. You said look, "A lot of people thought it couldn't be done, that there was no way to change the composition, or that ..." All along I remember we'd have these merit paid debates and people say, "Oh these teachers are not motivated by money," or it assumes that they're not working as hard as they could be and it was people like Rick Hearse always made the case and said, "Look it's not so much about trying to get people to work a little harder for the money, it's about bringing in a whole different kind of person in the first place who's more goal driven, who's more-" you know?

Amber:                 Right, but it's also $25,000.

Mike:                    Yeah.

Amber:                 We know from those old merit pay studies, if you give them a bonus of 1 or 2,000, that doesn't swing the needle.

Mike:                    Of course, no.

Amber:                 When you start talking 20, 25,000 that will do a little something for recruiting efforts.

Mike:                    There are 30 year old teachers in DC making 6 figures.

Amber:                 Yes.

Mike:                    Right? That is a big deal.

Amber:                 Yeah, I think it was 185 with some of the top salary you could get with a bonus.

Brandon:             Wow, 185,000? Are you sure?

Amber:                 I'll find the citation.

Mike:                    What? All right, I didn't think it was that high.

Brandon:             That's higher than the highest federal government might pay GS.

Mike:                    Yeah.

Brandon:             It's something.

Mike:                    It's a lot of money, but ... And again that's hard to replicate.

Amber:                 Yeah, hard to replicate, that's right, because really the funders are all still standing behind, I mean I obviously don't have the skill anymore.

Mike:                    I don't know how much they are still giving. That's a good question, and ... Again, like DC needs the money, you'd think it's by some estimate they spend 30K a year.

Amber:                 Yeah. By the way they are turning up the screws on the impact system next year, like making it even harder to get that high performing.

Mike:                    Yeah, God bless them.

Amber:                 Yeah.

Mike:                    God bless them. All right, well thank you Amber, fascinating stuff, that's all the time we've got for the education Gadfly Show. Till next week-

Brandon:             I'm Brandon Wright.

Mike:                    And Mike Petrilli, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute signing off.

Education Cities is a nonprofit network of thirty-one city-based organizations in twenty-four cities that works to “dramatically increase the number of great public schools across the country.” As a practical matter, that means they champion, convene, and court high-quality charter schools to open or come to their respective burgs. They call the local folks who do the courting “harbormasters.” Like their nautical namesakes, these figures “facilitate safe and cooperative navigation in a challenging space.” Thus, this report functions as advice. It seeks to answer a few questions: “What do operators want? What roles and activities of local harbormasters are most, and least, helpful to those running great schools?” The answers, although not particularly surprising, are worthwhile. Good charter operators want to go where there’s a need, where they are wanted (e.g., a pro-charter political climate), and where they can reliably attract talent in the form of both teachers and leaders. Funding support, either directly or through opened doors, doesn’t hurt either.

So what does an education harbormaster do, exactly? One or more of the following: They invest in high-quality school growth, strengthen talent pipelines, advocate for choice-friendly policies, and/or rally community support. The report is based on interviews with eighteen charter operators in eight member cities who discuss these strategies and evaluate how they help or hinder high-quality charters to launch, grow, and persist.

The report’s greatest added value is in the brief sections that enumerate the challenges these groups face (or inflict upon themselves) in their roles as supporters, funders, and advocates. Harbormasters tend to be well-heeled and well-connected, or at least have such folks on speed dial. Charter operators are naturally reluctant to speak truth to powerbrokers, whose support and political cover they depend on. But that doesn't mean they're above reproach. “In the planning year, they forgot about us,” gripes one. Another frets that their harbormaster’s relationship to the broader community is polarized. “It has inhibited our success. Our brands are super-blurred. By and large, people know [us], like our schools, they like me and our school leaders, and so they don’t hate us, but there is hate for [unnamed harbormaster], and that carries over.” And another: “Once we launched, I never heard from them again...there’s so much more work we could have done together.” These are the kinds of constructive criticisms that charter advocates need to hear more often.

The authors’ recommendations are valid and widely applicable: Harbormasters should “build a strong brand” to strengthen their advocacy for excellent schools and “avoid making empty promises at all costs,” particularly on nonexistent funding or “ecosystem gaps.” They are also encouraged to “empathize with operators’ point of view” and “have a citywide plan.”

“According to operators, harbormasters serve multiple roles that are essential to their ability to launch, grow, and be successful,” the authors conclude. “There are also cautionary tales of overstepping boundaries, inconsistent communication, and disjointed support.” Yes, indeed. More of the former, and less of the latter, is what the sector needs in its next twenty-five years.

SOURCE: “What Schools Want: How City Leaders Can Help or Hinder Great School Growth,” Education Cities (December 2015).

A new CALDER study examines whether student-teaching experience affects both later teaching effectiveness and the likelihood of leaving the profession.

Dan Goldhaber and colleagues analyzed data from six university-based teacher education programs in Washington State that, together, graduate roughly one-third of the state’s teachers. They assembled an impressive data set that included information on teacher candidates’ cooperating or supervising teachers and where their internships or student-teaching occurred; administrative data on race, gender, experience, educational background, and teaching endorsements; and data on the schools in which they were trained and the schools in which they were hired. The sample included individuals who had completed their student-teaching between 1998 and 2010, comprising approximately 8,300 trainees.

Note that (as Goldhaber et al. repeatedly stress) these are descriptive findings, not causal ones, because the analytic models can’t account for the non-random sorting of teachers to schools and teaching positions.

There are three key findings: First, teachers who student-taught in schools with low levels of teacher turnover are less likely to leave teaching.

Second, teachers appear to be more effective when the student demographics at their schools reflect those of the schools in which they student-taught. For example, students in high-poverty schools are predicted to score about 0.15 standard deviations higher if their teachers student-taught in schools with the same percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL).

Third, and of particular interest, teachers are more likely to have student-taught in more advantaged schools than their current schools. Sixty percent of interns land their first teaching gigs in schools with a higher percentage of FRPL students than their internship schools. This means that students in disadvantaged schools are less likely than those in advantaged schools to have a teacher whose internship “matched” their school setting. If “matching” is indeed beneficial, as the second finding suggests, then analysts have this advice: If “TEPs [teacher education programs] are committed to educating teachers who will be successful in disadvantaged schools, [they] need to be placing more student-teachers in these settings.”

Schools, take heed. And, researchers, given the dearth of empirical research on teacher preparation programs, including student-teaching experiences, let’s wade further into these waters.

SOURCE: Dan Goldhaber, John M. Krieg, and Roddy Theobald, "Does the Match Matter? Exploring Whether Student Teaching Experiences Affect Teacher Effectiveness and Attrition," CALDER (January 2016).

The standard argument holds that improving education will improve the nation’s economy. A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research not only affirms this argument but also demonstrates just how big the economic effects of school improvement could be.

From the start, it’s clear that this paper differs from its predecessors. Previous studies examined human capital and its effect on states’ economic development by measuring school attainment (high school graduation). This study points out that attainment is an imperfect yardstick—it incorrectly assumes that increased levels of schooling automatically suggest increased levels of knowledge and skills. A better way to determine the relationship between education and economic value is to measure a different outcome: achievement. Since “no direct measures of cognitive skills for the labor force” exist, the authors craft their own. They start by constructing an average test score for each state using NAEP, then adjust the test scores for different types of migration (interstate and international among them) in order to offset the high mobility of our population.

Hanushek, who has published multiple studies linking economic activity with enhanced educational output, offers several scenarios in his latest report. If every state improved to the level of Minnesota, the top-performing state from the past two decades, the U.S. economy would grow by $76 trillion by 2095 (the end of the projection period). Current low-performers would see gains of more than seven times their current GDP. Needless to say, this level of growth is incredibly ambitious—and perhaps not as feasible as other possibilities.

A second scenario calculates that bringing all of the lowest-performing students up to the basic level of achievement (as defined by NAEP) “would have a noticeable impact on the distribution of earnings, and ultimately income, in the U.S.” That impact would total $32 trillion in economic growth by 2095. The drawback of this scenario, though, is that it assumes no “spillovers in quality” (score improvements) for students already scoring at basic or above.  

The study also examines the effect of states improving to match the best state in their respective regions, the improvement of all states’ scores by one-quarter of a standard deviation, and the improvement of all states to the levels of neighboring Canada or high-achieving Finland. Overall, the projected economic benefits of educational improvement are stunning. The authors predict that these estimated gains would, on average, pay for all K–12 education in the states and yield extra returns. That sounds like one more reason why improving student achievement is so important (as if we needed another one).

SOURCE: Eric A. Hanushek, Jens Ruhose, and Ludger Woessmann, “Economic Gains for U.S. States from Educational Reform,” National Bureau of Economic Research (December 2015).