The Education Gadfly Weekly

Jon Schroeder, Progressive Policy Institute
May 2004

Veteran charter-school ace Jon Schroeder authored this fine new report for the Progressive Policy Institute, the second of six case studies of the evolution of the charter movement at the state or (in New York City) municipal level. Supported by the Gates Foundation, this worthy series distills valuable lessons from actual experience. This fifty-pager does a nice job of extracting nine lessons and seven recommendations from Minnesota's saga, ranging from the role of private funders to the need for more diverse sponsors, to the challenges of dovetailing the idiosyncratic essence of charter schooling with the uniform demands of NCLB. Schroeder concludes that neither "past success" nor "current momentum" will propel the charter movement (in Minnesota or elsewhere) to its needed "new level as a proactive strategy for changing and improving public education." He's surely got that right. Have a look, online at http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=110&subsecid=134&contentid=252555.

David Salisbury and Casey Lartigue, editors, Cato InstituteMay 2004

This 300-page collection of a dozen essays, released by the Cato Institute, is subtitled "Brown v. Board after Half a Century" and edited by Cato staffers David Salisbury and Casey Lartigue. It contains some swell entries, including essays by Howard Fuller, Floyd Flake, David Bositis, Paul Peterson, Irasema Salcido and Rick Hess. Bositis is interesting on the politics of school choice among black and white voters; Peterson draws a perceptive distinction between Brown and Zelman; D.C. charter-school founder Salcido does a fine job of recounting her school's trials and accomplishments; and more. Though suffering from the inherent limits of essay collections, this one does a nice job of linking the issues of race and choice in American education. The ISBN is 1930865562 and you can learn more at http://www.cato.org/events/040511bf.html.

Writing in the centrist Democrat magazine, Blueprint, Andrew Rotherham is characteristically perspicacious in warning that the left's opposition to NCLB may make its worst fears of "privatization" come true. He observes that refusing even to acknowledge the need for higher standards and better tracking of achievement data serves to strengthen the argument that only a system of school choice will deliver desired educational improvement. "Failure to eliminate the achievement gap is unlikely, by itself, to substantially alter the political alignment on education," he writes. "But failure to even try seriously validates the conservative argument." Rotherham is for increasing the funding for NCLB, if only because it will make the law's directives on data gathering and teacher quality go down easier for many states and districts. But we suspect he will have a tough time convincing the disparate interests that comprise the Democratic coalition that NCLB is, in the long run, good for them as well as for public education!

"The new face of inequality," by Andrew Rotherham, Blueprint, May 7, 2004

New York Times reporter Diane Jean Schemo wrote a fine profile of Denver's new teacher pay-for-performance scheme (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=141#1740). While voters still have to approve it (and a concomitant rise in property taxes), teachers have already given it thumbs up, and the process by which it was put together is worth understanding. No, the plan is not perfect. (For example, it relies too little on the academic value that teachers add to their pupils.) But because its architects took time to get teacher input and allay their fears, a majority of them were willing to jump into the unknown, despite pressure from the national level to reject the plan. Increasingly, the arguments against such plans - too scary, too liable to abuse, too divisive - are being consigned to the dustbin of history.

"When teachers' gains help students' bottom lines," by Diane Jean Schemo, New York Times, May 9, 2004 (registration required)

The summer 2004 issue of Education Next is out and contains many items worthy of your attention. For example, Jay Greene and Marcus Winters's account of how Florida's A+ voucher program has spurred failing schools to improve. Voucher-eligible schools, they found, made gains 15.1 percentile points higher on the FCAT math test than the Florida average. Schools that were "voucher-threatened"-one more "F" from becoming voucher-eligible, that is-made gains 9.2 percentile points higher. Also, check out Daniel Willingham on "multiple intelligences," Senator Lamar Alexander on "Pell Grants for Kids," and a debate on whether school boards are obsolete.

Education Next, Summer 2004

On Monday, Governor Bill Owens signed the nation's first-ever college voucher program. It will award a stipend usable at any state university to all Colorado undergraduates who qualify for in-state tuition, with a smaller stipend made available for low-income students attending three private universities. The state already spends about $700 million on higher education each year. Today, however, that money flows directly into the colleges. Under the new voucher program, it will flow only if students enroll in them. "The institutions will now compete for students because state aid now arrives on campus with the student," Owens said. "The more students you attract, the better your institution can do." Lawmakers can already foresee problems, though, starting with too little money in the state treasury. The size of the voucher may have to be cut. And some wonder whether providing a stipend to every student will encourage schools to raise tuition, thus making it even harder for low-income people to enroll. One can also anticipate a court challenge to the private and religious school component. Stay tuned.

"College voucher plan becomes law in Colorado," by Steven K. Paulson, Boston Globe, May 11, 2004 

"College vouchers become law today," by John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News, May 10, 2004 

"Nation's first college voucher program OK'd," CNN.com, May 10, 2004

Last week was "education week" for John Kerry's campaign, during which he unveiled a series of proposals that likely comprise the main education plank of his platform. They definitely warrant a look, though in part he seems to be recycling Al Gore's ideas from 2000 - and also Gore's chief strategy: a deft balancing of crowd pleasers, teacher pleasers and demagoguery, all resting atop billions in "new" money. These proposals are supposedly shielded from rival spending priorities via a "trust fund" arrangement whose cash will come from raising taxes on well-to-do Americans. The platform covers a lot of territory (see http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/education/ and http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/college/) and, as usual in a campaign, contains a mix of the astute and the absurd, some well developed notions, others ultra-hazy. For example:

1. More money for effective teachers in return for some teacher quality improvements, including speedier mechanisms for dismissing bad teachers. This is Gore redux - and not half so bold as Kerry himself was in 1998 when he called for "ending teacher tenure as we know it." Still, it's the best of his ideas - IF one can picture Congress insisting on the "give back," i.e., stipulating that this money will only be available to states that get serious about offloading weak teachers and overriding contracts (and union opposition) to give more pay to good ones. Else this proposal morphs into a new federal teacher-pay supplement, minus the conditions that could make it worth enacting. The NEA has doubtless figured that out - no doubt the reason this key Kerry supporter isn't denouncing its candidate for heresy.
2. Some nebulous proposals to boost high-school graduation rates, centering on tutoring, mentoring, and tougher enforcement of a squishy NCLB provision that calls on states to curb their dropout rates.
3. Several schemes for making higher education more affordable, headlined by the spectacularly bad idea of giving everyone a $4,000 annual tuition tax credit. Just picture how greedy U.S. colleges, feeling pinched by state legislatures, would respond to the discovery that almost every one of their students suddenly has four Gs in his pocket to be used for paying tuition.

This week is education week for the Bush campaign, which continues to sing the praises of NCLB - beyond its merits, considerable as those are - while trotting out a series of Clintonesque mini-proposals, many of them fine (e.g., improving 12th grade NAEP) but none amounting to a big idea.

No wonder the President's re-election campaign has been faulted for its dearth of meaty domestic-policy ideas and what one commentator terms a "very, very weak" White House policy-development process. In education, they never really got beyond NCLB, which was a whopping big idea but which deals mainly with reading and math in grades 3-10 and the consequences for schools that don't teach enough of it and kids who don't learn enough. (To be fair, NCLB addresses scads of topics. But it was yesterday's news and even its fans acknowledge that years will pass before it shows much effect on U.S. education. In any case, since Kerry voted for it and seems to buy its main precepts, its campaign salience has shrunk to arguing over whether enough is being spent on it.)

It's common knowledge in Washington that the administration has been AWOL on most other education policy debates of the past few years. It had next to nothing to say about the Higher Education Act, was barely audible on vocational education (though a belated proposal has just popped out), and - despite terrific recommendations from an outside commission - essentially a non-player on special ed. As for Head Start, the White House offered stellar reform ideas, then bungled this domain's tricky politics. And when it comes to the school lunch program, if the Bush team has played any role in that reauthorization, it must have been under cover of darkness.

This isn't necessarily the end of the story. Several of these major education laws won't get completed by the molasses-like 108th Congress, so will return to Capitol Hill next year. Hence there's still time for the White House to devise serious proposals for how to rework these hoary, troubled programs as boldly as it did with NCLB.

But reforming extant federal programs is a Potomacentric way of seeing the education world. In an election, what's needed are either small, grabby proposals or big, important ideas that reach past the Beltway. The White House needs no help with the former. Regarding the latter, they may need a hand. Herewith, five suggestions:

1. Pre-school for every child who needs it. Not day care - quality pre-school, voluntary, with a serious pre-literacy curriculum built in, with families able to choose among competing providers, and with a sliding price scale that subsidizes only those who need it. A big idea indeed for a Republican. (In a perfect world, Head Start would be folded in.)
2. Ensure that every young person learns the country's history. Bush has access to proposals aplenty here, starting with those of Humanities chairman Bruce Cole and Senator (and former Education Secretary) Lamar Alexander. There are a hundred ways to approach this, but any serious plan must include testing kids' knowledge of U.S. history - and holding schools to account for whether their pupils learn it
3. Principals. (Kerry is already onto this one.) Press states to eliminate today's dumb certification rules for school principals. Instead, think of them as CEOs and pay them CEO-level wages linked to their schools' performance. Empower them to make big decisions. Perhaps create a new nationwide principals' corps - expert leaders deployed to schools that need them - or fund states that devise their own.
4. Choice. This rivals standards-based reform as the big idea for transforming K-12 education in the U.S. - and Kerry dares not go there. Bush could be as bold on this front as with standards-testing-accountability and could place the GOP squarely on parents' side. Choice can be advanced in any number of ways. For starters: voucherize special ed (?? la Florida's McKay Scholarship Program); replicate the D.C. voucher program in fifty more cities; re-energize the flagging charter-school movement; enact Senator Alexander's new "Pell Grants for Kids" proposal.
5. Are we getting our money's worth from college? America should press for accountability from higher ed just as from primary/secondary schools. Let the Democrats demand more money to pay the soaring price of college. Republicans should demand that colleges become more efficient and prove that their students are learning. Professors will fulminate, sure, but their institutions get more than $15 billion a year in federal aid (not counting billions more in aid to their students) and the taxpayer deserves to know what it's buying. If Congress doesn't complete work on the higher ed act, there's even a handy legislative vehicle.

Only the first of those suggestions carries a sizable price tag. The others, by Washington standards, can be done for relatively little money. Though it's commonly assumed that big numbers impress a jaded electorate, Republicans never win bidding wars in education. Far more important to be the party of big ideas than the party of big government. Let Kerry run on that platform. He's off to a swell start.

Proposed Carl D. Perkins Secondary and Technical Education Excellence Act, Department of Education 

"Conservatives restive about Bush policies," By Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post, May 10, 2004

"Education law will stand, Bush tells its detractors," by David Sanger and Jim Rutenberg, New York Times, May 12, 2004 (registration required)

"Remarks by President Bush in a conversation on Reading First and No Child Left Behind," Kansas City Info Zone, May 13, 2004

Education officials in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island announced last week that they were joining forces to create the New England Compact Assessment Program. In October 2005, all three states will begin using a common reading and math test in grades 3-8 and a common writing test in grades 5 and 8 to fulfill their NCLB accountability requirements. According to officials, by joining forces, the three states will create an economy-of-scale that halves the per-pupil testing cost. In Vermont, for example, the cost of the new test will drop from the $22 per-student the state currently pays to about $12.50 per pupil. An additional benefit, according to the Burlington Free Press: "the three states can compare themselves with one another, generating some good-natured competition that might lead to better results."

"A classroom compact," Burlington Free Press, May 6, 2004 (no longer available online)

"Vermont to collaborate on school testing," Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, May 5, 2004

Washington State's Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission voted unanimously this week to lower the passing score in reading and math for fourth- and seventh-graders, and recommended lowering the pass score for the tenth-grade reading test on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), the statewide accountability test. The changes to the 4th- and 7th-grade tests will go into effect this year, but the 10th-grade test changes must first be approved by the state legislature. The commission left unanswered the more pressing question of what students will have to score on the WASL to earn their diplomas once passing the test becomes a graduation requirement in 2008. Critics, including the Washington Education Association, blasted the review process for insufficient minority input, the state for not spending enough on education, and the even lower standards for still being too stringent. At least one commission member, Jim Spady, pressed the WEA representative asking "If there's nothing we can do to satisfy you, then why should we care what you say?"

"Panel lowers bar for passing parts of WASL," by Linda Shaw, Seattle Times, May 11, 2004

"WASL panel lowers 4th, 7th-grade passing bar," Olympian, May 12, 2004

David Salisbury and Casey Lartigue, editors, Cato InstituteMay 2004

This 300-page collection of a dozen essays, released by the Cato Institute, is subtitled "Brown v. Board after Half a Century" and edited by Cato staffers David Salisbury and Casey Lartigue. It contains some swell entries, including essays by Howard Fuller, Floyd Flake, David Bositis, Paul Peterson, Irasema Salcido and Rick Hess. Bositis is interesting on the politics of school choice among black and white voters; Peterson draws a perceptive distinction between Brown and Zelman; D.C. charter-school founder Salcido does a fine job of recounting her school's trials and accomplishments; and more. Though suffering from the inherent limits of essay collections, this one does a nice job of linking the issues of race and choice in American education. The ISBN is 1930865562 and you can learn more at http://www.cato.org/events/040511bf.html.

Jon Schroeder, Progressive Policy Institute
May 2004

Veteran charter-school ace Jon Schroeder authored this fine new report for the Progressive Policy Institute, the second of six case studies of the evolution of the charter movement at the state or (in New York City) municipal level. Supported by the Gates Foundation, this worthy series distills valuable lessons from actual experience. This fifty-pager does a nice job of extracting nine lessons and seven recommendations from Minnesota's saga, ranging from the role of private funders to the need for more diverse sponsors, to the challenges of dovetailing the idiosyncratic essence of charter schooling with the uniform demands of NCLB. Schroeder concludes that neither "past success" nor "current momentum" will propel the charter movement (in Minnesota or elsewhere) to its needed "new level as a proactive strategy for changing and improving public education." He's surely got that right. Have a look, online at http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=110&subsecid=134&contentid=252555.