The Education Gadfly Weekly

Tony Wagner
2002

In Making the Grade, Tony Wagner, co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard School of Education, argues that America's public schools have become obsolete. In his view, the world around them has changed so much-a "new" economy, a world of information overload, a world where knowledge is constantly changing and becoming obsolete-that century-old institutions designed for an agrarian society are no longer up to the task of preparing today's youngsters for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Wagner believes we need to reinvent education for a post-industrial world. To him, this means moving beyond archaic notions of school accountability, standardized exams, and a one-size model of education for everyone. He asserts that most of today's education reformers simply want to return to the past because they lack the imagination to create a better today. For those open to full-fledged reinvention, Wagner urges study of the work of Deborah Meier, formerly with Central Park East in New York City, and Ted Sizer, founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Making the Grade offers many suggestions for reinventing education, but the idea Wagner spends most of his time developing is the creation of small schools, which might be termed a step back in time. He asserts that the "data are overwhelming: small schools significantly outperform larger schools with comparable student populations on nearly every indicator of 'effectiveness.' " For Wagner, for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which Wagner advises), and for other small-school boosters, this idea is as close as we're apt to get to a panacea for America's educational ills. Hence the grand rush by public and private funders and reformers to climb on the small-school bandwagon. The lingering question is whether this faith in smallness per se is warranted. From reviewing the available research, we can say that students in high schools with fewer than 500 students tend to have lower dropout rates, higher attendance rates, fewer course failures and fewer incidents of violence than do vast institutions. Well and good. Students, parents and teachers also say that small schools provide more of a sense of community. Also good. But let's recognize that today there's precious little evidence that small schools also boost academic performance. What the evidence does show is that academic achievement in small schools is at least equal to student achievement in large schools. Not worse. But maybe not much better. Certainly not enough better to warrant everyone jumping onto a bandwagon in the belief that making schools small will make achievement big. Small schools can be bad schools, too, if they have low standards, frivolous curricula, ineffectual teachers and misguided priorities. It is also important to add that, while Wagner's book claims to represent the voices of parents and teachers, we have evidence from other sources that reducing school size is not at the top of either group's agenda for education reform. Wagner supports many of his statements with evidence culled from Public Agenda surveys. Yet, according to Public Agenda, "when asked to choose what they thought was the best way to improve schools, 27 percent of parents and 29 percent of teachers picked reducing class sizes, 26 percent of the parents and 32 percent of the teachers chose improving discipline. By comparison, 20 percent of the parents and only 14 percent of the teachers picked making schools smaller." Small schools is certainly an idea worth exploring, particularly at the secondary level, and those experiments should be carefully evaluated. But let's take pains to ask "what, besides smallness, is needed for a school to boost student achievement?" and "what are the downsides of smallness in schools?" (Possibilities include higher per-pupil costs, fewer options within the school, and-in the absence of school choice-greater likelihood of a youngster being trapped in a school where he cannot find his niche, friends, subjects that interest him and teachers that he can relate to.) Published by RoutledgeFalmer, the book's ISBN is 0415927692. You can find ordering information at http://www.routledge-ny.com/books.cfm?isbn=0415927692.

edited by Herbert J. Walberg and Margaret C. Lang
2001

Herbert J. Walberg and the late Margaret C. Lang edited this book, based on an invitational conference at Wingspread. It contains 14 chapters (including one by Marci Kanstoroom and myself) and brief policy recommendations by the editors. The authors are varied-including both establishment figures and heretics-but the topical orientation throughout is teacher quality. Weighing in at 350 pages, it's a useful assemblage of some of today's major ideas and hot debates on that topic. The ISBN is 0821122762. The publisher is McCutchan, whose address is 3220 Blume Drive, #197, Richmond, CA 94806; phone (800) 227-1540; http://www.mccutchanpublishing.com (The book cannot be ordered online at this time.)

Yong Zhao and Paul Conway, Teachers College Record
January 27, 2001

It's not news that inadequate teacher training and lack of access to adequate hardware and software have limited technology's impact on education, but many states are trying to do something about it. In this report, Yong Zhao of Michigan State University and Paul Conway of the National University of Ireland attempt to catalogue one aspect of the "multi-billion dollar frenzy" to train teachers and upgrade system capabilities that is underway in the 50 states by taking a close look at state technology plans: blueprints for implementing and securing funding for educational technology. In general, the authors find, state technology plans over promise and under deliver, taking the form of "idealistic vision statements" that skillfully sell technology by promising to meet lofty goals. This promotion of a "technological utopia" is problematic, they say, because it downplays serious educational inequities; underestimates the complexity of social change; amounts to "techno centrism," in which the limits and constraints of technology are rarely discussed; and simplifies the challenges students face in comprehending the complexities of their social and natural world. You must complete a simple (and free) registration process to view the report at http://www.tcrecord.org/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=10717.

William H. Schmidt et al.
2001

Do you really want to squeeze the TIMSS data for insights into elementary and secondary schooling? Here's a book for you. William H. Schmidt of Michigan State, who was one of the leaders of American participation in TIMSS, joined with 6 colleagues in writing a 400-page technical explanation (and it IS technical) of what accounts for the different results of participating countries. You won't find the actual country-by-country league tables here. (You've probably seen them elsewhere.) In the authors' words, "Comparative status...says little about learning. Learning is change and growth....If we wish to know what is effective in enhancing learning, we must...examine what produces changes and gains in achievement." In this volume, they don't look at the variables that are hard to change, such as culture and socio-economic status but, rather, at things within the control of schools and education policy. Specifically, they fix on the school curriculum as a key determinant of student learning. Given that perspective, you will not be surprised that they conclude that academic standards matter, that textbooks matter and that teaching matters. So does the extent of commonality of standards within a country. Here's one of the main places where the United States could stand to learn from other countries, particularly as we embark on a new, federally-mandated effort to spell out academic standards and bring every child to "proficiency" vis-??-vis those standards. Can we have a national perspective on standards without undue federal control of schooling? The authors say yes. To me, their most tantalizing insight is this: "The setting of content standards-relative priorities-is typically a national task and represents a national vision. That is not so in the United States. However, unlike what we might have naively assumed about other countries, setting priorities at a national level is not tantamount to national control of the school system. Many other countries have regional, religious, and even local control of schools but only a national control of relative priorities involved in content standards. This is a much narrower sense of national control than most in the United States fear and one that may well be more tolerable politically." There's lots more here. The ISBN is 0787956848. The publisher is Jossey-Bass, which you can find on the web at www.josseybass.com. You can also call them at (888)378-2537.

Is installing a "whole school" reform model the best way to turn around a struggling school? Since 1997, Uncle Sam has given U.S. public schools over $480 million to put school-wide reform designs in place through the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program (also known as Obey-Porter). Billions in additional federal funds flow through the Title I program for poverty-impacted schools to implement these models. Today, thousands of schools are using them as their chief reform strategy. But how well does whole-school reform actually work? Where did it come from and just how different are those schools? On January 23, the Fordham Foundation and the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings co-sponsored a forum on whole school reform. Panelists were Gene Bottoms (Southern Regional Education Board), Anne McClellan (Center for Reform of School Systems), Jeff Mirel (University of Michigan), and Mary Anne Schmitt (New American Schools). The complete transcript and video of that event are now available on the website of the Brown Center. Surf to http://www.brookings.edu/Comm/transcripts/20020123brown.htm. An Education Week article describing the event, "Experts Debate Effect of Whole School Reform," is available at http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=20whole.h21. The report that launched it all, Evolution of the New American Schools: From Revolution to Mainstream, by Professor Mirel, published by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in 2001, is available at www.edexcellence.net.

Seven provocative new papers examining key challenges of implementing the new federal education law-particularly its testing and accountability provisions-and strategies for meeting them will be available tomorrow on the Fordham Foundation website (www.edexcellence.net). As states turn to the daunting task of creating annual reading and math tests for all students in grades 3 through 8, tracking whether all students are making real progress toward proficiency, and ensuring real consequences for school success and failure, they must answer a range of questions and overcome some real difficulties in designing and installing these new systems. These seven papers outline some of hurdles that will be faced by states, districts, and schools as they try to make this law a reality and suggest some creative solutions. Authors include: Michael Cohen (Aspen Institute), David Figlio (University of Florida), Matthew Gandal (Achieve), Dan Goldhaber (Urban Institute), Brian Jones, Billie Orr, and Lisa Graham Keegan (Education Leaders Council), Mark Reckase (Michigan State University), and Paul Herdman, Nelson Smith, and Richard Wenning (New American Schools).

At the risk of falling into the trap of instant expertise, let me offer some impressions-brought home from a recent trip-about why Singapore keeps coming in at the top on international tests of student achievement, at least in science and math. This week, I sketch the basic structure of that small but vibrant country's education system. In next week's Gadfly, I'll try to draw some insights from what I learned during my brief visit.

We do well to remind ourselves just how well Singapore's education system already does, routinely ranking first or second in the world. In the 1999 (8th grade) TIMSS-R, for example, on which the international average math score was 487 and the U.S. had 502, Singapore led all participating nations with a score of 604. In science, the international average was 488, the U.S. score was 515, and Singapore, with 568, was essentially tied for first place with Taiwan (569).

What's more, their kids get stronger in these subjects as they stay in school. One useful gauge is a comparison of how 4th graders fared on TIMSS in 1995 with the performance of 8th graders in 1999-that being the same cohort of children four years later. In math, where the U.S. went from average (for 4th graders) to 22 points below average (in 8th grade), young Singaporeans went from 73 points above the mean to 80 points above. In science, while the U.S. went from 28 points above average to 9 points below, Singapore rose from 10 to 44 points above.

Remarkably, one of the first things I learned about education in Singapore is that the national curriculum doesn't even include science in the first two grades. Children start studying it in the 3rd year of primary school. So it's not surprising that they make big gains in science between 4th and 8th grades. More noteworthy is that they already exceed the world average by 4th grade.

As you might suppose, along with other Asian countries that typically perform well on international measures (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, etc.), as we have long known from the work of Harold Stevenson and others, Singapore takes education very seriously. This tiny nation (about the size and population of Chicago) has essentially no natural resources (save for a world-class harbor) and thus pays close attention to cultivating its human resources.

That emphasis has paid off. Three decades ago, when I visited for the first (and only other) time, it was a newly independent ex-British colony with many of the usual ramshackle features of tropical third-world countries. It was plenty picturesque but none too advanced. Today, though shorter on raffish charm, it's a model of modern, high-rise, air-conditioned modernity and efficiency, spic, span and prosperous. Everything seems to run on time. You can drink the water. (A taxi driver remarked that Singaporeans now get diarrhea when they visit nearby Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.)

I didn't see anyone get caned, either, though it's evident that there are many rules, that they're enforced, and that the government is more intrusive-and given to social engineering-than Americans would likely tolerate. To avoid traffic jams, for example, the government imposes heavy fees on car ownership and also charges you every time you drive downtown. (On the other hand, there's a spanking new subway and taxis are ubiquitous, air-conditioned and cheap.) U.S. politicians would likely be voted out if they intruded thusly into private property rights and personal freedom. But we pay a different price: cities with horrid traffic.

Careful management also characterizes Singapore's education system. It's essentially a government system, save for a few idiosyncratic private schools. Half a million kids are enrolled in 370 schools. The first six grades are compulsory and free. Four more years are not yet required but are universally accessible and, though small fees are charged, the Ministry of Education says the high school dropout rate is down to 2.4 percent. This is a remarkable gain from 1980 when just six youngsters in ten completed secondary schooling.

Tracking is the rule, however, beginning in 5th grade. Everyone takes a placement test at the end of 4th grade, which determines whether one enters the advanced program (about 21% of kids), the regular program (71%) or a remedial program (about 8%). The curricular content is very similar in all 5th and 6th grade tracks, however. The main difference is that youngsters in the advanced program study their "mother tongue" (Chinese, Malay or Tamil) more intensively. Besides "mother tongue," everyone in primary school studies English ("the language of commerce, technology and administration," says the Ministry's overview) as well as math and (from 3rd grade) science. Also included are health, social studies, music, art, and much emphasis on "civics and moral education"-a course with a distinct nationalistic flavor.

Everyone takes another test-the "primary school leaving examination"-at the end of 6th grade, which determines the high school track one enters. This gets a mite complicated, but picture two main tracks, one pointed toward higher education, the other toward technical/vocational training. Within the more academic track (where you find 60% of secondary students) are two sub-tracks, an elite "special" program (10% of the cohort) and the broader "express" program (50%). These are four-year programs, at the end of which youngsters sit for British-style "O-level" exams (in fact these tests are jointly operated by Singapore and Cambridge University), after which they ordinarily head into a junior college (27%) or a polytechnic (38%). University follows for about 21% of the cohort.

For the 40% who enter the technical-vocational path, there are also two sub-tracks, one called "academic" (22%), the other "technical" (18%). These are followed by "GCE N-level" exams and then, for about half the group, entry into an Institute of Technical Education. Some go to junior college and a few make it to university.

I was told that there are opportunities at several points for movement among tracks, both upward and downward, initiated by student and parent or by teacher and principal. I don't know how much of this actually occurs.

That's the basic structure. It's free (as well as compulsory) at the primary level. There are small fees for secondary schools, junior colleges, etc., most of the pre-university cost being absorbed by the government. University attendance is pricey, however, unless one qualifies for a scholarship or enters a field (such as teaching!) where the government picks up the tab. In the latter case, there's an obligation then to serve in the chosen field for a prescribed period, which is 3 to 5 years for teachers, depending on which university program one has completed.

For additional observations about education in Singapore, please watch this space next week.

Principals are under increasing pressure to raise student test scores. The vast majority of their teachers are committed and competent, principals say, but an unknown number stifle learning. Given the extreme difficulty of terminating a tenured teacher, what's a principal to do once she has tried without success to help the teacher improve? According to Dr. Robert Mendro, the assistant superintendent for research and evaluation at Dallas Public Schools who has used value-added analysis to analyze the effectiveness of teachers in the district, "To date, there is little evidence that principals turn around the performance of teachers. Rather, effective principals do not tolerate having ineffective teachers on their staffs." In an article by reporter Scott Parks in The Dallas Morning News, principals candidly describe the tactics they use to get rid of bad teachers, which include becoming a constant presence in the teacher's classroom, giving a teacher hallway duty, putting a teacher on marginal committees, denying a teacher a permanent classroom, or giving a teacher a new grade or classroom assignment in which he or she is expected to be unhappy. A teachers union representative counters with the other side of the coin-what he calls horror stories of teachers suffering at the hands of vindictive and capricious principals. For details see "Bad teachers get push toward door," by Scott Parks, The Dallas Morning News, February 3, 2002.

After learning of a $5 million donation made by Florida Power to a private school scholarship program under the Sunshine State's new education tax credit law, the teachers union in Pinellas County, Florida has urged the local school board to shut off all power in county schools for a day as payback for the utility company. Florida Power was able to make the donation to the Corporate Income Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships for low-income children to attend private school, instead of paying the same amount in taxes. The president of the teachers union has requested that the board impose a mini power boycott; "turn off the lights, the air conditioners, the computers for a day or half a day" to make up for the money that the power company sent to "unregulated" and "unaccountable" private schools, money which is allegedly being taken away from essential state services like public education. The Pinellas County teachers union was last in the news in November 2001, when a court rejected its bid to stop schools from using funds from a state incentive program to pay bonuses to teachers. See "Pinellas Teachers Union, Utility in No-Power Struggle," by Lynn Porter, The Tampa Tribune, February 2, 2002, and "Union Loses Appeal to Ban Bonus Money for Teachers," by Gary Sprott, The Tampa Tribune, November 8, 2001

edited by Herbert J. Walberg and Margaret C. Lang
2001

Herbert J. Walberg and the late Margaret C. Lang edited this book, based on an invitational conference at Wingspread. It contains 14 chapters (including one by Marci Kanstoroom and myself) and brief policy recommendations by the editors. The authors are varied-including both establishment figures and heretics-but the topical orientation throughout is teacher quality. Weighing in at 350 pages, it's a useful assemblage of some of today's major ideas and hot debates on that topic. The ISBN is 0821122762. The publisher is McCutchan, whose address is 3220 Blume Drive, #197, Richmond, CA 94806; phone (800) 227-1540; http://www.mccutchanpublishing.com (The book cannot be ordered online at this time.)

Tony Wagner
2002

In Making the Grade, Tony Wagner, co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard School of Education, argues that America's public schools have become obsolete. In his view, the world around them has changed so much-a "new" economy, a world of information overload, a world where knowledge is constantly changing and becoming obsolete-that century-old institutions designed for an agrarian society are no longer up to the task of preparing today's youngsters for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Wagner believes we need to reinvent education for a post-industrial world. To him, this means moving beyond archaic notions of school accountability, standardized exams, and a one-size model of education for everyone. He asserts that most of today's education reformers simply want to return to the past because they lack the imagination to create a better today. For those open to full-fledged reinvention, Wagner urges study of the work of Deborah Meier, formerly with Central Park East in New York City, and Ted Sizer, founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Making the Grade offers many suggestions for reinventing education, but the idea Wagner spends most of his time developing is the creation of small schools, which might be termed a step back in time. He asserts that the "data are overwhelming: small schools significantly outperform larger schools with comparable student populations on nearly every indicator of 'effectiveness.' " For Wagner, for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which Wagner advises), and for other small-school boosters, this idea is as close as we're apt to get to a panacea for America's educational ills. Hence the grand rush by public and private funders and reformers to climb on the small-school bandwagon. The lingering question is whether this faith in smallness per se is warranted. From reviewing the available research, we can say that students in high schools with fewer than 500 students tend to have lower dropout rates, higher attendance rates, fewer course failures and fewer incidents of violence than do vast institutions. Well and good. Students, parents and teachers also say that small schools provide more of a sense of community. Also good. But let's recognize that today there's precious little evidence that small schools also boost academic performance. What the evidence does show is that academic achievement in small schools is at least equal to student achievement in large schools. Not worse. But maybe not much better. Certainly not enough better to warrant everyone jumping onto a bandwagon in the belief that making schools small will make achievement big. Small schools can be bad schools, too, if they have low standards, frivolous curricula, ineffectual teachers and misguided priorities. It is also important to add that, while Wagner's book claims to represent the voices of parents and teachers, we have evidence from other sources that reducing school size is not at the top of either group's agenda for education reform. Wagner supports many of his statements with evidence culled from Public Agenda surveys. Yet, according to Public Agenda, "when asked to choose what they thought was the best way to improve schools, 27 percent of parents and 29 percent of teachers picked reducing class sizes, 26 percent of the parents and 32 percent of the teachers chose improving discipline. By comparison, 20 percent of the parents and only 14 percent of the teachers picked making schools smaller." Small schools is certainly an idea worth exploring, particularly at the secondary level, and those experiments should be carefully evaluated. But let's take pains to ask "what, besides smallness, is needed for a school to boost student achievement?" and "what are the downsides of smallness in schools?" (Possibilities include higher per-pupil costs, fewer options within the school, and-in the absence of school choice-greater likelihood of a youngster being trapped in a school where he cannot find his niche, friends, subjects that interest him and teachers that he can relate to.) Published by RoutledgeFalmer, the book's ISBN is 0415927692. You can find ordering information at http://www.routledge-ny.com/books.cfm?isbn=0415927692.

William H. Schmidt et al.
2001

Do you really want to squeeze the TIMSS data for insights into elementary and secondary schooling? Here's a book for you. William H. Schmidt of Michigan State, who was one of the leaders of American participation in TIMSS, joined with 6 colleagues in writing a 400-page technical explanation (and it IS technical) of what accounts for the different results of participating countries. You won't find the actual country-by-country league tables here. (You've probably seen them elsewhere.) In the authors' words, "Comparative status...says little about learning. Learning is change and growth....If we wish to know what is effective in enhancing learning, we must...examine what produces changes and gains in achievement." In this volume, they don't look at the variables that are hard to change, such as culture and socio-economic status but, rather, at things within the control of schools and education policy. Specifically, they fix on the school curriculum as a key determinant of student learning. Given that perspective, you will not be surprised that they conclude that academic standards matter, that textbooks matter and that teaching matters. So does the extent of commonality of standards within a country. Here's one of the main places where the United States could stand to learn from other countries, particularly as we embark on a new, federally-mandated effort to spell out academic standards and bring every child to "proficiency" vis-??-vis those standards. Can we have a national perspective on standards without undue federal control of schooling? The authors say yes. To me, their most tantalizing insight is this: "The setting of content standards-relative priorities-is typically a national task and represents a national vision. That is not so in the United States. However, unlike what we might have naively assumed about other countries, setting priorities at a national level is not tantamount to national control of the school system. Many other countries have regional, religious, and even local control of schools but only a national control of relative priorities involved in content standards. This is a much narrower sense of national control than most in the United States fear and one that may well be more tolerable politically." There's lots more here. The ISBN is 0787956848. The publisher is Jossey-Bass, which you can find on the web at www.josseybass.com. You can also call them at (888)378-2537.

Yong Zhao and Paul Conway, Teachers College Record
January 27, 2001

It's not news that inadequate teacher training and lack of access to adequate hardware and software have limited technology's impact on education, but many states are trying to do something about it. In this report, Yong Zhao of Michigan State University and Paul Conway of the National University of Ireland attempt to catalogue one aspect of the "multi-billion dollar frenzy" to train teachers and upgrade system capabilities that is underway in the 50 states by taking a close look at state technology plans: blueprints for implementing and securing funding for educational technology. In general, the authors find, state technology plans over promise and under deliver, taking the form of "idealistic vision statements" that skillfully sell technology by promising to meet lofty goals. This promotion of a "technological utopia" is problematic, they say, because it downplays serious educational inequities; underestimates the complexity of social change; amounts to "techno centrism," in which the limits and constraints of technology are rarely discussed; and simplifies the challenges students face in comprehending the complexities of their social and natural world. You must complete a simple (and free) registration process to view the report at http://www.tcrecord.org/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=10717.