The Education Gadfly Weekly

Brian Stecher and George Bohrnstedt, CSR Research Consortium
February 4, 2002

You have probably read in the media that, due to recent budget cuts, a number of California school districts are abandoning the legislatively mandated (in 1996) class size reduction (CSR) program in grades K-3. This report from the CSR Research Consortium, prepared by Brian Stecher of RAND and George Bohrnstedt of American Institutes of Research, carries an ongoing evaluation of this ambitious and expensive effort through the 2000-2001 school year. By then, the analysts found, the program was almost fully implemented (which means class sizes in the early grades were brought down to about 20) although a cost to other activities of schools and school systems. This report takes an interesting look at the distribution of qualified teachers between high-income and low-income schools-which had sharply worsened in the early years of the program-and finds that this problem has been eased but not eliminated. (California still has many teachers without full certification in its public schools.) The most troubling findings concern student achievement. Though California has seen some test-score gains in recent years, "the statewide pattern of score increases in the elementary grades does not match the statewide pattern of exposure to CSR, so no strong relationship can be inferred between achievement and CSR." Strikes me as a mighty pricey way to produce no clear gains! Should we be surprised that cash-strapped districts (many of which had cut maintenance, music, art and libraries to fund the CSR initiative) are backing away? You can download a summary of this report from the website of the CSR Research Consortium at http://www.classize.org/.

John Gardner, American Education Reform Council
January 2002

John Gardner, a lively and reform-minded member of the Milwaukee school board, has written this interesting report for the American Education Reform Council. It contends that all manner of promising reforms have gotten under way in Milwaukee's public schools, and that recent improvement in education results is visible, as a result of competition arising from that city's well-known choice programs (both vouchers and charters). Though there's no definitive way to prove causation-this is hardly a "controlled experiment"-Gardner (a self-described "left-wing organizer" and "radical Democrat" turned ardent reformer) makes a convincing argument that the choice movement is responsible. Nobody claims that Milwaukee's public schools are yet doing a good job but this 26-page report is a worthwhile contribution to the discussion of whether competition produces change in the public school system as well as affording options to the children most directly affected. You can find it online at http://www.schoolchoiceinfo.org/hot_topics/?ID=11.

General Accounting Office
January 31, 2002

A recent report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) examines the flow of Title I dollars to schools attended by low-income children. It responds to a Congressional mandate for GAO to review Title I allocations in terms of how precisely these dollars reach the schools with the most poor kids. This is strictly an examination of the flow of funds, not the benefit produced by or effectiveness of Title I-funded interventions. The GAO found (using 1999-2000 data) that Title I's "complex allocation process resulted in differences in actual funding per poor child among states, school districts, and schools." Indeed, analysts encountered "many instances of states, districts, and schools with either similar numbers or similar percentages of poor children receiving widely differing amounts of funding per poor child." There are many reasons for these variations, including arcane, multi-factor formulas, the persistence of local discretion in allocating Title I funds among individual schools, and "factors other than numbers of poor children [that] are included in Education's formula calculation, for example, the amount a state spends on education." The GAO also notes that "The allocation of Title I funds does not encourage states to target their own funds to children from low-income families. [There are] no monetary, statutory, or regulatory incentive[s] for them to do so." GAO suggests various ways by which Congress could change this but, of course, any of them would also have the effect of taking money from somewhere else. It seems to me odd, even fishy, that, although GAO says they briefed relevant Congressional committees in March 2001 on the "preliminary" results of this work, this report came out after Congress had finished its work on the No Child Left Behind act. It smacks of ringing the fire alarm after the house has burned down. But you might want to see for yourself-the report number is GAO-02-242-and can do so by surfing to the abstract at http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/summary.php?recflag=&accno=A02642&rptno=GAO-02-242.

American Youth Policy Forum and the Center on Education Policy
2002

The American Youth Policy Forum has teamed up with the Center on Education Policy to produce this review of the nation's experience with "special" education in the quarter century since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was enacted. (It had a different name then.) In 64 pages, it applauds IDEA for many gains (e.g. effecting access to public education for disabled youngsters and putting into place "a solid infrastructure" for educating those kids). It also says the program now needs considerable reform. Some of its observations parallel those in last year's Fordham-Progressive Policy Institute volume on IDEA (which you can find at www.edexcellence.net), notably the conclusion that special ed policy should now "look beyond ensuring access...and focus on improving educational quality and results" for disabled youngsters. As Washington begins to shift its attention from E.S.E.A. to I.D.E.A.-the President's commission on special education recently held its first meeting-this is a timely contribution to what is apt to be a very important, possibly even historic, policy sequence. You can find it on the web at http://www.ctredpol.org/specialeducation/.

The California State Board of Education has proposed new regulations that would undo the reform of bilingual education enacted by the state in 1998 after voters passed Proposition 227. That ballot measure limited native language instruction in public schools to a single year, unless parents requested a waiver. It had previously been routine in California to keep children in Spanish language instruction for years and years, and as a result the English language skills of many Latino students suffered greatly. Since Prop 227 ended this practice, Latino test scores have shot upward in California. But, as Michael Barone writes in USNews.com, these gains are now jeopardized by regulations proposed by the state board that would 1) give teachers rather than parents the right to apply for waivers to place students in bilingual programs and 2) eliminate the requirement that all limited-English students under the age of 10 spend the first 30 days of every school year in an English-language program before a waiver allowing them into Spanish-language instruction could be obtained. Combined, these two changes would undermine the whole reform, Barone notes, as many teachers and administrators will try to keep children in Spanish-language instruction for ideological reasons or to keep more money coming into the building, since Spanish-language teachers are paid a premium. Will California Governor Gray Davis keep his pledge to carry out the letter and intent of Prop 227, or will he allow his own appointees on the state board to break that promise and undercut the will of the voters? Stay tuned. "Debating bilingual education," by Michael Barone, USNews.com, February 8, 2002.

The White House budget released last week contained good news for school choice supporters. It includes a tax credit that would pay up to $2,500 a year in private school tuition for parents of children whose public schools are failing. The credit would cover 50 percent of the first $5,000 per child that's spent on books, computers, transportation, supplies and tuition at a school of the parents choice. It would be refundable, so even low-income workers who pay no taxes would benefit. The White House education budget also includes a new $50 million Choice Demonstration Fund, which would support local school choice experiments and $100 million to help charter schools buy, lease, or renovate buildings. Congressional Democrats have attacked the budget request for education, both for its choice elements and because, they say, it provides less money than the President agreed to when he signed the No Child Left Behind Act last month. Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Representative George Miller, who worked with the President to enact that law, argued that the funds for the tax credits would be better spent on Title I, the main federal education program to help poor children, and other programs under the No Child Left Behind Act. A White House spokesman noted that the President's budget also includes billion dollar increases for Title I and special education. School choice supporters, meanwhile, are watching for evidence that the administration is not only going to lay these new proposals on the table but is going to do battle to get them enacted. For details see "Bush Budget Proposes Education Tax Credit," by Mike Allen, The Washington Post, February 4, 2002, and "Democrats Criticizing Bush Budget on Education," by Robert Pear, The New York Times, February 13, 2002.

A front-page story in The New York Times this week described a big increase in the number of people seeking jobs as teachers nationwide, prompted by the sinking economy and a wave of soul-searching after the Sept. 11 attacks. The most striking increase, notes reporter Abby Goodnough, is in applications to programs that recruit people from other careers, provide brief training, and send the new teachers into short-staffed schools, typically in poor, urban neighborhoods. One such program in Washington, D.C. has received 45 percent more applications than it had this time last year. The increased interest is also reflected in applications to Teach for America, which places recent college graduates in troubled urban schools after a summer of training. TFA has had its sharpest increase in applicants ever this year, receiving 3,000 by its earliest deadline, October 31, compared with 1,100 the previous year. For details see "More Applicants Answer the Call for Teaching Jobs," by Abby Goodnough, The New York Times, February 11, 2002.

Until now, most of us believed that ed school professors were in principle opposed to the concept of a "canon" of great books. It turns out that this is not so, at least not if we consider the recent statements of Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College, Columbia University. Shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Levine told The Washington Post (October 1, 2001) that American students spend too much time studying Western works like Middlemarch, and that the Koran should be added to the canon. Now, he has told The New York Times (February 12, 2002) that "What Sept. 11 should have been is a signal that the canon ought to be expanded to include books like the Koran. Other than the Constitution, no work has had a larger impact on the United States."

Although one might question his assertion that the Koran is second only to the Constitution as a work that has influenced the United States, it is nonetheless worth observing that President Levine implicitly (and one might even say explicitly) endorses the very idea of a canon of important works that everyone should read. We know from his October remarks that he believes that the canon includes Middlemarch and now we know that it also includes the Constitution and should include the Koran.

One hopes that President Levine in future writings will fill in the blanks and let the rest of us know what else he thinks the canon does include and should include. Should all American students read the Bible, which many would very likely consider to be of even greater importance than the Koran in shaping this nation? Should they read the sacred writings of other world religions? How much time should be allotted to religious works in American public schools? Should they also read Mark Twain? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Walt Whitman? Zora Neale Hurston? Allen Ginsberg?

We can all continue to debate precisely what should be included in the American canon, but we can now rest assured that the idea of a canon has the endorsement of the head of our nation's most prestigious graduate school of education, and that, at the very least, it should include Middlemarch, the Koran, and the U.S. Constitution. That's a start.

"Campuses Across America Are Adding 'Sept. 11 101' to Curriculums," by Karen W. Arenson, The New York Times, February 12, 2002

"Sept. 11 Prompts Lesson Review: Educators Rethink Multiculturalism" by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, October 1, 2001 (article available for a fee)

The Oakland Military Institute, the charter school opened by Mayor Jerry Brown last August, is having a tough first year. The seventh-grade curriculum chosen by the school has turned out to be too difficult for the students; nearly one-third of them scored D averages and wound up on academic probation. Despite the strict discipline provided by the National Guard, a small group of students routinely disrupts class. And the school day was cut back from 7:30 a.m.- 6 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and from six to five days a week due to burnout among staff sergeants who act as classroom mentors all day. But the leaders of the school are rolling with the punches, according to an article by reporter Meredith May. Classes in basic skills have been added. Students on academic probation attend Saturday school, evening tutoring sessions four times a week, and classes during holiday breaks. Students with behavior problems are separated into a separate platoon until their attitude improves. While many students are struggling, only a small number have quit or been kicked out. Daily attendance, which includes lining up in formation at 7:45 a.m. with shoes tied, is 96 percent, and parents and students seem willing to do what it takes to catch up. For more see "After 6 months, Oakland military charter school finds students must do double time to catch up," by Meredith May, San Francisco Chronicle, February 10, 2002.

In a recent editorial in the Gadfly, I criticized New York Times reporter Diana Jean Schemo for her hostile coverage of reading instruction. In two articles, she managed to convey her misunderstanding of the phonics/whole language issue and to cite researchers with an axe to grind against any kind of phonetic instruction. However, I am happy to say that Schemo has mended her ways. In an article on February 9, 2002, about California reading instruction, Schemo showed that she can be a first-rate reporter, not by taking sides but by accurately explaining what is happening in that state. Unlike her earlier articles, this time Schemo did not create an unbridgeable gulf between phonics and whole language, and she did not selectively quote researchers associated with the anti-phonics position. It appears that she may have even read the report from the National Research Council, "Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children," which has been so important in persuading states like California to abandon its devotion to whole language and its new-found enthusiasm for phonetics as a prelude to imaginative reading of good children's literature.

"California Leads Chorus of Sounded-Out Syllables," by Diana Jean Schemo, The New York Times, February 9, 2002

Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor at the New York University School of Education and a trustee of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

In last week's Gadfly, I described a bit about modern Singapore and how its world-beating education system is structured. Today I offer ten observations based on what struck me most during a brief visit.

First, ethnicity is indeed powerful, but a country's education culture and standards can trump ethnic differences. Not unlike the U.S., Singapore has a majority population (about 77% Chinese) and two large minorities-Malays and Indians. We know from Harold Stevenson, from TIMSS scores and other sources that Chinese populations (whether on Taiwan, the Chinese mainland or in Hong Kong) tend to take education seriously and to do well in school. In Singapore, however, the Malay and Indian kids do almost as well in education and in life. (To the extent that they don't, those data are downplayed-I couldn't find any-rather than highlighted.) There's no fussing over double standards and little talk of affirmative action, although there's much self-conscious integration of housing and schooling. Separatism is palpably discouraged. Rather, there's a national curriculum, national exams, national standards, and a lot of attention to one-nation-building via curricular emphases on civics, Singapore's history, moral education, etc. Though Singapore has had ethnic discord in the past, the government is bent on avoiding it in the future. (Nearby countries keep illustrating what not to do!) Everyone's cultural traditions are respected-we watched Chinese and Malay policemen guarding Indian "believers" as they walked down busy streets with various blades stuck into their own flesh as part of a religious festival that occurred during our visit-and everyone studies their "mother tongue" as part of the national curriculum, but English is the national language, everyone learns it, and everyone also learns how to be a good Singaporean.

Second, the schools are big. The primary school I visited has 2000 kids, split into morning and afternoon shifts. (The high schools are now all single-session.) Teachers work one shift. The principal and vice-principal are always on duty.

Third, classes are big, too. The national standard is about 40 kids per class.

Fourth, teachers are respected and well paid. Their income is equivalent to that of other university graduates. On the other hand, they have those big classes and do lots of extra work without additional compensation: staying late, coming in on Saturdays, working with kids during vacations, etc. Though their union is said to be powerful, in a very Asian way it has more of a "joint consultation" role with the Ministry on policy issues than a confrontational one.

Fifth, though secondary teachers are all university graduates, many primary teachers are not-and nobody can find any difference in the performance of pupils taught by those who are and those who aren't. There are several pathways into teaching, but almost all of them include study at the National Institute of Education, part of Nanyang Technological University. Once admitted-or recruited-into a teacher preparation program, one becomes a salaried employee of the Ministry of Education. In other words, you're paid to prepare to teach.

Seventh, everyone in the education service (including every teacher) is evaluated annually and given a letter grade from A through E, based on his/her performance, mostly as observed by supervisors. (Principals also rank teachers in their schools from best to worst.) Healthy financial bonuses (two or more months of pay) accompany A and B rankings. Educators with (rare) E grades risk "being sacked."

Eighth, Singapore is cautiously experimenting (only at the secondary school level so far) with granting greater independence to high-performing schools, not unlike U.S. charter schools. This includes considerable leeway in selecting principals and teachers, tailoring the curriculum and deploying resources. Even in regular schools, however, principals have more control over budgets and staffing than in most U.S. public schools. Besides formula funding, they raise grant dollars from the Ministry, from private sources and from parents and community. In the school I visited, for example, money that the school and its dynamic principal raised had paid for a "robotics lab" (this in a primary school, mind you!) plus other technology plus a good bit of air conditioning beyond the country-wide standard.

Ninth, secondary (and higher) institutions are, essentially, schools of choice, though which one you end up in depends greatly on your exam results in addition to your wishes. I was told that 95% of families get one of their top six school choices. At the primary level, preference is given to those who live near a school, to siblings and others with prior ties to the school (e.g. alumni/ae kids) and, interestingly, to the children of parents who volunteer in that school! Beyond those priorities, anyone can apply; if demand exceeds supply, a lottery system determines who goes where.

Tenth, the country isn't resting on its laurels. Though they're proud of their schools-I was told with a straight face that "There are no failing schools in Singapore"-reform is in the air. In what is termed a fundamental philosophic shift, they are moving from an "efficiency driven" system to an "ability driven" system. But that doesn't mean just tracking. It means embracing the view that every Singaporean should be educated to the limit of his/her ability, not only during their initial pass through school but also via adult and "lifelong" learning opportunities, by greater school diversity, lots of technology, and more programs customized to individual interests and talents.

The educators and officials I met struck me as having bought fully into the notion of continuous improvement for the system as a whole, for individual schools, and also for individual Singaporeans. Those I talked with-as with any such visit, I'm sure I was steered away from the duds, bores and bureaucrats-were data-driven, results-oriented, innovative and open-minded. They fret that their system doesn't do enough to nurture individualism and creativity-which is naturally harder to do with 40 kids in a class, a nearly-uniform curriculum and a commitment to building a cohesive nation and down-playing group differences. They approvingly quoted a recent speech by the Prime Minister saying that the country and its education system need to become more experimental, bolder-and willing to take more risks and make some mistakes. Everyone in Singapore knows that their future hinges on their human capital. They are determined to develop that capital well and to insist on a high rate of return from it. They know that means being open to change. Their challenge is to make judicious changes that build on, rather than squander, the extraordinarily high performance level of the education system they already have.

PS: As with all Gadfly editorials, readers' comments and insights-and corrections of the record-are cordially invited.

American Youth Policy Forum and the Center on Education Policy
2002

The American Youth Policy Forum has teamed up with the Center on Education Policy to produce this review of the nation's experience with "special" education in the quarter century since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was enacted. (It had a different name then.) In 64 pages, it applauds IDEA for many gains (e.g. effecting access to public education for disabled youngsters and putting into place "a solid infrastructure" for educating those kids). It also says the program now needs considerable reform. Some of its observations parallel those in last year's Fordham-Progressive Policy Institute volume on IDEA (which you can find at www.edexcellence.net), notably the conclusion that special ed policy should now "look beyond ensuring access...and focus on improving educational quality and results" for disabled youngsters. As Washington begins to shift its attention from E.S.E.A. to I.D.E.A.-the President's commission on special education recently held its first meeting-this is a timely contribution to what is apt to be a very important, possibly even historic, policy sequence. You can find it on the web at http://www.ctredpol.org/specialeducation/.

Brian Stecher and George Bohrnstedt, CSR Research Consortium
February 4, 2002

You have probably read in the media that, due to recent budget cuts, a number of California school districts are abandoning the legislatively mandated (in 1996) class size reduction (CSR) program in grades K-3. This report from the CSR Research Consortium, prepared by Brian Stecher of RAND and George Bohrnstedt of American Institutes of Research, carries an ongoing evaluation of this ambitious and expensive effort through the 2000-2001 school year. By then, the analysts found, the program was almost fully implemented (which means class sizes in the early grades were brought down to about 20) although a cost to other activities of schools and school systems. This report takes an interesting look at the distribution of qualified teachers between high-income and low-income schools-which had sharply worsened in the early years of the program-and finds that this problem has been eased but not eliminated. (California still has many teachers without full certification in its public schools.) The most troubling findings concern student achievement. Though California has seen some test-score gains in recent years, "the statewide pattern of score increases in the elementary grades does not match the statewide pattern of exposure to CSR, so no strong relationship can be inferred between achievement and CSR." Strikes me as a mighty pricey way to produce no clear gains! Should we be surprised that cash-strapped districts (many of which had cut maintenance, music, art and libraries to fund the CSR initiative) are backing away? You can download a summary of this report from the website of the CSR Research Consortium at http://www.classize.org/.

General Accounting Office
January 31, 2002

A recent report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) examines the flow of Title I dollars to schools attended by low-income children. It responds to a Congressional mandate for GAO to review Title I allocations in terms of how precisely these dollars reach the schools with the most poor kids. This is strictly an examination of the flow of funds, not the benefit produced by or effectiveness of Title I-funded interventions. The GAO found (using 1999-2000 data) that Title I's "complex allocation process resulted in differences in actual funding per poor child among states, school districts, and schools." Indeed, analysts encountered "many instances of states, districts, and schools with either similar numbers or similar percentages of poor children receiving widely differing amounts of funding per poor child." There are many reasons for these variations, including arcane, multi-factor formulas, the persistence of local discretion in allocating Title I funds among individual schools, and "factors other than numbers of poor children [that] are included in Education's formula calculation, for example, the amount a state spends on education." The GAO also notes that "The allocation of Title I funds does not encourage states to target their own funds to children from low-income families. [There are] no monetary, statutory, or regulatory incentive[s] for them to do so." GAO suggests various ways by which Congress could change this but, of course, any of them would also have the effect of taking money from somewhere else. It seems to me odd, even fishy, that, although GAO says they briefed relevant Congressional committees in March 2001 on the "preliminary" results of this work, this report came out after Congress had finished its work on the No Child Left Behind act. It smacks of ringing the fire alarm after the house has burned down. But you might want to see for yourself-the report number is GAO-02-242-and can do so by surfing to the abstract at http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/summary.php?recflag=&accno=A02642&rptno=GAO-02-242.

John Gardner, American Education Reform Council
January 2002

John Gardner, a lively and reform-minded member of the Milwaukee school board, has written this interesting report for the American Education Reform Council. It contends that all manner of promising reforms have gotten under way in Milwaukee's public schools, and that recent improvement in education results is visible, as a result of competition arising from that city's well-known choice programs (both vouchers and charters). Though there's no definitive way to prove causation-this is hardly a "controlled experiment"-Gardner (a self-described "left-wing organizer" and "radical Democrat" turned ardent reformer) makes a convincing argument that the choice movement is responsible. Nobody claims that Milwaukee's public schools are yet doing a good job but this 26-page report is a worthwhile contribution to the discussion of whether competition produces change in the public school system as well as affording options to the children most directly affected. You can find it online at http://www.schoolchoiceinfo.org/hot_topics/?ID=11.