The Education Gadfly Weekly

Jolley Bruce Christman, Eva Gold, and Benjamin Herod
Research for Action
December 2005

Following a state takeover in 2001, Philadelphia's formerly blighted schools are today awash in Paul Vallas's innovative reforms (and a few bad ideas that he has presided over). These include: 1) permitting private management companies (EMO's) to run individual schools; 2) establishing a district-wide core curriculum and a system of benchmark exams; 3) placing the middle school grades in K-8 schools and creating smaller high schools; 4) adopting a district-wide zero-tolerance discipline policy; 5) and mandating extended-day programs. But not everything's coming up roses - perhaps because some of these reforms are working at cross-purposes. The authors suggest that private management companies are not raising test scores any faster than are district schools, and that no one provider (in a crowded field) stands out as much more effective than its competitors. The study also notes that the vigorous marketplace competition envisioned by Philly's school reform architects has been significantly diluted. Instead of competing against each other, providers are focused on working together to ensure the system's success as a whole. And while that cooperation sounds nice, it works against the competitive marketplace. Meanwhile, seemingly positive districtwide reforms (such as instituting a core curriculum and benchmark exams) had the unintended consequence of further weakening provider autonomy and eliminating distinctions among management companies. The fear now is that weakened competition may lead to complacency on the part of the management companies. The authors question whether the district will find a way to manage its multiple school providers without further stunting their unique traits and autonomy. More study (and perhaps more time) is needed to fully judge the successes and failures of Philly's system (Research for Action is currently undertaking such an analysis), but this report still provides much good information. Read it, here.

The National Institute for Early Education Research, Rutgers University
W. Steven Barnett, Cynthia Lamy, and Kwanghee Jung
December 2005

This short paper examines state-funded preschool programs in five states - Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia. In a nutshell, it finds that these state-funded preschool programs have "statistically significant and meaningful impacts on children's early language, literacy and mathematical development, with some evidence of an enhanced program effect for print awareness skills [understanding the fundamentals of print reading, e.g. words run from left to right] for children in low-income families." (They don't find any significant impact on "phonological awareness," a skill that aids in early reading acquisition.) The authors studied the skills displayed by a sample of kindergarten students, some of whom attended preschool. The study provides evidence that preschool indeed matters - though, as the authors make clear, the programs they evaluated appear to be of unusually high quality. Each requires its teachers to have four-year degrees with certifications in early childhood education. Thus, it's no surprise they find positive effects "at least 2 to 3 times as large" as a recent study of Head Start (see here). The report illustrates that academically-oriented pre-K staffed by well-prepared teachers can make an impact and put young students on an early path toward success. Their paper is available online here.

This week, the Wall Street Journal published an essay by a Nobel-laureate economist - and it wasn't Milton Friedman espousing the benefits of vouchers! Indeed, it was a column undercutting the school reform movement that Friedman helped spawn. James J. Heckman asserts that "a major finding from the research literature is that schools and school quality contribute little to the emergence of test-score gaps among children. By the second grade, gaps in ranks of test scores across socioeconomic groups are stable, suggesting that later schooling has little effect in reducing or widening the gaps that appear before students enter school." He continues by saying that "the best way to improve schools is to improve the students sent to them." This is best done, in his view, by investing in high-quality preschool initiatives such as the Perry Preschool Program. We have no complaints with rigorous, academically oriented, early childhood programs (see Eric Osberg's short review, below), though these are few and far between, and we would agree with Heckman that the track record of the K-12 system is uninspiring. But that's precisely why we need to implement strategies (like those in place at the KIPP Academies and other "culture of achievement" schools) that can, and do, give poor and minority students a fighting chance. Giving up on the schools' ability to turn around students' lives not only lets educators off the hook for poor pupil performance, it is akin to writing off millions of American kids. Perhaps economics truly is the "dismal science."

"Catch 'em Young," by James J. Heckman, Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2006 (paid subscription required)

Michigan's West Ottawa Public Schools has instituted a no-tolerance policy that's stunning in its immediacy, breadth, and severity. Because of safety and allergy concerns, every furry classroom pet will be summarily removed from schools. Assistant Superintendent David Zimmer justified the decision by citing a "need to be sensitive to the concerns of the whole community.... That's the same reason we've established peanut-free zones in schools where there are students who are allergic." But animal lovers need not fear. The district's hairless pets - which include a few snakes, a naked mole rat, and a Madagascar hissing cockroach (an insect featured on "Fear Factor") - were deemed classroom-safe. But the West Ottawa brass is behind on its medical reading. A study in the March 2005 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found that cockroaches are perhaps the worst instigators of asthmatic symptoms in children (see here). In the district's defense, however, it should be noted - Madagascar hissing cockroaches do not eat peanuts.

The new alternative certification program (which turns mid-career professionals into public school teachers) in Pinellas County, Florida, has hit some bumpy patches. In this year, the program's first, it had a 25 percent attrition rate. District superintendent Clayton Wilcox admirably took responsibility, saying that administrative commitment to the program was lacking. The local teachers union certainly isn't committed to alternative certification: "It doesn't cost us a nickel to hire someone from a college of education," said the union rep. "If the district is paying for this, we ought to be getting something better than what we're getting for free." Teachers with greater maturity and stronger academic credentials - such as those recruited by good alternate route programs - are better than what districts get "for free." Unfortunately, as long as they lack the funding streams available to schools of education (e.g. state-subsidized tuitions, student loans), and as long as their participants find themselves in unsupportive, mind-numbingly inefficient surroundings, alternate route programs will struggle to expand, even if they and their teachers are an excellent investment in the long run. 
"Teacher plan has dropout issue," by Donna Winchester, St. Petersburg Times, January 8, 2006

There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society, with a large segment of people in that society, who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.

                                                                        - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Atlanta's Auburn Street at the turn of the 20th century was known as the "richest negro street in the world," a vibrant community of black businesses and learning. Locals called the area Sweet Auburn. Martin Luther King, Jr. called it home.

But in the years following Dr. King's death in 1968, Sweet Auburn crumbled - as did Harlem, Chicago's Southside, and other predominantly black inner-city communities. Wealth gave way to poverty, and K-12 education collapsed. Today, Sweet Auburn survives, with the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site at the center of the community. But standing in the middle of the site, one can be forgiven for looking around and wondering if King's dream of equality has died - especially equality in education.

It is no small irony that the King site is encircled by a black, metal fence that protects the historic area and its tens of thousands of visitors annually from the run-down community that rings it. Despite recent efforts to restore Sweet Auburn to its former luster, a park ranger told me two years ago, the community "ain't so sweet anymore."

Neither are its schools. The nearest elementary and middle schools to the King site are moderate to low-achieving schools that don't promise great futures for their graduates. But dreams die hard. And while King would be distressed, were he alive, by the state of many traditional public schools in and around Sweet Auburn, he'd likely celebrate the innovative K-12 programs that have sprung up since the city's first charter school, Charles R. Drew, opened in 2000 just two miles away in the East Lake Community.

That's Eva Davis's impression, anyway. Davis was a local organizer during the 1960s who worked with Dr. King in the 18 months prior to his death. She knew him well, both as an orator who led America through the civil rights era, and as a skilled strategist with whom she sat in the backroom at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Street to plot the movement's next steps.

A single mother with little education, Davis moved into East Lake's public housing projects in 1971 - the year the buildings first opened. It took less than two years for these projects to grow the highest crime rates in the city. And for the local elementary school, once a sought-after center for learning in Atlanta, to become more retaining facility than school. (For more on the East Lake story, see here.) The community began its revival in the early 1990s when developer Tom Cousins set out to restore it. A centerpiece of the restoration was the (K-8) Charles R. Drew Charter School.

It was the first charter school in Atlanta. That its students were far behind academically was soon apparent, as only 32 percent of fourth-graders passed the state's reading exam, while just 15 percent passed the Georgia math exam. That was in 2001. By 2004, those numbers were 73 and 69 percent, respectively. The 2005 numbers are even better, and today Drew Charter's middle-school students are among the highest performing in the city. In fact, the Edison-run school is a favorite of parents seeking a high-achieving environment for their children.

But East Lake was just the start. Rene?? Lewis Glover, head of the Atlanta Housing Authority since 1994, borrowed the East Lake model (or East Lake borrowed hers - there's an irreconcilable difference of opinion on this matter) and applied it to other high-poverty communities. Centennial Elementary School, a mile west of Sweet Auburn and near Georgia Tech in the heart of downtown Atlanta, has transformed itself from among the lowest performing buildings in the city to its current status as a premier elementary school. Ninety-one percent of Centennial's students are minorities, and the vast majority qualifies for the free lunch program. Nonetheless, well over 90 percent pass the state exams.

Though a traditional public school, Glover set high standards for achievement and gave the school's leaders considerable latitude in designing curriculum and training teachers. A big part of the school's success is its partnership with Co-nect, an organization that specializes in training teachers to make data-driven instructional decisions.

More changes are afoot. Two KIPP Academies have recently set up shop in Atlanta, while the Core Knowledge program drives the curriculum at one of the city's best middle schools - Inman, a mile from the King site and with a 50-percent minority enrollment.

To be sure, the city has far to go. The majority of Atlanta's school children don't have access to these innovative schools, and too many traditional schools continue to slug along doing business as usual.

So as Martin Luther King Day approaches, it pays to stop and remember what school reformers are fighting for: The right of every child to have a superior education. The Dream, if you will, of a man whose city won't let go of the sweet sound of children learning well. How much sweeter the sound will be when it can be heard within a stone's throw of King's boyhood home.

Now that the Florida Supreme Court has struck down the state's Opportunity Scholarship Program (which provided students in repeatedly failing public schools vouchers for use at private schools), it's important to evaluate that decision's implications for education in the Sunshine State and beyond.

Those agreeing with the Court's decision immediately urged voucher supporters to surrender. "Focus on improving public education," they said, "not on politics." Besides, voucher opponents argued, the Court's ruling affects only the 700-odd students who actually received Opportunity Scholarships. No big deal.

Wrong. It is a very big deal. Not only because Opportunity Scholarships were canned via an overreaching legal interpretation, and not just because the students impacted directly were by all accounts thriving in their new environments, but because the Court's decision will undoubtedly affect thousands of additional students.

Writing the Court's majority opinion, Chief Justice Barbara Pariente concluded that the Opportunity Scholarship program "diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools that are the sole means set out in the Constitution for the state to provide for the education of Florida's children" (italics added).

Pariente also objected to state funding for "schools that are not 'uniform' when compared with each other or the public system."

There are two flaws in the majority's logic. First, it boldly implies that public schools are the "sole means" by which the state may educate its students. Nowhere is that specified in the state constitution, which provides for a public school system but in no way excludes other school types (even if they are in competition with the established public system).

Second, and perhaps more worrisome, is the majority's interpretation of the word "uniform." If uniform education means - as the Court seems to believe - identical education, or education subject to identical regulations, then it is not only Opportunity Scholarships that run afoul of the state constitution. Charter schools, other voucher programs, Bright Futures Scholarships (a higher education program), and even district-operated magnet schools do not meet that standard. What about gifted and talented programs? Special education?

Charter schools serve some 80,000 Florida students. "Uniform" (in the Court's interpretation of the word) they certainly are not. In fact, non-uniformity is precisely their point.

Also vulnerable are the more than 16,000 Florida students who receive McKay Scholarships, vouchers given to disabled youngsters that they then use to enroll in private schools. A 2003 evaluation of McKay Scholarships revealed that 92.7 percent of McKay participants were satisfied with their private school education, while only 32.7 percent of them registered similar feelings about their previous public schools. The same study found only 30.2 percent of McKay students said they received from their old public schools all the federally mandated services they were entitled to.

Although the Court took pains to distance its Opportunity Scholarship decision from other Florida voucher programs (especially those that serve special needs students), it's highly unlikely that its ruling won't be applied to other voucher cases. The St. Petersburg Times reported that regardless of "the potential for negative headlines, the ACLU is considering a legal challenge to McKay vouchers."

And what of Florida's Bright Futures Scholarships? Through this laudable program, motivated Florida students receive a discount on in-state, public university tuition - or can opt to take a "voucher" for the equivalent amount of money to a private institution. Does that not divert "public dollars into separate private systems" that are, most assuredly, non-uniform and in competition with the state schools (public schools that are supposedly the only means to educate Florida's students)?

Nor does the Court's decision affect only Florida. Public Impact tells Gadfly that fourteen other state constitutions have similar "uniformity" clauses. Some of these jurisdictions have few school choice programs; others, such as Arizona, have many. (Wisconsin's Supreme Court has already addressed the issue and wisely ruled that Milwaukee's voucher program does not violate the state uniformity clause.)

Reports from Florida suggest that the legislature is forming a short-term strategy to switch funding for the state's voucher programs from public money to private dollars in the form of tax credits (see here). Come November, it's likely that Florida voters will have an opportunity to amend the Sunshine State's constitution to allow tax dollars to go to private schools. The Florida Constitution is frequently amended, and we hope, for the good of Florida's students and for the future of school choice across the nation that these efforts succeed. And we hope that state courts across the land don't take a "uniform" approach to this critical issue. Multiple wrongs don't make a right.

Are A.P. courses gateways to college and a better life, or roadblocks to high-level learning? Maybe it depends. For many school districts, especially those serving middle-class communities, A.P. classes are the pinnacle of their academic offerings, as well as something of a status symbol. So they vigorously promote A.P. enrollments by picking up the $89 tab for each exam or offering bonuses to teachers whose pupils pass the tests. "A.P.'s are not for the elite," says one superintendent. "They're for the prepared. And it's our job to prepare these kids." But the elite don't always harbor such egalitarian sentiments. In fact, many top-notch private schools are shunning the A.P. curriculum because teachers must move so quickly to cover all the required material. "[The A.P. courses are] not as valuable as what we could be offering on our own," snorts one private school guidance director. And competitive colleges, aware of A.P.'s growing popularity (and also aware of its lessening prestige), are increasing the test scores that incoming students must post for receipt of university credit. Fancy private schools dumbing-down their standards, regular public schools pumping up theirs: it's a novel way to close the achievement gap, but it just might work.

"The Two Faces of A.P.," by Tamar Lewin, New York Times, January 8, 2006

Jolley Bruce Christman, Eva Gold, and Benjamin Herod
Research for Action
December 2005

Following a state takeover in 2001, Philadelphia's formerly blighted schools are today awash in Paul Vallas's innovative reforms (and a few bad ideas that he has presided over). These include: 1) permitting private management companies (EMO's) to run individual schools; 2) establishing a district-wide core curriculum and a system of benchmark exams; 3) placing the middle school grades in K-8 schools and creating smaller high schools; 4) adopting a district-wide zero-tolerance discipline policy; 5) and mandating extended-day programs. But not everything's coming up roses - perhaps because some of these reforms are working at cross-purposes. The authors suggest that private management companies are not raising test scores any faster than are district schools, and that no one provider (in a crowded field) stands out as much more effective than its competitors. The study also notes that the vigorous marketplace competition envisioned by Philly's school reform architects has been significantly diluted. Instead of competing against each other, providers are focused on working together to ensure the system's success as a whole. And while that cooperation sounds nice, it works against the competitive marketplace. Meanwhile, seemingly positive districtwide reforms (such as instituting a core curriculum and benchmark exams) had the unintended consequence of further weakening provider autonomy and eliminating distinctions among management companies. The fear now is that weakened competition may lead to complacency on the part of the management companies. The authors question whether the district will find a way to manage its multiple school providers without further stunting their unique traits and autonomy. More study (and perhaps more time) is needed to fully judge the successes and failures of Philly's system (Research for Action is currently undertaking such an analysis), but this report still provides much good information. Read it, here.

The National Institute for Early Education Research, Rutgers University
W. Steven Barnett, Cynthia Lamy, and Kwanghee Jung
December 2005

This short paper examines state-funded preschool programs in five states - Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia. In a nutshell, it finds that these state-funded preschool programs have "statistically significant and meaningful impacts on children's early language, literacy and mathematical development, with some evidence of an enhanced program effect for print awareness skills [understanding the fundamentals of print reading, e.g. words run from left to right] for children in low-income families." (They don't find any significant impact on "phonological awareness," a skill that aids in early reading acquisition.) The authors studied the skills displayed by a sample of kindergarten students, some of whom attended preschool. The study provides evidence that preschool indeed matters - though, as the authors make clear, the programs they evaluated appear to be of unusually high quality. Each requires its teachers to have four-year degrees with certifications in early childhood education. Thus, it's no surprise they find positive effects "at least 2 to 3 times as large" as a recent study of Head Start (see here). The report illustrates that academically-oriented pre-K staffed by well-prepared teachers can make an impact and put young students on an early path toward success. Their paper is available online here.