The Education Gadfly Weekly

Diane Ravitch
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
August 2007

As anyone who's ever attended a Fordham Institute event knows, conversations about K-12 education can quickly turn inscrutable. They become tangled in jargon, so for the lay person unfamiliar with the mishmash of acronyms, Diane Ravitch offers a rather comprehensive new book. Now, when friends start musing at cocktail parties about the particulars of the "Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504)," a quick turn to page 182 resolves any lingering ambiguities that might kill the mood. Much is here. But no glossary of EdSpeak can ever be complete. There's just too much of it. This reviewer discovered several omissions. "Gadfly," for example, is inexplicably missing in action. One trusts that subsequent revisions and editions will tidy up such minor quirks in a swell book that your reference shelf now craves. Look for it this August.

Susan L. Aud
Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation
April 2007

Do vouchers unfairly drain money from public schools as their opponents claim? No, says the Friedman Foundation's Linda Aud, in this examination of the fiscal impact of 12 voucher and tax-credit programs. Her analysis weighs the amount of per-pupil state funding that districts lose when voucher students leave (voucher money generally comes from state, not federal or local, coffers) against those districts' per-pupil instructional spending. In Cleveland in 2004-2005, for instance, the state withheld $3,750 for each voucher, while the district's per-pupil instructional spending averaged $6,707 (although, it should be noted, the old Cleveland voucher program was cheap and rather inadequate). The school thus generated a savings of $2,958 when the voucher recipient left the district. Multiply that per-pupil "surplus" by the 4,256 Cleveland students who received vouchers, and the district saved over $12 million that school year. (Districts save money in other ways, too--lunch programs, transportation, etc.--but Aud includes only instructional costs to make her estimates as conservative and credible as possible.) The numbers are similar for most other voucher programs, save for Milwaukee, where the district itself bears half the burden of funding its vouchers. Aud also calculates savings at the state level. Although Ohio withheld $3,750 from the district for each Cleveland voucher, for instance, it actually awarded only $2,686 to each student, generating a state-level savings of $1,064 per voucher. When Aud combines district and state savings since 1990 for all the programs she analyzed, she calculates that vouchers have saved nearly $444 million nationally. Critics will naturally claim that those savings exist only on paper; after all, it's hard to realize efficiencies if each classroom merely loses a student or two. But by that line of thinking, the more students that take advantage of vouchers, the better for public schools. Join the debate; read the report here.

The venue selected for the release of the 2006 NAEP results in U.S. history and civics was Boston's Old State House. Delicious, I thought.

As a site synonymous both with horror (the Boston Massacre occurred just outside it in 1770) and with celebration (the Declaration of Independence was read from its balcony in 1776), I couldn't help but wonder which mood would carry the day.

Mark Schneider, the commissioner of education statistics, didn't read the results from the balcony, to be sure, but his enthusiasm was palpable. While the civics results were a mixed bag, the history results were pleasantly surprising, albeit not where anyone would want them to be.

Overall, in U.S. history, more fourth- and eighth-graders are scoring at the basic level or above than in 1994 and 2001, and--for the first time in any subject since 1998--more twelfth-graders are hitting the mark, too.

Better, the lowest performers made the greatest improvements. So, for example, in the fourth grade, while those scoring at the 50^th percentile and above held steady from 2001, those scoring at the 10^th and 25^th percentile levels saw their scores increase significantly. The same held true in eighth grade.

In twelfth grade, all but the highest performers (those scoring in the 90^th percentile) increased their scores significantly.

But the numbers are not all rosy. Thirty-five percent of eighth-graders are below basic in history; a whopping 53 percent of twelfth-graders are. The number of students achieving at that low level in history is significantly higher than the number below basic in math and reading, too. Nonetheless, scores are up, which is good news. There are two questions to be answered. First, what accounts for the jumps in performance? Second, where do we go from here?

Why the increases? We'll never know for sure, but of course it's possible that the accountability measures for reading that are embedded in NCLB and related state systems are partly responsible. That's the Administration's line, anyway.

"While critics may argue that NCLB leads educators to narrow their curriculum focus," said Secretary Spellings in a press release yesterday morning, "the fact is, when students know how to read and comprehend, they apply these skills to other subjects like history and civics."

Another explanation for the increases, particularly for twelfth-graders, may lie in the recently released high school transcript study, which shows significantly more courses being taken in social studies. And we shouldn't forget to examine other forces, such as the History Channel, which has a strong contingency of young watchers (and offers a classroom-viewing component) and a growing place in K-12 classrooms.

Okay, things are looking up, but where do we go from here? The bottom line is that we're far from where we want to be. For all the celebration over the improvements, it's important to remember that the gains are mostly at the basic level. The proficient and advanced scores have hardly moved; they're flat across the board since 2001 (see here, here, and here). This is a very worrisome trend. Basic performance on NAEP isn't enough (see here). Proficient and advanced should be the goals.

This is not Pollyanna talking. According to Wednesday's results, the following facts are expected of students performing at the "proficient" level, but not necessarily of those at the "basic" level.

Grade 4: "Students can interpret Lincoln's position on slavery."
Grade 8: "Place colonial events on [a] time line."
Grade 12: "Identify segregation in [a] photo and explain its impact on African Americans."

These are hardly side-show matters in American history, and few would argue that all students shouldn't know this sort of thing. Maybe Spellings is half right: perhaps improvements in reading prowess do explain the gains in history and civics. But that doesn't mean that NCLB isn't also leading schools to narrow the curriculum and accountability systems (see here); imagine how much more progress we might make if schools were held to account for student achievement in history and civics, too.

So there's plenty left to do. Perhaps that's why Schneider and his colleagues selected the Old State House to release the report. Not to celebrate, as Bostonians did 231 years ago, but to mark a point in time: the point at which we began to see that it is possible to launch a revolution, and to begin to educate all children well.

Perhaps inspired by Chrysler's success in staving off ruin, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick called for 25 new charter schools this week in a push to revitalize the city's troubled public-education system. "While DPS is getting its legs, we have to move very aggressively to make sure Detroit parents have good education options right now," he said. Kilpatrick's plan includes reaching out to city organizations, such as museums and hospitals, to help run small, specialized schools. He would also recruit local universities to sponsor the schools. But some district officials were not so keen. School board president Jimmy Womack charged that "charter schools don't have a track record when it comes to academic achievement to date." Of course, Womack didn't mention the district's own track record, which has been nothing short of miserable, or that Detroit schools are hemorrhaging thousands of families (lots to those purportedly unproven charter schools). Two years back, the mayor backed out on a $200 million private donation to create 15 charter schools; this time around, he should put the pedal to the metal and not look back.

"Kilpatrick wants 25 charter schools," by Nolan Finley, Detroit News, May 14, 2007

"Kilpatrick school plan opposed," by Jennifer Mrozowski, Detroit News, May 15, 2007

"Kilpatrick's charter plan deserves broad support," Detroit News, May 15, 2007

Put this one in the "idea whose time has come" file: high school end-of-course exams. A decade back, when states such as Virginia started requiring them for graduation, it appeared the practice would take the nation by storm. Instead, it stalled for some reason (NCLB?)--until now. The Center on Education Policy reports that eight states will have end-of-course exams in place by 2012, and a bill that passed the Texas senate last month would make it nine. Nine states have also come together to offer a common Algebra II exam. Achieve president Michael Cohen explains the reasoning: "End-of-course tests can promote a level of consistency in content across courses, schools, and districts, and those tests can be a lot more rigorous." Of course, the devil is in the details; the tests need to be based on solid standards, for example. And their full potential won't be realized until states use the results for college admissions and placement decisions, as New York does--and as Cohen's American Diploma project urges. Still, when it comes to high school reform, end-of-course exams are a good start.

"States Mull Best Way to Assess Their Students for Graduation," by Catherine Gewertz, Education Week, May 16, 2007

It's no secret that public education contains vast funding inequities: between districts, within districts, and between district and charter schools, to name just a few. There are lots of potential solutions, too, but when money is at stake, reform is never simple.

In New York City, Chancellor Joel Klein is rolling out a somewhat emaciated version of weighted student funding, aka "Fair Student Funding," to distribute education dollars more equitably across the Big Apple. This is no small challenge in a district with a million students, a powerful teacher union, and plenty of middle-class schools accustomed to generous budgets. Those fat budgets occur not because their students' families pay more in taxes (though they may), or because public policy intends for their schools to receive a greater share of resources (which it probably doesn't). No, affluent families in many New York City neighborhoods enjoy schools with more resources because their schools employ more experienced teachers with bigger salaries. Across town, run-down classrooms are led by less-experienced teachers, and less-experienced teachers make less money--which means that kids in needy schools are actually being shortchanged.

Klein's plan would go a considerable distance toward setting this right, within the limits of the budgetary share controlled by City Hall (as opposed to Albany or Washington). It proposed a system in which the city would allocate dollars rather than teaching positions to its schools. Not surprisingly, that plan engendered much opposition. First came the United Federation of Teachers and wealthy parents, fearful that today's relatively generous budgets in affluent communities would suffer and the plum jobs of better-paid teachers would become unsettled. Klein struck a deal on this key element of weighted student funding--letting wealthier schools keep their larger budgets for at least a year--and thereby put off part of the solution for another day.

Now comes a thoroughly misguided new critique, courtesy of Andrew Wolf and the New York Sun. Wolf contends that wealthy families in well-off schools do, in fact, deserve to have more spent on their children, but he also alleges that Klein is naïve to believe that money even matters in education.

Wolf also laments New York's history of fiscal waste, with "skyrocketing" expenditures accompanied by no comparable rise in student achievement. That part would be fair except that he attacks the very solution to this inefficiency and mismanagement: funding schools based on the needs of individual students rather than "based on the cost of providing services." Ironic. Until now, districts such as New York City's haven't put principals in charge of their schools' budgets and thus have encouraged the very waste Wolf decries. Centrally managed organizations have fallen out of use in other industries, replaced by dispersed decision-making in which the authority of a manager is commensurate with his responsibility. It's an innovation heralded by management scholars, and Klein--who has been wrong on a number of curricular issues--is right in his attempt to bring the principle to bear on schools.

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, battles over education funding inequities also loom, as Congress and its orbiting policy wonks contemplate changes to NCLB. Much of the conversation has focused on the law's accountability mechanisms. Yet we mustn't forget that NCLB is, via Title I, a massive funding program, and that it distributes billions of dollars. And while one might assume that Uncle Sam is better suited to pass out money than to judge school quality, it falls short there, too.

Title I should help alleviate, rather than exacerbate, funding inequities between wealthy and poor schools. And ever since its enactment forty long years ago, districts have been responsible for ensuring that Title I schools receive "comparable" resources before the federal dollars are added on top. Yet NCLB's fine print about how to determine "comparability" requires districts to use the same budget smokescreens New York City is trying to clear by ignoring the salary advantages of teachers among various schools. Federal policy is exacerbating the problem that Klein is trying to solve. (You can see for yourself, in Section 1120A(c)(2)(B): "in the determination of expenditures... staff salary differentials for years of employment shall not be included.")

Given that teacher salaries make up the bulk of school budgets, this is a bit like holding students accountable for only 30 percent of their answers on a final exam. And given that Title I comprises $13.9 billion of the $24.5 billion that the president has requested for NCLB in Fiscal 2008 (see here), it's a sizable problem. That's why the Education Trust's recent suggestions for "Comparability and Funding Equity" in NCLB (see here) are worth taking seriously. To make sure that Title I actually benefits poor students, districts would be required to demonstrate comparable spending across schools, and they'd be required to include actual teacher salaries in doing so.

It's a common sense proposal that builds on the NCLB Commission's own recommendation on comparability. (The Ed Trust proposal is actually a slight improvement, as the commission would have required comparable teacher salaries. Ed Trust merely requires comparable school spending, including actual salaries, which leaves some sensible flexibility to buttress lower salaries with increased expenditures in other areas. In either case, the biggest potential concern is burdening districts with paperwork, which will depend on the particular regulations the Education Department ultimately drafts.)

Anything that makes this much sense is sure to face opposition. Unions will be quick to recognize, as the UFT did, the dangers of sunlight on actual teacher salaries. Besides unfounded criticism from the usual suspects, however, there are also legitimate reasons to consider the impact of such changes to education funding. After all, as Marguerite Roza and Christopher Cross note in their fascinating analysis, How the Federal Government Shapes and Distorts the Financing of K-12 Schools, when it comes to Title I, "virtually any action will have unintended consequences." For example, as the National Council on Teacher Quality's Kate Walsh points out, an ill-conceived plan could encourage districts to transfer pricey but poorly-performing veteran teachers to high-poverty schools in order to meet the "comparability" threshold. Heading off that sort of "dance of the lemons" is essential, too, then. The NCLB Commission does that, but Ed Trust doesn't.

Still, as in New York City, the potential benefits outweigh the risks. Title I is intended to allocate dollars to the neediest students, and steps that return to that original vision (without adding layers of complexity) are moves in the right direction. If such changes do spawn new budgetary shenanigans by districts, those should be fixed at their root--by creating rational state and local funding mechanisms in which dollars are allocated by need, formulas are simple and transparent, and principals control their budgets and staff. New York City has pushed the right ideas in these respects. Such principles should also extend to the nation's capital.

Los Angeles Superintendent (and former Navy admiral) David Brewer III wrote in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed that anyone reading about the city's schools probably thinks "not a single thing is going right and that nothing is happening to fix what's wrong." Some things are indeed going right, including charter schools, which are trying to gain a bigger role in the City of Angels and deserve credit for the good work they've already done. But Walter Coombs and Ralph Shaffer--Cal Poly Pomona emeritus professors of social science and history, respectively--won't give an inch. These profs (who, as far as Gadfly can tell, have no experience at all related to K-12 education [see here, for example]), write that charter schools "have a tendency to pick and choose" who they enroll, "are unprepared to educate all students," and belong "in the circular file." Wrong. The Reason Foundation's Lisa Snell easily rebuts their nonsense with (here's an idea): actual data. As for the admiral's admirable efforts, we wish them well--but have more faith in charter-style reform. Coombs and Shaffer are retired--they should consider retiring their rhetoric, too.

"It isn't all bad at L.A. Unified," by David L. Brewer III, Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2007

Paulette Strong, a former school bus driver, worked for less than 30 years and retired before she turned sixty. Nonetheless, Strong still received lifetime health insurance from Michigan's Office of Retirement Services. Thanks to a loophole, all Paulette had to do was re-enter the system at age 60 as a "school aide," work 102 hours, "retire," and then reap the benefits. Her aide salary was supposed to be $6.50 an hour, but, after lifetime dental, vision, and medical care is factored in, she effectively made $1,470 an hour. And Strong isn't alone. In 2006, thirty retired employees were rehired for 102 hours, then quit, and received lifetime health plans. During their first year in the retirement system, the medical bills of those thirty folks cost taxpayers $268,558. According to the Detroit News, Allan Short of the Michigan Education Association "shrugs off the impact of the loophole." That's odd, considering that we thought the union wanted more money for educating kids.  

"The $1,470-an-hour Loophole: Retirees Work for 13 Days to Earn Lifetime Health Care," by Ron French, Detroit News, May 11, 2007

Diane Ravitch
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
August 2007

As anyone who's ever attended a Fordham Institute event knows, conversations about K-12 education can quickly turn inscrutable. They become tangled in jargon, so for the lay person unfamiliar with the mishmash of acronyms, Diane Ravitch offers a rather comprehensive new book. Now, when friends start musing at cocktail parties about the particulars of the "Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504)," a quick turn to page 182 resolves any lingering ambiguities that might kill the mood. Much is here. But no glossary of EdSpeak can ever be complete. There's just too much of it. This reviewer discovered several omissions. "Gadfly," for example, is inexplicably missing in action. One trusts that subsequent revisions and editions will tidy up such minor quirks in a swell book that your reference shelf now craves. Look for it this August.

Susan L. Aud
Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation
April 2007

Do vouchers unfairly drain money from public schools as their opponents claim? No, says the Friedman Foundation's Linda Aud, in this examination of the fiscal impact of 12 voucher and tax-credit programs. Her analysis weighs the amount of per-pupil state funding that districts lose when voucher students leave (voucher money generally comes from state, not federal or local, coffers) against those districts' per-pupil instructional spending. In Cleveland in 2004-2005, for instance, the state withheld $3,750 for each voucher, while the district's per-pupil instructional spending averaged $6,707 (although, it should be noted, the old Cleveland voucher program was cheap and rather inadequate). The school thus generated a savings of $2,958 when the voucher recipient left the district. Multiply that per-pupil "surplus" by the 4,256 Cleveland students who received vouchers, and the district saved over $12 million that school year. (Districts save money in other ways, too--lunch programs, transportation, etc.--but Aud includes only instructional costs to make her estimates as conservative and credible as possible.) The numbers are similar for most other voucher programs, save for Milwaukee, where the district itself bears half the burden of funding its vouchers. Aud also calculates savings at the state level. Although Ohio withheld $3,750 from the district for each Cleveland voucher, for instance, it actually awarded only $2,686 to each student, generating a state-level savings of $1,064 per voucher. When Aud combines district and state savings since 1990 for all the programs she analyzed, she calculates that vouchers have saved nearly $444 million nationally. Critics will naturally claim that those savings exist only on paper; after all, it's hard to realize efficiencies if each classroom merely loses a student or two. But by that line of thinking, the more students that take advantage of vouchers, the better for public schools. Join the debate; read the report here.