The Education Gadfly Weekly

National Center for Education Statistics, November 2001

The latest news from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is not good: American schoolchildren still don't know much science. In grades 4 and 8, they knew as little in 2000 as in 1996. In grade 12, they knew less. Indeed, Education Secretary Rod Paige termed the high school seniors' faltering performance a "morally significant" decline. Fewer than one in five of them scores at or above NAEP's "proficient" level in science; barely half even attain the "basic" level. The scientific attainments of minority youths are bleaker still: in 12^th grade, only 22% of black students and 30% of Hispanics reach "basic." (Recall, too, Jay Greene's study of high school graduation rates (described above) showing that barely half of minority youngsters complete high school on schedule. Since NAEP tests only in-school 12^th graders, one can reasonably estimate that just 10-15% of black and Hispanic young people in the relevant age cohort are minimally functional in science.) Following the pattern we have seen in TIMSS, U.S. 4^th and 8^th grade science results are somewhat less grim, with roughly two thirds of those youngsters performing at or above the "basic" level and almost one-third attaining "proficient" (or better). But it's nothing to boast about. This report includes plenty more data, including results for the 40 states (and 5 other jurisdictions) that participated. The variation is considerable, ranging from a few states where 35% or more of students are proficient to others where this is true of fewer than 15% of the youngsters. You will also find some explanatory information, such as relationships between student NAEP scores and their teachers' college majors, course taking patterns, etc. Summaries, commentaries, electronic copies and ordering information are all available if you surf to http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/science/results/.

Public Education Network, November 2001

This guide presents the Public Education Network's "blueprint of engagement" for local education funds (LEFs), which are independent "nonprofit, community-based organizations who [sic] work to improve student achievement for all children attending public schools."  PEN identifies six interrelated ways that LEFs can intervene in their communities in pursuit of systemic change: community dialogue; constituency building; engaging practitioners; collaboration with districts; policy analysis; and legal strategies.  A chapter is devoted to each type of intervention and includes examples from PEN initiatives - ranging from training for school board members to an empowerment program for librarians - lessons learned, tools and resources.  Anyone seeking a window into the work of LEFs or advice on how to go about pushing the levers of change in a community may want to take a look.  See http://www.publiceducation.org/interventions or order a copy of the guide from the Public Education Network, 601 13^th Street, NW, Suite 900 N, Washington, DC 20005; 202-628-7460.

Jennifer Buckingham, Centre for Independent Studies, 2001

In this 100-page book, Jennifer Buckingham, a policy analyst with the Australia-based Centre for Independent Studies, argues that Australia should move to a tax-credit approach as the mechanism by which to pay for school choice. She offers familiar arguments for a choice-based system (freedom, fairness, better schools, etc.) rather than a government monopoly. She notes that Australia's current arrangements for subsidizing private schools are inadequate and politically unstable. She contends that charter schools are a "stop-gap" because they're not truly independent; that vouchers make private schools vulnerable to excessive government regulation; and that - following the reasoning of some American libertarians - tax credits will bring the most advantages and fewest risks. She then sets forth a number of variants on the tax-credit theme (including the refundable kind that maximizes its value to low-income families) and explains the pros and cons of each. If you'd like to have a look, the ISBN is 1864320605. You can order it for A$21.90 from the Centre, which is most easily accessed via the Internet at http://www.cis.org.au.

William W. Cutler III, 2000

This 290-page monograph by Temple University education historian William W. Cutler III provides a history of the tug-of-war between parents and educators for dominance in U.S. K-12 education. It turns out to be quite an interesting saga, and Cutler does not shy from drawing contemporary lessons from it. "A cycle of failure will repeat," he predicts, "if the home and the school continue to follow their historical paths. What began as an adversarial relationship has come full circle; too often parents and teachers are ready to believe the worst about each other today. Breaking the cycle begins with the knowledge that families and schools are farther apart than ever before...." The ISBN is 0226132161. (The book came out in 2000, though we just discovered it.) The publisher is The University of Chicago Press, which can be found electronically at http://www.press.uchicago.edu and in reality at 5801 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637.

Frederick M. Hess, Progressive Policy Institute, November 2001

America needs more and better teachers and many education reformers are concerned that our existing system of teacher certification is contributing to the problem. How?  By forcing aspiring teachers to jump through hoops and hurdles that take time and money but do little to ensure that those who make it through are qualified to teach. In this paper, released a few days ago by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), U. Va. Professor Rick Hess argues that teacher certification is flawed but that so are the remedies proposed by most reformers: either making certification tougher or abolishing certification altogether.  Hess begins by rebutting three assumptions that are made by supporters of the existing approach to certification: that the training one receives while getting certified is so important that uncertified people cannot perform adequately, that certification weeds out unsuitable candidates, and that the existence of certification makes teaching more "professional."  He argues that certification cannot be justified unless there are clear standards by which teachers can demonstrate their competence, but notes that this is not true of education today. Instead, Hess proposes what he calls a competitive model of teacher certification, in which teaching candidates who have a college degree, and who can pass a test of subject knowledge and a criminal background check should be allowed to teach and all other regulations limiting entry into the profession are jettisoned. Unlike some who have argued for ending teacher certification, Hess maintains that we need to recognize that most of these would-be teachers still need training and preparation, both in the beginning and throughout their careers. Instead of creating one-size-fits-all regulatory barriers, Hess argues for giving districts and schools more flexibility to make their own arrangements to ensure that new teachers are appropriately prepared, inducted, and supervised. To those who say that schools and districts will inevitably under-invest in new teacher preparation and induction, Hess proposes state and/or federal funding of teacher development and professional induction. Under this system, ed schools would still exist, but their offerings would no longer be regulated by state law; since matriculation in the programs will be optional for prospective teachers, the folks who run teacher preparation programs will do their best to ensure that they add value to teaching candidates. Once they begin teaching, new teachers will experience training that is tailored to their needs in a particular district or school. By bringing teacher training back into the picture - but not necessarily entrusting it to the usual places that claim to do it - this paper makes an important contribution to the debate over how best to ensure the quality of our nation's teaching force. Copies are available on the Progressive Policy Institute website (www.ppionline.org) or by calling PPI at 202-547-0001.

While the "whole language" approach to teaching reading has been widely discredited, that didn't stop the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) from organizing a series of seminars called "A Day of Whole Language" during its annual convention in Baltimore last week. According to Leila Christenbury, the president-elect of the NCTE, "It's a hot-button word, a phrase that has become demonized, but we are still embracing it... We're standing firmly behind it." The opening speaker at the NCTE seminar warned that attacks on whole language were about corporations "seizing public education" and destroying "democracy and freedom" in public school classrooms.  Seminars were offered on topics like "nurturing the linguistic and artistic talents of urban children of color through the use of writing and visual art" during the daylong event.  Maryland schools superintendent Nancy Grasmick blasted the seminars: "So many of these children who have been identified for special education services because they can't read are a direct result of the whole language philosophy.  Trying to teach children to read without using phonics is a problem, and all of the research shows that. They've got to get on board."  For more see "Whole language teachers unabashed, hanging tough," by Howard Libit, The Baltimore Sun, November 19, 2001.For an overview of the differences between whole language reading instruction and phonics-based instruction, as well as an explanation of the persistence of whole language reading instruction, see "Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of  'Balanced' Reading Instruction," by Louisa Moats, published by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in 2000.

Two years ago, a commission convened by the Education Commission of the States recommended a new model for school and district governance: instead of running all their schools directly from headquarters, districts would merely monitor the effectiveness of the (public) schools in their jurisdiction. Principals would run schools of different sorts and parents would make choices among these schools for their children. A short article by Ron Brandt in last month's Phi Delta Kappan embraces this charter-like approach to governance, pointing to the school system of Edmonton, Alberta as a place where the idea has been implemented with success.  Edmonton began experimenting with site-based budgeting in the 1970s. Today, individual principals in Edmonton decide how to use their funds most effectively, including what types of staff members to hire and what services to purchase from the central office.  Site-based management was embraced as a reform strategy in America in the 1980s but, according to Brandt, it was doomed by states and districts which confused site-based management with participatory management and required schools to use externally imposed decision-making structures. Brandt invites the reader to imagine a new kind of diversified school district in which curricular conformity is replaced by variety; schools are staffed by teachers and principals whose values and skills are in tune with the programs they offer, and they are held accountable by the district for accomplishing their goals; and parents moving to a new town will inquire about the nearest Success for All or Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound school. Our thinking has tended this way for a long time; we're pleasantly surprised to find it in the Kappan, too. For more see "No Best Way: The Case for Differentiated Schooling," by Ron Brandt, Phi Delta Kappan, October 2001. (not available online)

As the pundits keep reminding us, honesty is often a casualty of war. Alas, it also appears to be a frequent casualty of K-12 education data.  Graduation statistics reported by federal, state, and local school districts are especially confusing, misleading, and implausibly optimistic.

Even the federal government's normally reliable National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is wont to inflict such wounds. That agency has just issued its annual report on dropouts and high school completion rates and again we find that it paints a blurred and falsely cheerful picture of how U.S. schools are performing.  According to Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, 86.5% of young Americans are completing high school, up from 85.9% last year.

Would that it were so. By my calculations, however, U.S. high-school graduation rates are considerably lower.  (You can find my recent study at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm.) Using a transparent and easily checked method of comparing 8^th grade enrollments in 1993-4 with high-school diploma counts in spring 1998 (and adjusting for student population changes), I put the national graduation rate at about 74%.  The situation for minority students is far bleaker. I find that only 56% of African-American students and 54% of Latino students graduated from high school in 1998. This contrasts with NCES claims of 83.7% completion rates for African-American students and 64.1% for Latino students.

Why are the NCES numbers so much higher than mine?  The main reason is that the federal report includes among high-school completers those who have passed an "equivalency" test, such as the GED.  This is misleading for several reasons, beginning with the fact that GED recipients are not graduates of the public high school system.  They have received their degrees with the assistance of community colleges, the prison system, vocational schools, or through their own independent efforts.  Since most people view the NCES completion data as attesting to the performance of our high school system, we should not include people who dropped out of that system and later received degrees from some other system.  (In computing a physician's cure rate, we would not want to count patients who had transferred to the care of another doctor.)

A considerable body of research also suggests that the life outcomes of GED recipients more closely resemble those of dropouts than those of regular high school graduates. Economists James Heckman and Stephen Cameron find that "Exam-certified high school equivalents are statistically indistinguishable from high school dropouts."  Other researchers find moderate benefits for GED recipients, but no one claims that they are truly "equivalent" to regular high school graduates.  To lump GED holders with regular graduates, therefore, is to combine fundamentally dissimilar groups while misleading people about the school system's ability to produce high school graduates. 

In previous years, NCES reports included data (in small print) that distinguished regular diploma recipients from those with "equivalency" certificates. The latest report, however, does not provide this information at all. But we can estimate the difference using the 1999 report and removing GED recipients. We find that NCES calculates the "true" high school graduation rate at 76.8%, a little higher than my (1998) finding of 74%. The Latino rate drops to 54.9%, close to my finding of 54%.  The NCES African-American graduation rate sans GEDs, however, was 72.9% in 1999, considerably higher than my (1998) estimate of 56%.

That discrepancy probably has to do with the different methods by which the information was collected.  My method simply involves a comparison of 8^th grade enrollments with diploma counts five years later, adjusting for enrollment and population changes. The NCES figures come from the Current Population Survey (CPS) of the U.S. Census.  The CPS tries to phone a representative sample of households to ask a number of questions, including whether young people in the house have finished high school.

While CPS is a well-run survey, this methodology may inflate the graduation-rate estimate for young African-Americans. For example, CPS excludes prison populations.  To the extent that young black dropouts are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated, CPS will overstate African-American graduation rates.  Second, households containing minority dropouts are particularly difficult for phone surveys to reach. (Deep in Appendix D of the new NCES report, we learn that this "coverage bias" could overstate black graduation rates by 9 to 18%.)  Third, CPS depends upon people forthrightly describing their own level of educational attainment. Such self-reporting could significantly distort graduation rates for groups that may overstate their educational achievement to compensate for workforce discrimination.  One of the advantages of my simple method of calculating graduate rates is that it requires only enrollment and diploma counts, which tend to be reliable and easily checked figures.

Yet for all their flaws, NCES graduation statistics are light years ahead of the numbers usually reported by states and school districts.  Rather than relying on surveys or enrollment counts, most states and districts calculate these statistics by trying to track individual students over time. Yet few have either the resources or incentives to track them successfully. Faced with ambiguous or missing information about the whereabouts of individuals,.  districts may be prone to offer the most benign explanation for a student's absence. This tendency to produce rosy results is exacerbated by the bizarre definitions of dropouts that many districts use, commonly excluding not only GED-seekers but also students who leave high school to go to jail or join the military. 

While it sounds more precise to track individual students, the failure of districts to do so successfully and the inability of outsiders to check district accounts of student whereabouts can lead to graduation statistics that are grossly misleading.  Take, for example, the Dallas Independent School District, which reports an annual dropout rate of 1.3%.  Presenting dropout rates in annual terms is like reporting credit card interest rates in monthly terms; it just makes the number feel smaller.  If we convert the annual rate into a cumulative rate (which is how everyone thinks about dropouts), we would expect about 8% of an 8^th grade class to drop out before graduation.  Yet according to my calculations only 52% of 8^th grade students in Dallas manage to earn a diploma "on time."  The 1.3% rate reported by the district has to be a fantasy in a district with half as many graduates as 8^th graders and with a growing student population. 

But let's not just pick on Dallas. Unfortunately, the misreporting of dropout statistics is too common across the country.  At least Dallas is aware that its numbers are off and that the district truly has a serious problem.  As a school system spokesman told The Dallas Morning News, "[Superintendent Mike] Moses has said the dropout problem is probably a lot bigger than what any of the other figures report.  We know it's a major problem, and we're trying to do something about it." 

Most school officials are not so candid.  This lack of candor about the extent of problems in U.S. education produces the most serious casualty of all: minority students whose shockingly low graduation rates we are failing even to acknowledge, let alone to address.  If people only realized that we graduate barely half of our minority students, there would be demands for dramatic efforts to remedy the situation.  Instead, the problems are being glossed over and the failures of the status quo maintained.

Jay P. Greene is Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.  The opinions expressed here are his own.

Software giant Microsoft has proposed settling the myriad class-action lawsuits it faces by contributing a billion-plus dollars worth of software, computer equipment, technology training and cash to schools attended by low-income youngsters.  Yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured an op-ed by Checker Finn explaining why the software giant's offer - if approved by the plaintiffs and a federal judge - is unlikely to do much good for the kids who attend those schools.  Lack of technology is not the main problem these schools face, he writes, and the schools that succeed with low-income pupils don't generally surround them with electronics. Instead, "they engage knowledgeable and committed teachers to deliver a powerful, coherent, curriculum built on high standards of skills and knowledge."  While disadvantaged children may not benefit, Microsoft surely will; the company can raise its market share in schools and deepen their dependency on its products, even as the plaintiffs' attorneys walk home with fat fees for devising this scheme. "Microsoft Settlement Won't Benefit Schools," by Chester E. Finn Jr., The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2001. (available to subscribers only)

Anyone who thinks that the solution to the problems of big-city school districts is putting the mayor in charge may be disheartened by a trio of articles in the most recent issue of Education Next. An essay by University of Maryland professor Jim Cibulka examines Washington, DC (where Mayor Anthony Williams won the ability to appoint four members of the nine member board in 2000) and Baltimore (where a long history of mayoral control over schools was ended in 1997 when the state stepped in to try to rehabilitate the dysfunctional system). It offers a fascinating look at the powers a mayor can marshal in an effort to reverse the fortunes of a big-city school district, as well as the limits of those powers.  In companion articles, Patrick Ryan looks at what happened when the mayor took over the school district in Cleveland and Paul Hill weighs the whole idea of searching for a white knight, preferably one from outside the education establishment, to rescue a struggling school district. Three other pieces in the same issue of the journal look at how public schools and districts in Michigan, Arizona, and Milwaukee have responded to the challenge of competition. While the authors disagree about how much public schools will improve in response to competition from charter schools or private school vouchers, they all acknowledge that the kinds of choice we have today will not be magic bullets that solve all the problems of urban school districts. You can read articles by Jim Cibulka, Patrick Ryan, and Paul Hill under the heading of "Round and Round They Go: Can New Management Save Urban School Districts?" and articles by Rick Hess; David Arsen, David Plank and Gary Sykes; and Bob Maranto under "When Schools Compete: Does School Choice Push Public Schools to Improve" in the Winter 2001 issue of Education Next.

Frederick M. Hess, Progressive Policy Institute, November 2001

America needs more and better teachers and many education reformers are concerned that our existing system of teacher certification is contributing to the problem. How?  By forcing aspiring teachers to jump through hoops and hurdles that take time and money but do little to ensure that those who make it through are qualified to teach. In this paper, released a few days ago by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), U. Va. Professor Rick Hess argues that teacher certification is flawed but that so are the remedies proposed by most reformers: either making certification tougher or abolishing certification altogether.  Hess begins by rebutting three assumptions that are made by supporters of the existing approach to certification: that the training one receives while getting certified is so important that uncertified people cannot perform adequately, that certification weeds out unsuitable candidates, and that the existence of certification makes teaching more "professional."  He argues that certification cannot be justified unless there are clear standards by which teachers can demonstrate their competence, but notes that this is not true of education today. Instead, Hess proposes what he calls a competitive model of teacher certification, in which teaching candidates who have a college degree, and who can pass a test of subject knowledge and a criminal background check should be allowed to teach and all other regulations limiting entry into the profession are jettisoned. Unlike some who have argued for ending teacher certification, Hess maintains that we need to recognize that most of these would-be teachers still need training and preparation, both in the beginning and throughout their careers. Instead of creating one-size-fits-all regulatory barriers, Hess argues for giving districts and schools more flexibility to make their own arrangements to ensure that new teachers are appropriately prepared, inducted, and supervised. To those who say that schools and districts will inevitably under-invest in new teacher preparation and induction, Hess proposes state and/or federal funding of teacher development and professional induction. Under this system, ed schools would still exist, but their offerings would no longer be regulated by state law; since matriculation in the programs will be optional for prospective teachers, the folks who run teacher preparation programs will do their best to ensure that they add value to teaching candidates. Once they begin teaching, new teachers will experience training that is tailored to their needs in a particular district or school. By bringing teacher training back into the picture - but not necessarily entrusting it to the usual places that claim to do it - this paper makes an important contribution to the debate over how best to ensure the quality of our nation's teaching force. Copies are available on the Progressive Policy Institute website (www.ppionline.org) or by calling PPI at 202-547-0001.

Jennifer Buckingham, Centre for Independent Studies, 2001

In this 100-page book, Jennifer Buckingham, a policy analyst with the Australia-based Centre for Independent Studies, argues that Australia should move to a tax-credit approach as the mechanism by which to pay for school choice. She offers familiar arguments for a choice-based system (freedom, fairness, better schools, etc.) rather than a government monopoly. She notes that Australia's current arrangements for subsidizing private schools are inadequate and politically unstable. She contends that charter schools are a "stop-gap" because they're not truly independent; that vouchers make private schools vulnerable to excessive government regulation; and that - following the reasoning of some American libertarians - tax credits will bring the most advantages and fewest risks. She then sets forth a number of variants on the tax-credit theme (including the refundable kind that maximizes its value to low-income families) and explains the pros and cons of each. If you'd like to have a look, the ISBN is 1864320605. You can order it for A$21.90 from the Centre, which is most easily accessed via the Internet at http://www.cis.org.au.

National Center for Education Statistics, November 2001

The latest news from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is not good: American schoolchildren still don't know much science. In grades 4 and 8, they knew as little in 2000 as in 1996. In grade 12, they knew less. Indeed, Education Secretary Rod Paige termed the high school seniors' faltering performance a "morally significant" decline. Fewer than one in five of them scores at or above NAEP's "proficient" level in science; barely half even attain the "basic" level. The scientific attainments of minority youths are bleaker still: in 12^th grade, only 22% of black students and 30% of Hispanics reach "basic." (Recall, too, Jay Greene's study of high school graduation rates (described above) showing that barely half of minority youngsters complete high school on schedule. Since NAEP tests only in-school 12^th graders, one can reasonably estimate that just 10-15% of black and Hispanic young people in the relevant age cohort are minimally functional in science.) Following the pattern we have seen in TIMSS, U.S. 4^th and 8^th grade science results are somewhat less grim, with roughly two thirds of those youngsters performing at or above the "basic" level and almost one-third attaining "proficient" (or better). But it's nothing to boast about. This report includes plenty more data, including results for the 40 states (and 5 other jurisdictions) that participated. The variation is considerable, ranging from a few states where 35% or more of students are proficient to others where this is true of fewer than 15% of the youngsters. You will also find some explanatory information, such as relationships between student NAEP scores and their teachers' college majors, course taking patterns, etc. Summaries, commentaries, electronic copies and ordering information are all available if you surf to http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/science/results/.

Public Education Network, November 2001

This guide presents the Public Education Network's "blueprint of engagement" for local education funds (LEFs), which are independent "nonprofit, community-based organizations who [sic] work to improve student achievement for all children attending public schools."  PEN identifies six interrelated ways that LEFs can intervene in their communities in pursuit of systemic change: community dialogue; constituency building; engaging practitioners; collaboration with districts; policy analysis; and legal strategies.  A chapter is devoted to each type of intervention and includes examples from PEN initiatives - ranging from training for school board members to an empowerment program for librarians - lessons learned, tools and resources.  Anyone seeking a window into the work of LEFs or advice on how to go about pushing the levers of change in a community may want to take a look.  See http://www.publiceducation.org/interventions or order a copy of the guide from the Public Education Network, 601 13^th Street, NW, Suite 900 N, Washington, DC 20005; 202-628-7460.

William W. Cutler III, 2000

This 290-page monograph by Temple University education historian William W. Cutler III provides a history of the tug-of-war between parents and educators for dominance in U.S. K-12 education. It turns out to be quite an interesting saga, and Cutler does not shy from drawing contemporary lessons from it. "A cycle of failure will repeat," he predicts, "if the home and the school continue to follow their historical paths. What began as an adversarial relationship has come full circle; too often parents and teachers are ready to believe the worst about each other today. Breaking the cycle begins with the knowledge that families and schools are farther apart than ever before...." The ISBN is 0226132161. (The book came out in 2000, though we just discovered it.) The publisher is The University of Chicago Press, which can be found electronically at http://www.press.uchicago.edu and in reality at 5801 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637.