The Education Gadfly Weekly

David Stuit and Thomas Smith
National Center on School Choice, Vanderbilt University
December 2009

At first blush, charter fans will be none too pleased with this study on teacher turnover: It finds that nearly twice as many charter teachers left their jobs in 2003-2004 as did district-school teachers (25 vs. 14 percent) and, of those charter educators who exited, most forsook the profession altogether. Moreover, the odds of a charter teacher leaving the profession vs. staying in the same school are 132 percent greater than that of a traditional teacher. Charter teachers were also slightly less satisfied with their working conditions (mostly because of longer hours and less pay) and turnover at start-up charters was particularly high. Yet none of this is terribly surprising when considering the context. The turnover “gap” can be largely explained, for example, by the different types of teachers working at the two species of school, explain the authors. For example, charter teachers tend to be younger, meaning that their exit from the profession could be caused by typical 20-something career-switching. Still, that doesn’t mean all is well in the charter sector; the study also found that, at charter schools, voluntary “leavers” were more common than involuntary ones (involuntary teachers include those affected by school closures), and that the former often cited poor working conditions as the cause of their departure. Here’s hoping that those working conditions have improved in the five years since these aging data were collected. Read it here.

Darrell M. West, Grover J. Russ Whitehurst, and E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Brookings Institution
December 2009

Education is a nearly adumbered issue, according to this new paper that looks at national and local news coverage. Examining newspapers, news Web sites, television, and radio during the first nine months of 2009, the authors find that education-related coverage is just 1.4 percent of all news output; in comparison, government issues garnered 11.3 percent, foreign affairs 9.8 percent, and health care 9.2 percent. When education did receive exposure, it was usually focused on budget problems, school crime, and H1N1, rather than issues more directly associated with learning, such as curriculum, school reform, or teacher quality. With 74 million primary through postsecondary students enrolled in a system that “represents a fundamental mechanism for social and economic advancement and long-term civic engagement,” the authors contend that this paucity of substantive journalism is harmful. They suggest a number of recommendations: Schools should open their doors and encourage more news coverage; young people should take an active part in promoting communication of their school happenings; key players should host events to draw attention to problems and noteworthy solutions; and grant makers should aid struggling newspapers in reinstating more education coverage. News outlets themselves should reconsider education-reporting cutbacks and find more ways to integrate blogs and citizen journalism into their products. Oh, and we should all stop binging on holiday cookies and eggnog and eat spinach and skim milk instead. It would be wonderful if the media and other groups listened to the advice offered by Brookings, but we’re not optimistic. Get the full story here.

J.B. Schramm and E. Kinney Zalesne
Center For American Progress
December 2009

We wouldn’t ask doctors “to develop a cure for a disease [without] knowing how the cure is doing in clinical trials,” so why do we ask high schools to prepare kids for college without any data on how they do when they get there? Not a bad question, now posed by an able duo writing for CAP. Over the last several decades, postsecondary education has become more important to economic success, so high school's goal has evolved from merely graduating students to preparing them for college. Yet the data systems need to catch up. The stats we now collect--standardized test scores, high school grades, high school graduation rates--may be correlated with a high school’s success, but the data that students produce in college--enrollment rates, college grades, college graduation rates--actually prove success. This paper shows the difference, through a series of case studies of schools and districts that have improved their test scores only to find powerful anecdotal evidence that their students arrive still unprepared at the college gate. Yet the college data do exist; we just need to make sure that high schools get access to them. This is happening slowly as states start to track students from (public) high school through (public) colleges, as entrepreneurs offer high schools limited college tracking data (for a fee), and as Uncle Sam pushes for more improvement. To accelerate these reforms, the authors would like Washington to standardize data systems, hand out money to help schools collect and interpret data, and reward high schools that make gains in the college performance of their graduates. Such changes, they say, would go a distance toward making high schools more college-aware. The full report is available here.

If only the health care system were as transparent as the market for yoga classes. Every medical procedure would have a clear and incontrovertible price tag, no patient would be banned from consulting the doctor of his choice (as long as he’s willing and able to pay), and risk would be incorporated rationally into premium prices. Or so goes the argument in this lively National Review free-market tractate. As Kevin Williamson puts it, “A good rule of thumb: Fear the man who says he will make things rational by ignoring reality--and ignoring prices is ignoring reality.” While his treatise only touches on education, and he may be overly idealistic about the feasibility of putting a price tag on the wares of private or public bureaucracies, the general point about transparency is certainly worthwhile. Per-pupil spending in education continues to rise, yet it’s difficult to know exactly where all the money is going. Luckily, a handful of analysts are doing some difficult and overdue data-mining: most notably, the Finance, Spending, and Productivity Project at the University of Washington’s Center for Reinventing Public Education. They’ve put price tags on art courses vs. math courses (hint: the latter cost a lot less), and on sports vs. extended school hours. Other researchers have found that consumers (parents) actually modify their opinions significantly when they have access to the price (salary) of teachers. And let’s be honest, it’s rare that government bureaucracies take a close-enough look at their bottom lines when they aren’t spending their own money.

“Priceless Is Worthless,” Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, December 21, 2009

If you thought a reality TV show like MTV’s new “Jersey Shore” could never be educational, well, you were right. The new series, which features eight Italian-American boys and girls living together in a house in New Jersey for the summer of 2009, hit a new low, or rather, a cast member literally hit a new low--the floor. A bar outing last August turned sour when cast member Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi got decked in the face by an intoxicated jerk who had swiped the cast’s drinks off the bar. The video clip blazed around the internet, inciting a tabloid storm about whether or not MTV will include the violent segment in next week’s episode (they will not). So what’s the edu-angle? It turns out that the puncher was a New York public-school (gym) teacher named Brad Ferro. He’s since been put on administrative leave and placed in--you guessed it--a NYC teacher detention center, a.k.a. “rubber room.” Maybe now, Ferro can start his own rubber room reality show revealing the true goings-on inside possibly the worst compromise ever made between district and union. Of course, he’ll need his own nickname. Good thing you can generate your own “Jersey Shore” moniker online. From now on, Gadfly will be known as Thomas “T-Muscle” Fordham.

“'Jersey Shore' slugger is a Qns. teacher,” by Yoav Gonen and Lorena Mongelli, The New York Post, December 11, 2009

New York’s Catholic-school parents have had enough. The state is supposed to reimburse these schools for programs mandated by Albany. But the state has not paid up since 2003, and added a new payroll tax last May to bail out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This payroll tax applies to all public and private schools in the twelve counties served by MTA, but a last minute provision ensured that public schools would get reimbursed at the end of the year. The tax has already added up to $460,000 for the Diocese of Brooklyn and $680,000 for the New York Archdiocese. That’s on top of the missing $243 million owed parochial schools in these twelve counties for state-required programs. At a recent 1000-parent-strong rally on Staten Island, church leaders revealed that they may have to raise tuition by $500 a student to cover the new tax and the funding shortfall. Parents who can’t afford a tuition hike to bridge this gap may have to pull their children out next year--which would of course increase the state’s education costs, as those kids start attending public schools at full taxpayer expense. If the Church won’t stand up for the future of Catholic schools, maybe parents will.

“Catholic School Parents Angry at Albany,” by Lisa Evers, MyFoxNY, December 10, 2009

“Nearly 1,000 turn out to protest new state tax that hurts Catholic schools,” by Amy Padnani, Staten Island Advance, December 11, 2009

“Editorial: Right this wrong,” Staten Island Advance, December 14, 2009

'Twas the week before Christmas, and Race to the Top

Was the vendors’ obsession and focus nonstop.

The consultants were drafting proposals for states

With smug affirmations of positive fates,

While chiefs in their gray suits and governors, too,

Looked to Arne for dollars—please, more than a few.

In Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) infamously asserted that “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” 

In K-12 education, we submit, greed can be good, albeit ugly; but ensuring that children and taxpayers eke real benefits from the education market demands that consumers be at least as discerning as the suppliers are ardent. Today, that is too rarely the case.

We’re veteran champions of entrepreneurs, for-profits, out-sourcing, competition, deregulation, and kindred efforts to open public education to providers other than government and operators other than bureaucrats. We’ve served on boards of some of these organizations, advised them and generally supported them.

We’ve zero sympathy for hypocritical establishment grumps who aver that these “nontraditional” providers have darkened the previously-pristine world of public schooling with the stain of self-interest. That world has long been dominated by adult “stakeholder” groups that are at least as self-interested as anybody in the private sector. They’ve been shielded by a government monopoly that has ill-served children and taxpayers alike while resisting every effort to reform it or render it more efficient.

Yes, many of today’s for-profit and non-profit operators are self-promoters out to make a buck--and some are little more than snake-oil salesmen. Many others, of course, are honorable ventures with a track record of doing right by children and schools.

In the long run, however, whether children and taxpayers benefit from any of this depends on buyers as well as sellers. The problem is that today’s buyers are themselves creatures of the erstwhile government monopoly. They are mostly state and district officials, sometimes school leaders, with scant experience at gauging value-for-money. They’re only sporadically accountable for the wisdom or efficacy of their purchasing decisions. They’re not rewarded for cost savings or dinged for failing to ramp up productivity. And they’re not spending their own money.

Sometimes it works. There are now places and segments of schooling that can claim reasonably vigorous markets, multiple providers, proliferating choices, and signs of improved efficiency and client-mindedess. Bravo, say we. Yet as we survey today’s education landscape, we find far too many greedheads on the vendor side and fecklessness on the buyer side.

Textbook publishers, for example, enjoy a cozy oligopoly, golfing with superintendents, lobbying states to squelch competitors, and gulping up any rivals that survive the gauntlet long enough to develop viable businesses. 

As 2009 ends, we see those same publishers angling for advantage in the nascent plan to devise tests to accompany the new “common core” standards. Regrettably, the whole “Race to the Top” enterprise has become a red light district for lusty charlatans and randy peddlers. Big firms full of wealthy MBA types--people who earn in a quarter what teachers make in a year--have gobbled up the $250,000 per state that the Gates Foundation offered as part of its own generous “consultant stimulus act,” along with additional dollars that states have tossed into the kitty. In return, they’re readying cool power points, nifty white papers, and jargon-littered plans, all geared to helping states persuade Secretary Duncan that yes, they are ready and eager to do his bidding.

Ah, the holiday spirit. Devising a competitive plan is thought by state officials to require the careful hanging of many glittery ornaments upon their proposals. Conveniently, the consultants (and states) are aided in this task by platoons of self-promoters who tout themselves as one-stop solutions--whether or not they’ve ever actually done successfully that which they’re now promising. “You need school turnarounds? We got turnarounds.” “You want STEM? Look no further.” Plenty of outfits will promise to build your data system, take care of school leadership, fix teacher quality, or whatever else you may need. They’re often non-profits but they get pretty nearly the same plush salaries and reputation-boosting meetings with state and federal honchos, opportunities to self-importantly Blackberry late into the night, and future security--as new connections set them up for future rounds of philanthropic and taxpayer largesse.

It isn’t just Race to the Top, however, and it certainly isn’t new. The ink was scarcely dry on NCLB before slicksters were offering every imaginable form of “supplemental education services.” The operators of too many “virtual charter schools” deliver shoddy goods at high prices to taxpayers. Data gurus, professional developers, IEP specialists, and curriculum refurbishers happily take state, federal and/or local funds for a few days of running through their stock powerpoints and lectures. National “stars” fly in for a cool $10,000 or more to spend a day running dazzling sessions with checklists, inventories, and assorted “kids will love this” strategies. Motivational speakers pitch creative affirmation and welcoming learning environments. Equipped with jargon like “at-promise” (instead of “at-risk,” of course) and worksheets on the “invisible backpack of white privilege,” consultants and ed-school professors have padded their salaries with school funds at a handsome clip for decades.

Computer vendors and developers of learning software have long pitched a heady array of snazzy education technologies…that then sit barely used in the back of classrooms. We need scarcely mention the purveyors of buses, class rings and photos, cafeteria food, construction and building maintenance, or any of the other good, old-fashioned enterprises that serenely and profitably peddle away while exploiting careless or bureaucratic purchasing habits.

Let us say it again: Plenty of private vendors offer quality products and services that benefit schooling and millions of young people. There’s a robust baby cooing in the scuzzy bathwater. Nor should anyone imagine that public education is unique in attracting profiteers along with value-for-your-buck entrepreneurs. Who doesn’t recall military-procurement horror stories or the “Big Dig” ceiling panels that fatally fell off because the contractor cut corners? 

Markets are supposed to be where buyers and sellers find mutual satisfaction, where prices get established by the willingness of some to pay enough that others find it worthwhile to produce the desired goods and services. Done right, markets are meritocratic as well as efficient.

This despite the proclivity of sellers to be greedy. Markets don’t presume that vendors will be selfless do-gooders. But it is vital that buyers be discerning, parsimonious, persistent, and exacting. The burden is on them to demand value in return for the money they’re spending. And in schooling, too often, purchasers have been heedless, ill-informed, bureaucratic, or gullible. It’s the taxpayer’s money they’re spending, they’re not always sure how to judge quality, they lack measures of effectiveness or efficiency, and it’s tempting to avoid tough decisions or unpleasant conflict. Reformers and would-be watchdogs often allow state chiefs and local superintendents to excuse irresponsible fiscal stewardship with airy talk of closing achievement gaps and the nobility of the education mission--thus ensuring that the greedheads will prosper another day.

No, not a pretty picture. The only thing worse is when a monopolistic government tries to do everything itself. There we have plenty of depressing history; aggrieved constituencies, the weight of bureaucratic routine, and the tug of employee demands means that it just doesn’t improve. The private market taking shape ain’t beautiful today but does hold the promise of getting better tomorrow. And it’ll get better faster if the purchasers of these diverse goods and services demand value for their bucks and become more discriminating and less susceptible to faddish enthusiasms. We continue to believe in education entrepreneurship. But we’d be a lot happier if the officials charged with safeguarding school dollars would get wise to the greedheads. Gordon Gekko’s defense of self-interest was tinged with truth--but nobody really wants Gordon Gekko running their schools.

So they wrote many words and promised everyone a win,

Thus filling states’ stockings and bringing a grin

To the faces of teachers and school boards galore—

And doing right by the kids whom they say they adore.

Off to the side sat the taxpayer with battered purse,

Now so empty that he was right tempted to curse.

Observing all this, Rick and Checker are led

To entertain Grinch-like concerns in their head

About a world that is generous with gifts and good cheer

But leaves bills for the kids to pay in some future year. 

Still, it’s the holiday season, so they’ll suspend doubt and fear—

And wish you much happiness in the New Year.

This piece also appears in the magazine of the American Enterprise Institute, The American.

Darrell M. West, Grover J. Russ Whitehurst, and E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Brookings Institution
December 2009

Education is a nearly adumbered issue, according to this new paper that looks at national and local news coverage. Examining newspapers, news Web sites, television, and radio during the first nine months of 2009, the authors find that education-related coverage is just 1.4 percent of all news output; in comparison, government issues garnered 11.3 percent, foreign affairs 9.8 percent, and health care 9.2 percent. When education did receive exposure, it was usually focused on budget problems, school crime, and H1N1, rather than issues more directly associated with learning, such as curriculum, school reform, or teacher quality. With 74 million primary through postsecondary students enrolled in a system that “represents a fundamental mechanism for social and economic advancement and long-term civic engagement,” the authors contend that this paucity of substantive journalism is harmful. They suggest a number of recommendations: Schools should open their doors and encourage more news coverage; young people should take an active part in promoting communication of their school happenings; key players should host events to draw attention to problems and noteworthy solutions; and grant makers should aid struggling newspapers in reinstating more education coverage. News outlets themselves should reconsider education-reporting cutbacks and find more ways to integrate blogs and citizen journalism into their products. Oh, and we should all stop binging on holiday cookies and eggnog and eat spinach and skim milk instead. It would be wonderful if the media and other groups listened to the advice offered by Brookings, but we’re not optimistic. Get the full story here.

David Stuit and Thomas Smith
National Center on School Choice, Vanderbilt University
December 2009

At first blush, charter fans will be none too pleased with this study on teacher turnover: It finds that nearly twice as many charter teachers left their jobs in 2003-2004 as did district-school teachers (25 vs. 14 percent) and, of those charter educators who exited, most forsook the profession altogether. Moreover, the odds of a charter teacher leaving the profession vs. staying in the same school are 132 percent greater than that of a traditional teacher. Charter teachers were also slightly less satisfied with their working conditions (mostly because of longer hours and less pay) and turnover at start-up charters was particularly high. Yet none of this is terribly surprising when considering the context. The turnover “gap” can be largely explained, for example, by the different types of teachers working at the two species of school, explain the authors. For example, charter teachers tend to be younger, meaning that their exit from the profession could be caused by typical 20-something career-switching. Still, that doesn’t mean all is well in the charter sector; the study also found that, at charter schools, voluntary “leavers” were more common than involuntary ones (involuntary teachers include those affected by school closures), and that the former often cited poor working conditions as the cause of their departure. Here’s hoping that those working conditions have improved in the five years since these aging data were collected. Read it here.

J.B. Schramm and E. Kinney Zalesne
Center For American Progress
December 2009

We wouldn’t ask doctors “to develop a cure for a disease [without] knowing how the cure is doing in clinical trials,” so why do we ask high schools to prepare kids for college without any data on how they do when they get there? Not a bad question, now posed by an able duo writing for CAP. Over the last several decades, postsecondary education has become more important to economic success, so high school's goal has evolved from merely graduating students to preparing them for college. Yet the data systems need to catch up. The stats we now collect--standardized test scores, high school grades, high school graduation rates--may be correlated with a high school’s success, but the data that students produce in college--enrollment rates, college grades, college graduation rates--actually prove success. This paper shows the difference, through a series of case studies of schools and districts that have improved their test scores only to find powerful anecdotal evidence that their students arrive still unprepared at the college gate. Yet the college data do exist; we just need to make sure that high schools get access to them. This is happening slowly as states start to track students from (public) high school through (public) colleges, as entrepreneurs offer high schools limited college tracking data (for a fee), and as Uncle Sam pushes for more improvement. To accelerate these reforms, the authors would like Washington to standardize data systems, hand out money to help schools collect and interpret data, and reward high schools that make gains in the college performance of their graduates. Such changes, they say, would go a distance toward making high schools more college-aware. The full report is available here.