The Education Gadfly Weekly

E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
Yale University Press
August 2009

This provocative new book by E.D. Hirsch (dedicated to the late Al Shanker) poses fundamental challenges to both of the dominant reform movements in American education--challenges that their leaders would do well to ponder. On the one hand, Hirsch defies the skill-centric view of academic standards, contending that the nation's founders and Horace Mann had it right, but that for the past seventy years America's leading educators have misconceived K-8 education as being about the 3 R's rather than fundamental knowledge and civic values. On the other hand, he defies proponents of charters, vouchers, and other forms of school choice as wishful thinkers disposed to let marketplace theories trump evidence of student achievement while also undervaluing education's civic and cultural roles. Both sets of reformers, Hirsch suggests, have a narrow, utilitarian, and private view of schooling that ill-serves our democracy. He calls instead for an "American core curriculum" in grades K-8--for all kids, all schools, all communities, all states--and outlines what that would entail, as well as why it's important. What he does not do--this book is more exhortation than manual--is to suggest a path through the organizational, political, ideological, and intellectual foes of his appealing and well-argued conception of what a proper public-education system would accomplish for the United States in the 21st century. You can obtain the book here.

Andrew Porter, Morgan Polikoff, and John Smithson
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
September 2009

This report has several purposes; here are the three most important: to find out whether state curricula are more similar than we think, creating what the authors call a "de facto national intended curriculum"; to see if state standards in math and science are aligned to the national professional standards in those subjects; and to ascertain whether state curricula contain common topics that might be seen as a "core curriculum." In short, the answers are no, no, and yes, a little. The study examines state content standards in English/language arts and reading (ELAR), science, and math from 14 states in two specific grades (4 and 8) and across the span of elementary grades (K-8 or 1-8, depending on the subject). An "alignment index" was used to gauge the similarity of content and of cognitive demand (meaning the types of skills that students are asked to demonstrate, such as memorize, analyze, or apply), on a scale of 0 (no alignment) to 1 (perfect alignment). In individual subjects in fourth and eighth grade, average alignment was pretty low (0.2). And when standards were aggregated across grades (K-8 in ELAR and 1-8 in math and science), the alignment was only moderately stronger (on average, .5 for ELAR, .4 for math, and .3 for science). Math and science alignment to national professional standards was not much better. There was, however, some evidence of a small core curriculum in each subject: In ELAR, eleven topics, mostly related to writing emerged; in math, thirteen topics were common; while science had eight. It's important to remember that these topics do not necessarily represent what is taught, just what is intended to be taught. Still the report provides empirical evidence that state content standards vary widely (we explain more in our own State of State Standards). All the more reason to hope that the current push for common standards is done smartly, swiftly, and successfully. You can purchase the report here.

Theodore Hershberg and Claire Robertson-Kraft, eds.
Harvard Education Press
August 2009

If education policy debates about merit pay and teacher salary schedules still feel like ideological trench warfare, this book is the WWI Mark I tank breakthrough for reform. Aggressively forward-thinking and stoutly teacher-focused, it spells out a cohesive reform framework for school personnel policies, covering the gamut of topics from compensation to professional development to effective use of diagnostic testing. Specifically, it focuses on school-directed and individual-directed based merit pay, value-added "growth testing," and promotion based on effectiveness and leadership, not seniority or degree-collecting. While none of these is a new development, the authors--including some of the self-same educators that have pioneered their usage--make them more digestible. It's doubtful there's anybody better to write a chapter entitled "Professional Unionism" than Brad Jupp, the veteran Denver teacher who negotiated on behalf of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association for the ProComp merit pay contract. Similarly, educators are far more likely to listen to former principal Joel Giffin--who describes creative value-added test data usage at his top-performing Tennessee school--than to the brains who generate tests and analyze their results from afar. And getting reacquainted with these ideas through veteran eyes is an experience any serious education reformer should have. Test ride the tank for a fee here.

The College Board, as always, hung a smiley face on it, but the latest SAT results are a real bummer. (Readers should go here and here.) Overall scores are flat or down. Almost every subgroup is flat or down. Gaps are widening slightly by race, income, and parental education. Indeed, the tidiest relationships and smoothest curves are those that continue--as they have for as long as anyone can remember--to show the steady upward progression of average SAT scores as family incomes and parents' education rise.

If that's not enough to depress you about the seeming permanence of America's education stagnation, recall edition after edition of National Assessment results, also showing 17-year-old and 12th grade scores stagnant or declining.

Then recall the recent ACT report indicating that barely one in four high school students taking that organization's tests in 2009 are fully prepared for college-level academic work. Then recall the year-in, year-out flatness of our high school graduation rate. Now laugh if you have spotted any good news regarding the readiness of American adolescents to face successfully the challenges of higher education, the workforce, adulthood, and citizenship. I can't find it. (OK, OK, I found one: Asian-American SAT scores are up yet again.)

What does this say about 26 years of education reforming since A Nation at Risk? About all the billions we have spent, all the laws we have enacted, all the five-part plans we have embraced, all the blood, sweat, and tears that teachers, superintendents, and policymakers have shed?

For starters, it says that our reform efforts, earnest and costly as they've been, haven't seriously penetrated America's high schools. Then it says that current moves (e.g., the "Common Core" national standards project of the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers) to align high-school exit expectations for students to college and workforce readiness are urgently needed, indeed long overdue.

But then it must cause one to ask: What is going to give traction to those expectations? Will real states use them to confer and withhold real diplomas from real students? Will colleges actually use them for admissions purposes? Will employers truly base hiring decisions on them? This is pretty much what did not happen with such earnest, praiseworthy antecedent efforts as Achieve's "American Diploma Project." States pledged their troth. Then nothing much changed on the ground.

Yet if the standards exert no traction, where will it come from? What will cause the typical U.S. high school student to study harder and learn more? What is going to make her teachers more effective? Her school more demanding? Her parents more engaged?

The College Board can smile all it wants to. Nobody else should.

This piece originally appeared on Forbes.com.

Los Angeles must have Folgers in its cup this week, finally waking up to the woeful state of that city's schools. On Tuesday, the LAUSD board passed a resolution that would open 50 new and 200 underperforming schools to external operators. Under the plan, interested parties--from unions to nonprofit education management organizations--would submit management and/or takeover proposals to Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines; the school board will make the final decisions. Though the usual contenders have lined up on both sides of this debate, notable support comes from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Cortines, and rallying parent groups, such as Parent Revolution, a close affiliate of the Green Dot charter school organization. That charter organization, in fact, staged a hostile takeover of one of LA's worst high schools last year, begging the question of whether, with this push for outsourcing, LA-LA Land is just saving itself the trouble--and embarrassment--of more such seizures. Still, this is a big step for LA, albeit one taken before by Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, New Orleans and New York, among others. We're glad LA is waking up to reality, but we can't help but notice that it certainly slept through its morning alarm.

"School board approves plan to open up schools to outsiders," by Howard Blum and Jason Song, LA Now, blog of The Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2009

"Proposal Would Open Up Management of L.A. Schools," by Lesli A. Maxwell, Education Week, August 25, 2009 (subscription required)

Two weeks ago, we reported that Florida was going to stop awarding regular four-year diplomas to students who graduate through its GED Exit Option program. But the announcement came through garbled; administrators, parents, and teachers believed the GED EX OP program was simply being abolished. Furor followed, since it seemed that students would be unduly punished for an early-exit decision they had made in good faith. Now Public Schools Chancellor Frances Haithcock has issued another "clarifying" memo. She wants to be "clear" that students who enrolled in the program in 2008-09 or earlier are grandfathered in, meaning they will receive the standard diploma for completion of the GED requirements. Further, she "clarifies" that the policy is intended to bring the program into line with both state and federal laws, which prevent the awarding of regular diplomas to GED-takers. (But don't be confused by the fact that under state law GED-takers are still counted in the graduation rate but under federal law they are not.) Finally, she wants to make sure everyone understands that the adult-GED program (for those who have already dropped out) is not the same as the EX OP program (for those who have not), and these changes affect the latter not the former. The bottom line is this: We figured out most of this two weeks ago and if parents in Florida simply read the Gadfly, there'd be no need for any more clarification from the clarifiers in Tallahassee.

"State clarifies Fla. GED diploma ban," The Associated Press, August 18, 2009

"State will allow current students to earn GED exit option diploma," by Ron Matus, Tampa Bay Times, August 15, 2009

"Who's The Boss" of sophomore English at Northeast High this year? That'd be Tony Danza, he of boxing and 70s-sitcom fame. He was recently approved to teach in that Philly school as part of a new A&E series, Teach. Move over Jon & Kate Plus 8, it's Tony Danza... Plus 30. We can only hope his students won't call a "Taxi" in a hurry to escape his class. The "Angel in the Outfield" will be accompanied by a (certified) co-teacher in the classroom and, according to the district, the students will not be able to see the rolling cameras. (Unclear how that works logistically, but we'll suspend our disbelief for now.) Though it's long been known that "Tony Danza cuts in line," he says he's "honored" and "humbled" by the opportunity to stand in front of the blackboard. Heidi Ramirez, a former member of Philadelphia's School Reform Commission, disagrees, voting against the scheme as a "potential distraction" for students. Seems hard for it to be a distraction, though, when the kids are still wondering: Who is Tony Danza, anyway?

"Tony Danza gets OK to teach at Northeast High School," by Kristen A. Graham, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 2009

Albert Einstein once remarked that "Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work." He and Jonathan Keiler, a social studies teacher from Prince George's County Maryland, would get along swimmingly. This week, Jay Mathews narrates the story of Keiler's attempt to get his entitled pay upgrade. The only teacher at his high school with National Board certification and a law degree, Keiler had dutifully accumulated the necessary continuing education credits and submitted the paperwork to receive his step-pay-scale salary increase. After weeks of submitting and resubmitting, the PG County HR folks informed Keiler that, not only did he not qualify for a salary upgrade, he didn't even have enough credits for a standard certification. If Keiler didn't miraculously come up with 3 extra credits by the end of September, he would be decertified. "They are essentially firing me because they do not understand their own rules and procedures," remarked Keiler, "which of course are idiotic in the first instance, but at least they should know them." This story has a happy ending though; as soon as Mathews sent a draft of his Washington Post column to the county office, the situation was miraculously resolved in less than 24 hours. Whether or not one approves of pay raises associated with graduate degrees, one must conclude that Keiler's experience lays bare the absurdity of the entire pay scale system--and the bureaucracy that administers it.

"Bureaucratic Hoops for Gifted Teachers," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, August 24, 2009

Like comets, elections, Olympics, and the moon, education policy ideas come and go in cycles. Consider America's on-again, off-again enthusiasm for national standards and tests. Way back in 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower called for "national goals" in education, including "standards." A decade later, President Richard M. Nixon called "the fear of ‘national standards'" one of the "bugaboos of education." President George H.W. Bush embraced them in the early 1990s, only to see an angry Senate denounce the draft U.S. history standards. President Bill Clinton pushed for voluntary national testing, only to see an angry House pull the plug on their funding. And now the Obama administration is prodding states to participate in the Common Core State Standards Initiative and offering big bucks for the development of assessments to accompany those standards.

Another up-and-down-and-up-again notion is that U.S. education might learn something from the rest of the world. Anxiety about Soviet scientific progress spurred the National Defense Education Act of 1958. A Nation at Risk unleashed a wave of interest in the Japanese school system. Recent assessments and reports, particularly those from TIMSS, McKinsey, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have made "international benchmarking" all the rage. And widespread concern about America's economic competitiveness in the 21st century is rekindling interest in how other countries--especially those that seem to be gaining on us--successfully develop their human capital.

Fordham's hot-off-the-presses report represents the current waxing of both ideas: interest in national standards and curiosity about our international competitors. As America contemplates its own transition toward national standards and tests, what lessons can be gleaned from the experience of our global peers, rivals, and allies?

We asked Michigan State's William H. Schmidt, Richard Houang, and Sharif Shakrani to find out. Briefly stated, they drew six lessons that the U.S. would be wise to learn:

1.      It's not true that national standards portend loss of local control.
2.      An independent institution is needed to oversee the development of national standards and assessments.
3.      Uncle Sam should encourage all this but not meddle, much less control.
4.      We ought to focus first on standards for English, math, and science.
5.      National assessments should be administered every other year in grades 4, 8, and 12.
6.      Students, teachers and schools should all be held accountable for performance.

Observe that these insights are both sensible and unsurprising. Observe, too, that the Common Core State Standards Initiative is mostly in sync with them--but doesn't come close to completing the job.

That effort by the NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), supported by the Gates Foundation and enlisting (among others) Achieve, ACT, and the College Board, is more akin to what Churchill might term "the beginning of the beginning." It's primarily aligned with lessons one and three. Which is good. "Local control," along with "states' rights," were the trolls under the bridge of past moves toward national standards and tests; the Common Core Initiative is striving to demonstrate both its bottom-up bona fides and its independence from Uncle Sam.

It's starting with reading/writing and math. (Our authors would prefer for science to be included in this first round, and we'd like to get to history sooner rather than later.) As for the testing and accountability regimes associated with the standards, well, those are decisions to be made later.

But there's one glaring hole in the Common Core strategy, represented by this report's second lesson: As yet America has no durable organizational structure for the standards-setting and standards-revising process, much less one to operate an ongoing assessment system based on these processes. It's all ad hoc. And that's a problem that needs to be fixed lest this valiant effort collapse under its own weight.

That's no slap at leaders of the Common Core initiative; it was surely smart politics to build momentum for the standards before hashing out all the organizational details. But hash out they--and we, and you--must.

Over the long haul, someone, or something, must "own" these standards. That means enlisting first-class content experts, educators, and lay persons to develop them. Keeping them up to date and relevant. Adding other subjects. Then, something or someone needs to shoulder responsibility for the assessment system. That means developing, piloting, and operationalizing the tests. Refreshing them with valid items. Seeing that they are administered, scored, and reported with fidelity, security, reliability, and timeliness. Rationally relating them to other crucial policies and programs with which they inevitably intersect (e.g., TIMSS, PISA, NCLB, NAEP). Making sure that their financial, organizational, and political underpinnings are solid. And fastidiously solving the prickly problems and challenges that will inevitably arise.

In 2009, the United States has no suitable organizational arrangement for handling all this, and we need to devise one. This challenge calls, in fact, for a major act of organizational creativity, not unlike--in various eras--inventing the Pension Office, National Academy of Sciences, National Assessment Governing Board, Securities and Exchange Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Education Commission of the States, Tennessee Valley Authority, National Institute of Standards and Technology, or Federal Reserve Board.

None of these existed before it was created. Yet we can't quite imagine America today without them. Note, too, that all of them have painstakingly crafted relationships with the federal government--often including funding--but no two of them have exactly the same relationship.

Comets don't come around often. Neither do serious chances to adopt national standards and tests in a country that has previously had mixed feelings and mixed experiences with such endeavors. Our hope is that the new Fordham report--and the lessons it draws from around the world--make it a little more likely that we won't have to wait for another complete orbit before we tackle this national obligation again.

Andrew Porter, Morgan Polikoff, and John Smithson
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
September 2009

This report has several purposes; here are the three most important: to find out whether state curricula are more similar than we think, creating what the authors call a "de facto national intended curriculum"; to see if state standards in math and science are aligned to the national professional standards in those subjects; and to ascertain whether state curricula contain common topics that might be seen as a "core curriculum." In short, the answers are no, no, and yes, a little. The study examines state content standards in English/language arts and reading (ELAR), science, and math from 14 states in two specific grades (4 and 8) and across the span of elementary grades (K-8 or 1-8, depending on the subject). An "alignment index" was used to gauge the similarity of content and of cognitive demand (meaning the types of skills that students are asked to demonstrate, such as memorize, analyze, or apply), on a scale of 0 (no alignment) to 1 (perfect alignment). In individual subjects in fourth and eighth grade, average alignment was pretty low (0.2). And when standards were aggregated across grades (K-8 in ELAR and 1-8 in math and science), the alignment was only moderately stronger (on average, .5 for ELAR, .4 for math, and .3 for science). Math and science alignment to national professional standards was not much better. There was, however, some evidence of a small core curriculum in each subject: In ELAR, eleven topics, mostly related to writing emerged; in math, thirteen topics were common; while science had eight. It's important to remember that these topics do not necessarily represent what is taught, just what is intended to be taught. Still the report provides empirical evidence that state content standards vary widely (we explain more in our own State of State Standards). All the more reason to hope that the current push for common standards is done smartly, swiftly, and successfully. You can purchase the report here.

E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
Yale University Press
August 2009

This provocative new book by E.D. Hirsch (dedicated to the late Al Shanker) poses fundamental challenges to both of the dominant reform movements in American education--challenges that their leaders would do well to ponder. On the one hand, Hirsch defies the skill-centric view of academic standards, contending that the nation's founders and Horace Mann had it right, but that for the past seventy years America's leading educators have misconceived K-8 education as being about the 3 R's rather than fundamental knowledge and civic values. On the other hand, he defies proponents of charters, vouchers, and other forms of school choice as wishful thinkers disposed to let marketplace theories trump evidence of student achievement while also undervaluing education's civic and cultural roles. Both sets of reformers, Hirsch suggests, have a narrow, utilitarian, and private view of schooling that ill-serves our democracy. He calls instead for an "American core curriculum" in grades K-8--for all kids, all schools, all communities, all states--and outlines what that would entail, as well as why it's important. What he does not do--this book is more exhortation than manual--is to suggest a path through the organizational, political, ideological, and intellectual foes of his appealing and well-argued conception of what a proper public-education system would accomplish for the United States in the 21st century. You can obtain the book here.

Theodore Hershberg and Claire Robertson-Kraft, eds.
Harvard Education Press
August 2009

If education policy debates about merit pay and teacher salary schedules still feel like ideological trench warfare, this book is the WWI Mark I tank breakthrough for reform. Aggressively forward-thinking and stoutly teacher-focused, it spells out a cohesive reform framework for school personnel policies, covering the gamut of topics from compensation to professional development to effective use of diagnostic testing. Specifically, it focuses on school-directed and individual-directed based merit pay, value-added "growth testing," and promotion based on effectiveness and leadership, not seniority or degree-collecting. While none of these is a new development, the authors--including some of the self-same educators that have pioneered their usage--make them more digestible. It's doubtful there's anybody better to write a chapter entitled "Professional Unionism" than Brad Jupp, the veteran Denver teacher who negotiated on behalf of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association for the ProComp merit pay contract. Similarly, educators are far more likely to listen to former principal Joel Giffin--who describes creative value-added test data usage at his top-performing Tennessee school--than to the brains who generate tests and analyze their results from afar. And getting reacquainted with these ideas through veteran eyes is an experience any serious education reformer should have. Test ride the tank for a fee here.