The Education Gadfly Weekly

2011 marks the quenceanera of Quality Counts—and the report has stepped into the limelight with typical stir. Much ado has already—and rightfully—been made about one of the report’s metrics: the Chance-for-Success Index, which ranks states’ education prowess based on inane indicators like the wealth and education levels of their adult populations. The inclusion of this index tends to inflate the overall grades of—you guessed it—wealthier states. So it should come as no surprise that Maryland takes gold, and Massachusetts and New Jersey tie for silver in the annual ranking. Still, there’s plenty of worthwhile material in the report to peruse.  First, the web module made available for this edition allows users to adjust the weighting of different variables (for instance, you can go ahead and eliminate the dubious Chance-for-Success Index, if you’d like). Second, the report dissects education-spending and -finance policies, examining states’ responses to the recession. On the positive end, eleven states have loosened class-size requirements; on the negative, ten states have shortened the school day or year. The report notes that, in order to truly dig out from financial instability, states will need to be more creative than they’ve been to date. They’ll also need to think bigger and start tackling some big-ticket items like teacher-compensation structures and tenure laws. This all sounds very familiar to what we’ve been saying.

Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, “Quality Counts 2011: Uncertain Forecast—Education Adjusts to a New Economic Reality,” (Washington, D.C.: Editorial Projects in Education Research Center and Education Week, January 2011).

What will the rise of the Common Core standards—and, specifically, the tests that will someday accompany them—mean for the future of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), oft described as the nation’s report card? This report, Part III of the 2010 Brown Center Report on American Education, isn’t sure; but it’s willing to speculate. First, it maps all 171 numbers- and algebra-strand items of the eighth-grade mathematics NAEP against the Common Core’s eighth-grade standards, and finds that the NAEP test items vary significantly in difficulty and that most fall below Common Core’s eighth-grade expectations. In the numbers strand, the average item clocks in at a fifth-grade level, and in the algebra strand, the average test question is geared toward a sixth grader. This doesn’t mean that NAEP has low expectations for eighth graders; rather, NAEP tests eighth-grade students cumulatively on items from first through eighth grades. Common core assessments, however, will likely act as end-of-year exams and will only include test material from a student’s current grade. The takeaway? Once the Common Core assessments are finalized, the two tests will be different in both structure and test material, and thus could provide states with two distinct and complimentary interpretations of student achievement.

Tom Loveless, “The 2010 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well are American Students Learning? Part III: NAEP and the Common Core State Standards,” (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2011).

The Massachusetts foundation budget (which ensures a minimum level of school funding for each district) was considered groundbreaking at the time of its passage in 1993. It was designed to ensure adequate resources for low-income and minority districts, to enable them to meet the state’s new, higher standards. Fast-forward seventeen years. This new report by Ed Moscovitch, the budget formula’s architect himself, finds that spending gaps between rich and poor districts have not closed, and increases in state aid under the plan have failed to keep pace with the actual cost of running schools. That’s largely because spending on health benefits has exploded compared to other operating expenses over the past decade. From 2000-2007, state spending on benefits increased by 13.6 percent annually, leaps and bounds above the 5.4 percent yearly increase allotted in the foundation budget. These massive augmentations, the report assesses, have chalked up $1 billion in additional costs to the state, and have commandeered funds from inputs more related to student learning (professional development, educational materials, etc.).  The report—the first in a three-part series—is an important reminder to policymakers in Massachusetts and beyond: teacher pensions might be getting all of the attention, but out-of-control healthcare costs are just as big a problem.

Edward Moscovitch, “School Funding Reality: A Bargain Not Kept,” (Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Economics, for the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, December 2010).

The 140,000 members of StudentsFirst, its donors (who have thus far offered up $1.4 million), and the education-reform crowd writ large now know, specifically, what Michelle Rhee’s new outfit is about. In a policy agenda released this week, Rhee and her team outline three priorities on which StudentsFirst will focus: elevate teaching, empower parents, and spend wisely. Each theme is tied to specific objectives that range from pushing for the “parent trigger” to revamping pensions and health-care benefits systems. Most of the initiatives aren’t very surprising—the one exception being her support of vouchers for students attending sub-par schools. The rest are mainstream education-reform ideas—and most were initiatives pushed for by Rhee while she was with DCPS. Novel or not, the policies outlined are all worthy of support—though her push for performance pay might suffer from poor timing, as states and districts are currently obsessed with tightening belts, not sweetening the pot. More interesting will be Rhee’s approach to “advocacy.” Will she engage in grass-roots organizing? Lobbying? Or will she focus primarily on directing campaign cash to reform-minded politicos? We already know that Rhee is a bee-eater, now we’ll see if she’s also a rainmaker.

“School Changes Pushed by Rhee,” by Stephanie Banchero, Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2011.

“A Challenge to States and Districts: Policies That Put Students First,” by Michelle Rhee, StudentsFirst, January 10, 2011.

“In Budget Crisis, an Opening for School Reform,” by Michelle Rhee, Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2011.

Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post delves into murky territory this week, writing about the recent “Sputnik moment” occasioned by the release of the 2009 PISA results. To demonstrate that America’s schools are performing better than commonly believed, he digs into the Department of Education’s “Highlights from PISA 2009” report, which presents scores disaggregated by race. Lo and behold, white Americans, with an average score of 525, are on par with homogeneously white countries, like Canada (524), New Zealand (521), and Australia (515). The story is the same for Asian Americans (clocking in with an average 541), who scored about even with South Korea, and ahead of Hong Kong (533) and Japan. (Yes, Shanghai still blows them out of the water.) It’s a crude approach, admits Samuelson, “but it suggests that U.S. schools do about as well as the best systems elsewhere in educating similar students.” Our real challenge, argues the economist, is our social system, which allows for vast inequalities which explain the terrible performance of our poor, black, and Hispanic students. Of course he’s right—to a point. There’s no doubt that test scores correlate with socio-economic status and race, but schools are hardly impotent in changing that equation. As Kevin Huffman writes, “within this country, entire districts and states are dramatically outperforming their counterparts in educating similar children” (think Texas compared to California). Yes, Mr. Samuelson, we need to work toward a more just society—and better schools are the best hope we’ve got for doing exactly that.

“To Foster High-Achievers, Think Beyond the Classroom,” by Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post, January 10, 2011.

“Reconciliation in the School-Reform War,” by Kevin Huffman, Washington Post, January 10, 2011.

Online education is forcing a rethink of entrenched education ideas—from seat-time requirements to class-size limits, from teacher training to the definition of a classroom. It’s also raising questions about what it means to have “friends at school.” In a full-time digital-education setting, kids might only interact with their classmates electronically: see each other on a screen, chat over Skype, play video games online. This loss of daily physical contact has some parents worried—especially as digital education pushes harder into the middle- and elementary-school spaces. To allay concerns, full-time virtual-school programs are taking some lessons away from cyberspace and back to face-to-face. So far, most of these socialization activities are educationally based. Field trips to local museums or neighborhood visits from high-tech mobile classrooms allow students to engage, in person, with both the content and their classmates. Still, some activities, like back-to-school picnics and prom, branch out into the social world. These programs seem to be successful. A study of both traditional and full-time online students in grades 2, 4, and 6 found the social skills of online students to be on par or better than those of traditional classroom students. Parents worried about your children’s social and emotional growth, go ahead and help yourselves to a slice of this magnificent virtual-education cake.

“Cyber Students Taught the Value of Social Skills,” by Michelle R. Davis, Education Week, January 7, 2011.

2011 marks the quenceanera of Quality Counts—and the report has stepped into the limelight with typical stir. Much ado has already—and rightfully—been made about one of the report’s metrics: the Chance-for-Success Index, which ranks states’ education prowess based on inane indicators like the wealth and education levels of their adult populations. The inclusion of this index tends to inflate the overall grades of—you guessed it—wealthier states. So it should come as no surprise that Maryland takes gold, and Massachusetts and New Jersey tie for silver in the annual ranking. Still, there’s plenty of worthwhile material in the report to peruse.  First, the web module made available for this edition allows users to adjust the weighting of different variables (for instance, you can go ahead and eliminate the dubious Chance-for-Success Index, if you’d like). Second, the report dissects education-spending and -finance policies, examining states’ responses to the recession. On the positive end, eleven states have loosened class-size requirements; on the negative, ten states have shortened the school day or year. The report notes that, in order to truly dig out from financial instability, states will need to be more creative than they’ve been to date. They’ll also need to think bigger and start tackling some big-ticket items like teacher-compensation structures and tenure laws. This all sounds very familiar to what we’ve been saying.

Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, “Quality Counts 2011: Uncertain Forecast—Education Adjusts to a New Economic Reality,” (Washington, D.C.: Editorial Projects in Education Research Center and Education Week, January 2011).

What will the rise of the Common Core standards—and, specifically, the tests that will someday accompany them—mean for the future of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), oft described as the nation’s report card? This report, Part III of the 2010 Brown Center Report on American Education, isn’t sure; but it’s willing to speculate. First, it maps all 171 numbers- and algebra-strand items of the eighth-grade mathematics NAEP against the Common Core’s eighth-grade standards, and finds that the NAEP test items vary significantly in difficulty and that most fall below Common Core’s eighth-grade expectations. In the numbers strand, the average item clocks in at a fifth-grade level, and in the algebra strand, the average test question is geared toward a sixth grader. This doesn’t mean that NAEP has low expectations for eighth graders; rather, NAEP tests eighth-grade students cumulatively on items from first through eighth grades. Common core assessments, however, will likely act as end-of-year exams and will only include test material from a student’s current grade. The takeaway? Once the Common Core assessments are finalized, the two tests will be different in both structure and test material, and thus could provide states with two distinct and complimentary interpretations of student achievement.

Tom Loveless, “The 2010 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well are American Students Learning? Part III: NAEP and the Common Core State Standards,” (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2011).

The Massachusetts foundation budget (which ensures a minimum level of school funding for each district) was considered groundbreaking at the time of its passage in 1993. It was designed to ensure adequate resources for low-income and minority districts, to enable them to meet the state’s new, higher standards. Fast-forward seventeen years. This new report by Ed Moscovitch, the budget formula’s architect himself, finds that spending gaps between rich and poor districts have not closed, and increases in state aid under the plan have failed to keep pace with the actual cost of running schools. That’s largely because spending on health benefits has exploded compared to other operating expenses over the past decade. From 2000-2007, state spending on benefits increased by 13.6 percent annually, leaps and bounds above the 5.4 percent yearly increase allotted in the foundation budget. These massive augmentations, the report assesses, have chalked up $1 billion in additional costs to the state, and have commandeered funds from inputs more related to student learning (professional development, educational materials, etc.).  The report—the first in a three-part series—is an important reminder to policymakers in Massachusetts and beyond: teacher pensions might be getting all of the attention, but out-of-control healthcare costs are just as big a problem.

Edward Moscovitch, “School Funding Reality: A Bargain Not Kept,” (Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Economics, for the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, December 2010).