The Education Gadfly Weekly

ACT
August 2006

This report is a mixed bag. On the one hand, national ACT scores rose slightly but (statistically) significantly in 2006--the average composite score was 21.1 (out of a possible 36), up from 20.9 in 2005. Yet most students are still likely to struggle once they reach college classrooms. But good news first. ACT scores in 2006 are at their highest point since 1991, with both males and females and all major ethnic groups making gains. More than 1.2 million 2006 high school graduates, 40 percent of the nation's senior class, took the test (compared to 1.4 million who sat for the SAT). Now the worse news: while the percentage of students who met or exceeded ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks rose, the majority of test-takers are still apt to encounter problems in first-year college courses. For example, only 27 percent of them met the Benchmark (a score of 24) in science, thus demonstrating readiness to succeed in college biology. Just half attained the Benchmark in reading. Taken together, barely one test-taker in five hit the mark on all four ACT exams--English, math, reading, and science. ACT believes the low percentages indicate that too few high school pupils are taking challenging core curricula. The organization's CEO, Dick Ferguson, said, "A student can take four years of math courses in high school, but if the content of those course doesn't cover essential knowledge and skills needed in college and work, then that student is less likely to be well prepared to succeed." Check out the report here. 

James Harvey and Lydia Rainey
Center on Reinventing Public Education
June 2006

Almost two dozen education leaders gathered in January to consider ways to multiply the number of successful charter schools in urban areas. This report, a record of the proceedings, contains panelists' questions, concerns, and proposed solutions to problems that stymie charter school expansion. The group discussed five major topics: 1) the challenge of bringing charters to scale, 2) ensuring that quality isn't sacrificed to growth, 3) the problems associated with partnering with school districts that are politically unsympathetic to charters, 4) the challenges posed by charters' own governing boards, and 5) the helpful and hurtful roles that foundations play in bringing charters to scale. Speakers offered sobering details ("How long would it take, at the current pace of supply generation, to achieve a tipping point of 20 percent in each of our [target] markets? The answer is 85 years."); and hard-nosed reminders ("Parents in Harlem want what everyone else wants. They want safe, good schools. Charters? Who cares? Unless charter means better--then everyone cares."). Everyone agreed that charter schools face a tough uphill slog. Perhaps you already knew that, but you can read this report here.

We reported a while back on the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which was established by Margaret Spellings to evaluate whether the nation's colleges were, among other things, producing educated graduates and charging affordable rates. The commission approved a report of its findings last Thursday, and although the final document (according to the New York Times) urges "a broad shake-up of American higher education," some of its toughest provisions were watered down. Earlier report drafts, for example, said "states should require" public colleges to evaluate their students with standardized tests. The final version simply said universities "should measure student learning" with such tests. Yes, that would still be progress when compared with current reality, and if we hadn't seen the early drafts we'd be giving three cheers. Two would seem more appropriate now. The commission's extremely able chairman, Charles Miller, couldn't entirely overcome establishment resistance--a problem caused largely by Secretary Spellings's initial decision to stack the panel with higher ed establishmentarians. Meanwhile, Kevin Carey, writing in the Washington Monthly, makes clear just how poorly some of the country's top universities are educating their students and how unaccountable they are. These institutions often get away with it, Carey notes, by suppressing data which would bring their shortcomings to light. Are we destined for another 20 years of hearing that America has "the best higher education system in the world?"

"Panel's Report Urges Higher Education Shake-Up," by Sam Dillon, New York Times, August 11, 2006 

"Is Our Students Learning?," by Kevin Carey, Washington Monthly, September 2006

Residents of the Buckeye State are celebrating more than Ohio State's pre-season ranking as the #1 football team in the land. On Tuesday, the state released its 2005-2006 student achievement data and school rankings--and at first blush the news is good. All of Ohio's major urban districts have moved out of Academic Emergency, the lowest category. Charter schools did well, too. The number of them mired in the two lowest ratings dropped by 30 percent. Dayton's charter schools are now outperforming their district counterparts in math and reading in all but one grade (see here). Despite this evidence of progress, however, 68 percent of Ohio districts and 40 percent of the state's schools--considerably more than last year--failed to make adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind. There are several possible explanations. Of greatest import, Ohio's own new rating system considers students' growth from year to year, while NCLB does not. The tests themselves are somewhat different, too. So it's tricky to make year-to-year comparisons when the measuring stick has changed. As we've seen in other places (see here and here) the disparity between glowing state results and dismal federal ones leaves parents and the public confused about whether their schools are good or not--and about whom to believe.

"Some schools feel left behind," by Jennifer Smith Richards, Columbus Dispatch, August 15, 2006

Backward reeled my mind upon discovering that the New York Times's liberal education writer Diana Jean Schemo and conservative icon Charles Murray (writing recently in the Wall Street Journal) share essentially the same defeatist view of education: that schools aren't powerful enough instruments to boost poor kids' achievement to an appreciably higher academic plane due to the many other forces (family, neighborhood, poverty, heredity, etc.) tugging them downward.      

It's true that mediocre schools, of which the U.S. has far too many, have great difficulty overcoming those forces. But it's equally true that outstanding schools do it all the time.

Fifteen years ago, in a book titled We Must Take Charge, I reported a surprising and alarming calculation: that an American child with perfect attendance at a conventional public school from (full day) kindergarten through high school would, upon reaching his/her 18^th birthday, have spent just 9 percent of his/her hours on earth under the school's roof-and 91 percent elsewhere. That ratio still amazes me but you can calculate it for yourself. The numerator consists of 13 (years of school) x 180 (days per year) x 6 (hours per day). The denominator consists of 18 (years alive) x 365 (days per year) x 24 (hours per day). I didn't even take account of Leap Year.         

To be sure, the 91 percent includes sleeping time, but even when you make that adjustment you find that non-school time exceeds school time by a multiple of four or five.         

"What," I asked in 1991, "is the leverage of the 9 percent, especially in situations where the other 91 percent works at cross-purposes? How much should we expect schools to accomplish?"

It's obvious that schools can do lots more when the 91 percent cooperates, when non-school influences (family, peer group, neighborhood, church, you name it)  tug in the same direction as school. It's also obvious that schools face a huge challenge when they must combat uncooperative forces in other parts of their pupils' lives.

What's remarkable, however, and what Schemo and Murray both overlook, is how many terrific schools manage to overcome precisely that challenge. For three decades, there's been a wealth of anecdote, example, and research attesting to the success of individual schools in "beating the odds" and producing well educated youngsters in spite of the hostile forces at work in many of those kids' lives. You can find hundreds of examples in the Ed Trust data base. You can read about them in the Thernstroms' magisterial No Excuses and in an earlier Heritage Foundation publication with the same title. You can watch them on Oprah. You can see further evidence in article after article about the growing network of KIPP academies.

I believe it was Kant who said "the actual proves the possible." Plenty of schools show that the 91 percent can be overcome. The great challenge has been replicating the schools that succeed at this. To which end, vast philanthropic dollars (most notably from Gates) are now being directed.

That sort of replication is still more art than science, but we're beginning to understand what some of its essential elements are. Besides all the usual attributes of "effective schools" (i.e., clear mission, good leadership, coherent program, strong curriculum, high standards), the schools that do best in educating poor and disadvantaged children despite the 91 percent add three special ingredients. First, they reduce the 91 percent itself--and expand the school's share--by starting young and running really long days, weeks and years. Second, they envelop their pupils in a culture of achievement--the heck with contrarian messages transmitted by the outside culture. And third, they never quit: their students are dialing teachers' cell phone at 10 p.m., the middle school makes sure its graduates are placed in a terrific high school, it helps them fill out their college applications, and so forth.

Yes, such schools cost more. Sometimes the cost is measured in dollars, sometimes in sweat equity from tireless teachers and relentless principals, most often in both.

But it can be done and is being done with and for the kids who need it most. The challenge America faces is to do it with millions more. Of course it would be easier if the 91 percent were cooperating. But it can be done anyway. It is being done. Why can't the likes of Schemo and Murray see that?

As a nation, we're generally uncomfortable talking about religion in the public square, in part due to our long history of church-state separation, in part because religion is considered a private matter.        

While the experience of religion is personal, the effects that the institution of religion exerts on society and the ideas it generates are not. Max Weber demonstrated religion's impact on history as well as anyone ever has in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, his classic study on the relationship between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism in the West.

After three decades of downplaying religion's importance in the K-12 curriculum, the subject is thankfully making a comeback. For many students, this means learning more about religion in history and literature classes. It's about time. To believe that anyone can fully understand Constantine, the Just-War Theory, or Osama bin Laden without a basic knowledge of Arianism, Augustine, and the differing interpretations of jihad in the Quran is foolishness.

But recent flare-ups over teaching religion in public schools (see here and here) still make teachers and districts leery about broaching the subject.

Fear not, says Charles Haynes at the First Amendment Center. Religion can be taught well without setting off a holy war in the community. As evidence, he points to the Modesto City Schools in California, one of the very few districts in the nation that requires its students (ninth-graders, in this case) to take a world-religion course. Haynes writes in Learning About World Religions in Public Schools, a First Amendment Center study of the district's religion requirement, that "we finally have empirical data about the educational effects of learning about religion in a public school setting." And the findings are overwhelmingly positive.

Students left the course with a greater appreciation of world religions, as increased supporters of rights for people with views different than their own, and with "a fuller appreciation of the moral values shared across differences."

This last point was critical to the Modesto administrators who established the course. According to the study, they feel that the media exacerbates religious tension by focusing on "extremist factions," thereby overlooking the common moral ground that all faiths share.

This simple reading of religious tradition speaks more to the district's desire not to offend individuals than to instruct them in world religions. In fact, not offending people is the whole point of the Modesto program. The report gives a brief nod to this reality in its conclusions. "The course's textbook provides almost no discussion of the unsavory aspects of religion. Only three paragraphs are devoted to the use of religion to justify war, persecution and the oppression of women."

The district responds this way: "The goal of the course...is to convey facts about religion, and not to have students engage in a critical evaluation of particular religions or religion in general."

This misgiving doesn't overly worry the center, but it should. The soft curriculum leads one to ask--What "facts" is the class offering?

It's true that broadly speaking, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share much in common--they are all "peoples of the book," all are monotheists, and all value human life. But to stop there leaves one with the impression that these religions read their religious texts with a similar critical eye (they do not), that they understand monotheism the same way (Christians have wrestled for centuries to explain the Trinity), and that life is valued the same across traditions (this isn't even true within each faith).

These nuances, if they can be appropriately called "nuances," are the stuff that matters. It's this detail that makes learning about religion worthwhile. Without it, students will never understand why many Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopal churches were receptive to President Bush's creating the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, while most low-church Protestants were offended by the program. Why Islam as practiced in Turkey makes that country key to our efforts to expand democracy in the Muslim world. Why Osama bin Laden reads jihad as a license to kill Westerners, and most other Muslims read it as an internal struggle to remove obstacles between oneself and God.

Religion must be taught and taught well. But Modesto's model, which teaches religion as a stand-alone course that downplays the very real differences between and among world religious traditions, isn't one that does this. Better to leave the teaching of religious history in history courses, where the point of the course is to understand religion's institutional and intellectual effects on society, and not to gain a better appreciation for the ways in which religions are alike.
 

Clothing companies are salivating over this year's back-to-school buying binge. And why not? Brand Keys, a market research company, forecasts a 15 percent rise in back-to-school clothing sales. The jump looks to be directly tied to the heightened sartorial tastes of buyers, in this case teenagers who would now much rather spend their parents' cash on the latest styles from Marc Jacobs than the latest iPod from Steve Jobs. Technology is out; looking good is so in. Further, as Gloria Baume of Teen Vogue explains, the blurring of fashion distinctions between "what is ‘child' and what is ‘adult'" means that the same styles modeled by 20-year-old runway vixens are suddenly appropriate for 13-year-old playground divas, such as Tessa Sprauer. "I never wear anything literally like basic," Sprauer said. And why would she? It's a known fact that fancy designer clothing leads to academic success. Look at Elle Woods, the sorority ingénue of Legally Blonde, who, dressing with unparalleled panache and in blinding shades of pink, establishes herself at Harvard Law School and ends up giving the class commencement address. Remember, kids: Confidence never goes out of style.

"An Impressionable Age," by Ruth La Ferla, New York Times, August 10, 2006

Two heavy-hitters recently jumped into the NCLB reauthorization fray. Florida Governor Jeb Bush and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined forces in a Washington Post op-ed to defend NCLB from its critics and offer some suggestions for improving it. Most of what they write is bland: make standards meaningful, encourage student gains, recognize degrees of progress, and reward/retain high-quality teachers. But they raised a few eyebrows by calling for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to become the official benchmark for evaluating the rigor of state standards and the veracity of state test results. In other words, they came up to the brink of national standards and tests. (But they stepped back, out of respect for the "role of sovereign states in our federalist system.") Perhaps our forthcoming report on national testing (see here) will convince them to take a bolder plunge.

"How to Help Our Students" by Jeb Bush and Michael R. Bloomberg, Washington Post, August 13, 2006

ACT
August 2006

This report is a mixed bag. On the one hand, national ACT scores rose slightly but (statistically) significantly in 2006--the average composite score was 21.1 (out of a possible 36), up from 20.9 in 2005. Yet most students are still likely to struggle once they reach college classrooms. But good news first. ACT scores in 2006 are at their highest point since 1991, with both males and females and all major ethnic groups making gains. More than 1.2 million 2006 high school graduates, 40 percent of the nation's senior class, took the test (compared to 1.4 million who sat for the SAT). Now the worse news: while the percentage of students who met or exceeded ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks rose, the majority of test-takers are still apt to encounter problems in first-year college courses. For example, only 27 percent of them met the Benchmark (a score of 24) in science, thus demonstrating readiness to succeed in college biology. Just half attained the Benchmark in reading. Taken together, barely one test-taker in five hit the mark on all four ACT exams--English, math, reading, and science. ACT believes the low percentages indicate that too few high school pupils are taking challenging core curricula. The organization's CEO, Dick Ferguson, said, "A student can take four years of math courses in high school, but if the content of those course doesn't cover essential knowledge and skills needed in college and work, then that student is less likely to be well prepared to succeed." Check out the report here. 

James Harvey and Lydia Rainey
Center on Reinventing Public Education
June 2006

Almost two dozen education leaders gathered in January to consider ways to multiply the number of successful charter schools in urban areas. This report, a record of the proceedings, contains panelists' questions, concerns, and proposed solutions to problems that stymie charter school expansion. The group discussed five major topics: 1) the challenge of bringing charters to scale, 2) ensuring that quality isn't sacrificed to growth, 3) the problems associated with partnering with school districts that are politically unsympathetic to charters, 4) the challenges posed by charters' own governing boards, and 5) the helpful and hurtful roles that foundations play in bringing charters to scale. Speakers offered sobering details ("How long would it take, at the current pace of supply generation, to achieve a tipping point of 20 percent in each of our [target] markets? The answer is 85 years."); and hard-nosed reminders ("Parents in Harlem want what everyone else wants. They want safe, good schools. Charters? Who cares? Unless charter means better--then everyone cares."). Everyone agreed that charter schools face a tough uphill slog. Perhaps you already knew that, but you can read this report here.