The Education Gadfly Weekly

The Education Trust
January 2005

In November 2004, the Education Trust showed that many states had increased the average test scores of elementary school students while also narrowing achievement gaps (click here). EdTrust has now expanded this analysis to include middle and high schools, where the news is less encouraging, especially in the high school years. Twenty-four of 28 states improved in middle school math and 16 of 27 in middle school reading, compared with 14 of 21 states in high school math and just 11 of 20 in high school reading. (We hear an echo of the finding from our recent State of State English Standards 2005 that high school literature standards across the country are woeful.) Both middle and high schools are doing a worse job in closing achievement gaps than elementary schools. Still, in most of the cases analyzed (e.g., reading and math, for middle and high school, across each of the subgroups), more states narrowed than widened their achievement gaps. The November report concluded that elementary schools still have much progress to make, and overall this report indicates that middle and, especially, high schools have even further to travel. The reasons may be numerous (learn more here), but the data may add momentum to the Bush proposal to expand NCLB-style results-based accountability to the high school level. You can access this short report online here.

RAND Education
2004

The Carnegie Corporation of New York paid for this detailed RAND study of adolescent reading and writing achievement in the U.S. (It's part of a big Carnegie adolescent-literacy initiative that you can read more about here.) While basic decoding skills are slowly improving in the early grades, "many children are not moving beyond . . . to fluency and comprehension." The RAND team sought to explicate this by examining how well 4th-12th graders are meeting state literacy goals as measured by state tests; how well they're meeting national goals as evidenced by NAEP; and to what extent are state tests and NAEP results consistent? This inquiry leads, inter alia, to "major concerns about the ability of states to meet the ambitious goal set by NCLB of 100-percent proficiency." In many places, lots of kids are far from proficient judged by the state's own standards. Expectations vary widely from state to state, often set well below NAEP's definition of "proficient." Most troubling to the researchers and (one hopes) to the rest of us, once one gets above the primary grades in most schools, nobody is really responsible for teaching literacy skills as such. That surely helps explain why our kids are not doing very well - and why staying on the present course does not give great grounds for optimism about the prospects of NCLB, at least in the middle and upper grades. The press release can be found here. There's a short "research brief" here. And the 468-page report (the first 70 or so pages are general findings, the rest are state-specific report cards) appears here.

"Teens unlikely to meet reading goal, RAND report warns," by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week, January 5, 2005

Ellen Forte Fast and William J. Erpenbach, Council of Chief State School Officers
2004

This detail-heavy report summarizes all requests made by states to amend their NCLB accountability plans in 2003-04. The authors classify the requests in a thorough manner; the short section on AYP consequences and reporting, for example, is broken down into four subcategories. They also provide a nice summary of the Education Department's pattern of responses to these requests. For state policy makers, it's bound to be useful, if only to learn from other states' experiences. It's also of value for anyone interested in how states are dealing with NCLB's accountability demands. Overall, though, it's a reference tool, not a page-turner, and the authors make no policy recommendations. You can check it out here.

Are today's twentysomethings spoiled, coddled brats who sponge off their parents and wander aimlessly through an entertainment-addled existence? Or do they face unusual challenges that make it difficult to follow the time-honored high school-college-adulthood script? Both assertions were on view this week. In the Wall Street Journal, Jeff Zaslow writes about the "crisis of coddling" in American families as millions of twentysomethings move back in with their parents, and offers recommendations for parents faced with a kid who won't grow up. But in USA Today, Haya El Nasser reports that the coddled young adult - presumably emerging from the cocoon of soft America into the rigors of hard America - faces challenges that previous generations haven't. These include rising housing costs that make getting a first apartment or house difficult, and an average $19,000 in college loan debt (far higher for those with graduate/professional degrees). As usual with any point-counterpoint of this kind, the truth is likely in the middle. Yet unmentioned in both these articles is the complicity of our K-12 education system in producing young people unable to cope with adult life. Introducing K-12 students to the notion of "accountability" might decrease the number of young adults who are shocked to discover that there comes a time when Mom isn't going to take care of you anymore.

"The coddling crisis: Why Americans think adulthood begins at age 26," by Jeff Zaslow, Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2005 (subscription required)

"Why grown kids come home," by Haya El Nasser, USA Today, January 11, 2005

You may be confused by the dueling charter school studies that have appeared in recent months. If so, two new articles try to beam a light through that tangled forest. Jennifer Marshall and Kirk Johnson of the Heritage Foundation offer their views in National Review Online, stating plainly that "What does work is the approach Hoxby took" - meaning, the "matched pair" methodology that Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby employed in her recent study that concludes that charter students are, in most cases, meeting state standards at a slightly higher rate than pupils in neighboring district schools  (click here for more). Gadfly won't argue with that. But Paul Hill's piece in Education Week is broader and more illuminating, offering a discussion of the tribulations of comparing public and charter schools. Hill's National Charter School Research Center is preparing a meta-study, which should shed further light on this lively and important issue. For now, you can consider two more views by clicking below.

"Grading schools," by Jennifer A. Marshall and Kirk A. Johnson, National Review Online, January 12, 2005

"Assessing student performance in charter schools," by Paul T. Hill, Education Week, January 12, 2005

Two decades after the U.S. was deemed "a nation at risk," academic standards for our primary and secondary schools are more important than ever - and their quality matters enormously.

In 1998, we at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation took it upon ourselves to find out whether those standards were any good. Early that year, we published State Math Standards, written by the distinguished mathematician Ralph Raimi and veteran math teacher Lawrence Braden. Two years later, with many states having augmented or revised their academic standards, we published The State of State Standards 2000, whose math review was again conducted by Messrs. Raimi and Braden. It appraised the math standards of 49 states, conferring upon them an average grade of "C."

Since that review, standards-based reform received a major boost from NCLB. Due mostly to that law, more than 40 states have replaced, substantially revised, or augmented their K-12 math standards since our 2000 review. NCLB also raised the stakes attached to those standards, with billions of dollars in federal aid now hinging on whether states conscientiously hold their schools and districts to account for student learning.

Mindful of this enormous burden on state standards, and aware that most of them had changed substantially, in 2004 we initiated fresh appraisals in mathematics and English, the two subjects at NCLB's heart. To lead the math review, we turned to Dr. David Klein, a professor of mathematics at California State University, Northridge, who has long experience in K-12 math issues. We encouraged him to recruit an expert panel of fellow mathematicians to collaborate in this ambitious venture, both to expose states' standards to more eyes, thus improving the reliability and consistency of the ratings, and to share the work burden.

When reviewers change, reviews will, too, if only because reviewing entails judgment, which is inevitably the result of one's values and priorities as well as expert knowledge and experience. In all respects but one, however, Klein and his colleagues strove to replicate the protocols and criteria developed by Raimi and Braden in the two earlier Fordham studies. Where they intentionally deviated from the 1998 and 2000 reviews - and did so with the encouragement and assent of Raimi and Braden - was in weighting the four major criteria against which state standards are evaluated.

Though the rationale for changing the emphasis was not to punish states, the shift in criteria contributed to an overall lowering of state grades. Indeed, the essential finding of this study is that the overwhelming majority of states today have sorely inadequate math standards. Their average grade is a "high D" - and just six earn "honors" grades of A or B, three of each. Fifteen states receive Cs, 18 receive Ds, and 11 receive Fs. (The District of Columbia is included in this review but Iowa is not because it has no statewide academic standards.)

Tucked away in these bleak findings is a ray of hope. Three states - California, Indiana, and Massachusetts - have first-rate math standards, worthy of emulation. If they successfully align their other key policies (e.g., assessments, accountability, teacher preparation, textbooks, graduation requirements) with those fine standards, and if their schools and teachers succeed in instructing pupils in the skills and content specified in those standards, they can look forward to a top-notch K-12 math program and likely success in achieving the lofty goals of NCLB.

Yes, it's true. Central as standards are, getting them right is just the first element of a multi-part education reform strategy. Sound statewide academic standards are necessary but insufficient for the task at hand.

The new Fordham report appraises that necessary element. Besides applying the criteria and rendering judgments on the standards, Klein and his team identified nine widespread shortcomings. They also trace the source of much of this weakness to states' unfortunate embrace of the advice of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 

Klein also offers four recommendations for strengthening math standards. Most obviously, states should desist from the misguided things that got them in trouble in the first place (such as excessive emphasis on calculators and manipulatives, too little attention to fractions and basic arithmetic algorithms). They suggest that states not be afraid to follow the lead of the District of Columbia, whose new superintendent recently announced that he would simply jettison D.C.'s woeful standards and adopt the excellent schema already in use in Massachusetts. That some states already have fine standards proves that states can develop them if they try. But if, as I think, there's no meaningful difference between good math education in North Carolina and Oregon or between Vermont and Colorado, why shouldn't states avoid a lot of heavy lifting, swallow a wee bit of pride, and duplicate the standards of places that have already got it right?

Klein and his colleagues insist that states take arithmetic instruction seriously in the elementary grades and ensure that it is mastered before a student proceeds into high school. The recent results of two more international studies (PISA and TIMSS) make painfully clear that a vast swath of U.S. students still cannot perform even simple arithmetic calculations. This ignorance has disastrous implications for any effort to train American students in the higher-level math skills needed to succeed in today's jobs. No wonder we're now outsourcing many of those jobs to lands with greater math prowess - or importing foreign students to fill them on U.S. shores.

Klein makes one final recommendation that shouldn't need to be voiced but does: Make sure that future math standards are developed by people who know lots of math. One might suppose states would figure this out for themselves, but it seems that many turned over the writing of their math standards to people with a shaky grip of the discipline itself.

One hopes that state leaders will heed this advice. One hopes, especially, that many more states will fix their math standards before placing upon them the added weight of new high school reforms tightly joined to statewide academic standards, as President Bush is urging. Even now, one wonders whether the praiseworthy goals of NCLB can be attained if tests and yearly-progress gauges and accountability systems are aligned with today's woeful math standards - and whether the frailties that were exposed yet again by 2004's international studies can be rectified unless the standards that drive our K-12 instructional system become world-class.

This editorial is adapted from the foreword of The State of State Math Standards 2005, published by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.  The State of State English Standards 2005, is also available online.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his State of the State address, has declared his intention to promote merit-based pay for Golden State teachers. Though details remain to be filled in, state education secretary Richard Riordan explained to the Los Angeles Times that "individual school districts - in cooperation with their local collective bargaining units - would have to determine how to gauge teachers' performance." Though the idea of linking pay to teacher performance enjoys bipartisan support (attested to in a Times op ed by former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner, who heads the Teaching Commission), the unions are predictably foaming at the mouth. The Times says "Terry Pesta, president of the San Diego Education Association . . . scoffed at the idea of linking pay to performance, saying it would wreak havoc on contracts already in place." Ah yes, an excellent reason to dismiss the plan out of hand - it would interfere with contracts.

"Teachers unions blast governor's merit pay plan," by Cara Mia DiMassa and Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2005 (registration required)

"Do the math: Money plus merit equals better teachers," by Louis V. Gerstner Jr., Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2005 (registration required)

The recommendations of a national panel looking at fixes to the ailing Israeli K-12 education system has the entire country up in arms. The Dovrat Commission has recommended defunding small schools, setting new national academic standards, increasing teacher pay, extending the school day and year, instituting new teacher certification regulations, and, most controversially, firing upwards of 14,000 teachers. Ultra-Orthodox religious groups are opposed, as the recommendations threaten the existence of the state-funded Haredi education system for Orthodox children, and teacher unions are gearing up for national strikes. In the face of such clamor, the Israeli cabinet delayed a vote on accepting the report and re-negotiations may resume shortly. They're definitely needed. While there are useful bureaucratic fixes in the report, it studiously avoids the real question: what are Israeli children learning? The commission's focus is on inputs, soft measures of achievement, and credentials-based certification, not on rigorous standards and assessments. As columnist Batya Medad writes, "The failures in the Israeli educational system are due to faddish curriculum planning and failure-prone teaching methods. . . . We must get beyond the superficial."

"Cabinet pushes off decision on Dovrat commission," Arutz Sheva, January 12, 2005

"Dovrat: Rotten idea," by Batya Medad, Arutz Sheva, January 11, 2005

"Dovrat report spurs salary spat," by Yulie Khromchenko, Ha'aretz, January 10, 2005

"Dovrat report outlines education reform," Jerusalem Post, December 23, 2004

Income inequality in the U.S., the Economist warns, "is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap." This, despite the fact that most Americans believe we live in a meritocracy. How can this be? The Economist finds two reasons: First, "the meritocratic revolution of the early 20th century has been at least half successful. Members of the American elite live in an intensely competitive universe. . . . Yet it is a competition among people very much like themselves - the offspring of a tiny sliver of society - rather than among the full range of talents that the country has to offer." Second, because "upward mobility is increasingly determined by education," which puts poor children at a double disadvantage because they attend inferior schools and are especially damaged by the legacy of what Michael Barone calls "soft America." "Soft America," according to the Economist, "is allergic to introducing accountability and measurement in education, particularly if it takes the form of merit pay for successful teachers or rewards for outstanding pupils." What's worse, "dumbed-down schools are particularly harmful to poor children, who are unlikely to be able to compensate for them at home." To add insult to serious injury, "America's great universities are increasingly reinforcing rather than reducing these educational inequalities. . . . Three-quarters of the students at the country's top 146 colleges come from the richest socio-economic [quartile], compared with just three percent who come from the poorest." Among the "shafts of sun on the horizon" cited by the article is No Child Left Behind, which "tries to use a mixture of tests and punishments for lousy schools to improve the performance of minority children," and the movement to end legacy preferences in elite colleges and universities.

"Ever higher society, ever harder to ascend," Economist, December 24, 2004 (subscription required)

Ellen Forte Fast and William J. Erpenbach, Council of Chief State School Officers
2004

This detail-heavy report summarizes all requests made by states to amend their NCLB accountability plans in 2003-04. The authors classify the requests in a thorough manner; the short section on AYP consequences and reporting, for example, is broken down into four subcategories. They also provide a nice summary of the Education Department's pattern of responses to these requests. For state policy makers, it's bound to be useful, if only to learn from other states' experiences. It's also of value for anyone interested in how states are dealing with NCLB's accountability demands. Overall, though, it's a reference tool, not a page-turner, and the authors make no policy recommendations. You can check it out here.

RAND Education
2004

The Carnegie Corporation of New York paid for this detailed RAND study of adolescent reading and writing achievement in the U.S. (It's part of a big Carnegie adolescent-literacy initiative that you can read more about here.) While basic decoding skills are slowly improving in the early grades, "many children are not moving beyond . . . to fluency and comprehension." The RAND team sought to explicate this by examining how well 4th-12th graders are meeting state literacy goals as measured by state tests; how well they're meeting national goals as evidenced by NAEP; and to what extent are state tests and NAEP results consistent? This inquiry leads, inter alia, to "major concerns about the ability of states to meet the ambitious goal set by NCLB of 100-percent proficiency." In many places, lots of kids are far from proficient judged by the state's own standards. Expectations vary widely from state to state, often set well below NAEP's definition of "proficient." Most troubling to the researchers and (one hopes) to the rest of us, once one gets above the primary grades in most schools, nobody is really responsible for teaching literacy skills as such. That surely helps explain why our kids are not doing very well - and why staying on the present course does not give great grounds for optimism about the prospects of NCLB, at least in the middle and upper grades. The press release can be found here. There's a short "research brief" here. And the 468-page report (the first 70 or so pages are general findings, the rest are state-specific report cards) appears here.

"Teens unlikely to meet reading goal, RAND report warns," by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week, January 5, 2005

The Education Trust
January 2005

In November 2004, the Education Trust showed that many states had increased the average test scores of elementary school students while also narrowing achievement gaps (click here). EdTrust has now expanded this analysis to include middle and high schools, where the news is less encouraging, especially in the high school years. Twenty-four of 28 states improved in middle school math and 16 of 27 in middle school reading, compared with 14 of 21 states in high school math and just 11 of 20 in high school reading. (We hear an echo of the finding from our recent State of State English Standards 2005 that high school literature standards across the country are woeful.) Both middle and high schools are doing a worse job in closing achievement gaps than elementary schools. Still, in most of the cases analyzed (e.g., reading and math, for middle and high school, across each of the subgroups), more states narrowed than widened their achievement gaps. The November report concluded that elementary schools still have much progress to make, and overall this report indicates that middle and, especially, high schools have even further to travel. The reasons may be numerous (learn more here), but the data may add momentum to the Bush proposal to expand NCLB-style results-based accountability to the high school level. You can access this short report online here.