The Education Gadfly Weekly

Christine Campbell, Michael DeArmond, Kacey Guin, and Deborah Warnock
Center on Reinventing Public Education
September 2006

This report provides two case studies on how traditional school district leaders are responding to the challenges of choice and competition. The districts selected for study are Dayton and Milwaukee, both because of their commonalities (declining enrollment as students opt for schools of choice, and large numbers of poor and minority pupils,) and because of their differences. Milwaukee's district is large, its management is decentralized, and its schools aren't shielded from financial realities because dollars tend to follow students to their school of choice; Dayton's school system is small with centralized management and schools are largely shielded from financial realities because school funding is based on programs and teachers, not enrollment. Because it's aimed at traditional school leaders, the report reads like a primer on market economies. Thus: "a district and its schools need to know where they stand in the market" and "principals [should] pay attention to the demands of choice." This won't be news to reformers. They may, however, appreciate the analysis of how Milwaukee's and Dayton's different district management strategies affect how the districts respond to reform pressures. In Milwaukee, for instance, where principals have considerable latitude in hiring staff and setting budgets, the district has "answered choice with choice" by creating neighborhood schools, district sponsored charter schools, partnership schools, new small high schools, etc. Because dollars are closely tied to students, a parent's decision to leave traditional schools has an immediate and profound effect on principals and their budgets. They're forced to innovate. In Dayton, by contrast, the district controls funding, thereby buffering schools (and their principals) from the economic impact of students exiting. Instead of offering more education options, Dayton is trying to win back students by constructing handsome new buildings and re-establishing schools as neighborhood centers. At this point, it's a toss-up about which strategy--if either--will work better. While it's no clarion call for school improvement, this piece is still worth sharing with an embattled superintendent near you. Read it here.

Diana W. Rigden
Reading First Teacher Education Network
September 2006

This report from the Reading First Teacher Education Network (RFTEN) points to stagnant NAEP reading scores and asks an important question: Are elementary teacher licensure tests aligned with "the essential components of effective instruction as defined by scientifically-based reading research (SBRR)"? The author evaluated eight licensure exams--five developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS) and three by National Evaluation Systems (NES)--and measured them against the SBRR's five essential components as defined by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. Encouragingly, she found that tests developed specifically to measure a teaching candidate's knowledge of reading--ETS's Introduction to the Teaching of Reading and NES's Foundations of Reading, for example--generally pass muster. So why the crummy NAEP scores and the moans that have accompanied them? The problem, it seems, is that "most states require future elementary teachers to take multi-subject licensure tests that have few items directed explicitly to the teaching of reading." (It is unclear what exactly "most states" means.) ETS's Elementary Education: Content Knowledge and Middle School English Language Arts are two such culprits. This observation has been made before; indeed, Rigden's report closely resembles Sandra Stotsky's own recent evaluation of licensure tests, which looked at five of the eight exams Rigden reviews. Rigden also recommends, however, that the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, which sponsors the RFTEN project, strengthen its own standards "to guide and influence the quality of teacher preparation programs in the United States." Nothing revolutionary here, but the report does help amplify the national grumbling over mediocrity in teaching. Rigden's and Stotsky's reports, along with the NCTQ's recent attack on education schools, form a nice one-two punch against the nemesis of poor teacher quality.

Gadfly tries to flutter his wings on the sunny side of issues and therefore resists chiding Secretary Spellings for her recent flip-flop on "highly qualified teachers." It's true, as others have noted, that her decision to allow states to continue to determine whether their veteran teachers are up to snuff by using a portfolio approach--the "High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation" (HOUSSE)--only rewards gamesmanship. To be sure, we'd be better off if all teachers, including experienced ones, had to show their stuff by passing a rigorous exam in each subject they teach. No, she's not going to press for anything like that. But we've spotted a silver lining: the current "HQT" provisions are a nightmare for charter schools, and the HOUSSE option makes their lives an ounce easier. After all, many small charters ask their teachers to instruct students in multiple subjects and passing teacher tests in each of them can be time-consuming and expensive. Plus, some charters use an integrated education approach that doesn't easily match up to the available Praxis exams. We've never believed that charters should have to follow the HQT rules anyway--remember "flexibility in return for accountability?"--so we're happy to cut them some slack. Every once in a while, unintended consequences can be good.

"Ed. Dept. Eases Teacher Quality Rule," Associated Press, September 7, 2006

Welcome to Australia, home to kangaroos, dingoes, and an increasingly vocal debate over establishing national education standards.

Aussies have been involved with this debate for quite some time. And because, like the United States, our governmental system is based on the federal model, and our constitution grants the job of educating children to the states, there may be something to be learned from our experiences. The first lesson is that rushing to do the job and executing it poorly is nearly as bad as not doing the job at all.

In the early 1990s, Australia produced documents that outlined what students nationwide should be covering in eight key learning areas. The documents were immediately and rightly criticized for providing curriculum descriptors that were vague, overly generalized, difficult to implement in the classroom, and politically correct. Moreover, traditionalists rightly chastised the documents for devaluing literacy and numeracy.

So in 1993, Australia's education ministers decided not to endorse these documents and the states and territories went back to, or refreshed, their own standards. Australia's first attempt at developing a national curriculum thus failed.

Today we're trying again. This time, Canberra's developing so-called Statements of Learning in key subjects such as mathematics and English that describe "the essential knowledge, skills, understandings and capacities that all students should have the opportunity to learn" at key stages in schooling (years 3, 5, 7, 9).

From Melbourne to Broome, and Brisbane to Perth, supporters are basing their case for the Statements of Learning on the fact that nations with high scores on international assessments also have centralized curricula and examinations. That's the finding of European scholars Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Woessmann, who evaluated the characteristics of countries whose students earn top marks on Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and found a credible connection between the two.

American academic John H. Bishop concludes much the same: "Analyses of three very different international cross-section data sets found that students from countries with [national standard and curriculum] systems... outperform students from other countries at a comparable economic development level."

Teachers in leading nations receive clear, succinct, and easy-to-follow road maps at the start of each year that detail what is to be taught and what students are expected to learn. Such curricula are academically rigorous and, instead of being a mile wide and an inch deep, focus on essential knowledge, understanding, and skills.

Supporters of national testing also appeal to commonsense. Instead of relying on school-, district-, or state-based assessments, whose standards vary widely from state to state, national standards ensure that students sit under the same supervised conditions and take one common examination whether they attend school in a trendy Sydney suburb or the country's Outback. Logical--no?

Well, yes, if the standards are well designed and executed. But the Statements of Learning don't look to hold such promise. To begin, the Statements do not constitute subject syllabi, nor do they include an assessment or examination regime. And they are not meant to supplant existing state and territory documents. Instead the Statements of Learning will be incorporated into local documents as they are reviewed over the next couple of years.

The Statements read: "States and Territories will continue to establish their own conceptual frameworks for English curriculums, and it is likely that they will include additional aspects of English." The hope, apparently, is that the Statements of Learning, when incorporated into the eight state and territory curriculum documents, will lead to increased national consistency in learning while also allowing local variation.

Not surprisingly, the Statements of Learning are less controversial than the first attempt at national standards and more likely to last. Not only is this a collaborative project, but it does not attempt to define the whole curriculum or impose a single examination regime. Therefore, freedom exists for local variation, and local bureaucrats are less concerned about losing autonomy.

So far, however, the model is so soft at its core that it doesn't provide enough curriculum rigor and structure. Further, given the absence of an examination system, there is no guarantee that students will actually learn what the Statements contain.

Still, it's a step in the right direction. Here's hoping that Australia learns from the experience of leading nations--and has the courage to overcome local resistance to national reform.

Kevin Donnelly can be reached at [email protected].

To all you would-be term-paper buyers: caveat emptor! The New York Times decided to put the burgeoning number of online essay-writing companies to the test. Promising original, A-level work, these firms cheerily take your topic (and your credit card number) and promise to produce prose and arguments sure to bring tears to your teacher's eyes. For fees ranging from $50 to more than twice that amount, a Times editor bought and received papers that included these gems: "Many people consider [Brave New World] Huxley's most important work: many others think it is his only work." And this: "Although many similarities exist between A Brave New World and ... 1984, the works books [sic] though they deal with similar topics, are more dissimilar than alike." You don't say. SuperiorPapers.com saved itself the embarrassment by simply not delivering the paid-for paper, or even an original excuse for failing to do so. The writer, the company said in an email, is "facing some technical difficulties," and requested a 24-hour extension. Where's a good homework chewing dog when you need one?

"At $9.95 a Page, You Expected Poetry?," by Charles McGrath, New York Times, September 10, 2006

On Tuesday, District of Columbia voters handed Adrian M. Fenty a decisive victory in the city's Democratic mayoral primary. In the District, where John Kerry took 89 percent of the vote in 2004, the winner of the Democratic mayoral primary is all but assured of being the city's next chief executive.

So Fenty--a 35-year-old, D.C.-born triathlete--will replace the ubiquitous, bow-tied Anthony Williams as leader of the nation's capital city.

Why should this matter to anyone outside the Beltway? Because Washington is also one of the nation's leading laboratories for urban school reform. Twenty-five percent, some 17,000, of its K-12 students attend charter schools, and another 1,700 are enrolled in private schools with the aid of federally-funded opportunity scholarships. The demand for both charter schools and vouchers far exceeds their current supply. Moreover, the school system itself, by common consent, remains broken, ineffectual and extremely expensive.

Thus, it's worth considering how a Fenty administration may affect education reform in the District.

Williams, a Democrat, supported the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program when it was proposed in Congress in 2003. The legislation was introduced by two Republicans, supported by President Bush, and feverishly attacked by many prominent Democrats such as Ted Kennedy.

Nonetheless, Williams (along with Senator Diane Feinstein) bucked the party line, opposed union bosses and political insiders, and threw his support behind the initiative. He said, "At the very least, we should experiment with choice in this city. If people are afraid to at least experiment, that tells me there is some self-interest in this motive."

Fenty disagreed. At a 2004 Capitol Hill rally, the then city councilor told an audience, "Our mayor was duped into believing the city would receive a cash windfall if he sold out to the Republicans." In 2003, Fenty also said of Williams, "He's on the wrong side. He's in bed with the president."

So is Fenty a reformer (as he's widely regarded), or a believer in status quo thinking? In 2004, he commented on a shortage of applicants for the Opportunity Scholarship vouchers in the first year of the program: "It very clearly says there is not a lot of support for vouchers. Where's the rush? Where is the onslaught of people who were supposed to come out and take part in this process?"

A year later in 2005, the demand for vouchers exceeded supply by more than two-to-one.

Over the past two years, Fenty's rhetoric on vouchers has softened, although his campaign website still boasts that he "led" the fight "to oppose federally imposed vouchers." Today, of course, it would be hard for the mayor to derail D.C.'s voucher program. It's Congress's baby and one doubts that Fenty is prepared to send thousands of poor students back to failing public schools. (His own two kids, it may be noted, attend private school.) Still, Mayor Williams provided support and air cover for the program in countless ways--pressuring the public school system to cooperate, tapping his outreach staff to help inform parents of the opportunity; his influential voice will surely be missed.

It's tougher to predict how Fenty's ascent will affect the city's charter schools. Though not under his direct control, he will get to appoint the members of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, the city's primary authorizer. The mayor also has substantial influence over issues critical to charters' continued development (e.g. zoning, access to city services and facilities, etc.). He's not provided any real specifics on the topic, although he did make education his top campaign priority (which reflected the priorities of D.C. voters, who tell pollsters that they are fed up with broken public schools).

D.C. insiders tell us that Fenty, like all of the major mayoral candidates, is a charter supporter. (See what 25 percent market share can do!) That's hard to see from the outside, though. Most of what Fenty has said to date about education has related to district schools. He has publicly expressed admiration for New York City's Joel Klein, with whom Fenty met, and he has voiced interest in taking the reins of the District's public schools--at least its failing schools, which is most of them--from the semi-independent school board. Fenty has also committed to appointing a deputy mayor for education.

He may favor radical restructuring, having told the Washington Post that "Low-performing schools have to be restructured right away, and everybody would have to reapply for their position--from the principals and teachers to guidance counselors."

That sounds right. Less appealing is Fenty's misguided focus on pouring money into D.C. schools to improve them. (Traditional public schools in D.C. already spend an average of $13,000 per child each year.)

The District began its charter school experiment a decade ago. Many of these schools operate in shoddy buildings in dangerous neighborhoods, but parents still prefer their classrooms to those of district public schools. Waiting lists run hundreds deep. In his victory speech, Fenty claimed he would be a "mayor for everybody." Families who've chosen charter schools or vouchers will want to know: does "everybody" mean their children, too?
 

The superintendent of Clark County schools (Las Vegas), Walt Rulffes, is asking the state legislature for an expansion of his new school autonomy experiment, which has been running for less than two weeks. The program bestows upon Vegas principals more decision-making authority in return for increased accountability--much like Joel Klein's "empowerment schools" in New York City. So far, Rulffes's approach is receiving good reviews from teachers and administrators, who have responded positively to their new authority (though even the most ardent supporters say it's too soon to declare the experiment successful). But that hasn't stopped the superintendent from pressing the state legislature to implement the new management strategy in as many as forty Clark County schools--up from the current four. Teachers unions back Rulffes so long as the money for the empowerment schools comes from the legislature, and not from the existing district budget. The Clark County experiment does cost money; teachers are compensated, for example, for the program's extended school days (thirty extra minutes each day that can be used for more staff development, more class time, etc.) and extended school year (five days longer). Nevada has a biennial legislative calendar, so Rulffes has to act fast, or it could be two years before he gets another shot to increase the number of empowerment schools. It will be up to the legislature whether more accountability is a good bet. Gadfly would gamble; the odds look good.

"The freedom to teach," by Emily Richmond, Las Vegas Sun, September 10, 2006

Christine Campbell, Michael DeArmond, Kacey Guin, and Deborah Warnock
Center on Reinventing Public Education
September 2006

This report provides two case studies on how traditional school district leaders are responding to the challenges of choice and competition. The districts selected for study are Dayton and Milwaukee, both because of their commonalities (declining enrollment as students opt for schools of choice, and large numbers of poor and minority pupils,) and because of their differences. Milwaukee's district is large, its management is decentralized, and its schools aren't shielded from financial realities because dollars tend to follow students to their school of choice; Dayton's school system is small with centralized management and schools are largely shielded from financial realities because school funding is based on programs and teachers, not enrollment. Because it's aimed at traditional school leaders, the report reads like a primer on market economies. Thus: "a district and its schools need to know where they stand in the market" and "principals [should] pay attention to the demands of choice." This won't be news to reformers. They may, however, appreciate the analysis of how Milwaukee's and Dayton's different district management strategies affect how the districts respond to reform pressures. In Milwaukee, for instance, where principals have considerable latitude in hiring staff and setting budgets, the district has "answered choice with choice" by creating neighborhood schools, district sponsored charter schools, partnership schools, new small high schools, etc. Because dollars are closely tied to students, a parent's decision to leave traditional schools has an immediate and profound effect on principals and their budgets. They're forced to innovate. In Dayton, by contrast, the district controls funding, thereby buffering schools (and their principals) from the economic impact of students exiting. Instead of offering more education options, Dayton is trying to win back students by constructing handsome new buildings and re-establishing schools as neighborhood centers. At this point, it's a toss-up about which strategy--if either--will work better. While it's no clarion call for school improvement, this piece is still worth sharing with an embattled superintendent near you. Read it here.

Diana W. Rigden
Reading First Teacher Education Network
September 2006

This report from the Reading First Teacher Education Network (RFTEN) points to stagnant NAEP reading scores and asks an important question: Are elementary teacher licensure tests aligned with "the essential components of effective instruction as defined by scientifically-based reading research (SBRR)"? The author evaluated eight licensure exams--five developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS) and three by National Evaluation Systems (NES)--and measured them against the SBRR's five essential components as defined by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. Encouragingly, she found that tests developed specifically to measure a teaching candidate's knowledge of reading--ETS's Introduction to the Teaching of Reading and NES's Foundations of Reading, for example--generally pass muster. So why the crummy NAEP scores and the moans that have accompanied them? The problem, it seems, is that "most states require future elementary teachers to take multi-subject licensure tests that have few items directed explicitly to the teaching of reading." (It is unclear what exactly "most states" means.) ETS's Elementary Education: Content Knowledge and Middle School English Language Arts are two such culprits. This observation has been made before; indeed, Rigden's report closely resembles Sandra Stotsky's own recent evaluation of licensure tests, which looked at five of the eight exams Rigden reviews. Rigden also recommends, however, that the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, which sponsors the RFTEN project, strengthen its own standards "to guide and influence the quality of teacher preparation programs in the United States." Nothing revolutionary here, but the report does help amplify the national grumbling over mediocrity in teaching. Rigden's and Stotsky's reports, along with the NCTQ's recent attack on education schools, form a nice one-two punch against the nemesis of poor teacher quality.