The Education Gadfly Weekly

Tom Luce and Lee Thompson, Ascent Education Press
2005

Luce founded, and Thompson's O'Donnell Foundation has helped to fund, Just for the Kids, a Texas-based organization that helps schools nationwide unleash the power of achievement test data. So while this book covers more territory, it focuses primarily on what's been learned from that work. It's fundamentally simple - to help a school improve, find other schools with similar demographics but better results, study those schools to see what they do differently, then adapt and adopt their best practices. This can, of course, be challenging to do properly, and the authors' hope is that others might learn from their work. They also highlight three other initiatives that "work": the Advanced Placement incentive programs, the Broad Prize for Urban Education, and the LEAP (Language Enrichment Activities Program) curriculum in preschool. Each of these relies on data - AP rewards students, teachers, and principals for high test scores; the Broad Prize uses achievement data in choosing the winner; and LEAP administers age-appropriate assessments to preschoolers to ensure they're learning. The book is an easy read and may be interesting to those wishing to improve schools in the brave new world of data-driven decision-making, a world that is here to stay, thanks to NCLB and the work of valuable organizations like Just for the Kids. You can buy it online for $23 at http://www.communitiesjust4kids.org/book.htm.

Institute of Education, University of London
December 2004

This short research brief discusses the effects of class size on student achievement and classroom procedures. Some of its findings are not surprising: students in smaller classes are "more likely to be the focus of a teacher's attention." But of course. As for actual achievement, however, the study found no evidence that children in smaller classes made greater progress - in any subject - than those in large classes. (A previous study by the same group did find that small classes are more effective for students in the first year of school.) The authors sympathize, and rightly so, with teachers who want to provide individual attention to students. But they propose to resolve the tension between this goal and the "constraints of the curriculum and the environment" by making "more strategic use of a third context for learning . . .that is, more use of more group work in the sense of pupils learning together with a deliberate attempt to minimize the teacher's input." In others, the kids teach one another. Consider us doubters. If you want to take a look for yourself, you can find it here.

"British study tracks effect of class size," by Debra Viadero, Education Week, January 12, 2005

United States Government Accountability Office
December 2004

Once again we learn that the public-school choice feature of NCLB isn't working well. This 55-page GAO report appraises the first two years of its implementation and finds it sorely lacking. Though ten percent of Title I schools (about 5 percent of all public schools) "have been identified for school choice," only one percent of eligible students actually transferred. The reasons are myriad and diverse, according to GAO's close examination of eight districts. The biggest are "tight timelines and insufficient classroom capacity." The Education Department's monitoring and guidance, though extensive, are not adequate, either. By and large, the Department concurs with the GAO recommendations, which include better data, better studies, yet more guidance, and various forms of public/parent information and technical assistance to states and districts. In this report, however, nobody goes to what may be the heart of the problem, namely the law itself, with its cramped view of choice and severe limits on the options that must be afforded to children stuck in bad schools. See for yourself at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d057.pdf.

"NCLB's transfer provisions stymied, GAO report says," by Caroline Hendrie, Education Week, January 5, 2005

Jay Greene & Marcus Winters, The Manhattan Institute
December 2004

This brief working paper from the Manhattan Institute makes a compelling case for the effectiveness of Florida's new retention policy. This policy, which began in 2002-03, mandates that third graders who cannot meet proficiency norms may not be socially promoted to the fourth grade. Before analyzing the data and drawing conclusions, Greene and Winters summarize and, more important, appraise earlier retention policy studies, most of which had deep methodological flaws. Then they evaluate the performance of two groups: all students who were subject to the policy (about one-fifth of these pupils were exempted from the policy and promoted despite low performance), and all of those who were actually retained. The second group posted greater overall gains than the first. Greene and Winters analyze student data for both the FCAT, Florida's own standardized test, and the Stanford 9, thus avoiding the possibility that gains were due to teachers teaching to the test (or worse). The gains are noteworthy: retained students posted relative gains of 4.10 and 3.45 percentile points in reading, and over nine points in math on both tests. The authors wisely refrain from making sweeping conclusions, as these data only reflect the first year of the new policy. It's surely a promising sign, though. You can read the full report here.

Japan's ill-considered fling with progressive education could be coming to a close, though like every starred-crossed affair unfortunate consequences linger. Yomiuri Shimbun reports that education ministers are planning to roll back portions of Japan's 1990s experiment with yutori kyoiku or "loose education," which cut the school week, decreased reliance on traditional teaching methods, and focused on using "originality and ingenuity to teach students . . . international understanding, environmental matters, and welfare and health, by, for example, allowing them to garner practical experience." (See "Dewey does Tokyo.") Sound familiar? Once "loose" education was implemented, Japanese test scores and student performance on international assessments such as TIMMS sagged and a cottage industry of "back-to-basics" education arose (click here for more). The education minister now plans to "reexamine how to secure sufficient class hours for basic subjects, including Japanese, mathematics, science, and social studies. . . . Class hours should definitely be increased for Japanese and mathematics. In particular," he observed, "being able to read and write one's mother tongue is vital." Officials expect that some Saturday class time will be reinstituted, along with other reforms.

"Ministry to change 'pressure-free' education," Yomiuri Shimbun, January 17, 2005

While No Child Left Behind requires states to issue school report cards, ostensibly to let parents know how their child's school is doing, we should observe our neighbors across the pond. "School league tables" were introduced a decade ago in Britain to offer an easy way to compare the academic achievement of different schools. But, according to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, the latest tables make comparisons harder, in part because the new system of calculations not only seeks to compare academic and vocational courses, but actually values vocational courses higher. For example, a school earns 58 points for a student scoring at the top of a national academic test but receives 68 points for a student who earns a D grade in a vocational course, such as health and beauty, while "a Level 2 certificate in cake decoration" earns 55 points. The government maintains that the new calculus benefits pupils who would otherwise graduate with no marketable skills by encouraging schools to offer more vocational courses. But the Journal argues that the system "offers an incentive for schools wanting to improve their league performance to strongly encourage pupils to switch into vocational degrees from academic ones." Of course, the editors also note the irony of having "report cards" that facilitate the comparison of schools, since parents can't do anything with that information. In the U.K., they note, all children whose parents can't afford otherwise "must attend a local school. State schools in Britain only compete for more government funding - and increases in standards occur largely through government manipulation of figures." Though we observe somewhat more choice in England and Wales, at least at the secondary level, than does the Journal, there's no doubt that gaining access to good schools is a path full of obstacles and, at day's end, has more to do with demographic formulas than individual preferences.

"Apples and candyfloss," Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2005 (subscription required)

Gadfly does not try to note every expression of pedagogical silliness out there - otherwise, he'd do nothing else! But once in while you have to stop and smell the skunk cabbage. This week, Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology and author of a book on learning styles, had a column in the New York Times so absurd as to be noteworthy. Dr. Gopnik uses words like a fog, to mask meaning and blur distinctions, so everything becomes hazy. (The better to sneak up and hit you over the head, we guess.) At base, she distinguishes "routinized learning" from "guided discovery," generally to the detriment of the former, though she insists, mind you, that this is not a "touchy-feely progressive prescription." Rather, one should have a balance of the two. The problem is that so many children are just too brilliant: they can't shed their natural inventiveness to take on the mindless routinization required to master "unnatural skills like reading and writing," which are "meaningless in themselves" - unlike, apparently, making tortillas, a task she is much taken with. Dr. Gopnik finishes off this ramble with a baseball analogy that mostly serves to highlight her unfamiliarity with America's pastime. In the end, you can't make heads or tails of this essay, which means it will likely show up in ed school curricula soon.

"How we learn," by Alison Gopnik, New York Times, January 16, 2005

Perhaps it's just a straw in the wind. Possibly it was even a mistake, a misstatement awaiting retraction. There's ample reason to describe NEA president Reg Weaver as a follower, not a leader, a perpetuator of the status quo rather than an innovator. But maybe, just maybe, the January 2005 issue of NEA Today signals a partial turn-around by the nation's largest teacher union with respect to standards-based reform in general and NCLB in particular. (You can find it here.)

Here is the key quote:

The persistent achievement gaps between white kids and kids of color; between special education students and their regular-ed buddies; between kids who eat free pizza at school and their classmates who dine frequently in fancy restaurants, are hardly new to educators. But the so-called No Child Left Behind law - with its rules that grade and penalize schools based on the test scores of each group of students - has injected new life into the public discussion of the academic divide. While that discussion is rife with criticism of the overemphasis on testing, the question of how to fix the essential problem of the "gap" remains.

What does this mean for educators, who now are charged almost single-handedly with making the problem go away? It means that it's time to ratchet up the work. The problem may be formidable and NCLB may in many ways be flawed, notes NEA President Reg Weaver, but NEA members must redouble their efforts to help struggling students beat the odds. "It's time to change the focus from defining the problem to doing something about it," says Weaver.

Could it be that the National Education Association is declaring a unilateral truce in its war on NCLB and, instead of pushing for that law's emasculation, is now exhorting its members to roll up their sleeves and apply themselves to solving the "learning gap" problem at NCLB's heart? So one might infer from this statement in the union's main publication.

What could have come over them? It would be nice to think that Weaver and his colleagues have seen the light: that too many kids are not learning enough, that some teachers are complicit in these woeful achievement gaps, and that standards-based reform is a promising solution to this huge problem. Many educators, we know, have figured this out and "gotten with the program." They deserve honor and gratitude, help and reward.

In the NEA's case, however, the likelier explanation is a careful reading of the political handwriting on the schoolhouse wall as signaled both by the 2004 election returns and by the union's reported inability to persuade a single state to join as plaintiff in its long-sought lawsuit against NCLB. Say what you will about the motives of union leaders, they're not that stupid. They can see that it does them and their members little good to commence the Bush administration's second term in the NCLB doghouse - especially with so determined an NCLB booster as Margaret Spellings in the Education Secretary's office. (A different interpretation: conceivably Weaver & Co. viewed Bush's decision to end the tenure of Rod "The NEA is a terrorist organization" Paige as a proffered olive branch requiring a suitable response.)

Still, one reads the fine print and sees that the NEA tiger hasn't turned into an education-reform kitten. They still rue the "overemphasis on testing." They still demand smaller classes and more money. The achievement gaps that concern them are "not just . . . between kids of color and whites, but between girls and boys; between gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered kids and their 'straight' peers." (I found myself wondering what's the data source for academic achievement among transgendered youngsters.)

We also need to remember that actions speak loudest and that, so far, all that's audible from the NEA is words. What will count, besides the "signals" thereby conveyed to members, journalists and politicians, is the stance of NEA lobbyists in dozens of state capitals when it's time to legislate, regulate, or appropriate, and in thousands of local school districts when it's time to negotiate the next contract or weigh exceptions to the last one. NEA Today, for example, offers a (tepid) word of support for "incentives to lure experienced teachers to needy schools." Does that mean the California Teachers Association will get behind Governor Schwarzenegger's differential-pay proposals?

In a solid profile of Denver teacher union leader Brad Jupp that appeared on January 16 in the New York Times "Education Life" supplement, Reg Weaver made clear that the job of union officials is to carry out the wishes of the members, not lead them into new territory. "Education reform is in the eye of the beholder," Weaver explained to author Douglas McGray, who summed up the NEA chieftain's "platform" as "more education financing, higher salaries, better teacher training, smaller classes, and no vouchers."

Same old, same old. And no surprise there. What will be more surprising is if Weaver and colleagues turn out to be ready to make their peace with NCLB and standards-based reform. I'm not counting on it. Yet I'm also recalling Emerson's comment when informed that New England transcendentalist Margaret Fuller had declared, "I accept the universe." "By God," quoth the sage of Concord, "she'd better."

"Working with the enemy," by Douglas McGray, New York Times, January 16, 2005

Colorado labors under a conundrum: the state's populace is the most educated in the country, with one-third holding college degrees and two-thirds having some higher education. Yet it ranks 27th for college completions, with just 20 percent of the state's ninth-graders receiving a degree. (The explanation for this discrepancy is of course Colorado's success in attracting well-educated folks from other places.) This week, Governor Bill Owens announced a new initiative to boost the college matriculation rate among Colorado students. The effort features intensive counseling in schools, a public-awareness campaign, and a new website, www.collegeincolorado.org. Owens told a crowd of 700 students that curricular changes are also in order, with "a rigorous pre-college curriculum" becoming "the default position" of K-12 instruction, the exact language used in Fordham's recent study of state math standards and along the lines of what the American Diploma Project recommended. New regulations will also require parents to opt their child out of such a high-school curriculum if they wish, rather than electing it. Owens has the balance exactly right: pushing ill-prepared kids into higher education is a recipe for heartbreak and wasted money. Building a K-12 system that develops in young people the knowledge and skills necessary for success in college is the fundamental task, while public relations efforts are important but, finally, secondary considerations.  

"State plan to prod students," by Dave Curtin, Denver Post, January 19, 2005

"Easing Colorado's education paradox," Denver Post, January 19, 2005

"Higher ed five-year plan," by John Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News, January 19, 2005

Institute of Education, University of London
December 2004

This short research brief discusses the effects of class size on student achievement and classroom procedures. Some of its findings are not surprising: students in smaller classes are "more likely to be the focus of a teacher's attention." But of course. As for actual achievement, however, the study found no evidence that children in smaller classes made greater progress - in any subject - than those in large classes. (A previous study by the same group did find that small classes are more effective for students in the first year of school.) The authors sympathize, and rightly so, with teachers who want to provide individual attention to students. But they propose to resolve the tension between this goal and the "constraints of the curriculum and the environment" by making "more strategic use of a third context for learning . . .that is, more use of more group work in the sense of pupils learning together with a deliberate attempt to minimize the teacher's input." In others, the kids teach one another. Consider us doubters. If you want to take a look for yourself, you can find it here.

"British study tracks effect of class size," by Debra Viadero, Education Week, January 12, 2005

Jay Greene & Marcus Winters, The Manhattan Institute
December 2004

This brief working paper from the Manhattan Institute makes a compelling case for the effectiveness of Florida's new retention policy. This policy, which began in 2002-03, mandates that third graders who cannot meet proficiency norms may not be socially promoted to the fourth grade. Before analyzing the data and drawing conclusions, Greene and Winters summarize and, more important, appraise earlier retention policy studies, most of which had deep methodological flaws. Then they evaluate the performance of two groups: all students who were subject to the policy (about one-fifth of these pupils were exempted from the policy and promoted despite low performance), and all of those who were actually retained. The second group posted greater overall gains than the first. Greene and Winters analyze student data for both the FCAT, Florida's own standardized test, and the Stanford 9, thus avoiding the possibility that gains were due to teachers teaching to the test (or worse). The gains are noteworthy: retained students posted relative gains of 4.10 and 3.45 percentile points in reading, and over nine points in math on both tests. The authors wisely refrain from making sweeping conclusions, as these data only reflect the first year of the new policy. It's surely a promising sign, though. You can read the full report here.

Tom Luce and Lee Thompson, Ascent Education Press
2005

Luce founded, and Thompson's O'Donnell Foundation has helped to fund, Just for the Kids, a Texas-based organization that helps schools nationwide unleash the power of achievement test data. So while this book covers more territory, it focuses primarily on what's been learned from that work. It's fundamentally simple - to help a school improve, find other schools with similar demographics but better results, study those schools to see what they do differently, then adapt and adopt their best practices. This can, of course, be challenging to do properly, and the authors' hope is that others might learn from their work. They also highlight three other initiatives that "work": the Advanced Placement incentive programs, the Broad Prize for Urban Education, and the LEAP (Language Enrichment Activities Program) curriculum in preschool. Each of these relies on data - AP rewards students, teachers, and principals for high test scores; the Broad Prize uses achievement data in choosing the winner; and LEAP administers age-appropriate assessments to preschoolers to ensure they're learning. The book is an easy read and may be interesting to those wishing to improve schools in the brave new world of data-driven decision-making, a world that is here to stay, thanks to NCLB and the work of valuable organizations like Just for the Kids. You can buy it online for $23 at http://www.communitiesjust4kids.org/book.htm.

United States Government Accountability Office
December 2004

Once again we learn that the public-school choice feature of NCLB isn't working well. This 55-page GAO report appraises the first two years of its implementation and finds it sorely lacking. Though ten percent of Title I schools (about 5 percent of all public schools) "have been identified for school choice," only one percent of eligible students actually transferred. The reasons are myriad and diverse, according to GAO's close examination of eight districts. The biggest are "tight timelines and insufficient classroom capacity." The Education Department's monitoring and guidance, though extensive, are not adequate, either. By and large, the Department concurs with the GAO recommendations, which include better data, better studies, yet more guidance, and various forms of public/parent information and technical assistance to states and districts. In this report, however, nobody goes to what may be the heart of the problem, namely the law itself, with its cramped view of choice and severe limits on the options that must be afforded to children stuck in bad schools. See for yourself at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d057.pdf.

"NCLB's transfer provisions stymied, GAO report says," by Caroline Hendrie, Education Week, January 5, 2005