The Education Gadfly Weekly

The Education Trust
2003

This 8-pager, subtitled "answers to common questions about the new No Child Left Behind Act," attempts to build enthusiasm for NCLB and to encourage strenuous efforts to comply with it by dispelling eleven "myths" about it. Because these myths (e.g. "student achievement goals...are impossible," "ESEA requires teachers to 'teach to the test'," states could lose their federal funding) are the sort that might be used to excuse failure or cynicism vis-??-vis NCLB, it's good to lay them to rest. In one or two cases, however, the authors split hairs in order to remain reassuring. For instance, one "myth" is that "Many schools will be declared 'failing schools' under ESEA." The EdTrust response is that "There is no such thing as a 'failing school' under ESEA," though the law does "recognize that some schools are in need of improvement, some schools need corrective action, and that persistently under-performing schools need to be restructured." It's not absolutely clear that a meaningful distinction can be drawn between a "failing" school and a "persistently under-performing" one. But it's better to err in this direction than the other, and this pamphlet is worth sharing with any state or local education officials whom you catch muttering words of despair, exasperation or dismay about the changes sought by NCLB. You can download a copy at http://www.edtrust.org/main/documents/ESEAmyth&real.pdf.

Robert Holland, The Lexington Institute
December 2002

This thirteen-pager by the Lexington Institute's Robert Holland contends that certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) doesn't mean much in terms of student learning, but that the Board's existence has helped to tighten the education profession's grip on classroom entry and rewards. The author is pleased that an alternative approach - the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence - is now emerging. You can read it at http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/education/pdf/HollandNatlTeachCert.pdf.

Kalman R. Hettleman, Abell Foundation
February 2003

Since the early 1990s, researchers have made solid gains in understanding how children's brains develop, grow and produce uniquely human capacities. The insights now emerging from brain science are beginning to impact on education, but far too slowly, and nowhere is this truer than in the study of reading disabilities. The author of this report, Kalman Hettleman, notes that reading scientists have reached agreement that:

• Most reading difficulties, including dyslexia, are caused by core deficits in phonological awareness. In other words, children cannot make enough connections between spoken and written letters and words, blocking their ability to master the foundational reading skills of decoding and word recognition.
  
• Such deficits in phonological awareness are found among children with low as well as high IQs.
  
• These deficits can usually be identified as early as pre-kindergarten or kindergarten and effectively treated.

What these insights mean in practice is that the vast majority of reading disabilities are "curable" if identified and treated early. This matters greatly. Hettleman observes that "at least 20 percent of the children in Baltimore City public schools and other large urban districts can be called 'invisible dyslexics,'" which means they have treatable reading disabilities. But, despite our new knowledge, most of these children are not identified or taught using research-proven reading programs. To keep these children from being condemned to a life of bare literacy-and the poverty and crime associated with this-Hettleman advocates a "zero tolerance" approach to early reading deficits. This would require changes in special ed laws and a revolution in how educators approach reading. Hettleman writes that "the education establishment has been slow to respond to the new research consensus." President Bush's Reading First and Early Reading First initiatives are intended to help the nation step up its preschool and K-3 reading programs, but money lags behind policy. To see this important report for yourself go to http://www.abell.org/pubsitems/ed_invisible_dyslexics.pdf.

Robert J. Marzano, The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
2003

Robert J. Marzano authored this pricey ($25.95) volume for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). He contends that U.S. public education is "at the dawn of the best of times" because research has provided a solid foundation for schools to "have a tremendous impact on student achievement." Indeed, he says, "The schools that are highly effective produce results that almost entirely overcome the effects of student background." If that's so, then nobody has an excuse for leaving any children behind - or for blaming kids, parents or nasty environments for weak academic performance. All that's needed is to assure that every school is "highly effective." And what would that take? Marzano starts by insisting that it "requires a powerful commitment to change the status quo," which is surely true. Then he outlines five school-level factors, three teacher-level factors and three student-level factors that, in combination, would assure highly effective schools with high achieving students. He develops each of these elements into a short chapter, most of which are careful rehashes of effective-schools and effective-teachers research. What's perplexing is his contention, that 80 percent of the variance in student achievement is accounted for by student factors and that what is arguably the most potent of these - home environment - is not very susceptible to intervention by the school. That's probably true but seems to undermine his claim that every school can become effective. Aside from that substantial puzzlement, this book is a pretty good, if somewhat too constructivist, recap of much research on school effectiveness. Unlike many such, it's also pretty specific about how to put these research findings into practice. The ISBN is 0871207176 and you can learn more at http://www.whatworksinschools.org/marzano.cfm.

Breaking up a popular, high-achieving neighborhood elementary school because it doesn't have enough white students, even though the suburban black parents who send their children there are pleased with the school. Trying to shut down charter schools, though they cost less to run than traditional public schools, their students' performance may be superior, and they have long waiting lists. Giving parents the runaround when they try to transfer their children out of schools classified as failing. What do these real-life scenarios have in common? They're all examples of the uncanny instinct of the Massachusetts education establishment to resist anything that threatens its hegemony. Jeff Jacoby skewers the hydra that controls public education in a hard-hitting column that appeared last week in the Boston Globe.

"Assault on school reform," by Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, February 13, 2003

Over the past thirty years, per-pupil spending on education has doubled. Almost half of this increase was caused by the hiring of many more teachers. As a result, the number of students per U.S. teacher has shrunk from 22 to 15 since the early 1970s. Oddly, this hasn't led to a reduction in class size; instead, the average teacher simply faces fewer classes per day. Why has the additional money been channeled into more teachers teaching fewer classes? According to the Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene and Greg Forster, the ones who benefit the most from this arrangement are the teachers' unions; by jacking up the total number of teachers, they collect more dues and enlarge the ranks of shock troops they can call on to volunteer at election time.

"Widespread exploitation," by Jay Greene and Greg Forster, National Review Online, February 10, 2003

You won't see any references to bookworms, busybodies, craftsmanship, cults, dialects, dogma, extremists, fairies, heroines, huts, jungles, lumberjacks, limping, Navajos, one-man bands, slaves, snowmen, straw men, or yachts in today's textbooks. That's because these terms are among the hundreds that turn up in lists of banned words and phrases, lists now widely used by writers, editors, and illustrators when preparing textbooks or tests. They've all been banished as sexist, ethnocentric, offensive to the handicapped, inauthentic, elitist or otherwise troublesome. The Atlantic Monthly has published a short glossary of banned words compiled by Diane Ravitch; the list is an abridgement of a longer list that will appear in her new book, The Language Police, to be published in April by Knopf.

"The Language Police," by Diane Ravitch, The Atlantic Monthly, March 2003 (not available online)

A revised SAT being developed by the College Board and psychologist Robert Sternberg produces smaller test score gaps across racial groups and can help colleges achieve diversity without using affirmative action, its developers claim. The test, which aims to measure creative and practical skills as well as memory and analytical ability, was recently field-tested and the results were better at predicting college success than the current SAT, Sternberg says. The new test is meant to augment the SAT, however, not replace it. College admissions offices have always defended their use of the SAT by explaining that the scores of high school seniors are correlated with the grades they will receive in their freshman year of college. If the new test does a better job of predicting freshman GPA while also boosting racial diversity, it's likely that admissions offices will welcome its use. A more critical reaction is expected from those who believe that what the current SAT measures - vocabulary, analytical ability, etc., - is more important than creative and practical skills, and from those who prefer tests focused on curricular mastery to those that appraise aptitude per se.

"SAT revision passes first test," UPI, February 11, 2003

Last week, New York City chancellor Joel I. Klein released the list of 208 schools that will be exempt from the new citywide math and reading curricula that go into effect next year in the rest of the country's largest school system.

Ignore for now the issue of whether a uniform citywide curriculum is a good idea. [On that point, see "Letter from New York City: Bloomberg's Reforms," by Diane Ravitch. Disregard as well the awkward question of whether Klein has chosen sound reading and math programs. [See "Chancellor's New Reading Program Is Unproven," by Diane Ravitch, Newsday, February 10, 2003 for more on this.] Focus instead on two other aspects of this policy.

The first is Klein's (and Mayor Bloomberg's) decision not to impose their new curricular regime on the Big Apple's best schools. This is presumably meant to reward them for their success with a measure of autonomy and self-determination that will be denied to less successful schools - and to follow the ancient maxim that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Note, though, that these schools aren't getting any new freedoms or building-level prerogatives (more control over personnel or budget, say); they're simply not losing any of the curricular independence - some would say fragmentation-that previously characterized all of Gotham's schools.

That exemption provoked grumbling before the list came out, for the mere idea of making such a list means distinguishing between higher- and lower-performing schools, i.e. naming the haves and the have-nots and recognizing that they're different. Critics said this will divide the system into (in teacher union chief Randi Weingarten's phrase) "schools that work and schools that don't." A principal (whose school ended up on the list) warned that "What you're going to have is two very different cities. It's going to make the rift wider."

Educators often talk that way because they don't much like competition, which leads to winners and losers, and they don't like comparisons, which can make some people and institutions look bad. But such laments carry little weight in the real world and, in the No Child Left Behind era, they carry less, considering that state and federal governments now publish long lists of failing schools and that comparisons of schools that do and don't make "adequate yearly progress" are becoming the name of the education game.

So turn to the second and more vexing issue, which is how Klein & Co. determined which schools are "successful." They wanted to base this distinction on test scores, in particular on the proportion of a school's pupils who are "at or above grade level" on state and city reading and math tests. That seems reasonable. At least it deals with outcomes, with standards, and with the two core subjects being tracked by NCLB.

As everyone knows, the tests show that most New York schools have a huge distance yet to traverse. Only 39 percent of elementary/middle school students attained grade level in reading and just 37 percent in math. (Averaging across grades is problematic, though, considering that 52 percent of 4th graders met the math standard in 2002 but only 26 percent of 7th graders managed to do that.)

So it's good to give schools additional incentives to improve their scores. But building the list according to a strict test-score hierarchy posed two big problems. The politically vexing one was the likelihood that an overwhelming fraction of the top schools would be located in middle class and white (and Asian) neighborhoods. Given New York's hypersensitivity in such matters of ethnicity, to term that a politically problematic outcome would be a gross understatement.

The educationally vexing problem was that a simple score hierarchy would reward some schools that regularly turn in high scores but are "running in place," i.e. making no gains from year to year and possibly adding little academic value to their pupils, while hard-charging schools making significant gains and adding much value would feel punished because they hadn't yet attained "grade level." This would be especially awkward when NCLB is telling schools that all must progress from their baseline toward universal proficiency, not rest on their laurels.

In a word, Klein and Bloomberg needed a way to ensure that the list would contain sufficient ethnic and economic diversity and would at least make a gesture of recognition to rapidly improving schools. So they opted for a form of affirmative action. They sorted the city's schools into three categories, based on poverty levels and proportions of LEP (limited English proficient) and special-ed students. Then they assigned different "cut scores" to each category. The least poor ("low need") schools had to attain a score of at least 140 (160 for high schools) when the percent of kids meeting the city/state reading standard is added to the percent meeting the math standard. (Thus, for example, a school could hit that mark if 80 percent of its pupils perform well in reading and 60 percent in math - or vice versa.)

For the poorest ("high need") schools, however, the cut-off score was 110 (and 125 for the middle category). Additionally, a school was deemed "successful" if it made big gains last year AND its score came within ten points of its category's cutoff.

As affirmative action always does, this scheme had two predictable effects: it yielded a measure of diversity - about 40 percent of the children in the 208 winning schools are black and Hispanic - and it provoked an outcry from those whose schools would have made the list under a strict meritocracy but were shut out by the triage system.

Thus, for example, Middle School 167 on the prosperous Upper East Side, which has long touted its test scores, lost out because its combined score was 128 - which would have been enough if its students were "needier" and likely would have been enough under a single ranking system. This infuriated its elite parents. One told The New York Times that she will surely move her daughter into a private school if M.S. 167 is forced to follow the citywide curriculum. (Aggrieved schools have a couple of weeks in which to appeal to Klein.)

In due course, one assumes, criticisms will also be voiced by minority leaders and spokesmen for the poor, dismayed that Klein's selection scheme yielded a list of schools enrolling just 2/5 black and brown youngsters in a system where white and Asian pupils comprise barely 1/4 of the total.

When the dust settles, plenty more questions will remain. Is it not condescending and deterministic to accept lower performance standards for poor children a year after NCLB sought to end such thinking? Will Chancellor Klein's uniform curriculum make things better or worse at the thousand schools that will now be told what to teach? And what happens if New York City's reward system for schools turns out to be incompatible with the state's newly approved NCLB plan for tracking yearly progress? How embarrassing if some schools in Klein's "successful" category emerge as candidates for intervention or reconstitution under federal law.

"Joy and anger greet list of top city schools," by Abby Goodnough and Jennifer Medina, The New York Times, February 15, 2003

With the Supreme Court scheduled to hear oral arguments on the University of Michigan's affirmative action admissions policies in April, the debate over such policies grows ever hotter. As this week's deadline for filing briefs approached, more than 300 organizations representing universities, corporations, labor unions, and the military announced that they would support the University's affirmative action policies.

Last month, the Bush administration gingerly threw its weight behind the anti-affirmative action crowd, filing a cautious amicus brief that opposed quotas. The administration has also pointed toward an alternative admissions method used in the President's home state of Texas as a possible substitute for affirmative action. Known as a "percent plan," it guarantees college admission to those who graduate near the top of their high school class. California and Florida also have percent plans, though these differ in many specifics (the percentage of the class guaranteed admission; whether the student earns admission simply to the state system or to the campus of his/her choice; and whether the plan applies to public high schools only or includes private schools). The common denominator, however, is that supporters believe such plans will generate diverse college populations without explicitly using race as a factor.

Two new reports by the Harvard Civil Rights Project question this assumption and in doing so shed light on the complexity of this issue. (See Percent Plans in College Admissions: A Comparative Analysis of Three States and Appearance and Reality in the Sunshine State: The Talented 20 Program in Florida.) The reports are clear in their ideology - that affirmative action must be preserved-and slant their conclusions accordingly, but they also raise some important issues.

Researchers from the Civil Rights Project examined Texas, California, and Florida together (and provided a second report just on Florida) and concluded that percent plans have done little to foster diversity. Most students guaranteed college admission under the plans would have been admitted anyway, they say; hence percent plans are no substitute for old-fashioned affirmative action.

Close readers will notice, however, that the racial compositions of most of the schools examined by the Harvard crew changed little, if at all, after switching from affirmative action to percent plans. The authors choose to ignore this data, suggesting first that the appropriate goal should be to increase diversity, not hold it steady, and second, that any recent progress is due not to the percent plans, but to efforts by the schools to increase outreach, recruitment and financial aid aimed toward minorities. (They also fuss that these efforts are more expensive to implement than affirmative action.) In short, they argue that there is no proof that percent plans have worked - and of course there isn't, because the admissions plans were accompanied by other efforts to promote diversity and we only have a few years of data. Still, the data used in these studies could as easily lead one to contend that there's no proof that percent plans will impede diversity. In fact, the evidence suggests that it's been preserved.

Critics raise some valid questions: that these plans have been implemented differently everywhere; that elite Universities like Berkeley may not be able to make effective use of percent plans; that information about these plans has been inadequately distributed in poor areas; and that they would work differently - and maybe less well - at schools like Michigan with lots of out-of-state students untouched by the in-state percent plans.

It's certainly the case that, after eliminating conventional affirmative action, the schools that used percent plans also boosted their other efforts to attract minorities. The Harvard civil rights crusaders say this means we've simply shifted race-based practices from admissions decisions to recruiting and financial aid. But some of these other efforts - e.g., encouraging 8th graders to do well in high school in order to be eligible for a percent plan, or increasing college awareness among minorities - could have a bigger impact than affirmative action itself.

So beware of articles decrying the sins of percent plans, but also don't assume these plans are a cure-all. If one values diversity, one may need to accompany such plans with additional efforts. Percent plans also may contain other limits, such as Florida's guarantee of admission into the state university system but not necessarily to the higher-status campuses. Given the attention such plans have received in Washington and the continuous nature of affirmative action, however, we can expect this debate to continue for some time to come.

Percent Plans in College Admissions: A Comparative Analysis of Three States, by Catherine L. Horn and Stella M. Flores, The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University, February 2003

Appearance and Reality in the Sunshine State: The Talented 20 Program in Florida, by Patricia Marin and Edgar K. Lee, The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University, February 2003

"Groups Support University of Michigan Affirmative Action Case," by Diana Jean Schemo, The New York Times, February 18, 2003

Kalman R. Hettleman, Abell Foundation
February 2003

Since the early 1990s, researchers have made solid gains in understanding how children's brains develop, grow and produce uniquely human capacities. The insights now emerging from brain science are beginning to impact on education, but far too slowly, and nowhere is this truer than in the study of reading disabilities. The author of this report, Kalman Hettleman, notes that reading scientists have reached agreement that:

• Most reading difficulties, including dyslexia, are caused by core deficits in phonological awareness. In other words, children cannot make enough connections between spoken and written letters and words, blocking their ability to master the foundational reading skills of decoding and word recognition.
  
• Such deficits in phonological awareness are found among children with low as well as high IQs.
  
• These deficits can usually be identified as early as pre-kindergarten or kindergarten and effectively treated.

What these insights mean in practice is that the vast majority of reading disabilities are "curable" if identified and treated early. This matters greatly. Hettleman observes that "at least 20 percent of the children in Baltimore City public schools and other large urban districts can be called 'invisible dyslexics,'" which means they have treatable reading disabilities. But, despite our new knowledge, most of these children are not identified or taught using research-proven reading programs. To keep these children from being condemned to a life of bare literacy-and the poverty and crime associated with this-Hettleman advocates a "zero tolerance" approach to early reading deficits. This would require changes in special ed laws and a revolution in how educators approach reading. Hettleman writes that "the education establishment has been slow to respond to the new research consensus." President Bush's Reading First and Early Reading First initiatives are intended to help the nation step up its preschool and K-3 reading programs, but money lags behind policy. To see this important report for yourself go to http://www.abell.org/pubsitems/ed_invisible_dyslexics.pdf.

Robert Holland, The Lexington Institute
December 2002

This thirteen-pager by the Lexington Institute's Robert Holland contends that certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) doesn't mean much in terms of student learning, but that the Board's existence has helped to tighten the education profession's grip on classroom entry and rewards. The author is pleased that an alternative approach - the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence - is now emerging. You can read it at http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/education/pdf/HollandNatlTeachCert.pdf.

Robert J. Marzano, The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
2003

Robert J. Marzano authored this pricey ($25.95) volume for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). He contends that U.S. public education is "at the dawn of the best of times" because research has provided a solid foundation for schools to "have a tremendous impact on student achievement." Indeed, he says, "The schools that are highly effective produce results that almost entirely overcome the effects of student background." If that's so, then nobody has an excuse for leaving any children behind - or for blaming kids, parents or nasty environments for weak academic performance. All that's needed is to assure that every school is "highly effective." And what would that take? Marzano starts by insisting that it "requires a powerful commitment to change the status quo," which is surely true. Then he outlines five school-level factors, three teacher-level factors and three student-level factors that, in combination, would assure highly effective schools with high achieving students. He develops each of these elements into a short chapter, most of which are careful rehashes of effective-schools and effective-teachers research. What's perplexing is his contention, that 80 percent of the variance in student achievement is accounted for by student factors and that what is arguably the most potent of these - home environment - is not very susceptible to intervention by the school. That's probably true but seems to undermine his claim that every school can become effective. Aside from that substantial puzzlement, this book is a pretty good, if somewhat too constructivist, recap of much research on school effectiveness. Unlike many such, it's also pretty specific about how to put these research findings into practice. The ISBN is 0871207176 and you can learn more at http://www.whatworksinschools.org/marzano.cfm.

The Education Trust
2003

This 8-pager, subtitled "answers to common questions about the new No Child Left Behind Act," attempts to build enthusiasm for NCLB and to encourage strenuous efforts to comply with it by dispelling eleven "myths" about it. Because these myths (e.g. "student achievement goals...are impossible," "ESEA requires teachers to 'teach to the test'," states could lose their federal funding) are the sort that might be used to excuse failure or cynicism vis-??-vis NCLB, it's good to lay them to rest. In one or two cases, however, the authors split hairs in order to remain reassuring. For instance, one "myth" is that "Many schools will be declared 'failing schools' under ESEA." The EdTrust response is that "There is no such thing as a 'failing school' under ESEA," though the law does "recognize that some schools are in need of improvement, some schools need corrective action, and that persistently under-performing schools need to be restructured." It's not absolutely clear that a meaningful distinction can be drawn between a "failing" school and a "persistently under-performing" one. But it's better to err in this direction than the other, and this pamphlet is worth sharing with any state or local education officials whom you catch muttering words of despair, exasperation or dismay about the changes sought by NCLB. You can download a copy at http://www.edtrust.org/main/documents/ESEAmyth&real.pdf.