The Education Gadfly Weekly

The Education Trust
2006

This latest installment of The Education Trust's annual series on the inequities in school funding is as essential as its predecessors. It succinctly explains how states and districts short-change schools that serve poor or minority students. One learns that in 2003-04, for example, Illinois spent $1,900 less per-pupil in its high-poverty schools than in their wealthier counterparts, and $1,200 less in high-minority schools than in low-minority ones. In New York the gaps were even larger: $2,300 and $2,200 respectively. Of course not all states' gaps are so egregious. Some, such as Massachusetts, actually target more funds to its neediest schools. This year, the report also includes two insightful guest-writers. The first, Goodwin Liu of UC Berkeley, explains how federal Title I funding is systematically allocated to states with fewer high-poverty students, thus exacerbating inter-state funding differences. He suggests a couple of remedies: Title I should reward states for their spending "effort" (i.e., spending as a function of their tax base) rather than total spending, and the feds should spend more overall to smooth out differences among states. Why not just fund students on a per-pupil basis? The second is Marguerite Roza of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, who explains how districts obscure inequities among their individual schools, both by "salary averaging" (i.e., budgets that hide the fact that more expensive teachers tend to work in wealthier, low-minority schools) and by using "unrestricted" funds unfairly--sometimes simply by allocating resources among schools with little regard for their students' needs. Weighted student funding would help address all of these inequities, as would a sustained commitment to unraveling the "tangled webs" that school budgets have become. Money is no panacea, but this report is right to note that we must "at least measure whether money is being appropriately targeted to provide extra support to the students and schools who start out behind." You can find it online here.

Louann Bierlein Palmer
Progressive Policy Institute
December 2006

Fordham produced two of the first studies on charter authorizers in the nation (see here and here). Now, Louann Bierlein Palmer, who co-authored the first of our studies, has issued this report on "alternative" authorizers, which are "rapidly becoming the preferred authorizers and are increasingly being asked to develop model authorizing practices." An "alternative authorizer" is defined as a group functioning outside the traditional realm of public K-12 school governance. (To date, just 14 of 41 states and the District of Columbia permit alternative authorizers.) Alternative groups, according to Palmer, are also distinguished by these three characteristics: 1) their desire to work as authorizers, 2) their relative isolation from politics, and 3) their ability to create infrastructure, and not just serve as an overseer. Palmer examines four major types of alternative authorizers (separate state-level charter boards, higher education institutions, municipal offices, and nonprofit organizations) and rates how strongly each embraces the above-mentioned characteristics. The result is an interesting snapshot of the range of strengths and weaknesses that each brings to the table. (Nonprofits are more insulated from politics than are separate state charter boards, for example, and therefore more likely to make data-driven decisions.) Policy makers looking to bring alternative authorizers into their states will benefit from Palmer's detailed descriptions and analysis. Read it here.

Although Massachusetts students lead the nation in math scores, state education officials are nervous-less than 50 percent of Bay State youngsters demonstrate a solid command on national math tests, and elementary math scores on MCAS exams have not risen in two years. Sandra Stotsky, a new state Board of Education member, blames shoddy teacher preparation: "If we don't have high-achieving teachers, how do you get high-achieving students?" Good question, and policymakers in Massachusetts are answering it. Starting in 2008, elementary school teachers will have to pass a broader and tougher math sub-test to earn a license. Math instruction is also receiving corrective action in Maryland. In response to the recent NCTM report (see here), state officials are proposing to revamp their math standards, which they say are "a mile wide and an inch deep," by narrowing them to three, focused objectives in each grade level (as opposed to the 50 or 60 each now contains). Stronger math skills and less scoliosis? A promising start, indeed.

"Teachers' math skills are targeted," by Maria Sacchetti, Boston Globe, January 2, 2007

"Can Less Equal More?" by Liz Bowie, Baltimore Sun, January 2, 2007

For almost five years now, I've considered myself a supporter of the No Child Left Behind Act. And not just the casual flag-waver variety. Much of that time I spent inside the Bush Administration, trying to make the law work, explaining its vision to hundreds of audiences, even wearing an NCLB pin on my lapel. I was a True Believer.

In a way, I still am. After all, in the 21^st Century, saying you "support" NCLB is shorthand for affirming a set of ideas, values, and hopes for the country as much as an expression about a particular statute. I'm not just referring to the proposition that "no child should be left behind"--the notion that we have a moral responsibility to provide a decent education for everyone. Ninety-nine percent of the education establishment can get behind that "purpose" of the law and still resist meaningful reform.

I mean a set of powerful--and controversial--ideas that provide the subtext for all the big NCLB battles. First, that virtually all children (even those living in poverty) have the capacity to achieve a reasonable level of proficiency in reading and math by the time they turn 18--and that it's the education system's job to make sure they do. Second, that everyone benefits from having someone looking over his shoulder and that schools and school systems need external pressure-i.e., accountability-in order to improve; good intentions aren't enough. Third, that good education is synonymous with good teaching. This requires good teachers, which every child deserves, but which today's education bureaucracies, licensure rules, ed schools, and union contracts too often impede. Fourth, that giving parents choices within the education system has all kinds of positive benefits, from creating healthy competitive pressures to allowing educators to customize their programs instead of trying to be all things to all people. And fifth, that improving education is a national imperative, and that the federal government can and should play a constructive role.

In other words, at the level of ideas, NCLB is the embodiment of the 1990s era education reform playbook. Educators, policymakers, think tankers, and activists who "support" NCLB are saying "I'm part of the education reform team."

But does that mean that they necessarily agree with the machinery of the law itself? Speaking personally, I've gradually and reluctantly come to the conclusion that NCLB as enacted is fundamentally flawed and probably beyond repair.

Of course, I harbored doubts about certain specifics from the beginning. You didn't have to be a genius to see the "highly qualified teachers" mandate as a huge overreach and a probable failure, as it took a reasonable notion (teachers should know their stuff) and tried to enforce it through a rigid rule-based mechanism (second guessing principals who, for instance, hired engineers as math teachers). Nor was it hard to determine that asking all states to reach universal "proficiency" by 2014 but allowing them to define "proficiency" as they saw fit would create a race to the bottom.

Other flaws took me longer to appreciate. For example:

• Surely schools would respond thoughtfully to the law's incentives to boost achievement in reading and math, and would understand that providing a broad, content-rich education would give them the best shot at boosting test scores, right? Yet the anecdotes (and increasingly, evidence) keep rolling in of schools turning into test-prep factories and narrowing the curriculum. (See here, for example.)
  

• Surely if those of us at the Department of Education pushed hard enough we could get districts to inform parents of their school choice options under the law, and ensure that kids trapped in failing schools have better places to go, right? Yet (as I conclude in this paper presented in December at the American Enterprise Institute), hard experience has shown that "stronger implementation" would only make a difference at the margin. It cannot solve the fundamental problem: in most of our big cities, there are too few good schools to go around. Uncle Sam can't snap his fingers and make it otherwise. Furthermore, while it's hard enough to force recalcitrant states and districts to do things they don't want to do, it's impossible to force them to do those things well. And when it comes to informing parents, creating new schools, or implementing almost any of NCLB's many pieces, it's not enough for states or districts to go through the motions. They have to want to make it succeed. If they don't, Washington is out of luck. It has no tools or levers to alter the situation. That's why I've called much of the law "un-implementable."

So I shouldn't have been surprised when the AFT's Michele McLaughlin wrote in her NCLB blog about the AEI conference, "Petrilli and Checker Finn...seem to be arguing for a more limited role for the feds in education because the U.S. Department of Education doesn't have the ability to get states and districts to implement the law well. Unless I am missing something, this seems to be a shift in position for the Fordham Foundation, which has been a major supporter of NCLB."

Guilty as charged. I can't pretend any longer that the law is "working," or that a tweak and a tuck would make it "work." Yet I still like its zeitgeist. As Kati Haycock argued at the AEI confab, NCLB has "changed the conversation" in education. Results are now the coin of the realm; the "soft bigotry of low expectations" is taboo; closing the achievement gap is at the top of everyone's to-do list. All for the good. More than good. But let's face it: it doesn't help the dedicated principal who is pulling her hair out because of the law's nonsensical provisions--the specifics that keep NCLB from achieving its own aims.

Here's the crux of the matter: when it's time for reauthorization, can we overhaul the law itself without letting go of its powerful ideas? Two other outcomes are more likely. One is the tweak regimen: the law gets renewed but remains mostly unchanged, and we continue to muddle through, driving even well-intentioned educators crazy and not achieving the results we seek. (This is the prediction of most "education insiders.") It amounts to ostrich-like stubbornness in the face of evidence that an overhaul is what's needed. The second is bathtub emptying: throw the baby out along with the murky water and give up on the law and its ideals. Then we go back to the days when schools felt little pressure to get all of their students prepared for college and life and democratic participation, and we declare No Child Left Behind another failed experiment.

That would be a disaster.

What, then, to do? In my opinion, the way forward starts with a more realistic assessment of what the federal government can reasonably hope to achieve in education. Using sticks and carrots to tug and prod states and districts in desired directions has proven unworkable. It was worth trying, but experience has taught us that this approach suffers from too much hubris and humility at the same time. Instead of this muddle, the feds should adopt a simple, radical principle: Do it yourself, or don't do it at all.

In the "Do it Yourself" category would be two major responsibilities: distributing funds to the neediest students, and collecting and publishing transparent information about the performance of U.S. schools. Redistributing funds is easy; it's what Washington does best. Still, it could do it even better by adopting weighted student funding, ensuring that dollars follow children to their school of choice, with extra cash following students with the greatest needs. Furthermore, it could do more to ensure that high poverty schools receive equitable resources before the federal dollars arrive. (December's Funding Gaps report from Ed Trust demonstrates the screwiness of today's federal funding formulas.)

As for its second responsibility, an important bullet waits to be bitten: collect and publish swift, reliable, and comparable data on the performance of the nation's schools via clear national standards, a rigorous national test, and a common approach to school ratings (e.g., a single definition of "adequate yearly progress"). Then everyone would have a consistent and fair way to distinguish good schools from bad. We would have consistently high expectations for all students and all schools, and would end the federal/state cat-and-mouse games being played over accountability. The federal government should also make school-level financial information transparent (a necessity to achieve the funding reforms mentioned above) and continue to pay for high-quality research and make its results transparent and accessible to all.

Into the "Don't Do it At All" bucket goes everything else. No more federal mandates on teacher quality. No more prescriptive "cascade of sanctions" for failing schools. No more federal guarantee of school choice for children not being well-served. The states would worry about how to define and achieve greater teacher quality (or, better, teacher effectiveness). The states would decide when and how to intervene in failing schools. The states would develop new capacity for school choice. These are all important, powerful reforms, but they have proven beyond Uncle Sam's capacity to make happen. These policy battles should return to the state level, where governments can actually do something about them and do them right. And if the federal government just can't help itself and wants to "promote" these causes, let it offer competitive grants for states and districts that want to move in these directions.

The Do It Yourself or Don't Do It At All Act doesn't have the same ring as leaving no child behind. But its zeitgeist is the same. It would also be a better fit for our federalist system and a more effective vehicle for the reform ideas that we NCLB supporters hold so dear. In this new year, let us resolve to be humble enough to admit the law's limitations and brave enough to stand up for its ideals.

Inspired by the good work of our Washington Insiders (see here), Gadfly screwed up his courage to offer these predictions about what America's ten most influential ed-policy organizations (so says the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center) will accomplish in 2007:

U.S. Congress: Struggling to re-authorize NCLB, deadlocks over whether to re-name law the "It Takes a Village Act" or the "Audacity of Hope Act."

U.S. Department of Education: Bent on eliminating all ineffectual federal education programs, finds itself left with nothing but Reading First and its two employees.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Despairing of the intractable task of reforming U.S. high schools, determines to reform driver education (with emphasis on small cars).

Education Trust: Hires Borat to scour nation for vivid examples of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

National Governors Association: Abandoning hope for a common metric by which to track high school graduation rates, opts to develop common metric for counting the books on school-library shelves.

American Federation of Teachers: Selects Diane Ravitch as its next president (see here).

Achieve, Inc.: Armed with $50 million more from the Gates Foundation, and fearing the 50 states may never agree on anything, re-brands its leading project the "Inter-American Diploma Project," recruits Bolivia, Nicaragua, Chihuahua, St. Kitts, and Prince Edward Island to align their high school exit and university-entrance expectations.

National Education Association: After tangling with George Miller over teacher qualifications, brands Democratic Party a "terrorist organization" and commits all future political support to G.O.P. candidates.

Thomas B. Fordham Foundation: Reversing its ban on taking federal funds, accepts $95 million grant from U.S. Department of Education to say nothing further about NCLB.

Center on Education Policy: Heartened by Democratic electoral success, Jack Jennings shuts center, returns to Capitol Hill as chief policy staffer for both Kennedy and Miller.

Gadfly also spent the holiday at a series of undisclosed locations where he could surreptitiously overhear America's thirteen most influential ed-policy influencers make their New Year's resolutions. Here is what he heard:

Bill Gates: "I resolve to fund a new curriculum operating system that will gradually assert its dominance by pushing other instructional methods out of the market and mercilessly quashing competing lesson plans"

George W. Bush: "If Connecticut and Utah aren't with us on NCLB then they're against us. As the Decider-in-Chief, I resolve to send in the Marines under General Spellings."

Kati Haycock: "I resolve that this time around EdTrust will draft 100 percent of the ESEA reauthorization bill-and we'll begin disaggregating AYP results according to kids' body-mass index, too."

G. Reid Lyon: "I'm going to Asia to rid Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and Thai, once and for all, of their whole-language proclivities."

Edward M. Kennedy: "I resolve to get 4 billion dollars for the ‘historic whaling partnerships' program."

Bill Clinton: "At least once a week, I will remind Hillary to reiterate her support for the finest domestic accomplishment of the first Clinton administration, the No Child Left Behind act."

Richard W. Riley: "And I'll remind Hillary that we were for national testing before the danged Republicans messed things up."

James B. Hunt Jr.: "I resolve once again to serve the people of North Carolina as their governor (and we'll move the National Board's office to Raleigh)."

Marshall (Mike) Smith: "I promise to stay the hell out of Washington, no matter who offers me the deputy secretary job again."

Margaret Spellings: "I, too, resolve to spend as little time as possible in or near Washington, D.C. (Foreign travel is much more fun.)"

Linda Darling-Hammond: "I resolve to go one full year without saying anything unkind about the Teach for America program."

George Miller: "I resolve not to let Kennedy go squishy on highly-qualified teachers no matter how hard the unions press him."

Chester E. Finn, Jr.: "I resolve to move higher on this damned list."

Gadfly was buzzed even before the champagne started flowing New Year's Eve, thanks to a late-December story in the Christian Science Monitor. It profiles Betsy Rogers of Alabama, winner of the 2003 National Teacher of the Year award. After receiving it, she transferred to the perennially struggling K-8 Brighton School just outside Birmingham. Rogers came to the school as curriculum coordinator (a teacher for teachers), believing the worst schools deserve the best instructors. "I don't see this as being a big sacrifice," she said. "It should be obvious why a teacher would want to go into a needy school." Should be, but often isn't, as this New York Times editorial about seniority "bumping" explains. Rogers, aided by her principal and a host of subject experts who work with Brighton's teachers, is turning things around. Last year, 82 percent of the school's fourth graders couldn't pass the state reading test--this year, 73 percent of that same cohort reached the "proficiency" mark. The district was so impressed that it asked Rogers to become its school improvement specialist. She said yes, but only if she could be based in Brighton. "I've learned more here in the last three years than I have in forever," she said. For her next act, perhaps she can convince more teachers to follow in her footsteps.

"When a Teacher of the Year takes on a failing school," by Gigi Douban, Christian Science Monitor, December 29, 2006

The Education Trust
2006

This latest installment of The Education Trust's annual series on the inequities in school funding is as essential as its predecessors. It succinctly explains how states and districts short-change schools that serve poor or minority students. One learns that in 2003-04, for example, Illinois spent $1,900 less per-pupil in its high-poverty schools than in their wealthier counterparts, and $1,200 less in high-minority schools than in low-minority ones. In New York the gaps were even larger: $2,300 and $2,200 respectively. Of course not all states' gaps are so egregious. Some, such as Massachusetts, actually target more funds to its neediest schools. This year, the report also includes two insightful guest-writers. The first, Goodwin Liu of UC Berkeley, explains how federal Title I funding is systematically allocated to states with fewer high-poverty students, thus exacerbating inter-state funding differences. He suggests a couple of remedies: Title I should reward states for their spending "effort" (i.e., spending as a function of their tax base) rather than total spending, and the feds should spend more overall to smooth out differences among states. Why not just fund students on a per-pupil basis? The second is Marguerite Roza of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, who explains how districts obscure inequities among their individual schools, both by "salary averaging" (i.e., budgets that hide the fact that more expensive teachers tend to work in wealthier, low-minority schools) and by using "unrestricted" funds unfairly--sometimes simply by allocating resources among schools with little regard for their students' needs. Weighted student funding would help address all of these inequities, as would a sustained commitment to unraveling the "tangled webs" that school budgets have become. Money is no panacea, but this report is right to note that we must "at least measure whether money is being appropriately targeted to provide extra support to the students and schools who start out behind." You can find it online here.

Louann Bierlein Palmer
Progressive Policy Institute
December 2006

Fordham produced two of the first studies on charter authorizers in the nation (see here and here). Now, Louann Bierlein Palmer, who co-authored the first of our studies, has issued this report on "alternative" authorizers, which are "rapidly becoming the preferred authorizers and are increasingly being asked to develop model authorizing practices." An "alternative authorizer" is defined as a group functioning outside the traditional realm of public K-12 school governance. (To date, just 14 of 41 states and the District of Columbia permit alternative authorizers.) Alternative groups, according to Palmer, are also distinguished by these three characteristics: 1) their desire to work as authorizers, 2) their relative isolation from politics, and 3) their ability to create infrastructure, and not just serve as an overseer. Palmer examines four major types of alternative authorizers (separate state-level charter boards, higher education institutions, municipal offices, and nonprofit organizations) and rates how strongly each embraces the above-mentioned characteristics. The result is an interesting snapshot of the range of strengths and weaknesses that each brings to the table. (Nonprofits are more insulated from politics than are separate state charter boards, for example, and therefore more likely to make data-driven decisions.) Policy makers looking to bring alternative authorizers into their states will benefit from Palmer's detailed descriptions and analysis. Read it here.