Primary Progress, Secondary Challenge: A State-by-State Look at Student Achievement Patterns
Daria Hall and Shana KennedyThe Education Trust March 2006
Primary Progress, Secondary Challenge: A State-by-State Look at Student Achievement Patterns
Daria Hall and Shana Kennedy
The Education Trust
March 2006
In this short report, Ed Trust provides a useful service by pulling together state test score trends from 2003 to 2005. We learn, for example, that 22 of the 29 states for which data are available narrowed their black/white test-score gap in reading. We also learn, as the title implies, that reading scores are improving in more states’ elementary schools than in middle and high schools. (Math gains are strong across the board.) So far so good, and the gap-closing is a heartening sign that No Child Left Behind is starting to have its intended impact. But then the report goes off the rails. It provides overall trends in math and reading, grouping states by whether their scores increased, decreased, or stayed the same from 2003-2005. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Fordham did a similar analysis—that provided a comparison of trends on state reading tests with states’ performance on NAEP (the national standard)—the day the 2005 NAEP scores were released (see here). But the Ed Trust charts don’t compare state scores to gains on NAEP, so readers of its report have no way to know whether a state’s reported progress is good news (its students are learning more) or bad news (the state might be finding ways to make its own test easier). Take Michigan, for example. The percentage of elementary students reaching the proficient level on its state reading test rose 7 points; middle schoolers bumped up 12 points. Great news, right? But on NAEP, over the same period, the percentage of 4th grade and 8th grade students reaching either proficient or “basic” actually dropped or stayed the same. To its credit, Ed Trust provides an appendix comparing state achievement scores and NAEP scores for 2005. (Remarkably enough, this turned out to be the driver for most of the report’s press coverage. See here and here.) Still, the venerable organization would have been better off sticking to its gap-closing analysis. If you want an independent assessment of whether a state is actually making progress, stick with the NAEP.
The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts
Civic Enterprises
John M. Bridgeland, John J. DiIulio, and Karen B. Morrison
March 2006
A third of public high school students-and almost half of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans-do not graduate. Most of these youngsters leave school quietly, almost unnoticed, and never return. Despite the shocking numbers (in 2003, 3.5 million youths between 16 and 25 were not enrolled in school and did not have a high school diploma), Americans have remained "silent." Perhaps because they didn't know about it, perhaps because they feel helpless to reverse the trend. But this study-based on a series of focus groups and a national survey of 467 young people who self-identified as dropouts-argues that the epidemic is curable. Almost half of the respondents said that it was uninteresting classes that pushed them to leave school. Moreover, of the 467 people surveyed, more than 60 percent had grade averages of C or better when they stopped attending school. What does this tell us? Most students don't drop out because they're incapable of doing the work and are flunking. Far from it. Most drop out because they think they're wasting their time. (I know what that's like.) This report posits that instituting challenging academic material, discipline, and standards are the easiest ways to fight off the creeping disinterest and malaise that leads to dropping out. Why should we believe that will work? Because when asked what changes would help prevent future students from leaving without a diploma, 70 percent of those surveyed thought schools needed to increase supervision over students, and 62 percent thought there should be more discipline in the classroom. Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote a thoughful Op-Ed about this study in which he quoted the leaders of a successful program that helps dropouts earn entrance to college. These leaders told him that "even for the hardest cases-teenagers with few credits, low grade-point averages, and a host of personal problems-the challenge of a tough curriculum, backed by skillful teaching in small classes and plenty of personal counseling, can be a path to success." Read the study, here.
No vendor left behind
A Seussian circus descended on Sacramento last week, but center ring wasn't the state's infamously rancorous capitol building. It was the convention center, where more than 3,000 charter school leaders and supporters arrived for four days of panels, meet-and-greets, and keynote addresses-including one by The Terminator, who dropped by on Wednesday morning.
"Oh, the places you'll go" was the theme. And there was evidence aplenty that charter schools are going places. The meeting rooms that surround the more than 130,000 square feet of exhibition space were overflowing with valuable discussions of charter financing, multiple authorizers, reviving New Orleans education, and high-performing high schools-to name only a few of the topics on tap.
But the mammoth exhibit hall said as much, if not more, about the charter movement than the sessions. After several hours spent walking and talking with those displaying their wares, this observer thought a conference sub-theme was in order-"No Vendor Left Behind."
This much is clear-charter schools may be hurting for money, but lots of people still think there's a buck to be made selling products to them. How else does one explain five architect and facilities design firms, sixteen financial service groups, five insurance groups, seventeen management and consultant groups, and nearly thirty professional development/teacher training groups showing up? (And if charters need more dollars to afford these necessities, the eleven fundraising groups on hand would be happy to assist.)
These services are valuable, and one can draw from this strong showing that people with money to invest, and companies that need to make money, still see charters as a growth industry.
But couple this showing with the abundance of curriculum groups (too many to count), educational software companies (over 25), and technology instruction groups (almost 50), and one can be forgiven for not knowing if he's at a meeting of renegade charter leaders, or mainstream public educators.
To be sure, the creativity that charter schools are supposed to spur was on display, though not always in encouraging ways. One curriculum person explained to me that her personal curricula for teaching social studies grew from her frustrations as a teacher unable to find good materials focused on "higher level thinking skills." Her own creation, she assured me, does.
Perhaps, but a cursory review wasn't promising. Less promising was her admission that she had no background in history.
But no worries, she's simply finding ways to present materials. Her next topic? Science.
And all these groups, it seemed, had their work "scientifically" verified. In fact, "science" was the word du jour, with everyone from textbook sellers to software sellers to food sellers ready to prove that their products bore the Good Science seal of approval.
The Blob-as Secretary of Education William Bennett once called the education establishment-may continue to make frontal assaults on charter schools (see here, for instance), but infiltration might be a greater concern. Why attack charters head-on when you can lull them to complacency with fancy displays and snake-oil sales pitches? Perhaps consumerism is not just the opiate of the masses, but the opiate of charter schools too. Oh, the places you'll go, indeed.
Obstacles on the route from high school to college
For most Americans, the transition from high school to college today is as chancy and vexing as crossing a bridge over a river where builders on one bank have ignored what those on the other are doing. Only the fortunate will be able to make it across.
The sprawling, chaotic empire of K-12 education has created one set of institutions, norms, practices, and requirements. The unruly kingdom of higher education has created its own entirely separate set. Though they coexist in the same states and communities and are financed (at least in part, directly, or indirectly) by the same taxpayers and answer to the same elected officials. One might view this as a classic instance of American entrepreneurialism and diversity. If there’s no one stable span, after all, determined people will get across the river in myriad ways (though some will drown midstream). One can equally see the present confused arrangement, however, as a horrendous waste of public and private dollars, not to mention time and human capital. In the event, it isn’t working well enough to yield what America needs to prosper in today’s shrinking world. And with other public-sector expenses soaring, it is crazy to persist with practices so costly and inefficient.
The central challenge is to harmonize what high schools expect of their graduates with what universities expect of their entrants. In a rational world, those would be identical: a body of knowledge, skills, habits, and dispositions that equips young people to exit the K-12 system and enter the tertiary system with no need for remediation and no undue duplication or boredom.
A few states have been struggling to build such a span. (Indiana, with its statewide high-school core curriculum, starting with the class of 2011, comes to mind.) Some plucky scholars (for example, Stanford University's Michael W. Kirst) have set forth new engineering specs. And at least one national endeavor—the American Diploma Project, a partnership of four organizations and a growing number of states—has gone so far as to spell out the English and mathematics attainments that states should incorporate into their exit standards to prepare graduates for college-level work. (The project, which Fordham helped launch, found remarkable consensus among employers and university professors regarding the skills that young people need in those fields, no matter what path they tread after high school.)
Yet there are five major obstacles to building a sound bridge:
First, the two education empires have separate governance systems. Even in states that have struggled to unify their K-16 or K-20 systems (for example, in Florida, where the State Department of Education oversees all education), major institutions have significant autonomy (for example, Florida universities are under their own board of governors, separate from the state board; they also have their own boards of trustees). University trustees have deep roots and plenty of clout (and lots of graduates in the legislature); many states have strong local-control traditions within elementary and secondary education that limit the coordination. Hence few states have done more than appoint toothless “P-16 councils” and the like.
Second, a sizable “remediation industry” has grown up in American postsecondary education. Lots of faculty and staff members have jobs that depend on the persistence, even the growth, of remedial (or “developmental”) courses, and plenty of university revenues derive from state subsidies and tuition payments for those programs. Uncle Sam contributes as well, via a host of programs (e.g., the TRIO programs) that underwrite remediation, and the private sector, too, contains many companies that make money by coaching, tutoring, and otherwise helping equip their clients with the skills and knowledge that the regular schools have failed to impart. Such vested interests naturally oppose policy reforms that threaten their livelihood.
Third, state officials are understandably nervous about toughening K-12 academic standards at a time when there’s plenty of grumping (including from leaders of minority groups) about how hard it is to reach today’s standards, how many kids are dropping out, and how punitive it would be to expect tougher standards. Indeed, the No Child Left Behind Act’s demand for universal “proficiency” is leading some states to ease their standards to boost the fraction of nominally proficient students. (See here.) At the same time, many state officials—egged on by American higher education’s astute public-relations machine—are under the illusion that their tertiary sector is doing just fine, and the last thing they should do is mess with it.
Fourth, despite ample evidence to the contrary, poll after poll shows many Americans unconvinced that everybody needs to be ready for college. Hence the continuing popularity of high-school vocational education and the reluctance to install a true college-preparatory program as the “default” curriculum. (A few states, such as Arkansas and Texas, have tried to do so anyway, although their notion of college prep may only superficially resemble their universities’ expectations.)
Finally, the mostly laudable diversity of American higher education means it is hugely difficult to set a single “entry” standard that every campus within the state, even every public campus, will respect. That diversity creates options for students, to be sure, but practically ensures confusion in the high schools about the skills and knowledge students need for college.
Every one of those barriers is understandable. We know where they came from and why they endure. Yet the world is changing, and we do not have to assume that the past must be prologue.
Consider, for example, the newly enacted federal program that will give supersized Pell grants to college students who complete “a rigorous secondary-school program.” A fine idea, I believe, a true incentive for (low-income) high-school students to study harder and learn more. Yes, it means that the U.S. Department of Education must devise some way of defining and identifying “rigorous” high-school programs, which could turn out to be a regulatory nightmare. Yet it speaks to the country’s appetite—and Congress’s willingness to pay—for greater synchrony between secondary and tertiary education.
There’s more. “Early college” programs like those supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation send students to schools that let them earn up to two years of college credit, or an associate degree, while also earning a high-school diploma. “Postsecondary options” programs in states like Minnesota encourage high-school students to take courses on college campuses. Gates and several other national foundations are also supporting state-specific high-school reform grants. The nation’s governors are pushing to calibrate high-school reform to college (and work-force) expectations.
If enough governors want to make change happen, and if Congress is serious as well, it is not hard to picture some of the policies that might be usefully pursued. Four are self-evident:
• States should rethink their high-school exit norms, whether those take the form of course requirements, end-of-course exams, or statewide graduation tests, so that students who meet them actually possess college-ready skills and knowledge. And they should press the state’s public universities to accept those exit norms as sufficient evidence of readiness for entry into college-level study.
• States should rethink college financing—with several years’ lead time—so that their operating subsidies to their colleges pay only for “college level” work, not for remediation. (Alternatively, bill the K-12 school systems for the cost of remediating their graduates. That is an expense legitimately borne by the elementary-secondary budget line.)
• State and federal policy makers should rethink student-aid programs to create incentives for young people to apply themselves in high school, not just go through the motions. The new super Pell grants for high-achieving students are an example of a friendly sort. Banning the use of college-aid dollars for taking remedial courses is an example of a nastier genre.
• States and the federal government should rethink school-choice policies so that high-school students—and their schools—can benefit from accelerating when warranted and can smooth the transition from secondary to postsecondary education. “Early college” options for interested youngsters offer one model, but there are plenty more. For instance, a college that operates its own charter high school (something already permitted by most state laws but rarely done) could easily develop a seamless transition for its own students. Alternatively, charter-school chains (e.g., National Heritage Academies, the Big Picture Company, Edison Schools) might create their own colleges and feed their graduates straight into them. So could America’s burgeoning collection of “virtual” charter high schools, like the Wisconsin-based iQ Academies.
In sum, the school-college divide can be spanned in myriad ways that would work better for more people than today’s random, incoherent, and costly arrangement. Institutional inertia and vested interests will oppose all such innovations, but determined policy leaders (assisted by public and private dollars) should be able to overcome them, or at least make an end run around them. Today’s bridges, after all, take many forms. They don’t all resemble the familiar suspension spans across New York’s East River and San Francisco’s Golden Gate. Consider, for example, the stunning “cable stayed” bridges that have been built across harbors, canyons, and treacherous rivers. That’s the kind of innovation we need lots more of in education.
This article is excerpted from the March 10, 2006 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Judicial smackdown
The tough-talking judge who decided a school funding case four years ago by ruling that North Carolina law requires high-quality public education, now says he's tired of waiting for consistently lagging high schools to improve. Judge Howard Manning, Jr., sent a letter to state education officials warning that high schools with less than 55 percent of its students passing state tests for five years or more shouldn't (and won't) be permitted to re-open in fall 2006 "unless principals are replaced." Manning wrote, "Superintendents and principals have run out of room, and run out of time.... The major problem with these schools lies within the category of school leadership, not money." (Emphasis added.) According to the Charlotte Observer, this is the first time a judge has demanded a change of leadership in schools and threatened dire consequences (school closings) if no progress is made. The judge's letter caused a predictable uproar among administrators and parents in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, whose interim superintendent vowed, "We are not shutting down those schools." Say what you may about the perils of judicial activism, but at a time when most states dance around NCLB's requirements to "restructure" persistently failing schools, it's heartening to see a public official take bold action. Secretary of Education Manning, anyone?
"CMS: Judge's threat goes too far," by Ann Doss Helms and Peter Smolowitz, Charlotte Observer, March 8, 2006
"Judge issues schools directive," by Todd Silberman, Raleigh News & Observer, March 4, 2006
"Judge may close 12 high schools if test scores lag," by Ann Doss Helms and Peter Smolowitz, Charlotte Observer, March 4, 2006
My momma told me, you'd better shop around
Low-income African-American families are fleeing Minneapolis public schools en masse, reports Katherine Kersten on the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal. They’re following the advice of Louis King, a black leader and former Minneapolis school board member who tells parents frustrated by grossly underperforming schools, “The best way to get attention is not to protest, but to shop somewhere else.” Many are “shopping” at charter schools, as evidenced by the more than 300 percent increase in Minneapolis’s charter enrollment over the past five years. The Minneapolis school district is certainly feeling the effects. Just under half of the city’s school-age children attend district public schools. “You’ll have to make big changes to get us back,” King tells the school board. Unfortunately, the chances of that are, well, a bit Smokey.
“Don't Protest, Just Shop Somewhere Else,” Katherine Kersten, Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2006 (subscription required)
Counterinsurgency in California
Districts and charters disagree all the time, and the battles can often turn nasty. But a coup? Last Tuesday, district officials from Sacramento Unified (and their security guards) arrived at the campus of the city's Visual and Performing Arts Charter School (VAPAC) and placed the principal and office manager on administrative leave. The district-which can hire and fire VAPAC's staff-has been angered by the school's longstanding refusal to address district charges that its finances are in disarray and that it doesn't pay attention to student safety. VAPAC suggested arbitration; the district attempted to forcibly insert a new principal. The school has filed a restraining order (recently upheld by a superior court judge), converted its campus to a "gated" community, and hired a private security service to protect it from the district. Wow. Gadfly can't say whether Sacramento Unified's accusations are well-founded, but this much we are sure of: Military posturing makes for exciting news headlines, but it can't be good for VAPAC's students.
"Judge tells Sac City to reinstate head of charter school," by Laurel Rosenhall, Sacramento Bee, March 7, 2006
"Charter school, district head for court showdown," by Crystal Carreon and Elizabeth Hume, Sacramento Bee, March 4, 2006
Damocles swordplay
Oh, Canada. Our northern neighbor's supreme court recently ruled that students may now carry swords to public schools-but only if those swords are called "kirpans" and the students are orthodox Sikhs. You see, orthodox Sikhs wear the curved blades as a religious obligation, and as the court said, "Religious tolerance is a very important value in Canadian society." (Another important value: not being sliced up by a kirpan.) The court further elaborated that letting children tote daggers on the playground posed no danger because schools could set strict rules, such as requiring that the knives remain sheathed at all times. But despite that completely reassuring and logical justification, and despite the country's cornucopian tolerance, a few Canadians weren't wholly convinced. According to The Guardian, some Montreal parents"fretted that it was not a good idea to have children carrying knives." Whoa, parents-take your religious hate elsewhere!
"At daggers drawn," by Ann McIllroy, The Guardian, March 6, 2006
The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts
Civic Enterprises
John M. Bridgeland, John J. DiIulio, and Karen B. Morrison
March 2006
A third of public high school students-and almost half of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans-do not graduate. Most of these youngsters leave school quietly, almost unnoticed, and never return. Despite the shocking numbers (in 2003, 3.5 million youths between 16 and 25 were not enrolled in school and did not have a high school diploma), Americans have remained "silent." Perhaps because they didn't know about it, perhaps because they feel helpless to reverse the trend. But this study-based on a series of focus groups and a national survey of 467 young people who self-identified as dropouts-argues that the epidemic is curable. Almost half of the respondents said that it was uninteresting classes that pushed them to leave school. Moreover, of the 467 people surveyed, more than 60 percent had grade averages of C or better when they stopped attending school. What does this tell us? Most students don't drop out because they're incapable of doing the work and are flunking. Far from it. Most drop out because they think they're wasting their time. (I know what that's like.) This report posits that instituting challenging academic material, discipline, and standards are the easiest ways to fight off the creeping disinterest and malaise that leads to dropping out. Why should we believe that will work? Because when asked what changes would help prevent future students from leaving without a diploma, 70 percent of those surveyed thought schools needed to increase supervision over students, and 62 percent thought there should be more discipline in the classroom. Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote a thoughful Op-Ed about this study in which he quoted the leaders of a successful program that helps dropouts earn entrance to college. These leaders told him that "even for the hardest cases-teenagers with few credits, low grade-point averages, and a host of personal problems-the challenge of a tough curriculum, backed by skillful teaching in small classes and plenty of personal counseling, can be a path to success." Read the study, here.
Primary Progress, Secondary Challenge: A State-by-State Look at Student Achievement Patterns
Daria Hall and Shana Kennedy
The Education Trust
March 2006
In this short report, Ed Trust provides a useful service by pulling together state test score trends from 2003 to 2005. We learn, for example, that 22 of the 29 states for which data are available narrowed their black/white test-score gap in reading. We also learn, as the title implies, that reading scores are improving in more states’ elementary schools than in middle and high schools. (Math gains are strong across the board.) So far so good, and the gap-closing is a heartening sign that No Child Left Behind is starting to have its intended impact. But then the report goes off the rails. It provides overall trends in math and reading, grouping states by whether their scores increased, decreased, or stayed the same from 2003-2005. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Fordham did a similar analysis—that provided a comparison of trends on state reading tests with states’ performance on NAEP (the national standard)—the day the 2005 NAEP scores were released (see here). But the Ed Trust charts don’t compare state scores to gains on NAEP, so readers of its report have no way to know whether a state’s reported progress is good news (its students are learning more) or bad news (the state might be finding ways to make its own test easier). Take Michigan, for example. The percentage of elementary students reaching the proficient level on its state reading test rose 7 points; middle schoolers bumped up 12 points. Great news, right? But on NAEP, over the same period, the percentage of 4th grade and 8th grade students reaching either proficient or “basic” actually dropped or stayed the same. To its credit, Ed Trust provides an appendix comparing state achievement scores and NAEP scores for 2005. (Remarkably enough, this turned out to be the driver for most of the report’s press coverage. See here and here.) Still, the venerable organization would have been better off sticking to its gap-closing analysis. If you want an independent assessment of whether a state is actually making progress, stick with the NAEP.