The Education Gadfly Weekly

Gary W. Phillips
American Institutes for Research
November 2007

The American Institutes for Research recently released an important paper by Gary Phillips that links the scoring scales of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). This imaginative analysis allowed him to compare the achievement levels of American students, state by state, with their counterparts in other countries (albeit only in math and science). He found that eighth graders in places like Singapore, Korea, the Netherlands, and Japan reached the equivalent of NAEP "proficiency" at much higher rates than Americans, while in Italy, England, and several Eastern European countries (among other places) they lagged behind. At the state level, Phillips found, while perennial high-performers like Massachusetts eclipse a number of countries that outperform the U.S. overall, no American state matches the performance of the top five or six countries. The worst, like Alabama, sit about 20 spots down the list. These are fairly discouraging numbers. Still, such comparisons should mute critics who complain that NAEP standards are too tough. True, no country has 100 percent of its kids achieving at the NAEP "proficient" level--but plenty of nations have a lot more kids at or above that level than we do. Download the report here.

National Endowment of the Arts
November 2007

Reading for fun is on the decline (you, therefore, must be working), as are youth and adult reading proficiency rates. This new report from the good NEA draws on numerous sources to paint a dim picture of American literacy. (This is the second such study by Dana Gioia's group; the first is here.) Voluntary reading rates for teenagers and young adults are decreasing; only 5 percent of high school graduates are proficient readers, and the average American over 15 spends more than 140 minutes watching TV on weekdays versus 20 minutes reading. Yet employers still consider reading comprehension and writing skills very important, and strong readers, who typically attain higher education levels, are likelier to be employed and earn more money. The study also offers bleak numbers for college students, three-quarters of whom read four or fewer non-assigned books per year. Gioia and company cannot fully explain why Americans are reading less (although the report posits that the bevy of other entertainment options now available is detracting from books' overall appeal). The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger offers some thoughts here. You can read the study here.

It's tough to view the results from the 2006 administration of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Test (PIRL), released yesterday, with anything other than alarm.

Almost six years after No Child Left Behind was signed into law, American fourth-graders are reading no better than in 2001--a very different message than the one promulgated by the states, most of whom have reported historic gains in reading over the same period of time.

That alone would be cause for concern. But students in many other lands are not treading water like our kids; they're performing better on international reading tests. In 2001, three countries scored better than the United States; last year, ten surpassed us.

One thing should be clear: America's long-term prospects are dim when kids in so many places are making solid gains while our children stagnate. Worse, we're talking here about fourth grade--the level where, on myriad domestic measures, U.S. youngsters do best. (Thus the widespread angst about "middle-school fall-off.")

Of further concern: the countries that leapfrogged the U.S. between 2001 and 2006 include two Asian economic powerhouses (Hong Kong and Singapore) and a newly emboldened Russia.

America, it seems, is being passed by others around the globe with whom we are in stiffening competition for economic primacy and political influence. 

Yet when it comes to bold suggestions for improving our education system and our international competitiveness, the current crop of presidential candidates is, if not exactly silent (for they talk endlessly about everything), unimaginative and ill-informed.

Instead of trotting out hackneyed education suggestions straight from the bosom of the school establishment (see editorial above), they should be conceptualizing schooling for a modern, internationally competitive, 21st-century nation.

Here's one: It's time for the U.S. to install national academic standards and tests.

While most other nations, including many of the highest performers, operate under one set of educational standards, the U.S. struggles with a patchwork of 50 different standards and tests. Many states expect very little of their children--surely part of the reason that young Americans don't shine on international measures. (See here.)

No Child Left Behind may smell like a national law, but students and schools in Mississippi and Massachusetts are evaluated by separate assessments that couldn't be more different. Last time I checked, though, reading is the same in Biloxi as in Boxborough.

Until the U.S. education system drops its insistence on archaic--and obviously dysfunctional--notions of "local control" we must expect our children to be outscored by their peers across the world.

What ought to be controlled locally--by parents and educators and individual schools, not big bureaucracies--is how we educate kids. What ought to be determined nationally is what's most important for all those kids to learn, at least in math, English, science, and history, and whether they're learning it. Tight as to ends, loose as to means. That's the modern formula for successful management. Our primary-secondary education system, however, has it exactly backward: heavily regulated as to means, laid back about ends.

Get that straightened out and our schools, our kids, and our economy will flourish. Keep it wrong and we'll continue to be outstripped by countries that get it right.

Senator Barack Obama unveiled his education plan last week, and used the opportunity to promote his presidential campaign theme of bringing people together. In classic Third Way fashion, he argued for "a willingness to break free from the same debates that Washington has been engaged in for decades: Democrat versus Republican; voucher versus the status quo; more money versus accountability."

Though Obama's ideas aren't as fresh as he suggests (more on that later), he's surely right about one thing: the parties are mired in the tired debates they've been having since the 1990s. The candidates' K-12 education proposals are, by and large, the same old same old.

First consider the Democrats' plans. They are downright Clintonian--a bit ironic, as Senator Hillary Clinton is the only major candidate yet to offer comprehensive proposals. But there they are, the 90s hit parade of smaller class sizes (Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards), National Board-Certified Teachers (Biden, Dodd, Edwards, Bill Richardson), higher teacher salaries (Biden, Clinton, Obama, Richardson), and of course, more money (all, in some form or another). As Biden sums it up, "We know what we need to do: First, stop focusing just on test scores. Second, start education earlier. Third, pay educators more. Fourth, reduce class size. Fifth, make higher education affordable."

Nor are the creative juices overflowing on the Republican side. Vouchers are in (Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson), federal bureaucrats are out (Thompson, Mike Huckabee). Says Giuliani, "We're going to take the decision-making and we're going to put it in the hands of the people who really know the children, really care about the children, more than anyone else: the parents."                  

Democrats want more resources for the system, Republicans want to empower parents with more options. Yawn. Seeing this policy debate unfold is like watching a soap opera: you can step away for months or even years and, when you return, the plot has barely moved.

This stale loaf contains a few fresh slices. Consider the cross-over issues that are garnering support from both sides: charter schools (Clinton, Giuliani, Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, Richardson), merit pay (Huckabee, Romney, Obama), and incentive pay for teachers willing to tackle tougher assignments (Clinton, Biden, Dodd, Edwards, Romney). That these commonsense reforms have gone mainstream is a positive development worth celebrating, even though most of the candidates shade, hedge, caveat and condition them in various ways. (Obama, for example, favors merit pay plans backed by teacher unions.)

And almost every candidate has at least one good education idea that, with a little polishing, could become promising policy. Romney wants a tax credit for home schoolers. (Why not provide all parents a credit for out-of-school education expenses?) John Edwards wants a "West Point" for education--a national teacher training institution. (With only 1,000 graduates per year, why not aim to produce principals instead?) Giuliani seeks a voucher program for active-duty military families. (Why not provide such a benefit to Iraq veterans, too?) Dodd would create a Virtual Learning Innovation Fund for districts, states, non-profits, and universities to create high-quality online courses. (Why not fund students directly to take such courses?) Huckabee wants to promote art and music education (his "weapons of mass instruction") and to impose "reasonable waiting periods" for teachers to earn tenure. (Why not promote history and literature, too?) Richardson would convene a "National Summit on Educational Standards and Accountability" to develop national "Gold Standards" for voluntary adoption by the states. (Why not provide incentives for states to get on board, too?)

And that brings us back to Obama. He offers some promising new ideas as well. Clearly his favorite is the teacher residency program--modeled after Chicago's Academy for Urban School Leadership--which places aspiring teachers in year-long internships in high-quality, high-poverty schools. And he would double the federal investment in education R & D--a wonky but worthwhile proposal.

Yet his 15-page plan also brims with staid notions from previous decades. He would require all education schools to be nationally accredited (you're welcome, NCATE), support Professional Development Schools (remember that one?), and fund dropout prevention programs (a dubious notion since the only effective dropout "programs" are effective schools).

Obama's rhetoric feels fresh, even compelling:

"I do not accept an America where we do nothing about six million students who are reading below their grade level--an America where sixty percent of African-American fourth graders aren't even reading at the basic level. I do not accept an America where only twenty percent of our students are prepared to take college-level classes in English, math, and science--where barely one in ten low-income students will ever graduate from college.... This kind of America is morally unacceptable for our children. It's economically untenable for our future. And it's not who we are as a country."

And yet, doesn't it sound familiar?

"Now some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less--the soft bigotry of low expectations.... It is a scandal of the first order when the average test scores of African-American and Latino students at age 17 are roughly the same as white 13-year-olds'. Whatever the cause, the effect is discrimination. Children who never master reading will never master learning. They will face a life of frustration on the fringes of society...."

That was Governor George W. Bush, on September 3, 1999. Perhaps the reason education is such a bust on the 2008 campaign trail is because voters have heard it all before.

In an age of Britney Spears, Tom Cruise, and the Beckhams, it's nice to know there are still some people out there who understand that life is not a narcissism carnival. Principal Jim Friel of New Hampshire's Franklin Middle School is donating his kidney to one of his students--13-year-old Morgan Corliss. Corliss suffers from FSGS (Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis), which prevents her kidneys from doing their primary work. When Mr. Friel learned about Morgan's condition, and learned that he had the same blood type, he volunteered to give her one of his kidneys. The operation is scheduled for January. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty. Gadfly salutes Friel for his courage and selflessness.

"Principal to donate a kidney to student," Associated Press, November 20, 2007

Jay Mathews is a superb education journalist with a particular passion for the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs. He regularly scrutinizes them and their workings (and any studies, commentaries, etc. about them) with the care that an expert gastroenterologist brings to a colonoscopy. It was no big surprise, then, that he opted this week to focus overmuch on a single polyp associated with a recent Fordham report on AP and IB: the sourish behavior of one outside scholar who contributed good work to that project but, in the end, refused to make his contribution concise and reader-friendly. Having insisted that his name be removed as author of our AP-IB math reviews, said scholar subsequently decided both that he wanted the world to see his original reviews (certainly his right) and that Mathews (and the blogosphere) should be directed to this tiny tempest in a wee teapot. If you're not already nodding off, you can find more at the links below.

"Professor Says Editors Altered Review of AP, IB Courses," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, November 27, 2007

"The Secret Gripes of Professor Klein: An AP-IB Drama," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post blog, November 27, 2007

If Rebecca Segall-Wallace is right, lots of otherwise fortunate New York City youngsters are wondering, "Who is John Galt?" Segall-Wallace writes in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that some of the Big Apple's toniest private schools, while happy to compete ferociously in athletics, disavow "thought competition" as treacherous and refuse to support students who want to engage in it. Essay contests? Out of the question. Geography bees? Fuggedaboudit. "We don't want kids to compete individually, put themselves in vulnerable positions as individuals," one administrator explains. Of course, such good intentions will inevitably backfire in the real world. Talented students shielded from expressing their skills may feel undervalued by their teachers and administrators. And the focus on self-esteem, on rewarding "participation" rather than prowess, does nothing to prepare youngsters for a rough-and-tumble society where so-called thought competition is a fact of life and the occasional stumble or failure is unavoidable. Time for a field trip downtown, kids, perhaps to Goldman Sachs.

"In Praise of 'Thought Competition'," by Rebecca Segall-Wallace, Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2007

National Endowment of the Arts
November 2007

Reading for fun is on the decline (you, therefore, must be working), as are youth and adult reading proficiency rates. This new report from the good NEA draws on numerous sources to paint a dim picture of American literacy. (This is the second such study by Dana Gioia's group; the first is here.) Voluntary reading rates for teenagers and young adults are decreasing; only 5 percent of high school graduates are proficient readers, and the average American over 15 spends more than 140 minutes watching TV on weekdays versus 20 minutes reading. Yet employers still consider reading comprehension and writing skills very important, and strong readers, who typically attain higher education levels, are likelier to be employed and earn more money. The study also offers bleak numbers for college students, three-quarters of whom read four or fewer non-assigned books per year. Gioia and company cannot fully explain why Americans are reading less (although the report posits that the bevy of other entertainment options now available is detracting from books' overall appeal). The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger offers some thoughts here. You can read the study here.

Gary W. Phillips
American Institutes for Research
November 2007

The American Institutes for Research recently released an important paper by Gary Phillips that links the scoring scales of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). This imaginative analysis allowed him to compare the achievement levels of American students, state by state, with their counterparts in other countries (albeit only in math and science). He found that eighth graders in places like Singapore, Korea, the Netherlands, and Japan reached the equivalent of NAEP "proficiency" at much higher rates than Americans, while in Italy, England, and several Eastern European countries (among other places) they lagged behind. At the state level, Phillips found, while perennial high-performers like Massachusetts eclipse a number of countries that outperform the U.S. overall, no American state matches the performance of the top five or six countries. The worst, like Alabama, sit about 20 spots down the list. These are fairly discouraging numbers. Still, such comparisons should mute critics who complain that NAEP standards are too tough. True, no country has 100 percent of its kids achieving at the NAEP "proficient" level--but plenty of nations have a lot more kids at or above that level than we do. Download the report here.