The Education Gadfly Weekly

National Center for Education Statistics, August 2001

This new report from the National Center for Education Statistics grows out of a special 1996 NAEP study of high school seniors enrolled in advanced biology, chemistry or physics, a population comprising almost one-quarter of U.S. twelfth graders in 1995-96. There is, of course, a ubiquitous problem with 12^th grade NAEP results, namely that a lot of students don't take these low-stakes tests too seriously. Still, this is an interesting study, particularly for a country that has learned from TIMSS that even our advanced students don't perform very well by world standards. Some of what we find here is predictable: that boys still do better than girls in chemistry and physics, for example, though not significantly so in biology; and that white and Asian students score higher than black and Hispanic youngsters even within this advanced-course-taking population. Other results are less predictable, such as the absence of any significant public-private school differences. This 83-page report, written by Christine O'Sullivan and Wendy Grigg, does not report student performance in relation to the National Assessment Governing Board's "achievement levels" so it's hard to get beyond relativistic statements about students' actual attainments. But (in the mode of NAEP reports of yesteryear) it supplies a number of interesting sample items and tells you how well students did on each of them, as well as on NCES's pet "scale scores." If you want a hard copy, ask for NCES 2001-451 from Education Publications Center, U.S. Department of Education, P.O. Box 1398, Jessup, MD 20794 or phone (877) 433-7827. Faster may be to surf to http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001451 and print yourself a copy from the PDF version you'll find there.

The Center for Education Reform, 2001

The Center for Education Reform also recently released the executive summary of a report based on a charter-school survey it conducted during school year 2000-01. 346 schools responded (though no data are supplied by which to know how representative these are of the 2000 charter schools then operating). No author is named. Nor are there page numbers. But it's interesting, nonetheless. We learn, for example, that the schools' average size was 250 students and that two-thirds of them have waiting lists averaging 112 youngsters. We learn that 80% of them are start-up schools (the rest divide almost equally between public and private school conversions) and that they have a stunning array of curricular foci. (I was struck that nearly half claim to be using Direct Instruction and/or Core Knowledge.) Two-fifths of these schools got their charters from local school boards, the rest from other authorities. Have a look on the web at http://www.edreform.com/charter_schools/report/exesumm.pdf. And while you're there you can get CER's helpful new compilation of charter data for the present (2001-2002) school year by going to http://www.edreform.com/press/2001/010917.html.

William J. Bennett, 2001

In this new book, former education secretary and best-selling author William J. Bennett addresses himself to the decline of the American family and its implications for our society. He is, of course, talking about what some might term the "traditional" nuclear family (adult male and adult female, married to each other and raising their own children) but that he would simply term "the family." Unlike most of Bennett's earlier works, this volume is not primarily about education, but it intersects in many ways - for example, the devastating effects of divorce upon many children whom the schools are trying to teach - and will be of interest to most people who care about the condition of our young. It will inspire some readers, infuriate others and inform many with its wealth of information and its steady tone of moral seriousness and intellectual rigor. 200 pages long, its ISBN is 0385499159 and its publisher is Doubleday. 

Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity, National Research Council, 2001

Although the dropout rate has declined in recent decades, large numbers of kids - most of them Hispanic or black and nearly all of them poor - are still being left behind.  The National Research Council's Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity (CEETE) set out to determine what effect the standards movement has had on dropouts and would-be dropouts.  Given the large variation among tests, policies and implementation practices among states and districts, CEETE concludes that "the precise relationship between graduation testing and dropping out of school is still in dispute," though they note that "it is clear that retention in grade is a strong predictor of dropping out." CEETE makes a strong case for disaggregating data on student progress leading up to and including exit tests so that at-risk populations can better be monitored. And, of course, they throw their support behind early intervention as the single most effective antidote to dropping out, which, they argue is "a process of gradual disengagement" rather than an "isolated event."  Copies of the report, which are $18 each ($14.40 when ordered at http://www.nap.edu), are available from the National Academy Press at 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW, Lockbox 285, Washington, DC 20055; 800-624-6242.  The report can also be read for free at http://books.nap.edu/books/0309076021/html/index.html

The Center for Education Reform has issued a listing of 65 studies of charter schools, together with brief summaries of each. It's not comprehensive. (For example, it makes no mention of Charter Schools in Action, the book by Bruno Manno, Gregg Vanourek and myself, or of Bruce Fuller's recent book on charter schools.)  Mostly, it reports on state-specific studies of charter school effectiveness. A few paragraphs are also spent trying to "meta-analyze" these studies, but that part's pretty casual. You'll find it useful primarily as a bibliography. No author is named. The fastest path is via the Internet at http://www.edreform.com/charter_schools/res01.pdf

Some educators have reacted to the mass murders in New York City and Washington, D.C. by calling for changes in the curriculum. Their immediate response to September 11 was that "we have to change the curriculum to make our students more tolerant," as if our students were the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. But it was not Americans who piloted the four hijacked airplanes, and it was not American bigotry that targeted innocent people for death and destruction.

In an article in The Washington Post on October 1, 2001 ("September 11 Prompts Lesson Review," by Valerie Strauss), several educators stated that the attacks showed that we must become even more focused on multiculturalism than we have been in the recent past, suggesting that our indifference to other cultures somehow made us culpable. That response is usually known as "blaming the victim."

The president of Teachers College, Arthur Levine, who is customarily level-headed, said in the same article that "Our notion of great books can't be Western anymore or wholly Western anymore. Is 'Middlemarch' [a 19th-century English novel by George Eliot] more important than the Koran in terms of the curriculum?" Levine did not explain why the Koran should become a major component of the American curriculum, nor whether he would insist that teachers also introduce studies in the Old Testament and the New Testament along with the Koran, and how this new curriculum would affect the public schools' customary efforts to keep religion out of the curriculum. Perhaps he meant to say that our students should seriously study the history of the Middle East, as well they should, along with the history of Europe, Africa, and Asia. President Levine apparently believes that the teaching of "Middlemarch" and other great books of the western tradition is near-universal in American schools. Would it were so. Perhaps in the future Teachers College will take the lead in advocating the teaching of world history and world literature. One hopes.

My own view is that we need to do a far better job of teaching both American history and world history. Certainly students need to know about the major civilizations in the world, but they first need a better understanding of our own democratic ideals, where they came from, and how many sacrifices have been made by others to assure the present generation of Americans the basic rights and freedoms that we now enjoy. In the absence of deep civic knowledge, our students will be unprepared to figure out where we stand, what we believe in, and what we must defend. Or even who "we" are. As schools respond to the crisis of our age, a good place to begin is by finding out what is meant by the phrase "We the people..."

"September 11 Prompts Lesson Review," by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, October 1, 2001, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50170-2001Sep30.html

"Ex Uno Plures," by Diane Ravitch, Education Next, Fall 2001, http://www.educationnext.org/20013/24ravitch.html

The key to an effective mentoring program is matching up mentors and prot??g??s well and providing structure, rather than just putting a mentor and prot??g?? together and saying "go mentor," according to research conducted by the Gallup Organization.  An article in the Fall 2001 Gallup Management Journal explores how the United States Air Force created a successful mentoring program to address problems retaining its best people.  Another article in the same issue explains why it often makes sense to pay talented employees more without promoting them. (58% of employed adults say they would remain in their job if they could earn more by doing it better, rather than be promoted.)  For more see "Buddy System" and "Don't Promote Your Stars" at http://www.gallupjournal.com.

Leo Casey must be beside himself. Just a few miles from his office at the United Federation of Teachers on lower Park Avenue, The New York Times was publishing an article about surges of patriotism in American classrooms (Kevin Sack, "School Colors Become Red, White and Blue," 9/28/01).

Kids are pledging allegiance in Pennsylvania, singing "God Bless the U.S.A." in Arkansas, wearing red, white and blue to school (for a "Patriotism Day" assembly) in Maryland. And much more. There's even a move afoot to orchestrate a nationwide flag pledge at 2 p.m. (EDT) on October 12.

Why would Casey be distressed? Because he believes that sort of thing smacks of chauvinism and of inattention to multicultural concerns.

Why he thinks this, I cannot say. Many of the most ardent American patriots I know are immigrants who brought their cultures and languages with them. (Including my wife, now almost three decades on these shores, during which time this Indian-born physician wore the uniform of the U.S. Army for half a dozen years. I wonder if it was ever on Mr. Casey's back?)

Why bother with an obscure teachers union desk jockey like Leo Casey in the first place? Because some teachers might take him seriously. And because, after my September 21 Gadfly column on teaching patriotism, Casey issued a nasty broadside. He tried to link me with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who had proffered the disgraceful view that America got what was coming to it on September 11 because of our godlessness and immorality. In fact, I was as dismayed by that repellent notion as by Susan Sontag's hint that the U.S. earned the terrorist attack because of its sanctimony and bellicosity.

Casey alleged callousness because I said schools should teach not just tolerance, diversity and understanding, but also patriotism and heroism; and that they should make clear to kids that the world contains evil people who wish us ill. The essence of patriotism is the defense of a political order in which such values as tolerance can be assured. There's precious little tolerance or pluralism in the nations now harboring terrorists. Indeed, that's much of the reason they cannot abide our way of life and seek to eradicate it.

Why does this little dust-up matter when the nation has large concerns on its mind? Because in much the same vein that President Bush has admonished other countries to decide which side they are on, so too is this a moment when educators must face a basic decision about the message they seek to impart to children. It either includes patriotism or it doesn't.

Some would steer a middle course by suggesting to children that diversity and tolerance are the same thing as patriotism. "Is it not patriotic to emphasize the positive value of America's diversity?" e-mailed Penn State faculty member Dan Bloomingdale in response to my column on the subject. 

Of course it is. Diversity is part of the lesson needing to be taught. But that's like teaching that cakes contain eggs. Most cakes do—but if you end the recipe there you'll wind up with baked eggs. If you want a cake, you also need to reach for flour and butter, etc. So, too, with teaching patriotism, American style. Respect for diversity is a necessary ingredient. But so is love of freedom—and the fact that it has enemies who loathe it. So is the fragility of a free and diverse society, and the central obligation of that society to defend itself against aggressors. So, too, is respect for heroes, including those who froze at Valley Forge, who stormed the beaches of Normandy, and who perished while trying to rescue terrorist victims in lower Manhattan.

This more martial strand of patriotism makes some educators nervous. So does the sense of pride in America that accompanies it. They'd rather emphasize our failings and our differences. That's the case with Messrs. Casey and Bloomingdale. The elderly education scholar John Goodlad recently acknowledged the value of children being proud of their country but wondered "whether we will see the need to move beyond that into an understanding of democracy as a work in progress." Bloomingdale's version is that we have an obligation to "point out that America is, at times, 'bossy'."

Whence cometh this compulsion to highlight the nation's warts while ignoring its virtues? It's rooted in the mindset that arose, especially in our intellectual elites, during the Vietnam War. It's become a compulsion to pull down America rather than celebrate and defend it. Celebration and defense make these folks squeamish. You can almost feel them cringe during heartfelt renditions of "God Bless America," even the Pledge of Allegiance. They worry that the defense budget is too large.

Fortunately, they don't have much of a following. Patriotism is bustin' out all over in our schools, even on some college campuses. A lot of educators are fostering it. So, of course, is the broader public. Surveys show the overwhelming majority of Americans prepared to go to war to smite those who attacked us.

This is one of the many times when I miss the late Albert Shanker, long-time head of the American Federation of Teachers—and Leo Casey's boss. Diane Ravitch recalls what Shanker said in Prague two years before his death: "He warned the participants in a civic education dialogue from across Western and Eastern Europe to avoid multiculturalism and diversity, which fans the flames of ethnocentrism, and instead to pursue democracy. I found Al very persuasive, as always, then and now." So do I. He never flinched from asserting that the job of the public schools is to teach the common culture, the history of democracy and the centrality of freedom and its defense against aggressors. In the aftermath of September 11, as American educators decide which side of this pedagogical divide they and their schools will take, I choose Al Shanker's side—and that of the Arkansas superintendent who told his students last week that "It's OK to love your country and love your flag."

"School Colors Become Red, White and Blue," by Kevin Sack, The New York Times, September 28, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/education/28PATR.html?searchpv=past7days

"Liberal Skeptics Now Know the Deep Emotions of Patriotism," by George Packer, The New York Times, September 30, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/30/magazine/30WWLN.html?searchpv=past7days

A Mississippi fourth-grade teacher used a series of phony identities to gain a teaching license, buy a car, and attain national board certification, according to authorities in Mississippi. She was charged with forgery and fraudulent misuse of a social security number and has been sentenced to nine years in jail.  For details see "Impostor teacher learning a lesson," by Sherri Williams, The Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, September 26, 2001, http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0109/26/m02.html. Thanks to Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency for spotting this story.

The National Council on Teacher Quality and the Education Leaders Council have teamed up to launch a new project which will offer credentials to expert teachers and able would-be teachers.  The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence will award a beginning teacher credential to highly skilled individuals just entering teaching who have mastered an academic subject and can demonstrate an understanding of classroom management techniques. A second, master-level credential will be awarded to experienced teachers who can demonstrate mastery of the subjects they teach and who also contribute to improved student learning.  The new certification board, armed with a $5 million federal grant, was announced at the annual conference of the Education Leaders Council in Atlanta last week. For more see "Teacher Quality Board Formed," Gannett News Service, The Arizona Republic, September 29, 2001, http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0929teachers29.html

The London-based Centre for the Economics of Education held a conference on teacher pay and incentives last week and several new research papers are available from the conference website.  "Paying Teachers for Performance: Incentives and Selection," by Edward Lazear of Stanford University explores arguments about the effect of incentives on teacher behavior, discusses different ways of defining performance, and examines the relationship between teachers' desires for smaller classes and teacher salaries.  "Evaluating the Effect of Teachers' Performance Incentives on Pupil Achievement," by Victor Lavy of Hebrew University, looks at empirical evidence from a program in Israel that offered monetary incentives to teachers as a function of student achievement. You can find the papers at http://cee.lse.ac.uk/new%20site/pages/PRPconference.htm

 A long essay in this week's New Republic reviewing Terry Moe's new book, Schools, Vouchers and the American Public, Diane Ravitch explains why liberals should be pro-choice. She traces the history of the modern voucher movement and summarizes survey research analyzed by Moe that shows that the public is deeply ambivalent about vouchers, liking public education but also believing that the current system is inequitable for many children.  According to Ravitch, the voucher movement survives because Americans are accustomed to having many choices in their lives. While the public schools are, and will continue to be, a central institution of American life, Ravitch notes that the American tradition of education has always been decidedly pluralistic and included a range of religious options until these were challenged by two different movements in the mid-nineteenth century: the common school movement and the nativist movement. Today's debate over vouchers is merely the continuation of a long-running battle in American history about the role of non-public schools. See "The Right Thing," by Diane Ravitch, The New Republic, October 8, 2001. (Not available online.)

The Center for Education Reform has issued a listing of 65 studies of charter schools, together with brief summaries of each. It's not comprehensive. (For example, it makes no mention of Charter Schools in Action, the book by Bruno Manno, Gregg Vanourek and myself, or of Bruce Fuller's recent book on charter schools.)  Mostly, it reports on state-specific studies of charter school effectiveness. A few paragraphs are also spent trying to "meta-analyze" these studies, but that part's pretty casual. You'll find it useful primarily as a bibliography. No author is named. The fastest path is via the Internet at http://www.edreform.com/charter_schools/res01.pdf

Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity, National Research Council, 2001

Although the dropout rate has declined in recent decades, large numbers of kids - most of them Hispanic or black and nearly all of them poor - are still being left behind.  The National Research Council's Committee on Educational Excellence and Testing Equity (CEETE) set out to determine what effect the standards movement has had on dropouts and would-be dropouts.  Given the large variation among tests, policies and implementation practices among states and districts, CEETE concludes that "the precise relationship between graduation testing and dropping out of school is still in dispute," though they note that "it is clear that retention in grade is a strong predictor of dropping out." CEETE makes a strong case for disaggregating data on student progress leading up to and including exit tests so that at-risk populations can better be monitored. And, of course, they throw their support behind early intervention as the single most effective antidote to dropping out, which, they argue is "a process of gradual disengagement" rather than an "isolated event."  Copies of the report, which are $18 each ($14.40 when ordered at http://www.nap.edu), are available from the National Academy Press at 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW, Lockbox 285, Washington, DC 20055; 800-624-6242.  The report can also be read for free at http://books.nap.edu/books/0309076021/html/index.html

National Center for Education Statistics, August 2001

This new report from the National Center for Education Statistics grows out of a special 1996 NAEP study of high school seniors enrolled in advanced biology, chemistry or physics, a population comprising almost one-quarter of U.S. twelfth graders in 1995-96. There is, of course, a ubiquitous problem with 12^th grade NAEP results, namely that a lot of students don't take these low-stakes tests too seriously. Still, this is an interesting study, particularly for a country that has learned from TIMSS that even our advanced students don't perform very well by world standards. Some of what we find here is predictable: that boys still do better than girls in chemistry and physics, for example, though not significantly so in biology; and that white and Asian students score higher than black and Hispanic youngsters even within this advanced-course-taking population. Other results are less predictable, such as the absence of any significant public-private school differences. This 83-page report, written by Christine O'Sullivan and Wendy Grigg, does not report student performance in relation to the National Assessment Governing Board's "achievement levels" so it's hard to get beyond relativistic statements about students' actual attainments. But (in the mode of NAEP reports of yesteryear) it supplies a number of interesting sample items and tells you how well students did on each of them, as well as on NCES's pet "scale scores." If you want a hard copy, ask for NCES 2001-451 from Education Publications Center, U.S. Department of Education, P.O. Box 1398, Jessup, MD 20794 or phone (877) 433-7827. Faster may be to surf to http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001451 and print yourself a copy from the PDF version you'll find there.

The Center for Education Reform, 2001

The Center for Education Reform also recently released the executive summary of a report based on a charter-school survey it conducted during school year 2000-01. 346 schools responded (though no data are supplied by which to know how representative these are of the 2000 charter schools then operating). No author is named. Nor are there page numbers. But it's interesting, nonetheless. We learn, for example, that the schools' average size was 250 students and that two-thirds of them have waiting lists averaging 112 youngsters. We learn that 80% of them are start-up schools (the rest divide almost equally between public and private school conversions) and that they have a stunning array of curricular foci. (I was struck that nearly half claim to be using Direct Instruction and/or Core Knowledge.) Two-fifths of these schools got their charters from local school boards, the rest from other authorities. Have a look on the web at http://www.edreform.com/charter_schools/report/exesumm.pdf. And while you're there you can get CER's helpful new compilation of charter data for the present (2001-2002) school year by going to http://www.edreform.com/press/2001/010917.html.

William J. Bennett, 2001

In this new book, former education secretary and best-selling author William J. Bennett addresses himself to the decline of the American family and its implications for our society. He is, of course, talking about what some might term the "traditional" nuclear family (adult male and adult female, married to each other and raising their own children) but that he would simply term "the family." Unlike most of Bennett's earlier works, this volume is not primarily about education, but it intersects in many ways - for example, the devastating effects of divorce upon many children whom the schools are trying to teach - and will be of interest to most people who care about the condition of our young. It will inspire some readers, infuriate others and inform many with its wealth of information and its steady tone of moral seriousness and intellectual rigor. 200 pages long, its ISBN is 0385499159 and its publisher is Doubleday.