The Education Gadfly Weekly

U.S Department of Education
2004

The U.S. Department of Education contracted with SRI International to evaluate the federal charter school assistance program, and the bulk of this hundred-page report consists of such an evaluation. It tells how the program works, where the money goes, how charter schools work, who attends them, how states (and authorizers) hold them accountable, limitations in state charter laws (and federal statutes), and more. In general, it's a helpful introduction to the "charter movement" and high-level tour of the charter scene (though its latest data are 2+ years old). Much of what you'll find is supportive of charter schools, such as their disproportionate enrollment of poor and minority youngsters. What has drawn all the spotlights, however, especially in the charter-hating, union-hugging New York Times, is the section reporting five state case studies that sought to appraise how well charter schools - versus regular public schools - met "state performance standards" in 2001-2. Bottom line: more than half the charters in each state did meet those standards, but more district-operated public schools did. "This finding," the authors carefully note, "does not imply a lack of charter school impact on student achievement" and "may be linked to the prior achievement of students or some other factor. The design of this study did not allow us to determine whether charter schools are more or less effective than traditional public schools." You'd never learn of those limitations from the hubbub, however, as charter critics seize upon this as further proof that charter schools are failing. The truth is that this is just another "snapshot" look at school performance in a single year in a handful of states. It's contradicted by Caroline Hoxby's national study. And it tells us nothing about how much value these schools do (or don't) add to their students or how effective they are. It reminds us, however, that a lot of charter schools have a distance to travel if they and their students are going to meet the expectations laid down by NCLB and state academic standards. You can find it here.

"Charter schools: Fact and fiction," New York Post, November 20, 2004

"Charter schools' progress lags," by George Archibald, Washington Times, November 23, 2004

Statement by Deputy Secretary Eugene Hickok on Charter Schools Report, November 19, 2004

"Charter schools fall short in public schools matchup," by Sam Dillon and Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times, November 23, 2004 (registration required)

Tom Loveless, The Brookings Institution
November 2004

The annual Brown Center report is a must-read. Loveless reports, in no uncertain terms, that the past decade's improved NAEP math scores should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt. Why? Well, the fourth grade NAEP math test actually contains questions more appropriate for third graders, while the eighth grade test is geared toward . . . well, third graders. There's also a lot of what Loveless calls "false rigor" in NAEP, particularly in the "algebra" questions, which are often just dressed-up arithmetic exercises. NAEP is an essential tool, of course, and we should probably be glad for the recent upswing in scores. But we should also have a NAEP that assesses fourth and eighth graders according to the proper expectations. The second part of the Brown Center report is a broad survey of middle school math teachers' content training. They often turn out to have solid backgrounds in mathematics, but professional development programs are often superficial, focusing on too many topics at the expense of deepening teachers' core knowledge. Loveless recommends three sensible strategies: focus professional development on core topics, target teachers with weak math backgrounds and get them up to speed, and offer financial incentives. The last section of the report discusses the federal government's recently revamped Blue Ribbon Schools Program - a revamp occasioned in no small part by Loveless's 2000 indictment of said program. You can find this year's report here.

Noel Epstein, Editor, Brookings Institution Press and Education Commission of the States 2004

Herewith an interesting collection of essays on school governance, highlighting the tension between moves to decentralize control (through "site-based management" and similar reform initiatives) and those to centralize it (as in cities where mayors have taken charge or, some argue, in NCLB which gives more power to the feds). There is no one answer to the question of who should be in charge, and it's clear that in various ways everyone - parents, teachers, districts, boards, superintendents, states, and the feds - has a share of the action. The authors in this volume have differing views about how to sort out the tangles. Paul Hill's chapter is a gem. He wonderfully explains the synergy between choice- and standards-based reforms and argues that an ideal school system would offer the freedom-for-accountability tradeoff seen today in the charter school model. He sorts responsibilities according to "comparative advantage," to illustrate that decisions should be made by those in the best position to do so (locally for teaching decisions, at loftier levels for ensuring accountability and equity). Other worthy chapters include an examination of the practical implications of NCLB, both in centralizing power and potentially stifling variations among schools; Mike Kirst's argument that responsibility should lie with local boards and districts, which are most accountable to the public (surely a debatable point - click here); and editor Epstein's own chronicle of the ways in which schools increasingly substitute for families. On the other hand, Linda Darling-Hammond is less compelling as she regurgitates her complaints about Teach for America and praise for education schools, while calling for a federal policy to target the most acute teacher shortages. And Larry Cuban scores points when dissecting past reform failures, but loses the battle when he implies all is now basically under control in our schools (emphasizing that today's reforms are "born of a problem that no longer exists," namely the U.S. economy lagging behind Japan). You can order this collection online here.

Kate Walsh and Christopher Tracy, National Council on Teacher Quality
November 2004

The latest report from the National Council on Teacher Quality is a useful compendium of "well-designed and well-executed studies" of effective teachers and the qualities they share. This colorful book strips out statistical jargon to focus on big, consequential ideas. According to NCTQ, the best research suggests that credentials traditionally used by school districts and policymakers to hire or reward teachers - e.g. traditional certification, emphasis on education courses in college - may not deserve as much weight. Instead, placing increased value on teachers' academic ability, including literacy level and subject-matter coursework in the secondary levels, would more accurately identify highly qualified teachers. In the end, though, great teachers possess a combination of academic capability and "soft attributes" such as being organized, motivating, respectful, and responsible. To read the report, click here.

There are achievement gaps and then there are achievement gaps. A Japanese elementary school teacher with decades of experience was fired this month for repeatedly failing a writing exam designed for his students. According to an Osaka education official, the teacher had been placed in a training program to improve his teaching skills in March, but "failed to show any signs of improvement. Generally speaking, one would hope a public school teacher can pass a [writing] test for grade-school children." Generally, yes.

"Teacher fired after flunking his students' exam," Pakistan Daily Times, November 27, 2004

When the Advanced Placement (AP) program was established in 1955, it was designed to distinguish high-achieving high school students by giving them access to more rigorous, college-level coursework. Nearly a half-century later, enrollment in AP courses is expanding to include not just the highest-achieving students, but virtually anyone who wants in. According to Kathleen Kennedy Manzo of Education Week, the College Board is "trying to recast the program as being within the reach of any student willing to do the work, regardless of academic standing." Indeed, many see AP courses as one way to close the achievement gap - by exposing poor and minority students to more rigorous coursework. While few would take issue with increasing the level of expectation for all students, expanding access to AP programs could water down the content of those courses. According to Jennifer Dounay of the Education Commission of the States, "there is a concern among some that AP, in trying to go beyond its initial mission to serve only academically gifted students to serving as many students as sign up, is going to compromise the program's high benchmarks." In fact, there is some evidence that such concerns are causing schools to ditch AP programs altogether. According to the Wall Street Journal, many elite private schools - which used to offer lots of AP courses - are scrapping the courses and developing alternatives for which students can earn a "mark of distinction" on their transcript if they do well. Such moves seem to suggest that there will always be those who challenge the "Lake Wobegon Effect" by creating new distinctions when old ones lose their meaning. Even if, in this case, the new distinction is to ditch something they helped to legitimize and bring others to covet.

"Some private high schools drop AP courses," by Anne Marie Chaker, Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2004 (subscription required)

"Advanced Placement courses cast wider net," Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week, November 3, 2004 (registration required)

At the end of a 108th Congress plagued by partisan rancor and seemingly more devoted to symbolic than substantive progress on a host of issues, a lame duck session just before Thanksgiving managed to produce an unexpectedly promising bill to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which governs special education. (The text of the bill, which the President is expected to sign, can be found here.)

Enactment of IDEA's antecedent law in 1975 was a landmark for both education and civil rights, promising that children with disabilities could no longer be excluded from public education. Yet a 2001 study by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, along with plenty of other research, showed that IDEA has fallen well short of its promise. For example, it suffers from mission creep, serving a rising share of students with an expanding list of ever-less-severe disabilities. Due process protections have fostered adversarial relations between parents and educators and endless litigation. Combined pressures of paperwork, lawsuits, and high-cost placements build a spirit of resentment about the law in many places. While many children clearly benefit from IDEA, many others are ill-served, with negative results for both general and special education.

This new reauthorization can't solve all of IDEA's problems, some of which arise from state policies and the incredible challenges faced by many disabled youngsters as well as their families and teachers. But a number of worthy reforms made their way in, albeit many of them in attenuated form. For example:

Prevention and Early Intervention: IDEA offers extra resources for students with disabilities, yet many students benefit too late because they are diagnosed with disabilities only after falling far behind. This reauthorization allows up to 15 percent of IDEA funds to be used for prevention and intervention for struggling students before they fall far enough behind to require a disability diagnosis.

Redefine Learning Disabilities: IDEA once defined "specific learning disabilities" as gaps between students' overall aptitude and their performance in a specific subject. That approach forced educators to wait for students to fail, "identified" too many children who suffered from poor teaching instead of true disabilities, and overlooked real disabilities in low-performing youngsters. In this reauthorization, Congress eliminated the discrepancy definition, allowing states to substitute their own definitions and encouraging them to focus on how students respond to scientifically-based interventions.

Racial Inequities: Persistent racial gaps in special education diagnoses, placements, and discipline have long been troubling. Now Congress has taken a step to understanding - and mitigating - these gaps by requiring states and the U.S. Secretary of Education to monitor racial differences in special education and change policies that perpetuate them.

Align IDEA with other reforms: American education increasingly focuses on results-based accountability, but IDEA has concentrated on process more than outcomes for disabled students. The reauthorized version places a needed focus on learning, requiring states to set goals for improving achievement of students with disabilities, and mandating consequences and interventions if states don't improve. Reauthorization also brings special needs children under the banner of NCLB by clarifying how children with special needs are included and accommodated in state accountability systems.

Reduce Paperwork and Litigation: Excessive paperwork, litigation and an adversarial atmosphere are enormous burdens on special educators. This reauthorization authorizes a 15-state pilot project to experiment with paperwork reduction, seeking to preserve protections for students while closing some loopholes that allow savvy lawyers to abuse due process. It also encourages mediation before going into due process.

End Double Standards: Protections to ensure that disabled youngsters receive the services they need have also inadvertently kept educators from disciplining them to ensure safe and orderly schools. The reworked law still safeguards students from discipline for disability-related behavior but gives administrators more leeway to remove disruptive youngsters from the classroom while continuing to provide services to them.

Funding: Congress's 2005 IDEA appropriation, though up by $500 million from 2004, doesn't back up this reform bill as generously as it should. At $10.6 billion, it's $1.76 billion less than the reauthorization allows and less than half what would be required to keep the original (if arbitrary) federal funding commitment for special ed. The need, however, is not just more dollars, but also smarter funding to address district needs and incorporate evidence on effective special ed practice. One positive step in this bill requires states to set aside a percentage of IDEA funds to serve students with exceptionally costly disabilities, freeing local school districts from the burden of absorbing these rare but burdensome costs.

This bill was not without contention. PPI and Fordham took plenty of flak for advancing unconventional reform ideas and provisions of the final bill were both cheered and jeered by innumerable advocacy groups. Parent and disability rights interests opposed proposals to streamline due process or make it easier for schools to remove disruptive students. Democrats are disappointed with funding shortfalls. Republicans are disappointed by the absence of special ed vouchers ?? la Florida's McKay scholarship program. Despite its shortcomings, however, this law's passage offers a refreshing example of adults pushing across party lines and back at interest group pressures, and working together to change the status quo and improve educational opportunities for our most vulnerable children.

"Making progress," Washington Post, November 19, 2004

"House approves final special education bill," Committee on Education and the Workforce, November 19, 2004

Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Charles R. Hokanson, Jr., and Andrew J. Rotherham, editors, The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Progressive Policy Institute, Spring 2001 

Sara Mead is a policy analyst with the 21st Century Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.

In Fremont, California, the local school board was determined to reroute elementary and middle school students from the posh Mission Hills neighborhood away from high-performing Mission Hills High School to lower-performing schools in the area. Mission Hills parents objected, and even weighed splitting off to form their own school district, though in the end they did not. What makes this story different from similar occurrences is that the lower-performing schools are mostly white and Mission Hills is almost exclusively Asian - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian, mostly. The standard accusations are hurled at the Asian parents: that they greedily lay claim to more than their share of the district's resources, they're obsessive about school, exclusionary and standoffish. Remarkably, the Asian parents respond forthrightly that, not only do they, yes, care deeply about school performance, but that the real problem is that other parents don't take school seriously enough. (A point one mother would seem to confirm when she remarks, "We in Fremont see Mission Hills differently because they have a strong Asian population, and the whole way they do school is different from the way others do school.") Unfortunately, NPR managed to muck up a great man-bites-dog story with a bunch of empty blather about racial identity. Reporter Claudio Sanchez seemed certain that Mission Hills' high achievement conceals a roiling subculture of stress, racial tension, cheating, and drug use, though he offered no proof besides a few kids' tall tales. There is another way to read the facts: old-fashioned envy at newcomers making good and dismay over what their success might say about the lesser achievements of others.

"Immigrants weigh splitting from Calif. school system," by Claudio Sanchez, National Public Radio, November 29, 2004 (audio link)

It was perhaps a foregone conclusion, but one cannot help but be struck by Tuesday's recommendations from a court-appointed panel of referees in the New York City school financing case: increased state aid eventually reaching $5.63 billion extra for Big Apple schools each year, plus an additional $9.17 billion for capital improvements. (A similar judgment was handed down the same day in a case concerning Texas's school financing system.) That almost $15 billion nearly matches the entire amount - $15.4 billion - that Albany provides in aid to all school districts in the state combined. Quite a payday, indeed, for Mayor Bloomberg (assuming the legislature actually agrees to such a budget) and cause for joy if you still believe that lack of money is what ails urban education. (Such believers usually turn out to have a strong stake in additional money from on high: mayors and school administrators and teachers unions and all the assorted hangers-on who make a living off public education.) The court managed to ignore a mound of evidence that there is no connection between increased funding and student performance and, no surprise, the unions are already pushing to extend the ruling to school districts "like Buffalo, Binghamton, and Beacon," as the NEA/New York's press release melodiously put it. Expect additional lawsuits. The best we can say about this farce is that perhaps we have here what anthropologists call a natural experiment. If New York goes on a spending spree for class size reductions, ill-designed pre-K, and all sorts of new consultants, as Chancellor Klein has already suggested he will do, without addressing any of the fundamental curricular, contractual, pedagogical, or structural problems facing city schools, and test scores still do not improve - then perhaps we'll be a step closer to putting the "spending adequacy" genie back into its bottle. Unfortunately, in the meantime, it's truly shameful that New York's ill-served school children will be forced to endure more - and boy, do we mean more - of the same.

"Down the rathole," New York Daily News, December 2, 2004

"Klein's big plans," by David Andreatta, New York Post, December 2, 2004

"School windfall," by Joe Mahoney, Kathleen Lucadamo, and Joe Williams, New York Daily News, December 1, 2004

"Court panel says New York schools need billions more," by Greg Winter, New York Times, December 1, 2004
 
"Funny money," New York Post, December 1, 2004
 
"New York City schools should get $5.6 bln, panel says," Bloomberg News, November 30, 2004

"NEA/NY salutes education funding settlement, asks to extend decision across NYS," NEA/New York press release, November 30, 2004
 
"Judge issue final ruling in Texas school funding case, finding the system 'unsuitable,'" by Kelley Shannon, Associated Press, November 30, 2004

The Education Department's new Institute for Education Sciences was set up to take policy guidance and expert advice from a fifteen member National Board for Education Sciences, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. A superb first batch of members has now been confirmed for that potentially influential board, including such eminent analysts as Caroline Hoxby, Eric Hanushek, Sally Shaywitz, Richard Milgram, and Herbert Walberg, and such astute policy leaders as Phil Handy, Carol D'Amico and Beth Ann Bryan. The nation is fortunate to have such a terrific bunch steering the IES, and we trust that Institute director Grover (Russ) Whitehurst will gratefully receive and follow their advice.

Kate Walsh and Christopher Tracy, National Council on Teacher Quality
November 2004

The latest report from the National Council on Teacher Quality is a useful compendium of "well-designed and well-executed studies" of effective teachers and the qualities they share. This colorful book strips out statistical jargon to focus on big, consequential ideas. According to NCTQ, the best research suggests that credentials traditionally used by school districts and policymakers to hire or reward teachers - e.g. traditional certification, emphasis on education courses in college - may not deserve as much weight. Instead, placing increased value on teachers' academic ability, including literacy level and subject-matter coursework in the secondary levels, would more accurately identify highly qualified teachers. In the end, though, great teachers possess a combination of academic capability and "soft attributes" such as being organized, motivating, respectful, and responsible. To read the report, click here.

Noel Epstein, Editor, Brookings Institution Press and Education Commission of the States 2004

Herewith an interesting collection of essays on school governance, highlighting the tension between moves to decentralize control (through "site-based management" and similar reform initiatives) and those to centralize it (as in cities where mayors have taken charge or, some argue, in NCLB which gives more power to the feds). There is no one answer to the question of who should be in charge, and it's clear that in various ways everyone - parents, teachers, districts, boards, superintendents, states, and the feds - has a share of the action. The authors in this volume have differing views about how to sort out the tangles. Paul Hill's chapter is a gem. He wonderfully explains the synergy between choice- and standards-based reforms and argues that an ideal school system would offer the freedom-for-accountability tradeoff seen today in the charter school model. He sorts responsibilities according to "comparative advantage," to illustrate that decisions should be made by those in the best position to do so (locally for teaching decisions, at loftier levels for ensuring accountability and equity). Other worthy chapters include an examination of the practical implications of NCLB, both in centralizing power and potentially stifling variations among schools; Mike Kirst's argument that responsibility should lie with local boards and districts, which are most accountable to the public (surely a debatable point - click here); and editor Epstein's own chronicle of the ways in which schools increasingly substitute for families. On the other hand, Linda Darling-Hammond is less compelling as she regurgitates her complaints about Teach for America and praise for education schools, while calling for a federal policy to target the most acute teacher shortages. And Larry Cuban scores points when dissecting past reform failures, but loses the battle when he implies all is now basically under control in our schools (emphasizing that today's reforms are "born of a problem that no longer exists," namely the U.S. economy lagging behind Japan). You can order this collection online here.

Tom Loveless, The Brookings Institution
November 2004

The annual Brown Center report is a must-read. Loveless reports, in no uncertain terms, that the past decade's improved NAEP math scores should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt. Why? Well, the fourth grade NAEP math test actually contains questions more appropriate for third graders, while the eighth grade test is geared toward . . . well, third graders. There's also a lot of what Loveless calls "false rigor" in NAEP, particularly in the "algebra" questions, which are often just dressed-up arithmetic exercises. NAEP is an essential tool, of course, and we should probably be glad for the recent upswing in scores. But we should also have a NAEP that assesses fourth and eighth graders according to the proper expectations. The second part of the Brown Center report is a broad survey of middle school math teachers' content training. They often turn out to have solid backgrounds in mathematics, but professional development programs are often superficial, focusing on too many topics at the expense of deepening teachers' core knowledge. Loveless recommends three sensible strategies: focus professional development on core topics, target teachers with weak math backgrounds and get them up to speed, and offer financial incentives. The last section of the report discusses the federal government's recently revamped Blue Ribbon Schools Program - a revamp occasioned in no small part by Loveless's 2000 indictment of said program. You can find this year's report here.

U.S Department of Education
2004

The U.S. Department of Education contracted with SRI International to evaluate the federal charter school assistance program, and the bulk of this hundred-page report consists of such an evaluation. It tells how the program works, where the money goes, how charter schools work, who attends them, how states (and authorizers) hold them accountable, limitations in state charter laws (and federal statutes), and more. In general, it's a helpful introduction to the "charter movement" and high-level tour of the charter scene (though its latest data are 2+ years old). Much of what you'll find is supportive of charter schools, such as their disproportionate enrollment of poor and minority youngsters. What has drawn all the spotlights, however, especially in the charter-hating, union-hugging New York Times, is the section reporting five state case studies that sought to appraise how well charter schools - versus regular public schools - met "state performance standards" in 2001-2. Bottom line: more than half the charters in each state did meet those standards, but more district-operated public schools did. "This finding," the authors carefully note, "does not imply a lack of charter school impact on student achievement" and "may be linked to the prior achievement of students or some other factor. The design of this study did not allow us to determine whether charter schools are more or less effective than traditional public schools." You'd never learn of those limitations from the hubbub, however, as charter critics seize upon this as further proof that charter schools are failing. The truth is that this is just another "snapshot" look at school performance in a single year in a handful of states. It's contradicted by Caroline Hoxby's national study. And it tells us nothing about how much value these schools do (or don't) add to their students or how effective they are. It reminds us, however, that a lot of charter schools have a distance to travel if they and their students are going to meet the expectations laid down by NCLB and state academic standards. You can find it here.

"Charter schools: Fact and fiction," New York Post, November 20, 2004

"Charter schools' progress lags," by George Archibald, Washington Times, November 23, 2004

Statement by Deputy Secretary Eugene Hickok on Charter Schools Report, November 19, 2004

"Charter schools fall short in public schools matchup," by Sam Dillon and Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times, November 23, 2004 (registration required)