The Education Gadfly Weekly

Kevin Donnelly
Hardie Grant Books
2007

If the problems facing America's schools seem too enormous, consider Australia. Like the U.S., Oz trails most of the industrialized world on TIMSS and other international assessments. But it seems slower in coming to grips with the damage that's been done to its education system over the past 30 years. Enter Kevin Donnelly, among the leading Antipodean education thinkers, who has chronicled how progressives hijacked the curriculum beginning in the 1970s and shifted the focus from traditional disciplines (English, history, science, and math) and norm-referenced testing to "child-centered" teaching and criterion-referenced tests with very wishy-washy criteria. The result is "transformational outcomes-based education," whose (im)measurables are driven by the belief that no child should ever fail. But Donnelly's book goes beyond fingering those who have undermined Australian schools (though he does this well). It also builds the case for a strong traditional curriculum (chapter 4), and outlines the states in Australia that are fighting back, as well as how they're doing it (New South Wales and Victoria, in particular). Much of the content will resonate with American readers--the struggles, for example, to root constructivism out of Australia's schools of education sound all too familiar. Still, much of the book will cause one to stop and appreciate, if only for a moment, how very far school reform has come in this country. Purchase it here.

Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now
January 2007

With this report the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) follows in the footsteps of Delaware's Vision 2015 project and outlines a comprehensive statewide school reform strategy--this time for the Nutmeg State. Like Vision 2015, this report was spearheaded by a large, well-credentialed Board of Directors and Advisors and is clearly serious about school reform. The reports are also similar in approach. Both call for expanding access to pre-school; improving recruitment and performance of teachers and principals; implementing a strong, value-added accountability system; and facilitating school-level innovation. On this last issue ConnCAN bests Vision 2015 with its explicit focus on charters. It recommends lifting Connecticut's exceptionally tight cap on charter growth (just sixteen schools statewide at present) and funding these schools at the same levels as traditional public schools. Its recommendations on improving principal and teacher quality are less strong. It argues for alternative certification and heavy recruitment from organizations such as Teach for America--undoubtedly positive steps. But the report is mum on teacher pay and vague on redefining the role of the principal. On finance, Vision 2015, which calls for weighted student funding, does better; ConnCAN's call for standardized accounting and increased transparency is important but doesn't go far enough. Overall, ConnCAN's report warrants attention, but one can get a much richer look at possible comprehensive state-level reform strategies by using it in tandem with Vision 2015 (which perhaps Connecticut policymakers should also do). Read ConnCAN's report here.

Elena Silva
Education Sector
January 2007

This latest report from Education Sector is an invitation to begin a dialogue about school time (incidentally, the organization is hosting just such a discussion). The author does a swell job summing up the existing research about the pros and cons of extending the school day and school year, and she offers some sensible recommendations. But they are general and predictable. For example, the report notes that "the collection and analysis of time-use data in schools must be improved" and that "the value and success of time reform...depends greatly on context." True statements; also prosaic ones. Not to say that the report isn't worth a look. One who knew nothing about instructional-time issues could pick up this volume, read it over a leisurely lunch, and feel confident that he or she would not be at all ruffled if, over afternoon martinis, someone happened to say, "Now then, what's all this business about long school days?" Policymakers, too, can use it for a quick overview of the issue, the research, and the pros and cons. You can find it by clicking here.

For more than three decades, advocates of "whole-language" reading instruction have argued--to the delight of many teachers and public school administrators--that learning to read is a "natural" process for children. Create reading centers in classrooms; put good, fun books in children's hands and allow them to explore; then encourage them to "read," even if they can't actually make out many of the words on the page. After all, they can use context clues and such. Eventually, they'll get it. So say the believers.

Seven years ago, the National Reading Panel (NRP) issued a report that was--well, that should have been--devastating to whole-language proponents. It identified five essential elements that every child must master in order to be a good reader: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Early-reading programs that fully incorporate these five elements into their materials and methods are properly termed "scientifically-based reading research" (SBRR) programs.

But what should have been the death knell of whole language programs has instead become a new ticket to prosperity. For instead of accepting NRP's conclusions and truly reworking--or ending--their products, they've relabeled themselves, reworked their marketing materials, added happy talk about the five NRP elements, and now claim to be SBRR programs. Only they're not.

More than a few people have been fooled, including the leaders of such large districts as Denver, Salt Lake City, and New York City. How could so many professionals be misled? Some, no doubt, craved the illusion, because their own habits, their own training, or their ideology predisposes them to favor whole-language instruction. (How romantic to rail against "scripted," "soulless" research-based interventions!) The faux-SBRR programs provide a screen behind which they can continue doing what they want.

In part, though, the problem arises from the five elements themselves.

As set forth by the National Reading Panel, these oversimplify the complex scientific findings on how children learn to read. Reality is more complicated. The most effective SBRR programs weave the key elements together, instead of teaching each in isolation, so that students learn phonics and explicit speech sounds, for example, as they're mastering word meaning and grammar.

If the buyer isn't attuned to these complexities and views the NRP elements more like a checklist of elements that a reading program must assure him that it includes, it's not hard to slip a faux-SBRR program by him. Yet the results of selecting the wrong program are profound. Most children identified before second grade as having trouble learning to read can learn to read well with a bona fide SBRR program. But if children fall through the cracks in these early years, the odds of ever bringing them to proficiency fall sharply. Which helps to explain the nation's depressing reading achievement results--particularly in the middle and high-school years--over the past decade and a half.

That whole language has nine lives is no surprise to Louisa Moats, who seven years ago warned the country in an earlier Fordham report, Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of "Balanced" Reading, about the lengths whole-language advocates would go to keep their flawed programs alive and on the market. That appraisal remains one of our most-sought works.

Whole language may be back, but so is Louisa, this time with a new report: Whole-Language High Jinks, which explains how prospective buyers can tell when a reading program's claims are written to dupe them.

But her report is more than a "how-to" guide. It also provides important context to the battles still raging in Washington and several state capitals over the federal Reading First program, which offers $1 billion per year to the nation's neediest elementary schools to implement SBRR programs.

To its credit, the U.S. Department of Education hasn't been naïve about the "whole language wolves in SBRR sheep's clothing" problem. Exactly because it knew that non-SBRR programs would pretend to be something that they weren't (after all, much money was at stake), it pushed states and districts hard to purchase only the real deal. And for this, members of Congress, the Department's Inspector General, sundry editorial writers and, especially, the vendors of whole language programs have all cried foul.

But as Sol Stern explains in an excellent new City Journal article (see here), "If [Reading First Director Chris] Doherty's sin was to lean on a state education agency or two to promote a reading program backed by science over one that wasn't, well, that's just what the Reading First legislation intended."

And guess what? True SBRR programs yield strong results. Birmingham, Alabama, for example, has adopted such a program, has trained its teachers thoroughly in how to best instruct students, and has seen significant improvement not only in reading but also in reading-dependent subjects such as history. Other districts are beginning to take notice.

Yes, there's a scandal to be reported about reading. But it's not about overzealous federal officials pushing states and districts to purchase pre-determined programs. It's about the purveyors of discredited reading programs cynically re-labeling their products as something that they are not, all in the cause of reaping a cash windfall. All while children's futures are at stake. Where's the outrage about that?

School board meetings are the choicest venues to stage a culture war this side of the O'Reilly Factor. The best battles, of course, pit religion against science, faith against fact. And just when you thought this struggle was going stale, here comes Al Gore and his global warming docu-drama An Inconvenient Truth. A national uproar has ensued after Seattle suburb resident Frosty (sic) Hardison wrote in a letter to his local school board, "No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation--the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet--for global warming." The board quickly imposed a "moratorium" on showing the video, and was then flooded with thousands of phone calls and emails from scientists around the country lambasting its decision. Almost makes you want to throw in the towel on common schools. But a common-sense solution is at hand for this case, as it is for many like it. Science class is for science; here, that means presenting the scientific consensus that climate change is happening, as well as the uncertainties about how much of it is caused by people and what can be done to alter it. As for the other battles--well, that's what current events class and debate club are for.

"Gore Film Sparks Parents' Anger," by Blaine Harden, Washington Post, January 25, 2007

To instruct students on the artistic technique of chiaroscuro, a Renaissance innovation that contrasts dark colors with intense whites, a typical teacher might display Baglione's Sacred Love versus Profane Love or Rembrandt's St. Peter in Prison. But at Adwick Washington Infant School in South Yorkshire, England, one teacher recently chose the more hands-on method of photocopying her student's head. While most of the tots participating in this "light and dark experiment" brought home images of their little white hands against a black background, the parents of five-year-old Luke Wilson received a xerox with some extra shades of gray--their son's face, with the hand of his teacher on top of it. Now Luke is suffering from serious eye irritation; doctors at Doncaster Royal Infirmary compared his symptoms to those commonly associated with "arc eye," or "welder's flash," which result from exposure to intense ultraviolet light. Luke's parents have not pressed charges. They seem more confused than anything else. It's been said many times: Hands-on learning is not a victimless crime.

"Teacher 'put boy's head in photocopier'," by Paul Stokes, Telegraph, January 26, 2007

When New York elected Democratic attorney general Elliot Spitzer to succeed Republican George Pataki as governor, nobody knew exactly what tack he would take on education. During the campaign, Spitzer was prone to accusations of being, as his opponent noted, "all things to all people." While he supported some union initiatives (such as lowering class sizes), he also supported some reform-minded goals (such as raising the cap on charter schools).

But in good political fashion, he was always vague about specifics.

No more. Spitzer's January 29^th "Contract for Excellence" speech at the State Education Department put some flesh (and many dollars) on the bones of his reform vision, centering on three types of accountability--financial, programmatic, and performance.

Yes, it includes some parts that are questionable, such as its emphasis on lowering class sizes. No, it said next to nothing about content and curriculum (though, to be fair, New York State already has some of the nation's best content standards). Yes, it pours out gobs more money for schooling. Says the New York Times, "$1.4 billion in added education spending statewide for the coming fiscal year, increasing to $7 billion in added annual spending after four years."

So what's to like? Mainly this, from Spitzer: "There will be no more excuses for failure. The debate will no longer be about money, but about performance."

He appears not to be kidding. If you're in any way involved with a New York school, Spitzer wants your work transparent and you held accountable. He wants to reform the state's "Byzantine and politically-driven school aid formulas," for example, by distributing educational dollars according to students' needs.

And he seems willing to gore some sacred cows. He proposed expanding alternative certification for teachers, measuring the effectiveness of teacher education programs, and changing how teachers receive tenure so that it's "granted the way other professional decisions are made"--based on results. He also proposed paying higher salaries to highly qualified teachers who enter hard-to-staff schools or teach hard-to-staff subjects (i.e., differential pay: pay the physics teacher more than the phys. ed. teacher).

Spitzer also vowed to create a database of reform strategies with backing from "hard data and professional research." Districts will supposedly select their intervention strategies from only these programs. And he wants to create another database--a "value-added assessment system" that can track the academic performance of individual students (a reform that's worked well in Florida).

Then there are charter schools, to which Albany's Democrats (and not a few of its Republicans) have been notoriously unfriendly. Spitzer would raise the statewide cap to 250 from its previous 100. (There are givebacks, however, including some sort of collective bargaining rights for charter teachers and "transition" aid for districts such as Albany that are losing many pupils to charters.) He even included this mildly titillating line: "Our first priority must be funding public schools, but to the extent our fiscal resources allow, we should support parents who choose to send their children to private and parochial schools." Not too clear what that means. We still predict that New York State will be the 50^th to adopt vouchers.

And finally, Spitzer wants each district in the state to sign performance contracts with superintendents; if the district's academic performance is unacceptable for a set number of years (the Governor didn't say how many), its superintendent must be replaced. Principals will have "School Leadership Report Cards," too. School boards that repeatedly fail their districts? Spitzer wants to have the Commissioner of Education disband them.

Getting all this done will be tough and Spitzer hasn't yet shown his mettle in legislative combat (he's shown some gall, though). But that doesn't take any luster off his proposals, which are well-constructed, far-reaching, and don't tip-toe around the controversial issues.

We wish him well. New York already has whopping taxes and spends a ton on education. Outside Manhattan, however, the state is in economic trouble and needs to turn itself around, beginning with its human capital. As for the larger picture, when a rising-star Democrat with national ambitions comes out in favor of such education reforms, we can all be encouraged that, perhaps, the traditional way of doing business is no longer such.

"Spitzer's Education Agenda Promises Aid Increase," by David M. Herszenhorn and Danny Hakim, New York Times, January 30, 2007

"Schools pleased, wary about aid," by Meaghan M. McDermott, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, February 1, 2007

School reforms come and go. But educational determinism, it appears, goes on forever. By which I mean the view that schools are essentially powerless to accomplish much by way of learning gains, no matter what is done to or about them. That is because--take your pick--they don't have enough money/time/experienced teachers; or students face so many problems in their lives that it's folly to expect schools to do more with them; or kids lack the innate ability to acquire more skills or deeper knowledge, regardless of how their schools may change.

That's three different arguments, of course. The first is most apt to come from educators and experts who contend--forget four decades of post-Coleman evidence to the contrary--that there's some sort of linear relationship between what goes into schooling by way of resources and what comes out by way of learning. Hence if we crave more of the latter we had best cough up more of the former.

The second--I've long thought of it as the "Gee, Officer Krupke" argument--is typically heard from well-meaning liberals (e.g., Richard Rothstein) who earnestly want income to be redistributed, health care provided, families propped up, racial barriers eased, and so on. They see kids, especially disadvantaged kids, facing non-school challenges that swamp what schools can accomplish. Solve those larger societal problems, they say, and educational achievement will flourish. (The latest Quality Counts from the publishers of Education Week contains a whiff of this. And one often hears something like it from educators who contend that any achievement shortfalls are really the parents' fault.)

The third form of determinism, most prominently associated with Charles Murray, holds that IQ is destiny--and is immutable. With half of everyone having below-average intellect, he writes in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere (see here), schools are fruitlessly trying (as the schoolteacher wife of a prominent education-reform governor once said to me) to cram a quart of learning into a pint pot.

Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry, it scarcely matters which flavor of fatalism you select. All send the same signal: that standards-based reform in general, and NCLB in particular, are doomed. That school choice can't accomplish much, either. Indeed, that nothing within the realm of education policy and practice, or within the control of schools and those who work in them, is really capable of producing significant achievement gains.

I beg to differ. Education reform is all about making schools more effective and productive so that kids do in fact learn more. That's no fantasy, even if the determinists want us to think it is. Rather, it's the reality in hundreds of high-performing, high-poverty schools across the country, be they district, charter, or private. They all start with more or less the same sorts of kids with the same sorts of problems and with similar cognitive capacities. Yet they produce markedly better results. They may not get to 100 percent proficiency, but they get a heckuva lot closer than your typical school serving disadvantaged youngsters.

No, we don't have nearly enough super-schools today. That's the education reform challenge. But it doesn't take many such schools to belie the claim that it can't be done. As Kant wrote, the actual proves the possible.

High-performance schools have been studied for at least twenty years and we know, more or less, what sets them apart. They have a clear mission, team spirit, a coherent curriculum and pedagogy (though these take many forms), talented teachers, and values that embrace success. They also benefit from strong leaders,

Many of them also muster more time on task: longer school days, weeks, and years, and teachers who are accessible during off hours. Which isn't to say every "extended day" program yields higher achievement, only that high-achieving schools typically occupy a larger fraction of kids' lives.

That's both because these schools see the need for more teaching-and-learning time and because they want to keep their students off the streets. High-performance schools are reshaping poor kids' aspirations, priorities, and peer groups while imparting cognitive skills and knowledge. 

If we want more such schools, we'll likely have to spend more, or at least drive more of our dollars to our neediest schools. (Yes, "inputs" can make a difference--properly used.) But just as important is quelling the forces in American life that push against more time-on-task: summer employers who don't want the school year longer; union contracts that confer on teachers the right to go home at 2:43 p.m.; the entertainment industry with its appetite for kids' attention during evenings and weekends; and, of late, the dumbest idea of all: the push for less homework.

Homework is the most economical way for a school to stretch kids' learning time, albeit not necessarily the most effective (nor best at keeping them off the streets). But several wrong-headed recent books assert that there's too much of it, that it's mindless and formulaic and doesn't leave youngsters enough time "to be kids" (see here and here).

As one might suspect, the schools first influenced by this nonsense are elite institutions attended mainly by upper-middle class kids. Those are the kids fortunate enough to have salubrious places to go and things to do, and people to look after them once school lets out. They are the kids most apt to have shelves of books and parents who read--and who limit their TV access. These kids may do fine with limited school-prescribed homework. But the normal trajectory of education ideas is for them to trickle down from schools serving the prosperous middle class to schools that serve mostly the poor. (The most destructive example being classroom constructivism, which may work okay for kids with structure, discipline, and systems at home but, as E.D. Hirsch has shown, is a dire blunder for youngsters who depend on school for such things.)  

Most policymakers, employers, and college professors, and plenty of students themselves, understand that U.S. children can and should be learning more than they are today. Whatever their innate capacity--and it's far more elastic than the Murrays of the world realize--they have plenty of underutilized brain cells that could absorb lots more skills and knowledge. The key premise of NCLB is that this is possible and desirable and that the most direct path to it involves taking steps to change low-performing schools.

Even if 100 percent proficiency by 2014 is dreamy, what a different country this would be--how much better, stronger, and prosperous in so many ways--if we moved from today's 30 percent proficiency (using NAEP standards) to, say, 70 or 80 percent. And if poor and minority kids, in particular, were doing lots better and those vexing gaps were shrinking.

Combatting the determinists and fatalists is a multi-front war. But one well worth fighting--and winning.

Elena Silva
Education Sector
January 2007

This latest report from Education Sector is an invitation to begin a dialogue about school time (incidentally, the organization is hosting just such a discussion). The author does a swell job summing up the existing research about the pros and cons of extending the school day and school year, and she offers some sensible recommendations. But they are general and predictable. For example, the report notes that "the collection and analysis of time-use data in schools must be improved" and that "the value and success of time reform...depends greatly on context." True statements; also prosaic ones. Not to say that the report isn't worth a look. One who knew nothing about instructional-time issues could pick up this volume, read it over a leisurely lunch, and feel confident that he or she would not be at all ruffled if, over afternoon martinis, someone happened to say, "Now then, what's all this business about long school days?" Policymakers, too, can use it for a quick overview of the issue, the research, and the pros and cons. You can find it by clicking here.

Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now
January 2007

With this report the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) follows in the footsteps of Delaware's Vision 2015 project and outlines a comprehensive statewide school reform strategy--this time for the Nutmeg State. Like Vision 2015, this report was spearheaded by a large, well-credentialed Board of Directors and Advisors and is clearly serious about school reform. The reports are also similar in approach. Both call for expanding access to pre-school; improving recruitment and performance of teachers and principals; implementing a strong, value-added accountability system; and facilitating school-level innovation. On this last issue ConnCAN bests Vision 2015 with its explicit focus on charters. It recommends lifting Connecticut's exceptionally tight cap on charter growth (just sixteen schools statewide at present) and funding these schools at the same levels as traditional public schools. Its recommendations on improving principal and teacher quality are less strong. It argues for alternative certification and heavy recruitment from organizations such as Teach for America--undoubtedly positive steps. But the report is mum on teacher pay and vague on redefining the role of the principal. On finance, Vision 2015, which calls for weighted student funding, does better; ConnCAN's call for standardized accounting and increased transparency is important but doesn't go far enough. Overall, ConnCAN's report warrants attention, but one can get a much richer look at possible comprehensive state-level reform strategies by using it in tandem with Vision 2015 (which perhaps Connecticut policymakers should also do). Read ConnCAN's report here.

Kevin Donnelly
Hardie Grant Books
2007

If the problems facing America's schools seem too enormous, consider Australia. Like the U.S., Oz trails most of the industrialized world on TIMSS and other international assessments. But it seems slower in coming to grips with the damage that's been done to its education system over the past 30 years. Enter Kevin Donnelly, among the leading Antipodean education thinkers, who has chronicled how progressives hijacked the curriculum beginning in the 1970s and shifted the focus from traditional disciplines (English, history, science, and math) and norm-referenced testing to "child-centered" teaching and criterion-referenced tests with very wishy-washy criteria. The result is "transformational outcomes-based education," whose (im)measurables are driven by the belief that no child should ever fail. But Donnelly's book goes beyond fingering those who have undermined Australian schools (though he does this well). It also builds the case for a strong traditional curriculum (chapter 4), and outlines the states in Australia that are fighting back, as well as how they're doing it (New South Wales and Victoria, in particular). Much of the content will resonate with American readers--the struggles, for example, to root constructivism out of Australia's schools of education sound all too familiar. Still, much of the book will cause one to stop and appreciate, if only for a moment, how very far school reform has come in this country. Purchase it here.