The Education Gadfly Weekly

Education Week
September 10, 2008

This collection of articles considers research on the characteristics common to charter school leaders. Though the schools themselves vary widely in organizational structure, curriculum choices, and mission, successful leaders of them tend to have much in common. The ideal charter principal is often presumed to be a person of near-mythical capabilities, containing in one body the qualities of superintendent, principal, teacher, parent, construction worker, and chief financial officer. That perception, this compilation notes, is not reality. The best leadership model, it seems, is what today is often termed "distributed leadership," a set-up in which responsibility is shared between two or three highly driven and dedicated people with different but complementary skill sets. Such a model allows for specialized handling of responsibilities, such as fundraising or facilities management, and makes it easier to grow leaders in-house and involve teachers in management decisions. The articles also report that charter board members, like regular school board members, often misunderstand their oversight roles and become mired in the minutiae of school operations, for example. A successful board member, readers learn, understands the charter laws in his state and remains focused on supporting his school's vision. This compilation (with contributions from Education Week reporters and Center on Reinventing Public Education staff members) has much more to say about what good charter school leadership looks like. It's available here.

Cecilia Rouse and Lisa Barrow
August 2008

This paper reviews the best research about the impact of publicly- and privately-financed school voucher programs on student achievement. Neither voucher advocates nor critics will discover here much ammunition for their causes. When the research finds gains for voucher students, they are tiny and most are not statistically significant. And nearly all the studies are short-term, making it tough to measure meaningful change. They do, however, consistently find that voucher parents are more satisfied with their child's schooling. The authors point out that there is scant research on vouchers' impact on outcomes other than achievement, such as high school graduation rates, college enrollment, and future earnings. So while current studies don't, can't, or can't yet find robust academic gains for voucher students, there may be other, very good, so-far-unstudied reasons to implement school voucher programs. Find the report here.

Andrew J. Rotherham
Philanthropy Roundtable
2008

Wealthy individuals who lose count of their houses may well wonder: What is the most efficient way for my millions to boost teacher and principal quality in the public schools? This book is the Philanthropy Roundtable's answer. Author Andrew Rotherham believes that hiring savvy administrators and teachers is the smartest way to leaven American educational worth. "Research has convincingly shown," he writes, "what parents and educators have long suspected: teachers matter more to student learning than anything else schools do." Thus, he presents a comprehensive overview of the who, what, where, why, and how of developing the human capital of public schools--e.g., the work of Jon Schnur of New Leaders for New Schools, Teach for America, the Gates Foundation, etc. Whether you're Uncle Pennybags, or staff his foundation, or are simply interested in philanthropic efforts to improve American academics, this book is worth a read. Find it here.

Barack Obama has long nurtured an interest in education, reports Sam Dillon in Wednesday's New York Times. Much of it grew out of his work with school-reform personalities (including the infamous Bill Ayers) and efforts in the Windy City. It started with Obama's involvement in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Dillon describes as a philanthropic program "that spent $150 million on Chicago's troubled schools and barely made a dent." (That was our conclusion, too, when we looked at the initiative eight years ago.) In 1995, Obama was elected chairman of the Chicago Annenberg-project board. Dillon reports that the group's executive director, Ken Rolling, thinks "the experience gave Mr. Obama an appreciation for the multiple problems facing urban schools." The senator's work in Chicago also brought him into frequent contact with that city's current schools chief, Arne Duncan, with whom Obama often talks and sometimes plays basketball. Duncan seems to us to be doing about as well as one could with Chicago's sprawling and troubled public school system, and he's learned a ton about urban education. What, one wonders, did Senator Obama learn from his Annenberg involvement? If $150 million in (exceptionally flexible) private money made no dent in Chicago, what will a few billion more (severely restricted) federal dollars do for the entire country?

"Obama Looks to Lessons From Chicago in His National Education Plan," by Sam Dillon, New York Times, September 10, 2008

Got the post-convention blues? Miss the fiery speeches, carefully chosen interlude music, and confetti? The Democratic and Republican education platforms are no spit-licked cowlick, sure, but reading them may nonetheless help ease your angst. Or your insomnia.

What do the two parties have to say about education in their 2008 platforms? Not much, it seems, and certainly not about No Child Left Behind. This is par for the course for the Democrats: In their 2004 party platform, they mentioned NCLB just once--that's the case this time, too--and only then to complain that it wasn't working because it wasn't fully funded.

But the Republicans' 2008 shunning of NCLB is quite a change. In 2004, the GOP platform cited that law twelve times; in fact, its education section was titled "No Child Left Behind." This year, however, the Republicans don't mention NCLB even once. Instead, they focus on education as a component of global competitiveness. They talk up policies such as merit pay, and concepts such as higher standards and technology. So do the Democrats.

But despite their similarities, the two parties' education platforms have a vastly different feel. Where the Democrats come across as accommodating, even timid in their policy proposals, and call for national compromise and unity to enact them, the GOP is confrontational and emphasizes the concept of parental choice.

The Democratic outlook on schools is gloomy, yet the platform hesitates to step on any status quo (read: teacher union) toes. For instance, if teachers are still underperforming after they have received "individual help and support," the country "should find a quick and fair way--consistent with due process--to put another teacher in that classroom" (emphasis mine). In similar vein, the Democrats support only those merit-pay plans that are "developed with teachers, not imposed on them."

For their part, Republicans may be avoiding NCLB, but they certainly aren't avoiding their traditional conflict with unions. They write, "School districts must have the authority to recruit, reward and retain the best and brightest teachers, and principals must have the authority to select and assign teachers without regard to collective bargaining agreements." Nor are Republicans backing away from choice (although perhaps their support could be more detailed): "parents should be able to decide the learning environment that is best for their child."

It's unclear how the differences in party education platforms will translate from paper to policy, or even whether party platforms matter much nowadays, but one thing's for sure: NCLB is on nobody's good-list.

The Democratic Party platforms: (2004) and (2008)
The Republican Party platforms: (2004) and (2008)

A cautionary tale emerges from Australia for those who, like many of Gadfly's best friends, favor national standards and curricula. It seems that a former Communist Party member has been appointed to oversee development of a history lesson plan for the entire nation. Stuart Macintyre, the ex-Red in question, subscribes to what he calls "history from below"--i.e., a history that doesn't acknowledge Australia's national accomplishments but instead focuses on the grievances of its minority groups. Then there's Peter Freebody, who will manage the construction of the country's English curriculum and who has written that being literate involves "a moral, political and cultural decision about the kind of literate practices that are needed to enhance people's agency over their life trajectories and to enhance communities' intellectual, cultural, and semiotic resources in print/multi-mediated economies." We must be wary, he believes, of approaches to teaching English that further "centralised political surveillance and technocratic control in education." Whatever. Implementing a national curriculum makes sense in theory, but if these are the sorts of folks who end up designing it.... Gadfly's wings tremble at the prospect of Howard Zinn's "people's history" of the United States at the center of our national curriculum--and Stanley Fish or one of his slimy fellow swimmers in charge of English/language arts.

"My worst fears have been realised," by Kevin Donnelly, The Australian, September 10, 2008

Our apologies to the United Kingdom. This week, U.S. psychologist Martin Seligman spoke to a conference in London and, reports The Guardian, said that "lessons in happiness should be on the school curriculum to try to improve young people's mental health." In the U.K., apparently, this ship has already been launched: "Seligman's ideas of ‘positive education' are now being tested in schools in Manchester, south Tyneside and Hertfordshire," the newspaper informs us. "Pupils are being taught how to handle day-to-day stress, assertiveness, decision-making and how to change negative thoughts." Sounds so very warm and cozy. But there are only so many hours in the day, alas, and schools are traditionally thought to be places where youngsters are taught reading, math, and science rather than lessons about self-esteem and positive thinking. (Kids who are clinically depressed should, of course, receive medical attention, not classroom coaching.) A tasty recipe for burnishing pupils' self-images would be to hold the kids to high standards of academics and discipline. By expecting and encouraging students to strive for the rewards that come from setting goals, working hard, and accomplishing them, schools prepare their charges for the real world, where namby-pamby, therapeutic chit-chat is not the norm.

"Call for happiness lessons as teenage depression increases," by Carlene Thomas-Bailey, The Guardian, September 10, 2008

Near Dayton on Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama spoke at some length about public schools and his plans to improve them. Amongst his dozen or so proposals for new federal programs and initiatives, he inserted a call to double funding for charter schools. "Charter schools that are successful will get the support they need to grow; charters that aren't will get shut down," he said. "I want experimentation, but I also want accountability." His opponent, Senator John McCain, has long been a staunch charter-school supporter. This would suggest that, regardless of the election outcome, a charter-school backer will reside in the White House. Those who have heretofore worked tirelessly against such schools seem to have gotten the message, too. After Obama's speech, Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, said, "Those of us in the education community can learn from charter school success stories and failures." We'll see if the happy talk survives post-election, but for now, charter supporters can bask in the glow of bipartisanship.

"Obama, McCain agree on charter schools," Dayton Daily News, September 10, 2008

"Obama Vows to Double Funding for Charter Schools," Associated Press, September 10, 2008

On this day of reflection we're reminded of the importance of educating American students about their great country and the threats to it. In 2003, Fordham published Terrorists, Despots, and Democracy: What Our Children Need to Know. Its relevance is undiminished five years later. Below are excerpts from five of the 29 thoughtful essays contained in that publication.

America: Always Vulnerable, Never Inevitable
Richard Rodriguez

When I was in school, U.S. history classes seemed happily fated. There were past calamities, to be sure--slavery, the massacre of Indians, the mistreatments suffered by the poor--but these were mere obstacles to the present, obstacles overcome by battles or treaties or acts of Congress, or by the lucky coincidence of heroic lives and national need. As a boy, I loved American history, precisely for its lack of tragedy. I loved Ben Franklin and the stories of the Underground Railroad and the New Deal, because everything led happily to me, living at 935 39th Street in Sacramento, California.

The man awoke, years later, to see jet airliners (the symbol of our mobility) turned against us by terrorists; to see the collapse of the World Trade Center (the symbol of our global capitalism); to see a wall of the Pentagon (the assurance of our self-defense) in flames. What I realized that Tuesday morning is that America is vulnerable to foreign attack.

But I wonder now if we understand that our civilization has always been vulnerable. Our American values and laws emerged over time, after false starts and despite many near-reversals. For example, our tradition of religious tolerance and secularism, that today makes America home to every religion in the world, was not born easily or quickly. Mormons, Jews, Catholics--a variety of persons have in the past suffered religious persecution at the hands of their American neighbors. Today, to their and our shame, there are some in America who attack Muslims.

Lacking a sense of the tragic in U.S. history books, our children never are taught that America finally was formed against and despite the mistakes and reversals we committed against our own civilization. Now, our children glance up to wonder at the low-flying plane on the approaching horizon. They need, also, to look back in time, to see America ever-invented, forged through difficult decades into a civilization. That civilization was always at risk. Always vulnerable. Never inevitable. Not just because of threats from without. But from our own ignorance of all we possessed.

Richard Rodriguez is the author of a trilogy on American public life and his own life: Hunger of Memory, Days of Obligation, and Brown.

Seizing This Teachable Moment
William J. Bennett

War and violence are always regrettable but sometimes necessary. There is no honor in remaining idle, or simply watching, as a family member, or indeed as any human being, has violence done to him. We did not allow King George to continue to reign over us; we declared our independence and took up arms based on the self-evident truths that all humans are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. In World War II, of the three Axis powers we took arms against, only Japan had first struck at our homeland. But it is beyond debate that our taking up arms to defeat all three enemies of liberty made those countries better. Japan, Germany, and Italy are all now thriving democracies. Their people are better off, we are better off, and the world is better off--not because of their leaders in World War II, but because of ours.

After being attacked two years ago by terrorists who were financed and harbored by terrorist-supporting states, we are engaged in military efforts to end the regimes of those states--and, in the process, ending terror, securing our nation, and improving the conditions of life for those in those states. As we did to the Axis in World War II, we will do to the evil, terror-sponsoring states in this war. And the blessings of liberty will spread.

Children born in America are so accustomed to those blessings that they may not recognize them. The same lessons of democracy that we seek to export for the good of all people must be explicitly taught to American students at home. To fail to do so is to cheat our children, and the immigrants who come to live here, of their birthright.

William J. Bennett was U.S. Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988.

What Is "Education for Democracy"?
Katherine Kersten

In the end . . . teaching young people to be good citizens requires more than conveying knowledge. It also requires encouraging the cultivation of certain traits of character. In a word, it requires what the ancient Greeks called a paragon, or character ideal.

Many students today have difficulty distinguishing between a celebrity and a hero. We can help them to discern that all-important difference by acquainting them with champions of democracy and inspiring them to say, "I want to be like that."

To that end, our students need to hear the heroic stories of George Washington at Valley Forge and Nathan Hale's last words. They should also hear the voices of ordinary Americans, like Union soldier Sullivan Ballou, who wrote movingly to his wife before the Battle of Bull Run about his love of country. Novels and stories are another powerful vehicle for conveying the virtues of the citizen and patriot. My own children have thrilled to Johnny Tremain, and I still remember how moved I was at reading Edward Everett Hale's "The Man Without a Country" in ninth grade.

Our task as educators is to help young people see that America is worthy of their love and to help them become worthy of their heritage as American citizens.

Katherine Kersten is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love American Exceptionalism
Sheldon M. Stern

Sadly, in the rush to "understand" the 9/11 attacks, the social studies establishment has bungled a stunning opportunity to teach the history and importance of American constitutionalism. "It was not self-evident in 1776," historian Lance Banning wrote in 1987,

that all men are created equal, that governments derive their just authority from popular consent, or that good governments exist in order to protect God-given rights. These concepts are not undeniable in any age. [Including today!] From the point of view of 18th century Europeans, they contradicted common sense. The notions that a sound society could operate without natural subordination, where men were either commoners or nobles, or that a stable government could be based on elections, seemed both frightening and ridiculously at odds with the obvious lessons of the past.

Why did James Madison grasp in 1788 a reality that social studies "experts," post-modernists, and Marxists fail to understand two centuries later? "If men were angels," he wrote, "no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. . . . You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." Why did Americans develop such beliefs at a time when no other country lived by them? The question itself is dead on arrival in the world of multicultural social studies education because it suggests American exceptionalism. . . .

To paraphrase the 1983 commission on excellence in education, we must recognize that, if the enemies of open, democratic societies had used force to impose historical and civic ignorance on our children, we would have considered it an act of war. Instead, we have done this to ourselves.

Sheldon M. Stern served as historian at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston from 1977 to 1999.

Six Truths About America
William Galston

There is such a thing as civic virtue, and whether or not citizens possess it can be a matter of life and death. The memory of police, firefighters, and random civilians doing their duty (and more) in the face of overwhelming danger is as indelible as are the images of the collapsing World Trade Center and the maimed Pentagon. The stunning live pictures of our troops fighting in Iraq showed us how much rests on the discipline and dedication of our armed forces, many of whom are barely out of high school.

Because civic virtue is not innate but must be learned, we must pay careful attention to the processes--institutional and informal--through which it is cultivated. Public schools have an important role to play in encouraging thoughtful citizenship, not only in civics classes but also through student government and extra-curricular activities that teach young people how to organize groups and work together toward shared goals.

We must ask ourselves whether civic virtue is something that can be delegated to others, so that some act while the rest of us watch, or whether it requires engagement from everyone. We cannot all fight fires, or foreign foes. But we can all pay attention to public affairs, vote, serve on juries, and discharge the modest obligations our country asks of us in return for the blessings of American citizenship.

William Galston is a senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

Cecilia Rouse and Lisa Barrow
August 2008

This paper reviews the best research about the impact of publicly- and privately-financed school voucher programs on student achievement. Neither voucher advocates nor critics will discover here much ammunition for their causes. When the research finds gains for voucher students, they are tiny and most are not statistically significant. And nearly all the studies are short-term, making it tough to measure meaningful change. They do, however, consistently find that voucher parents are more satisfied with their child's schooling. The authors point out that there is scant research on vouchers' impact on outcomes other than achievement, such as high school graduation rates, college enrollment, and future earnings. So while current studies don't, can't, or can't yet find robust academic gains for voucher students, there may be other, very good, so-far-unstudied reasons to implement school voucher programs. Find the report here.

Andrew J. Rotherham
Philanthropy Roundtable
2008

Wealthy individuals who lose count of their houses may well wonder: What is the most efficient way for my millions to boost teacher and principal quality in the public schools? This book is the Philanthropy Roundtable's answer. Author Andrew Rotherham believes that hiring savvy administrators and teachers is the smartest way to leaven American educational worth. "Research has convincingly shown," he writes, "what parents and educators have long suspected: teachers matter more to student learning than anything else schools do." Thus, he presents a comprehensive overview of the who, what, where, why, and how of developing the human capital of public schools--e.g., the work of Jon Schnur of New Leaders for New Schools, Teach for America, the Gates Foundation, etc. Whether you're Uncle Pennybags, or staff his foundation, or are simply interested in philanthropic efforts to improve American academics, this book is worth a read. Find it here.

Education Week
September 10, 2008

This collection of articles considers research on the characteristics common to charter school leaders. Though the schools themselves vary widely in organizational structure, curriculum choices, and mission, successful leaders of them tend to have much in common. The ideal charter principal is often presumed to be a person of near-mythical capabilities, containing in one body the qualities of superintendent, principal, teacher, parent, construction worker, and chief financial officer. That perception, this compilation notes, is not reality. The best leadership model, it seems, is what today is often termed "distributed leadership," a set-up in which responsibility is shared between two or three highly driven and dedicated people with different but complementary skill sets. Such a model allows for specialized handling of responsibilities, such as fundraising or facilities management, and makes it easier to grow leaders in-house and involve teachers in management decisions. The articles also report that charter board members, like regular school board members, often misunderstand their oversight roles and become mired in the minutiae of school operations, for example. A successful board member, readers learn, understands the charter laws in his state and remains focused on supporting his school's vision. This compilation (with contributions from Education Week reporters and Center on Reinventing Public Education staff members) has much more to say about what good charter school leadership looks like. It's available here.