The Education Gadfly Weekly

Jack Jennings, Center on Education Policy
January 2003

Jack Jennings's Center on Education Policy is the source of this report, on the second year of NCLB, a useful service (underwritten by a quartet of foundations) that last month yielded this 240-page document. It does a respectable job of setting forth many relevant facts (as seen from the state education agency perspective) with the predictable amount of editorializing and rationalizing. Because most states responded to the project's survey, the report offers data not previously available. It has four main sections: general "perceptions" of NCLB; testing and accountability; public school choice and supplemental services; and teacher quality. A fifth chapter addresses lesser provisions (scientifically based research, Reading First, English language learners.) The headline version of all this is that states and districts are trying hard and want NCLB to succeed, but that it's painful and costly to implement correctly, mainly because of the huge number of schools being identified as "in need of improvement" (or "corrective action"). A particular grievance: the obligation to assess LEP and disabled youngsters on the same tests and hold them to the same standards is widely viewed as unrealistic. If this isn't dealt with in Washington, says Jennings, "There is a risk of losing the commitment of states and school districts to achieving the Act's goals." One bone to pick: in discussing why NCLB's public-school choice provisions are "rarely used," he fails to note the foot-dragging, resistance, and bureaucratic processes that are a major reason why few families are not yet exercising choice. Maybe that's because of where he got his information. In fact, this report might fairly be termed "NCLB as viewed by state education departments," because that's the perspective it takes and those are the agencies whose views the report's authors seem entirely uncritical of. Still, you'll find much timely information here. See for yourself at http://www.ctredpol.org/pubs/nclb_full_report_jan2003/nclb_full_report_jan2003.htm.

Brian Stecher and Sheila Nataraj Kirby, editors
RAND Education
2004

In the face of NCLB's increased demands - and simply because our schools could be much better than they are - it would seem wise for public education to examine how other sectors develop processes, cultures, and accountability mechanisms that actually work. In that spirit, this report offers insight into the worlds of manufacturing, job training, law, and medicine. Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of one of these sectors - for example, the clinical practice guidelines used in health care - to explain how it works and what lessons it offers schools. The authors acknowledge that education has unique challenges, so not all lessons are directly transferable. But school people would be wise to heed the central theme of this book, namely that, with some care and thought, they could indeed learn from other organizations. They also must be willing to focus on outputs, not inputs; to evaluate teaching on a "value-added" basis; to readily admit what we know and don't know about effective pedagogy; and, most importantly, to institutionalize what works and discard that which doesn't. There are many more specifics in this compilation, including interesting insights into how the legal and medical professions work. You can find it for free online, or order a copy for $25, at http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG136/.

When all the shouting - and litigation - is done, we assume that the D.C. voucher program will go forward. If it does, much of the credit belongs to Virginia Walden-Ford, profiled recently by William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal. Walden-Ford, who used private vouchers to get her own son out of a violence-ridden D.C. public school and onto a successful course--now into the Marines, and recently off to serve in Iraq - heads D.C. Parents for School Choice. The group raised the stakes during the months-long D.C. voucher debate by running tough ads that likened anti-voucher Senators to segregationist Bull Conner - in many cases, in the Senators' home states. "We decided we had to do something to make them take us seriously," she says. As McGurn notes, they now certainly do. And Ms. Walden-Ford gets a lot of the credit.

"Yes, Virginia, there is a voucher," by William McGurn, Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2004, (subscription required)

Over the course of the past several years, education policy makers have increasingly looked to non-traditional education reforms as means both of correcting traditional public education inequities and of improving the state of education overall. In Florida, one of the first states to implement statewide accountability and reform measures, the results have been encouraging. Both white and minority students have demonstrated consistent, year-to-year learning gains since the full implementation of reforms, with the gains of minority students outpacing those of white students, thus narrowing the achievement gap.

This year, Florida entered its fourth straight year of consistent, measurable improvements in public education, and evidence continues to mount that Florida's reforms are an effective antidote to years of institutionalized racial and socioeconomic injustices in education. Yet despite our success, media reporting remains stubbornly fixated on a handful of exceptions, while the larger story of Florida's success goes unreported. Policy makers and practitioners must remain sensitive to the exceptions; however, state policy must be formulated and implemented with the perspective of providing the greatest gains to the greatest number of students. We will never be fully satisfied; but we cannot allow the exceptions to undermine the success of our results.

In 2003, Florida began using its 10th grade Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) as a graduation requirement for high school seniors. Throughout the spring of 2003, media reports focused on the plight of students who had failed the FCAT test, frequently minority youngsters who would be unable to graduate despite their hard work. Their hopes of a high school diploma dashed, dejected students were held up as examples of fallout from a poorly envisaged and cruelly executed new program. Reports of such students dominated media coverage about Florida's "new" graduation requirement, and seldom went beyond a rundown of how many students would be adversely affected.

The reality of the situation could not have been more different. Seldom mentioned in press accounts was that Florida has used a standardized test to determine graduation eligibility since 1984. Also absent was any mention that the old test, the High School Competency Test (HSCT), tested seniors' knowledge of 8th grade material. But perhaps most notably neglected was coverage of student scores: in 2003, 84 percent of African American and 87 percent of Hispanic students passed the FCAT, an increase from the year before, despite the fact that the 10th grade FCAT is considerably more difficult than the 8th grade HSCT. During this time, statewide graduation rates increased from 62 percent to almost 70 percent, while dropout rates decreased 68 percent - with the largest improvements among minorities.

Another recent example surrounded Florida's popular Corporate Tax Credit scholarship program. Available only to students who qualify under federal free and reduced lunch guidelines, the program allows corporations to earn a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on donations, all of which are distributed to students as scholarships to attend private schools. During the summer of 2003, the tyranny of the exception dominated press coverage again, as reporters "exposed" the problems of a handful of participating private schools to attack all of Florida's choice programs and, in a new twist on exclusive coverage, a single media outlet used each minute development in the story as cause to rerun its initial story again and again. The more than 1,100 schools that successfully participate in the programs were rarely mentioned, nor were the program's 12,000 low-income participants, who were given the opportunity of a private education that would otherwise have been out of their reach.

Florida's experience has shown that the policy initiatives in these examples - uniform and enforced standards and school choice - are valid public policies worthy of emulation elsewhere. Their validity is only reinforced by the fact that critics of these reforms rely almost exclusively upon the exception as a means of attacking them, rather than any intellectually or rhetorically honest appraisal of the policies and their impact. That is why policy makers must, overall, make certain that public policy is driven by empirical, scientific evidence impacting the universe of students, rather than by the exceptions. Because of Florida's leadership in developing and implementing education reforms, we have been under intense attack throughout the state, and there are valuable lessons to be drawn from Florida's experience.

The reform movement must adopt an offensive posture in delivering its message to the public while remaining sensitive and responsive to the exception. The negative media attention has focused on flaws and exceptions without acknowledging a program's merits or a policy's successes. We cannot allow this coverage to sabotage the efforts of teachers, students, administrators, and parents. The old paradigm of merely responding to the exception is no longer effective. A passive reliance upon media and others to accurately report the results of our reforms is not sufficient. Florida has mounted an outreach program to parents and the public, which includes efforts to communicate proactively with over 130,000 public school educators via email. This system has given Florida policy makers and leaders an efficient and unfiltered means of communication with teachers. Such dialogue is invaluable in promoting policy reform. Further, we should spread our message in affected communities by informing them about resources available to our most struggling students. By taking the good news of common sense policy results and changes into communities, we can impress upon citizens and parents the important role that wise policy reforms play in their lives.

Recently, the 2003 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) results were made public. Florida posted significant improvement in reading and math for nearly every student group and was the only state in the nation to show significant gains in fourth grade reading with particularly dramatic advances in minority achievement. These latest results demonstrate that Florida's 2.6 million students are the type of exception U.S. policymakers would do well to note.

Phil Handy is chairman of the Florida State Board of Education.

We're all for civics in our schools but this version is outrageous. Next week, schools in the two big districts in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., Montgomery and Prince George's counties, will close two hours early so their students and teachers can attend a rally in the state capital to protest planned cuts in the state education budget. And they'll provide free bus service to the rally. And they'll give students credit toward community service requirements for attending. Irony of ironies, the event was originally scheduled for last week, but was cancelled because of a snowstorm that shut down schools across the region. (In fact, between snow days and last fall's hurricane, many Maryland students have missed almost 10 days of instructional time already this year.) So, in an era when schools complain loud and long that they don't have enough time and money to do their jobs, they will spend some of that time and money turning students into little activists who toe the party line. (We'd be interested to see the reaction if a student demanded time off and credit for attending a rally in favor of the cuts.) If anything demonstrates the bankruptcy of most mandatory service requirements, it's foolishness like this.

"Buses will take students to rally," by Matthew Cella, Washington Times, January 31, 2004 

"Schools to give students credit for attending Thornton rally," by Sean R. Sedam, Montgomery County Gazette, February 4, 2004

The Georgia Performance Standards, the new curriculum proposed by the Department of Education for the public schools of Georgia, is a giant step forward for students and teachers in the Peachtree State. The culmination of many months of study and writing by Georgia teachers, leaders from around the state in the specific content areas, and national experts, these standards set high expectations.

Joseph Jarrell, a teacher at McIntosh High School, has taken issue with the new social studies standards (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=132#1645). I couldn't disagree more. 

The proposed framework for social studies is centered on studies of history, geography, civics, and economics. Students are introduced to these four essential content areas in kindergarten and the rigor and depth grows each year. These subjects are not treated in isolation, because events occur in specific time and place. In every civilization, people live under specific forms of government and find ways to produce the goods and services others want and need.

Not everything can be contained in a year, or even 13 years of study, but under these standards students learn about key events, ideas, people, and trends that have influenced major human civilizations and have produced the world as it is today.

The present Quality Core Curriculum has been widely criticized as "a mile wide and an inch deep." The analysis by Phi Delta Kappa believes it would take 23 years to teach the present QCC. No wonder Mr. Jarrell noted, "I feel as though I am running a marathon...."

The new standards propose fewer units, so that teachers will have ample time to teach in depth. The ultimate goal is to make enough time available so that students are able to read multiple sources, engage in debates, go on field trips, read biographies and complete projects. This framework draws on nationally recognized work of other states, especially Virginia, Massachusetts, Texas, Arizona, and California.

The Georgia Performance Standards build a foundation in the early grades and complete the framework through 13 years. According to national consultant and historian Dr. Diane Ravitch, who helped draft these standards, "the goal of the framework is to provide students with the knowledge that they need to act thoughtfully in their lives, to understand other peoples and cultures, and to contribute to the vitality of our democratic institutions." That they do, admirably.

Holly Robinson was a history professor for 18 years before joining the Georgia Public Policy Foundation as senior vice president.

Two articles put us in mind of the old but trusty clich??, it's all about the kids. In the Washington Post, Bruce Fuller of UC-Berkeley offers a few suggestions for fixes to No Child Left Behind, some of which strike us as sensible. He also foresees that, if the battle over the law isn't quelled, "voters may grow skeptical of government's ability to improve the schools," which would be a disaster for kids in failing schools. In the same paper, columnist Jay Mathews asks for students, teachers, and parents to send him stories about how NCLB has impacted real schools and children, for better or worse. "Just give me the facts," he writes. "No dissertations on the need for accountability or the bankruptcy of top-down reform." Though Gadfly is wary of the idea that a law with a 14-year horizon should be judged by its first-year effect on schools, we applaud Mathews's desire to get beyond the rhetoric and look at NCLB where the rubber hits the road - the classroom.

"Only the politicking gets an 'A'," by Bruce Fuller, Washington Post, February 1, 2004

"Seeking clarity on No Child Left Behind," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, February 3, 2004 (registration required)

Since the adoption of No Child Left Behind two years ago, several states have threatened to reject federal Title I money so they can sidestep the new law's accountability provisions. In early 2002, just after it was signed, then Vermont governor Howard Dean urged his state's superintendent and lawmakers to consider turning down Title I dollars, which he said amounted to far less than they would need to successfully implement the new accountability provisions. Since then, officials in Hawaii, Alaska and Virginia have made noises about dropping out. (Most recently, Virginia lawmakers passed a resolution condemning the provisions, arguing that they hurt Virginia's own school accountability efforts.) But legislators in Utah this week turned the heat up a few degrees. The education committee of the Utah house voted unanimously to send House Bill 43 - which prohibits the state's public schools from "any further participation in the No Child Left Behind Act" - to the floor. It remains to be seen whether the bill will get a vote and if so, how it will turn out, but Education Department officials have already been dispatched to meet with state lawmakers. Both sides seem to be leaving themselves a way out of the brinkmanship, with some members of the education committee who voted for the bill expressing concern over the $103 million in Title I dollars Utah stands to lose if the bill passes. The committee says it is "willing to work with [federal officials] to make certain the requirements are something that the state of Utah can live with."

"Panel votes to leave ed plan behind," by Ronnie Lynn, Salt Lake Tribune, January 30, 2004

"Feds coming to Utah to discuss No Child Left Behind," Salt Lake Tribune, February 3, 2004

Brian Stecher and Sheila Nataraj Kirby, editors
RAND Education
2004

In the face of NCLB's increased demands - and simply because our schools could be much better than they are - it would seem wise for public education to examine how other sectors develop processes, cultures, and accountability mechanisms that actually work. In that spirit, this report offers insight into the worlds of manufacturing, job training, law, and medicine. Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of one of these sectors - for example, the clinical practice guidelines used in health care - to explain how it works and what lessons it offers schools. The authors acknowledge that education has unique challenges, so not all lessons are directly transferable. But school people would be wise to heed the central theme of this book, namely that, with some care and thought, they could indeed learn from other organizations. They also must be willing to focus on outputs, not inputs; to evaluate teaching on a "value-added" basis; to readily admit what we know and don't know about effective pedagogy; and, most importantly, to institutionalize what works and discard that which doesn't. There are many more specifics in this compilation, including interesting insights into how the legal and medical professions work. You can find it for free online, or order a copy for $25, at http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG136/.

Jack Jennings, Center on Education Policy
January 2003

Jack Jennings's Center on Education Policy is the source of this report, on the second year of NCLB, a useful service (underwritten by a quartet of foundations) that last month yielded this 240-page document. It does a respectable job of setting forth many relevant facts (as seen from the state education agency perspective) with the predictable amount of editorializing and rationalizing. Because most states responded to the project's survey, the report offers data not previously available. It has four main sections: general "perceptions" of NCLB; testing and accountability; public school choice and supplemental services; and teacher quality. A fifth chapter addresses lesser provisions (scientifically based research, Reading First, English language learners.) The headline version of all this is that states and districts are trying hard and want NCLB to succeed, but that it's painful and costly to implement correctly, mainly because of the huge number of schools being identified as "in need of improvement" (or "corrective action"). A particular grievance: the obligation to assess LEP and disabled youngsters on the same tests and hold them to the same standards is widely viewed as unrealistic. If this isn't dealt with in Washington, says Jennings, "There is a risk of losing the commitment of states and school districts to achieving the Act's goals." One bone to pick: in discussing why NCLB's public-school choice provisions are "rarely used," he fails to note the foot-dragging, resistance, and bureaucratic processes that are a major reason why few families are not yet exercising choice. Maybe that's because of where he got his information. In fact, this report might fairly be termed "NCLB as viewed by state education departments," because that's the perspective it takes and those are the agencies whose views the report's authors seem entirely uncritical of. Still, you'll find much timely information here. See for yourself at http://www.ctredpol.org/pubs/nclb_full_report_jan2003/nclb_full_report_jan2003.htm.