The Education Gadfly Weekly

Ensuring that America’s brightest low-income pupils receive an education on par with their abilities has long played second fiddle to closing the achievement gap and catching up our lowest-performing students. This recent paper by Caroline Hoxby gives these high-ability youngsters the concertmaster’s chair, at least for a moment. In it, she and colleague Christopher Avery (of the Harvard Kennedy School) examine the college-application behaviors and college progress of high-achieving, low-income students (those in the bottom quartile of wealth distribution). They then compare these patterns to those of wealthy high flyers, or those in the top quartile. The authors first determine ability status by students’ 2008 SAT or ACT scores, focusing on the top 10 percent of test-takers (as fewer than half of all students take a college-entrance exam, this delineates the top 4 percent of students overall). Three findings are particularly interesting: First, most high-achieving, low-income students do not apply to selective colleges or universities, despite their potential for hefty financial-aid packages. Second, those who do apply to selective institutions are admitted and graduate from these schools at rates similar to their high-income peers. And third, those in urban districts are much likelier to apply to selective schools than those in small or rural districts; in fact, 70 percent of low-income, high-ability students who apply to selective colleges come from just fifteen urban areas. The authors speculate that these larger districts are able to offer selective or magnet high schools. Smaller districts without this critical mass of high flyers can’t easily offer such programs (nor are students from these districts as likely to encounter teachers or peers who themselves attended a selective college). Hoxby and Avery then make pragmatic suggestions on how to encourage more of these kids to apply to selective colleges, including tapping geographically dispersed alumni for information dissemination and recruitment and customizing college brochures to address students’ interests and financial situations. Another option: Open selective public high schools in more areas to reach more high-flying students.

SOURCE: Caroline M. Hoxby and Christopher Avery, “The Missing One-Offs: The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students” (National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, December 2012).

In the mid-1990s—channeling Pygmalion—the Department of Housing and Urban Development provided 4,600 low-income families  with housing vouchers and relocation counseling to move them into lower-poverty neighborhoods. According to this new analysis in Cityscape, this Moving to Opportunity (MTO) initiative was “disappointing” as regards education: It did very little to improve student achievement and related schooling outcomes (such as attendance and graduation rates). This was true across all age cohorts, including children six and younger. The one statistically significant effect of the program was an increase in “health awareness” among female participants. Why such a flop? The analysts found that the socioeconomic makeup of the schools to which the program moved children was still very similar to the schools in their old neighborhood; for example, youth in the study moved into schools with a free-or-reduced-price-lunch rate only 10 percentage points lower than those of the schools they exited. And they were unable to ensure that the quality of the schools was any better. As this report makes painstakingly clear, social engineering is no antidote for the opportunity gap. Instead, we might think about opening stronger educational options for students, no matter their zip code, and giving parents the options to choose their child’s academic setting.

A version of this review originally appeared on Fordham’s Flypaper blog.

SOURCE: Lisa A Gennetian, Matthew Sciandra, Lisa Sanbonmatsu, et al., “The Long-Term Effects of Moving to Opportunity on Youth Outcomes” (Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, Volume 14, Number 2, 2012).

Fourth-quarter drives—even the most impressive—are often not enough to alter game outcomes. So it is with educational interventions: Getting students on track by third grade (and keeping them there) yields greater long-term results than high school interventions. However, this paper from two Dartmouth and UC Davis professors argues that certain late-game pushes can help college-going and college-persistence rates for some K–12 pupils. Analysts targeted “college-ready” high school seniors in twelve large New Hampshire high schools who had shown interest in college but had made little to no progress on their applications (guidance counselors helped ID these students). They randomly assigned about half of these students to receive targeted college coaching, meaning college-application mentoring from a Dartmouth student, money to cover application fees and ACT/SAT exams, and a $100 bonus if they completed the application and filing process. The authors found no statistically significant impact from the program for men but did find one for women: Young women who completed the treatment were 24 percent likelier to enroll in college than their control-group peers. Even those who received only part of the treatment saw a bump in college attendance. And this positive effect appeared greater for large, resource-challenged high schools with comparatively low baseline college-going rates. Further, when analysts examined persistence in four-year college—defined as attending three or more semesters or being enrolled for two years—the treatment effect was also 12 percentage points higher than the control group of women. (Analysts speculate that this gendered success story may be because women respond positively to the help the program provides, whereas men might see it as a statement that they are less capable.) While the price tag associated with bringing a program such as this to scale is potentially daunting, this paper shows that sometimes a form (and maybe its application fee) is the only thing standing between a student and a college education—and that stepped-up college counseling can make all the difference for some.

SOURCE: Scott Carell and Bruce Sacerdote, Late Interventions Matter Too: The Case of College Coaching in New Hampshire (National Bureau of Education Research, Dartmouth College, University of California Davis, July 2012).

In a surprise twist, Dara Zeehandelaar hosts Fordham president Checker Finn on this week’s Gadfly Show. They discuss Tom Harkin’s retirement, wheelchair basketball, and the flap over the MAP. Amber intervenes with a word on late interventions.

Amber's Research Minute

Late Interventions Matter Too: The Case of College Coaching in New Hampshire by Scott Carell and Bruce Sacerdote (National Bureau of Education Research, Dartmouth College, University of California Davis, July 2012).

With some generous funding, Fordham filmed a commercial to be aired during Super Bowl XLVI. Unfortunately, the ad was rejected by NBC, but for the first time, you can see the unaired commercial here.

Does red tape really stop some private schools from participating in voucher programs? Or is it a red herring? Photo by Julia Manzerova

Many proponents of private school choice—both the voucher and tax credit scholarship versions—take for granted that schools won’t (or shouldn’t) participate if government asks too much of them, regulates their practices, requires them to reveal closely held information, or—above all—demands that they be publicly accountable for student achievement. This anxiety is plausible in theory. Part of what’s distinctive and valuable—and often educationally effective—about private schools is their freedom to be different, the fact that they are exempt from most of the heavy regulatory regime that characterizes most of public education. Insofar as they cherish that autonomy, over-regulation by government might well deter them from participating in taxpayer-supported choice programs and thereby block children from benefiting from the education that those private schools offer.

But how big a deal is this concern in the real world? Private schools deciding whether to participate in a voucher or tax credit scholarship program must weigh multiple factors, and well-designed programs will naturally strive for sufficient school participation to enable the program to accomplish its purpose. At the same time, policy makers must be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and do their best to ensure that such programs advance the public’s interest in securing a quality education for children in safe, salubrious environments—all of which leads to some degree of regulation.

Policy makers contemplating the creation, revision, or expansion of school-choice programs must therefore balance the impulse to regulate on behalf of the public interest against the need for enough private schools to participate so that the children for whom the programs are intended can, in reality, benefit from them.

But where to set that balance? Is there a regulatory tipping point beyond which most private schools will eschew the program? Are some regulations more off-putting to schools than others? Where is reality?

Fortunately, enough voucher and scholarship programs exist today that it’s possible to answer these questions empirically—that is, to gauge the extent to which regulations (and other factors) actually deter private schools from participating. It’s also possible to examine which kinds of regulation (if any) are particularly vexing to private schools and where some segments of the private-school world are more sensitive to regulation than are others. 

To conduct such an investigation, we at Fordham turned to David Stuit of Basis Policy Research and his colleague Sy Doan to examine closely thirteen extant voucher and tax credit scholarship programs (six of the former, seven of the latter) across eleven states. We asked them to describe the nature, extent, and burdensomeness of their regulations and to determine how many private schools participate in them—and how many do not. We asked them also to survey private schools in communities served by four of the country’s most prominent voucher programs to ascertain how both participating and non-participating schools view those programs and their regulations and how heavily they weigh program requirements (and other constraints) when deciding whether to sign up for and accept the programs’ students.

Here is what they learned:

1) There is enormous variation. Stuit’s “burden scores,” calculated on a scale from zero (least regulated) to 100 (most regulated), range from 8 for Arizona’s “individual” tax credit scholarship program to 76 for the current iteration of Milwaukee’s long-running voucher program.

2) As expected, there is a moderate negative correlation between regulatory burden and private school participation in choice programs. In other words, the more regulations, the less likely schools are to sign up. School participation rates in voucher programs ranged from 29 percent for the newly expanded Louisiana Student Scholarships program to 94 percent for Cleveland’s scholarship program. Analysts estimate that, if a program were to change from least to most regulated, private school participation rates would drop nine percentage points.

3) Yet “regulations” per se aren’t the schools’ foremost concern. Indeed, “not willing to comply” with program rules was cited by just 3 percent of nonparticipants as their foremost reason for shunning the program. Instead, the most-cited reason was a lack of voucher-eligible families in the region.

4) Within the regulatory realm, and contrary to the anti-testing assertions of the libertarian crowd, curricular constraints and testing issues ranked among the less important considerations for private school leaders. Just a quarter of them listed the “requirement to participate in state testing” as “very” or “extremely” important to their decision (and only 17 percent said that about “public reporting of state test results”) versus half or more who were concerned about admissions (“upholding student admissions criteria”) and “allowing students to opt out of religious activities” (a rule found only in Milwaukee).

5) Catholic schools are least likely to have their decisions affected by regulation. Non-sectarian schools are more likely to forego participation when burdened with increased regulations. So are small schools, possibly because they have less space and/or administrative capacity to handle the paperwork.

6) Tax credit scholarship programs—because they employ “taxpayer dollars” that never actually pass through the state treasury—are significantly less subject to additional regulations than voucher programs.

7) The reasons that most school principals gave for participating in the voucher program were to expand their mission in the community (87 percent), “to help voucher eligible families already enrolled in their schools” (75 percent) and “to help needy children in the community” (72 percent).

Takeaways

Choice advocates and policy makers should bear in mind that—simply to exist—private schools must already comply with various state regulations, sometimes including testing. That is to say, participation in a choice program will not be the first time that many schools’ freedom of action is constrained by government demands.

That does not, however, mean that policy makers should burden them with unnecessary regulation. They must seek the bare minimum that enables them to look taxpayers (and choice opponents) in the eye and say, “This program is in the public interest.” The kinds of regulation they should be wariest of are those that bear on student admissions and schools’ religious (and religious-education) practices, as these are significantly more likely to deter schools from taking part in the programs than are requirements pertaining to academic standards, testing, and public disclosure of achievement results.

Especially as “Common Core” standards take effect in states and new, improved assessments (aligned with those standards) come on line—and more so if colleges and employers begin taking those standards and test results seriously—private schools may become even more accepting of those academic standards (for core subjects) and the assessments that accompany them.

In any case, regulation is not the greatest deterrent to private school participation. More consequential are the design of the program itself: how many families are eligible for it and how many of them live within striking distance of a given private school; how well is the program publicized; how burdensome is it for families to qualify and apply; and how adequate is the level of financial assistance that it makes available to students and the schools they attend?

Those considerations apply to tax credit scholarship programs as well as voucher programs, yet another clear takeaway from this research is that, to minimize regulatory burden and maximize school participation (not to mention sidestepping “Blaine Amendment” type barriers in state constitutions), policy-makers ought to opt for the tax-credit approach. They should do so, however, mindful that in minimizing burden and maximizing participation they will also lose a measure of accountability.

For more on school choice regulations, be sure to tune in on February 11 at 4:00 PM EST to watch a panel of experts discuss the study and its implications—or, if you’re in the D.C. area, be there in person!

School closures are traumatic. Photo by Thomas Hawk

Secretary Duncan and his team were mobbed the other day by agitated parents and kids protesting the closing of public schools around the land. Though Uncle Sam has no real control over this, it's true that Duncan came to Washington promising to close (or overhaul) a thousand schools a year and, more recently, has been pressing for radical action in the lowest-performing 5 percent—i.e., about 5000 schools. Actual data in this realm are scarce, but NCES reports roughly a thousand closings a year among “regular” public schools (meaning that, in one sense, Duncan's promise is being kept, though not by him), as well as who knows how many charter and private schools that bite the dust. But even if the total is closer to 2000, in a country with 100,000 schools that's just 2 percent a year. Moreover, schools keep opening, too, hundreds of them every year in every sector.

Nobody likes to close schools. Secretary Duncan remarked to the crowd, “I don't know any educator who wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I want to close schools.’” And it’s self-evident that nobody likes to have his or her own school closed. It's traumatic for families, teachers, students, neighborhoods, communities, even entire villages and towns.

But there are three big reasons why schools close and will continue to close—while others open.

First and most obviously, big demographic shifts. Some communities (mainly in the sunbelt and exurbia) are growing like topsy with thousands more kids who need to be accommodated in schools—and other places are losing population at a rapid rate. (In 2010, Cleveland had shrunk back down to its 1920 size. Don't even ask about Detroit.) This causes all manner of institutions to falter, to close, to be needed and to open, not just schools (think grocery stores, movie theaters, fast-food emporia, playgrounds, libraries…).

Second, particularly in an era of school choice, scads of families voluntarily exit bad schools in search of better ones. Sometimes they move home and hearth, sometimes they stay put in their house or apartment but send their kids to different schools. Charters are often the chosen alternative—suburbs, for those who can afford it. In some places, youngsters can access vouchers and thereby make their way into private schools, too. And new and growing forms of education delivery—technology above all, but also home schooling, early college options, and more—mean that families have learning opportunities separate and apart from their traditional neighborhood schools. If enough avail themselves of those alternative opportunities, especially if the neighborhood school is bad (in any of a dozen ways, including safety, physical plant, etc.), there won't be enough kids left to justify keeping it open. It's simply unviable to continue operating schools that few kids attend.

Third, today's focus on results-based education, combined with plenty more data on school performance in an era of educational accountability, means that reform-minded education leaders are getting bolder about closing bad schools—and sometimes (but not always) opening new ones in the same building. We know from ample research that bad schools will otherwise tend to stay bad.

None of this eases the pain. And it's a sad fact that the schools that do get closed almost always have some kids attending them—and these kids, too often, are the least fortunate youngsters of all, boys and girls whose families lack the means, the concern, or the savvy to access better options for their sons and daughters than the neighborhood school whose continued existence cannot be justified on any other grounds.

Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who is regarded as perhaps the most powerful lawmaker in U.S. education policy, will not seek re-election in 2014. While he was an impediment to change—making this good news for reformers—the word on the grapevine about his possible successor is troubling. Namely, there is talk that if Sen. Patty Murray does not take on the role due to her role on the Senate Budget Committee, the next name on the list is—Sen. Bernie Sanders? We shudder to think.

Last week, the Education Department—with nary a nod to Congress or public debate—declared what Mike Petrilli dubbed a “right to wheelchair basketball” via its new “guidance” on the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. While few oppose the desirability of making reasonable accommodations for the disabled in school sports, the guidance, as pointed out by Politics K–12, “goes farther and says that if reasonable accommodations can’t be made, students with disabilities ‘should still have an equal opportunity to receive the benefits of extracurricular activities,’” thus turning “guidance” into a fully fledged unfunded mandate. For more on this debate, check out Mike’s appearance on NPR’s “On Point” show.

In its latest foray into the study of charter-school quality, Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) has a major new study out, reporting that schools’ long-term success can be predicted by how they performed in their first year. Schools that start the game swinging will generally continue to do well, while those that misstep will typically fall flat. Gadfly will be back next week with a full review.

Parents eager to send their children to West Philadelphia’s Penn Alexander, a highly regarded public elementary school, queued up a full four days in advance of registration for the limited Kindergarten openings. When the district superintendent responded to the inequities of a line by shifting to a lottery system, a debate on gentrification, equality, and the diverse schools dilemma ensued.

To boost their college completion rates, KIPP and other “no excuses” charters are expanding their support network to help alumni/ae in the years after graduation. Naysayers may raise their eyebrows over having an “army of college advisors and KIPP staff” follow students around; to that point, KIPP points out the comfortable safety net that most middle-class students have to get them through the same experience.

With some generous funding, Fordham filmed a commercial to be aired during Super Bowl XLVI. Unfortunately, the ad was rejected by NBC, but for the first time, you can see the unaired commercial here.

With some generous funding, Fordham filmed a commercial to be aired during Super Bowl XLVI. Unfortunately, the ad was rejected by NBC, but for the first time, you can see the unaired commercial here.

Ensuring that America’s brightest low-income pupils receive an education on par with their abilities has long played second fiddle to closing the achievement gap and catching up our lowest-performing students. This recent paper by Caroline Hoxby gives these high-ability youngsters the concertmaster’s chair, at least for a moment. In it, she and colleague Christopher Avery (of the Harvard Kennedy School) examine the college-application behaviors and college progress of high-achieving, low-income students (those in the bottom quartile of wealth distribution). They then compare these patterns to those of wealthy high flyers, or those in the top quartile. The authors first determine ability status by students’ 2008 SAT or ACT scores, focusing on the top 10 percent of test-takers (as fewer than half of all students take a college-entrance exam, this delineates the top 4 percent of students overall). Three findings are particularly interesting: First, most high-achieving, low-income students do not apply to selective colleges or universities, despite their potential for hefty financial-aid packages. Second, those who do apply to selective institutions are admitted and graduate from these schools at rates similar to their high-income peers. And third, those in urban districts are much likelier to apply to selective schools than those in small or rural districts; in fact, 70 percent of low-income, high-ability students who apply to selective colleges come from just fifteen urban areas. The authors speculate that these larger districts are able to offer selective or magnet high schools. Smaller districts without this critical mass of high flyers can’t easily offer such programs (nor are students from these districts as likely to encounter teachers or peers who themselves attended a selective college). Hoxby and Avery then make pragmatic suggestions on how to encourage more of these kids to apply to selective colleges, including tapping geographically dispersed alumni for information dissemination and recruitment and customizing college brochures to address students’ interests and financial situations. Another option: Open selective public high schools in more areas to reach more high-flying students.

SOURCE: Caroline M. Hoxby and Christopher Avery, “The Missing One-Offs: The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students” (National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, December 2012).

In the mid-1990s—channeling Pygmalion—the Department of Housing and Urban Development provided 4,600 low-income families  with housing vouchers and relocation counseling to move them into lower-poverty neighborhoods. According to this new analysis in Cityscape, this Moving to Opportunity (MTO) initiative was “disappointing” as regards education: It did very little to improve student achievement and related schooling outcomes (such as attendance and graduation rates). This was true across all age cohorts, including children six and younger. The one statistically significant effect of the program was an increase in “health awareness” among female participants. Why such a flop? The analysts found that the socioeconomic makeup of the schools to which the program moved children was still very similar to the schools in their old neighborhood; for example, youth in the study moved into schools with a free-or-reduced-price-lunch rate only 10 percentage points lower than those of the schools they exited. And they were unable to ensure that the quality of the schools was any better. As this report makes painstakingly clear, social engineering is no antidote for the opportunity gap. Instead, we might think about opening stronger educational options for students, no matter their zip code, and giving parents the options to choose their child’s academic setting.

A version of this review originally appeared on Fordham’s Flypaper blog.

SOURCE: Lisa A Gennetian, Matthew Sciandra, Lisa Sanbonmatsu, et al., “The Long-Term Effects of Moving to Opportunity on Youth Outcomes” (Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, Volume 14, Number 2, 2012).

Fourth-quarter drives—even the most impressive—are often not enough to alter game outcomes. So it is with educational interventions: Getting students on track by third grade (and keeping them there) yields greater long-term results than high school interventions. However, this paper from two Dartmouth and UC Davis professors argues that certain late-game pushes can help college-going and college-persistence rates for some K–12 pupils. Analysts targeted “college-ready” high school seniors in twelve large New Hampshire high schools who had shown interest in college but had made little to no progress on their applications (guidance counselors helped ID these students). They randomly assigned about half of these students to receive targeted college coaching, meaning college-application mentoring from a Dartmouth student, money to cover application fees and ACT/SAT exams, and a $100 bonus if they completed the application and filing process. The authors found no statistically significant impact from the program for men but did find one for women: Young women who completed the treatment were 24 percent likelier to enroll in college than their control-group peers. Even those who received only part of the treatment saw a bump in college attendance. And this positive effect appeared greater for large, resource-challenged high schools with comparatively low baseline college-going rates. Further, when analysts examined persistence in four-year college—defined as attending three or more semesters or being enrolled for two years—the treatment effect was also 12 percentage points higher than the control group of women. (Analysts speculate that this gendered success story may be because women respond positively to the help the program provides, whereas men might see it as a statement that they are less capable.) While the price tag associated with bringing a program such as this to scale is potentially daunting, this paper shows that sometimes a form (and maybe its application fee) is the only thing standing between a student and a college education—and that stepped-up college counseling can make all the difference for some.

SOURCE: Scott Carell and Bruce Sacerdote, Late Interventions Matter Too: The Case of College Coaching in New Hampshire (National Bureau of Education Research, Dartmouth College, University of California Davis, July 2012).