The Education Gadfly Weekly

Gilbert T. Sewall, American Textbook Council
2004

For this report from the American Textbook Council, Gilbert Sewall reviews six popular world history textbooks used in grade 6-12 classrooms across the country. The review is somewhat akin to Diane Ravitch's Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks in both purpose and findings. Like Ravitch and her reviewers (who reviewed both U.S. and world history texts), Sewall evaluates a half-dozen widely used world history textbooks and finds that "bad writing compounds the loss of narrative, instructional confusion abounds, presentism is universal, diversity takes a toll, and a disturbing view of the future prevails." The methodologies differed, however. Ravitch used multiple reviewers with expertise in world history to scrutinize individual books, while Sewall reviewed the books himself and used outside experts to vet his draft. Sewall also generalizes about the books, taking examples from some of them to support his general points. His basic "design" was to look at the books' handling of specific issues, events, or topics, which then became his organizing frame. Ravitch went book-by-book, with multiple reviewers reviewing and "grading" each book according to ten specific criteria. Both reports are worthwhile, however, and both confirm that history textbooks as a whole are boring and ridiculously inclusive yet lack a central story line or anything else that would make you want to turn the page. They also tend toward the politically correct and are fraught with errors and dubious judgments. To access Sewall's study, surf to http://www.historytextbooks.org/world.htm.

RAND Education
2004

"Focus on the Wonder Years" is a euphemism for describing the lost years of middle schooling in the U.S., grades 6, 7 and 8, sometimes dubbed the "Bermuda Triangle" of American education. This RAND study, funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, reviews two decades of relevant literature and data to help explain the dismal academic performance of middle-schoolers and what can be done about it. The history of the middle school is dominated by demographics and educational theorists. Booms in student population provided a powerful incentive for building new schools for middle-school age students, thus relieving overcrowded elementary schools. Psychologists, fascinated by the cognitive and emotional changes of early adolescence, saw the middle-school years as a swell place to insert their theories, often to detrimental effect. By the 1950s, the "best thinking of the time" emphasized "integration," "exploration," "differentiation," "socialization," and "articulation" for early teens. Fast-forward to 2004. This report argues for disbanding middle schools altogether and replacing them with K-8 schools, which should focus on academic interventions for the low performing students, comprehensive disciplinary models that deal with problems early, quality professional development for teachers, and parental engagement with their children's schooling. The recommendations are sound. They're also standard fare. But the report is rigorous and detailed, a solid synthesis of sensible thinking about middle schools. To check it out for yourself go to http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG139/.

Bryan Hassel, Valaida Fullwood, and Michelle Godard Terrell, Public Impact
January 2004

Facilities Financing: New Models for Districts that are Creating Schools New
Bryan Hassel, Katie Walter Esser, Public Impact
February 2004

These two reports, released earlier this year by Public Impact for Education/Evolving, discuss a "new schools reform strategy." "New schools" are defined as the "assortment of high-quality innovative public schools that are now being launched to serve the diverse educational needs of public school students." They can include charter schools as well as pilot, magnet, and community schools. How District Leaders Can Support the New Schools Strategy describes how school districts in seven cities implemented proactive strategies to start new, smaller schools more tailored to the needs of their students. Based on case studies of alternative schools in places like Baltimore, it advocates making the new schools strategy integral to a district's reform agenda, allocating a fair share of resources, establishing enforceable performance contracts between district and schools, and creating boards that use both district and community leaders to make the new schools initiatives work. The case studies are solid and reinforce the belief that new schools should emphasize both accountability and autonomy. Facilities Financing focuses more on innovative ways whereby school districts can obtain the funding to develop better buildings for new schools, whether via new facilities or renovation. Among the recommendations: tapping public-private partnerships or employer-based schools; rethinking the use of traditional facilities, including ideas like space-sharing and programs that don't require classrooms (e.g. distance learning); and establishing trusts to manage schools' real estate functions. Good advice, worth being heeded by more school systems. To read both reports, visit http://www.educationevolving.org/good_reading.asp.

Mass Insight Education
April 2004

Mass Insight Education has released a "bicoastal" poll that shows the public in two states wants more math in K-12 education - and has less "math phobia" than most people would believe. The poll, conducted by MIE and the Seattle-based Partnership for Learning, a business group, polled the public on attitudes toward math education in the Massachusetts and Washington State, and found that 75 percent believe that all students should take algebra and geometry, while one-third think all students should take trigonometry and calculus. The poll also looked at the attitudes of business leaders in both states, who say overwhelmingly that students' math skills aren't up to snuff, especially for work in high-tech industries. The public also likes standards-based accountability measures and thinks they've helped to raise student learning. The poll doesn't do much that the American Diploma Project (http://www.achieve.org/achieve.nsf/AmericanDiplomaProject?OpenForm) hasn't done in more detail. But it's a useful temperature-taking exercise and adds additional evidence to support that project's central contention: that a high school diploma is not the useful marker for skills and knowledge that it used to be. You can read the full report at www.massinsight.org.

After months of increasingly shrill criticisms directed at No Child Left Behind, recent news out of Pennsylvania (see "Secrecy vs. sunshine" below for more) offers a painful but healthy reminder of what motivated anyone to pass such a law in the first place. The state is requiring its middle school teachers to take tests in their subject areas, not because it suddenly got religion about the importance of teachers' subject matter knowledge, but because NCLB is making states get serious about teachers' academic credentials, particularly middle school teachers.

The Pennsylvania results were both bad and all too predictable. One out of every four teachers, all of them already state-certified, couldn't pass a test aimed at a 10th-grade skill level. Even more damning, Philadelphia's teachers weren't included in these numbers. (That city's failure rate was far higher.) Suburban districts cannot assume this is exclusively a big-city problem.

My guess is that these low pass rates won't be unique to Pennsylvania. We haven't really begun to mine the depths of this national problem, a problem caused by states' willingness to certify teachers who lack a fundamental prerequisite for effective instruction: subject-matter knowledge. It was this lack of basic knowledge that led the architects of No Child Left Behind to make the startling distinction between state certification of a teacher and proof that said teacher is adequately educated in his/her discipline.

The federal law gives new teachers little wiggle room: either earn a college major in their field or pass a test. Good for Congress and good for our grandchildren's future.

But the 3.2 million teachers already in the classroom are another matter. Fearful of the backlash that would result from making practicing teachers re-earn their place in schools - and mindful of union political clout - a compromise was reached, one that (typically) is more attuned to the interests of adults than children: NCLB lets each state devise more flexible standards, indeed an entire menu of state-sanctioned activities from which current teachers may choose, all of which are supposed to prove teachers' subject matter knowledge.

It is here that NCLB loses its punch.

The National Council on Teacher Quality has analyzed the teacher-quality standards of 20 states to determine whether these could successfully identify and bring up to speed teachers who are weak in their disciplines. This first of three report cards was released last week and can be found at http://www.nctq.org/nctq/publications/. In coming months, we will evaluate the remaining states and will revisit changes made in these first sets of state teacher quality standards.

For the 20 states we evaluated, the average grade is a dreadful D+. At one end of the spectrum is lonely Illinois with the only earned A, but eight states fall at the other end, earning a D or F. Overall, states' teacher quality standards ranged from reasonable and responsible attempts to meet the spirit of NCLB to approaches that are best described as indifferent, even disdainful of the law's goals.

These states devised standards that are often breathtakingly inconsistent, irrelevant, illogical, and most commonly riddled with loopholes, like fishing nets made of Hula-Hoops.

Almost all states encourage teachers to take college courses in their subject area, but they also allow an array of other options that are but distantly related to subject matter knowledge. It doesn't take an Einstein to realize that the weakest teachers will be most apt to choose "attending a state convention" over a course in Advanced Calculus.

States have approved a range of activities (with each activity worth some fraction of the 100 points needed for a teacher to be deemed qualified) that are so complicated and extensive that it's not hard to imagine that more imaginative leaders might have persuaded teachers instead to take a 2-hour test, if only to avoid the hassle.

But imaginative leadership has not been the name of this game. Rather, teachers have heard a message from their state education departments and local districts that deepens their indignation. Instead of enlisting the backing of the nation's great teachers, telling them that this represents a genuine effort to identify weak instructors and help them get better, teachers, principals, and district bureaucrats now find themselves counting points for (inter alia) heading an academic club, mentoring a new teacher, submitting a portfolio, taking an educational technology course, or learning how to better manage the classroom - none of which yields evidence of teachers' subject matter knowledge and most of which will leave weak teachers safely ensconced in their classrooms.

As a nation, we must either take this problem seriously or forget about it. States and/or the federal government should bar these weak, inconsistent, and off-the-mark standards. We routinely ask our doctors and nurses, our attorneys and real estate agents, our auto mechanics and massage therapists, to show - and show continually - that they know their stuff by taking courses and exams. We certainly can ask the same of our teachers.

Kate Walsh is president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, on the web at www.nctq.org.

Last Saturday, the Washington Education Association's (WEA) political action committee voted to withhold support for Terry Bergeson, a former WEA president, now running for a third term as the state's school chief. According to the Seattle Times, the snub was "part of a tough-nosed new strategy of withholding its blessings from longtime allies who don't toe the party line on key issues." In the case of Bergeson, this punishment is being doled out for her support for the state's newly enacted charter school legislation (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=139#1720), the suspension of teacher pay and class-size initiatives, and the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), the state's graduation test. Though WEA president Charles Hasse insists that the move was an attempt to "express the frustration many school employees feel," he admits that Bergeson is popular with teachers and will likely win reelection. So much for union non-support.

"Bergeson smarts after WEA snubs her," by David Ammons, Seattle Times, April 20, 2004

On Tuesday, lawmakers in Texas began a special 30-day session to discuss Republican Governor Rick Perry's sweeping new school finance and property tax cut plan. The proposal would reform the current system, which takes money from "property rich" districts and distributes it to "property poor" districts. In place of this so-called "Robin Hood" system, where a maximum of $1.50 of taxes is collected per $100 assessed value to help fund an educational equality initiative, the governor proposes a two-part property tax system with a small tax cut for commercial property (to $1.40 per $100 of assessed value) and a steeper cut for residential property taxes (to $1.25 per $100 of assessed value). The proposal would supplement lost revenue with higher "sin taxes" on cigarettes, gambling, and adult entertainment. While supporters argue that this new system will maintain the equity of the Robin Hood system while reducing the overall tax burden on home owners, critics maintain that it will open a larger hole in the state budget and hurt rural areas (which often have low residential property values, hence rely on commercial assessments to fund schools). Lieutenant governor Carole Keeton Strayhorn has predicted that the state will face a $10 billion budget shortfall over five years if implemented as-is. Everyone knows that there's no perfect answer to school financing, in Texas or elsewhere. The Perry plan deserves careful attention. So do others. The larger question is whether Texas policymakers will also avail themselves of this terrific opportunity to retool not just how the money is gathered and distributed but also the rules by which the Lone Star State's K-12 system operates and the uses made of these billions.

"Paul Sadler, former state lawmaker: We will forever be seeking a solution on school finance," Austin American Statesman, April 20, 2004 (registration required)

"Educators 1st concern should be quality of education for all," Austin American Statesman, April 20, 2004 (registration required)

"Strayhorn raps Perry plan: Comptroller projects $10 billion shortfall," by Keri Herman and Ben Wear, Austin-American Statesman, April 20, 2004 (registration required)

"School storm is gathering: Perry, Strayhorn at odds as session on funding starts today," by Robert T. Garrett and Terrence Stutz, Dallas Morning News, April 19, 2004 (registration required)

"Legislators prepare for special session beginning Tuesday," by Melissa Blasios, News 24 Houston, April 20, 2004

"Perry's plan to abolish Robin Hood," by Jennifer Wilson, Amarillo Globe News, April 13, 2004

Some of us expect the greatest education reform benefit that No Child Left Behind is likely to yield to be the onrushing flood of information about school, district, and state performance. Even if NCLB's various top-down interventions don't work as intended, parents, voters, and taxpayers across the land will be empowered by these "report cards" of various sorts to press for action at the building, local or state levels. Bravo. With rare exceptions (e.g. defense, social security), most of a democracy's worthwhile decision-making occurs close to home.

But information is essential, and its handmaiden is transparency: the information's ability to be accessed by people who might use it to do something to improve their schools. Transparency, however, often is a policy that must be imposed from above, for the simple reason that the custodians of any given unit, mindful of the power that information confers on their critics, are apt to be as secretive as possible and to want to put their own spin on whatever information comes out. (How well I remember the tussles of the 1980's over whether NAEP results would be made available for individual states. For the longest time, most state "chiefs" were mightily opposed. It took a federal law.)

That's why it was so disappointing to learn that the Pennsylvania Department of Education is refusing to release district-by-district data on how many middle-school teachers failed (and passed) the state's (federally mandated) certification exams in core academic subjects.

Philadelphia released its own bleak results: half the teachers failed (including two-thirds of middle school math instructors). But superintendent Paul Vallas, no wimp he, defended both the test and the publication of results. "Look," he said, "we're holding the kids to higher standards. We need to hold our teachers to higher standards, too."

He also did something about it. He rustled up a mixture of federal and private (Wachovia Bank) dollars to start a new "academy" where teachers can brush up on their content knowledge. Exactly right.

Then the media asked the state education department for the results from Pennsylvania's other 500 school districts. And were turned down cold. The agency gave out statewide data: not counting Philadelphia, 23.7 percent of the test-taking middle-school teachers flunked the subject-matter tests. But the department stonewalled requests for these results to be broken out by district. Superintendent Vicki Phillips came up with half a dozen reasons, mostly along the lines of, it's up to each local district to release (or ask the state to release) its data, and the teachers themselves have two more years before they're required by NCLB to be "highly qualified." Yadda yadda yadda.

I have no knowledge of what may be occurring within Ms. Phillips's (very smart) mind, but on its face the Pennsylvania Department of Education is engaging in classic bureaucratic behavior: masking unwelcome results lest someone be held accountable for them, keeping the citizenry in the dark lest it upset the establishment, and denying the very transparency that NCLB is meant to foster. Shame on them.

"Teachers come up short in testing," by Susan Snyder and Dale Mezzacappa, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 23, 2004 (registration required)

"Academy to help boost teachers' knowledge," by Susan Snyder, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 1, 2004 (registration required)

"Phila. middle school teachers fail 'highly qualified' tests," by Bess Keller, Education Week, April 7, 2004

This week, the District of Columbia City Council rejected Mayor Anthony Williams's proposal to take control of the District's public school system (the wretchedness of which we have spilled much electronic ink documenting; see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=124#1554, http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=141#1738, and http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=27#149 for some of the lowlights). The council, a collection primarily of - dare we speak the truth? - political hacks, spiced its rejection with vicious denunciations of the mayor's performance in a number of areas. (It may be worth noting that several members of the same council have, or plan to, run for the mayor's job themselves.) We aren't certain that mayoral control would have been the silver bullet Williams suggested (Mr. Bloomberg, call your office). After all, what's important is not who controls what but what the person in charge does. But the nation's capital is surely one place where just about anything would be preferable to the status quo. Let's hope that the new D.C. voucher program will provide at least some children with a way out of schools that are the very definition of "failing."

"Williams's school plan defeated," by Justin Blum, Washington Post, April 1, 2004

"Williams' plan for schools rejected," by Matthew Cellis, Washington Times, April 21, 2004

After the massacre at Columbine High School five years ago, lawmakers and school boards across the land scrambled to prevent similar atrocities. In California, that led to Assembly Bill 537, the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000. Its purpose was to assure all students "the inalienable right to attend campuses that are safe, secure, and peaceful." Unfortunately, according to Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute, the law is grounded in "a serious misunderstanding about how to improve school discipline" that focuses more on trendy notions of protecting marginalized groups than on the real causes of school violence. Case in point: The state may withhold millions of dollars from Westminster Schools in Orange County this year because, writes Hymowitz, "three board members voted to reject the state's wording in an anti-discrimination policy designed to protect transgendered students (all .001 percent of them)." The problem with this, Hymowitz says, is that "there is little evidence linking school violence . . . with racism, sexism, and homophobia." The truth is that "laws, bureaucrats and legalistic, politically correct policies imposed from the top down can't stop harassment and violence in the schools of Orange County or elsewhere." Only committed educators, with the help of parents, administrators, and a sound, consistent discipline policy can do that.

"Silly laws are no way to fight bullying," by Kay Hymowitz, Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2004

Bryan Hassel, Valaida Fullwood, and Michelle Godard Terrell, Public Impact
January 2004

Facilities Financing: New Models for Districts that are Creating Schools New
Bryan Hassel, Katie Walter Esser, Public Impact
February 2004

These two reports, released earlier this year by Public Impact for Education/Evolving, discuss a "new schools reform strategy." "New schools" are defined as the "assortment of high-quality innovative public schools that are now being launched to serve the diverse educational needs of public school students." They can include charter schools as well as pilot, magnet, and community schools. How District Leaders Can Support the New Schools Strategy describes how school districts in seven cities implemented proactive strategies to start new, smaller schools more tailored to the needs of their students. Based on case studies of alternative schools in places like Baltimore, it advocates making the new schools strategy integral to a district's reform agenda, allocating a fair share of resources, establishing enforceable performance contracts between district and schools, and creating boards that use both district and community leaders to make the new schools initiatives work. The case studies are solid and reinforce the belief that new schools should emphasize both accountability and autonomy. Facilities Financing focuses more on innovative ways whereby school districts can obtain the funding to develop better buildings for new schools, whether via new facilities or renovation. Among the recommendations: tapping public-private partnerships or employer-based schools; rethinking the use of traditional facilities, including ideas like space-sharing and programs that don't require classrooms (e.g. distance learning); and establishing trusts to manage schools' real estate functions. Good advice, worth being heeded by more school systems. To read both reports, visit http://www.educationevolving.org/good_reading.asp.

Gilbert T. Sewall, American Textbook Council
2004

For this report from the American Textbook Council, Gilbert Sewall reviews six popular world history textbooks used in grade 6-12 classrooms across the country. The review is somewhat akin to Diane Ravitch's Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks in both purpose and findings. Like Ravitch and her reviewers (who reviewed both U.S. and world history texts), Sewall evaluates a half-dozen widely used world history textbooks and finds that "bad writing compounds the loss of narrative, instructional confusion abounds, presentism is universal, diversity takes a toll, and a disturbing view of the future prevails." The methodologies differed, however. Ravitch used multiple reviewers with expertise in world history to scrutinize individual books, while Sewall reviewed the books himself and used outside experts to vet his draft. Sewall also generalizes about the books, taking examples from some of them to support his general points. His basic "design" was to look at the books' handling of specific issues, events, or topics, which then became his organizing frame. Ravitch went book-by-book, with multiple reviewers reviewing and "grading" each book according to ten specific criteria. Both reports are worthwhile, however, and both confirm that history textbooks as a whole are boring and ridiculously inclusive yet lack a central story line or anything else that would make you want to turn the page. They also tend toward the politically correct and are fraught with errors and dubious judgments. To access Sewall's study, surf to http://www.historytextbooks.org/world.htm.

RAND Education
2004

"Focus on the Wonder Years" is a euphemism for describing the lost years of middle schooling in the U.S., grades 6, 7 and 8, sometimes dubbed the "Bermuda Triangle" of American education. This RAND study, funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, reviews two decades of relevant literature and data to help explain the dismal academic performance of middle-schoolers and what can be done about it. The history of the middle school is dominated by demographics and educational theorists. Booms in student population provided a powerful incentive for building new schools for middle-school age students, thus relieving overcrowded elementary schools. Psychologists, fascinated by the cognitive and emotional changes of early adolescence, saw the middle-school years as a swell place to insert their theories, often to detrimental effect. By the 1950s, the "best thinking of the time" emphasized "integration," "exploration," "differentiation," "socialization," and "articulation" for early teens. Fast-forward to 2004. This report argues for disbanding middle schools altogether and replacing them with K-8 schools, which should focus on academic interventions for the low performing students, comprehensive disciplinary models that deal with problems early, quality professional development for teachers, and parental engagement with their children's schooling. The recommendations are sound. They're also standard fare. But the report is rigorous and detailed, a solid synthesis of sensible thinking about middle schools. To check it out for yourself go to http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG139/.

Mass Insight Education
April 2004

Mass Insight Education has released a "bicoastal" poll that shows the public in two states wants more math in K-12 education - and has less "math phobia" than most people would believe. The poll, conducted by MIE and the Seattle-based Partnership for Learning, a business group, polled the public on attitudes toward math education in the Massachusetts and Washington State, and found that 75 percent believe that all students should take algebra and geometry, while one-third think all students should take trigonometry and calculus. The poll also looked at the attitudes of business leaders in both states, who say overwhelmingly that students' math skills aren't up to snuff, especially for work in high-tech industries. The public also likes standards-based accountability measures and thinks they've helped to raise student learning. The poll doesn't do much that the American Diploma Project (http://www.achieve.org/achieve.nsf/AmericanDiplomaProject?OpenForm) hasn't done in more detail. But it's a useful temperature-taking exercise and adds additional evidence to support that project's central contention: that a high school diploma is not the useful marker for skills and knowledge that it used to be. You can read the full report at www.massinsight.org.