The Education Gadfly Weekly

The OECD has released its annual grab bag of international data from thirty-plus developed countries, overflowing with interesting factoids about participation in education, spending, class size, and more. To dive right in: 1) About 70 percent of all OECD students who enter post-secondary education graduate; in Japan, that number is about 90 percent, while Hungary and the U.S. flounder at 52 percent. 2) Between 2009 and 2010, public expenditures on educational institutions fell in one-third of OECD countries (surprise, surprise), including the U.S., Italy, Estonia, and Iceland. 3) Between 2000 and 2011, teacher salaries rose in almost all OECD countries (France and Japan were the exceptions), and then fell between 2009 and 2011. 4) Across all OECD countries, the average age at which mothers have their first child rose from twenty-four in 1970 to twenty-eight in 2009 (though the Duchess of Cambridge is skewing the numbers at age thirty-one). 5) Together, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. receive over half of all foreign students. 6) On average, OECD countries employ one teacher for every fourteen students in upper-secondary school (Portugal has the richest ratio, one teacher for every eight students, while Mexico breaks the scales at twenty-eight). At 440 pages, there’s plenty more information to dig into. (Cue the traditional wise cracks about the inaptness of the report title—but at least we no longer have to take a nap while it downloads!)

SOURCE: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators (OECD Publishing, 2013).

At first blush, this AFT-commissioned survey (which was conducted by Hart Research Associates and determined that parents disapprove of current education-reform initiatives) is a head-scratcher. It “finds,” for example, that just 24 percent of parents support school choice—dramatically fewer than other recent polls report. The latest Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup poll, conducted in August 2012, found that 66 percent of Americans supported charters and 44 percent are warm to private school choice. And the 2012 PEPG/Education Next survey concurred: Sixty-two percent of Americans favor charter schools. So why the disconnect? Could that much have changed in a year? Unlikely. Instead, it’s more a question of semantics. The AFT’s poll asks parents to choose between “good public schools” that offer “safe conditions” and an “enriching curriculum” and private schools paid for “at the public expense.” The former—naturally—won the day. Other AFT questions are riddled with the same problem (see Terry Moe’s excellent book for more on how question framing pre-determines answers). Readers who want a more accurate overview of how Americans feel about school choice, education reform, and the K–12 system writ large: peruse the two surveys linked above or our own look at schools’ belt-tightening strategies from August 2012.

SOURCE: Hart Research Associates, Public School Parents on the Promise of Public Education: Nationwide Survey Among Parents of Children in Public K-12 Schools (Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Teachers, July 2013).

Mike and Dara tear themselves away from round-the-clock royal baby coverage to bring you commentary on ESEA renewal, the cost of PARCC’s tests, and special-education vouchers. Amber throws down OECD statistics.

Amber's Research Minute

Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, (OECD Publishing, 2013)

The Common Core State Standards will soon be driving instruction in forty-five states and the District of Columbia.

While the standards are high quality, getting their implementation right is a real challenge—and it won't be free, a serious concern given the tight budgets of many districts and states.
But while critics have warned of a hefty price tag, the reality is more complicated.

Yes, some states may end up spending a lot of money. But there are also opportunities for significant savings if states, districts and schools use this occasion to rethink their approach to test administration, instructional materials and training for teachers. The key is that states have options, and implementation doesn't need to look (or cost) the same everywhere.

States could approach implementation in myriad ways. Here are three:

• One, stick to "Business as usual" and use traditional tools like textbooks, paper tests, and in-person training. These tools are very familiar in today's education system, but they can come with reasonably high price tags.
• Two, go with only the "bare bones" of what's necessary: Experiment with open-source materials, computerized assessments, and online professional development in ways that provide the bare bones of more traditional, in-person approaches. This could save major coin, but could require more technology investment and capacity for some states.
• Or, three, find a middle ground through "balanced implementation" of both strategies, which offers some of the benefits—and downsides—of each model.

But how much money are we talking? Take Florida: 

If Florida sticks to business as usual, it could spend $780 million implementing the Common Core. Under the bare bones approach, the tab could be only $183 million. A blend of the two? $318 million.

But that's the total cost; don't forget states are already spending billions of dollars each year on textbooks, tests, curricula, and other expenses. Look at it that way and the sticker shock wears off: The estimated net cost of putting the Common Core in place in the Sunshine State, for example, ranges from $530 million to roughly $67 million less than what we estimate that they are spending now. 

Each implementation approach has its merits—and drawbacks—but states and districts do have options for smartly adopting the Common Core without breaking the bank. Further, they could use this opportunity to create efficiencies via cross-state collaborations and other innovations.

To learn more, download "Putting a Price Tag on the Common Core: How Much Will Smart Implementation Cost?"

Paternalism has been a hallmark of Progressive reform movements for over one hundred years, and today’s school-reform movement is no different. Whether it’s Temperance and Prohibition or the effort to shutter popular but ineffective public schools, the principle is the same: Members of an “enlightened elite” believe that they must act to create and enforce rules that will be good for the huddled masses.

I say that as someone who often finds himself in favor of paternalistic policies. (Jay Greene would accuse me of having Petty Little Dictator Disorder.) I look upon the reign of Mayor Bloomberg, for instance, with considerable respect. I find it hard to argue with his public-health initiatives; Gotham, in my view, is clearly better off now that bars and restaurants are smoke free and donuts don’t contain trans-fats. Let them eat cake—but only if it doesn’t kill them!

I’ve been particularly taken, though, with the Bloomberg-Giuliani approach to crime fighting, including the aggressive use of stop, question, and frisk. As Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and others argue, this tactic is a big reason why New York is now the safest big city in America. And the steep drop in crime is most beneficial to low-income and minority New Yorkers, who are the victims of crime in overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers. Sure, that means that lots of innocent New Yorkers get stopped, questioned, and frisked, but to my policy-wonk eyes, it’s a fair tradeoff for greater public safety.

But what if low-income and minority individuals disagree? What I found most powerful about President Obama’s heartfelt comments about the Trayvon Martin verdict was his depiction of the insidiousness of racial profiling:

It’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that—that doesn’t go away.

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.

And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator. There are very few African-Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

Gulp. So even if racial profiling “works” as a crime-fighting tactic, it also reinforces these daily traumas that black men in particular suffer. Ta-Nehisi Coates calls it a “racist public-safety tax.” Perhaps it should be minority communities who get to decide whether paying this tax is worth the benefit. Or perhaps not. Read on.

Come back to education reform. The most paternalist policies in place today require the closure of underperforming schools even where they are popular with parents. Those of us at Fordham have long been champions of this approach, and remain so today, as the clear evidence (from Ohio and elsewhere) is that parental choice per se is not enough to ensure quality schools and strong outcomes for children.

But I’m newly sensitized to the populist argument that questions the justice of closing schools over the will of parents and the community. These are the people who will pay the price—and potentially reap the rewards—of seeing schools closed and new ones opened in their neighborhood. As with “stop and frisk,” there’s a case to be made that these are the people who should decide whether the tradeoffs are worth it.

A case to be made, yes, but I don’t quite buy it. When it comes to crime, are those of us outside the African American community supposed to sit by and bemoan “black-on-black” violence but not do all we can to stop it? Even when it affronts our sense of justice, of human dignity and morality? Not to mention its impact on the larger community—when violence spills over, when high crime impedes economic growth, and more?

And because education is not just a “private good”—society’s welfare depends in no small part on an educated populace—isn’t it appropriate for the public to demand that schools meet certain standards, especially when taxpayer dollars are involved? Isn’t leaving such decisions to the immediately-affected “community” just a recipe for inaction and further academic decline?

So, in the spirit of the Progressive tradition, I remain wedded to my paternalistic preferences. But I will aim to be less dismissive of the “will of the people” at the same time. How about you?

This piece was revised on July 25, 2013, for the Education Gadfly Weekly.

This week, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) released its latest cost estimates, which are coming in significantly higher than the costs of the Smarter Balanced assessments. Almost immediately following the announcement, Georgia dropped out of the federally funded assessment consortium. This after Utah, Alabama, and Oklahoma dropped out of both consortia and after North Dakota switched from PARCC to Smarter Balanced.

Around the blogosphere, speculation—and occasional high-fiving—erupted. My friend and colleague, Andy Smarick, jumped on the announcement declaring it a “disaster” on Twitter and hinting that the PARCC defections might be signaling the beginning of the end of the Common Core. On Twitter, Rick Hess lamented, “If only Core Core'ites had been warned to take political, policy concerns seriously...” And Mike Petrilli lambasted Georgia officials on Twitter, chiding, “Shame on Georgia. You really can’t afford to spend 1/3 of 1% of your per pupil funding on tests?”

Shame on Georgia. You really can't afford to spend 1/3 of 1% of your per pupil funding on tests? http://t.co/nh4XWlxePt @AJCGetSchooled

— Michael Petrilli (@MichaelPetrilli) July 22, 2013

Of course, Common Core supporters have lots of reasons to worry about the growing cracks in the CCSS coalitions: Petrilli is right to hold officials’ feet to the fire when it comes to making tough implementation decisions, and Smarick might be right that these PARCC defections are signaling the beginning of the end of the federally funded assessment consortia. (Though, to be clear, we are still nowhere near that. Support for both PARCC and SBAC in some circles remains quite strong. And pressure on PARCC from states might be exactly what the consortium needs to turn things around.)

That said, whether or not the consortia succeed, I think it is wrong to say the fate of these two “common assessments” are—or need to be—inextricably linked to the overall promise of the Common Core. Here’s why:

First, I have no reason to believe in the divinity of either PARCC or Smarter Balanced (SBAC) (or of any test developer, for that matter). While PARCC generally seems to get it right when it comes to alignment to the CCSS, they are rumored to be plagued by management woes and strategic indecision that threaten the whole operation. Leadership matters—not only when it comes to the viability of the consortium, but also when it comes to decisions about length, cost, and so on.

SBAC, on the other hand, seems to be running a tighter ship, but there is increasing evidence that their assessment is not well aligned to the Common Core. Back when SBAC released its first ELA content frameworks, I worried that the test looked eerily similar to the state tests of the past, with a focus on reading skills over evidence-based reading and writing and with little indication that the consortium prioritized using the kinds of authentic, complex, and content-rich texts that the CCSS demands. On Tuesday, Rhode Island education blogger Jason Becker rightly noted, “While the rest of the internet seems to be obsessed over Georgia leaving [PARCC], the real concern should be over the quality of [the SBAC] test items.” And, when it comes to quality, Becker is unimpressed:

The problem with the SBAC items is they represent the worst of computerized assessment. Rather than demonstrating more authentic and complex tasks, they present convoluted scenarios and even more convoluted input methods…What I see here is not worth the investment in time and equipment that states are being asked to make, and it is hardly a "next generation" set of items that will allow us to attain more accurate measures of achievement.

(It’s also worth noting that the assessment consortia are the only federally controlled aspect of the Common Core; perhaps this is where we should heed the warnings of our conservative brethren and let the market push excellence?)

On the other hand, Smarick is right to be skeptical of states that opt to go it alone, because they will have a steep hill to climb. They’ve got less than two years to build a better, cheaper test than what either PARCC or SBAC has to offer.  And if history is any judge, a marketplace of state-by-state assessment development has yet to bring us excellence.

Second, commonness is only a good thing if we have excellence first. The reason we at Fordham are supportive of the Common Core standards is because they are clearer and more rigorous than the vast majority of state standards they’ve replaced. This is a point that even James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky—two of Common Core’s more vocal opponents—acknowledge. It’s also why we’re more bullish on the CCSS than we are on the NGSS.

On the assessment side, because we don’t know that either consortium has cornered the market on quality, I’m not ready to make “commonness” our primary goal. When Utah dropped out of both consortia last year, I argued that, while assessments are critical to CCSS implementation, we should be worried about quality first. Indeed, I remain convinced that test quality is far more important than their commonness. Yes, if we have more tests we will have less comparability between and among states. But I’m not sure we’ve reached an inflection point where fewer tests would yield better results for our kids.

Third, while the policy and political debate over Common Core is heating up, there are some very real and critically important conversations and shifts that are happening at the classroom level—and that is where change needs to happen if Common Core is going to live up to its promise.

In New York City, for example, thanks to the Common Core focus on text complexity and content-rich curricula, Lucy Calkins’s Reading and Writing Workshop—which has for years been a foundation of reading instruction in the city’s schools—doesn’t even appear on the list of “recommended” Common Core–aligned programs. And the cities that are part of the Council for Great City Schools have committed to using tools like the Student Achievement Partners “Publisher’s Criteria” to guide decisions about curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Perhaps even more critically, just this week, Student Achievement Partners released an “Assessment Evaluation Tool” that is designed to that is designed to

…evaluate the alignment of grade or course-level assessment materials for alignment with the CCSS, including interim or benchmark assessments and classroom assessments.

For both ELA and math, the tool presents both “non-negotiables” and “indicators of quality” that help clarify what the Common Core standards demand in each grade band and what educators and leaders should look for when evaluating a test for its alignment to the standards.

Given the focus in standards- and accountability-driven reform on “outcomes” over inputs, these are exactly the kinds of tools and criteria that should be driving our discussion about standards implementation—and certainly about assessment alignment and quality. And in the end, if we wound up in the early years with two dozen assessments that all met the indicators on this tool, we’d have tests that provided clear signals of how instruction and curriculum needs to shift under the Common Core and we’d have better information about whether our students were on track towards college and career readiness. It’s hard to see how that portends the end of the Common Core.

None of this is to say that we should not think critically about what the demise of either or both assessment consortia might mean for the CCSS, nor should we pretend like this is the only speed bump states will hit as CCSS implementation continues to ramp up. But let’s also remember that, to date, forty-five states and D.C. have adopted the Common Core as their own. And educators and leaders in many of those states continue to align curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development to the expectations. Those of us who support the content and rigor changes the Common Core can bring about owe it to them to acknowledge that the fate of these standards lies not in the offices of Achieve or SBAC but, rather, in the schools and classrooms where teachers are changing what they do every day to meet the new content and rigor demands of the Core.

Few can deny that Washington and many a state capital are gridlocked today by political partisanship, posturing, and peevishness. Tons of problems aren’t getting solved or attended to because elected officials find themselves unable to reach common ground and have forgotten the art of compromise.

The highest-visibility version of this takes the form of Republicans and Democrats glaring at each other. Sometimes, however, the main friction is within a party, mostly when strong-willed ideologues on either party’s fringe make trouble for its centrists. All this is exacerbated by the twenty-four-hour news cycle, by everybody’s ability to tweet or blog or otherwise scream in unfiltered fashion what’s on their mind, and by recent redistrictings of legislative and Congressional seats, as well as the proclivity of Americans nowadays to move into politically homogeneous communities. When either party locks up a district or Senate seat, all the political action moves into the primaries, hence into duels within parties, erasing all incentive to negotiate across party lines in order to get anything accomplished. “Avoiding a primary challenge” generally translates into “never compromise with the other team.”

Deal making used to be the norm in legislative bodies. Today, it’s the exception. That’s why so much attention gets paid to “gangs” of six or eight or whatever who get together to see if they can work out something that might pass muster with a majority of the entire body.

Education hasn’t seen a lot of bipartisanship of late, at least not in Washington. Lawmakers may have finally reaches a compromise on college-student-loan rates, but paralysis has gripped K–12 (and pre-K) issues since the No Child Left Behind act was passed a dozen years back.

To his credit, Arne Duncan has tried to navigate these turbid waters and has acquired a reputation for being willing to work with almost anyone on either side of the aisle, both on Capitol Hill and in statehouses. He’s not just a policy broker, of course; he has strong policy preferences of his own—some of which were viewed not long ago as GOP or conservative ideas. And he’s been willing, perhaps even eager, to act unilaterally, whether with discretionary dollars or waiver authority or both, to get things done AND to point policy in his preferred direction. (When it comes to preschool, he hasn’t shown any proclivity to compromise with Republicans.)

History may conclude that Duncan’s use of ESEA waivers so eased the NCLB pain felt by states and districts that it also eased the pressure on Congress to fix the statute itself, thus—unintentionally—worsening the gridlock problem.

In any case, it’s not getting solved—not yet, not in the NCLB-ESEA department. With the House having just passed (on a nearly straight party-line vote) John Kline’s “Student Success Act,” the next move is up to the Senate, which could take up and in theory could pass Tom Harkin’s “Strengthening America’s Schools.” A marked-up version of that bill cleared the Senate HELP Committee last month, again on a party-line vote, although it’s unlikely to attract the sixty votes needed to avoid a fatal filibuster on the Senate floor. And if, by some miracle, it did clear the full Senate, the ensuing conference-committee process might drag on forever, not to mention how painful it would then be to get a compromise version approved by either chamber. (We are likely to witness a similar scenario on immigration.)

All of this is plenty challenging within the Congress, but it’s aggravated to a fare-thee-well by the unbending stance of any number of influential outside interest groups, mostly but not entirely from the teacher-union, education-establishment, and civil-rights camps. They pretty much stymied action on what was actually a bipartisan ESEA bill that emerged from the Senate committee two years ago but never reached the floor. They adore the latest Harkin version (which has no Republican support), and pretty much the same array of groups and organizations denounced the Kline bill last week (i.e., the bill with no Democratic support).

No matter that some of these groups are two-faced. The teacher unions, for example, oppose ESEA reauthorizations that do not contain mandatory student achievement goals, standards, targets, tests, and enforcement mechanisms; then they turn around and gripe about all efforts to hold teachers to account for getting their pupils to pass those tests and reach those targets. But the larger political point is that (again, much like immigration reform) the dogmatism of influential outside groups worsens the gridlock problem.

The most surprising members of the uncompromising “my way or the highway” camp are prominent national business groups, notably the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, both of which joined the left last week in savaging the Kline bill and demanding more federal regulation and control of education. One can half-understand this in the Chamber of Commerce case, because that outfit’s main education-policy strategist has been none other than true-believer NCLB architect Margaret Spellings (now on her way back to Texas to head the George W. Bush Foundation). It’s almost beyond imagining, however, why the BRT wants Uncle Sam to stay in charge of education, considering that that worthy organization is headed by former Michigan governor John Engler, who knows the ed-reform scene well and has shown what states, left to their own devices, are capable of. I suppose this is yet another sad example of corporate America succumbing to big-government-itis.

Whatever the explanation, despite a wee bit of kumbaya in Congress on other issues in recent weeks, despite Duncan’s earnest efforts, and despite a few members (Lamar Alexander prominent among them) who would actually like to get something done, gridlock and stasis don’t seem to be leaving the K–12 space in Washington anytime soon.

North Carolina’s new budget, passed late Wednesday night and headed to Governor McCrory, has carved out dollars for a voucher program for low-income students, phases out teacher tenure, and ends the practice of raising teacher pay based solely on possession of advanced degrees. Earlier this week, Tarheel state’s lawmakers also approved a voucher program that will allot $3,000 per semester for special-education students who wish to attend private school. As in the days of Jim Hunt, it looks like North Carolina is back in the front rank of school-reform states.

In a new Brown Center Chalkboard post, scholars Russ Whitehurst and David Armor contend that advocates of Obama’s Preschool for All proposal have based their support on faulty research. They note that gold-standard studies have, thus far, not shown major impacts from large-scale pre-K programs, and urge Obama to proceed with demonstration projects rather than replicate the failures of vast endeavors like Head Start.

The Common Core State Standards will soon be driving instruction in forty-five states and the District of Columbia.

While the standards are high quality, getting their implementation right is a real challenge—and it won't be free, a serious concern given the tight budgets of many districts and states.
But while critics have warned of a hefty price tag, the reality is more complicated.

Yes, some states may end up spending a lot of money. But there are also opportunities for significant savings if states, districts and schools use this occasion to rethink their approach to test administration, instructional materials and training for teachers. The key is that states have options, and implementation doesn't need to look (or cost) the same everywhere.

States could approach implementation in myriad ways. Here are three:

• One, stick to "Business as usual" and use traditional tools like textbooks, paper tests, and in-person training. These tools are very familiar in today's education system, but they can come with reasonably high price tags.
• Two, go with only the "bare bones" of what's necessary: Experiment with open-source materials, computerized assessments, and online professional development in ways that provide the bare bones of more traditional, in-person approaches. This could save major coin, but could require more technology investment and capacity for some states.
• Or, three, find a middle ground through "balanced implementation" of both strategies, which offers some of the benefits—and downsides—of each model.

But how much money are we talking? Take Florida: 

If Florida sticks to business as usual, it could spend $780 million implementing the Common Core. Under the bare bones approach, the tab could be only $183 million. A blend of the two? $318 million.

But that's the total cost; don't forget states are already spending billions of dollars each year on textbooks, tests, curricula, and other expenses. Look at it that way and the sticker shock wears off: The estimated net cost of putting the Common Core in place in the Sunshine State, for example, ranges from $530 million to roughly $67 million less than what we estimate that they are spending now. 

Each implementation approach has its merits—and drawbacks—but states and districts do have options for smartly adopting the Common Core without breaking the bank. Further, they could use this opportunity to create efficiencies via cross-state collaborations and other innovations.

To learn more, download "Putting a Price Tag on the Common Core: How Much Will Smart Implementation Cost?"

The Common Core State Standards will soon be driving instruction in forty-five states and the District of Columbia.

While the standards are high quality, getting their implementation right is a real challenge—and it won't be free, a serious concern given the tight budgets of many districts and states.
But while critics have warned of a hefty price tag, the reality is more complicated.

Yes, some states may end up spending a lot of money. But there are also opportunities for significant savings if states, districts and schools use this occasion to rethink their approach to test administration, instructional materials and training for teachers. The key is that states have options, and implementation doesn't need to look (or cost) the same everywhere.

States could approach implementation in myriad ways. Here are three:

• One, stick to "Business as usual" and use traditional tools like textbooks, paper tests, and in-person training. These tools are very familiar in today's education system, but they can come with reasonably high price tags.
• Two, go with only the "bare bones" of what's necessary: Experiment with open-source materials, computerized assessments, and online professional development in ways that provide the bare bones of more traditional, in-person approaches. This could save major coin, but could require more technology investment and capacity for some states.
• Or, three, find a middle ground through "balanced implementation" of both strategies, which offers some of the benefits—and downsides—of each model.

But how much money are we talking? Take Florida: 

If Florida sticks to business as usual, it could spend $780 million implementing the Common Core. Under the bare bones approach, the tab could be only $183 million. A blend of the two? $318 million.

But that's the total cost; don't forget states are already spending billions of dollars each year on textbooks, tests, curricula, and other expenses. Look at it that way and the sticker shock wears off: The estimated net cost of putting the Common Core in place in the Sunshine State, for example, ranges from $530 million to roughly $67 million less than what we estimate that they are spending now. 

Each implementation approach has its merits—and drawbacks—but states and districts do have options for smartly adopting the Common Core without breaking the bank. Further, they could use this opportunity to create efficiencies via cross-state collaborations and other innovations.

To learn more, download "Putting a Price Tag on the Common Core: How Much Will Smart Implementation Cost?"

The OECD has released its annual grab bag of international data from thirty-plus developed countries, overflowing with interesting factoids about participation in education, spending, class size, and more. To dive right in: 1) About 70 percent of all OECD students who enter post-secondary education graduate; in Japan, that number is about 90 percent, while Hungary and the U.S. flounder at 52 percent. 2) Between 2009 and 2010, public expenditures on educational institutions fell in one-third of OECD countries (surprise, surprise), including the U.S., Italy, Estonia, and Iceland. 3) Between 2000 and 2011, teacher salaries rose in almost all OECD countries (France and Japan were the exceptions), and then fell between 2009 and 2011. 4) Across all OECD countries, the average age at which mothers have their first child rose from twenty-four in 1970 to twenty-eight in 2009 (though the Duchess of Cambridge is skewing the numbers at age thirty-one). 5) Together, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. receive over half of all foreign students. 6) On average, OECD countries employ one teacher for every fourteen students in upper-secondary school (Portugal has the richest ratio, one teacher for every eight students, while Mexico breaks the scales at twenty-eight). At 440 pages, there’s plenty more information to dig into. (Cue the traditional wise cracks about the inaptness of the report title—but at least we no longer have to take a nap while it downloads!)

SOURCE: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators (OECD Publishing, 2013).

At first blush, this AFT-commissioned survey (which was conducted by Hart Research Associates and determined that parents disapprove of current education-reform initiatives) is a head-scratcher. It “finds,” for example, that just 24 percent of parents support school choice—dramatically fewer than other recent polls report. The latest Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup poll, conducted in August 2012, found that 66 percent of Americans supported charters and 44 percent are warm to private school choice. And the 2012 PEPG/Education Next survey concurred: Sixty-two percent of Americans favor charter schools. So why the disconnect? Could that much have changed in a year? Unlikely. Instead, it’s more a question of semantics. The AFT’s poll asks parents to choose between “good public schools” that offer “safe conditions” and an “enriching curriculum” and private schools paid for “at the public expense.” The former—naturally—won the day. Other AFT questions are riddled with the same problem (see Terry Moe’s excellent book for more on how question framing pre-determines answers). Readers who want a more accurate overview of how Americans feel about school choice, education reform, and the K–12 system writ large: peruse the two surveys linked above or our own look at schools’ belt-tightening strategies from August 2012.

SOURCE: Hart Research Associates, Public School Parents on the Promise of Public Education: Nationwide Survey Among Parents of Children in Public K-12 Schools (Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Teachers, July 2013).