The Education Gadfly Weekly

Andrew J. Rotherham
Education Sector
January 2008

The debates over charter schools that play out across blogs and opinion pages are heated, but in state legislative chambers cooler heads eventually have to prevail to reach compromises on charter-school legislation. This policy brief by Education Sector's Andy Rotherham recommends some ways to reach those compromises. Rotherham's first suggestion is "smart charter school caps" (more here), which "allow schools that have met a performance threshold to replicate as fast as they are able to." Structuring policy in this way allays the fear that poorly-performing schools run by wackos, yahoos, felons, and ex-Stasi will proliferate. Another recommendation: High-performing charters looking for permanent homes should lend their academic credibility to struggling public schools in exchange for building space. (Ohio, for example, has a law that allows traditional public schools who make room for charters to include the charter's performance figures in their own accountability reports.) Other ideas include providing transition aid for traditional public schools that lose students to charters, implementing a system of weighted student funding, and developing "thin" teacher contracts for charter schools, much like those used in the Green Dot system in Los Angeles (compare the 53 pages in Green Dot's contract with the 348 in LAUSD's). Rotherham points out, too, the types of risks inherent in any political compromise. Regarding the "test scores for space" recommendation, for instance, what happens if the high-achieving charter school flubs the exams one year? Is it out on the street again? Also, how willing are we to let troubled public schools temper their accountability numbers with those from a high-performing charter school? Not all this is new, but Rotherham still does a good job highlighting questions that advocates and lawmakers will have to answer. Go here to download a copy of the report, and send it to your public servant right away.

When 45 percent of Pennsylvania's 127,000 high-school seniors fail basic reading and math exams, when close to 75 percent of Philadelphia's 2006 graduates don't pass them, what is to be done? The state's education secretary, Gerald Zahorchak, has an answer. He wants Pennsylvania's Board of Education to create ten Graduation Competency Assessments, at least six of which a student would have to pass in order to graduate. The youth disapprove. Jamillah Hannibal, a Philadelphia student who failed the state math exam but has already been accepted to college, said, "I can do the work, but tests are not my strong point. I've worked my four years so hard to graduate, and [under the proposed regulations] I couldn't see my diploma because of one test? That's wrong." No, Jamillah. What's wrong is sending 18-year-olds into the world without basic reading and math skills. Gadfly applauds Zahorchak for speaking out on the Keystone State's low expectations. Still, the Board of Education should tread deliberately and carefully as it moves ahead; end of course exams are useful but tricky things. In the words of Poor Richard, "Well done is better than well said."

"Receiving diplomas without skills," by Dan Hardy, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 17, 2008

Paying teachers extra for serving in high-needs schools is one of the few ideas embraced by presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle this election year. And even lots of teachers like the notion, at least in theory. But districts experimenting with "hardship" pay have come up against a problem: a little bit extra won't do. Because teachers value good working conditions more than cash, bonuses have to be big to be effective. Australia's Noel Pearson seems to have gotten the message, and then some. He's launching Teach for Australia with private funds. For experienced teachers who move to the bush and teach successfully in Aboriginal schools, the program will provide $50,000 extra--yes, on top of regular salaries. (Granted, that's only $43,000 in U.S. dollars.) One of the project's leaders told the Australian, "We think if you get the incentives right, there will be a huge number of people wanting to do this." No kidding--can we apply?

"Teachers' $50K bush bonus," by Justine Ferrari, The Australian, January 17, 2008

"Please," cry the teachers of Dallas, who are currently disallowed from giving their students any grade lower than a 50 percent, "let us bestow upon our pupils the grades that they in reality earn." Superintendent Michael Hinojosa scoffs at such pleas. He thinks if students do nothing early in a semester and receive zeros, they'll be unable to affect an academic turnaround later in the marking period. But if youngsters who complete no assignments nonetheless receive 50-percent credit for them, they can--if lightning strikes--still pull out a passing grade later in the semester. Such tortured logic, realized through the Dallas school code, magically accomplishes at least three undesirable goals. First, it shows students (and teachers) that their school grades are wholly fabricated. Whereas once perhaps As, Bs, and Fs meant at least something, they do no longer. Second, it lets teachers know that they have no autonomy in their classrooms, even in grading. And third, it mocks those who push for higher standards and more accountability, and it makes hypocrites of Dallas's school administrators. Bravo. We said it last week, we'll say it again: Dallas has problems.

"Dallas teachers ask for ability to give grades below 50," by Kent Fischer, Dallas Morning News, January 18, 2008 

Thomas Friedman decided in 2005 to overturn two millennia of astronomical wisdom by releasing a book called The World Is Flat, the crux of which is that the United States faces growing economic competition from countries such as China and India. The tome's title is cliché, but its omnipresence defies disregard. 

Three years after the book besieged bestseller lists, the nation has yet to get over it. When we read this week that Tata, the Indian conglomerate, is now the frontrunner to buy Ford's Jaguar and Land Rover brands, and that it will soon start exporting electric cars to the U.S., we get a bit squirmy in our seats.

But most worrisome to Americans, it seems, is that our nation may be losing the human-capital battle, the struggle to produce, attract, and retain skilled and talented workers. A new documentary, Two Million Minutes, follows six high-school students--two each from the United States, India, and China--and finds that the Asian-educated kids study (especially math and science) a lot more than their American peers   

The film's most fervent promoters call this a "crisis." The description oversimplifies, but it nonetheless illumines a question that never quite abates, that always dwells just beneath the surface of other education conversations. If the U.S. does face competition from Indian and Chinese students, are American interests better served by lavishing resources on our lowest academic achievers or our highest? (See here.)

While Americans ask that question, one of our competitors, India, does not (or is only just beginning to). This difference between countries is a big deal, and yet it goes almost completely overlooked.

Last Thursday's New York Times ran an article about India's public schools, which are fully lousy. Descriptions of absent teachers, masses of unidentified pupils, and decrepit schoolhouses are no doubt startling to those who thought--who have been repeatedly told--that India is a model of educational excellence. Indeed, a Times reader who picked up the paper just two weeks earlier would have learned that Indian education is the envy of the world (a "craze"), and that East Asian parents simply cannot get enough of it.

The friction here is produced by the mounds of shoddy reporting and commenting that draw no distinction between India's private schools, which, according to Two Million Minutes, enroll nearly a third of its student population, and its public schools, which, because of their generally dismal quality, might as well enroll nobody.

As James Tooley has shown, most of the country's private schools do not serve the rich--far from it. But a recent Washington Post article points out that in India "a dual education system has emerged. India's economic boom has fueled the rise of elite private schools ... while the public school system has become a dismal refuge." (Perhaps this is why the aforementioned documentary juxtaposed students in an American public school with students in an elite Indian private school.)

India's educational divisions are stark. The World Bank finds that educational inequality there exceeds not just that of neighboring countries (Sri Lanka, for example) but also of most Latin American countries and several African nations (e.g., Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana). Such gaps are exacerbated by India's caste distinctions, which are officially outlawed but still prevalent, especially in rural areas. Educational divisions are also tied to wealth; on any given day in the poor state of Bihar, home to some 83 million people, 70 percent of public-school teachers simply don't show up for work. The national government has not developed a passable public-school system and has left most educational authority in states' hands; some states do an okay job, others don't, and thus hundreds of millions of Indians are illiterate and uneducated.

Higher education in India is not for the masses, either. A mere 7 percent of Indians between 18 and 23 are enrolled in college, compared to 41 percent of U.S. 18- to 24-year-olds. (And while India has several top-notch institutions, according to NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik, three-fifths of the country's colleges offer lamentable instruction. McKinsey & Company estimates that only a quarter of the country's engineers meet the standards of Western employers.)

The United States, by contrast, has one of the world's most equally educated citizenries, hard as that may be to believe (see here). For all its zealous capitalism, America nonetheless understands that its resources should not be proffered to privilege only. Thus, the U.S. strives for a balance between equity (No Child Left Behind) and competitiveness that other countries such as India have heretofore ignored. Democratic India cannot ignore it forever, though. As the nation grows wealthier, its poorer citizens will no longer countenance a system of elite private schools for the wealthy and dreadful government schools for the poor.

U.S. k-12 education undoubtedly can and should improve (and perhaps some stellar Indian private schools could serve as models). But their tune-up ought not be driven by maintaining international competitiveness, or keeping up with the number of Indian engineers--vague and ephemeral notions, both. It should be justified mostly by domestic and moral considerations, because the connection between a nation's k-12 system and international economics are so many and varied. And no country can be internationally competitive if it is submerged in national strife.

Consider, for example, that India's vaunted information-technology sector employs a mere one quarter of one percent of the nation's labor force. Who knew? The other 99.75 percent of India's workers most likely did; they are beginning to demand a piece of the economic action (better schools, better infrastructure, more job variety) that government will be unable to continue denying them. It's a good bet that even hyper-globalized India will soon need to turn its focus inward.

To compare the schools of the U.S. and India is folly--because both nations are so big and different, because their school systems are so diverse, it's akin to comparing, say, American and Indian trees. To base education policy (math and science now!, for example) on such coarse and anecdotal judgments seems even more foolish. When it comes to k-12 education, nations would do better to act locally before attempting to think globally. 

What type of formal education makes great CEOs? According to Forbes magazine, chief executives earn shareholders similar returns whether they have a Ph.D., MBA, J.D., master's degree, or even just a bachelor's degree. What type of formal education makes great principals? Nobody knows, because until now they've mostly come from the same place: schools of education. Several programs (such as New Leaders for New Schools and KIPP) have bucked this trend, and now higher education is getting in on the action, too. Rice University, in Houston, is launching an MBA program specifically to train principals. Although candidates must have some classroom experience, the curriculum involves no instructional training (Rice doesn't have an ed school) and focuses, instead, on administrative issues. Prince George's County Superintendent John E. Deasy finds the approach promising and notes that many school leaders manage a "$5 million payroll and a plant worth $90 million. That is a job for an MBA." Some rightly fear that business-minded principals will be ineffective instructional leaders, of course. And there's a real risk that MBA-school leaders who find their hands tied won't stay in bureaucratic k-12 systems. But there's only one way to find out if such concerns are valid: Give the MBA approach a try and see what happens. Such is the kind of innovation and experimentation that public schools need.

"Rethinking Principal Priorities of Training," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, January 21, 2008

Randi Weingarten--UFT president, AFT heir-apparent--must enjoy fighting losing battles. Her latest hopeless quest is to keep New York City schools from using "value-added" achievement data to evaluate teachers. "If one permitted this, it would be one of the worst decisions of my professional life," she told the New York Times. (Even worse than permitting this "deeply disturbing" reform?) Furthermore, Weingarten thinks "any real educator can know within five minutes of walking into a classroom if a teacher is effective." Really, Randi? Then why are so few obviously ineffective teachers removed from Gotham's schools? Perhaps it's because principals are afraid to do so without objective data lest they be charged, by Randi, with acting on a "whim." So let Gadfly propose a responsible use of New York's new spreadsheets. No, information on the effectiveness of individual teachers should not be made public (as Deputy Schools Chancellor Chris Cerf suggests), but it should be given to principals. And they should be allowed, even encouraged, to use it as one part of evaluating teachers and making tenure decisions. We can see Randi's reaction now.

"New York Measuring Teachers by Test Scores," by Jennifer Medina, New York Times, January 21, 2008

Andrew J. Rotherham
Education Sector
January 2008

The debates over charter schools that play out across blogs and opinion pages are heated, but in state legislative chambers cooler heads eventually have to prevail to reach compromises on charter-school legislation. This policy brief by Education Sector's Andy Rotherham recommends some ways to reach those compromises. Rotherham's first suggestion is "smart charter school caps" (more here), which "allow schools that have met a performance threshold to replicate as fast as they are able to." Structuring policy in this way allays the fear that poorly-performing schools run by wackos, yahoos, felons, and ex-Stasi will proliferate. Another recommendation: High-performing charters looking for permanent homes should lend their academic credibility to struggling public schools in exchange for building space. (Ohio, for example, has a law that allows traditional public schools who make room for charters to include the charter's performance figures in their own accountability reports.) Other ideas include providing transition aid for traditional public schools that lose students to charters, implementing a system of weighted student funding, and developing "thin" teacher contracts for charter schools, much like those used in the Green Dot system in Los Angeles (compare the 53 pages in Green Dot's contract with the 348 in LAUSD's). Rotherham points out, too, the types of risks inherent in any political compromise. Regarding the "test scores for space" recommendation, for instance, what happens if the high-achieving charter school flubs the exams one year? Is it out on the street again? Also, how willing are we to let troubled public schools temper their accountability numbers with those from a high-performing charter school? Not all this is new, but Rotherham still does a good job highlighting questions that advocates and lawmakers will have to answer. Go here to download a copy of the report, and send it to your public servant right away.