The Education Gadfly Weekly

College Board
2007

The latest SAT scores are out, and average reading and math scores declined. In the critical reading portion--which used to be called "verbal"--the average score was 502. That's one point lower than last year's average; it's also the lowest reading score in 13 years. The College Board is sticking to its line: scores are down mostly because the pool of test-takers is larger and more diverse. Some point out, though, that the SAT's test-taking population was also growing larger and diversifying during the first part of this decade, when scores rose. What's clear is this. More kids are going to college, which is mostly a good. One wonders, though, if sending unprepared students into the halls of higher education will do those youngsters more harm than good. Will they rise to meet the new academic expectations, or will they drop out? Will universities challenge their less-prepared students, or dumb-down their educations to suit them (and keep them from dropping out)? Read the report here. Get state-by-state data here.

National Charter School Research Project, University of Washington
August 2007

This short report from the National Charter School Research Project (part of Paul Hill's Center on Reinventing Public Education) looks at charter school management organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit. It's not a systematic analysis but rather a discussion of challenges that these entities face and the strategies they pursue as they manage (and attempt to grow) their networks of charter schools--perhaps shedding light on why fewer than 10 percent of charter schools are associated with management organizations (as of 2005). The analysts interviewed ten such organizations, including Aspire, High Tech High, KIPP, and Edison, and identified a handful of common problems. One such: Because charter schools face political uncertainty in many states, and navigating this consumes a great deal of time and resources, a management organization might be forced to narrow its geographic focus. Perhaps the most distressing problem they cite is "the tyranny of business plans." Their interviews suggested that even non-profit outfits are often pressured by funders to grow too quickly. A related question is whether charter management groups should enforce uniformity across their schools (as franchises typically do) or allow local variation. Both approaches exist. The Big Picture Company, for example, gives "each local site...encouragement to innovate around the design," while White Hat Management reports that it has "a very specific education model." The authors don't take sides, but they help the reader understand the tradeoffs. This report is by no means the last word (or the first; see here) on CMOs, EMOs, and their strategies, but it raises important issues for charter supporters to ponder. You can find it online here.

It's back-to-school season, which means it must be time for a prominent news outlet to decry the teacher-turnover "crisis." Enter the New York Times, whose front-page story quotes all the usual suspects saying all the usual things. "The problem is not mainly with retirement," explains the president of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. "The problem is that our schools are like a bucket with holes in the bottom, and we keep pouring in teachers." Perhaps that's true, but with a national attrition rate of eight percent, is teaching really any worse than other professions that attract lots of 20-somethings (see here)? Some contend that fewer teachers might even be a good thing. Nor is this challenge insurmountable. Some districts are taking common sense steps like offering bonuses for teachers in high-need fields or high-poverty schools. But others keep tripping over their own impenetrable hiring bureaucracies and minimal support for new teachers (who need more mentors like this). Tim Daly, the new president of The New Teacher Project, explains, "There isn't any maliciousness in this, it's just a conspiracy of dysfunction." Indeed.

"With Turnover High, Schools Fight for Teachers," by Sam Dillon, New York Times, August 27, 2007

The political strategy of George Miller and Buck McKeon, respectively the chairman and top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, has now come into focus: to get an NCLB reauthorization bill through Congress, appease the suburbs and those who represent them. This approach is smart and savvy and sometimes leads to good policies--but may also leave lots of kids behind.

At issue is a just-released "discussion draft" of their proposal to update Title I, the massive federal program that currently provides $13 billion to the nation's schools in return for tough accountability measures. While leaving much of the current program intact, Miller and McKeon would make several important tweaks that would be felt most directly in the country's leafy suburbs. Surely, this is no accident.

One key recommendation is to "differentiate" between abysmal schools that are failing across the board and marginal schools that are failing for only one "sub-group" of pupils. On its face, this is appropriate; one of the problems with NCLB is its clumsy, binary, pass/fail grading system. Either schools "make" adequate yearly progress, or they don't, and if they miss for two years straight they are designated "in need of improvement" whether they miss by a little or a lot. Because of NCLB's quirky rules, a suburban school with a 90 percent test-passing rate can receive the same label as an inner-city school with a 10 percent passing rate.

That's not fair, right? Shouldn't the first school be considered a great success? Well, what if that school is 90 percent middle-class and 10 percent low-income, and all of the middle-class students passed the test while all of the poor kids failed? Do you still think it's a great school? As I wrote in the New York Times two years ago, one of the major purposes of NCLB was to expose the achievement gap in schools exactly like this one, and press suburban school systems to do something about it.

Nor is this just a hypothetical situation. Consider Palmetto Elementary School in Miami. Its low-income students--about 20 percent of its population--fell short of the state's proficiency target in mathematics, causing the school to miss AYP under current federal rules. (Under Florida's pre-existing and parallel accountability system, it received an "A" grade.)

Miller and McKeon would no longer label Palmetto "in need of improvement" because the school as a whole and its other student sub-groups hit their objectives. Instead, it would be called a "priority" school, differentiating it from "high priority" schools across town that would still face serious interventions.

What does it mean that Palmetto would become a "priority"? Not much for its students, who would no longer be eligible, for example, to transfer to higher-performing campuses or gain access to free tutoring from the provider of their choice. The school would face minimal sanctions, reminiscent of pre-NCLB iterations of Title I. And the new label wouldn't carry as much stigma as the current one does. No doubt that will lead Palmetto's affluent parents (and home owners) to smile happily even as the school's low-income population remains on the far shore of the achievement gap.

Politically, this makes short-run sense. One the main reasons NCLB is so controversial is because its impact can be felt in every school system in the country, including those full of middle-class voters. Previous versions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB's official moniker) focused tough-love on failing inner city schools alone. That's why most of the public never heard of it--and most of the education establishment never went to war over it. (Remember that the NEA is weakest in the cities, where the AFT represents most teachers. Remember, too, that many suburban voters are represented in Congress by Republicans remorseful that they voted for NCLB the first time around.)

To be sure, appealing to the suburbs can also lead to worthy policy revisions. Middle-class voters are probably most irked by the pressure that NCLB puts on schools to narrow their curricula. (We're irked too.) The latest PDK/Gallup poll found that over half of respondents believe that "NCLB's emphasis on English and math reduced the amount of instructional time spent in the local public schools for science, health, social studies, and the arts."

Miller and McKeon demonstrated praiseworthy creativity in trying to address this unintended consequence. Most significantly, states could include the results of history, science, civics, and writing tests in their school's AYP determinations. In a chapter for Fordham's Beyond the Basics volume, Brown University professor Martin West showed that such an approach might be just the ticket. According to federal data, schools in states with history and/or science tests spend significantly more time teaching these subjects than those in states that test only reading and math. Ironically enough, the answer to the testing backlash is more testing.

Middle-class voters' fingerprints could be spotted on other parts of the proposal, too. The authors create additional "flexibility" around the testing of disabled and limited English proficient students--two subgroups that have been bugaboos for many a suburban school. And they would allow schools to get credit for taking students from the "proficient" to the "advanced" level--a nod to the (well-founded) concern that schools are tending to ignore their most gifted students.

Some might argue that giving the suburbs something akin to a free pass on NCLB isn't such a bad thing. After all, the number-one rule for federal policymaking should always be "first, do no harm," and after five clumsy years of NCLB, confining Uncle Sam's damage to the cities might be a step in the right direction. Still, with many African-American, Hispanic, and low-income families still streaming to the suburbs, wouldn't it be nice if their schools also had to narrow the achievement gap? Miller's and McKeon's answer seems to be that it would be nice--but not necessary.

Michelle Rhee, the District of Columbia's dynamic new schools chancellor, is already impressing parents, teachers, and the ever-cynical media with her no-nonsense style (she wants to fire bureaucrats and slim down the central office) and refreshing sense of urgency. Washington Post columnist Colbert King thinks she's ready to take on the city's "central-office hydra" with her "feistiness, a gift for fancy footwork and a good head for the urban fight game, all of which should keep her standing, at least for a while." His colleague, columnist Marc Fisher, seems equally impressed with her honesty: "Rhee is telling it straight: This thing is broken, period." Furthermore, parents "nearly swoon" at her impatience with mindless bureaucracy. "I am going to kick down the barriers," Rhee told Fisher. To be sure, both King and Fisher have been around the block; they've witnessed the system swallow six other superintendents in 10 years. And no doubt, the real task of improving student achievement is yet to come. But if leadership is about creating momentum for change and a hopeful vision of a better future, Rhee is heading in the right direction.

"Rhee vs. the Central-Office Hydra," by Colbert I. King, Washington Post, August 18, 2007

"Three Reasons to Cheer for Rhee's Fast Start," by Marc Fisher, Washington Post, August 28, 2007

All California asks of its twelfth-graders is to pass an exit exam (you get six tries!) that tests ninth-grade standards in reading and seventh-grade standards in math. Ninety-three percent of the class of 2007 passed it. Results from that class also showed rising success rates for African-American, Latino, and poor youngsters. White and Asian students continue to pass at higher rates, though, and state supe Jack O'Connell acknowledged as much: "We see some closing of the achievement gap, but we still need to do much more." But despite the mostly positive results, a few folks still insist that the exam requires too much of students. Liz Guillen, who works at a civil rights law firm, detects "a backlash [against the idea] that one test can be the sole indicator of a person's knowledge or qualification." The truth is this: If you can't read or do math at middle-school levels--and you have six chances to show that you can--that will be the sole indicator of your knowledge and qualification. Sorry, but that's how the world works. Some in California need to get with the program, stop denying reality, and chip in to get all kids up to the exit exam's most minimum of minimum academic levels.

"California high schoolers improve on exit exam," by Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times August 24, 2007

"Legislature revisits exit test," by Jim Sanders, Sacramento Bee, August 26, 2007  

It is no longer sufficient for ambitious high school seniors, bent on impressing college admissions committees, to distinguish themselves through their accomplishments. Now they're being encouraged to make creative errors. Steven Roy Goodman is an independent college counselor who advises his clients to purposefully screw up their applications. "Sometimes it's a typo," he said. "I don't want students to sound like robots. It's pretty easy to fall into that trap of trying to do everything perfectly and there's no spark left." Admissions committees don't seem to echo Goodman's thinking. They are looking for authentic applications, sure, but most say authenticity usually comes through in creative essays or extracurricular activities that demonstrate passion. Gadfly thinks that high school grads should combine the two recommendations: i.e., make a mistake--a creative, authentic one--and then write about it passionately. For example, try robbing a 7-11 with a banana (perhaps in a banana suit), and then write your college essay about the experience, examining it through the lens of Neruda's "La United Fruit Co." Or just get good graids.

"A typo may help your college application," Associated Press, August 22, 2007

Huzzah for Florida Virtual School (FLVS), which just turned ten! Such celebratory language is appropriate, for the Sunshine State, home to many school reform innovations, has yet again provided a successful model for reinventing k-12 education for the 21st century.

Those grumps at the National Education Association are trying to crash the party, though. The union is shocked, shocked, that some parents have the gall to become so involved in their children's education, helping them with their online lessons and all.

"There are concerns," NEA employee Barbara Stein told the Tampa Tribune this month, "about deputizing whoever happens to be at the kitchen table as a teacher." Klein fails to specify who, exactly, harbors such concerns, but we may assume that she sympathizes with the nameless disquieted.

Jean Miller, who directs the Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice at Florida's Department of Education, disputes Stein's depiction of Florida's online education programs. She told the Tribune, "In a virtual school, all teachers are certified in the state of Florida. You have a teacher confirming what students are mastering."

Okay, fine. But Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow has other "concerns." He criticized online education in general, saying, "School is much more than just an experience where you learn information." How so? Pudlow tries to clarify, but succeeds in muddling: "School is also a place where you learn about how different people are and how different people react." Like, to chemicals?

Enough. Let's turn away from word games and toward the data--which show that, at least for those of us who do think a school is a place where one learns information (and that, hypothetically speaking of course, children might "learn about how different people are" in lots of settings beyond a schoolhouse), FLVS is fulfilling its mission.

In 2005-2006, FLVS, which serves those in grades 6-12, offered over 90 courses for credit, and 31,000 youngsters enrolled in at least one of them (some of those students actually live in other states). What's more, the Florida legislature funds the online program on a per-pupil, performance basis--only when a student successfully completes a course does FLVS receive money.

It's difficult objectively to gauge the overall academic progress of FLVS students, who aren't enrolled in a set curriculum and may take many classes or few, in subjects as varied as Latin and macroeconomics. But if demand is any indication of success, FLVS is doing well: the number of courses completed by FLVS students soared from less than 10,000 in 2000-2001 to 68,000 in 2005-2006.

In addition to FLVS, Florida contracts with two full-time online schools: the k-11 Florida Connections Academy, and the k-8 Florida Virtual Academy, which were started in 2003-2004. The state's accountability system that year awarded Connections Academy a "C" and Virtual Academy a "B."

For the 2006-2007 school year, both earned "A" grades.  Florida's accountability system is able to track individual student progress, and at Connections Academy, 70 percent of the lowest-scoring quarter of students made gains in reading. At Virtual Academy, 73 percent did.

Their students need not be affluent; the schools send computers and printers to the families who need them. Critics have argued that poor students will be excluded from online education because their parents work during the day and the full-time virtual schools require much parental involvement. Yet forty-nine percent of Connections Academy students would qualify for free or reduced lunch at a traditional public school.

Virtual education also provides a much-needed escape for young people otherwise caught in unacceptable schools. The concern that online schools diminish students' social development is belied, in part, by the fact that the social atmospheres within many schools are insalubrious, sometimes even violently so. That youngsters who would otherwise be forced to endure such antics may, through Florida's several virtual academies, learn in a safe and focused environment is all for the good.

As for gifted kids, at real risk of being left behind by many of today's reforms, Florida's virtual education offerings are a true boon. The really ambitious ones can come home at day's end, log on, and take an extra course or two in subjects that their schools simply don't offer. Or they can attend a virtual school full-time, which allows them to work at their own pace and receive one-on-one instruction.

Youngsters residing in Florida's rural marshlands or thinly populated parts of the panhandle also benefit from increased virtual offerings. If a high school in Apalachicola doesn't have, say, a Latin class, it's no longer an impediment to the budding Tacitus scholar. Nor is it a problem if certain schools put forth only a paltry menu of A.P. courses; as long as they have an internet connection, anything is possible.

Ten-year-olds aren't supposed to drink champagne. But you can fill your flute and toast Florida's remarkable accomplishment.

Trouble overseas. A six-year study of the United Kingdom's early years education, a pre-school initiative that started in 1997 and has cost taxpayers over $40 billion, has found, according to the Telegraph, "that children's development and skills as they enter primary school are no different than they were in 2000." Just this month, though, the country's "minister for children" announced an $8 billion expansion of the Sure Start program--yeah, the one that hasn't worked. The Guardian jumped to defend the venture in a recent editorial. But columnist Alice Miles, writing in the Times, said that the dismal results are to be expected: "In my experience, most playgroups and nurseries generally do little of anything but babysitting." These government-funded services should do more, of course, but even a cursory glance at the official frameworks meant to guide them makes one's eyes glaze over: "aspects" divided into "components" divided into even more subheads. Curiously missing is anything of academic worth. You want an early-childhood program that works? Make learning the focus.

"Unsure start for those who most need help," by Alice Miles, The Times, August 29, 2007

"Early learning education plan a failure," by Gary Cleland, The Telegraph, August 28, 2007

College Board
2007

The latest SAT scores are out, and average reading and math scores declined. In the critical reading portion--which used to be called "verbal"--the average score was 502. That's one point lower than last year's average; it's also the lowest reading score in 13 years. The College Board is sticking to its line: scores are down mostly because the pool of test-takers is larger and more diverse. Some point out, though, that the SAT's test-taking population was also growing larger and diversifying during the first part of this decade, when scores rose. What's clear is this. More kids are going to college, which is mostly a good. One wonders, though, if sending unprepared students into the halls of higher education will do those youngsters more harm than good. Will they rise to meet the new academic expectations, or will they drop out? Will universities challenge their less-prepared students, or dumb-down their educations to suit them (and keep them from dropping out)? Read the report here. Get state-by-state data here.

National Charter School Research Project, University of Washington
August 2007

This short report from the National Charter School Research Project (part of Paul Hill's Center on Reinventing Public Education) looks at charter school management organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit. It's not a systematic analysis but rather a discussion of challenges that these entities face and the strategies they pursue as they manage (and attempt to grow) their networks of charter schools--perhaps shedding light on why fewer than 10 percent of charter schools are associated with management organizations (as of 2005). The analysts interviewed ten such organizations, including Aspire, High Tech High, KIPP, and Edison, and identified a handful of common problems. One such: Because charter schools face political uncertainty in many states, and navigating this consumes a great deal of time and resources, a management organization might be forced to narrow its geographic focus. Perhaps the most distressing problem they cite is "the tyranny of business plans." Their interviews suggested that even non-profit outfits are often pressured by funders to grow too quickly. A related question is whether charter management groups should enforce uniformity across their schools (as franchises typically do) or allow local variation. Both approaches exist. The Big Picture Company, for example, gives "each local site...encouragement to innovate around the design," while White Hat Management reports that it has "a very specific education model." The authors don't take sides, but they help the reader understand the tradeoffs. This report is by no means the last word (or the first; see here) on CMOs, EMOs, and their strategies, but it raises important issues for charter supporters to ponder. You can find it online here.