The Education Gadfly Weekly

Lance T. Izumi with Matt Cox, Pacific Research Institute
August 2003

This report, the third in a series from PRI dating back to 1997, offers a comprehensive picture of K-12 education in California - and does so with admirable clarity and candor that will also interest reformers in other states. For example, it praises California's accountability system for aligning its tests with its standards but faults it for not including all schools, not holding students or individual teachers accountable, and not offering parental choice as a possible sanction. These are worthwhile issues that all states must address in their own accountability systems. The report also includes evidence supporting the benefits of phonics-based reading instruction, direct instruction, and English-immersion, and scolds the state for wasteful boosts in education spending (with few results to show for it), increases in violent crimes, and continued use of uniform salary structures for teachers - problems certainly not unique to California. It also supplies a wealth of data pertaining directly to California - from average teacher salaries (highest in the U.S.) to student performance on the SAT, NAEP, and state tests (the results are consistently poor). The full report runs 155 pages but includes a handy executive summary and highlights of each section. Find it at http://www.pacificresearch.org/centers/csr/index.html.

Fall 2003

The latest issue of the journal Education Next has arrived, featuring several pieces on alternative school leadership, including excerpts from the recently published Fordham-Broad manifesto Better Leaders for America's Schools (http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1). Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute calls for lifting state-mandated licensure of principals and superintendents and reveals some hard truths about the lower academic standards of most graduate programs in educational administration. The cover article, by University of Virginia law professor James E. Ryan, discusses the possibility of rolling back so-called "Blaine amendments" in state constitutions that forbid public support of private religious schools. And James B. Murphy takes the heterodox view of civic education that schools should be completely neutral on values, beliefs and attitudes and instead ought confine themselves to imparting civic knowledge. Check it out at www.educationnext.org.

Bryan Goodwin, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning
July 2003

As part of an ongoing "national dialogue," Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) released this report on public attitudes toward standards-based education. Despite recent assertions that Americans don't understand or support NCLB-style reforms, McREL's research found something very different: people consistently "in favor of holding schools accountable to parents, employers and taxpayers," albeit couching "their calls for accountability...in complaints about schools and districts being unresponsive, impenetrable bureaucracies." McREL concludes that "people are, indeed, concerned about education issues and generally support the kinds of standards, testing and accountability provisions embodied in NCLB." These findings provide a sharp contrast to the recent Kappan/Gallup claims that "the public shows little support for the strategies that are an integral part of NCLB as it is being implemented." To see for yourself, go to http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/Standards/5032IR_IssuesBrief0703_DiggingDeeper.pdf.

Louis G. Tornatzky, Harry P. Pachon, and Celina Torres, National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators and the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute
August 2003

Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, in their important new book No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, compare contemporary Hispanic student achievement to that of Italian immigrants in the 1920s. They ask whether Hispanics, now the nation's largest minority group, will also become indistinguishable from the white majority in terms of academic achievement and time spent in school? Or will they become part of a persistent education underclass? Closing Achievement Gaps: Improving Educational Outcomes for Hispanic Children is a road map for avoiding the latter fate. It takes a clear-eyed view of high standards, testing, and accountability, and eschews identity politics in favor of a realistic assessment of some of the causes of the Hispanic achievement gap. We especially like its call for giving school leaders more flexibility in personnel, budget, and curricular matters. A solid piece of work and welcome antidote to the race mongering that passes in some quarters for education policy. Check it out at http://www.trpi.org/PDF/Closing_Achievement_Gaps.pdf.

The No Child Left Behind rubber is hitting the education road, where it's producing a lot of screeching brakes, skid marks and, especially, honking. A flock of noisy Canadian geese makes less noise than American public education griping about NCLB, the changes it is forcing, the injustices it is said to be inflicting and the difficulties of implementing it as Congress intended. To wit:

*The NEA has declared war, via the courtroom, voicing many grievances centered on the law's "unfunded mandates," i.e. the claim that NCLB will make schools do things for which Washington is not fully compensating them.

*The annual Kappan/Gallup survey appears to show wide public discontent with many NCLB strategies and assumptions, beginning with the enlarged federal role itself.

*Some states are gaming the "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) system and other NCLB monitoring-and-accountability systems, rigging their goals, manipulating their measurements, fiddling with their standards and reworking their definitions.

*As a News Hour segment with John Merrow made plain the other evening, one state after another - this one focused on Maine - is griping that NCLB is making them do things differently, asserting that all was hunky dory without this federal intrusion, and demanding waivers and special conditions.

*Summer's end revealed wide discrepancies that have more to do with where states have set their standards and how they measure performance than with "true" differences. Just 400 of Florida's 3000 public schools, for example, made AYP in 2002-3, but only 144 of Minnesota's 2000 schools did NOT. Similar contrasts are to be found in state reports on how many schools are persistently dangerous. (Under NCLB, children may exit such schools.) Ohio found none last year and New York only two. Tell that to the parents of Cleveland and the Bronx.

*Confusing gaps are emerging between which schools are doing OK according to NCLB and which are satisfying their states' pre-existing accountability schemes. It's easy to find schools that the state says are in "academic emergency," but that NCLB says are making adequate yearly progress - and vice versa. Florida's "A+" system, for example, designed by Jeb Bush, gives honor grades to a bunch of schools that are flunking according to the NCLB system designed by his brother.

*As in fall 2002, NCLB's cramped school-choice provisions are proving exceedingly hard to put into practice, particularly in places that need them most. A quarter million Chicago pupils, for example, are now eligible to transfer to higher-performing public schools, yet the city has only 5000 available places in such schools.

*State officials report widespread confusion over what exactly is entailed in trying to comply with NCLB's "highly qualified teacher" requirements - and whether it's even going to be possible. Rural states and communities are especially unhappy.

*There's widening concern that NCLB's single-minded focus on reading, math and science will unintentionally marginalize such subjects as history and civics - and shield them from needed public scrutiny.

This list could easily lengthen. But how much is just honking and which are real problems that somebody should be solving? I see five things going on:

First, NCLB expects big changes across a wide spectrum of ingrained practices and entrenched assumptions. It's a deeply behaviorist law, meant to alter behavior via a series of incentives and punishments. But people, institutions and - especially - bureaucracies don't like to alter their behavior, no matter how badly the old practices have failed-or how much better the changed practices may work. Keep in mind, too, that the griping isn't coming from kids. It's from grown-ups. The well being of America's children is the reason for changing but, at least in NCLB's early days, the law's most profound effects are on adults and institutions that resist changing.

Second, NCLB's authors loaded an awful lot into it. That's why the law runs a thousand pages, of course. But was this really the best place to deal with, say, school safety as well as student achievement and teacher quality? NCLB expects people to dance and cook and fly and yodel at the same time. That's hard to do well.

Third, NCLB's authors invited discrepancies when they layered a uniform nationwide accountability system atop fifty different sets of state standards and tests, and when they left key definitions (e.g. dangerous schools, fully certified teachers) to states while micro-managing others (e.g. the disaggregated demographic categories according to which AYP must be measured).

Fourth, some of NCLB's built-in political compromises have hobbled its effective implementation, such as giving kids the right to exit a bad school for a better one while limiting that selection to other public schools within the same district.

Fifth, Americans are of two minds about much of this. People crave better schools and higher achievement but don't want to be pushed around by Washington. They want better teachers yet adore Ms. Jones. They believe in "the basics" but hate it when their kid doesn't get music. They want Johnny to succeed in school but grump when someone tells them he needs to work harder. Because of this ambivalence - much of it shared by educators - it's not hard to manipulate survey questions and poll results to "prove" just about anything. (The recent Kappan/Gallup survey did an especially deft job of biasing the findings by how it phrased the questions.)

The word in Washington - from executive branch and Congress alike - is grin and bear it, stay the course, don't even dream of changing NCLB, it'll be worth it in the end. There's no political stomach for re-opening this complex statute, particularly in an election year. The bipartisanship that is perhaps NCLB's greatest asset would crumble. If amending is needed, that process can start in January 2005.

Which may be just as well. It's obvious that the country would benefit from some fine-tuning of NCLB based on experience with it. Every major government program needs that. Congress never gets it exactly right the first time around. But much of the current squawking has to do with start-up difficulties and confusion, the friction of changing familiar practices and the pain of stretching long-idle tendons. Another year of experience will see some difficulties resolving themselves, states and districts (and schools and educators) beginning to grow accustomed to doing things differently and, perhaps, more imagination in resolving implementation problems. Mainly, though, it's important for everyone to recognize that a new day has dawned in American education and that it simply won't do to go back to sleep.

"Flunking out: Bush's pet education bill is in serious trouble," by Alexander Russo, Slate, August 28, 2003

"Cuts put school law to the test," by Sam Dillon, New York Times, August 31, 2003

Around the country, the economic downturn and state and local budget shortfalls are forcing some schools to charge students to participate in activities that used to be open to all, free of charge. Students are now being charged "pay for play" fees to participate in school sports, intramurals and band; parents are seeing fees increase for things like all-day kindergarten, for student parking passes and for Advanced Placement courses and books. Though education officials in the districts that have recently implemented such fees insist that they will help cover the extra costs for families that cannot afford it, many are worried that these increases will deter students from participating in school activities at all. Of course, such decisions are not unfamiliar to private and charter school officials who often have to make tough choices about where to spend, where to cut, and where to ask for parent and community help.

"Public schools piles on fees," by Anne Marie Chaker, Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2003

As part of No Child Left Behind, states are now required to report what percentage of their teachers are "highly qualified" - in other words, what percentage has a bachelor's degree, state certification and clear knowledge of the subject they teach. It's that last clause that has many teachers and union officials up in arms. For middle and high school teachers throughout the country who do not have a degree in the subject they teach (who majored in education, for example), this requirement means they must pass a subject area test to prove they are "highly qualified." Despite the increasing volume of research that shows a high correlation between content-area knowledge and student achievement, and the lack of conclusive evidence linking traditional certification requirements with pupil achievement, teachers and their unions are decrying this as "unfair" because it "changes the rules in the middle of the game," and unwise because it "[lowers] the requirements for what it takes to actually teach these children." The same groups also condemn provisions in NCLB that allow teachers to work in traditional public and charter schools without having graduated from an ed school preparation program if they pass a rigorous test of both content and pedagogy (like the newly launched American Board Passport Certification). Holding teachers to higher standards and giving them more options to help meet these raised expectations might sound to most Americans like sensible steps for raising student achievement. But then again, most Americans don't work for the NEA.

"Quality check unsettling for some teachers," CNN.com, September 1, 2003

"Shortcut to the classroom," by Greg Toppo, USA Today, August 21, 2003

So the news is good from the College Board: SAT scores are up sharply. That suggests that the strategies of recent years have been paying off, that students are taking more academic courses, and that they have greater incentive to prepare for tests like the SAT. Maybe they know more mathematics and have a better vocabulary because of the regime of standards and testing.

Perhaps that's so, but it is hard to connect these dots without better information. One piece of information that is definitely lacking is a long timeline. The New York Times, for example, printed SAT test scores only from 1993 to 2003.

Anyone who has been following the decades-long debate about the decline (and rise?) of SAT scores would know that 1993 is not the right place to begin. The famous SAT score decline began in 1964; scores hit bottom about 1980 and have slowly begun to come up since then, at least in math.

Tracking the SAT score trends became much harder after 1994, the year the College Board decided to "recenter" the scores. For reasons that I have trouble remembering, the College Board decided to declare that the 1994 average scores in both verbal and math were 500. This was an immense boost for verbal scores, which had languished around 430 for a whole generation. So, voila, "average" scores were re-pegged at whatever they were in 1994.

Now the New York Times would have us believe that 1993 was the starting point for SAT scores. If they knew of the long and contentious history of the SAT scores, if they knew that the scores were "recentered" in 1994, why couldn't they have taken the time to show the progress of SAT scores since 1964, when they were at their peak? Instead they have just added to the fog generated by the College Board for the past decade, making it impossible to know what the trend lines are, and whether they have reached or surpassed or fallen short of the levels attained by students a generation ago.

The College Board decided that the public should use 1993 as the baseline, not 1963. Why has the New York Times gone along with this decision?

Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University and holder of the Brown chair in education at the Brookings Institution, is a trustee of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

"SAT ABC's," editorial, Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2003 (subscription required)

"High school seniors get highest SAT math scores in 35 years," by Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times, August 27, 2003

While many people hope that mayoral control will fix what ails big city school systems, reformers in New York City are beginning to realize that this Great Man approach may not, in fact, get the job done. Mayor Michael Bloomberg won control of the school system but what is he doing with it? On the one hand, the education establishment is faulting his education team for such decisions as cutting classroom aides and mandating citywide reading and math curricula. On the other hand, reformers deplore his SELECTION of curricula and his coolness toward school choice. According to former Giuliani deputy Tony Coles, the reality is that the teachers' union still controls Gotham's school system. While the right mayor can help, assuring civilian control of the schools is turning out to require more than that.

"The bullies of the NYC schools," by Tony Coles, New York Post, September 2, 2003

"Pupils wait for the bell; mayor waits for his test," by Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times, August 25, 2003

In the last Gadfly, we reported (without pleasure) on a South Carolina school district that was promoting grade inflation by mandating that no student could receive less than a 62 (out of 100) in his or her first semester. [see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=112#1409] Now we learn that some Bay-area schools are seeking to ease student stress by limiting when teachers can give homework. While some schools have established end-of-term "homework holidays," others are actually banning homework on holidays and weekends. According to one administrator, the policy is needed because "some kids are just stressed all the time...they try to pad their resume with jobs and clubs...and then they're doing homework until 2 o'clock in the morning." While it's undeniable that some students do try to do too much, may we suggest that homework should not be the first thing to go?

"Easing homework stress for high-gear students," by Nicole C. Wong, Mercury News, August 25, 2003

This week marks the beginning not only of a new school year but also a new round of debate over vouchers. In a Washington Post op ed, D.C. school board president Peggy Cooper Cafritz, along with D.C. mayor Anthony Williams and D.C. councilman Kevin Chavous - all former voucher opponents - appealed to Congress with a sense of urgency, arguing that though the pace of education reform in the nation's capital has (they assert) been "steady," it can't happen quickly enough to help students currently trapped in failing D.C. schools. (A vote on whether Congress will fund a D.C. voucher program is expected in the House tomorrow.) While these elected DC leaders were making a pragmatic argument for vouchers, Pacific Research Institute education director Lance Izumi took a more idealistic approach in National Review Online, arguing that voucher proponents should not rely on research to defend their position because, even if the research does not show that vouchers improve student achievement, parents should still be afforded the right to choose the best school for their children. Meanwhile, school choice foes in Florida kicked off a vigorous effort to suspend the state's corporate tax credit voucher program (which gives companies dollar-for-dollar tax credits for money donated to nonprofit groups that award scholarships), alleging, among other things, that these vouchers supported a school led by a man with "terrorist connections" - evidence, they claim, that there is not enough public accountability for the schools receiving vouchers. And in a flattering (but well earned) profile published in the Washington Post on the eve of an expected House of Representatives vote on the proposed D.C. program, the estimable Nina Shokraii Rees, deputy undersecretary of education, was dubbed the "Thomas Paine of school choice."

"Washington's children deserve more choices," by Anthony Williams, Kevin Chavous and Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Washington Post, September 3, 2003

"It's fair," by Lance T. Izumi, National Review Online, September 3, 2003

"Tougher voucher rules proposed," by S.V. Date and Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post, August 29, 2003

"Veto vouchers," editorial, Florida Today, September 1, 2003

"Conflicting American views on school vouchers," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, August 26, 2003

"From Iran, the 'Thomas Paine' of school choice," by Dana Milbank, Washington Post, September 3, 2003

Bryan Goodwin, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning
July 2003

As part of an ongoing "national dialogue," Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) released this report on public attitudes toward standards-based education. Despite recent assertions that Americans don't understand or support NCLB-style reforms, McREL's research found something very different: people consistently "in favor of holding schools accountable to parents, employers and taxpayers," albeit couching "their calls for accountability...in complaints about schools and districts being unresponsive, impenetrable bureaucracies." McREL concludes that "people are, indeed, concerned about education issues and generally support the kinds of standards, testing and accountability provisions embodied in NCLB." These findings provide a sharp contrast to the recent Kappan/Gallup claims that "the public shows little support for the strategies that are an integral part of NCLB as it is being implemented." To see for yourself, go to http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/Standards/5032IR_IssuesBrief0703_DiggingDeeper.pdf.

Lance T. Izumi with Matt Cox, Pacific Research Institute
August 2003

This report, the third in a series from PRI dating back to 1997, offers a comprehensive picture of K-12 education in California - and does so with admirable clarity and candor that will also interest reformers in other states. For example, it praises California's accountability system for aligning its tests with its standards but faults it for not including all schools, not holding students or individual teachers accountable, and not offering parental choice as a possible sanction. These are worthwhile issues that all states must address in their own accountability systems. The report also includes evidence supporting the benefits of phonics-based reading instruction, direct instruction, and English-immersion, and scolds the state for wasteful boosts in education spending (with few results to show for it), increases in violent crimes, and continued use of uniform salary structures for teachers - problems certainly not unique to California. It also supplies a wealth of data pertaining directly to California - from average teacher salaries (highest in the U.S.) to student performance on the SAT, NAEP, and state tests (the results are consistently poor). The full report runs 155 pages but includes a handy executive summary and highlights of each section. Find it at http://www.pacificresearch.org/centers/csr/index.html.

Louis G. Tornatzky, Harry P. Pachon, and Celina Torres, National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators and the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute
August 2003

Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, in their important new book No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, compare contemporary Hispanic student achievement to that of Italian immigrants in the 1920s. They ask whether Hispanics, now the nation's largest minority group, will also become indistinguishable from the white majority in terms of academic achievement and time spent in school? Or will they become part of a persistent education underclass? Closing Achievement Gaps: Improving Educational Outcomes for Hispanic Children is a road map for avoiding the latter fate. It takes a clear-eyed view of high standards, testing, and accountability, and eschews identity politics in favor of a realistic assessment of some of the causes of the Hispanic achievement gap. We especially like its call for giving school leaders more flexibility in personnel, budget, and curricular matters. A solid piece of work and welcome antidote to the race mongering that passes in some quarters for education policy. Check it out at http://www.trpi.org/PDF/Closing_Achievement_Gaps.pdf.

Fall 2003

The latest issue of the journal Education Next has arrived, featuring several pieces on alternative school leadership, including excerpts from the recently published Fordham-Broad manifesto Better Leaders for America's Schools (http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1). Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute calls for lifting state-mandated licensure of principals and superintendents and reveals some hard truths about the lower academic standards of most graduate programs in educational administration. The cover article, by University of Virginia law professor James E. Ryan, discusses the possibility of rolling back so-called "Blaine amendments" in state constitutions that forbid public support of private religious schools. And James B. Murphy takes the heterodox view of civic education that schools should be completely neutral on values, beliefs and attitudes and instead ought confine themselves to imparting civic knowledge. Check it out at www.educationnext.org.