The Education Gadfly Weekly

Rebecca Wolf DiBiase
Education Commission of the States
September 2005

As explained above in "The two faces of No Child Left Behind," the No Child Left Behind Act is undoubtedly a "behaviorist" law. It pushes institutions (state departments of education, school districts, and schools) and people (superintendents, principals, teachers, and students) to do things differently through some use of carrots (praise for a job well done) and, especially, sticks (public shaming and sanctions for schools "in need of improvement"). Its theory of action is that local educators will do whatever it takes to raise student achievement and close achievement gaps in order to avoid painful measures meted out by Washington. But in order for this theory to work, someone must "pull the trigger" on schools that consistently underperform. NCLB requires schools that fail to make "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) six years running to face severe consequences, called "restructuring." And the local school districts are the trigger-pulling enforcers. So how is the theory working out in practice? According to this policy brief from the Education Commission of the States (ECS), few actors are showing much interest in playing tough. The feds have provided little to no guidance on restructuring, indicating a lack of seriousness on their part. The states have largely taken a hands-off approach, often in line with their respect for "local control." And the districts most often choose mild interventions, such as technical assistance, rather than strong ones, such as turning failing schools into charter schools. More-specific findings include:

• State involvement in the restructuring process varies. Ten of 13 states surveyed collect restructuring plans from local districts, but only 7 of these have a formal process for approving these plans.
• Most districts opt for "mild" or moderate" restructuring options (as defined by Ronald Brady in his Fordham monograph, Can Failing Schools be Fixed?). The restructuring options under the law include reopening the school as a charter school; replacing all or most of the staff; contracting with a private entity to run the school; turning it over to the state; or "any other major restructuring of the school's governance arrangement." Not surprisingly, most districts have chosen the open-ended fifth option.
• Districts that have attempted to replace an entire school's staff or to turn schools into charters have "found themselves in the midst of difficult political battles."
• Nevertheless, some districts have used successfully the provisions to remove staff members who otherwise would have been difficult to fire.
• Delays in state determinations of whether schools met AYP have made implementation of the restructuring provision difficult.

The report also includes a useful summary of how each of the 13 states approach implementing the provision. It's worth checking out; surf to it here.

U.S. Department of Education, Policy and Program Studies Service2005

Advocates of same-sex education have long held that teaching males and females separately garners better academic results. Any variety of social conundrums arise when boy meets girl, they say; absent these, same-sex education offers their students a more-focused and -serious learning environment that boosts classroom achievement. This literature review from the U.S. Department of Education (funded, if you can believe it, through the Women's Educational Equity program) probes the validity of that argument. It finds, albeit with qualifiers, that same-sex schooling has some definite advantages over co-educational setups. The department reviewed both quantitative and qualitative literature on same-sex and co-educational instruction and divided the best studies into 32 separate assessment areas. In 22 of these, same-sex schools outperformed co-educational ones. In contrast, co-ed schools came out on top in only two areas. For example, most of the studies examining how students in both types of schools are performing now show that same-sex education had positive effects on achievement. And in studies examining the softer side of student performance (i.e., self-esteem, etc.), same-sex education seemed to help foster higher educational and career aspirations for girls. Moreover, the review finds that students who attend same-sex schools are less likely to drop out of high school and less likely to be unemployed later in life. The report's authors make it quite clear that their conclusions are not rock solid. After all, it has been impossible to design "gold standard" randomized studies of single-sex public schools, since they have been more-or-less illegal for three decades under Title IX regulations. With the department primed to release new regulations allowing single sex schools under certain circumstances, such studies should become feasible (and a top priority). In the meantime, with the data in so many assessment areas showing positive outcomes for students in same-sex scenarios, allowing more experimentation in this area is a no-brainer. To read the report, click here. 

Lance T. Izumi and Xiaochin Claire Yan
Pacific Research Institute

Essays, books, and newspaper articles on high-performing charter schools are increasingly available (for example, see here), and welcome. As charter schools' funders and supporters look for ways to grow the movement to scale, the lessons learned from schools that work are invaluable. Free to Learn will be welcomed by many for its honest look at seven high-performing charters in California and what they're doing right. More interesting, however, is chapter nine, "Deep Throat Tells All," which tells the story of how Oakland's oldest charter school (Oakland Charter Academy) duped the experts who focused overly much on data into thinking the school was succeeding. The whistle-blower is none other than OCA's new principal, Jorge Lopez. Among the methods the school used to keep its test scores high before his arrival, Lopez reports, were well-known gimmicks (the school didn't test every child, especially those who were low achievers) and lesser-known tricks (OCA had a feeder school, International Community School, whose high-performing students came in and made OCA look better than it was). Lopez searched beyond the bottom-line numbers when he was being hired, however, and noticed that while ICS students did well when they first arrived at OCA, by the end of their first year in the school their scores were in free-fall. Further, he also noted that despite the school's high-flying scores, OCA had never met No Child Left Behind's adequate yearly progress requirement. When he queried the governing board as to why AYP had not been met, the members reportedly responded, "What's [AYP]?" The list of follies goes on. In the this-would-be-funny-except-that-its-true category, the book details how parents "ran" the school - going so far as to lock out a principal they didn't like. Note the authors: "Although statistical data on student achievement is important when analyzing school performance, there is always the caveat that statistics can sometimes be deceiving." Indeed. You can read about one of the good schools here, but you'll need to order the book if you want to read about Lopez and OCA.

If there's one memorable takeaway from last week's release of the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in reading and math, it's a timeless one: incentives work. They alter behavior in education and government, just as they do in capitalism. Unfortunately, they don't always alter behavior for the better.

On the positive side, the 2005 NAEP scores for African-American, Hispanic, and poor children were slightly higher than in 2003, thereby narrowing a bit the nation's longstanding "achievement gaps." Among 4^th grade students the average scores of black youngsters bumped up two points in reading and four in math (on a 500 point scale). Hispanic students gained three points in reading and four in math, while low-income children rose two points in reading and three in math. All those gains are "statistically significant" and are good news for our democracy and society.

The president's much-discussed No Child Left Behind act can take some credit for the modest gains of the past two years. By holding schools to account for the learning of all their students, especially minority and needy children, the law has captured the attention of educators nationwide. One hopes (and the data imply) that schools are raising expectations, redistributing resources (such as quality teachers), and putting their noses to the grindstone in order to help disadvantaged youngsters achieve basic standards in reading and in math (and to avoid the harsh sunlight, embarrassing comparisons, and unwelcome sanctions of the federal law).

But there are perverse incentives at play here, too. No Child Left Behind seeks to help all students reach "proficiency" by 2014 and requires states to develop tough accountability systems to ensure that their schools are making progress toward that end (or face a cascade of interventions, exiting students, and other consequences). But here's the catch: the states define "proficiency" however they like. So if you're a governor or education commissioner, and you want your state's schools to look good, you have a strong incentive to relax your definition of "proficiency" in reading and math and make your own state tests easier. Last week's good news is shadowed by early evidence that some states may be doing just that.

We analyzed data from state tests as well as the national assessment and looked at states' progress on both over the past two years (see here). The result? Nineteen states (of the 29 with available and comparable data) reported their 8^th grade students made progress on state reading exams. But only three of these states show any gains on NAEP, and even then, only at the "basic" level. (Eighth grade NAEP reading results were disappointing almost everywhere, and the national average fell by a point.)

Consider Arizona. Its own test results show the number of eighth-graders proficient in reading rose 8 points (from 55 percent to 63 percent) between 2003 to 2005. Yet the percentage of Arizona eighth-graders scoring at NAEP's "proficient" level actually fell two points during the same biennium. (The percentage of Arizona's students reaching NAEP's lower "basic" level also dropped by a point.)

States may say that such discrepancies merely reflect the different subject matter they test versus the content assessed by the feds. California, for example, has laudably rejected "whole language" reading instruction and other faddish ideas that have partially infected the national test. Perhaps this partially explains why the Golden State posted gains of 9 points in its proportion of eighth-graders reaching proficiency on reading, while its percentage of students reaching "basic" and "proficient" on NAEP dropped a point each. But surely that's not the case for all states. The larger trend line is clear: The news is much rosier if you believe state reports than if you believe the national assessment.

What about the concern that the federal law, by focusing on students at the lower end of the achievement range, will give educators incentives to ignore top-performing pupils? Here the news is mixed. In reading, there's disturbing evidence that our top students are stalling; those at the 90^th percentile lost ground in both 4^th and 8^th grades since 2003. In math, however, students at all levels showed progress. This is something to watch in future years. While closing the achievement gap is a priority, so is closing the "economic competitiveness" gap with other nations. We can't afford to zap the talent of our most gifted kids.

"Behaviorism" is at least as risky in public policy as it is in psychology. When When Washington knowingly holds out carrots and sticks, sunshine and sanctions, to alter the established practices of states, districts, schools, and teachers so as to alter their results, unintended and undesirable changes are at least as likely as the kind that lawmakers expected to trigger.

Education's labor market is finally starting to exhibit the flexibility - and churn - common in other sectors of our economy. Population booms in Las Vegas and retirement trends in Chicago have prompted officials to recruit a different breed of teacher. From the plateaus of Spain to the shores of the Philippines, Las Vegas's Clark County School District is making calls and knocking on doors to bring in foreign teachers with relevant subject-matter knowledge - a useful form of off-shoring. Chicago, too, has looked to non-traditional sources for new recruits - namely mid-career-switchers - to fill the void left by the growing baby-boomer retirement. Some defenders of the old-school grumble that "less academic freedom" under "federal reforms" is a contributing factor to early retirement (read: "I'm not allowed to close my door and do whatever I want anymore"); all the more reason to seize this opportunity to attract much-needed new energy into our nation's classrooms. 

"Booming Vegas searches far and wide for teachers," by Sam Howe Verhovek, Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2005

"Veteran teachers harder to find," by Diane Rado, Chicago Tribune, October 21, 2005

Although Halloween is still a few days away, the witching hour arrived early in some American classrooms. Last week, former Utah public school teacher Erin Jensen took the stand in court and testified: "I am not a witch." Jensen, who was laid off at the end of the 2003-2004 school year, is suing her former district employers for discrimination, accusing them of firing her for being a woman and a non-Mormon. Let's assume she's right. Board members insist that Jensen was the victim of a necessary staff reduction, but others see it differently. One community member said Jensen "kept blood in the fridge." The minutes from a district board meeting record that Jensen "prefers the dark side," though this comment was later deleted (or, perhaps, magically erased?) from the public record. But the most damaging evidence is that Jensen has been known to teach that there are different belief systems in the world ... while she drinks coffee! Witches aren't the only ones haunting schools. Vampires, too, have made an October appearance, most notably in North Carolina where a teacher's assistant is charged with biting a student. Although Shirlene Huffman, the gnawer in question, contends that she was only retaliating against a student who bit her first, Gadfly isn't fooled by that old vampire's excuse. Unfortunately, teacher unions, always wary of witch hunts, have made it nearly impossible for schools to fire vampires, zombies, or other ghoulish characters (unless they, like Utah's Jensen, also make the mistake of challenging their students). So get out your garlic necklaces, kids - schools are even scarier than you imagined.

"Ex-teacher says discussion in classes about world beliefs led to witch rumors," by Pamela Manson, Salt Lake Tribune, October 22, 2005

"N.C. teacher charged with assault after biting accusation," Associated Press (reprinted in Raleigh News & Observer), October 20, 2005

Ben Bernanke (President Bush's pick to lead the Federal Reserve) wasn't the only economist receiving front-page, above-the-fold treatment in the Wall Street Journal this week. Monday's edition featured a long article about Harvard's school-choice scholar Caroline Hoxby and her "academic row" with Jesse Rothstein, scion of union activist Richard Rothstein (see here, here, and here). The focus of the debate? Streams. As in waterways. Dive into her 2000 American Economic Review paper, "Does Competition Among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers?," for an explanation of the role that streams play in her analysis, but the bottom line is that Hoxby found an ingenious way to show that metro areas with more school districts (and thus more competition) enjoy greater student achievement than metro areas with fewer school districts. Rothstein finds her techniques flawed, especially her stream-counting methods. Says fellow school-choice researcher John Witte "They're fighting over streams." Well, yes, and the third rail of American education.

"Novel Way to Assess School Competition Stirs Academic Row," by Jon E. Hilsenrath, Wall Street Journal, October 24, 2005 (subscription required)

The Gates foundation has learned some lessons - and Seattle's public schools are poorer for the experience. In 2000, the foundation made a series of high-profile, five-year, multi-million-dollar gifts to districts deemed capable of bringing about significant change in their schools. Seattle received $26 million at the time, but it most likely won't be receiving any more. The foundation recently announced new grants to districts that "have a really good record of improvement, have enjoyed stable and effective leadership, and had a really good plan going forward," said the foundation's Tom Vander Ark, "and none of those applied to Seattle." Four days later, the Seattle Time's editorial page concurred: "The 46,000-student district is listing in rocky seas. It needs an infusion of money. And to get it, the district is going to have to demonstrate improvement." Also getting scaled back is the foundation's push for small high schools. Vander Ark learned that the process of breaking up schools "monopolized the agenda" to such a point that what happened in the classroom didn't change. But the foundation remains interested in addressing the problems faced by high schools. "I doubt," says Vander Ark, "we'll have a district partnership that doesn't include efforts to change the structure of the high school to make it more personalized."

"Gates Foundation exec pans Seattle school district," by Linda Shaw, Seattle Times, October 20, 2005

"Gates and schools: lessons for Seattle," Seattle Times, October 24, 2005

Question: If you're the superintendent of a district labeled "in need of improvement" under NCLB, are you allowed to offer federally funded tutoring directly to students? Answer: No—unless, of course, your name is Arne Duncan and you run the Chicago Public Schools. Then the answer is yes. (See here.) Wait, news flash. Now that same exemption has been awarded to seven other urban districts, according to Education Daily, including Los Angeles and Boston (see here). At least, in a recent communiqué to Florida, the U.S. Department of Education makes one point perfectly clear—in providing its students tutoring, low-performing districts cannot use groups associated with the failing district (i.e., teacher unions, after-school programs, or parents' groups). Better not let anybody outside of Florida know that, however, because failing districts in other states are allowed to use these groups (for example, say, the United Federation of Teachers). All of which explains Secretary Margaret Spellings's new favorite mantra: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

"Feds tighten tutoring rules under NCLB," by Corey Murray, eSchool News, October 19, 2005 (free registration required)

"Tutoring, a key in No Child Left Behind, is raising questions," by Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, October 25, 2005

"More urban districts get SES flexibility," by Katherine Shek, Education Daily, October 26, 2005 (subscription required)

Lance T. Izumi and Xiaochin Claire Yan
Pacific Research Institute

Essays, books, and newspaper articles on high-performing charter schools are increasingly available (for example, see here), and welcome. As charter schools' funders and supporters look for ways to grow the movement to scale, the lessons learned from schools that work are invaluable. Free to Learn will be welcomed by many for its honest look at seven high-performing charters in California and what they're doing right. More interesting, however, is chapter nine, "Deep Throat Tells All," which tells the story of how Oakland's oldest charter school (Oakland Charter Academy) duped the experts who focused overly much on data into thinking the school was succeeding. The whistle-blower is none other than OCA's new principal, Jorge Lopez. Among the methods the school used to keep its test scores high before his arrival, Lopez reports, were well-known gimmicks (the school didn't test every child, especially those who were low achievers) and lesser-known tricks (OCA had a feeder school, International Community School, whose high-performing students came in and made OCA look better than it was). Lopez searched beyond the bottom-line numbers when he was being hired, however, and noticed that while ICS students did well when they first arrived at OCA, by the end of their first year in the school their scores were in free-fall. Further, he also noted that despite the school's high-flying scores, OCA had never met No Child Left Behind's adequate yearly progress requirement. When he queried the governing board as to why AYP had not been met, the members reportedly responded, "What's [AYP]?" The list of follies goes on. In the this-would-be-funny-except-that-its-true category, the book details how parents "ran" the school - going so far as to lock out a principal they didn't like. Note the authors: "Although statistical data on student achievement is important when analyzing school performance, there is always the caveat that statistics can sometimes be deceiving." Indeed. You can read about one of the good schools here, but you'll need to order the book if you want to read about Lopez and OCA.

Rebecca Wolf DiBiase
Education Commission of the States
September 2005

As explained above in "The two faces of No Child Left Behind," the No Child Left Behind Act is undoubtedly a "behaviorist" law. It pushes institutions (state departments of education, school districts, and schools) and people (superintendents, principals, teachers, and students) to do things differently through some use of carrots (praise for a job well done) and, especially, sticks (public shaming and sanctions for schools "in need of improvement"). Its theory of action is that local educators will do whatever it takes to raise student achievement and close achievement gaps in order to avoid painful measures meted out by Washington. But in order for this theory to work, someone must "pull the trigger" on schools that consistently underperform. NCLB requires schools that fail to make "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) six years running to face severe consequences, called "restructuring." And the local school districts are the trigger-pulling enforcers. So how is the theory working out in practice? According to this policy brief from the Education Commission of the States (ECS), few actors are showing much interest in playing tough. The feds have provided little to no guidance on restructuring, indicating a lack of seriousness on their part. The states have largely taken a hands-off approach, often in line with their respect for "local control." And the districts most often choose mild interventions, such as technical assistance, rather than strong ones, such as turning failing schools into charter schools. More-specific findings include:

• State involvement in the restructuring process varies. Ten of 13 states surveyed collect restructuring plans from local districts, but only 7 of these have a formal process for approving these plans.
• Most districts opt for "mild" or moderate" restructuring options (as defined by Ronald Brady in his Fordham monograph, Can Failing Schools be Fixed?). The restructuring options under the law include reopening the school as a charter school; replacing all or most of the staff; contracting with a private entity to run the school; turning it over to the state; or "any other major restructuring of the school's governance arrangement." Not surprisingly, most districts have chosen the open-ended fifth option.
• Districts that have attempted to replace an entire school's staff or to turn schools into charters have "found themselves in the midst of difficult political battles."
• Nevertheless, some districts have used successfully the provisions to remove staff members who otherwise would have been difficult to fire.
• Delays in state determinations of whether schools met AYP have made implementation of the restructuring provision difficult.

The report also includes a useful summary of how each of the 13 states approach implementing the provision. It's worth checking out; surf to it here.

U.S. Department of Education, Policy and Program Studies Service2005

Advocates of same-sex education have long held that teaching males and females separately garners better academic results. Any variety of social conundrums arise when boy meets girl, they say; absent these, same-sex education offers their students a more-focused and -serious learning environment that boosts classroom achievement. This literature review from the U.S. Department of Education (funded, if you can believe it, through the Women's Educational Equity program) probes the validity of that argument. It finds, albeit with qualifiers, that same-sex schooling has some definite advantages over co-educational setups. The department reviewed both quantitative and qualitative literature on same-sex and co-educational instruction and divided the best studies into 32 separate assessment areas. In 22 of these, same-sex schools outperformed co-educational ones. In contrast, co-ed schools came out on top in only two areas. For example, most of the studies examining how students in both types of schools are performing now show that same-sex education had positive effects on achievement. And in studies examining the softer side of student performance (i.e., self-esteem, etc.), same-sex education seemed to help foster higher educational and career aspirations for girls. Moreover, the review finds that students who attend same-sex schools are less likely to drop out of high school and less likely to be unemployed later in life. The report's authors make it quite clear that their conclusions are not rock solid. After all, it has been impossible to design "gold standard" randomized studies of single-sex public schools, since they have been more-or-less illegal for three decades under Title IX regulations. With the department primed to release new regulations allowing single sex schools under certain circumstances, such studies should become feasible (and a top priority). In the meantime, with the data in so many assessment areas showing positive outcomes for students in same-sex scenarios, allowing more experimentation in this area is a no-brainer. To read the report, click here.