The Education Gadfly Weekly

Arthur Levine
The Education Schools Project
April 2007

With all due respect to Arthur Levine, this report series (of which Educating Researchers is the third) is misnamed. It should be Notes From the Front. As former head of Columbia University's Teachers College, Levine has both the trust of the ed school establishment, and the respect of the policy world, which helps him to report from the front lines about the wars waging within and around America's 1,206 schools, colleges, and university departments of education. This time, he delivers a stinging critique of the world of education research, much as he previously did for teacher and administrator training (see here and here). He boils the problem down to three points: The amorphous field of education itself, with its many fields, subfields, and specialties that examine everything yet seldom find anything that makes much difference; doctoral programs that award inconsistent degrees (PhDs to practitioners and EdDs to researchers); and under-resourced graduate programs that lack the funding and faculty expertise to crank out top-flight researchers. The report sets forth the history that led to this muddled mess, without excusing it. Rather, Levine issues a stalwart call for reform. Among his suggestions: 1) allow only the best-funded and best-staffed universities to prepare education researchers--and shutter the lesser programs. 2) Diversify the remaining programs' research missions, so that schools specialize in well-defined fields of study (as Vanderbilt does, for example, in special ed). And 3) strengthen connections between education research and the worlds of policy and practice. Both critics and defenders of the ed school system have much to gain from reading this insightful report. Find it here. And read related papers from Rick Hess's recent American Enterprise Institute conference on the "politics of knowledge" here.

Stephen Q. Cornman, Thomas Stewart, Patrick J. Wolf
Georgetown University Public Policy Institute
May 2007

This study of parent and student attitudes toward Washington, D.C.'s, Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) is by no means a definitive evaluation of that ongoing experiment (Congress approved a five-year trial run in 2003). The authors interviewed 110 families and assembled their anecdotes into several broad observations. Still, it gives readers a good look into the program's workings. Two major findings were that "the majority of parents are active and knowledgeable school choice consumers" (another recent study showed much the same) and their consumer skills became more nuanced over time. Second-year participants, for example, were more likely to care about whether their children received direct teacher attention and attended schools of high academic quality, while first-year families were more concerned with immediately salient matters like safety and class size. The study's second part focuses on the "opportunities or challenges" that participating families have experienced. On the positive side, the authors found that parents became more involved in their children's education after beginning the program and that they believe their children are experiencing greater academic success in new schools. These same parents expressed concerns, however, that they might inadvertently "earn out" of the program--i.e., boost their income to a level that would disqualify them for the scholarship. (Congress lifted the eligibility threshold for family income from 200 to 300 percent of the federal poverty line in 2006, after the surveys were conducted.) They also complained about the shortage of seats in participating high schools. Again, these findings are only generalizations of anecdotal evidence (parents are quoted extensively throughout), but it's a worthwhile read if you have been wondering what's going on with OSP. Read it here. (A topical Washington Post op-ed is available here.)

Hillary Clinton wore a multi-hued, child-constructed necklace as she announced on Monday her plans for nationwide, voluntary, pre-kindergarten education for four-year-olds.

Her proposal calls for the federal government to allocate to states $5 billion for the first year, gradually scaling up that commitment to $10 billion per annum. Individual states would match Uncle Sam's contributions dollar-for-dollar, and those with existing programs wouldn't be allowed to reduce their current pre-K spending (and let the feds pick up the slack), either.

This plan tries to be sound. It seeks, for example, to assure quality by insisting that all pre-K teachers possess at least bachelor's degrees. That's a simplistic, paper-credential approach to instructional quality control, to be sure, but it's hard to argue that four-year-olds should be taught--provided this is truly to be an educational experience, not just child care--by people who themselves never finished college.

Yet the Clinton plan misses another necessary step that would help ensure that nationwide pre-K is worthwhile: determining whether the program does kids any good by evaluating whether they learn what they should while participating in it.

Clinton made her announcement at North Beach Elementary School in Miami Beach, and she took time to praise the Sunshine State's own pre-K program, which voters authorized in 2002.

But she's conveniently forgotten (or failed to notice) that Florida's plan takes accountability seriously. This year, the state began evaluating how well its individual pre-K providers are preparing kids for kindergarten and posting that information on the web. Parents of four-year-old Miamians, for example, can log on and find out how well a local pre-school's previous pre-K students fared on a simple kindergarten "readiness" test, which measures a student's ability to identify letters, their fluency with the beginning sounds of a word, etc.

Florida is not only providing this information to parents; it's using it as the basis for an accountability system, too. Pre-school providers whose wee students repeatedly do poorly on simple readiness tests when they arrive in kindergarten will have to improve their scores or be dropped from the state's program.

It's unlikely that Clinton would support such an accountability system for her pre-K plan, though. Why? Because she's already opposed a nearly identical accountability system for Head Start, the $7 billion federal program originally designed to promote school readiness.

Head Start's so-called accountability "test" has been at the center of controversy surrounding the program's reauthorization. Critics have misleadingly represented Head Start's National Reporting System as a horrible burden that subjects preschoolers to tortuous examinations. But in reality, the reporting consists of a 15-minute oral interview that judges whether kids have learned their letters and associate sounds with written words (see here).

Sounds a lot like the good stuff going on in Florida. Nonetheless, a Senate bill that suspends the current National Reporting System was passed unanimously in February by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--a committee on which Clinton sits.

Then there's the issue of choice, on which Clinton's proposal is ominously silent. Will her plan allow parents to choose--as they can in Florida's pre-K system--where to send their children, and will it include private pre-K providers? If not, then all Clinton has really put forth is an unjustifiable, downward extension of the failed K-12 monopoly.

Quality pre-K is a good idea (see here). Studies show that students who participate in excellent programs are more likely to graduate from high school and college than those who don't. Other studies forecast that the government's investment in national pre-K would more than pay for itself by significantly reducing the numbers of unskilled adults in the workforce.

But if we don't hold pre-K providers accountable, and if we don't let parents choose where to send their children, it's both a waste of money and, potentially, a waste of kids' young education lives. If Clinton is truly concerned with fashioning a quality, national pre-K program that works, she should reconsider her stand on accountability and give choice a chance, too.

True or false: Educational progressives promote teacher creativity, while traditionalists support scripted lessons. If you said true, pick up the latest issue of Education Next and read Barbara Feinberg's article. It chronicles the lofty career of uber-progressive Lucy Calkins, creator of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, and beneficiary of a $5.4 million no-bid professional development contract from the (mayor-controlled) New York City school system. While Calkins became famous 25 years ago for her innovative and mostly laudable ideas about teaching young children to write, Feinberg explains that "over time, some of her methods became dogmatic and extreme, yet her influence continued to grow." Among her more idiosyncratic demands: children shall not write fantasy. "Once upon a time is against the law in our school," explained one six-year-old. A teacher's diary communicates the widespread frustration among the rank-and-file: "Sometimes I feel like I'm a robot regurgitating the scripted dialogue that's expected of us day in and day out." Did we mention that Calkins is supposedly a "progressive"?

"The Lucy Calkins Project," by Barbara Feinberg, Education Next, Summer 2007

Years ago, in a youthful act of indiscretion, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had the phrase "Born to Raise Hell" inked into his arm. He's since had the tattoo removed, but inside observers of hizzoner's year-long effort to take over the city's schools, which ended abruptly this week, believe the saying still fits him well. A recent New Yorker profile by Connie Bruck takes exception to earlier newspaper reports that depicted Villaraigosa as a heroic and steadfast defender of a badly needed takeover plan, describing him instead as an impetuous, weak-kneed political opportunist. The mayor began to bob and weave when he realized that his takeover plan had upset his allies in the California Teachers Association. When he fell back on a weak compromise that was doomed from the start, supporter Eli Broad rebuked him; Villaraigosa replied, "How many billionaires are there in this town? Six, seven, eight? There's one mayor." He then entered a costly legal battle (which he lost) over a school takeover plan that neither side really wanted. Villaraigosa allies just won a majority on the L.A. Board of Education, which allowed him to leave behind the mayoral control fiasco and embrace another school-related victory. We wonder, though, if it's really a victory for L.A.'s kids.

"Mayor drops school fight," by Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2007

"Fault lines," by Connie Bruck, New Yorker, May 21, 2007

When Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed a law last week mandating daily 30-minute sessions of physical activity in elementary schools, he didn't do it on the playground. Instead, Crist and several lawmakers headed to the Miami Dolphins training camp to throw footballs, gawk at NFL stars, pick up personalized jerseys, and (oh yeah) sign a bill. To demonstrate how the NFL pertains to children's fitness, Crist said that he "made [his] best grades during football season." That makes sense, because riding the pine as a back-up quarterback on a bad Wake Forest team probably left the future governor with ample time to study--even during games. (After his sophomore year, Crist transferred to Florida State, where a number of students have an absolutely marvelous time and graduate without studying at all.) If the event seemed unrelated to elementary education, it had a galvanizing effect on the adults, at least. Representative Martin Kiar exclaimed that it was "the coolest bill-signing ever." One wonders, though, if Kiar was secretly disappointed that Dolphins quarterback Daunte Culpepper, who also attended the signing, didn't suggest a nautical after party on Biscayne Bay. Regardless, it was an event for adults that had little to do with yet another state mandate for its already-burdened schools.

"Law mandates a daily dose of activity for school kids," by Beth Reinhard, Miami Herald, May 18, 2007

It feels like the Fordham Foundation has been sponsoring Ohio charter schools for decades. In reality, though, we’re at the two-year mark--not counting many prior months when we agonized over whether to take this plunge; tried to learn from others who were doing it well in other states; sought (without great success) to persuade and prepare other Ohio-based organizations to enter this fray; and subjected ourselves and our board to much analysis, cost-projecting and pro-con debate.

As the 2006-7 school year comes to a close, Fordham’s sponsorship “portfolio” contains just nine of Ohio’s 300+ charter schools (seven of these we inherited from the Ohio Department of Education when that agency got out of the sponsorship business in 2005). Not many, you may think, but sponsoring even this number has been no easy task. It’s taken a lot of work and we’ve learned a ton. It’s been healthy to emerge from the ivory tower to work closely with real educators trying to do right by real children--almost all of them poor, minority and ill-served by traditional schools--in real places. Someone once defined a think-tank as a place where reality is examined to see if it accords with theory. I’ve come to view sponsorship as a crucible in which education theories are softened and sometimes melted by the considerable heat that reality can generate.

Part of Fordham’s mission and mandate as a sponsor is to try to make sense of this experience in ways that may benefit others in Ohio and beyond who are engaged, or might one day engage, in this important but under-analyzed precinct of contemporary education reform. It’s too soon to draw any definitive conclusions. But I’m ready to share ten early lessons, some partly-melted theories among them.

First, though, let me recapitulate what charter sponsors (aka authorizers) do--and don’t do. A sponsor bears the solemn responsibility of looking after the public interest in regard to the education of children attending “its” schools and the tax dollars entrusted to those schools on behalf of their pupils. Yet they don’t operate schools--at least they’re not supposed to. (Ohio has a few unfortunate exceptions.) Rather they “license” non-profit charter boards to create and operate schools for a limited period of time, then monitor the performance of those schools in several crucial areas (academic achievement, fiscal competence and organizational viability), as well as compliance with a host of laws and regulations. If the school’s board and operator do a good job, the sponsor may renew the charter. If not, the sponsor is supposed to provide the school with “technical assistance” (a sticky assignment, as you’ll see below), put it on probation, decline to renew its charter or even, in extreme cases, shut it down. Solemn responsibilities, indeed.

Here, in no particular order, is some of what we’ve learned so far:

1. Ohio’s sponsorship market is a mixed blessing. Charter theory holds that states should have multiple sponsors so that no one entity can slam all doors in the face of would-be school operators--the more so if the sole sponsor option is a local school system that’s apt to reject charters in order to avoid the competition (and revenue loss) that they create. But be careful what you wish for. Ohio’s sponsorship “market” sometimes functions poorly, allowing mediocre schools to avoid oversight by shifting to less demanding sponsors and (because sponsors are funded via fees paid by the schools themselves) creating perverse economic incentives for sponsors and schools alike.
2. Everyone benefits from having someone watch over his or her shoulder. That’s why corporations have auditors, why parents check on their children’s homework, why wives monitor their husbands’ alcohol consumption (and vice versa), and why state testing programs track the performance of public schools. In Ohio, however, many charter sponsors--including the two largest--are accountable to nobody but themselves. Neither the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) nor anybody else has legal responsibility for monitoring their performance in this key role or pulling the plug if they mess up. While we don’t always enjoy being accountable to ODE for our sponsorship work--and ill-considered changes in a few key positions there could make it downright painful--we do a better job because we know they’re watching. In my view, all sponsors should have to adhere to the same basic standards--and be fully transparent.
3. It’s a mistake for sponsors to be financed by fees paid by their charter schools. The already under-funded schools view this as an onerous tax and have every reason to seek sponsors with low fees, whether or not they do a good job. And sponsors seeking to maximize their “business” by charging low fees may end up with too little revenue to deploy the expertise needed to do the job well.
4. It’s a bigger mistake for sponsors to provide fee-based “services” to their schools. Whether these services take the form of business management, special education, professional development or something else, such an arrangement creates an inherent conflict of interest, invites profiteering by sponsors, and pressures schools to obtain services from entities that wield enormous power over their very existence.
5. Quality sponsorship is costly, labor intensive and voracious in its appetite for pricey expertise. If Fordham didn’t have a small endowment, plus external subsidy for its sponsorship work by one of the nation’s large foundations, we’d long since have gone broke. I well understand why other sponsors are wont to maximize revenues--or minimize the oversight that they provide. Yet quality sponsorship is too important to a healthy charter school movement for this situation to be sustainable.
6. It’s incredibly difficult to determine in advance whether a would-be operator is up to the many challenges of running a successful charter school. Indeed, it’s all too easy to err--to trust earnest intentions and forego the hard-nosed analysis of an organization’s track record, financial stability and governance; of an education plan’s curriculum, pedagogy and assessments; and of the histories and capacities of the people involved. Between earnest incompetence on the one hand and self-serving greed on the other, many sponsors have misjudged a prospective operator’s odds of succeeding. And even the surest-fire school plans can go awry if key individuals are taken ill, move away--or suddenly get indicted.
7. Everything under the sun gets thrown at sponsors. From the standpoint of aggrieved school employees, disgruntled parents, muckraking journalists and fretful creditors, the sponsor looks like the local school board or superintendent’s office: a place to take one’s complaint and seek redress from higher authority. When something goes radically off the tracks--two dozen kids get food poisoning when tainted lettuce makes it into the lunchroom, the police get summoned after a student claims to have been molested--even though we don’t run the school, we are in some sense responsible for what happens there. No wonder we get asked why we didn’t prevent the problem. 
8. Sponsorship carries risks of its own. These include legal liability, reputational damage, financial peril, vexed community relations and more--particularly for non-profit organizations. Trying to avoid missteps and do the right thing, our own attorneys’ bills have been hefty. We’ve had to get more insurance. And because we don’t enjoy the “sovereign immunity” of government agencies, we do fret about lawsuits filed by opportunistic (or genuinely distressed) individuals and eager tort lawyers.
9. It’s far harder than theorists (like me) thought to actually close a mediocre (or even bad) school. Unless its students face imminent danger or someone has fled to Bermuda with the payroll, shuttering a school is a tricky business. Parents and kids usually like their school, no matter its low test scores and torpid curriculum, and don’t want it closed any more than do the clients of a surplus district school. Worse, there may be no better educational option in the vicinity. (Remember why these families opted for the charter school in the first place.) Moreover, many charter boards and operators have deep community, political and institutional ties about which one must think twice before severing. What if the school is the darling of local business leaders and philanthropists? A “ministry” of a major local church? A path down which a wary school district might be drawn into chartering? One doesn’t casually close (or non-renew) such a school.
10. Sponsors in Ohio have too few “intermediate” options for putting pressure on their schools to improve without threatening a shut-down. Yet the state’s expectation that sponsors themselves will furnish faltering schools with “technical assistance” isn’t right, either. It conflates the role of social worker with that of policeman (see here) and invites conflicts of interest. (What if the school faithfully follows the sponsor’s advice but still produces woeful results? Whose responsibility is that?) I’m glad to refer “our” sponsored schools to other competent sources of technical assistance and back-office operations, but if we’re to hold them accountable for their results, we shouldn’t be deeply implicated in their operational decisions.

That’s ten. Note, though, that they’re but a few small tributaries of a very big river. We’re still exploring it, learning as we go. For charters to be done right, sponsorship (and much else) needs to be done right. Nobody has yet written “Sponsorship for Dummies.” What you’ve just read may be chapter one. But don’t expect it to be a short book.

Arthur Levine
The Education Schools Project
April 2007

With all due respect to Arthur Levine, this report series (of which Educating Researchers is the third) is misnamed. It should be Notes From the Front. As former head of Columbia University's Teachers College, Levine has both the trust of the ed school establishment, and the respect of the policy world, which helps him to report from the front lines about the wars waging within and around America's 1,206 schools, colleges, and university departments of education. This time, he delivers a stinging critique of the world of education research, much as he previously did for teacher and administrator training (see here and here). He boils the problem down to three points: The amorphous field of education itself, with its many fields, subfields, and specialties that examine everything yet seldom find anything that makes much difference; doctoral programs that award inconsistent degrees (PhDs to practitioners and EdDs to researchers); and under-resourced graduate programs that lack the funding and faculty expertise to crank out top-flight researchers. The report sets forth the history that led to this muddled mess, without excusing it. Rather, Levine issues a stalwart call for reform. Among his suggestions: 1) allow only the best-funded and best-staffed universities to prepare education researchers--and shutter the lesser programs. 2) Diversify the remaining programs' research missions, so that schools specialize in well-defined fields of study (as Vanderbilt does, for example, in special ed). And 3) strengthen connections between education research and the worlds of policy and practice. Both critics and defenders of the ed school system have much to gain from reading this insightful report. Find it here. And read related papers from Rick Hess's recent American Enterprise Institute conference on the "politics of knowledge" here.

Stephen Q. Cornman, Thomas Stewart, Patrick J. Wolf
Georgetown University Public Policy Institute
May 2007

This study of parent and student attitudes toward Washington, D.C.'s, Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) is by no means a definitive evaluation of that ongoing experiment (Congress approved a five-year trial run in 2003). The authors interviewed 110 families and assembled their anecdotes into several broad observations. Still, it gives readers a good look into the program's workings. Two major findings were that "the majority of parents are active and knowledgeable school choice consumers" (another recent study showed much the same) and their consumer skills became more nuanced over time. Second-year participants, for example, were more likely to care about whether their children received direct teacher attention and attended schools of high academic quality, while first-year families were more concerned with immediately salient matters like safety and class size. The study's second part focuses on the "opportunities or challenges" that participating families have experienced. On the positive side, the authors found that parents became more involved in their children's education after beginning the program and that they believe their children are experiencing greater academic success in new schools. These same parents expressed concerns, however, that they might inadvertently "earn out" of the program--i.e., boost their income to a level that would disqualify them for the scholarship. (Congress lifted the eligibility threshold for family income from 200 to 300 percent of the federal poverty line in 2006, after the surveys were conducted.) They also complained about the shortage of seats in participating high schools. Again, these findings are only generalizations of anecdotal evidence (parents are quoted extensively throughout), but it's a worthwhile read if you have been wondering what's going on with OSP. Read it here. (A topical Washington Post op-ed is available here.)