The Education Gadfly Weekly

Mitch Pearlstein
Pogo Press
2008

My friend and colleague Mitch Pearlstein has written a perceptive and evocative biography of 85-year-old Al Quie, former governor of Minnesota and for many years the leading Republic education policy maker in the U.S. House of Representatives. (He also served on the National Commission on Excellence in Education, source of "A Nation At Risk" in 1983.) Actually, this 300 page volume is more Al's autobiography "as told to" Mitch, and it's interesting on many levels, education policy being just one of them. Quie is a unique and memorable figure, deeply devout, multi-faceted, a lover of horses and the outdoors as much as wise government and other people's children. His take on education, the primacy of parents, and the limits of government is well worth understanding, perhaps especially as Quie and Pearlstein discuss its application to early-childhood education (chapter 12). You can learn more about the book here, here, or here. And you can find my own (five year old) reflections on Al Quie's work in education here.

National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)
September 2008

This long-anticipated report, the product of a blue-ribbon commission led by Harvard admissions director, William Fitzsimmons, evaluates the use of standardized tests in college admissions as predictive measures for a student's success in college--and finds them wanting. High school grades are better indicators of college readiness, argues the report's authors, while standardized test scores come in second. The Commission sees a future whereby "curriculum-based achievement tests" replace the SAT and ACT--assessments that would be developed through collaboration between colleges, secondary schools, and state and federal agencies. Existing examples that strike their fancy? Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and College Board Subject Tests; these, they argue, are more closely related to high school curriculum as well as immune to gaming via the test-prep industry. (We're not so sure about the latter.) As long-time supporters of rigorous, standards-based high school courses (such as AP and IB), as well as exit exams that are linked to college admissions standards (such as those being developed through the American Diploma Project), there's a lot here for us to like. Still, we can't help but notice the Commission's distain for testing in general. Let's imagine we implemented curriculum-based tests; how long until college counselors bemoaned these too, particularly if they show middle class and white students outperforming poor and minority teens? See for yourself here.

The red pen. In our still largely decentralized public school system, it's no big surprise that this old-fashioned instrument of ill repute gets starkly different treatment from district to district and state to state. Three locales, in fact, have recently reopened the question, "what's in a grade"--and come up with very different answers.  Perhaps by evaluating these recent conversations, we can imagine what standard GPAs might look like.

Fairfax County, Virginia, parents are outraged that their children must score a 94 to receive an A. Neighboring counties give As for a mere 90, they argue, and they and their kids are being unfairly penalized when competing for college admission, national merit awards, even a lower car insurance bill. Parents have taken up arms in hopes that extended pressure on the district to follow the example of nearby school systems will lead to a lower bar; Fairfax is contemplating doing so.

Fairfax's one-county crusade against grade inflation is probably sacrificing its students on the altar of its ideals, as parents allege, and remedying that problem is not difficult. Despite cries of the old "slippery slope," shifting the letter-number ratio to match neighboring counties will ultimately benefit Fairfax students (in the short term at least) when it comes to college admissions and the like.

Pittsburgh has tackled the other end of the grading spectrum. All failing grades (those of 50 or below) will henceforth be marked down as 50 percent credit in grade books. Long on the books but only recently enforced, this policy, the district claims, is simply giving students a better chance to "catch up" in the next quarter since quarters are averaged into semester and yearlong grades. "A failing grade is still a failing grade," explains district spokeswoman Ebony Pugh. Seems not to matter if it's a 14 or a 49. Round up to 50.

Turning all sorts of "Fs" (actually, they're "Es" in Pittsburgh, presumably because they're loath to further dishearten students with reality) into a standard 50 is unabashed grade inflation under the dubious guise of giving struggling students another chance. The resulting skewed metric will unduly reward them for subpar work.  Dallas tried this F-is-always-a-50 scheme last year and teachers ultimately begged to have it reversed.

Also in Texas, meanwhile, the Higher Education Coordinating Board (which, although it is mainly concerned with Texan tertiary education, controls the secondary GPA question too, as related to Texas college admissions policies) is proposing to exclude from GPA calculations all subjects save English, math, science, social studies and foreign languages. What's more, only courses that count for college credit (International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement and dual enrollment) will be awarded extra points in GPA calculations (currently, honors classes are given an extra half point, too). The purpose of these negotiations is to standardize college admission standards across the state. Not surprisingly, the proposal, which will go up for a vote on October 23, has generated quite an uproar. Parents and teachers alike are concerned that students will opt out of electives and rarely show up or participate in required music, physical education, and art classes.

It's not difficult to see that Texas may be going too far. Limiting which courses qualify for heavier GPA weighting is one thing but not counting music, art and PE at all is another. Teenagers will be teenagers; tell them a class doesn't count and lower enrollment, attendance, and effort will surely follow. We've already sidelined these subjects with standardized testing and NCLB, and budget crunches have led some districts to cut them. Enough. Let's not diminish them further with perverse incentives. Non-academic pursuits have been shown to lower drop-out rates, especially amongst at-risk teens. And extracurricular activities, often inspired by exposure in these non-academic classes, may be the secret to the (moderate) success of our public education system. 

What do we have? Three different takes on what makes up that elusive Grade Point Average. Let's think hypothetically. Give Fairfax parents their way and let As equal scores of 90 and above; scrap Pittsburgh's policy and maintain numerical accuracy in grade books. Give extra weight, Texas style, to certain subjects and courses-those counting for college credits make sense-but still include music, art, and physical education in GPA calculations. It's not rocket science, but it is thought-provoking.

If these three examples are any indication, there are oodles of variation in what grades--and diplomas--mean across the country. And what's really at stake here is whether employers and colleges can trust these transcripts and diplomas. When they cannot, students will see much more of the red pen--not on math tests but on job and college applications.

There's a fishy odeur emanating from the Bayou these days. The source? A "re-routing" plan that would count the scores of gifted students at magnet schools towards the results of their "home school" (the school they would attend based on school catchment areas). East Baton Rouge Parish spokesman Chris Trahan reasons that since scores from pre-GED centers and discipline alternative schools are "re-routed," magnet schools' scores should be too. Nice try. This isn't "re-routing," it's inflation, or as the Council for a Better Louisiana calls it, "deception." Senior Vice President of the group, Stephanie Desselle, reasons, "School accountability is not about fooling around with scores to make things look better than they are...The heart of the accountability system is to tell us how each school is doing." Quite right. Let's not regress in our accountability systems by camouflaging their scores with those of their gifted neighbors.

"Plan to ‘Re-route' Gifted Student Scores Causes Stir," by Becky Bohrer, Associated Press, September 25, 2008

LAUSD may have lost six percent of its students from 2001 to 2007 but you'd never know it down at headquarters. That fashionable office--replete with flat screen TVs and on-site dry-cleaning service--has in fact grown by 20 percent during the same period. Seems building empty classrooms wasn't a poor enough allocation of funds for the City of Angels; they also must pay roughly 4,000 district employees an average of $95,000 per annum--2,400 of whom are making more than $100,000. Although California's budget woes have already put pressure on the district to free up dollars, don't get your hopes up. According to Assistant Deputy Superintendent Raymond Cortines, it's harder than it looks. Eliminating compliance officers could cost the district "millions of dollars from federal or state government because [LAUSD] hasn't gotten certain reports in." Incomplete personnel files make it difficult to assess employees--and employees are certainly in no hurry to relinquish their jobs (or the dry cleaning) voluntarily. "You don't know how many years I worked to get downtown," quoth one central office worker. Further, if Cortines does attempt to cut down the ranks, the state Education Code affords "bumping rights" to nonteaching positions--meaning low performing senior administrators would be reassigned to schools, freeing up no space in the budget. (Did we mention that California has the most overregulated schools in the nation?) The financial crisis might be leading to unemployment fears nationwide, but not, it seems, at LA's central office.

"LAUSD Administration Swells 20 Percent in 6 Years," by Beth Barrett, Los Angeles Daily News, September 30, 2008

How we love Massachusetts: its patriotic history, wind-swept shores, and, of course, sky-high standards. While other states take cues from NCLB to walk to the middle, Massachusetts keeps raising the bar. So it is that Bay State students who pass the MCAS graduation exam, but just barely, must complete a remedial battery of classes and testing in order to graduate. Mitchell Chester, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, explains, "What we don't want is students and schools to think they can slide by on 'needs improvement.'" Our compliments to that thought process. But the measure, which was enacted two years ago in the pre-Deval Patrick days but was only recently--and quietly--implemented, has drawn broad criticism. Scott Lang, mayor of New Bedford, MA, argues that too few students are receiving diplomas already and each paperless individual "costs the state an average of $22,449 annually in direct benefits and means-tested aid, including state-subsidized healthcare and welfare benefits." Luckily, James Peyser of the NewSchools Venture Fund (and former chair of the Massachusetts Board of Education) is there to restore common sense to the dialogue. "Lang thinks he's standing up for the disenfranchised. Unfortunately, his proposal would only serve to condemn another generation of young people to low expectations and benign neglect." God bless Massachusetts!  

"New rule casts cloud on MCAS results," by James Vaznis, The Boston Globe, September 29, 2008

"A diploma for every student," by Scott W Lang, The Boston Globe, September 28, 2008

"Assault on standards would leave many students behind," by James Peyser, The Boston Globe, September 30, 2008

Faculty bathroom graffiti. That's what some are calling teachers' latest past time. Unlike its aerosol cousin though, this graffiti is of the digital variety and something Gadfly sure knows a thing or two about. But unlike our blog's ideas that stick, these educator scribbles are slimy and slick. It appears teachers aren't just using the blogosphere to share their latest lesson on photosynthesis, but to air their (sometimes explicit) classroom frustrations and dirty laundry. Tales of hangovers--and the resulting ungraded essays--abound. Unbecoming references to students and other tawdry talk have rightly landed some teachers in the principal's office. There the commander-and-chief puts the ruler to their knuckles, reprimanding them for setting a bad example for their students. Our knuckles get a little pink now and then, but we also know that what happens at the Fordham Christmas party stays at the Fordham Christmas party. Teachers should know better and keep their tasteless vignettes off the net.

"In Search of Support, Teachers Turn to Blogging," by Eddy Ramirez, U.S. News and World Report, September 29, 2008

Mitch Pearlstein
Pogo Press
2008

My friend and colleague Mitch Pearlstein has written a perceptive and evocative biography of 85-year-old Al Quie, former governor of Minnesota and for many years the leading Republic education policy maker in the U.S. House of Representatives. (He also served on the National Commission on Excellence in Education, source of "A Nation At Risk" in 1983.) Actually, this 300 page volume is more Al's autobiography "as told to" Mitch, and it's interesting on many levels, education policy being just one of them. Quie is a unique and memorable figure, deeply devout, multi-faceted, a lover of horses and the outdoors as much as wise government and other people's children. His take on education, the primacy of parents, and the limits of government is well worth understanding, perhaps especially as Quie and Pearlstein discuss its application to early-childhood education (chapter 12). You can learn more about the book here, here, or here. And you can find my own (five year old) reflections on Al Quie's work in education here.

National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC)
September 2008

This long-anticipated report, the product of a blue-ribbon commission led by Harvard admissions director, William Fitzsimmons, evaluates the use of standardized tests in college admissions as predictive measures for a student's success in college--and finds them wanting. High school grades are better indicators of college readiness, argues the report's authors, while standardized test scores come in second. The Commission sees a future whereby "curriculum-based achievement tests" replace the SAT and ACT--assessments that would be developed through collaboration between colleges, secondary schools, and state and federal agencies. Existing examples that strike their fancy? Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and College Board Subject Tests; these, they argue, are more closely related to high school curriculum as well as immune to gaming via the test-prep industry. (We're not so sure about the latter.) As long-time supporters of rigorous, standards-based high school courses (such as AP and IB), as well as exit exams that are linked to college admissions standards (such as those being developed through the American Diploma Project), there's a lot here for us to like. Still, we can't help but notice the Commission's distain for testing in general. Let's imagine we implemented curriculum-based tests; how long until college counselors bemoaned these too, particularly if they show middle class and white students outperforming poor and minority teens? See for yourself here.