The Education Gadfly Weekly

National Center for Education Statistics
March 2002

The most valuable function of the federal government in the field of education is the provision of data, and the third most valuable form of education data (after NAEP and basic "facts and figures" about schools and universities) comes from longitudinal studies that track the same people over time. Because such studies are expensive and complicated, they don't get done very often. But the "National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988," which began in my days at the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, has just yielded its fourth batch of follow-up data. In the year 2000, these young people were about 26 years old. By this point, 83 percent of them had earned high-school diplomas and 29 percent had a bachelor's degree (or more)-in contrast with the 66 percent who, at age 14, had said they intended to complete college. (Another 47 percent had, however, gathered some postsecondary credits. Only one in four had never stepped foot in a postsecondary institution.) But that's just the tip of a huge data iceberg. There's plenty here on careers, incomes, marriage and family, job satisfaction, etc. And lots of "crosstabs" that link aspects of their backgrounds and education experiences (through 8th grade) to what came later. Nor does this report examine the entire iceberg. It's just the "initial results" from a trove of data that analysts will mine for years to come. You can download it at http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002321.

Brian Gong, Council of Chief State School Officers
January 2002

This report from the Council of Chief State School Officers is meant to help states develop viable school accountability arrangements, in part to comply with the requirements of the new federal No Child Left Behind law. In thirty pages, it (a) sets forth a ten step sequence by which states can grapple with key questions of accountability-system design; (b) poses three big "alignment questions" by which states can determine whether their accountability systems are internally consistent; and (c) briefly sketches a few case studies meant to illustrate four different accountability-system models. Overall, a helpful piece of work. You can find it at http://publications.ccsso.org/ccsso/publication_detail.cfm?PID=351.

edited by Richard J. Shavelson and Lisa Towne, National Research Council Committee on Scientific Principles for Education Research, National Academy of Science
2002

The National Academy of Science's Committee on Scientific Principles for Education Research, chaired by Stanford education professor Richard Shavelson (and including the newly named dean of the Harvard school of education, Ellen Lagemann), has published this 200-page volume, paid for (naturally) by the U.S. Department of Education. It's surely timely, thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act's emphasis on the use of (only) scientifically based education strategies and programs and the pending reauthorization of the Education Department's own research unit as a new (and presumably more scientific) National Academy of Education Science. It's not bad as statements of principles go but it reveals its roots in a committee dominated by education researchers. It's defensive and unjustifiably prideful regarding the track record of education research to date, and it's Dewey-esque in its basic philosophy of what should constitute research in the future. Which is to say, it's as fond of what educationists like to call "qualitative" research as of what real scientists view as scientific research. While there's no rejection of the latter, the committee's basic view seems to be "you do real experimental work when it's convenient; when it's not, you do what you've always done: crouch in the classroom, interview the teachers, whatever." Its advice for the federal government is mostly sound, too, but familiar, even banal. (Hire more real researchers, shield them from politics, give them more money, etc.) My biggest lament is the reverence cum naivet?? that this crowd shows toward "peer review." It sounds swell, of course, and sometimes can be a true source of quality control, but let's not kid ourselves: the selection of peers shapes the outcome of many reviews, and the decision to limit "peers" to other researchers with the same values and methodological preferences instantly walls off the subject or project from those who might think otherwise about what's important or how to study it. That approach to research keeps the entire venture firmly within the usual family of researchers which, of course, is where the committee that issued this report wants to keep it. Welcome to the American Education Research Association! If you'd like to buy a copy, the ISBN is 0309082919 and you can get ordering information at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10236.html.

Mass Insight Education
March 2002

The energetic and productive team at Mass Insight Education recently released this 24-page report, arising from interviews with 140 Bay-State urban high school students "who failed either the math or English portion of the MCAS [Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System] in Spring 2001." Far from despairing, nearly all of these young people believe that, with more hard work and better attendance, they can pass the test at a subsequent administration. Most also believe that the skills tested by MCAS are important skills to have. Two-thirds say they are working harder as a result of pressure arising from this high-stakes testing regime. What would help them the most to do better on the test itself? According to these young people (as refracted through the Mass Insight analysts), "encouragement from a respected adult and having extra-help sessions taught by their favorite teachers." (Of course that only works if they show up for the help sessions which, the report finds, 54% are not doing.) You can download a PDF copy at http://www.massinsight.com/meri/pdf_files/Taking%20Charge%20Report%20PDF.pdf.

General Accounting Office
April 2002

Is the E.S.E.A. "state compliance" glass one third full or two thirds empty? The General Accounting Office recently issued a report saying that, as of March 2002, just 17 states "were in compliance with the 1994 assessment requirements" and 35 were not. Eight years after enactment, that's a miserable record that bodes ill for the implementation of No Child Left Behind (the newly enacted E.S.E.A. amendments). It led the GAO to observe that "many states may not be well-positioned to meet the requirements added in 2001," indeed that "the majority of states will still be working on meeting the 1994 requirements as they begin work toward meeting the new requirements." Many states, moreover, "still appear to be struggling with ensuring that assessment data are complete and correct"-another troubling sign, considering the centrality of testing in the 2001 amendments. Two-thirds empty, one might fairly conclude. But on April 8, the Education Department issued a cheery press release onto which some eager spinmeister in the public affairs office affixed the headline "All states now in compliance with 1994 ESEA." How could that be? Read the fine print. What the Department was really announcing what that 18 states "have fully approved assessments systems under the 1994 law" (New Hampshire having lately been added to the GAO tally) while the other 34 now all have waivers, extensions or formal "compliance agreements." In other words, two-thirds of the states have entered into explicit understandings with the Education Department that, at some future date certain, they will have in place assessment systems that comply with the 1994 amendments. But they don't have them in place today. The Department can fairly claim credit for cleaning up a big backlog of states whose compliance status was indeterminate when Secretary Paige and his team arrived on the scene. That clean-up was long overdue and has now been done. But it's a bit like saying we've now documented every student in the class whose term paper is late and have entered into agreements with them as to when they'll turn in the overdue papers. It doesn't mean the papers are in, much less that they're any good. The GAO's glum forecast strikes us as more noteworthy than the Education Department's commendable progress in resolving the paperwork backlog that it inherited from the Clinton Administration. The point, let's occasionally remind ourselves, is to ensure that states are doing what they should to ensure that poor kids learn more, not that the federal bureaucracy has its in-box cleared. If you'd like to see the GAO report (GAO-02-393), surf to http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/summary.php?recflag=&accno=A02849&rptno=GAO-02-393. If you'd like to see the Education Department statement, go to http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/04-2002/04082002a.html.

James Traub visits the front lines in the class war over standardized testing in a cover story in this week's New York Times Magazine. First he reports from a low-achieving school in Mount Vernon, New York, where he observes "test preparation with a vengeance," but, he notes, test prep that seems to work. The teachers talk about showing their eighth-graders how to restate a test question, to take coherent notes, and to distinguish between a detail and the general statement it supports. This kind of activity-drilling kids in the cognitive skills that better-educated children may have picked up on their own-isn't pretty, but seems to be effective. One Saturday morning, Traub attended a voluntary test prep session offered by the school and found that about a third of the eighth grade showed up and that the students even seemed to enjoy the activities. Traub reviews the research evidence showing that standards-cum-testing can cause improvements in student achievement, but he perceptively notes that the issue of testing is so ideological that it will not be settled by data. Next, Traub journeys to Scarsdale, a wealthy suburb where parents, teachers, and administrators are so confident that their schools are excellent that they have made a collective decision to pay as little attention to the tests as possible, and kids continue to enjoy long units on Shakespeare uninterrupted by test prep activities. These parents insist that, as bad as testing is for their children, it is even more harmful for disadvantaged children, although, when pressed, they admit to having little personal contact with or true knowledge about inner city schools. In Traub's final stop, Mamaroneck-equidistant from Scarsdale and Mount Vernon-the schools are not as good as Scarsdale's and the state tests are not as easy for parents to dismiss. In towns like this, he judges, testing brings great anxiety to parents, who are concerned about the good books being squeezed out by test prep but also concerned about the scores their children's schools receive on the test. Here they teach to the test but wish they didn't have to, and the reader is left to wonder what would happen if they just kept teaching Shakespeare instead of preparing for the test.

In this week's Washington Post, Jay Mathews looks more closely at the view that disadvantaged kids need to be drilled in the basics while middle-class students benefit from more creative, project-based instructional techniques. While practitioners may insist that their low-income students get more from a structured approach, experts interviewed by Mathews charge that tailoring teaching methods to kids this way is classist, if not racist, and creates a culture in which disadvantaged children are not held to the same standards as others. The article concludes with an observation by Fairfax County superintendent Daniel Domenech that he has seen schools with disadvantaged children succeed using either approach, and that what matters is that teachers know what they are doing and believe in it.

Great teachers and schools may be able to succeed in a range of ways, but that doesn't mean that all approaches are equally effective. A forthcoming study of teachers in high-poverty schools conducted by Abt Associates finds that effective teachers run highly structured classrooms and make extensive use of straightforward drilling in basic skills along with more creative work. High-performing teachers were also found to be more knowledgeable about state and district academic standards and tests and to have deviated from standards developed by groups such as the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics by having students do individual worksheets, among other things. The research, presented at last week's American Educational Research Association conference, was funded by the Education Department and will not be released publicly until it has undergone a formal review by the Department.

"The Test Mess," by James Traub, The New York Times Magazine, April 7, 2002.

"In Schools, No Points for Styles," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, April 9, 2002.

"Researchers: Structured Classes Help Poor Kids," by Hannah Gladfelter Rubin, Education Daily, April 11, 2002. (available only to subscribers)

There's wide agreement that U.S. high schools urgently need reforming, due to their dismaying drop out rates, paltry test scores and the testimony of employers and college professors that their graduates are ill-prepared for adult challenges. There is also wide agreement that the sprawling "comprehensive" high school devised by James B. Conant almost half a century ago-and still the dominant model in America today-exacts too great a price in anonymity, anomie, drifting students and bureaucratic control. Adolescents will have brighter prospects for success in smaller institutions where people know their names, know whether they're attending, behaving and learning, know their families and can talk to them promptly. That is surely part of the reason why Catholic schools and charter schools do relatively well-and have more contented clients.

But high school reform is a bigger and more complex topic than simple size reduction. The U.S. Department of Education recently commissioned a set of papers on how best to renew the American high school, and last week it hosted a well-attended conference on the subject. The Brookings Institution has also invited a batch of papers on high school issues and will hold a major conference next month, chaired by Diane Ravitch. The Aspen Institute is hard at work on this under Michael Cohen's leadership. National commissions have been formed. The topic is gaining momentum. And a number of major private foundations have been investing in it, particularly the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the imaginative leadership of Tom Vander Ark.

Gates's special passion within the world of high school reform is creating more small high schools-and carving out small units within big, Conant-style institutions. To this end, Gates, joined by the Carnegie, Ford and Kellogg foundations, pledged an impressive $40 million last month to create seventy small high schools under the heading of the "Early College" initiative. Eight organizations will receive and expend these funds, led by Boston-based Jobs for the Future. Says Vander Ark, "At these small schools, students will receive the personalized learning and the accelerated learning they need to ensure a smoother transition to college or the workplace."

The Gates people and their allies recognize that there's more to high-school reform. Program director David Ferrero terms smallness "an enabling condition for other good things to happen in the areas of teaching and learning." His Ohio henchman, the KnowledgeWorks Foundation's Chad Wick, says "The goal here is to take everything we know that works and put it into practice."

Beware of such claims. For the "Early College" plan doesn't do anything like "take everything we know that works." Rather, it rests on the narrower proposition, most prominently associated with Bard College president Leon Botstein, that the last two years of high school are largely wasted and that the secondary school program should therefore be shrunk, accelerated and merged into college work. Thus "Early College high schools" are described (by Jobs for the Future) as places "from which students leave with a diploma, a two-year Associate of Arts degree, or sufficient college credits to enter a four year liberal arts program as a sophomore or junior. By changing the structure of the high school years, compressing the number of years to the A.A., and offering new incentives, Early College has the potential to improve high school and college graduation rates and to better prepare students for entry into high skill careers."

Sounds great, sure. But unpack it a little, bearing in mind that the gravest shortcoming of today's high schools is that so many students emerge from them knowing so little-unready for college-level academics, unready to succeed in the jobs of the modern economy, unready for citizenship. And this is after FOUR years of high school. How come smart people now suppose that LESS high school will produce stronger results? What undergirds the conviction that disadvantaged high-school students, already lagging far behind in reading, writing and math, will be so motivated by the chance to earn a college degree rather than a "mere" high-school diploma that they will speedily catch up and then some? Will they be able to make up enough ground or does this plan rest on further diluting the value of a college degree? And further marginalizing the high-school diploma?

To be sure, the "Early College" folks seem to have multiple agendas, even to be a wee bit confused. Some of them talk about educationally disadvantaged kids with deficits to correct. Others seem more interested in "poor but bright" youngsters who are turned off by their current schools but are not educational laggards.

It's important to know which high-school problem we are supposed to watch this initiative solve. Generous as it is, it cannot solve them all. Botstein, it may be recalled, began with elite, upper-middle class students who were bored with high school. Perhaps the same strategy will work with the "poor but able." I'm hard pressed, though, to see it working magic with those whose achievement is far behind where it should be, whether that's due to school failings or environmental factors.

Also a bit perplexing is this plan's emergence just as upscale high schools are jettisoning Advanced Placement courses and more than a few colleges are spurning A.P. credit for work done in high school or else are demanding very high scores before awarding such credit. Harvard recently announced that it will give credit only for "5's" on Advanced Placement exams. The stated reason is that students with lower scores don't do too well in the Harvard courses they wind up in. This does not augur well for a new venture to get younger students from heretofore-unsuccessful high schools to do college-level work-and expect colleges to confer credit for it.

The "Early College" initiative tries to associate itself with today's standards-based reforms by positing that "gains in grades K-4 diminish as students move through their school years." Indeed, that's so, and a serious problem indeed. But is bringing college closer to kindergarten the best solution? Why, for example, are these heavy hitters ignoring the problem of the middle school, a misguided institution if ever there was one. The reason U.S. youngsters emerge from 8th grade so much worse off than they emerged from 4th grade is because they don't learn much in grades 5-8. That's no accident. It's because "middle schoolism" holds that schools' foremost duty during those years is not to impart academic skills and content in an intellectually rigorous way but, rather, to help boys and girls grow up, avoid stress, and feel cared for. Middle school devotees typically assume that raging hormones preclude serious academics.

If our mightiest foundations wanted to do something about high schools, they might usefully start by seeing whether middle schools could be reformed such that 9th graders would be intellectually prepared for a bona fide secondary education. Such young people would be less apt to drop out. They would be more likely to finish high school well prepared for college and the workplace. They might even be ready for adulthood.

That's not to say the high school itself doesn't need attention, too. Some institutional changes are in order including, no doubt, smaller units in many situations. But don't expect too much from that reform alone. I've been in wee high schools that were devoted to frivolous, trendy and highly politicized curricula, more concerned about relevance than the enduring value of their course content. We've recently watched founders of quirky small high schools seeking waivers from the New York Regents exams and other state graduation tests on grounds that what they do is unique and their students shouldn't be judged by ordinary standards. One must wonder whether the Gates initiative (in which are enlisted some of the alternative high schools that have struggled hardest against the Regents and similar exit exams) is yet another way to get students a diploma, maybe even a college degree, without meeting the standards that everyone else has to attain.

Size matters some when it comes to high schooling, but it's not all that matters. As we see from such successful ventures as the Southern Regional Education Board's "High Schools That Work" project, a strong curriculum, taught by people who know their material, and judged according to rigorous academic standards-that matters, too. So does enrolling youngsters in 9th grade who came out of 8th with a decent command of English, math, history and science. I wish the "Early College" initiative well but wonder whether it is the best use of all this welcome attention and largesse directed toward high-school reform.

Fore more information on small schools and the Gates initiative, see http://www.gatesfoundation.org/nr/public/media/newsletters/possibilities/spring_02.htm#About%20Us and http://www.earlycolleges.org/.

For copies of the papers discussed at the U.S. Department of Education symposium on high schools, surf to http://www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE/HS/commisspap.html

Over the objections of parents and local officials, the Japanese government announced last week that the school week would be scaled back to five days, with the curriculum pared back as well. See "Public Schools Start 5-day Week," Yomiuri Shimbun, April 6, 2002. For more about content reduction in Japan, read "Education Reform in Japan" in the March 21, 2002 Gadfly.

Which are in worse shape, high schools or middle schools? Jay Mathews writes that one thing he has learned from talking to parents for the past 20 years is that "there are no good middle schools," even in the wealthiest neighborhoods. But a small group of schools being launched under the KIPP banner may be changing that. Like the original KIPP schools in Houston and the Bronx, these new affiliates look different from other middle schools that you may have seen. At the KEY Academy in the District of Columbia's Anacostia section, for example, classes run from 8 am until 5 pm and lessons move at a fast pace to keep kids focused. Discipline is swift and parents are called in if a student does not produce his homework. Somehow all of the carefully planned details of the school add up to a place where regular kids are motivated to meet very high standards. For more see "New School Paves Road to Success," by Jay Mathews, WashingtonPost.com, April 2, 2002.

High school Advanced Placement (AP) classes have long been viewed as the gold standard for secondary education, something that more high schools should offer and more students, especially disadvantaged students, should avail themselves of. But this respected program has taken some hits in recent months, according to an article in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. As described in Checker's editorial (above), Harvard announced that it will only award credit to freshman who receive the highest score-a 5-on the test. Some private high schools (Fieldston, Exeter) are dropping AP classes in favor of in-depth courses designed by the school's own faculty. A 2001 study commissioned by the College Board, which runs the AP program-and in recent years has pushed hard to widen access to it-identified a growing shortage of qualified teachers and weak academic backgrounds of some AP students. Many believe that the quality of AP courses is being diluted as a consequence of the tremendous growth in participation in this program, growth also driven by intensifying competition for college slots among children of baby boomers. Still others sense that AP test standards are softening even as trendier and more politically-correct content infects course syllabi. The College Board says that it is attempting to deal with the shortage of AP-qualified teachers by expanding teacher training, establishing clearer guidelines for AP classes, and developing a program to better prepare middle and high school students for the rigors to follow. While many laud efforts to bring the AP program's higher standards to students who may not otherwise experience challenging classes, Kati Haycock of the Education Trust warns that, by utilizing the best instructors for AP courses, schools may end up denying excellent teachers to the students who need the most help. For more see "Rapid Growth of Advanced Placement Classes Raises Concerns," by Rebecca Trounson and Richard Colvin, Los Angeles Times, April 7, 2002.

Brian Gong, Council of Chief State School Officers
January 2002

This report from the Council of Chief State School Officers is meant to help states develop viable school accountability arrangements, in part to comply with the requirements of the new federal No Child Left Behind law. In thirty pages, it (a) sets forth a ten step sequence by which states can grapple with key questions of accountability-system design; (b) poses three big "alignment questions" by which states can determine whether their accountability systems are internally consistent; and (c) briefly sketches a few case studies meant to illustrate four different accountability-system models. Overall, a helpful piece of work. You can find it at http://publications.ccsso.org/ccsso/publication_detail.cfm?PID=351.

edited by Richard J. Shavelson and Lisa Towne, National Research Council Committee on Scientific Principles for Education Research, National Academy of Science
2002

The National Academy of Science's Committee on Scientific Principles for Education Research, chaired by Stanford education professor Richard Shavelson (and including the newly named dean of the Harvard school of education, Ellen Lagemann), has published this 200-page volume, paid for (naturally) by the U.S. Department of Education. It's surely timely, thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act's emphasis on the use of (only) scientifically based education strategies and programs and the pending reauthorization of the Education Department's own research unit as a new (and presumably more scientific) National Academy of Education Science. It's not bad as statements of principles go but it reveals its roots in a committee dominated by education researchers. It's defensive and unjustifiably prideful regarding the track record of education research to date, and it's Dewey-esque in its basic philosophy of what should constitute research in the future. Which is to say, it's as fond of what educationists like to call "qualitative" research as of what real scientists view as scientific research. While there's no rejection of the latter, the committee's basic view seems to be "you do real experimental work when it's convenient; when it's not, you do what you've always done: crouch in the classroom, interview the teachers, whatever." Its advice for the federal government is mostly sound, too, but familiar, even banal. (Hire more real researchers, shield them from politics, give them more money, etc.) My biggest lament is the reverence cum naivet?? that this crowd shows toward "peer review." It sounds swell, of course, and sometimes can be a true source of quality control, but let's not kid ourselves: the selection of peers shapes the outcome of many reviews, and the decision to limit "peers" to other researchers with the same values and methodological preferences instantly walls off the subject or project from those who might think otherwise about what's important or how to study it. That approach to research keeps the entire venture firmly within the usual family of researchers which, of course, is where the committee that issued this report wants to keep it. Welcome to the American Education Research Association! If you'd like to buy a copy, the ISBN is 0309082919 and you can get ordering information at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10236.html.

General Accounting Office
April 2002

Is the E.S.E.A. "state compliance" glass one third full or two thirds empty? The General Accounting Office recently issued a report saying that, as of March 2002, just 17 states "were in compliance with the 1994 assessment requirements" and 35 were not. Eight years after enactment, that's a miserable record that bodes ill for the implementation of No Child Left Behind (the newly enacted E.S.E.A. amendments). It led the GAO to observe that "many states may not be well-positioned to meet the requirements added in 2001," indeed that "the majority of states will still be working on meeting the 1994 requirements as they begin work toward meeting the new requirements." Many states, moreover, "still appear to be struggling with ensuring that assessment data are complete and correct"-another troubling sign, considering the centrality of testing in the 2001 amendments. Two-thirds empty, one might fairly conclude. But on April 8, the Education Department issued a cheery press release onto which some eager spinmeister in the public affairs office affixed the headline "All states now in compliance with 1994 ESEA." How could that be? Read the fine print. What the Department was really announcing what that 18 states "have fully approved assessments systems under the 1994 law" (New Hampshire having lately been added to the GAO tally) while the other 34 now all have waivers, extensions or formal "compliance agreements." In other words, two-thirds of the states have entered into explicit understandings with the Education Department that, at some future date certain, they will have in place assessment systems that comply with the 1994 amendments. But they don't have them in place today. The Department can fairly claim credit for cleaning up a big backlog of states whose compliance status was indeterminate when Secretary Paige and his team arrived on the scene. That clean-up was long overdue and has now been done. But it's a bit like saying we've now documented every student in the class whose term paper is late and have entered into agreements with them as to when they'll turn in the overdue papers. It doesn't mean the papers are in, much less that they're any good. The GAO's glum forecast strikes us as more noteworthy than the Education Department's commendable progress in resolving the paperwork backlog that it inherited from the Clinton Administration. The point, let's occasionally remind ourselves, is to ensure that states are doing what they should to ensure that poor kids learn more, not that the federal bureaucracy has its in-box cleared. If you'd like to see the GAO report (GAO-02-393), surf to http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/summary.php?recflag=&accno=A02849&rptno=GAO-02-393. If you'd like to see the Education Department statement, go to http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/04-2002/04082002a.html.

Mass Insight Education
March 2002

The energetic and productive team at Mass Insight Education recently released this 24-page report, arising from interviews with 140 Bay-State urban high school students "who failed either the math or English portion of the MCAS [Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System] in Spring 2001." Far from despairing, nearly all of these young people believe that, with more hard work and better attendance, they can pass the test at a subsequent administration. Most also believe that the skills tested by MCAS are important skills to have. Two-thirds say they are working harder as a result of pressure arising from this high-stakes testing regime. What would help them the most to do better on the test itself? According to these young people (as refracted through the Mass Insight analysts), "encouragement from a respected adult and having extra-help sessions taught by their favorite teachers." (Of course that only works if they show up for the help sessions which, the report finds, 54% are not doing.) You can download a PDF copy at http://www.massinsight.com/meri/pdf_files/Taking%20Charge%20Report%20PDF.pdf.

National Center for Education Statistics
March 2002

The most valuable function of the federal government in the field of education is the provision of data, and the third most valuable form of education data (after NAEP and basic "facts and figures" about schools and universities) comes from longitudinal studies that track the same people over time. Because such studies are expensive and complicated, they don't get done very often. But the "National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988," which began in my days at the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, has just yielded its fourth batch of follow-up data. In the year 2000, these young people were about 26 years old. By this point, 83 percent of them had earned high-school diplomas and 29 percent had a bachelor's degree (or more)-in contrast with the 66 percent who, at age 14, had said they intended to complete college. (Another 47 percent had, however, gathered some postsecondary credits. Only one in four had never stepped foot in a postsecondary institution.) But that's just the tip of a huge data iceberg. There's plenty here on careers, incomes, marriage and family, job satisfaction, etc. And lots of "crosstabs" that link aspects of their backgrounds and education experiences (through 8th grade) to what came later. Nor does this report examine the entire iceberg. It's just the "initial results" from a trove of data that analysts will mine for years to come. You can download it at http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002321.