The Education Gadfly Weekly

Christine Campbell and Brock J. Grubb
National Charter School Research Project
June 2008

Because charter schools are (supposedly) free to chart their own academic and institutional courses, they need strong principals. But according to this report, we're doing a poor job of producing such capable leaders. NCSRP surveyed leaders at thirteen "specialty training programs for charter school leaders" that focus explicitly on preparing principals and asked them what they teach, how selective they are, what kind of mentoring they provide, etc. (Fordham took a similar approach in last year's survey of teacher alternative certification programs.) The findings were mixed. The authors were encouraged by the fact that the programs "put a special emphasis on apprenticeship and support," which traditional prep programs often lack. Several of the organizations also "differentiate training based on principal experience." And these programs are fairly selective, too; New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), for instance, turns down ten applicants for every one it accepts. On the other hand, the report's authors still see three major weaknesses. First, these programs are simply "not focused on the areas in which principals say they need most help," namely "in-school politics, educating diverse populations... and preparing for increased testing and accountability." Instead, they spend an inordinate amount of time on topics like financial management. Second, due to the lack of data connecting student achievement to a principal's tenure, it is difficult to gauge just how effective these programs actually are. Finally, there "simply are not enough preparation programs or open slots to train the hundreds of new leaders needed every year to run charter schools." We need more preparation programs, but better ones. Thus, the authors suggest expanding the strongest programs, such as NLNS; seeking partnerships with universities; and expanding low-cost, online training. Read the report here.

Clifford Adelman
Institute for Higher Education Policy
July 2008

The Institute for Higher Education Policy's (IHEP) new report takes a look at American standards for higher education and finds them wanting. What, for example, does a bachelor's degree truly mean? According to IHEP, we might benefit from understanding and perhaps emulating the Bologna Process, an agreement among 29 European education ministers in 1999 to set national standards for higher-education program requirements. The accord pegged the definition of a bachelor's degree to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) such that one year of study anywhere is now equal to 60 ECTS credits in all signatory countries. By endowing associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees from American public universities with greater transparency, value and uniform meaning, IHEP suggests, U.S. college students and graduates would become more attractive to global universities and employers. It will be time consuming and difficult, warns the author, veteran higher ed analyst Cliff Adelman, to hash out these standards and requirements, but if a few states take the lead, the advantage they will garner for their students will be a powerful incentive for their neighbors to follow suit. If that reasoning sounds familiar, it's because it's also the likeliest route the U.S. could take toward common national standards for K-12 education. Both projects are daunting but worth trying.  Find the report here.

Last Sunday's New York Times Magazine included a piece titled The Next Kind of Integration, which was about school districts that have, since the Supreme Court's ruling last year regarding the race-based student-assignment plans of Louisville and Seattle, restructured their own plans to make them less race-based, more "race conscious" (Justice Kennedy's words), and more class conscious, too.

Identifying problems with these new plans and the jurisprudential logic that produced them is akin to shooting fish in a fishbowl. The scaly carcasses can be scrutinized here.

Buried beneath the dead seafood and likely overlooked by most is one tiny sentence from the Times Magazine article that is particularly troubling. Here it is: "This study underscores Ronald Ferguson's point about the value of seating students of different backgrounds and abilities in class together, as opposed to tracking them." (Italics mine.)

Some background: Diversity defenders have realized, it seems, that elaborately engineeered school-assignment policies that bus pupils from one side of a district to the other and limit parental choice are unpopular. They've also realized that justifying such Rube Goldberg assignments with fluffy diversity language--students will be exposed to different types of people, different ideas, etc.--just doesn't cut it with parents whose children are forced to attend class far from home and who want a compelling reason for it.

Thus, diversity defenders have now adopted "increasing academic performance" as their casus bussi. We're told that schools that mingle neat combinations of white, black, and Latino, poor, rich, and middle-class hold much promise to boost student  achievement.

Assuming that's true: Is forcing such amalgams the best way, the most efficient way, to improve student learning? Is it not eminently more sensible to devote resources to, say, attracting knowledgeable teachers and building solid curricula?

But it hardly matters because the whole idea is far-fetched. Pupils spend their learning time in class, and classes, even in putatively "diverse" schools, are for the most part segregated by academic ability, with low-achieving students taking courses with other low-achievers, and the high-achievers similarly grouped together.

Unless... unless... schools seat "students of different backgrounds and abilities in class together, as opposed to tracking them."

Call it diversity creep. What began as an admirable and justifiable goal has metastasized into an obsession, whereby young people are no longer seen as students in need of education but pieces, each with different race- and class-based attributes, to be strategically shifted among schools and now classrooms. The Brookings Institution's Tom Loveless long ago warned us about the harm that such classroom "de-tracking" can do.

If increasing academic achievement is the goal, then muddying course rosters by amalgamating pupils of all different academic abilities is foolhardy. It disserves the high-achievers, who must patiently wait while the material they've already mastered is repeatedly explained to the low-achievers and who must watch the level of their classroom discourse plunge. And it disserves the low-achievers, who may simply be unable to keep up with the curriculum, no matter how much their teacher waters it down. Teachers know this.

Promoting race- and class-based school-assignment admixtures as a method to boost academic achievement is a ruse and, if not fingered as such, could do much to stifle the academic achievement it purports to encourage.

Mike Petrilli is spot-on in this sense: Clearly, a good education is much more than test scores. He's right about the importance of extracurricular activities in providing that education--and I hope he'll agree that we should find ways to make sure kids in our highest-poverty schools have access to those kinds of activities. But as a former social studies teacher who taught my students civics and debate, I know that the skills to which Mike refers also can and should be learned in the classroom--not just after 3 p.m.--while students are debating the causes of the Civil War, drawing conclusions from science experiments and planning group art projects. I'm stating the obvious when I say that No Child Left Behind's testing regime has left little time for these kinds of in-class activities. 

As for Checker's suggestion that my proposal leads to "schools that do everything but teach," let me say this is not an either-or approach. Relying on testing and sanctions, NCLB's message to teachers and schools has been: It's all you. In other words, if teachers would just work harder and care more, all our students would succeed. Teachers, by themselves, even without additional support from families or the community, can help kids immensely, especially if they can work one-on-one with students, are well-trained and have access to excellent curriculum materials. But teachers alone can't get kids all the way to proficiency, when disadvantaged children typically enter school already three years and 30 million words behind.

In my inaugural speech as president of the American Federation of Teachers, I called for a bolder view of what schools should do, and said that while high standards and accountability must be a centerpiece, NCLB's approach does not work.

But if you read my speech closely, as Checker urges, my message was twofold: first, let's put in place a federal education program that, unlike NCLB, provides space and opportunity for children to be taught a rich, well-rounded curriculum, with standards and accountability that support rather than undermine that curriculum; and second, let's--at the same time--try to address the outside factors like nutrition and healthcare that affect a child's ability to reach her full educational potential. And yes, I said that we also should try to help parents so they can better support their children's learning.  

The AFT's goal is to ensure that children are learning to their potential, and that teachers are teaching effectively. To suggest otherwise means you don't understand what drives teachers--or their union, for that matter. Look at a union-run charter school (the UFT Elementary Charter School) in New York City: 81 percent of this year's third-grade students met or exceeded state standards on the state English Language Arts test, and 98 percent of third-grade students met or exceeded standards in mathematics.

We know that without a rich, rigorous education, so many of the kids we teach will be lost in our 21st-century economy. And no one wants to go back to the pre-1990s education world, in which standards were lax or nonexistent.

The AFT hopes to put forward a third way, one that learns from the best of the standards movement and other school improvement efforts, and draws on the collective wisdom of the more than 1.4 million people we proudly represent. Stay tuned.

No good can come of this. In recent years, ever since the Beastie Boys slung their anti-school rhetoric on the airwaves, pop singers' lyrics have attacked educational institutions with alarming frequency and ferocity. The latest instance: Teen sensation (and Hannah Montana star) Miley Cyrus's new song "Breakout," which begins, "Every week's the same / Stuck in school, so lame / My parents say that I'm lazy / Getting up at 8, it's crazy." Cyrus then dives into the tune's infectious chorus, which promotes nothing less than anarchy: "We're gonna breakout / Everyone we know / We're gonna have some fun / We're gonna lose control." This type of nonsensical nattering makes one yearn for the wholesome days of Kris Kross, those delightful young men who didn't know front from back but who nonetheless crooned so delightfully about school-related responsibility in their hit "I Missed the Bus." The chorus still brings tears to Gadfly's bug eyes: "I missed the bus / I missed the bus [ohh] / And that is somethin' I will never, ever ever, do again." Not to mention that Mr. and Mrs. Kris Kross brooked no nonsense: "Standin' on my block like a fool / for (1) I'm all alone and (2) the bus is gone / (3) if I miss school this weekend I'll be at home." No school, no play. Responsibility comes first. This message is, sadly, wholly lost on Miley Cyrus, who unfortunately continues to propagate her undisciplined, anarchic tunes to the masses.

Breakout, by Miley Cyrus

Maryland students were said to have made impressive gains this year on their state test. Naturally, our first reaction was to wonder how that happened when the state's NAEP scores are stagnant. And sure enough, we find out that this year's Maryland School Assessment was shorter than last year's, and that this year's test questions hewed more closely to the state curriculum than they previously had. Do these changes make a real difference? Do they call into question the results' integrity? Deputy State School Superintendent Ronald A. Peiffer doesn't think so. He said that a shorter test simply meant students "weren't as tired this year." But that "doesn't mean [the test] wasn't as difficult." According to the Baltimore Sun, Harcourt Assessment Inc., which oversees Maryland's state testing, found this year's "test was equivalent to the one given in 2003, the year the test was first used, and to subsequent tests. But the panel also concluded that the changes in the test had contributed to the large increases in the fifth- and seventh-grade scores." So, the changes did or did not affect test scores? Either way, as our own Amber Winkler pointed out in the Sun, Maryland's definition of "proficiency" is among the lowest in the nation. Who knows how much its kids actually know?  

"MSA changes may have raised scores," by Liz Bowie, Baltimore Sun, July 18, 2008

My longtime friend Checker Finn wrote a critique of Randi Weingarten's inaugural speech as President of the American Federation of Teachers. Checker chastised her for endorsing the idea that schools should help the neediest kids by offering health services and social services in addition to their customary academic fare. Checker notes, rightly, that Randi's vision echoes the manifesto of the "Broader, Bolder Approach."

Checker warns that this means that Weingarten and people like me are "abandoning hope for schools that significantly boost student achievement" just at the time that more states are reporting "stronger test scores" in reading and math. He labels ours a call for "schools that do everything but teach."

I couldn't disagree more. I care as much about academic achievement as Checker or anyone else in the world, but I don't see any contradiction between caring about academic achievement and caring about children's health and well-being. Will it help or harm children's academic achievement--most especially children who are living in poverty--if they have access to good pre-K programs? Will it help or harm children's academic achievement--most especially the neediest children--if they have access to good medical care, with dental treatment, vision screening, and the like? Will it help or harm children's academic achievement--the children whose lives are blighted by the burdens of poverty--to have access to high-quality after-school programs?

Checker argues that the "‘broader, bolder' crowd" (me, Weingarten, Tom Payzant, Richard Rothstein, Marshall Smith, etc.) are making an awful mistake because schools can do only one thing at a time--and they must focus on academics first. To the extent that they worry about character, social development, and physical health, he says, they lose that focus and abandon their pursuit of academic achievement. Hmm. Checker, wasn't it Secretary of Education Bill Bennett who said that "character, content, and choice" should be the three C's of American education? Was he wrong then? Should he have stuck with the three R's instead?

Surprisingly, Checker points to gains on state tests as proof that the strategy of standards & assessments & accountability is working. Surprising because it is Checker's organization, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (I sit on its board), that published The Proficiency Illusion, which showed how phony many of the states' definitions of "proficiency" actually are, as compared to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Last fall, for example, NAEP reported that New York State had made no gains in fourth-grade reading, eighth-grade reading, or eighth-grade math, yet half a year later, New York reported that its own tests showed yet another round of dramatic gains in reading and math in almost every grade. Which shall we believe? NAEP or the states' self-reporting, the numbers from which soar towards 100 percent proficiency by 2014?

To make matters even more confusing to this reader, Checker notes that even as test scores are rising (even as we neglect poor children's health and well-being), "America's standing on international comparisons continues to sag and employers despair over their inability to find adequately skilled and knowledgeable workers for our faltering economy." It would take lots of time to unpack this illogical finding. If test scores are steadily rising, why do our standings in international comparisons continue to sag? If the schools are getting better and better just because of their testing regime, why are employers despairing?

Here is a clue: On July 20th, the Dallas Morning News reported that students in Texas are sailing through the high school language arts tests but can't write a coherent answer to a short-response question. Years of testing have prepared them to fill in the right bubble, but they cannot write a sensible sentence.

Checker, I ask you: Is this the kind of "academic achievement" that you find satisfactory? Is this what American employers are hoping for? Is this the performance that will raise our standing in the international league tables? I don't think so.

So, I explain my dissent briefly: One, what we are doing now--the standards & assessments & accountability strategy alone--bears little or no resemblance to genuine academic excellence. And two, children who come to school hungry and ill cannot learn no matter how often they are tested. And three, a good education must include attention not only to academics but to children's character, civic development, physical education, and physical health.

Jonathan Alter offered Barack Obama, free of charge, some darn good advice in the July 21st Newsweek. Will the senator from Illinois take it? "Now Obama needs to embrace a Grand Education Bargain--much higher pay for teachers in exchange for much more accountability for performance in the classroom," writes Alter. He continues: "Good teachers need to be rewarded with more pay and respect for being members of our noblest profession. They need more resources. But they also need to be removed from the classroom when they fail to improve. Obama occasionally says as much, but goes fuzzy when it comes to how." No doubt such a "Grand Education Bargain" (which we've heard about before) would be tough for any Democrat, not just Obama, to enact, especially because that party is so beholden to teachers' unions and their unmanageable demands. But still, Alter cuts the candidate no slack. "And the next time [Obama] addresses them," Alter writes, "he should tell the unions they must change their focus from job security and the protection of ineffective teachers to higher pay and true accountability for performance--or face extinction." Tough words. Will Obama heed them, or even come close?

"Obama's No-Brainer on Education," by Jonathan Alter, Newsweek, July 21, 2008

It's never easy to disagree with Diane--not only is she a friend and colleague of long-standing, as well as a Fordham trustee, but also she's so often right about education. I've found over the years that when she and I work at a difference of opinion for a while, we usually discover that the domain of true disagreement is small. I believe that's the case here, but I'm pretty sure that's not true with regard to Randi Weingarten and many of the other "Broader, Bolder" signatories.

I'm convinced that many of them really are trying to change the subject, diverting attention away from U.S. schools' mostly-woeful academic performance while letting schools and educators off the hook for academic results by adopting the well-worn Rothstein story line about how we mustn't really expect kids to learn more until this or that other social problem is solved. Diane sincerely believes, as she says plainly here, that schools can and must work harder and more fruitfully on academics while also addressing some of poor kids' other needs. I agree. To me, however, it's akin to the arguments set forth by the Education Equality Project--the other recent manifesto that came out around the same time as the Broader, Bolder one.

Those folks, too, are concerned above all with poor and minority kids but contend that those kids are being ill-served by far too many schools today and that properly reformed schools alone can make an enormous contribution to their future lives and fortunes. (I was somewhat surprised not to see Diane on that list--but then, again, it was co-led by the lamentable Al Sharpton.) Let me also admit that she astutely picked up on the most confusing element of my initial commentary, my citing recent gains on state tests as encouraging even while lamenting America's sagging performance on international assessments. Though it shouldn't be possible to have this both ways, regrettably it is, because state tests, "cut scores," and proficiency definitions are so elastic. Find Fordham's pathbreaking study of this problem here.

Because I'm mostly home playing grandpa to a four-year-old this week (and doing my small part to assure that at least one small child is ready to succeed in school and beyond), this must be very brief. To my eye, Randi's explanation is clearer and better balanced than her speech was, maybe because it lacks some of the crowd-pleasing anti-NCLB rhetoric. I'm sorry not to see her even acknowledge that NCLB, for all its flaws, has done at least one good thing for American K-12 schools, which is to focus attention as never before on their academic performance and to shine unprecedented beams of sunlight on that performance. Ending NCLB's focus on standards and assessments would, I fear, place the performance of many U.S. schools back in the cave-like darkness that previously enveloped it. My one other comment to Randi is that the praiseworthy academic performance of the AFT-run charter school in New York that she rightly boasts about seems to have occurred without any new multi-zillion-dollar federal cradle-to-grave social services program--and with all the pressures (for both good and ill) that come with NCLB in its present form.

Christine Campbell and Brock J. Grubb
National Charter School Research Project
June 2008

Because charter schools are (supposedly) free to chart their own academic and institutional courses, they need strong principals. But according to this report, we're doing a poor job of producing such capable leaders. NCSRP surveyed leaders at thirteen "specialty training programs for charter school leaders" that focus explicitly on preparing principals and asked them what they teach, how selective they are, what kind of mentoring they provide, etc. (Fordham took a similar approach in last year's survey of teacher alternative certification programs.) The findings were mixed. The authors were encouraged by the fact that the programs "put a special emphasis on apprenticeship and support," which traditional prep programs often lack. Several of the organizations also "differentiate training based on principal experience." And these programs are fairly selective, too; New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), for instance, turns down ten applicants for every one it accepts. On the other hand, the report's authors still see three major weaknesses. First, these programs are simply "not focused on the areas in which principals say they need most help," namely "in-school politics, educating diverse populations... and preparing for increased testing and accountability." Instead, they spend an inordinate amount of time on topics like financial management. Second, due to the lack of data connecting student achievement to a principal's tenure, it is difficult to gauge just how effective these programs actually are. Finally, there "simply are not enough preparation programs or open slots to train the hundreds of new leaders needed every year to run charter schools." We need more preparation programs, but better ones. Thus, the authors suggest expanding the strongest programs, such as NLNS; seeking partnerships with universities; and expanding low-cost, online training. Read the report here.

Clifford Adelman
Institute for Higher Education Policy
July 2008

The Institute for Higher Education Policy's (IHEP) new report takes a look at American standards for higher education and finds them wanting. What, for example, does a bachelor's degree truly mean? According to IHEP, we might benefit from understanding and perhaps emulating the Bologna Process, an agreement among 29 European education ministers in 1999 to set national standards for higher-education program requirements. The accord pegged the definition of a bachelor's degree to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) such that one year of study anywhere is now equal to 60 ECTS credits in all signatory countries. By endowing associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees from American public universities with greater transparency, value and uniform meaning, IHEP suggests, U.S. college students and graduates would become more attractive to global universities and employers. It will be time consuming and difficult, warns the author, veteran higher ed analyst Cliff Adelman, to hash out these standards and requirements, but if a few states take the lead, the advantage they will garner for their students will be a powerful incentive for their neighbors to follow suit. If that reasoning sounds familiar, it's because it's also the likeliest route the U.S. could take toward common national standards for K-12 education. Both projects are daunting but worth trying.  Find the report here.